Help me if you can, I'm feeling down

Posted on 18 Feb 2019 @ 6:25pm by Lieutenant Lake ir-Llantrisant & Petty Officer 1st Class Gabriel Stark

2,476 words; about a 12 minute read

Mission: Episode 17 - Crystal of Life
Location: USS Galileo-A - Deck 5, Holodeck 2
Timeline: MD -119 - 1900 hours

[ON]

On this night, the Apnex Sea appeared clear and still as glass. It made it easy for Lake ir-Llantrisant to find his sea legs as he moved towards the stern of the sailing boat. Although the construction of the boat was similar enough to a cutter, the design was clearly Romulan in origin. Because Lake was on duty as Galileo's Chief Counselor, he remained dressed in his regulation uniform. His duty boots clomped heavily against the deck of the boat. Spending part of his duty shift in a holodeck-recreation of his lost homeworld was indulgence, certainly, but the Captain allowed him certain leeway. Lake wasn't exactly showing up for bridge duty in a teal sundress, but he was allowed to tend to his patients as he saw fit.

Through the hazy glow of the setting sun, Lake could clearly see the distant spires of the city on the shore; he could see Remus in the sky; and he could see his patient, standing opposite him on the boat. Lake told him, "I have one rule."

Gabriel Stark arched an eyebrow at the words, a small smile coming to him as he set his hands on his hips. He wore casual clothes himself; cargo trousers and a black polo neck sweater, the kind of clothes he would wear when he went sailing. Which he did, frequently. It was one of his joys in life, where he felt alive and at peace and insignificant. A feeling he needed now and then. It was perhaps the fact that he was in such a familiar and relaxing setting for him that stopped him from bristling and pushing back at the mention of rules...which he usually would have. Instead he shook his head with a slight chuckle, meeting his eyes. "Oh yeah? What?"

"I'm not here to make small talk or ask you about your personality indicator traits," Lake said, clearly dismissive of the notion. It was doubly clear when he shook his head and waved a hand through the air in a gesture of the negative. "That's what awkward first dates are for," Lake affirmed, still dismissive.

Gaining in momentum despite standing stock still, Lake explained, "You're here because your fitness for duty depends on it. Basically, your ongoing Starfleet commission depends on your mental wellness. That means I have one rule." --Lake raised a single index finger away from his body-- "If you answer a question evasively, I push you off the boat."

Gabriel's eyes widened slightly at the threat as he glanced over to the cold looking water, the notion enough to make him shiver slightly. "Oh come on," he tsked, shaking his head with a sigh as he folded his arms. "I was brought up to repress my emotions, not bloody talk about them," he pointed out with a slight frown. Truth was, despite having been ordered to have regular counselling sessions and medicals considering his background, past behaviour and imbalance, it wasn't something that had gotten any easier over the years. He didn't like talking about his past, and frankly, he didn't trust people enough to dig into his issues, especially those related to his temper and mood swings. Showing vulnerability just gave people a weapon to use against him. "Do you take bribes?"

For a heartbeat, Lake licked the corner of his lips and he squinted at Gabriel. He tilted his head to one side and he gave consideration to the man before him, and the words he'd spoken. "That depends," Lake said, and he really meant it. He sighed and he crouched down. Lake sat on the deck and pulled his knees close to his chest. "What are you proposing exactly?" Lake asked. "What's your quid pro quo?"

Gabriel watched how he sat, his body language. Closed off. Almost vulnerable even. He moved to kneel opposite him, reaching out to run his fingertips over the sensitive ridges of Lake's knee. "I can think of a...favourable arrangement," he said with a small smile, his hand settling on the inside of his knee.

Shaking his head, Lake replied, "No," in a disappointed timbre that seemed to say you can do better than that. "Too vague," Lake affirmed. Lake laid a hand overtop where Gabriel's hand had fallen on his knee. As much as Lake didn't push Gabrel's hand away, he also didn't allow that hand to move any closer to him. "We're both adults here," Lake said, "So use your words."

