Impulses

Posted on 20 Sep 2015 @ 3:23am by Commander Andreus Kohl & Ensign K'os Beaumont

2,810 words; about a 14 minute read

Mission: Episode 09 - Empires
Location: USS Galileo - Deck 2, Compartment 2814 SO
Timeline: MD 02 - 0715 hours

[ON]

"I'm so pleased you're able to join me for breakfast," Kohl said, as he continued to circle the dining table in his quarters. He was laying out platters, and utensils, and tea, as he spoke. Andreus Kohl's quarters had been relatively unharmed, despite the damage to Galileo; although, it certainly helped that all his belongings were still packed into storage crates. Kohl himself didn't appear quite so unblemished. His skin was looking pale and waxy, and his eyes showed all the telltales of too little sleep. "I think maybe it takes being moved to solo quarters to realize I liked having a roommate."

"I had forgotten breakfast even existed." K'os said slowly through a wide dimpled smile. His cheeks were flushed, but the dark circles around his slightly reddened eyes mirrored Kohl's weariness. Things were a bit too bright for the overly sensitive hybrid and he squinted slightly as he looked around the quarters. "Looks good in here compared to mine. All my things were sucked out into space unfortunately." K'os' voice was a bit quiet and he hesitated to come a bit closer. Their last interaction had ended...awkward and K'os found himself speaking with a slightly guarded and careful tone for fear of eventually saying the wrong thing to Kohl again. Without meaning to he blurted out, "I like it here. It sounds like blues and greens all the time."

Kohl continued his fussing with the platters set out on the table. There was a variety of dishes --most of them from Argelius II, many of them retrieved from storage rather than the replicator-- competing for space, but most of the portions were small. There was an orb of something like yogurt or flaan, a bowl with shredded cured meat, a tin of baked sugar cookies procured from the last starbase stop-over, and a platter of edible flowers. Although Kohl was clearly distracted by his host-duties, he spoke with genuine interest, when he asked, "What do blues and greens sound like?"

"Well..." K'os started saying, though he was eyeing the edible flowers. Such colours! "Green is a tinkling F sharp. Seven hundred and seventy-nine point nine nine hertz. The blues are like dry leaves cracking under my foot." K'os couldn't stop smiling at the effort that Kohl put into the breakfast. Probably reading more into it than was true. A boy could hope, after all. He didn't tell Kohl about the associated memories as they had no apparent connection to the man, and he didn't want to come across weirder than he was. K'os always tried to impress when he was around Kohl. There was something about the man that brought that out in him.

The only thing that could knock Kohl out of his hosting frenzy was catching sight of that eager look in K'os' eyes, as his head pivoted to follow Kohl's movement. There was the look in his eyes and there was the shape of his K'os' firm shoulders. When Kohl was passing behind K'os' form, he stopped long enough to take hold of those shoulders. "I missed that sort of thing the other morning," Kohl said, his inflection a little dreamy. "That last morning I woke up on Nautilus, I was disappointed to find you'd gone..."

"You were?" K'os said quickly. "Disappointed?" He had half frozen in mid sit down when Kohl touched his sore and tense shoulders. With a heavy sigh he slid the rest of the way, tucking his right foot under himself. K'os had thought for sure he had made a mess of their evening before the wargames but if Kohl was disappointed he'd left, maybe it wasn't so bad after all. "I'd have stayed all night, but you're a loud sleeper." K'os teased, "Don't get me wrong, I was struck by how serene, peaceful, and handsome you are when you sleep." He couldn't help the huge grin on his face. He tried exaggerating an imitation of Kohl (slack-jawed, mouth open, head back, and a halting snore) but started chuckling at his own joke too much to hold the expression.

Kohl ran his hands down the sides of K'os' arms, and leaned over his shoulder, to get a good look at the imitation of Kohl-in-repose. By the time K'os began to laugh, Kohl snorted a derisive response, and clapped his palms on K'os' shoulders. Kohl began to laugh, as he flung himself into the nearest chair and nudged over right beside where K'os was sitting. "I suppose I didn't miss that," Kohl remarked, and he laughed once again. "But our evening together wasn't what I intended when I invited you to see the view from my quarters."

K'os mumbled something unintelligible as he chewed a slice of meat. He made a slight grimace as if he regretted what he'd said and instead waited till he swallowed to reconsider his words. "A lot of my interactions with people are like that. They don't always...turn out how I intend either."

"Really?" Kohl asked in some surprise, but not terribly much concern. K'os was still relatively young, after all, and any sort of interpersonal interaction came with complications. With a spoon, Kohl started scooping up various delicacies from the platters and pilling them on his plate. He looked up from his food long enough to share an easy smile with K'os. "I've always found our interactions quite satisfying," Kohl said.

