Petals vs Thorns

Posted on 22 Feb 2014 @ 7:48pm by Ensign K'os Beaumont & Petty Officer 3rd Class Ellsworth Hudson

2,241 words; about a 11 minute read

Mission: Episode 05 - Solstice
Location: Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, Earth
Timeline: MD 13 - 1530 hrs

[ON]

Wearing a thin baby blue, v-neck tshirt and tight denim pants K'os walked through the streets of San Francisco. It was cloudy, and many people were wearing warmer clothing. The vulcan hybrid seemed unphased by the weather. He had a brown beat-up leather satchel slung over one shoulder which contained some personal affects that he carried around with him. In his right hand he thumbed through his data device. Wireless earbuds cycled through music from the current album of the Denobulan band 'Pyrithian Bat Machine'. He occasionally bobbed his head to the music.

He stopped at the corner of Greenwich and Baker st, waiting for the pedestrian light to let him cross. A particular favourite melody played out from his headphones and he absently raised his left arm up and swished his hips from side to side with the rhythm of the music. A lady snickered behind him, but K'os was oblivious as he continued to study the bar specifications on his device.

He was no longer upset about the events at the meeting and instead he was now fully focused on helping to get the bar installed. He was tasked to work with a Petty Officer Hudson on requisitioning and fabricating all the required components for the power system setup. Since he wasn't doing anything pressing at the moment he tapped out a quick message to PO Hudson. Hi Hudson. Beaumont here. Do u have time 2 meet & discuss the bar install today?.

Ellsworth picked up his PADD, scowling. He'd had the absolute worst night, an even worse morning, and now it was probably something about that stupid bar. Even thinking about it just made him crankier, conjuring up memories of the meeting that had been too long and filled with a bunch of technical jargon that went way over his head. He inhaled deeply and opened up the interface to reply.

Yeah, today's fine. Golden Gate Park, Conservatory of Flowers. 45 minutes.

The young Betazoid rolled off his bunk with only a cursory glance in the mirror. He looked like shit, of course. He hadn't gotten any sleep last night thanks to the Andorian from the bar - what was his name? Kevil? Kev... Keval? - and he should have felt great. Instead, he felt low, cranky and guilty. He tossed on some baggy clothes, didn't even bother running a hand through his hair and grabbed his PADD on the way out the door.

=-=-=-=-=

Ellsworth looked like he was going to a funeral. The white, windowed conservatory behind him stood in sharp contrast to the all-black clothing he'd inadvertently picked for the meeting. The building looked like it was absolutely bursting with color inside, showcasing flowering plants from four quadrants; he momentarily thought about going inside and stepping on one.

K'os was already there, with his hands and face pressed against the glass of a small window by the door. The colours were magnificent and he couldn't help but take in every beautiful detail. What a wonderful place for a meeting he thought as he took a deep breath. He couldn't smell the plants in the building, but the flowers around the front entrance were almost intoxicating. He had to resist the urge to stick his face in a blooming of chrysanthemums. He peeled his face away from the window and started to inspect the texture of a flower he'd not seen before. The ear buds in his ears continued to play music. With the music and the smell of palm tree and flowers in the air he started to move his hips again to the beat. Oblivious to any onlookers. He wondered what it would be like inside.

Just when he was about to lose his patience waiting, Ellsworth spotted the half-Vulcan swaying around the base of a palm tree. He watched for a brief moment, openly staring with confusion and maybe a hint of irritation. What in the hell is he doing? He frowned and walked over, poking K'os a few times in the upper arm to get his attention.

"Hey. There's some tables inside if you want to go in, or we can sit on a bench or something," he said flatly. The bar project had quickly turned from something fun to something annoying, and it showed on his face. "I don't care, whatever you want."

K'os scooped the ear buds out of his ears when he was poked. He gave Ellsworth a once over, almost not recognizing him without his uniform. "Oh hi!" He said cheerfully after he realized who he was. He looked at the door and with a dopey grin he added, "Yes, let's go inside." He was almost brimming with excitement. He anticipated all the feelings and memories that would come flooding from the stimuli inside. His hybrid mind tended to heighten a lot of his sensations and he just wanted to smell everything.

Ellsworth dragged along next to him. He thought he recalled the half-Vulcan arguing with the boatswain during the bar meeting, so what happened? Maybe a head injury. The way he'd been dancing around by that palm tree... Thank goodness he hadn't been in uniform. Someone probably would have reported him.

The inside was bright and cheery and white and pristine and colorful...and Ellsworth hated it. He was in the darkest of dark moods, on the knife's edge of depression. On top of that, he felt like a monster, taking to bed an otherwise kind and gentle soul just for his own amusement. Ugggghhh, he thought, why did he want to meet today? And why is he looking at that flower that way?

K'os was oblivious to Ellsworth's mood, or if he wasn't he didn't seem to mind. He tore his attention away from the purple hue of the scablosa flower.

"The tables are this way," Ellsworth said, turning to wander off toward 'The Succulent Room' that housed all the cacti and other succulents from across known space. He flopped into a chair at a corner table, half hidden by some plant monstrosity with beautiful pink flowers. Ellsworth just frowned at them; they smelled too strong, but he wasn't about to move now. He tossed his PADD on the table with little care and turned his attention to K'os. "So, what do I need to order?"

K'os was less impressed with the succulents than the brightly coloured flowers. This room reminded him of Vulcan. Dry, and arid old Vulcan. Despite the thorns and thick green vegetation the texture still made K'os want to reach out and touch them. Ellsworth's words brought him out of his thoughts and to the matter at hand.

