Reaching out

Posted on 10 Jan 2016 @ 12:21am by Lieutenant Oren Idris Ph.D. & Petty Officer 3rd Class Ellsworth Hudson

3,827 words; about a 19 minute read

Mission: Episode 10 - Symposium
Location: USS Galileo, Deck 6 - Waste Recycling
Timeline: MD02 - 0200hrs

[ON]

Oren kisses Ellsworth in the Waste Recycling center.

He doesn't plan to, as it's likely the least romantic place on the entire ship, but it's like not planning to get caught in a rainstorm. Or, in this case, not planning on getting stuck in an alternate universe.

The hours following their rescue felt like a blur to Oren, with one hour bleeding into the next and forming a series of events he couldn't readily recall. All he knew was that he wasn't sure where to go after being cleared in sickbay. So, Oren went to the first person that he thought of the moment this entire mess began.

Ellsworth.

No one ever really thought about the Galileo's waste recycling center, at least until it was time for maintenance or repair. And then suddenly everyone in Ops was altogether too aware of it, all scurrying around trying to shove the responsibility off on one another. Ellsworth was without question the least senior member of the entire staff, meaning he was the one selected for the indignity of running a diagnostic and performing maintenance on the ship's least-discussed system should it have been damaged during the transition between universes.

Once he'd gotten down there he found it wasn't quite as bad as he thought it might be. There wasn't really a smell. No dripping or leaking pipework, no caustic materials, no cramped enclosures. It was just a room filled with technology, like every other room on the ship. Except, of course, the primary maintenance hatch had been placed on the ceiling, which meant dragging a table from three doors down the corridor for him to stand on to reach. Being short did one few favors when it came to maintenance.

The opening door startled Ellsworth, and he quickly ducked his head out of the maintenance hatch to see who could possibly be stopping by in this forsaken place. Seeing Oren, he nearly squealed. In fact, he did squeal, just a bit, an almost hypersonic eek. With practiced grace, he hopped down from the table and, without permission, slipped his arms around Oren in a hug. He took advantage of the closeness to whisper in the older man's ear, "I was worried, but I knew you'd come find me eventually."

Oren melted into Ellsworth's embrace, burying his face into his shoulder. Sighing, he allowed the relief of being back on the Galileo to wash over him and tightened his arms around Ellsworth's body to keep from shaking. "I was worried about you too. I'm glad you're safe." Oren was happy for Ellsworth's low placement on the Galileo's chain of command. He wasn't sure if he could handle knowing he was in any direct danger, the way the senior staff was.

Ellsworth let the embrace go on silently for a long time, seeming perfectly content with it. Eventually, he leaned back and brushed at the hair along Oren's temples, an overly familiar gesture given the state of their relationship at the moment; however, he had no intention of letting that stop him. He craved the touch as a reassurance that Oren was unharmed and above all present.

"Are you okay now?" he asked, brow creased and voice stern. "Did they treat you in Sickbay? Were you cleared to leave? Did they give you an analgesic?"

Oren nodded quietly. "They said I was okay."

He didn't look okay in the least, instead appearing worn out, with dark circles under his eyes and looking paler than usual. He didn't move away from Ellsworth, enjoying the attention. He felt too tired to even give their relationship much thought, let alone pretend to care about whether he was acting according to some idea in his head.

Ellsworth barely traced his fingertips near Oren's cheek, and when he spoke there was a great deal of uncertainty in his voice, "What...um... What happened? Do you wanna talk about it?" Big, black, searching eyes watched Oren before he added, "We don't gotta. I can make some raktajinos instead."

Oren swallowed hard, unsure of what the right answer to Ellsworth’s question might be. Instead, he nodded and gave the Betazoid a small smile. “I’d like that. Thank you.”

As Ellsworth went to replicate their drinks from a small maintenance energy-matter converter, Oren reached into the back of his pants, under his shirt to pull out a strange looking PADD, a souvenir he knew he would eventually need to hand in to the Senior staff. For now, he eyed it nervously. He would like to admit his reasoning behind taking it was academic, but the truth was much more base of him. As much as it disgusted him, he was fascinated by his experience in the Mirror Universe.

Ellsworth took the drinks to the table he'd repurposed into a ladder and, taking note of the weird PADD, gave Oren an amused look. "Did you dig that up from some ancient civilization? It looks like it was designed by barbarians."

Oren's lip quicker gently at just how close to the truth Ellsworth was. "It was... I took it from the man who was interrogating me," he admitted, not looking up at the Betazoid as he went to sit down at the tiny table.

