The Wager

Posted on 09 Mar 2014 @ 2:51pm by Lieutenant Teth Miir & Lieutenant Olsam Mott
Edited on on 10 Mar 2014 @ 9:35am

2,804 words; about a 14 minute read

Mission: Episode 06 - Legend of Souls
Location: USS Galileo, Junior Crew Quarters
Timeline: MD 9, around 3:45AM

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Olsam had actually run from Sickbay to their quarters, which were mercifully on the same deck. He wasn't much of a runner. Really, he was more of an eater and a slow, thoughtful walker. But the situation had seemed like an emergency, so he'd pushed himself like a warp core going to Warp Factor 9.8. The short run had also helped burn off some of the anger he'd felt at the young Cardassian, who was a handful enough with all his lying. The normally mild mannered Bolian had felt a strong urge to break his nose all over again.

When he reached the door to their quarters, he knew it would be locked. He leaned against the wall with one hand and breathlessly spoke to the ship's computer system. "Computer, override door lockout, Assistant Chief Medical Officer Dr. Olsam Mott. Authorization Mott Gamma-Two-Pi."

The computer beeped and the doors instantaneously parted; he could have just as easily entered the access code to his own quarters, but he wanted there to be a record of his entry in a professional capacity should he found Teth dead or incapacitated. It would help as evidence in sending Petty Officer Evek into the deepest, darkest bowels of a Federation penal colony.

The lights were out except the small overhead panel in Teth's bunk. He was sitting under the light, still in full uniform, reading a book absentmindedly fidgiting with a ring on a necklace he wore. He didn't seem to acknowledge Mott's entrance.

Olsam stood just inside the doorway in disbelief; given the state of Viru's face, he'd expected the place to be trashed. Instead Teth was just hunched over reading.

"Hey!" Olsam shouted, puffing and balling his fists up. "I thought you were dead or something! You're reading!?"

"Yes, Olsam, I am reading. You do not have to speak so loudly. "

The caitian spoke in a hushed tone, closing the book and holding it to his chest.

"Why are you here? Aren't you supposed to be on duty?"

"I am on duty!" Olsam practically screeched, fumbling for his medical tricorder as he turned several darker shades of blue. "That stupid Cardassian told me he gave you drugs, and you fractured two of his bones! Are you all right? What is going on with you? Why are you taking illicit substances? Don't you know how much that could jeopardize your career?"

"I never got caught before. Not that I've done this recently. And really, what is the worst that could happen?"

Olsam just stared at him with narrowed eyes, contemplating whether he should treat him or slap him. He finally turned his attention back to the medical tricorder and began taking a battery of sensor readings.

"The worst that could happen? The Commodore could have seen you walking the corridor in a drug-induced fervor; you might have blacked out in a public area; you could have shot or even killed someone without realizing it. The list goes on and on..." Olsam kneeled down in front of his friend, brow furrowed with concern, and closed the tricorder. "Teth, what are you doing?"

"I am trying to get back to the way my mind used to be. Ever since I woke up fourteen years ago, it's been different. Cold and lifeless. I want to see colors the way I used to."

"Your visual cortex isn't damaged. Neither are your retinas. You see colors perfectly fine," Olsam said flatly. He carelessly tossed his tricorder back into the medkit and began loading a hypospray. "Your problems are psychological, but drug-use is not the answer. At least not those drugs. Give me your neck, this will keep what you've taken from causing any permanent damage and help your body process it out of your system quickly."

"Did Viru tell you I hit him?" Teth asked as he allowed Olsam to administer the hypospray.

"Because what happened isn't what you might think."

Olsam tossed the hypo spray back into the kit and sat back on his haunches, looking exasperated. "Why am I not surprised? I should have known he was telling more than just a half dozen lies."

"Well. I did hit him." Teth said flatly.

"He asked me to. He said he was some kind of martial arts expert. I actually did quite well at mixed martial arts while I was in the academy. When he heard that, he insisted that I should try to hit him and he would block. He didn't because apparently he knows nothing about martial arts and just said it in an attempt to seem more interesting. I heard his face crack open like a squash. He wanted to stay here and try to fix it himself, but I made him go to sickbay."

"I'm sure you'll be happy to know he's all fixed up and hopefully in his quarters rethinking his life," Olsam said, finally flopping down into a seated position on the floor in front of Teth's bunk. "Am I going to have to give you mandatory drug screenings every day? Are you seeing the counselor?" The Bolian's brow had been furrowed in irritation but it loosened a bit into a look of concern. "What can I do to help you?"

