Families Who Play Together…

Posted on 25 Oct 2017 @ 4:28pm by Lieutenant Lake ir-Llantrisant & Rear Admiral Lirha Saalm & Lieutenant JG Gideon Nicols PhD & Nesh Saalm
Edited on on 25 Oct 2017 @ 4:29pm

2,277 words; about a 11 minute read

Mission: Episode 15 - Emanation
Location: Earth - San Francisco
Timeline: MD 17, 0122 hours

Previously, on Star Trek: Galileo, "I feel your body doin' overtime & I get shy in these lights"…

Nesh reached out and surreptitiously turned off the alarm. This image was too perfect to lose. It was an image she would no doubtedly store in her fantasies for years, but the artistic beauty was also genuinely breathtaking. It needed to be captured in oils. Hell, she might even learn to carve. Only being immortalised in marble could do this justice, something creamy, with delicate black veins.

She dragged her eyes off something else veined and hard as stone, but anything but cold, and went back to rendering the intensity of it, trying to capture the looks of hunger and yearning that was boiling the air between the two men.

Given the curiosity Gideon's hand had shown to Lake's backside --and assuming Nesh was looking for a greater variety of positions-- Lake took careful steps on the surface of the podium to turn his back to Gideon. Lake firmed up his posture, with his legs shoulder-width apart and his arms folded over his abdomen. Referring back to the condolences Gideon had expressed regarding Lake's late-relationship, Lake remarked, "I don't make a habit of treading where I'm not wanted. Besides... if he had come with me to the gallery, I never would have found my way here with you two..."

Nesh's PADD suddenly chirped in the distance, providing a rude interruption to the young Orion's hedonism. A single message flashed on the screen, a text message from her older sister.

"==WHERE ARE YOU==", it read with absolutely no semblance of subtlety.

And now the conclusion…

[ON]

The chirping pad made Nesh jump, stubbing the point of her pastel pencil and smearing the line of sfumato haze that made Gideon's already glorious body seem like something out of the renaissance. she swore and picked up the padd to find out who was going to die for ruining the mood.

And who else? Lirha of course. She hurridly typed out "At home, you selfish-" finished with a word that was short and crude. "Why do you even care? Couldn't wait to ditch me earlier." She threw the padd back onto the sofa and picked up the sanding block to put a point back on her pencil.

The PADD began to chirp again, this time with a repeating twitter that announced the presence of an incoming video call on the slim device. It seemed the casual discard of the older Saalm's query had led to a more investigative reply.

In the loft with Nesh, Lake ir-Llantrisant pivoted his head to look in Nesh's direction. "If the other alarm meant it was time for us to change poses," he asked cheekily, "what does this alarm mean?”

Nesh refused the call, and sighed. The mood was close to broken. Thank you, Rear Admiral Self-Righteousness Saalm. "Why don't we take a break." she got up from the couch. She was, by this stage, ninety-eight percent sure she wasn't going to get a look in. Those two were to far gone into each other she thought, Orion or not. But she didn't mind. She was an artist after all. Art was all about...observation. "You two sit down for a bit, I'll get some more drinks. Don't want you two getting dehydrated."

A shimmer of blue and white particles seemed to suddenly manifest and grow near the back of the room, and after five seconds, Lirha Saalm had materialized from the transporter sequence into Nesh's apartment. Dressed in one of her form-fitting black dresses with her slim bag hanging from a bare green shoulder, she quickly looked around and opened her mouth in shock of what she was seeing.

"Nesh!" she scolded with piercing green eyes. "What is this!?"

One half of the this equation was the naked form of Lake padding towards the liquor sideboard. The appearance of Admiral Saalm caused no alarm in Lake's sense of comfort in his skin. His stride remained languid in pace; he simply looked back over his shoulder to acknowledge the Admiral with a nod and kept moving towards the source of the alcohol. ...He supposed saluting at the Admiral at a time like this would have seemed disingenuous.

Nesh stared at her. "You beamed here? You Beamed here!? That's just, rude, and also trespass." Now her play was over, she's got to stick her oar into Nesh's fun time? Lirha could just eff off.

Putting his hands on the bottle of Romulan Ale, Lake asked over his shoulder, "Should I ...contact Federation Security?"

Before Nesh could reply to the strange naked man, Lirha interjected with a glare that would melt most humanoid creatures. "No...what you should do is leave immediately! Both of you!" If anyone should be calling security, it should be her, but as her hand began to reach into her bag for her small Type I phaser, she doubted they could save either of the men in time.

"Stay put!" Nesh told Lake, before turning to her sister. "You're the one who needs to get out," Nesh spat back, voice shaking with rage. "You couldn't wait to ditch me. How dare you turn up now! You cant just pick me up and drop me when you feel like it!"

Staying frosty, Lake poured out three more highballs glasses with Romulan Ale. Staying where he was, he went on a hunt for a suitable mixer to give the classic drink a different twist, but he couldn't ignore the escalating exchange between the two Orions. With increasing frequency, Lake ignored the drinks to eye Lirha over his shoulder.

"Go to your room and don't speak back to your elder!" Lirha quipped back at Nesh in their native Yrevish tongue. "If mother saw this..." she admonished as she pulled her phaser free and pointed it between the two unclothed intruders. "I will not tell you again. Get. Out."

"If mother saw this she'd demand I share," Nesh scoffed, "This isn't your house, Lirha, and they are my guests. I'm not a cadet any more, you can't order me around! I'm your sister. Not your crew!"