The drink in Ellsworth's hand paused as it was brought to his lips precisely at the moment Oren mentioned interrogation. In the wilds of his mind this meant nothing short of a torture chamber manned by some horrific beast of a Nausicaan, like something straight from the worst holonovels he'd ever experienced. He tried to keep his cool as he sipped from the glass - Oren didn't seem nearly as upset as someone probably should be if they were tortured.

"Uh, so, you were, um, interrogated, huh?" His eyes darted to Oren's cheek. "Like, questioned?" His foot slid across the deck toward Oren until it made contact with the El Aurian's as he sought to make a comforting gesture out of instinct. "I heard some people talking, but..."

"He tried to interrogate me but, it got out of hand." For both of us.

"He knew me... Well, not me but, the other Oren. Their Oren. They were in a relationship but... " Oren sighed, finally taking the padd, finding the images of his mirror self and, after a moment of hesitation, handed it to Ellsworth. Swallowing the lump forming in his throat, Oren waited for his reaction.

Ellsworth accepted the PADD and actually took a moment to look over the aesthetics of it; the device was clunky, and he made a show of turning up his nose. Once he'd activated the screen, he flipped through the images as if he were turning pages in a magazine, quickly taking in one only to move on to the next. Finally, he stopped and held it up in the air, so that it hovered in his vision next to Oren.

Ellsworth could guess - he could feel - that it was a traumatic experience. Being captured and interrogated was bad enough, but he had a hard time wrapping his head around the existence of another Oren or another Ellsworth in another dimension. Coming face to face with that in such an intimate encounter must have been grueling. And so, he did what he could to lighten the situation just a bit.

"Well," he said, eyes shifting between the PADD and Oren, "you're much prettier."

Oren huffed, the sound of it somewhere between amused and annoyed. He reached up and gently took the paDD back, staring down at it. Leave it to Ellsworth to try and lighten the mood when Oren wasn't sure if he wanted to cry or ignore everything. He kept his eyes fixed on the image of his former self for several seconds and then spoke up again. "He only hit me once and then... I distracted him, pretending to be her." His voice was quiet and Oren hesitated before revealing the information, silently wondering if Ellsworth would share his thoughts on how disgusting his actions were.

He only hit me once. The words bounced around in Ellsworth's head, and the more he thought about it the more his cheeks turned a deep red. They matched his vision as a surge of anger jolted his heart. In his naivete, "interrogation" had seemed like something simple, a civilized affair of question and answer. That bad stuff was just in the holovids. In the fantasy he'd made in his head, Oren couldn't really get hurt. But here he was in front of him, injured not from the ship's ordeal but through the actions of another person. And it made him mad.

"He hit you? Who hit you?" Ellsworth asked, practically demanded, moving forward to the edge of his seat like he was about to get up and seek retribution that very moment. His hands instinctively balled into fists and pressed against the surface of the table. "That guy that interrogated you?"

Oren flinched, but didn't move away as Ellsworth leaned forward slightly. Blinking in surprise at Ellsworth's outbursts, so uncharacteristic of the usually fun loving, kind Betazoid. In answer, all Oren could really do was not, part of his worried about his reaction to know that the mirror Darius had also choked him before Oren's diversion.

"He didn't hurt me much. I managed to get his weapon and stun him."

Ellsworth sucked his bottom lip into his mouth and chewed on it while he contemplated what Oren might have gone through. The first thing that popped in his mind was vengeance, but that was a predictably selfish thought. It set aside the more immediate concern of Oren and his well-being in order for Ellsworth to satisfy whatever base urge pushed him to hurt the person who'd hurt someone he loved. The heated moment cooled and turned to something like shame or guilt, and Ellsworth avoided Oren's eyes while he muttered an apology.

"I'm glad you got away," he said, finally lifting his eyes. "You...tricked him?"

"I pretended to be the other Oren. I... I seduced him," Oren explained as quickly as he could but tripped over his words, in a rush to just get them out in the open, as much as it pained him to do so. "We... Kissed." Oren frowned, making a face that showed his disgusted clearly. "I kicked him and then took his weapon and shot him." For the moment, Oren was happy that Ellsworth wasn't looking directly at him.

Ellsworth listened, nodded, and then practically hopped in his seat with enthusiasm over the escape; if the method seemed unusual or off-color to him, he certainly didn't show it. "Good! I hope you kicked him in the groin. Really hard. What a targ! Men are such targs..." His voice drifted off and when he looked up his eyes were watering, making it clear he was on the verge of crying but refused to acknowledge it. "That was really clever, I think."

"No it wasn't," Oren argued, frustrated. "It was cheap and I feel like I'll never be clean again." He shuddered slightly, still feeling Darius' phantom touch on several parts of himself. Finally, he noticed the tears in Ellsworth's eyes and felt himself deflate lightly. "Hey," he said, lowering his voice a bit. Reaching over, he put his hand over Ellsworth, momentarily setting his feelings aside. "I'm here, I'm okay," he tried to assure him but even he knew the second part of his sentence was a lie.

