No Is The New Yes (Part 1)

Posted on 22 Jan 2015 @ 10:46pm by Petty Officer 3rd Class Ellsworth Hudson

3,371 words; about a 17 minute read

Mission: Episode 07 - Sojourn
Location: USS Galileo - Deck 4, Main Shuttlebay
Timeline: MD44: 0700 hrs

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Ellsworth had been on the ship since 0300 hours, which was way before his shift began but he couldn't sleep. His encounter with Pennington was still fresh in his mind, and it had deprived him of any hope of having a peaceful night. Instead of tossing and turning in his quarters, he decided to come on board and go through some tasks ahead of the ship's departure tomorrow. But even that had turned into a headache... He'd spent the better part of an hour trying to reconcile all the discrepancies between the ship's computer and the starbase's records over the flight department's cargo manifest before finally deciding to give up and head down to the shuttlebay to get someone to help him straighten it out.

When he arrived, the place was completely empty except for one slender young man. At the sound of the doors opening, he'd looked up, and Ellsworth met his eyes. Something about him felt odd...

Betazoid! he thought, practically shouting to himself in his mind. Feeling one of his own people on the ship was alarming and certainly not what he'd expected when he set out. The PADD he'd brought with him was loosely gripped and hanging at his side while he stared in disbelief. Uh... I guess he probably heard that. Oh, dammit, he probably heard that, too.

Wintrow stared at the young man that had entered the shuttle bay, while wiping his hands on his flightsuit. His face was smudged, his hair a little tousled as he straightened, and nearly bashed his head. "Hi," he said softly, his eyes traveling over the other youth's form in a few seconds of study. "Can I help you?" Obviously, the cadet had been working on shuttle maintenance, the soft glow of the PADD on the floor giving away that it was active, and open on a maintenance manual for a shuttlecraft.

Ellsworth stared openly. He was already off his game from last night's deeply traumatic encounter on the promenade and now this. Pieter Van Zyl went on endlessly about professionalism on duty, but did that count when it came to cadets? Were they even technically members of the crew? Besides, Wintrow had pretty hair, an attractive accent and a demure nature - in short, the sort of cute he'd risk flirting with even on duty... If only he wasn't a Betazoid. Ellsworth had no idea what to do around his own people, so he just stared. Were they supposed to talk using telepathy? Could the other guy even do that? He didn't have black eyes and felt a little off, so Ellsworth surmised he wasn't completely Betazoid.

"Uh," Ellsworth stammered, suddenly remembering he had a PADD in his hand. He lifted it up as some sort of evidence, like justification for his visit. "I was having some trouble reconciling a few items...um, on the... Uh, on the cargo manifest. For your department. The flight department, I mean. Is there somebody around that I could...?"

"I'm here," the boy replied, approaching Ellsworth and held out his hand towards the PADD. The other young man seemed so nervous, it made his own anxiety feel like nothing. "There's no need to be nervous, sir," he spoke softly, not quite meeting his eyes, "I don't bite.."

What was nervousness shifted into a flash of annoyance at the comment. That was the problem with other Betazoids, they were all so open and free with their emotions and their commentary. He'd grown particularly sensitive to it after dealing with his third foster mother, who insisted on verbally airing Ellsworth's emotions as he was feeling them. 'Ellsworth, you're feeling angry.' It wasn't so much what she said as the way she said it, as if she was informing him of his own emotions. Now every time he heard something like it come out of the mouth of another member of his species, he had to remind himself that they weren't all like her. Usually.

But as soon as the annoyance rose, it died down in a wave of guilt. Wintrow hadn't done anything to deserve any kind of poor treatment from someone with a chip on his shoulder, and Ellsworth reminded himself of that. He handed over the PADD to him and then moved to stand slightly behind him so he could see the display, too.

"I can't get the ship's cargo manifest to reconcile with the starbase's inventory management system. They said we've received these items here, but there's no record of them on the ship," Ellsworth said, reaching around the other man to point out several places in the information displayed on the device.

