Dead Man's Bed

Posted on 25 Aug 2012 @ 9:35am by Commander Andreus Kohl & Lieutenant Aria Rice

2,600 words; about a 13 minute read

Mission: Episode 01 - Project Sienna
Location: USS Galileo - Deck Five, Crew Quarters
Timeline: MD 08 - 0737 hours

[ON]

The passageway on deck five was darkened; the lighting was reduced to emergency levels wherever it wasn't burned out entirely. Beyond exhausted, Andreus Kohl was hobbling along the passageway with a hand-lamp strapped to his wrist. He directed the light beam ahead of him and occasionally flashed it at the nameplates on each door that he passed. Sometimes, he even shone it in his eyes to wake himself up when he was feeling dead on his feet. Kohl checked the PADD in his grasp, again, to confirm the quarters that had been assigned to him. An Operations crewman had contacted him in Sickbay, and advised Kohl that his personal quarters on deck three were flooded with radiation. New quarters had been assigned following recent... vacancies. Once Kohl spotted the correct doorway, he tapped a sequence into the chime panel and he stepped inside.

"Trust me," the voice inside sounded tired. Aria was sitting on one of the beds, her hair a mess as she looked at him, her makeup wiped off her face. She looked and sounded as if she was ready to collapse. "This couldn't get more creepy even if you tried." She looked around the room. There were personal belongings, but not theirs. For a moment she just sat there, her body slack before she took a deeper breath. "Glad you're okay, Kohl. Did worry a bit."

"I'm glad you're still here too," Kohl replied with a fervent nod. Aside from his hair being matted flat by dried sweat, Kohl and his uniform were oddly clean. He looked out of place when even the walls were covered in char marks and soot from burned out EPS conduits. The steri-fields all over Sickbay had given him the illusion of a fresh shower, but his stooped posture and struggling steps betrayed how long he had been on his feet. Kohl came to sit on the edge of the same bed, beside Aria. He discarded his hand-lamp. The act of sitting upright felt like too much of a struggle and he let himself fall back on the mattress. "I couldn't tell if it was a good omen or a bad omen," Kohl said, "that I never saw you in Sickbay."

"I suppose I was lucky," she said as she turned her head to watch him. She sighed and did the same as him, easing herself back with a grimace. "I never had time to go to sickbay. Too...much to do. And you guys...were...busy. How...how was it?" she asked the last carefully...she knew there were a lot of dead people.

Kohl didn't answer right away. He didn't always know how to talk about his work with people who weren't up to their elbows in the same kind of work. He was accustomed to speaking in medical officer shorthand, speaking to people who were already well-versed in the kind of emotional compromises one had to make in medicine. He wasn't sure if security officers used exactly the same brand of gallows humour as medical officers. Instead, he shifted his perspective to how he contributed to the crew as a whole. "We saved some people," Kohl said, but the word 'some' came out sounding defeated. "We sent people back to their duty stations. But we lost so many people too. In Medical alone, Petty Officer Izred and Nurse LIn were killed..." Kohl sounded surprised to be saying it, and his throat closed up when he felt like crying, but didn't.

She frowned as she looked at him, her eyes tired. She nodded before touching his arm, her touch light and gentle. "I'm sorry," she said quietly. "I know that the word sorry means pretty little to you right now. Nothing I say will make it better either. Just...you're not alone. Just remember that, okay?" she smiled weakly and pushed herself up to sit, looking around as she sighed. "I don't think I will be able to sleep here."

"I slept a little in Sickbay," Kohl murmured, but he wasn't sure why he said it. He rolled onto his side to look over at Aria without actually lifting any part of his body upwards. "Did they tell you?" Kohl asked warily, "whose quarters these used to be?"

"No," she said softly, shaking her head before slowly undoing her uniform jacket. "But I think it would be worse if I knew..." she glanced at him before sighing, moving to curl up on the bed. "Enough ghosts here right now."

Kohl "hmm"ed softly, as he considered what she said. Likewise, he worked at shrugging his way out of his black uniform jacket, but without sitting upright, he looked awkward and a little bit foolish. Once he escaped from the jacket, he folded it to use as a pillow. Dreading to know the life of a security officer during an intruder alert, Kohl asked carefully, "Where were you during the red alert?"

