You Pick, Pleasure or Pain?

Posted on 25 Aug 2012 @ 11:25am by Commander Andreus Kohl & Crewman Aurangzeb Ameen

3,160 words; about a 16 minute read

Mission: Episode 01 - Project Sienna
Location: USS Galileo - Deck 2, Mess Hall
Timeline: MD 08 - 1159 hours

[ON]

The mess hall had remained steadily active since earlier in the hour as crewmen filtered in and out to grab a bite to eat, nurse a drink or escape the rigors of duty, if only for the briefest of moments. Although swarming with activity, there were still several tables and chairs available, dispersed throughout the recreational facility as many came and went with the passing of each minute.

Aurangzeb entered the mess hall tentatively. He generally took meals in the enlisted crewmen's lounge, which offered a more intimate dining atmosphere than this general common area, where personnel from each department, regardless of rank, chose to congregate. Yet, with power to the lounge offline, he'd been reluctantly compelled to explore the offerings of the mess hall.

Coming immediately from his quarters, he'd taken momentary enjoyment in a shower and fresh change of clothes. Adorning a gold technician's jumpsuit paired with a black crew-neck undershirt, he laced fingers through the still wet locks of his black hair as hazel-colored eyes surveyed the activity level of the cabin, hoping for a quiet little corner where he could be left alone to his own thoughts.

His morning had been wrought with emotional ups and downs, and the afternoon would see a repair to-do list that would keep him busy for another entire shift. This might be his only opportunity to grab a bite to eat, so without hesitating another moment, Aurangzeb approached one of the three operational replicators and ordered his meal.

"Lamb tika masala, spicy with a side of pickled cucumber, pearl onions and tomatoes. Rosemary butter naan. Water and a strawberry lassi. Serving size for one, small portions." The replicator took only a moment to acknowledge the order and materialize the offerings.

Removing the tray from within the compartment, he turned to find an empty table. Sighting the last one nearest the back corner of the room, he effortlessly navigated the short distance, weaving in and out of a throng of people nearest his path. Placing the tray on the tables surface, he took one of the two seats and positioned himself in such a way so as to face the room now becoming slightly more than overcrowded as more crewmen entered than actually left.

Meal tray in hand, Andreus Kohl wandered from the serving counter to the spaces in between the crowded tables. With few choices available to him, the honey-brown haired Argelian came across that table with its solitary empty chair in the back corner of the mess hall. Kohl draped himself onto the chair, slid his tray onto the table, and took a hefty gulp of his vegetable juice. He wiped the back of his hand across the lips of his unshaven face. Looking to the young man sitting across from him then, Kohl asked, "This seat was vacant, yeah?"

Aurangzeb had been midway through chewing a cube of lamb when the gentleman gracefully dropped into the seat opposite. A corner of his mouth slowly drew up in a bemused sort of smile as enigmatic eyes filled with intrigue remained intent on the new arrival. He nodded, swallowing the piece of meat before licking his lips of any remaining sauce residue, its spice considerable but much to Aruangzeb's liking. "It is... I think it might be the only one... or was the only one left." He spoke softly, glancing around the mess hall to confirm it was at occupancy.

While Aurangzeb looked away, Kohl considered his tray. A mound of pierogi and bacon were piled on his plate. Kohl wasn't familiar with the dish. It certainly wasn't native to Argelius II, but it smelled enticing. Kohl lifted his fork in his left hand and the sleeve of his ill-fitting uniform practically came half-way up his arm from the movement. Bringing the utensil down, Kohl cut a pierogi in half with the edge of his fork. "I'm called Andreus," Kohl said to Aurangzeb, trying to draw his attentions back. "I've just come aboard Galileo."

His attention flickered back to the man, "Andreus." He repeated it just once, to ensure that he'd heard the pronunciation correctly. "I'm Aurangzeb." He extended a timid hand, but offered a friendly smile that framed perfectly straight and white teeth. "I'm new, too." He offered, thinking that the name 'Andreus' was a handsomely strong title. "Are you with medical or the sciences?" He wondered, hand lingering in the handshake for a bit longer than what might have been customary.