"I'm sure we can figure out where the glitch is," Wintrow said, stiffening as the man stood close to him. Too close, so he took a small step to increase the distance between them. He almost flinched when he was almost touched when Ellsworth reached around him. "I can get into the manifest, to a degree."

Ellsworth lifted an eyebrow at the other man's behavior. For someone who only moments ago said he didn't bite, he certainly seemed jumpy. Maybe he was one of those people that just didn't like to be touched. One of his classmates during enlisted training seemed to have an almost clinical-level phobia about people violating his personal space, leading to him totally freaking out during several training exercises.

"Yeah, I can access all that," Ellsworth said, taking a step back to increase the space between them in the hopes of making him more comfortable. Suddenly he laughed and snapped his fingers. "I'm sorry, I forgot to introduce myself. I'm Ellsworth Hudson, ship's quartermaster. I'd be doing a pretty bad job if I couldn't get into the manifests, huh?" He grinned, hoping to put the other young man at ease. He could have easily just reached out with his mind to better determine what was making the cadet behave that way, but it seemed both invasive and risky. What if he was 'detected' while snooping around? "Actually, I was really hoping you could help me locate the items. I'm thinking they just weren't scanned into the cargo manifest properly when they were brought on board so they're registering as 'transferred' on starbase and 'not received' on the Galileo."

Wintrow nodded, relaxing visibly as the other man stepped back. "Cadet Sophomore Wintrow Paragon," he replied, while making a few adjustments to the PADD, "support craft pilot. Though I was just giving the shuttle a once over." He turned around, indicating his smudged appearance. "And I don't mind you reading me, I know it's normal for Betazoids so I don't mind. I can't read yours, only your emotions. My father was Human."

"Nice to meet you, Cadet Sophomore Wintrow Paragon," Ellsworth said, stumbling over the words. He'd been momentarily caught off guard by the last remarks, and it took him a moment to fully recover his confidence. "I try not to be invasive about it. You know, what with differing opinions on it and all. Plus, I'm just not very good at it, too. Uh... I'll apologize in advance if my emotions are all over the place. I had a very long, uncomfortable night."

Images of Pennington came unbidden into his mind, as much as he'd hoped to avoid thinking about that entire...unpleasantness. In the span of only a few moments he felt the vulnerability and wounds of his first encounter with the man, the hate and anger he'd felt for years after, and the beginning of a sense of closure he'd gotten the evening before. Ellsworth mustered what mental discipline he could manage, inconsiderable though it was, and shoved all of that down into some recess in his mind. It was enough of a thing to burden just one person, so there was no use in sharing.

"Don't worry about it, mine tend to be all over the place too." He was still flipping through files on his PADD, occasionally looking up. "This could take a while you know, you wanna sit down somewhere while I compare files?" He smiled slightly. "I used to be a yeoman..."

His first instinct was to ask what the hell a yeoman was, but Ellsworth had learned that his first instinct was usually not the right one. Instead, he found a small, empty cargo container to sit down on and while doing so racked his brain for the definition of a yeoman. It was something they covered in enlisted training, but he wasn't a yeoman so it didn't seem important enough to note at the time. "Uh, isn't that kinda like somebody's assistant?"

The younger man nodded absently. "Captain's yeoman. Basically an administrator, so I know my way around a bunch of files. Here." He held the PADD out again. "I think I found one of your missing items. So...quartermaster huh...isn't that somewhat administrative too?"

Van Zyl wasn't around to hound him so Ellsworth finally gave in to temptation while Wintrow was busy with the files in the PADD and took a moment to really look him over. It always satisfied the voyeuristic part of his personality to be able to observe people while they had their attention focused elsewhere, especially at work. Everyone in Starfleet had tunnel vision, which gave you plenty of time to learn something about them. Usually the thing he learned was like how firm their butt looked in the unflattering uniform pants, but sometimes he noticed other things, too.