"Huh," Gabriel's smile disappeared at that, his hand slipping away as he shook his head. "I'm not too good at those," he shrugged awkwardly. "People don't listen to them anyway, not really, so what's the point," he shrugged, as if he was just being realistic. "They nod in all the right places, but they're not thinking about what you're saying...they're thinking about what they're going to say. Or dinner. Or their latest squeeze."

As Gabriel pulled his hand away, Lake's hand followed until he was sitting there with his hand outstretched. "I'm not here to talk about people. People are stupid. Most people bore me," Lake affirmed. He let his hand drop. Staring right at Gabriel, Lake continued to speak in a firm and factual timbre. "It's just you and me here," Lake said, and he squinted at Gabriel. "I'll listen to your words. I promise."

Gabriel narrowed his eyes as he watched him, his body still and tense as he tried to get a read on him, to see if he really meant it. "It might be a thankless task," he shrugged with a half, unfeeling smile. "I'm pretty good at pissing people off with them."

Lake scraped his front teeth across his bottom lip and he drummed his hands on his knees. Looking up at a sky the colour of persimmon, Lake asked aloud, "So which one is it? Do you think I'm new?" He leaned forward, hugging his knees tightly. It was as close as Lake could come to physically intimidating Gabriel without actually getting up. Lake's dark eyes bore into Gabriel, when he asked, "Do you think I haven't heard that line from a thousand patients? Do you really think you're so interesting that anything you say can get under my skin?"

Gabriel's jaw tightened at the words, a flash of anger passing through his dark eyes as he gripped his own knee a little harder. "I was trying to be decent and give you fair warning. Sounds like I shouldn't have bothered," he said sharply, shrugging as he looked down. "Fine, I'll just piss you off then."

In response, Lake threw a shrug back in Gabriel's direction. "You can try," Lake said. As much as his words were a challenge, he still stressed the word try. Giving up on understanding Gabriel's apparently sexual offer of quid pro quo, Lake diverted to the heart of the matter. Remaining sitting on the deck of the boat, Lake stretched his legs out in front of him. "Who did you piss of so much," Lake asked, "that they made it mandatory for you to see me?"

Gabriel searched his eyes, his own narrowed slightly as he tried to work out if the man really didn't know, or was doing the 'tell me in your own words' thing that docs seemed to go in for. "Starfleet," he replied bluntly, shaking his head. He looked down, trying to make it look casual as he looked to his black painted fingernails, rather than the fact he was trying to avoid his eyes. "Messed up at the Academy. Ended up thrown out of the Academy....and thrown into a cell instead. I was put in prison for assault whilst intoxicated with illegal substances." He rattled through it like it was nothing, like it didn't bother him. He might have even convinced some people.

"You say Starfleet has sent you to me. Was it only the rule book that imprisoned you?" Lake asked. Given his posture and his tone, he sounded unsatisfied with that answer. The math added up, Lake supposed; he could imagine events unfolding like a path of dominoes, but he didn't fully believe it. "Was there no sentient intervention," Lake asked, "putting you in your place?"

"Anderson," Gabriel said quietly, watching the deck rather than the other man, frowning as he threw a loose thread away. "He....was my Instructor at the Academy. When I got out of prison, I guess I did nothing but drift from bar to bar. Then some Admiral turns up, offers me the chance to enlist. Anderson, wow, he gives my father a run for his money in giving a dressing down. He...insisted that I do this. Like I'm crazy or something," he was frowning by the time he finished speaking, his voice getting more and more clipped with his frustration at it.

Dropping some of the bite from his tone, Lake matched the soft intonations Gabriel had been using when he first started talking about Anderson. This time, he didn't want to match Gabriel's mounting intensity. "You've told me about altering your mood with chemicals and getting in a few fights," Lake said, repeating back what he thought he had heard. "It doesn't take mental illness to do any of that. What would make Anderson think you were crazy?"

Gabriel shrugged, suddenly looking younger with the touch of apprehension on his features rather than bitterness or anger. "He said it wasn't normal. How...fast and easily I can swing towards anger. Said I could probably do with some help," he glanced to him, shaking his head at a loss. "Maybe I read into it, that he thought I was crazy. But that's what it usually means. 'Needs help'..." he made speech marks with his fingers.

