Unbearable Vulnerabilities [18+] (Part 5 of 5)

Posted on 30 Apr 2019 @ 10:03pm by Lieutenant Lake ir-Llantrisant & Lieutenant JG Matthew Plumeri

2,338 words; about a 12 minute read

Mission: Episode 17 - Crystal of Life
Location: USS Galileo-A - Deck 7, Gym
Timeline: Various

Previously on “Unbearable Vulnerabilities” [18+] (Part 4 of 5)…

Grimacing as he pushed the weights up he made a face. He pushed and grunted and groaned, "AaaaarrrGGHHH!!!!" but he made it. He finished that set and aimed the weights for the rack above his head. His muscles were sore. He was grateful for the help. He said, between breaths as he sat up. Blood veins in his shoulders and along the pecs and down his arms bulging out at having been pressed and stressed. His breathing was hard, "No...it doesn't....imply a 'form of measurement' at all!" Matt said as he used air quotes to show that he was quoting Lake. "And no, I don't quantify, count or mark off my friends or the number of people I go to bed with!" He got up and reached for the water bottle and cast Lake a stare. He took two gulps of water and took a walk-about in front of the weight bench. "See? This is what I mean about you being a prick about things. And for your your information, not that I count or take note of these things anyway.
On a scale from 1 to 10 with 10 being mind-blowing, orgasmic, call in sick the next day and walk funny to sick bay? Yeah, if I were assigned a number for sex? It'd probably be a 10." He glared at him and then, surprisingly he added, "And you are a good spotter. So thank you!"

"You're welcome," Lake replied. The words came out quickly, as if he were already thinking about something else. His gaze had become lost in the middle-distance between them. "It's interesting," Lake said, finally reaching his conclusion with clear fascination, "As much as you like to talk, you appear to bristle at having to explain yourself.”

Matthew rolled his eyes, "C'mon Lake! Give it a rest. Don't be a counselor OK?" Matt said it in a non-condescending tone of voice and he had little annoyance to it. One might even say this was 'friendly'. "I think we've established that I'm a disaster area. Could this place be the 'neutral zone' yeah?" Matthew indicated the bench as he wiped it off, "You wanna go at it?”

And now the conclusion…

[ON]

As if he were debating warp physics with a petulant five year old, Lake responded in a tone of begrudging acquiescence. He spread his arms wide and he stared up at the overhead, saying, "I can try. I can try to make this a counseling-free zone." Given Matthew's invitation, Lake approached the bench, stepping well into the personal space around Matthew's body. Lake could smell the sweat on Matthew's skin; he could practically taste it. "But I must warn you," Lake said impassively; "I'm not very good at boundaries."

Matthew sensed the closeness but didn't move, or change his stance. He looked back at the counselor and after a moment said, "Well, let's see if you are any good at lifting weight shall we? Even I, as messed up as I am, can do that." He said with a playful smirk and with two fingers pushed on Lake's chest towards the bench. "C'mon...I wonder if the strongest muscle in your whole body is that forked tongue of yours?" he said as he stepped around and to the head of the weight-bench ready to assist.

"You may be disappointed," Lake replied. As Matt stepped away from him, Lake lay himself down on the bench and shuffled slightly, to centre the position of his shoulders. "My tongue probably is the strongest muscle in my body," Lake said. He had decided he needed to bench at least the same weight that Matt had done; his ego couldn't afford anything less. Lake wrapped his hands around the bar. "For my sins," Lake said, "I talk for a living," and he pushed the bar out of the rack.

Matt stood at the head of the bench and assisted in getting the bar up and over the rack. "Pfft! You run your YAP on or off the clock." Matt said with mock indignation. Matthew's 'insults' weren't real. They were playful jabs, friendly barbs. He didn't know it; but they were actually words and gestures of friendship. He helped straighten the bar and watched for any signs that Lake was having trouble. So far; so good. "Yes. You are a rather chatty fellow aren't you?" Matt always let Lake take the full weight of the bar; keeping his hands at the ready to assist. "OK, so ten reps to start with. C'mon Lake...that's TWO! Time to work something other than your mouth for a change. Hell...I wish I thought of this sooner. If I had known that all I had to do was get you into the gym and that you couldn't run your mouth and lift weights at the same time - - I would have done that a long time ago!" He was smiling from ear to ear.

"Are you saying," Lake asked, and he paused to take a breath, "you want to spend more time with me" --he breathed again-- "if we spend it in silence?" By the sixth rep, Lake was still fairly launching the bar into the air above his chest. All of a sudden by the seventh, his arms weren't moving as quickly. It looked like the bar was being pushed through molasses rather than air.

Matt had his hands right under the bar but not touching it, "I wouldn't go that far. That sounds like crazy talk right there. Maybe you should see a shrink Lake? Anyway, There's other things you can put in your pie hole. Pie for example? C'mon, push, yes!"

"I could eat," Lake said, rather emphatically. "I could always eat." Now, when he pushed the bar above his chest, he moved twice as slowly as he had done the time before. It wasn't long before there was a visible tremble in his forearms. "We should have dinner," Lake said, and he took a deep breath, "the next time our team's duty shift cycles to eating dinner after our shift."

Matthew gently, firmly steadied the bar. Encouraging Lake he said, "Focus. The pain isn't real. Your brain is lying. You can do this. C'mon Lake. Push that bar up." At a moment's notice Matt could grab that bar. There was no danger that he would let it slip. His voice was smooth, strong and confident. Matthew could see Lake's arms starting to tremble. He gave him something else to focus on. "Why wait? I could eat. Man, I can always eat. I work out so I can eat. Why wait? Let's do dinner tonight? You got some poor sucker you gotta headshrink this evening?"