Something about the way Wintrow was sitting made him seem just as physically submissive as he mentally felt. And that seemed dangerous, like it could be easily manipulated and abused. What if the wrong man or woman came into his life, someone with a strong and dominating personality? Alternatively, what if the right man or woman came into his life? Briefly, he thought of himself in that role. He'd always admired the meekness and unassuming nature of submissive people, and it often seemed to compliment his loud personality. As odd as he seemed to be, he liked the cadet. He'd instantly been attracted to his soft, rolling accent. And the more he watched him, the more he found things to like (though in all fairness, that was a pretty easy task for Ellsworth): the curve of his neck, the color of his skin, the waves in his hair, the smallness of his form.

Admiring both Wintrow's submissiveness and physical form inevitably led him to become quite engaged with thoughts that would make a Deltan blush, so much so that he almost didn't notice the pilot was handing the PADD back to him.

"Uhm, sorry, what'd you say? Uh, yes. Yes! It is administrative. Very administrative. Almost stupidly administrative sometimes," Ellsworth said, sparing one lingering glance at Wintrow before turning his attention to the PADD. He frowned at the correction that had been made - someone had unhelpfully scanned the cargo into the system wrong and put some of it under the security department instead of the flight control department. He scowled down at the PADD then waved it through the air. "This is my whole day, right here. Paperwork and boxes full of junk."

Though he had seemed oblivious, Wintrow had been aware of being observed. However that very same submissive nature had him pretend he hadn't noticed. In his experience, that was the safest method to adhere to.

Likewise though, he took a moment to observe the full Betazoid. "Do you need help reorganizing?" he asked, still not quite looking at him, wondering what caused the whirlwind of emotions coming from the other man. "Are you alright sir?"

"Sir? I don't think you have to call me that... Do you? I mean, in two years you're gonna way outrank me so for now let's just stick to first names. I guess I could use some help getting things in order before we push off tomorrow. You offering?" Ellsworth asked, giving him a cheeky and playful smirk. There were much worse things in the world than having a cute young assistant for a day, and it would certainly make the work more bearable.

"Sure, let me get finished on the shuttle and I'm all yours," Wintrow remarked, gesturing to the shuttlecraft. "I was almost done, shouldn't take more than five minutes. You're welcome to observe."

"Okay, sure," Ellsworth agreed, following the slightly younger man back over to the shuttlecraft. He had to admit to being genuinely curious. The repair and maintenance of something like a shuttlecraft seemed so impossibly technical as to appear entirely mysterious to someone like Ellsworth, whose general education was somewhat lacking. "It looks like messy work. Do you get, like, fluid in your hair and stuff?"

"If I'm not careful," Wintrow admitted cheerfully as he ducked back under the hatch. "Then again, I feel that if I come out of this all clean I've done something wrong. Back when I maintained my own fighter, on my prior assignment, I always walked away smudged. And I love it, I don't mind getting dirty on the job at all." He shifted and peered up at the other Betazoid. "You don't like getting dirty? Here come on down, I'll show you what I mean."

Ellsworth looked down at Wintrow and managed a smile. He did not, in fact, like getting dirty. The first years of his life that he could actually remember had been in a Jem'Hadar internment camp during the Occupation of Betazed, and all he'd ever felt there was dirty. He'd spent the better part of the remainder of his life trying to avoid any filth and squalor as much as possible. But, he appreciated that Wintrow was warming up to him, and he didn't want to offend the other young man by declining the offer.

The quartermaster got on his hands and knees then turned on to his back before giving a good push with his feet against the deck plating to slide underneath the shuttle. He made sure to scoot a little to the left to leave a respectful amount of distance between them, then grinned at Wintrow. "If something ruins my uniform under here, I'm holding you responsible."

"It won't," Wintrow promised then proceeded to explain what he was doing as he worked. "I like to know for myself what to do," he added, "you know in case of emergency as there won't be always an engineer on hand." After a few minutes he finished up and closed the access point, then shuffled out from underneath the craft, holding out his hand to pull Ells back up to his feet. "Now, about your displaced cargo, shall we put it back where it belongs, after I've cleaned up a tad?"