Kohl squeezed Aurangzeb's hand between both of his own in his customary approximation of a handshake. As he considered the question, Kohl's mind went to dark places. He thought of the losses among the medical staff; Nurse Lin and her passing. Kohl answered the question slowly, struggling to decide on each word individually, as he said, "I am the ship's nurse..." That said, Kohl took up his fork with half a pierogi on the tongs and set into eating it. Once it was mostly chewed, he pointed the empty fork at Aurangzeb, and asked, "Engineer, yeah?"

"Did the coveralls give it away?" Aurangzeb asked with a quirky grin. He tore a piece of naan and dipped it into the lamb sauce before consuming the small bite. "I met Doctor Pola earlier this morning, actually; she was very nice and exceptionally accommodating considering the circumstances." He noted before sipping from his drink. "You must be..." he trailed off for a moment, trying to select the correct word, "... exhausted." Andreus must have been one of the many working tirelessly to devote themselves to the care of those crewmen harmed, both mentally and physically, after yesterday's ordeal. Aurangzeb thought that Andreus had a nice face, soft and endearing, making him probably one of the more approachable characters in the sickbay; he wondered for a moment how many times people awoke to seeing him and how they might have felt in him being the first thing they saw after opening both eyes. He wasn't ashamed in the slightest to admit that he'd be more than okay in waking up only for Andreus to be the first person he saw. He could say the same of Pola, though too. They each had a unique way of putting him at ease, which made him wonder if that was a natural characteristic in each of them, or if it was taught during their medical schooling and training.

"I managed to steal a couple of naps," Kohl said, "but I've been haunted by aching tendons." Without intended to do so, Kohl dialed down his timbre. He expressed himself in a soft-spoken manner because that was the tone Aurangzeb was setting. Kohl dug into his meal. Having forgot a knife, he took a series of graceless bites into his strips of bacon and heaving pierogi. "I don't imagine you were laying out picnic blankets on the decks in Engineering," Kohl remarked. "You must be exhausted too."

Aurangzeb nodded, "pretty exhausted... yes." He admitted, after swallowing a piece of cucumber. He saw Andreus's sloppy struggle without a knife and handed him the clean one that was sitting on his own tray. "Here." He offered with a kind smile. "I'd do anything for just an hour or two of shut eye, but that's not going to happen for a while." He stated matter-of-factly before adding, "Besides, I don't feel much like going back to those quarters after..." His voice trailed off as he caught himself, remembering the current environment. "So, um... if you don't mind me saying... you're not quite human are you?" He recovered, changing the topic of conversation.

Offering a subtle nod of thanks, Kohl accepted the knife and immediately used it to make all his food bite-sized. At Aurangzeb's question, Kohl smiled wryly and he studied the other man. "And what makes you say that?" Kohl asked.

He considered Andreus for a very long moment, hazel-colored eyes extremely intent as they surveyed the man sitting opposite. "It's your eyes... they're different somehow, I've never seen any with such an intense color of blue... they're quite radiant if you don't mind me saying." Nose scrunched in a thoughtful assessment, he then added, "And the way you speak." It wasn't that Andreus spoke with a certain kind of dialect or even accent; however, there was a subtle inconsistency in the manner in which Andreus spoke that betrayed a non-human characteristic. This, combined with the man's eyes, deeply intrigued Aurangzeb.

"I'm Argelian by birth," Kohl said by way of explanation. He stopped between each sentence to chew on a strip of bacon. "Raised by a Gallamite and a Tiburonian. I spent my childhood within the Federation education system on Argelius II, but I mostly socialized with Areglians outside of school." --Kohl shook his head slightly, with a sheepish half-smile-- "Resultingly, most people can't place my heritage. It's not just you."

Aurangzeb returned the smile, nodding his head slowly. "To be quite honest, I'm forced to plead a bit of ignorance... I've not heard of Areglians before." Had he not so carefully scrutinized Andreus through visual and verbal exchanges, Aurangzeb would never have known that the man wasn't human. Taking into consideration Andreus's eyes alone, he wondered what else might have been different, internally and externally about the man.