"Yes, I am still seeing the counselor." though he was using the term 'seeing' in the loosest possible sense. "I'm fine, I don't need your help. It's my business what I chose to do with my body."

"Oh shut up," Olsam said, rolling his eyes. He snapped his medkit shut with a shaky hand, feeling his nerves a bit frayed by the late hour, its dramatic events and his ridiculously stubborn friend. "Did you not have a rebellious phase as a child, or did it just never stop? You can do what you want with your body, but there are consequences for it. And you know it. Being belligerent and saying you don't need my help doesn't mean a damn thing. It just highlights the fact that you need someone's help."

"Help with what? Do I seem out of control? Am I endangering anyone?"

Olsam sputtered. "So I guess this is just recreational drug use that happens to cure some fictitious color blindness, huh?"

"It's a lot more complicated that that." Teth said, sounding insulted.

The Bolian raised his hairless brow in question before finally just huffing. "Well I'm listening! I'm a doctor, I can probably handle the complexity of it." He seemed to deflate a little bit as his hands stopped flailing and dropped into his lap. "If you'll just talk to me about it."

"It's not even color blindness, everything just used to look different. I can't really explain how or why. It's not even a habit. This is the first time in years that I've even done anything like this. I just have all of these intrusive thoughts and the only way I can make them stop sometimes is to- well I usually just drink alcohol. Large quantities of alcohol. But that isn't helping anymore and I think I'm developing some kind of stomach ulcer or something."

"I think I'm supposed to tell you that running from your problems isn't as good as facing them head on and solving them or something like that," Olsam said, face strained in trying to access old memories. "I don't really remember, I didn't pay attention in the basic counseling courses. They were boring. Honestly, I don't know how you do it. Listen to someone just go on endlessly about themselves and their day..."

The Bolian fell silent a moment then crossed his legs and dragged his medkit into his lap, seemingly content sitting on the floor.

"Do you think these symptoms have a physiological cause?" he finally asked, looking concerned but not irritated or angry like before. "Dr. Allyndra and I can do some tests, if you'd like."

The caitian spoke in a single unbreaking monotone.

"Probably. I really like to pretend my entire past never happened. I wake up every day and I tell myself that I am a happy and productive person. I force a smile and I face the day. And I know this isn't how it works, but I feel like I can just force myself to be happy and calm and to feel safe. I worked really hard for a long time to repress a lot of things. But lately, because the powers of the universe are playing one of their perverse jokes on me. Lately, I keep encountering triggers that unleash a variable floodgate of long lost memories and information and images."

He paused to stare toward the front wall of their room.

"I can't reconcile that any of it is real. It's just too painful and terrifying to try to process."

Olsam hunched over, hands still in his lap. He probably should have paid better attention to those counseling courses, but how did you counsel a counselor? They'd probably just counter everything you said, anyway. And then turn the tables on you; by the end of the conversation, their problems would be your fault. He hated when that happened.

"I don't know how I can help you," Olsam admitted, looking a little ashamed. Doctors were supposed to be able to fix people, but sickness of the spirit was always a tough one. "If you want to drink too much or use illicit substances, maybe you can just do that around me instead of by yourself. That way, I won't worry about you, and you won't get in trouble. Or break someone's nose and eye socket."

"It really is not my fault that he is some kind of compulsive liar. I really feel like Starfleet has become lenient with who they allow to serve. Maybe I'm biased at a counselor, but I feel like this entire ship is an asylum reminiscent of barbaric antiquity."

Teth put down his book and went to the replicator for water. He was suddenly feeling intensely thirsty and had a deafening pounding in his head.

"I really wasn't planning to make it a habit."

"Habit or not, you should do it responsibly. And what's more responsible than under a doctor's supervision, hm?" Olsam suddenly frowned. "Asylum? Are you saying I'm crazy?"

"Are you saying you aren't?"

"I'm going to pretend that medication isn't working, and you're still high," Olsam said with an overemphasized huff. "I am perfectly sane, stable and rational. I'm not even a little crazy. I don't know about the rest of you sometimes, but me? Nope. I'm like emotional bedrock. Strong, firm, immovable. You don't see me using drugs or getting in fights or lying compulsively."

"Do you actually drug people without their consent? You seem to allude to it a great deal but I am never certain if you are serious. You actually scare me a little."