Ellsworth took Wintrow's hand and used it as leverage to swing himself up off the ground, resisting the temptation to pry into the other young man's mind. There was something about touch that seemed to make the telepathy more sensitive, especially with other telepaths. He looked looked Wintrow up and down, lifting an eyebrow at the state of his flightsuit and smiled a smile that was one part curious, one part amused and one part slightly lecherous."You're filthy! But, yeah, that's fine. We really just need to find it and get it logged into the system properly, no moving required. Saves us a little trouble."

"Not like that hauling around with tribbles huh?" He grinned back. "I already told you that I don't mind if you read me. I have few secrets." He disappeared briefly into a nearby room and returned wearing a clean duty uniform. "Ready," he announced.

Ellsworth's cheeks flushed, like he'd been caught doing something he shouldn't have. He gave a bashful smile and cautiously reached out with his mind as they fell into step next to one another, exploring the other man's thoughts and emotions. Whether he liked to admit it or not, in many ways he'd come to rely on having some passive sense of those things from people. He often did it without realizing it, like using any one of your other senses; it had only been Wintrow's shared heritage that brought him up short from the usual routine.

From experience, he knew it was something of an unusual experience for the other person. When done with consent, it was like sharing a portion of your mind with someone else, and he'd always considered to be an incredibly intimate act (to the extent that it could have other applications).

The younger man felt the mind of the other man brush against his own and for a moment he closed his eyes. He wasn't used to telepathic contact at all, but somehow it felt right. He knew Betazoids communicated telepathically among each other but he had never learned how. He only knew how to make sense of the feelings he was constantly aware of around him, but this was different. His own feelings were slightly subdued, but there was very little discomfort for now. Only the apprehension of his personal space being violated, which led to a deeper sense of violation and shame.

"I imagine it will be in one of the storage closets on Deck 5 in the shuttlecraft maintenance bay. That's where we stow most of your stuff," Ellsworth explained, hopping on to the turbolift and giving the computer the appropriate deck and section designation to bring them to their destination. He resisted the urge to jerk his mind back away from Wintrow, figuring that might do more harm than good, upon sensing violation and shame. Something was buried there, and he wasn't entirely sure he wanted to know what it was, especially since they'd only just met...

Wintrow snapped out of his thoughts and nodded, following Ells into the car. "We'll locate what belongs to flight and have it properly stored," he agreed. "How long have you been on board, I don't think we ever met before. I would've remembered meeting another Betazoid..."

"So would I," Ellsworth said, corners of his eyes crinkling as he smiled. He slowly eased off his telepathic sense, relying more instead of 'ordinary' senses like hearing and sight. Wintrow was cute but odd, and Ellsworth had learned his lesson about coming on too strong with Lieutenant Williams. Moreover, there were some deeper issues at play here in particular, and he felt very much out of his depth.

"I was assigned just before we departed for the uridium mine, so I've been here awhile. But with the tribbles... Well. I had my hands full. Too full. They eat everything! We lost so much cargo! When I wasn't busy trying to secure what we had left, I was working on trying to put in requisitions and explaining to huffy officers why we needed so much materiel so soon after resupply." As they came up on the first of the storage rooms, Ellsworth reached over and let his fingertips gently hold Wintrow's hand for a brief moment, some sign of affection among a species so accustomed to physical intimacy. "I'm sorry we didn't get to meet sooner."

"Me too.." The normally very shy and timid half-Betazoid felt oddly at ease right now. He looked down at the hand that touched his, and smiled back. "I got here right in that tribble mess, but thankfully after that we had shoreleave right. Went on a trip to Rigel of all places and I don't even remember half of what happened to be honest. I had way too much to drink, and the heat was just well...hot." He paused, blushing slightly. "Commodore's wedding, my roommate is her sister. I was lucky she looked out for me, I'm not really used to just let all gears go you know. And I do think you know...there's something about you, something that makes me feel connected. Not in a romantic sense mind you, I'm not looking for that at all. But there's something..."

To be continued....

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PO3 Ellsworth Hudson
Quartermaster
USS Galileo
[ PNPC - Mott ]

&

Cadet SO Wintrow Paragon
Support Craft Pilot
USS Galileo
[ PNPC - T'Vanna ]

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