He'll Make You See There's Something You'd Die For (Part 3 of 3) [18+]

Posted on 21 Mar 2015 @ 2:10am by Commander Andreus Kohl & Ensign K'os Beaumont

2,858 words; about a 14 minute read

Mission: Episode 08 - NIMBUS
Location: USS Nautilus - Deck 2, Executive Officer's Quarters / USS Galileo - Deck 6, Compartment 1004 EN
Timeline: MD -03 - 2309 hours

Previously on "He'll Make You See There's Something You'd Die For"...

Kohl gripped the sides of his LCARS display device, and he stared in K'os' eyes until he could feel K'os staring right back.

"K'os, do you need me to be mother?" Kohl asked, twisting a phrase Stace had used with him more than once. "Do you need me to ask for help? For you?"

And now: the conclusion...


[ON]

K'os flinched a little at the question. All his life he'd balked at putting people in impositions. He was too self-sufficient to burden another with something that was his alone to bare. "You've given me more than enough confidence and courage to seek it out on my own I think. I just have to convince Ellsworth he needs help as well and that our enabling each other has to stop." Somehow at this point it felt as though clubbing the young man and dragging him to sickbay was much easier than trying to convince him that they had a problem. "Your offer is touching, Andreus. I'd give you a hug right now if I were there."

"We can each hug ourselves," Kohl suggested, his manner turning boyish all at once. He grinned at the screen. As if to demonstrate, he folded his arms across his torso and squeezed himself tightly. "And if we close our eyes, it will feel as if you had done."

K'os' arms were still crossed on the coffee table so he slowly trailed his hands up to grip his shoulders and squeezed himself as well. His smile reflected Kohl's boyishness as he closed his eyes; though only for a moment, as K'os peaked one eye open again to watch Kohl's expression.

The image of Kohl canted to the right, as the portable LCARS workstation shifted on Kohl's chest. Kohl lay on the sofa with his eyes closed and his arms hugging himself tightly, his lips curled upwards in a satisfied smile Vaguely, Kohl said, "K'os, you smell good."

"Sandlewood." He murmured back quietly, almost out of reflex. K'os' head tilted to match the view, with his eyes still open and his face close to the monitor. He let go of his shoulders and casually placed a hand on the monitor before he traced the smile lines on Kohl's cheeks with his finger; all while he continued to watch him enjoying the moment.

Eventually, the smile faded from Kohl's cheeks first, and then it faded from his lips. In the silence, something K'os had said earlier came back to Kohl's thoughts. His face took on a serious expression. He didn't appear displeased in any way, just serious. Kohl opened his eyes. "K'os," Kohl said, and his pause was suitably grave, "I think I made out with your boyfriend while you were gone."

The younger man frowned a little when the smile on the monitor disappeared. The admission dug out Ellsworth's memory of that night which K'os had forced down earlier. The smells. The sounds. The tastes. K'os cleared his throat, "Yes, I know. I have that memory." He wasn't sure if he should rephrase that, but he plundered on, "And he's not my boyfriend. Hasn't been for a long time." He looked away for the first time in a while during their conversation. He couldn't trust the torrent of feelings that came to mind when experiencing another person's memories but he didn't want to turn them off in front of Kohl; even if K'os was in danger of projecting feelings that may not be his own.

The admission that K'os had a memory of kissing Kohl, when they had never kissed, put on a wince on Kohl's lips. He wasn't private about such things; he could be far too transparent about that part of his life, but it was disorienting to think about what that meant. As much as he valued the easy honesty he shared with K'os, Kohl was somewhat relieved to break eye contact. "Well then. Good then," Kohl said. His words came out awkwardly, but he meant them all the same. "Our air is cleared, and under a bridge."

Unable to stand the lack of eye contact any more than that, K'os looked back at the monitor. He had detected a change in Kohl's voice that he couldn't identify. Though he didn't want to, he decided to exert a little mental control until everything stilled in his mind, and he calmed his emotions. He took a moment to sort through the thoughts and reanalyze his feelings before choosing what to feel. Some people had patience for this process, some didn't. Hoping he didn't make the moment awkward with the silence, he isolated the feelings of contentment and peacefulness letting those bloom about his brain. "Were you worried it would upset me, Andreus?"

Now it was Kohl's turn to stare K'os down while he was collecting his thoughts. He made a concerted effort to maintain eye contact. He craved the sense of connection, which was problematic at a distance, and he didn't want to appear evasive. "I think.." Kohl said, and his brows creased as he needed to think about it some more. "I think I'm jealous that you've effectively kissed me, but I've never kissed you."

He nodded slowly. He'd lost himself a little in the image of Kohl's face again when they were staring each other down and was a bit slower at picking up his words. "Jealous..." He shook his head once as if to shake clear an intrusive thought. "I think I'm...frustrated that I'm not there to let you effectively kiss me back."