"My people don't participate very much in Starfleet or Federation affairs," Kohl said, acknowledging Aurangzeb's unfamiliarity. Kohl continued to cut up his lunch and rearrange piles of bacon slices onto chunks of pierogi. "Argelius II," Kohl pontificated, "is considered to be a pleasure planet by Federation standards. Tourism is the primary industry of my people's world."

"Pleasure planet?" Aurangzeb mused over this as thoughtfully distant eyes contemplated the very possibilities of the amenities such a 'pleasure planet' could provide. He slowly twirled the fork between fingers, skewered with a cucumber and tomato. "I've never been to one of those before... what is it that you do on a pleasure planet?" He wondered curiously before adding, "And what drew you to Starfleet? Did you have no aspirations of carrying on in the gifting of pleasure?" His questions were most serious, albeit naive; although Aurangzeb was raised in a relatively liberal family, there were still many aspects of his childhood shrouded in the delicate conservatism his parents thought best to administer.

Kohl smiled gently --perhaps even slightly patronizingly-- at Aurangzeb's expectant questions. The question of his career choice was a familiar one, and the answer came easily now. "My parents are civil servants," Kohl said, "They work for the Federation. My application to Starfleet was like my way to rebel, while still growing up to be exactly like my father. Choosing Starfleet was risqu. With the conflicts of the past decade, Starfleet's exploratory reputation has been somewhat tarnished by militarization. Some might call me a soldier, but I'm still a civil servant at heart." Kohl shrugged at that, suddenly not sure if what he was saying made any sense. He did notice, suddenly, that it was remarkably easier to talk about his parents. It was practically normal, even. In warmer tones, he said, "As for what to do on a pleasure planet... that question is entirely up to you. That's the whole point of it, really. You decide what makes you happy, and you make it happen. Undoubtedly, there will be other people on the planet who want to facilitate your desires."

Aurangzeb grinned at Andreus's seemingly scripted answers; he contemplated confronting him on the sincerity of his words but elected not to for sake of argument. He decided to believe that the man had merely been asked the same such questions on numerous enough occasions that such answers were now a very normal routine to answer. There was one thing he didn't understand though, "Soldier? It's nigh impossible to view you in such a light... you're a healer. Or are you also a fighter?" He asked this with a quirked, mischievous eyebrow. "I've never been to the Risa system, but they say that there's a planet there known for its, um, diverse pleasures. I'd like to visit a pleasure planet sometime, I think." He managed a shrug, wrapping a small piece of lamb in naan and then popping it in his mouth.

In answer to Aurangzeb's question, the lighting in Andreus' eyes turned hard and a little bit sad. "A soldier," Kohl said again and he shrugged. He ate another pierogi, staring down at his plate, before he said, "I was taught how to be an officer at the Academy long before I became a healer. I'm not a new-recruit so much as I'm turning out to be a career-ensign. It is my duty to bear arms when ordered."

The change in the tone of Andreus's eyes was subtle, yet didn't escape Aurangzeb's ever observant eye; his tone of voice carried with it a sharpness whose steely edge somehow matched the unique radiance of the man's eyes. His posture become a bit more rigid, Aurangzeb shrank back. So there was a much different life Andreus had led in Starfleet prior to becoming a nurse. At first, he questioned the appropriateness of his next question but elected that his curiosity far outweighed any caution reserved for such interactions; "What was it that you did prior to healing people? Did you do quite the opposite?" He wondered, delicacy placed in how the words were said. Andreus was quickly becoming an intriguing individual who was, aside from very easy on the eyes, a titillating person to converse with.

Andreus let out the briefest of laughs, but his whole body shook with it. "I wasn't a marine, if that's what you're asking. That would be Ensign Blake," Kohl said. Kohl's mirth came in response to the notion of doing 'quite the opposite' of nursing, but also, he recognized how grim he must have sounded if he prompted such a question out of Aurangzeb. Grim was not how he wanted to present himself. He said, "I was a diplomatic officer. My duties were even less visceral, more cerebral. Such a hands-off profession wasn't for me, I suppose."