The young Betazoid gave an appreciative smile and took up Oren's hand; he held it tightly and used the free hand to trace lines over the back of it and along his knuckles, just to give the idle part of his mind something to do besides worry. With an admirable effort, he pushed down on the wellspring of emotions brought to the surface by his worry over Oren.

"Well... I don't think it was cheap. That's what I would have done! It worked, didn't it? You've just gotta use what you've got," Ellsworth said, eyes drifting to the PADD.

"I know," Oren nodded. "It's not even the most I've done to get someone to leave me alone but... It felt so wrong and gross, I thought I'd never do that again," he said, reaching up to rub his eyes, hoping to push back any tears that might think about showing themselves.

Quietly, Ellsworth turned over the extent of what Oren might have meant and felt the guilt or, perhaps, the shame, of his past wrap a squeezing hand around his heart. This hardly seemed like the time or the place to reveal to someone you loved that you'd been a sex worker, but the parallel between his former life and doing things to get someone to leave you alone was undeniable. Those organic opportunities to introduce it into conversation were likely to be few and far between, and the longer he let it go on being a secret the guiltier he'd feel.

"I... Understand. Really, I do," Ellsworth said, speaking slowly and with measured words. "Sometimes you have to do things you don't want to do, but...you have to do them. And, you don't want to think about them, after you've done them, because it was... Um. Unpleasant, I guess."

"Unpleasant is an understatement," Oren agreed but kept his eyes locked on Ellsworth as he spoke. He felt that the other man had something to say but felt it best if he allowed him time to work up to it by himself. Instead, Oren didn't move his hand away. He wanted Ellsworth to know he was there.

"Can I tell you something?" Ellsworth asked. It was wholly unnecessary to ask, he knew, but somehow prefacing the revelation with that made it seem easier.

"Anything."

"Uh... So, before I joined Starfleet, I worked on Risa," he said, as if that in and of itself was sufficient.

Oren nodded gently, patiently. "Alright..." A few moments of silence passed and Oren felt that Ellsworth needed a helping hand. "What did you do there?" he asked, trying to keep his voice level but already feeling a slight stinging behind his eyes as his perceptive mind began to quickly put the pieces together.

"Um." Ellsworth paused and worked his mouth from side to side. It wasn't that he was necessary ashamed of his former life. He knew he didn't have to be, not with Oren. But it was still hard to get out for some reason. "I was a sex worker. Like, an escort. For awhile." He didn't want to look at Oren, but he felt he needed to. He didn't need his approval, but he knew he wanted it. "Is that okay?"

Oren pursed his lips, not quite trusting the first thing that might come out of his mouth after such a confession. He couldn't say he hadn't expected it, considering everything he knew about Ellsworth, from others and the man himself. Still, the confirmation stung, not because he felt cheated or lied to in any way, but because it was obvious by Ellsworth's age and current career that him just being an escort was much more complicated than he could imagine. Oren had been on Risa. What he had experienced there was enough to make his eyes sting with tears.

He didn't move his hand still, licking his suddenly dry lips. "Of course it's okay... Did... Did you want to be?" The question felt sloppy, almost too intimate, but Oren heard himself asking before he could get a hold of his senses.

"Uh," Ellsworth began, drawing out the syllable while he contemplated the question. "I don't know." That's a lie, tell the truth. "At first... I don't think I realized what was happening. But then I did realize what was happening, and it wasn't so bad. I mean, I had a nice apartment and nice things and I could usually say 'yes' or 'no' when it came to clients." His brow creased. "It wasn't always great, but... You know. I mean, you can imagine. Probably." He perked up. "Anyway..."

Watching the Betazoid sadly, Oren nodded in understanding. "Sometimes, saying 'no' doesn't feel like an option," he said. "I can't really imagine what you went through but I do know how it feels to do things like that because you feel you have to, like it's expected and, well, you tell yourself it isn't all bad, even if you know it isn't good, either."

Ellsworth kept is eyes downcast but cut them up to look at Oren from his peripheral vision. He reached his hand out to him again and repeated, "Sometimes you have to do things you don't want to do, but you have to do them." He squeezed. "You're still clean, even if it doesn't feel like it."

Oren nodded, entwining his fingers with Ellsworth's. He sat there quietly, enjoying the other man's presence for a few moments as he allowed himself to relax. Still he couldn't shake off the thoughts brought on by Ellsworth's confession.

"I'm sorry for what you went through," he said eventually. "You must have been really young."