Kohl sighed, a little dramatically. "And to think, all those evenings you spent laying on the floor in my quarters. We studied so diligently, when we could have been making out," Kohl said. He used easy humour to deflate the tension. For his own part, Kohl's posture had relaxed, and there weren't any catches in his voice. But there was a conviction in his eyes to tell K'os he meant every word of his apparent joke. Kohl sighed again, but masked it with a deep breath. "K'os, we shouldn't be having this conversation by subspace," Kohl said. He touched the screen, somewhere around K'os' forehead. "It's too surreal."

His smile was warm, and wide enough to make the lines around his eyes crinkle. "Surreal. That's how I feel all the time." He chuckled softly, then in a lower voice but with a fairly decent impression of Kohl's Argelian accent he said seriously, "Andreus, there's also the other thing," But unlike Kohl, K'os couldn't keep a grin from forming. "I don't really need to study. I just memorize the chapters in the textbook as we go. I...just really liked watching you study. You tap things when you think. Like your foot or your teeth." K'os mimicked the dramatic sigh Kohl did, "And the shorts you wear..." He threw his head back in a groan that quickly turned to a laugh.

Kohl winced back at K'os in something like embarrassment, but he was laughing uncontrollably too. He smacked his hand against the LCARS interface again, and the device slid back from Kohl's lap and came to rest on his knees. A multifaceted smile came to life on Kohl's face, and it was characterized by the duality between sheepish and self-satisfied. "You said it yourself. I'm a kinetic learner. I can't memorize by sight" --and as if it were a logical progression, he said-- "and I think better with bare legs."

Narrowing his eyes on the image of K'os' face, Kohl rubbed his lower lip with the pads of a couple of fingers while he considered the full weight of what K'os had said. "Did you--" Kohl asked, "When we used to study together, would you go back to your quarters and masturbate immediately?"

K'os knocked the display over when he reached for it quickly. Normally, K'os was never clumsy. But when he straightened the display again, his cheeks were bright red against his pale skin, giving him a bit of a cherub look. "I--", his voice came out as a squeaky croak. He cleared his throat, and in a decidedly lower, and -- in his opinion -- more manly sounding tone continued, "Not immediately, no." His cheeks still burned red; more out of arousal than embarrassment, and he found himself suddenly too flustered to bother controlling the response. "Maybe, sometimes." He admitted with a shy grin.

Kohl appeared to be far too pleased with that answer. For fear of knocking the LCARS interface on the floor, he lifted it from his knees and perched it on the edge of the desk again. It put the communication camera closer than where it had started, but still offered a better view of Kohl's short shorts. "This, K'os, this," Kohl said in some kind of relief, "is exactly what I have been talking about with my counselor..."

In an attempt to appear as casual and laid back as Kohl, K'os slid his monitor to the edge of the coffee table and scooted his bum back along the floor so more of his torso was showing. He straightened out his legs and put his hands behind him on the floor, leaning back on them. His attention were solely on those thighs that were now in full view on his monitor. His mind was slow to catch up again, and he realized that Kohl was talking. Distractedly, K'os replied. "You, uh--" K'os licked his lips. His mind was focused on imagining what it would be like to feel the muscles in Kohl's legs flex under his hands. He didn't want to leer, but he couldn't take his eyes off his athletic calves, and strong thighs. Reluctantly, K'os' grey-blue eyes flicked back to Kohl's. "I'm not sure what you discuss with your counselor, but I think I'm starting to hate trousers now too." His smile brought dimples to his red cheeks again.

Kohl smiled slyly back at that, but he didn't follow that line of discussion. What Kohl said was, "What I mean is, I've only just started to recognize how disconnected I've felt from my own senses and from the people around me since..." --He tilted his head, as if trying to shake the words out-- "Since I was injured. When you were on the ship before, I had no real awareness of you. I was oblivious to what you were experiencing then, and yet I'm more aware of you today, despite our only connection being a subspace one. It's... it's... it's a kind of progress."

K'os had sat up while Kohl spoke, hugging his knees to his chest. Like a light switch had gone off, he went from being distracted to listening intently. He only wished he knew what was different about this conversation that prompted the realization, so he could do it again. "I had no idea you felt disconnected like that, Andreus. I feel a little guilty that I didn't recognize that sooner and offered to help. But I'm also really happy that you feel like you're progressing -- like, really happy for you. Feeling connected to people is important to me too and..I want to help more. What can I do? How do we keep you progressing?"

Although Kohl shook his head in the negative, Kohl was smiling at K'os all the while. "There's no mathematical formula to my mental health," Kohl said, a little bit sadly, and a little bit awed; "Nor to yours. We can only reflect on what we've done before and make decisions, make the best decisions we can."