Diplomacy seemed like a more likely alternative to nursing and a far cry from that of some kind of, for lack of a better word, combatant, type role; which was not to say that, dependent upon the circumstances, a combatant couldn't as easily become a healer or vis--vis. When placed in precarious situations, one hardly ever knows how they might react, especially when unknown variables overwhelm and force one to take an action they'd never, under normal circumstances, have dreamed possible prior that point in time, perhaps an action that was viscerally contrary to their subjective moral and ethical code of conduct and honor. Untested, it was difficult to fully appreciate what path one might take.

"A diplomat you say?" Aurangzeb could see those qualities in Andreus, with his inherently approachable and likeable personality, friendly disposition and killer smile. "How long did you dabble in the affairs of diplomacy?" He asked curiously. He'd long since ignored the tray of food, slightly pushing it away as full attention was directed towards Andreus. "Even if you rebelled against your parents a little bit, they must be proud of your accomplishments, right? Of what you've achieved in your Starfleet career?" He added, the thoughts spilling into words.

"Oh, I didn't accomplish much of anything in my diplomatic career," Kohl replied. There was no self-pity in his tone. He spoke in a matter-of-fact timbre, with some colour flowing from his memories of that time. In contrast to Aurangzeb, Kohl was digging into his pierogi until there were almost none left, while he pointedly avoided the question about his parents. After he swallowed again, Kohl said, "I was assigned to a couple of postings, but I was still learning the role when I applied to Starfleet Medical's Academy."

Aurangzeb nodded. Andreus avoidance to the latter portion of his question didn't go unnoticed, yet he didn't press the topic either; he could understand and appreciate wanting to avoid a particular topic of discussion, especially if it was... painful to discuss.

This line of thought led him to momentarily drift off, a wave of memories pouring into the forefront of his mind, memories he'd have preferred never to have existed. Yet they did and through his own doing, no less. They were filled with regret and embarrassment, self-indignation and a lack of personal respect. He wished he could have taken those experiences back and traded them in for situations such as these, friendly exchanges between himself and Andreus. But he couldn't and what was more, these experiences dictated his behavior at present... it made him wonder what type of person he'd have become otherwise. Would he have been like Andreus? Seeking out a different path in life?

"And what made you decide to change?" He wondered, coming back to the present, yet his eyes remained somewhat distant.

As thoughts of his own great failure bubbled up through his memory, Kohl smiled wanly at Aurangzeb. "That's a dinner and dessert length of conversation," Kohl said, all apologies. He shrugged as if he had no choice in the matter, and he bit into another strip of bacon. "And I'm nearly done my lunch."

Aurangzeb smiled, an eyebrow quirked. "So... there's dinner in the future?" He asked, somewhat coyly.

Kohl blinked. "There-- what?" he asked, his manner suddenly flustered. A moment earlier he was holding his breath through his conversational evasive maneuvers, but now there was no mistaking the implication Aurangzeb had made. Rolling his shoulders back in his chair, Kohl narrowed his sapphire eyes as he studied the younger man anew. "I suppose there will be," Kohl said evenly, "with not even a hundred crew members on board."

He chuckled, a smile helping to brighten the rich hazel-color of his eyes. "You're the one that suggested it." He offered playfully, yet not overdramatized as he followed the words with a simple shrug of the shoulders. Aurangzeb stood from behind the table, lifting the tray from the surface and bowing his head slightly, "It was... pleasurable to speak with you. I look forward to that dinner." He was due in engineering at about this time, so he hoped Andreus wouldn't think the departure too sudden or rude. "Until then." He said softly before walking away.

In their exchange, Aurangzeb had revealed nothing about himself, but through this, he had learned that perhaps he was a much better listener than speaker. He enjoyed the timbre of Andreus's voice, the minute... subtle inflections of each word... the almost imperceptible body gestures that either supported or seemed to contradict his statements; it was, enthralling and had him looking forward to the opportunity in spending time with the man in the future. He wasn't sure as to when the opportunity might arise, but enjoyed the prospect of it none-the-less.

[OFF]



Crewman Aurangzeb Ameen
Damage Control Specialist
USS Galileo

Ensign Andreus Kohl
Nurse
USS Galileo

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