K'os mimicked the smile. It was hard to do, as K'os never could quite figure out how Kohl seemed to smile with his eyes more than his lips. "Good to know..." K'os said with an uncharacteristic ambiguous brevity. While Kohl's sentiment was most likely said to make him feel good, it only made him feel guilty for what he did at the end of their night.

While it may have appeared that Kohl was telepathic --because he was apparently thinking about the same thing K'os was thinking about-- in truth, Kohl had been thinking about that thing, and only that thing, all morning. Far, far too casually, Kohl asked, "K'os, when you left my quarters on Nautilus the other day, did you move anything? Knock anything over?"

K'os plucked an edible flower off one of the platters but instead of eating it, he fidgeted with the petals as he vacillated between telling the truth or lying. Not being able to look Kohl in the eye he focused his attention on the abuse of the flower in his hands. Though the thought of lying was initially comforting there was no way K'os could lie to Kohl. "Um..." K'os started tearing petals, "...the funny thing is--" K'os chuckled, but it came out more as huff of air as he stalled. "I mean--" There was a moment that hung in the air before he found his confidence. K'os believed he'd done the right thing, and there was no sense backing down now. With a furrowed brow and a deep breath he forced his grey-blue eyes to focus on Kohl's face. "Yes, I did." He said finally. "Actually, I took something from your quarters, yes."

"That's all right, K'os," Kohl said slowly, what was probably tortuously slowly for K'os. "It really is okay." Kohl reached out to stroke the back of K'os' hand, trying to brush the petals away, and trying to press every nerve-ending in his palm against K'os' skin. "Can you tell me..." Kohl started to say, and then course-corrected with, "Can I ask... Where is the hypospray now?"

K'os gave a little shrug. He focused on the slight tingling in his hand from Kohl's touch. He had frozen in place, when he really wanted to reach out to him or hug the man. "Gone," He said quietly. K'os let out a big sigh as if he'd been holding his breath. Then all at once the words spilled out rapidly. "It was just sitting there. I didn't want you to feel tempted. I know that feeling and I didn't want you to feel that. I hid it. In my quarters." K'os broke eye contact and his eyes darted around the table looking for something to focus on. "But then the...anomaly...all my things were sucked ou-- it's gone, Andreus." K'os gave the man a side eyed glance, "But--but that's good, right? Now you won't be tempted?"

Halfway through K'os' confession, Kohl started to pull his hand away. He didn't make any sudden movements. He limited the physical contact to just the pads of his fingertips, and then the pads of two fingertips, and then he recoiled his hands entirely. Kohl wrapped his arms around his own abdomen and he looked down at his plate on the table. None of the delicacies on it looked terribly appetizing; there wasn't much of anything he wanted just then, except for the thudding in his head to stop.

"Do you think," Kohl asked softly, "me incapable of making my own choices?"

"No, not incapable," K'os said matching the softness of Kohl's voice. His eyes flicked briefly to the man's arms wrapped around his abdomen before settling on Kohl's face again. "But temptation can make you rationalize the poor choices."

"I'm still not following..." Kohl said impassively, far too flatly. He spoke slowly to make himself absolutely clear. "In your personal value system, you decided some of my potential choices were to be poor. How does that entitle you to take my choice away from me?"

K'os didn't answer right away. His expressive eyebrows rose up his forehead giving him a surprised look. As he continued to stare at the man, his eyebrows slowly lowered till it made his eyes narrow in confusion. "My...personal value system," he began to say carefully as if he were navigating dangerous territory, "says I should help a friend when I should. I don't understand why you're so upset about this? I'm sorry I lost your stim. I only intended to keep it from you to prevent you from using it. If I had told you I started melding with Betazoids again, wouldn't you try and stop me? I'm not as naive as you think I am, and I don't need a lecture on personal values. I did what I did to help you. I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I didn't try."

Though the hybrid's words may have sounded a bit defensive and confrontational, the quality of K'os' voice reflected the confusion and concern he felt at having yet again disappointed or upset Kohl. Things he was already beating himself up over from their last interaction.

"I suppose the difference is," Kohl explained, "I would never restrain you." That little-boy-lost timbre in K'os' voice evoked something protective in Kohl. It began a change in Kohl's manner; some of the posturing deflated. As outraged as Kohl had felt only moments earlier, he couldn't manage to stay angry with K'os when K'os' intentions were selflessly gallant. Still, Kohl spoke to K'os in a manner he saved for imparting wisdom on a junior officer. Kohl leaned towards K'os, and he said, "I would say nearly anything, and do nearly anything, to persuade you away from self-destructive behaviour. But only nearly anything. I would never restrain you from making your own choice.