“What do you think,” Lake asked, tossing the focus back to Gabriel’s point of view, and Lake clarified with, “in that regard?” His brows furrowing further than they already were, and his eyes narrowing, Lake didn’t sound convinced by Anderson’s assessment. Nor his motivations. Lake spread his arms wide, for a moment, to welcome whatever response Gabriel had to give. “I’m not asking if you’re crazy,” Lake said, “but do you need help?”

Gabriel looked out to the water for a long moment in silence, his chest still as he held onto his breath. His jaw was tight. To start with, it came from his anger and frustration at the question, at being asked to look into himself so intimately. To things he wasn't sure he wanted to know about himself. Then it changed; the tense jaw was his attempt to keep the tell tale prickling of tears threatening at his eyes back, his throat closing tightly around the lump there and his eyes blinking stubbornly. "I'm not very good at asking for help," he finally admitted, hoarsely. He hadn't been brought up that way. Being dependent on others for help...it was a weakness that could be taken advantage of.

Nodding vaguely at him, Lake said, "You're in luck, Gabriel." --He tilted his head to one side, having a second thought, and then he shook his head-- "In that regard at least. We're not there yet. I'm not asking you to ask for help. Not yet."

Watching the other man, Lake could see the affect he was having on Gabriel. He could see it plainly. In an effort to give Gabriel a hint of privacy, Lake braced his palms on the deck and pushed himself off. He rose to his feet and brushed his palms on his trousers, brushing away particles of holographic sand that had adhered to his palms. Turning away from Gabriel, Lake looked towards shore as he continued speaking. He said, "I'm only curious if you think you need help, and if you know what kind of help you might need?"

"A bottle of rum and a hypo full of bliss?" Gabriel replied, but with a dry edge of humour as he shook his head. He let out a shaking breath to steady himself, wiping his eyes in the relative privacy. "My father sent me to a shrink when I was a teenager," he said quietly, shaking his head as his arms wrapped around his legs. "It didn't last long. He said there was no magic wand. That if I wanted to control my mood swings and my temper, I'd have to work for it. I told him he was an overpaid quack, and that was the end of that."

Insistently, Lake said, "Forget about the past," and he spread his arms out wide for emphasis. Dropping his arms to his sides, he turned back to face Gabriel again. Insistence shifted to intentness, when Lake asked, "Right here, right now, do you want to control your mood swings and your temper?"

Gabriel held his eyes, unable to avoid it with the intensity of the other man. Despite the frown on his features, he nodded firmly, swallowing hard past his own anxiety. "This is my second and last chance. I don't want to mess this up, Lake. There'd be nothing left."

"That's what we're going to do then," Lake said with all the conviction of a fortune teller. Lake closed the distance between them by striding towards Gabriel and then kneeling in front of him. "We don't have to fix you," Lake affirmed, with a bit of a sneer for the very concept. "We don't have to talk about your childhood or your ego reflection. We're going to keep you from messing this up. That's all." --At that, Lake grinned in delirious pleasure at the challenge he set for them-- "Simplicity itself."

Gabriel watched the man on his knees in front of him....an undeniably appealing sight. A small but genuine smile came back to him, his hands resting on the back of his hips as he shifted his weight onto one leg in front of the kneeling Romulan. "You said that with so much conviction, I almost believe it..."

"I'm very good at what I do," Lake said with, perhaps, too much conviction. "You can't fail, because I'm not going to fail you," he promised, perhaps unwisely. "Trust me," Lake begged.

Gabriel searched his eyes for a long moment at the plea, taking him in, searching for that warning in the pit of his stomach. But his instinct wasn't screaming for attention. "Okay," he finally said with a firm nod. "I trust you."

Lake released the breath he'd been holding, and he took another breath. "Now, we can begin."


[OFF]

Lieutenant Lake ir-Llantrisant
Chief Counselor
USS Galileo-A

PO1 Gabriel Stark
Security
USS Galileo-A
[PNPC Blake]

RSS Feed