"With project Sienna for a bit," Aria's voice was soft, her eyes closed as she let out a breath. "It was a bit...well. It wasn't pleasant. Nothing is pleasant though."

There was that word again. Kohl had heard it before, maybe a couple of times, but only in passing. Maybe he had heard it aboard Starbase 152 or maybe he had heard it aboard Galileo... From where he was laying on his side, Kohl stared at Aria. "Is Project Sienna why we're out here?" he asked bluntly.

Aria opened her eyes and nodded weakly. "Yeah. Pretty much and the Klingons want it bad..." she rolled over to watch him, frowning. "So..."

"So?" Kohl echoed her, but with an incredulous flare. "We're being hunted by Klingons. Klingons. They've been our allies for-- for as long as I've been alive. Could these be independents or do you reckon this attack was approved by their government?"

"Klingons are unpredictable...could be a jumped up so and so with a taste for power who wants a fight," she said and smiled weakly, shaking her head. "Difficult to know."

"Speaking of that. Speaking of stuff and things difficult to know..." Kohl began, but he halted a couple of times, and he adjusted the jacket beneath his head. Kohl used the pauses in his struggle to remember the advice Brayden had given him, and to put it into his own words. With his eyes wide, and his tone earnest, Kohl said, "I'm Argelian-born. You should know, what I said to you earlier, I was making small talk. When Humans make small talk, they speak of the environmental controls and, I don't know, parrises squares. When Argelians make small talk, we speak of food and we speak of sex. It's what we talk about."

She watched him before reaching to lazily punch his arm. "That's all you had to say. I like sex. I can talk about sex. I love food too, so we can talk about that too," she said and smiled weakly. "I was having a bad day too and to me you were acting like an ass. But now we get each other...so it's all good," she watched him, smiling weakly. "Doesn't have to be any more difficult than that, right?"

"Agreed," Kohl said in a preaching-to-the-converted tone of voice. He had smiled too at the punch to his arm. "Uncomplicated. That's how I strive to live my life."

She chuckled and nodded, her eyes warm. "Yeah. I do that too. Thing with life is that it complicates itself all too well..." she smiled gently as she watched him. "So. What's your type then? For sex? Might as well small talk a bit. What sort of delicious people should I look out for and send in your general direction?"

He sighed ever so slightly. There was no judgement in the sound, but it was a difficult question to answer with words. Attraction was something Kohl could recognize when he saw it, but it was a slippery thing to quantify. Looking upwards, he chewed on his lower lip as he considered his words. Once he started to speak, he locked eyes with Aria again, "I like a man to be authentic. Whatever a man is, he should be that to his utmost. I don't have preferences for colouration or body types. I like variety in that regard, although I do prefer a man who works at living healthy. But the thing that kills my arousal most quickly is artifice."

Aria smiled gently, her eyes warm as she chuckled. She had guessed he was gay. At least that worked on her and she nodded, remaining silent as she let him talk.

"There was that chaplain on the shuttle over from the starbase," Kohl said, and now there was a wicked curl of a smile to his lips. "Verity. His eyes are electric. They seem to look right into you. Have you ever felt like you were having intercourse just by looking in someone's eyes? I suspect he's capable of that feat."

"I saw him! He was pretty good looking," she admitted, looking down with a small smile.

"Oh, and Luca! The scientist on our shuttle," Kohl enthused from where he was laying on his side. "I get surprised by his baritone voice coming from that tight frame of his. It sends tremors through me, and," --Kohl swallowed-- "And he licked my wrist in the mess hall. Or was it Sickbay? I can't remember now."

"Oh, he was so trying to get you in bed! You should...he is pretty good looking. At least your type is consistent..." she smiled and shook her head, sighing. "See, for me it is a bit trickier. I like men who look like men. And I like women with fire. Did you see the counsellor with the girl in the shuttle? She was stunning...and really nice too..." she relaxed, shaking her head. "I think your prospects look better than mine. I mean, a lick? Seriously, he might as well have tattooed 'I want you now' on his forehead! Or backside..." she winked, resting her head on her hands.

Kohl chuckled, if briefly, at that thought. "I'm not as convinced," he admitted. "Not yet. Luca told me he was licking my skin for science. For research? His eyes are sightless and he relies on his other senses entirely to understand the universe."