"I don't care that the hypospray is gone, K'os," Kohl said. "It hurts that you didn't let me choose."

"I should have asked you first." K'os agreed. He reached up and ran his hands through his short hair, making it stand up in places. He absently scratched at the back of his neck before lowering his hands into his lap. He was stalling for words. "I'm sorry I hurt your feelings. I would never--" He clicked his tongue as if reprimanding himself for the words he chose. A part of him couldn't apologize for taking the stims, but the reflex to apologize for hurting his feelings was strong. "I'm so impulsive sometimes." An edge of frustration crept into his voice.

Kohl braced his hands on the edge of the table and pushed his chair back, but the chair became stuck on the carpeting, and Kohl had to push himself back harder. For all of K'os' protestations of apology, Kohl remained of the opinion that K'os still couldn't understand what he had done to hurt Kohl. As Kohl struggled to push his chair back, struggled to move to his feet, his face reddened. He felt like there wasn't enough oxygen in the air, like he had to breath deeper. Unable to get his point across, Kohl felt as if he were inarticulate, he felt like K'os was a selfish idiot, but he felt like his hands were terribly cold when they weren't pressed to K'os' skin. He remembered how he'd felt when he'd watched K'os walking into his quarters on Nautilus, shedding the officer's dress uniform he'd worked so hard for.

"You need to--" Kohl started to say, and then he stopped himself, because he thought he sounded too aggressive. On his feet, Kohl took hold of the back of K'os' chair and he dragged the chair back from the table. "I can't listen to you anymore," Kohl said, but the end of the sentence was lost in a strangled whisper. The way K'os was looking up at Kohl --looking at him with those big blue eyes that looked all the more brilliant when his quarters were lit by starlight-- nothing mattered anymore but truth. "You need to stop talking," Kohl said. He took hold of K'os by the side of the face, his palm griping K'os by the cheek, and Kohl kissed him.

When Kohl had pulled at K’os’ chair his heart slammed in his chest and his eyes grew wide with surprise. It wasn't that he was scared of what Kohl would do physically, it was the forcefulness behind the words ‘I can’t listen to you anymore’ that had him stammering out words that never formed past his lips. He flinched a little when Kohl took hold of his face and his lips parted to say something, anything, that would make Kohl not feel the frustration K’os had made him feel. Then it happened. The thing he had daydreams about. The thing he was too scared to do himself. Surprisingly, thoughts of Ellsworth never entered his mind; something he had feared would if the time ever came. Only the electric sensation of Kohl’s beard against his upper lip occupied most of his thoughts in that moment.

He placed his hands on Kohl’s chest and briefly considered forcing the two of them apart. Not because he wanted Kohl to stop, but because a tiny part of him didn’t know if he should continue. He gave in to the moment, however, and his surprise faded away. With it, his body visibly sagged back into the chair like he was going limp. When their lips finally parted, and the soft sensation of Kohl’s lips ceased, K’os sat there with his eyes closed and his lips still slightly puckered while he committed every sensation to memory. To his credit, he said nothing and did nothing but keep his eyes closed. Kohl had taken his ability to speak away and had left him breathless. His chest rose and fell with the thumping of his heart.

Kohl had started to draw back, but he hesitated long enough to plant a kiss on the tip of K'os' nose. He watched the way K'os sat there, with his eyes closed, and Kohl dragged his thumb across K'os' protruding lower lip. As he breathed in the scent of K'os, Kohl took one step back and then another. He perched himself on his chair with a straight back and tucked his chair in closer to the table. Kohl leveled K'os with a stern expression that scrunched up his face in a largely-comical way. "Eat your breakfast," Kohl intoned. As if to demonstrate, Kohl plucked a rasher of cured meat from the platter and chewed on it meaningfully. He only made it through approximately four chews before his expression re-set into something far more resembling a goofy grin.

K'os had opened his eyes when his nose was kissed. And he followed Kohl's movements with a somewhat dazed look. More importantly, and more surprisingly to K'os was that he didn't lose control over his emotions. Sure the colours and sounds in his mind were jangling, but not out of control. He stood and stooped long enough to scootch his chair closer to the table when Kohl told him to eat. He didn't say a word, too caught up in his sensations. He caught the grin, and in true K'os habit, mimicked it naturally. Beaming dimples on blushing cheeks.


[OFF]

Ensign K'os Beaumont
Acting Chief of Engineering
USS Galileo

Lieutenant Commander Andreus Kohl
Chief Science Officer
USS Galileo

RSS Feed

Comments (1)