"A lot of things I'm afraid." He said, frowning for the first time. He placed his own PADD on the table next to his, but with decidedly more care. "I've made a list of all the battery types we'll need for each component of the bar. There are, of course, quite a number of utilities to power."

An irritated gush of air rushed out of Ellsworth's mouth, and he grabbed the PADD from the table. "I wasn't even paying attention in the meeting. I thought the modular approach was great, but I didn't know anything about the engineering stuff so I phased out. Then I see all this shit about batteries. Who came up with batteries? I asked Supply Command about batteries, and this one guy actually laughed at me. Why can't we just run one of those thingies in there? Uh..." He looked more irritated, unable to recall the information from basic engineering courses. "EPS conduit?"

K'os shrugged. He wasn't a fan of it either, but he'd already purged those negative emotions the day before and had long moved on. Without judging Ellsworth's lack of engineering knowledge he leaned in and pointed at a couple things on his PADD. "We can make it work in theory, it's just going to take a number of these set ups. This," he pointed to a different list of items, "is a list of items we need fabricated from the replicators and this," he flicked through a shorter list, "are things we need requisitioned."

Ellsworth stared at the list. He spared a glance at K'os, sighed and looked back at the PADD. He should have apologized for being in this kind of mood; maybe he'd do it later. "Fabricated stuff is easy. Requisitions are not." He looked over the list and shook his head, pointing at one item in particular. "They're never going to give me that. Not in the time we need. They've got them in storage on McKinley Station, but I know they're going to feed me some line about it needing to come in from Deneb. I've got no pull."

Oblivious to the other man's annoyance he pushed on anyway. "That's okay. It just means we'll need to be more creative." He laughed suddenly. "I guess that could apply to any of those on the list."

Ellsworth's eyes narrowed a bit as he watched K'os laugh, as if trying to get a read on him. If ever there was the syrupy sweet Federation personified, here it was in front of him. The mood was almost infectious enough for Ellsworth to reflect it, but an Andorian went passing through the desert wing of the conservatory. His black mood came back with a vengeance.

"Yeah, creative, that's one way of putting it. Can you think of any substitutes? Otherwise I'll just try to trade favors, see what I can do or something," Ellsworth muttered, looking at the chronometer on the PADD. His leg was jumping under the table. He suddenly realized he didn't want to be here; he wanted to be getting drunk in the middle of the day or buried under a thousand soft pillows. Shut off. Away. Not with some crewmate that went nuts over a cactus flower.

"If we went with the TX 47 version rather than D229, most of those components can be fabricated." He tapped the item in question on Ellsworth's PADD. "Do you think you could offer favours for the rest?" He asked innocently, not really knowing what that meant.

The phrase 'offer favors' made his stomach turn a little bit by conjuring up feelings from the night before and his life on Risa; the feelings were reflected in a souring of his facial features. He input the changes, switching the D229 to its TX 47 counterpart before deactivating the PADD. "I don't know anything about...waveguides or whatever you guys were talking about...but I can manage to get the stuff, at least. It'll take some work, but I'll get it. Where should it be delivered?"

Ellsworth turned away without waiting for a response, looking back toward the door through which they'd entered. He was anxious to leave. He was having a hard time separating his personal and professional lives right now, and he was increasingly not interested in talking about the stupid bar. He just wanted to get the list, file the requisitions and go...somewhere. The only good part of the meeting was that he was seated across from the galaxy's most oblivious Vulcan, perhaps the only member of his species without the need to be incisively and questioningly observant about everyone around them.

"We can put it all together in engineering." He replied, distracted by a new smell. He smiled as the memory of riding a bike for the first time came to him, while also conjuring the colour blue through his mind. For K'os, sensations and memories were the same thing. He turned his attention back to Ellsworth and caught him looking at the door. "Am I keeping you from another appointment?" His cheeks flushed a little red noticeably against his pale skin. He was embarrassed that he didn't think perhaps Ellsworth had other things to do while on shoreleave and he reprimanded himself for the rudeness of not asking initially.

"Huh?" Ellsworth said, turning back to K'os. He seemed to actually notice the other guy for the first time; something about the blushing cheeks caught his eye. For the briefest moment of time he wanted to stay and flirt with the eclectic young man with the rosy cheeks and dimpled smile, but then he remembered the last colorful thing that piqued his attention. He frowned. "I'm sorry, Beaumont, yeah... It's just busy. There's a lot of stuff to do before we depart. Requisitions and crew changes and stuff. I'll catch up with you in a few days, okay? I'll have that stuff delivered to engineering and let you know."

Ellsworth stood up abruptly and grabbed his PADD, careful to avoid the prickly succulents that all seemed to be placed entirely too close to the table.

K'os nodded and offered a polite smile in return. He pursed his lips and cocked his head in a 'do-what-you-got-to-do' sort of way. "Till next time, then."

"Yeah, next time," Ellsworth replied, almost at the door already. He suppressed - hard - any feelings of guilt he had over his behavior with the half-Vulcan. He'd make it up to him later. Right now, he had enough guilt to worry about, and the absolute last thing he wanted was any more heavy emotion on his plate.

[OFF]


PO3 Ellsworth Hudson
Quartermaster
USS Galileo

&

PO3 K'os Beaumont
Energy Systems Specialist
USS Galileo

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