He'll Make You See There's Something You'd Die For (Part 1 of 3)

Posted on 08 Mar 2015 @ 9:43pm by Commander Andreus Kohl & Ensign K'os Beaumont
Edited on on 13 Mar 2015 @ 8:20am

1,956 words; about a 10 minute read

Mission: Episode 08 - NIMBUS
Location: USS Nautilus - Deck 2, Executive Officer's Quarters / USS Galileo - Deck 6, Compartment 1004 EN
Timeline: MD -03 - 2249 hours

[ON]

Even if he wasn't going to be living there for very long, Andreus Kohl had made himself more than comfortable in the executive officer quarters aboard Nimbus. He had made himself at home. He had pushed and dragged the standard-issue Starfleet furniture around the compartment. The furniture was cramped into corners and positioned at crazy angles, because he wasn't planning to entertain. He didn't care about the room's aesthetics. All he cared for was the view. The viewports. The glorious, floor-to-ceiling viewports in the senior officer quarters aboard this Miranda-class starship. (Kohl hadn't known such a thing in his junior officer quarters aboard Galileo.) And now every article of furniture was positioned to provide for nothing but a perfect view outside.

This was how Kohl ended up wearing short shorts, while sitting on his oddly-angled sofa with his legs propped up on his desk. He had to crane his neck to look at the LCARS display sitting on his desk, but he could still see the viewports in his peripheral vision. To the man on the display screen, Kohl asked, "Now, I want you to tell me honestly. Have you been a good boy or have you been a bad boy?"

Dimpled cheeks beamed back through the screen at the question. With barely contained mirth, K'os replied quickly, "Depends who you ask at this point, Andreus." You could tell K'os was sitting on the floor as the angle of view was higher; as if the LCARS display was on a coffee table looking down at the half-Vulcan. The younger man had always liked Kohl. He was one of the few people K'os felt comfortable with letting his monkey brain of emotions swirl about. He had never felt judged around the Argelian.

"Uhhh..." Kohl started to say, but then he asked his question with a sharp tilt of his head to the left and a wicked little smile. His sapphire eyes wide, Kohl said, "I was talking about our homework; what are you talking about?" His smile turned guilty; he couldn't hide how his question had been a trap.

K'os let out a giggle that he attempted to stifle and ended a groan. "I was talking about homework and Ingrid Weinstein from the Michigan thinks my addition to your lab report is too long." He rocked back a little so he good get in a crossed legged position. He adjusted his green v-neck shirt before peering at the screen and scrunching his face in a mock look of suspicion. "Are you implying again that all I think about is men?"

Puffing out his lips in a pantomime frown, Kohl answered that question with a shake of his head. "No," Kohl said, "I think you've just inferred that all I think about is men. ...I've already decided which members of the crew I want to bed as soon as I have transfer orders back to Galileo in hand." Kohl shook his head in something like embarrassment; even though he wasn't terribly embarrassed. He was actually more embarrassed to be wearing, by coincidence, a green v-neck shirt just like the one K'os was wearing.

Changing the subject back to where they began, Kohl asked, "So, who do I need to speak with to hear about you behaving badly? These are stories I need to hear."

K'os leaned forward and plopped his arms on his coffee table and buried his face with a groan, which turned into a laugh. He lifted his head just enough to cut his grey-blue eyes to the monitor. He mumbled something in protest before finally lifting his head and plopping his chin on his crossed arms. "You don't really need to know, do you? I mean of all the other interesting things I can tell you about instead. The reasons I think a hyperspanner is a superior tool over the sonic driver? Or maybe I could tell you how to get to the deck 4 mess hall via Jefferies tube to beat the Alpha shift breakfast rush?"

Kohl stabbed a threatening index finger towards the display. "If you think I'm going to listen to a geeky top-ten list about hyperspanners," Kohl said in a grave timbre, "I'm going to need one to tear out my own ear drums." --He waggled his index finger again-- "Or... or, I'm going to read you my third year cadet monograph on Andorian table manners. In a Cardassian accent."

K'os suddenly perked up. His rounded eyebrows nearly rising off his face. "You can do that?"

A baffled look spread from Kohl's eyes to the entire shape of his face. He shrugged, and he asked, "Can't you?"

K'os opened his mouth out of reflex. He always enjoyed showing off his memory skills but that was certainly something he didn't know how to do. Suddenly he stopped and tilted his head in thought. "I...uhm." He grunted and squinted as if he really was searching hard when a look of suspicion replaced it. "Wait, are you teasing me?"

"Honestly, K'os, I don't know what I'm doing," Kohl sighed, and all at once, his mien went matter of fact. Slowly, but not too slowly, a shy smile brought the life back to Kohl. Even his posture gave an impression of bounce, from where he was lounging. "I'm just vibing with you. Reverb in an echo chamber. Possibly, it's because I would rather talk nonsense than talk about our geology lab. Or possibly, I'm thrilled you're back on Galileo. ...Even if I'm not there."