"Ah..." she smiled weakly before considering it for a moment. "Well, you know, if that fails there's that pretty decent looking guy in Flight. Sylver? He's so tall it hurts my neck to look at him, but he is pretty good looking...doesn't quite reach your type though. I mean, given the two examples you have given me. But he has dark hair."

"Oh, but I like variety. Two points don't make a pattern," Kohl said, his tone dismissing the notion of a 'type'. Watching Aria with interest, Kohl asked, "If he caught your eye, does that mean he's a man who looks like a man?" He cocked an eyebrow playfully at the call-back to Aria's own type.

She nodded as she considered it for a moment. "He is really tall. Dark hair, pale skin, blue eyes...straight nose. I mean, he looks like some sort of villain from a romance holonovel," she arched an eyebrow before shrugging. "But way too tall for me. I'd pull something just standing on my toes for a kiss, you know?"

"But if he's got big arms, he can pull you up into an embrace every time you kiss, no?" Kohl asked. There was a wistful glint to his words, and his eyes seemed to look far away for a heartbeat or two.

She chuckled and arched an eyebrow, shaking her head. "Neck. Head tilt. Ouch...." she winked and watched him, reaching to touch his hand, squeezing it. "Besides, I want to set you up with someone first! I think we should try Luca first...at least he liked your skin. And he is very good looking."

"Oh no. No set ups," Kohl said, and it came out as more of a plead than a firm declaration. "That is one human custom I have little interest in experiencing. I don't like artifice. I can convince people to spend time with me myself. Mind you, is this even appropriate? The Captain is missing, we're hiding in a nebula, and there are Klingons hunting us... Maybe I should move faster. Get set up with everybody. Might not be another opportunity, huh?"

She watched him before grinning, shrugging slightly. "You know what? Right now, I think we just need to grab whatever shred of happiness and pleasure we can get. Don't know if there will be a tomorrow at this rate, right?" she winked and nudged him. "And if you don't go after one of them, I am going to show you a few selected parts of my body which, as a man who clearly likes the men...you'd run away screaming into an airlock from. Regardless of your profession..." she poked her tongue out, giggling...in that moment, just childish and happy.

"Right then. So while I'm courting several available suitors," Kohl asked, "What shreds of happiness are you going to be clutching to your unmentionable body parts?" Looking at her with a lazy smile, Kohl waggled a finger in her face.

She laughed and playfully hit his finger, giggling. "Cheeky sod..." she considered it for a moment, blushing. "I mean...there's this girl...well, woman. And she is stunning. She was on the shuttle with me. Scarlet Blake."

"Blake, yes. Oh, stunning is the word," Kohl said in encouragement and agreement. He quirked an amused smile at how quickly Aria's manner had changed from the earlier brashness. "I've been working with her all night."

"You have?" she smiled and looked down. "I am jealous to be honest..." she said and chuckled softly. "She is really nice as well. I like her hair, she has amazing hair. And bone structure..."

"She has the most remarkable poise under pressure," Kohl said admiringly. "I get neurotic and cranky when my life is in danger. But then, I was never a marine like she was." Somewhere between admiration and teasing, Kohl said, "You and she could probably lay in the grass and admire the stars even while you were kitted with infrared goggles and phaser rifles on a sniping mission."

She laughed at that and shook her head. "I am not that bad! I mean...if anything, I am not that...err..." she blushed and held his eyes. "Okay, you read me right! Damn..."

"As an adolescent on Areglius, I learned to spot a romantic from a kilometre away," Kohl said, striking that same balance between admiration and mockery. "I know all the signs and tells."

She smiled and nodded, watching him. "Pretty good skill to have," she said softly.

"Now, don't mind me," Kohl said, "If I just close my eyes. I'm just going to close my eyes, mind. I'm not tired at all. It's my eyes. Just my eyes. They're a bit sore."

She nodded and closed her eyes as well. "I think I am tired..." she confessed softly. "Just...half an hour or so and I will be okay. Promise."

"...But only half an hour," Kohl said, and he was whispering now, and his words were slow and disjointed. "Soon. We have to get back to..." and he said, "ponies," inexplicably, before drifting off.


[OFF]

Ensign Andreus Kohl
Nurse
USS Galileo

Ensign Aria Rice
Security Officer
USS Galileo

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