Sticking with Federation Standard, Lake stammered out, "Nesh, I, uh, I, I don't know about this." --As much as he directed his statement to Nesh, his eyes remained on Lirha's phaser, studying the way she gripped it, the body language of her outstretched arm, the way she held her shoulders, her postures; really, he was looking for any indication she was about to hit the trigger-- "I never consented to electro-play," Lake said. He put down his glass.

"Damn it Lirha!, put that down." Nesh shouted at her sister. How dare she show up and ruin everything when she refused to take part with Nesh's life.

The mention of electrical fetish play was enough to send the older Orion over the edge, and there was no way she'd allow Nesh to partake in such an aberration. Her other hand quickly reached out and pressed a button combination on the phaser to set it to wide-beam stun. And then she fired, sending a wash of orange phased energy particles through both of the two naked men.

Much like Gideon, Lake never even had time to dodge or even react to the event. Even for all his watchfulness over Lirha's behaviour, it wasn't as if he could move faster than a nadion particle beam. As soon as the orange light washed over him, Lake's legs gave way beneath him and he crumpled to the floor. Inadvertently, Lake took the bottle of Romulan Ale crashing with him, leaving a jagged and soggy mess on the hardwood.

Nesh dashed to the two men, careful to avoid the broken glass. "Damn you, Lirha! What is wrong with you?" She rolled Lake into the recovery position to wait for him to come round. Basic first aid at the academy really was good for something. Who knew.

With the threat of Nesh's infidelity now handled, Lirha let out a satisfied sigh and casually slipped her weapon back into her bag. "Oh, don't be dramatic. They will be fine. Help me drag them out to the garden so they can get some fresh air," she said while walking up to Gideon's unconscious body and grabbing his ankles.

Nesh moved to unlock the panoramic windows that lead to the balcony.
"I'm serious! You're going on trial in less than a week and you're assaulting complete strangers. What is wrong with your head?"

"No no, this way," Lirha clarified when she saw Nesh opening the wrong door. She then pointed toward the front door. Out of the apartment and onto the street. Yes, that would do much better. "Don't worry about me, I will be fine. But you cannot bring home these types of men and sleep with them. You're a Saalm, and we have standards."

Nesh didn't move towards the door. She wasn't throwing two men into the street naked. "One: Screw you! My sex life is not your business. And two: I was drawing them. Those two were so into each other I was waiting for them to forget I was there and jump each other! They're gayer than a tree full of monkeys on nitrous oxide. Nothing, nothing! was going to happen." More's the bloody pity.

Lirha rolled her eyes. Nothing was going to happen? "Don't act pretentious, I know you were going to bed them both... Probably at the same time. I could feel your pheromones the second I transported in." she refuted, now tugging Gideon almost to the door with a great deal of effort and grunts.

"Aaargh!" Nesh screeched in frustration. "Of course I'm leaking pheromones. Have you seen those two? They're off the rutting chart. And yes, I would have loved to have had them both. But it wasn't going to happen. I was too busy sketching." She put her hands on her hips and rolled her own eyes. "Why do you even care anyway? You're not interested in anything else I do."

"I am, Nesh. I..." she paused to let out a hefty grunt while depositing Nicols on the doorstep. He was a large for a Human with a great deal of muscle on him, and Lirha stopped for a second to rest her hands on her knees and regain her breath. "...just worry about you. Do you know what you gave up when you left Starfleet? Millions of children your age would sacrifice everything for the opportunity you had. And this artistry..." she motioned to the sketches and unconscious naked Romulan man.

"I gave up a life of misery and lack of fulfillment." Nesh replied, looking around for something to cover the two men with. "Starfleet was your dream, not mine." The best she could fine were some painting smocks hanging on a hook at the top of the stairs. She grabbed the earnest one and draped it over Gideon's prone form. "This isn't Orion. I'm not going to starve if I don't make it. The Federation provides so you can develop the way you want. I can keep trying until I succeed or move on. And right now I'm going to keep trying.

"Besides," she said with a hint of disdain. "Starfleet aren't exactly doing much for you right now. They think you're a criminal for trying to do the right thing."

Walking back over to where the Romulan man was laying, Lirha grabbed his feet and started to drag him to the door next to where the other man was now laying. "You need structure and guidance in your life, Nesh. You're too young and naive to find your own way...especially after mother kicked you out of the house."

Young and naive? Where the hell did she get off? Nesh ground her teeth. "Only warning Lirha. Put down my model, and get out of here, and out of my life. If you're still here in five seconds I will call the police. The only one round here acting like a teenager tonight is you."

Her model? Out of her life? Police? Lirha shook her head then heaved while she hauled the Romulan out to the door step and released his legs with an audible flop. "Nesh, calm down and come with me. We can have drinks and...you can meet my new partner. You remember, the one you couldn't stop pestering me about?"

Nesh paused, her desire for gossip flaring up, but the situation couldn't permit it. She suddenly felt tired. Tired of fighting her sister, tired of interference, tired of all the stress of never being good enough, and picked up and dropped between Lirha's love affairs. "I'm not going anywhere with you Lirha. You've gone too far tonight. You need help. Go away and let me look after these men."

The older Saalm huffed then walked back inside to get her bag. "One of these days, Nesh, you''ll realize all that's been done to protect you. And then, I hope you'll thank me," she said before turning on her heels and walking out over the two unconscious bodies and towards the staircase.

[OFF]

--

RADM Lirha Saalm
Commanding Officer
USS Galileo

Nesh Saalm
Artist

Lieutenant (Junior Grade) Lake ir-Llantrisant
Chief Counselor
USS Galileo

Lieutenant (Junior Grade) Gideon Nicols
Chief Research Officer
USS Galileo

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