Despite --or in spite?-- of Matthew's encouragement, Lake's form was degrading as quickly as a starship's forward shields in a battle. The bar wasn't entirely level and even his posture on the bench was shifting, as if he could use every single muscle in his body to keep pushing that damn bar, even just a couple of inches farther. "What has been your experience of Romulan cuisine?" Lake asked, and he raised the bar to its peak one more time.

Matthew teased back as he leveled out the bar, "You mean...what shade of grey is my favorite? I gotta say man. When god was passing out tastebuds, you all were out taking a piss or something."

"You must be joking," Lake replied with the flattest of deadpan expressions. His arms gave out and he dropped the bar into Matthew's grasp. Lake took a couple of gasping breaths, as he snapped, "You can only be joking, because that is a plainly bigoted take on Romulan cuisine. I'm sure the Federation makes a rather poor attempt at Romulan food, but one can't discount an entire--" Lake had been about to say planet's food, but he didn't want to think about his burned out world, so he said, "culture's food." --Lake dropped his sore, sore arms, letting them flail down either side of the bench. Looking up at Matthew, Lake asked, "Tell me. Have you ever had Mirekkian cuisine from Romulus?"

Hefting the bar back onto the rack an evident and satisfactory grin on his face, Matthew leaned onto the bar from overhead now. Looking down at Lake from this position, the Counselor was upside down. "Hey, I try not to eat anything that I can't identify. And Mirekkian I have never heard of. Is it good? What's it made out of?" He said with a doubtful and wary glance as he teased.

"It's not a dish. It's not one recipe," Lake said. Mostly, he spoke with patience. Still, this was clearly something he had had to explain before. Talk about twentieth-century Human culture to any Starfleeter and they were all experts, but mention the most popular style of cooking on Romulus and... Lake closed his eyes. "Mirekkian is an entire regional cuisine. It's a category. It's... where I'm from."

Matt listened and considered his offer, "Well, OK. Mirekkian it is then. I'll set my tastebuds to 'stunned' and prepare to be dazzled!" he said.

Lake nodded vaguely, but he kept his eyes closed, and he crossed his arms over his chest. He hadn't warmed up enough and that effort had left him achingly sore.

"C'mon, up off your ass!" he came around the weight bench to face him and offered him a hand up. From this overhead position Matt felt a strong attraction to the Counselor that irritated him so much. His smooth skin glistened now as the workout from the weights fired up Lake's metabolism. He looked him over, tried not to hungrily look him over. "Leg press? Do you even know what that is?"

From where he was laying on the bench, Lake kicked his legs in the air smoothly as if he were riding an invisible bicycle. "Do I know what it is?" Lake said in the kind of teasingly adversarial manner that Matthew appeared to enjoy. "Why do you think it hurts so much when I kick your ass?" he asked. Lake braced his palms against the bench briefly and then jumped to his feet in a single movement.

Rolling his eyes, "Yeah...yeah...You got some spring in you huh? I'm impressed. Here I thought you were all talk?" Matt extended his hand to allow Lake to pass and lead the way. As he passed, Matt got to check out his muscled rump. "You amaze me sometimes Counselor. That you have enough energy to power that mouth and do a workout at the same time."

"My eating, my talking," Lake said in laboured tones, as if the very topics were exhausting. Once he approached the leg-press machine, Lake sat his ass down, straddling the seat. He raised his legs over the bar one at a time, and he looked Matt right in the eyes as he did so. "You make it sound like," Lake remarked, "You have some kind of fixation with my mouth."

Plumeri smiled broadly and snorted a deep felt laugh. The verbal sparring reminded him of his older brother Nicco. The playful insults and crude banter was familiar to him. He looked away a moment, thinking suddenly and awkwardly about Lake's innuendo. He thought about responding with more innuendo but decided against it. His fantasies would have to remain on the holodeck for the time being. Even so, he flashed to a bedroom scene in his mind's eye. He looked back up and said, "I'm a punch you in your cake hole is what I'm fixin; to do." Matt went to another leg press machine and racked the weight for his own reps. He didn't know what to say and focused on the leg press. "Now, don't put too much weight just to impress me ay?" he said over his shoulder. He couldn't get Lake out of his mind while he racked the leg press. Satisfied with one-hundred pounds (45kg) he sat down and got ready.

"Impress you?" Lake asked. He spat the words out quickly to get them out and in the air before the incredulous scoff that followed. Lake narrowed his eyes at Matt, and he expression was all the more exaggerated by his sharp brow ridges and arched eyebrows. "I'm hardly going to think about you at all," he said. And despite what he said, and despite him not saying much else while he raised and lowered his legs in the leg press machine, Lake couldn't seem to take his eyes off Matthew.

"Good. I'm happy then." Matthew continued his workout in silence and after a few minutes finished the last rep. His legs felt hot and loose, wobbly even. He said, "That's enough for one workout session." He picked up the towel and wiped down the seat and back bench. Thinking of Lake and trying not to think of Lake. He meant to just turn around and leave and he started too. But then he said, "I'm hitting the shower..." and as soon as he said it he was annoyed. He stopped talking and was inwardly pissed at himself. He just let the sentence hang there and saying nothing, tossed the sweaty towel at Lake and turned to leave for the gym shower.

Watching the towel arc through the air, Lake clasped his hands around it. He let the momentum carry the towel to his chest. Matthew turned away from Lake and walked towards the showers, saying nothing more. Lake watched him go. He knew he wouldn't feel himself, on this day, if he didn't finish his workout. Watching Matthew leave, Lake didn't say anything either and he didn't follow. He also didn't drop the towel.


[OFF:]

LTCDR. Matthew Plumeri
Science Officer - Historian
USS GalileoA
NCC-80010

&

Lieutenant Lake ir-Llantrisant
Chief Counselor
USS Galileo-A

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