K'os lowered his head to rest his chin on his arms again. Kohl always made him feel relaxed. He extended a finger and absently rubbed a smudge on his monitor that had been bothering him. "I'm glad you're thrilled. I mean Lieutenant Kita looked like he was going to hug me and not let go but I don't think my ex took it well." He sighed. "I think possibly I'd rather talk nonsense too." He chuckled.

"Anything other than geology homework," Kohl said, leaving the comment of K'os' ex where he left it. Kohl wouldn't pick it up unless K'os felt the need to mention him again. Moving along, Kohl asked, "What made you do it? What made you enrol in yet another correspondence class?" --Even though Kohl was clearly asking his own self why he had made that same decision-- "I mean, after what you've been through."

A laugh escaped K'os' lips but was more like a mixture of a sob cut short as a bubble of emotion escaped. His eyes were suddenly wet, but he was still in control of his emotions enough that he didn't cry. "Desperation maybe?" He laughed again, though this time it sounded more like a laugh as he made his mind switch gears. "I wanted a distraction. Something to focus on maybe?" After what you've been through kept repeating in K'os' mind. It was the first time someone acknowledged it and it made a bubble of affection for Kohl to swell up.

"How's it serving you," Kohl asked, "as a distraction?" As questions went, it was seemingly innocuous, but the context gave it meaning. Kohl's eyes were certainly boring into K'os, studying his micro-expressions for meaning of their own.

"It's working." He said quickly, but then his eyelids fluttered shut for a moment and he shook his head in a small gesture. The lie clanged around his head, jarringly letting loose memories of all the times his concentration had broken, so he tried again. "I mean, a little bit." He smiled, more with the creases of his eyes than the dimples in his cheeks. "Sometimes." He reached his hands out and adjusted the monitor closer to his face so he could see Kohl better. A moment of frustration flashed on his face at the fact that he couldn't be sitting there talking in person, but it was gone before he was done adjusting. "Is that why you enrolled? For a distraction?"

"No..." Kohl said, and he looked away. There was something wistful in his tone, like he wished that were the reason. Kohl swung his legs down from off the desk and then he reached over to take hold of the portable LCARS interface. He perched the interface device on his chest, as he lay himself back on the sofa. He looked the younger man right in the eyes. "Oh, K'os, no, I'm doing this because I was feeling hideously incapable of my job, when I became a senior member of the science department. And now, now..." Kohl's gaze was stolen away into the middle-distance, somewhere over the LCARS display screen. He laughed, but it was only a single, solitary Ha. He looked at K'os again. "Now, I'm continuing on inertia."

"At least with inertia it doesn't take much force to change directions, and you'll always be constant." It was a subtle sentiment, if a perfectly geeky one, as K'os seemed a little lost in the image on the screen. He continued to study Kohl's sapphire eyes, while committing the features of his face to memory. The man always looked like he was lost in thought as if more went on behind his eyes then he let on. He wished they could talk for hours.

K'os' comment made Kohl smile. It wasn't a grin by any stretch, but it was genuine smile that changed his whole face. "You're right, of course," Kohl said. "Gotta keep moving." --Kohl smiled again and he nodded at K'os-- "What, uh, how are you back on Galileo? Have you recovered?"

"Sometimes I'm not sure." K'os said honestly if a little reluctantly. He realized the potential implications of admitting that and it made his rounded eyebrows lift slightly, giving him a surprised look. "Which is just doubt, of course. It takes a lot of effort to wrangle what goes on in here." Out of habit he tried to mirror Kohl's smile, something he had done with people since childhood, but it faded. Probably due to the thoughts of Ellsworth, or more likely because he felt he couldn't recreate the gleam that Kohl had when he smiled like that.

K'os' head still remained cradled above his folded arms, and he never broke eye contact. He tried to open his mouth to say something else, but hesitated. If K'os was going to ask for help from anyone, this was the time and the person to ask but he he found the words had frozen in his mouth. He took a deep breath, clearing his mind; gently pushing doubt and fear of judgement away. "Andreus, you were a nurse. Can--Do you know what an addiction feels like? Like a drug...addiction, I guess."

"As a nurse, I can recite the symptoms associated with addiction," Kohl said. The answer came easily from him. Kohl liked to be thought of as knowledgeable, and it felt good to help friends find what they needed. But it wasn't the truthiest of answers.

Kohl did it again. He looked off into the distance. Only now did he regret pulling the display so close to his face, but he made no effort to move it. Rather, he turned his gaze over the edge of the screen again, and he tapped his teeth together. He didn't want to see K'os' reaction to what he said next. At the same time, he needed to see it. "As Andreus," Kohl said, "I remember what addiction to chemical narcotics feels like, yes."

[OFF]

To Be Continued


Lieutenant Commander Andreus Kohl
Executive Officer
USS Nautilus

&

PO3 K'os Beaumont
Engineer's Mate
USS Galileo

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