Ellsworth smirked. "I'm still really young, you scandalous old man." The smirk turned into a light-hearted smile, and he shrugged, like he did so often when faced with the unpleasant. "Don't be sorry. It really wasn't all bad. I learned a lot. I mean... Not just what you'd think you'd learn. Although I learned that stuff, too."

A soft laugh escaped Oren's lips at Ellsworth. He always took things in stride, it seemed, even things that would send a counselor reeling. It was one of the things he loved about him. With that thought in mind, Oren watched him closely as he continued to speak.

"I'm sorry for what you went through, though," Ellsworth said, looking down solemnly at their intertwined fingers. "I'm just glad you're okay." He tugged at Oren's hand insistently until their eyes met and then said, earnestly, "Really. That's the only thing that matters, to me, at least." Ellsworth seemed to falter for a moment, wondering how his words might be interpreted, and then corrected himself. "I just mean... Like, I didn't mean that selfishly. Just... I don't... Ugh, you know what I mean!"

It felt like a cue, some strange signal going off in ORen’s head as he watched Ellsworth muddle through the uncertainty of their relationship while making sure Oren knew how he felt.

So Oren kisses Ellsworth for the first time in a rundown room on the Galileo, with tear tracks running down his face and the ship’s waste within arms reach. It wasn’t exactly ideal.

He didn't regret it in the slightest.

Surprise could wait, Ellsworth knew. It was more important to enjoy the moment, to melt into it and embrace it and frame it in his mind with absolute clarity so that its importance could be properly enjoyed later. Rather than fumble around with the suddenness of it, he responded immediately, in kind, by leaning forward in his chair and dropping his hand to slide around to the small of the El Aurian's back. After a moment, he broke off the kiss, though he made clear his reluctance in doing so through the smooth but hesitant movement of his lips.

"You sure know how to sweep a guy off his feet, Dr. Idris," Ellsworth said, keeping himself close enough that certain sounds and syllables almost brought their lips back together again. The look in his wide eyes matched his body language - a willing openness and vulnerability; a sense of deep attainment and satisfaction; and, above all, love. "How did you know emotional intimacy in the waste recycling center was my weakness?"

Oren's lips widened into a bright grin. "Wild guess," he said, trying to keep in his laughter, turning it into soft giggling most unbecoming of a man his age. Instead, he slid his arms up Ellsworth's arm and around his shoulders to keep him close.

Ellsworth grinned in return and nuzzled his nose against Oren's briefly, trying not to burst into a series of giggles himself. After the elation had died down it didn't take him long to feel the growing swell of love in his heart as Betazoid hormones threatened to overwhelm higher thought; to keep from crying he combatted it with recognizing the gravity of the situation and how far they'd come over the weeks since K'os returned, when everything had gone awry between them.

He wanted to tell Oren how foolish he felt for not being able to tell the difference between the immaterial and the real - between what he had with K'os and what he had with Oren, now. He wanted to tell him that this time it was different, that he knew it and felt it. In his own mind there was a sense of security that hadn't been there before. Now, he was more stable, more mature. This time, he was sure, it would work. He was ready. But Ellsworth held back for fear of ruining the tender moment; those things could come at another time.

"Can we spend shoreleave together?" Ellsworth asked. He pulled a bit with the arm wrapped around Oren, to scoot the chair and close the distance between them, and fixed him with an earnest look. "I want to spend time with you and be with you."

Oren smiled, sliding his arms comfortably around Ellsworth's neck, allowing their fronts to gently brush against each other. "I'd love that. Maybe we can go somewhere, like a planet... Oh! Let's go camping?" Oren asked the question excitedly, looking at Ellsworth with wide eyes.

"I haven't been camping in a long time," Ellsworth said, recalling first some distant memories of a cabin in the Risan mountains and then the irony of saying 'long time' in the presence of Oren. "I'd like that. Do you know how to camp? I mean, cuz I don't..." He grinned and gave Oren a playful peck. "You'll have to teach me, lieutenant."

"I'm an archaeologist, camping is basically my job. That and digging. I'll mentor you in everything you need to know to keep bugs and slithering reptiles out of your sleeping bag," Oren chuckled, nuzzling Ells' cheek.

Ellsworth tried, really hard, not to think about bugs, reptiles, or anything like them. Instead, he turned his attention to more pleasant thoughts. He grinned appreciatively at the nuzzling and dropped his voice an octave into something loving but slightly suggestive. "And what about slithering El Aurians, hm?"

Oren gave him a coy look. “I think you’ll have to fight those off yourself,” he teased.

[OFF]

PO3 Ellsworth Hudson
Quartermaster
USS Galileo
[ PNPC - Mott ]

Lieutenant JG Oren Idris
Chief Research Officer
USS Galileo

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