K'os made a look like he was actually trying to calculate a formula in his head, but it dissolved into a subtle grin. "Yes, I suppose you're right." K'os bit his lower lip, considering his words. It was as if he was uncharacteristically having trouble sorting out his thoughts. "For what it might be worth, Andreus, all that time feeling disconnected from people still didn't stop some of us from connecting with you."

Staring back at K'os, Kohl's sapphire eyes turned misty. Although the longer he stared, the less he appeared to be looking at K'os in the here and now. Kohl cupped the side of his face with a palm, and he continued to stare. "That, uh," Kohl said in a daze, "That never occurred to me."

The look in Kohl's eyes was new, and K'os instinctively reached forward and plucked the LCARS interface off the coffee table and brought it in closer. His initial thought was that he'd upset him somehow, but as Kohl's look slowly changed, the younger man relaxed a little. "I thought I'd said something wrong." The relief in his tone was clear.

Kohl swatted a hand through the air, as if he could dismiss the notion with physical action. "You're too thoughtful to say anything truly wrong," Kohl said fondly. He breathed in deeply, and he breathed out deeply. "I think I've hit my limit with studying tonight. I'm all full up," Kohl said. He smiled tightly at the LCARS interface and then his expression opened, became plaintive. "I'm going to need to lean on you for a few days on this lab. At least while I'm on Nautilus, I don't think I can concentrate on this..."

"You don't have to say why." K'os interjected, placing the interface back on the coffee table and resuming his knee-hug position. "I completely understand and it's no problem." K'os had no trouble with concentration, but he was also no stranger to feeling full. He could sympathize with him. K'os hugged his knees tighter, still pretending silently in that boyish way that he was hugging the other man. "Do you think I'll see you before the wargames begin? Like in person? Or are you stuck on the Nautilus the whole time?"

Kohl nodded at the latter question, disappointment in his eyes. "I'm anxious to leave the ship while I'm..." said Kohl, but the rest of the sentence wouldn't come. It sounded so foreign, so almost ridiculous to Kohl's mind's ear. "...Second in command. But I hear there's a diplomatic gala aboard the Klingon flagship in a couple of days. You should see if you can wrangle an invitation."

You couldn't stare into someone's eyes for as long as these two men had done and not catch all the subtle movements and sounds that came about when communicating through body language. If only Kohl could see himself the way others did; the way K'os did -- the Argelian would be one of the most confident officers on the ship. "Inertia. Gotta keep moving." K'os said reassuringly. He pushed a smile onto his face after realizing he'd been staring at him again with a dopey yet awed expression. "A Klingon gala sounds 'Officer fancy'. Maybe I'll see if any of them in Engineering need a date."

"Don't limit yourself to Engineering," Kohl said as enthusiastically, as he said it tauntingly. The sparkle had returned to his eyes. "I'm sure there are some mid-level Command officers or senior medics who would be thrilled to link arms with you, and then eat serpent worms."

The young man's face lit up, "Serpent worms, yes! I want to try all of it. Especially Bregit lung and Krada legs." K'os was certainly thrilled about eating all the different Klingon cuisine, finding someone else as excited might prove more difficult, he figured. "I'm sure I'll find someone. Then maybe you and I can spare a few minutes to talk while sipping bloodwine." He beamed a grin.

Kohl gaped at K'os in feigned offense, as his brows knit together. "Uhh, duh," Kohl retorted, "You're going to ditch your date as soon as you beam aboard, and then you're going to share your Krada legs, and your delightful company, with me."

K'os, still hugging his knees, threw his head back in a hearty laugh that threatened to knock himself backwards, only catching himself at the last minute. "I blend in well, I'm sure it'll be easy to ditch them." Truth was, K'os would probably have ditched just about anyone to share Krada legs with Kohl. "So good, that's settled then."

After sharing a smile, Kohl cradled the side of his head in one hand. "I'm going to try to stop thinking about what's happening on the Bridge right now, and get some sleep," Kohl said, and he smiled a bit more at that fancy. "In just a few days, I'll be seeing you."

"In a few days, then." K'os said, grinning. "Get some sleep." K'os tilted his head, "And Andreus?" K'os beamed a dimpled smile at him. "Thanks for the talk."

"And thank you for the talk, K'os," Kohl said in return, and then he reached over to tap his LCARS interface, turning the screen dark for the night. All Kohl needed now were the floor-to-ceiling viewports, and the glorious sea of stars.



[OFF]

Lieutenant Commander Andreus Kohl
Executive Officer
USS Nautilus

&

PO3 K'os Beaumont
Engineer's Mate
USS Galileo

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