"Well, I don't see what that has to do with being crazy or not," Olsam said defensively. "You don't need to be scared of me, but I was about to kill Petty Officer Evek. If he comes slinking back into my Sickbay with a bunch of lies one more time, endangering the life of my best friend..." The Bolian's eyes narrowed and his mind seemed distant for a moment. "Anyway. Yes, sometimes I drug people without their consent; I'm authorized to do that by Starfleet Medical. You know, if they're a threat to themselves or others."

"I see...."

Teth was still skeptical of his friend.

"So I can expect you to drug me if you deem me a threat? What constitutes a threat to you?"

"If I deem you enough of a threat, then sure. And what constitutes a threat varies," Olsam replied, being purposely vague. "Why, don't you trust me?"

"It isn't personal. I really don't trust anyone completely. I don't have the best track record with these kinds of things. My life so far has involved many different people doing very painful and dangerous things to me against my will. I have never met anyone like M'Ressa before, I think I might even love her. But, there is always this sneaking suspicion, right as we fall asleep together, that she is lulling me into a false sense of security so she can find some new and creative way to torment me, too."

Olsam shared his concerns, of course, but it would only serve to make the poor guy even more paranoid if he said so out loud. He was 98% certain M'ressa had some sort of ulterior motive with Teth, even if it was only desperation to jump into a marriage that led her to inject him daily with a dose of a mind-altering substance or manipulate pheromones... Something. She was definitely, definitely up to something.

"Oh, I'm sure she's not doing that," he lied, trying not to look too shifty eyed. "And you don't have to worry about me. What have I ever done except try to help you? If I was gonna drug you or kill you or something I would have done it a long time ago. I think we can both agree I'm not much of a long-term strategist. Besides, shouldn't I be more suspicious of you? One of these days you might actually smother me with a pillow like you're always threatening to do."

Olsam smiled brightly and stood up from his seated position after securing the latch on his medkit.

"I would only kill you if it was necessary to protect myself or others." Teth retorted in a very serious tone. "I only killed Koran because he was still a threat. This isn't something I take very lightly."

"Good thing I don't pose a threat to you or others then because I'm pretty sure I could kill you before you killed me," Olsam said, sounding competitive but not boastful. "I think Koran was the kind of threat that had to be handled...like that. Hopefully when I wake up in the middle of the night and talk to you, it's not quite the same thing."

"I could kill you easily." Teth said, feeling as if his skills were being challenged. "You wouldn't even hear me coming. People always underestimate me...."

"Oh, please," Olsam said, laughing. He started to move toward the door to return to his shift in Sickbay, not wanting the record to reflect he'd left the EMH on while he went and visited with his friend. "You're such a mouth breather! I'd hear you coming five kilometers away."

"You know, this can be tested if you really want to turn this into a challenge. I wouldn't actually kill you. I would just need to compromise you enough to make it happen. Do you want to make a wager?"

Olsam laughed again, though this time it sounded a little derisive. "A death challenge? Okay, fine."

"You still owe me that biomimetic gel. If I win, I want that and two hours of the holodeck time you have saved. What do you want in the extremely unlikely outcome in which I lose?"

The first thing that came to mind was insisting that he should stop seeing M'ressa, but Olsam could privately admit how extreme that was. She did seem to make him happy. In truth, he'd pretty much conceded defeat on the M'ressa Front, but he wasn't going to go down any other way but kicking and screaming.

"You forgive my biomimetic gel debt and you give me two hours of your holodeck time," Olsam retorted, demonstrating a lack of creativity where it came to making bets. "But you have to set some parameters... Like, time duration, what constitutes 'death,' you know...that kinda thing."

"Well if I give you too much advanced warning, you'll just prepare yourself for it."

Teth pulled his sonic tooth brush out of a drawer. He wasn't sure if it was in preparation to go to sleep or to start his day, but he definitely needed to brush his teeth regardless.

"It will be sometimes within the next three days."

"Fine, fine. I'll just be getting back to Sickbay now... With my vast array of medications... Deadly pathogens... Advanced technology... I'll have to keep my eyes wide open to make sure you don't sneak up and counsel me to death," Olsam said with a grin, stepping close enough for the door to their quarters to open.

"I'm not very worried about that." the Caitian said, returning the grin before starting to brush his teeth.

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Lt. Olsam Mott M.D.
Assistant Chief of Medicine
USS Galileo

&

Lt. Teth Miir
Counselor
USS Galileo

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