When Opposites Meet

Posted on 30 Sep 2016 @ 5:29pm by Commander Jayla Kij & Lieutenant Commander Camila Di Pasquale & Vorian Sulvai

2,407 words; about a 12 minute read

Mission: Click Three Times
Location: Lounge
Timeline: MD 8 : 1530

It was the end of his shift after a day filled with tension and pressure. Doctor Jayla had attached a monitor on him to keep a tab on his vitals while he had 24 hours to clean his body of pills, drugs and alcohol. Which meant he couldn't take anything to numb his mind or block out the voices and emotions. It had been in short, one of the most horrible days he had in a long while. Simply put every second was an avalanche of other people's feelings, thoughts, emotions, griefs, anything really. Too much for him to bear normally.

Vorian had managed to last however for the better part of those 24 hours. Eight hours sleeping followed by an eight hour shift and then another four hours of meditation and martial arts calming techniques that barely had an impact on his tormented mind. Twenty hours, he had last almost twenty hours. It had to be enough for the good doctor, right? It had to. Why would four hours even count when she had a twenty hour long window of data to analyse.

From that simple train of thought Vorian found himself inside the lounge, with a glass of Terran Vodka. He was looking at the bottle as if he hadn't drank anything in days or even weeks and that was the only glass of water on the whole ship. Fighting the urge to drink it was harder than anything he had ever done in the past few months.

Still sweaty from his flight suit but having changed into faded black jeans and a tattered Ramones t-shirt, Dzhozzen bounced into Talon's, excited to have another day of flight ops under his belt and a targ steak with his name on it. Selah had begun to insist that he eat his targ properly and he had to admit that it had grown on him. Besides, it went well with his chocolate milk.

Scooping up what had become his "usual" meal he noticed how crowded the bar seemed this evening. After recent events, the crew of the Black Hawk must be in the mood to unwind and for most of them, that meant Talon's. It did however limit Discord's seating options. There! In the back, near a window was an unoccupied seat and Dzhozzen threw himself into the seat without looking.

"Wow, it's really crowded in here tonight, isn't it?" The red haired Vulcan asked, tearing into his raw targ without looking up. "How're you doing tonight? Sorry about barging in, you can call me Discord."

Thrusting a hand out for the other man to shake, Dzhossen finally looked up and his smile became strained. He was sharing a table with another Vulcan, though the man did have one strangely black eye. Maybe it was an implant. Either way, Dzhossen had a sinking feeling that he was going to loose another steak.

Vorian looked up at the man that sat across from him. He was a Vulcan as well, but with strange hair and mannerisms, behaving more like a Human or Klingon than a Vulcan. A V'tosh ka'tur there was no doubt about it, in the sea of madness that was around him, all the emotions and thoughts invading his overloaded brain, the Vulcan in front of him shone like fiery beacon of chaos.

"You can't sit there V'tosh ka'tur. Anywhere else but there." his hands were starting to shake visibly, barely holding on to the glass of vodka on the table. Vorian felt as if he was in danger of choking, after twenty hours without anything to help him drown the noise it had already been exhausting enough. And maybe coming to the lounge hadn't been the more logical idea but it had been manageable until now. But the V'tosh ka'tur in front of him was simply too much to bear, he was so chaotic that Vorian could not even prepare himself properly to deal with the feedback he was receiving from the man sitting across from him.

A sneer replaced Discord's forced grin as his lip rose up to reveal one canine. This wretch had the nerve to treat him this way? What with that stupid hair cut and that one eye, who was he to judge? It was like a chasm opened up inside and all the old lava poured through, a slow burning anger that melted stone.

"What if I do not Surak? Here, beneath this raptor's wings, I have the same rights as you. Tell me, oh fountain of logic. Look about your realm. Do you see another seat open this night?" Discord took a slow bite of his steak and allowed the blood to dribble down his chin. "Are you afraid I will infect you?"

His right hand, still holding the glass of vodka was starting to shake rather uncontrollably, making Vorian have to use his left hand to hold it still. But already enough of the contents of his glass had been spilled on the table around it. Looking at at the V'tosh ka'tur, Vorian's face was covered in droplets of sweat as his breathing was getting heavier and heavier. "Yes, you are already infecting me V'tosh ka'tur. I can't... handle your chaos right now."

Both hands struck the table with a crash, toppling the bottle of vodka and the chocolate milk as Discord forced himself from the table. The chair flew backwards and into the patrons at the next table who shouted indigently, but Discord was on a roll now and leapt onto the table to tower over the other Vulcan.

"Infect you? I stand ready, brother. What will it be? A duel with lirpa or would you allow me the bat'leth? Come, rid the world of my infection!" With a crowd gathering, the V'tosh ka'tur worked to focus the bar's attention upon the other Vulcan. "Come! Come! See the great Surak's logic! See how he would banish those who refute him from his presence as though we were rodents!"

"See him tremble!" Discord shouted as he noticed Vorian shaking. Spreading his arms wide and turning to command the room, the mad Vulcan was unaware of just how terrifying he truly appeared at this moment, with his damp red hair spike and mussed, the green tone of his skin showing clearly as his face flushed with rage and his chin still streaked with the red blood of his targ. "See how he fears us! Fears what our people once were! We were meant to be more than mere philosophers! 'We rode on the winds of the rising storm; We ran to the sounds of the thunder; We danced among the lightning bolts, and tore the world asunder!'"

Vorian was pale by now, his brain was in full damage control, barely able to face the typhoon of intense emotions washing over him from Discord, especially as Discord was aiming it all at him. Worse was that Discord's theatrics were drawing the attention of all the occupants of the lounge to him which meant more and more feedback and more changes in the emotional spectrum of the room. If anything, Vorian was feeling like a fuse ready to blow from a sudden influx of power.

Pushing himself with difficulty off the table he grunted as he focused on standing up as well as trying to retain his already blurry vision. "You are making a fool of yourself V'tosh ka'tur and of us at the same time. Cease this ridiculous spectacle now." he barely managed to speak as he slowly tried to make his way towards Discord to stop him from keeping on talking. He was walking as if he had been drinking for a long time, when in truth he had trouble trying to keep himself on his feet.

He was so fragile that if Discord would push, press or shove Vorian, or if anyone would press again him, then most than certain he would simply collapse on the floor as his mind would shut down from being overloaded with too much feedback and information.

"A fool? A fool!" Discord let out a short bark of laughter and sat on the table, swinging his feet as he watched the other Vulcan struggle to walk over to him. "See how he responds when I refuse to flee like a roach before the light of his logic! When I refuse to leave because Surak commands me! No, mighty Surak, I came in peace, to eat my targ and drink my chocolate. If anyone is to leave, I believe that it should have been you."

With that Discord reached out and with one finger gently pushed against the tip of Vorian's nose.

And a gentle finger push was all that was needed as Vorian's mind shut down to protect itself. The tall Vulcan stopped and for a brief second it seemed that nothing would happen, only to have him crumble to the floor the very next second, knocked out cold and barely breathing.

The room exploded and Dzhossen was back on his feet, standing over his fellow officer in a flash.

"Oh you pansy! I barely touched you." Crassly, he nudged the other Vulcan with his foot, then dropped down to take his pulse. The man truly appeared to be unconscious. There was the chirp of combadges all around the room as various people called for medical and, Dzhossen assumed, security. A ruined steak, no chocolate, security AND medical. This day sucked.

It had been one thing after another after another for the weary Security department and two Ensigns had been strolling down the corridor after yet another red alert when the call came in. =^=Security, report to Talons.=^=

The Bolian officer looked at his human colleague and sighed. "Maybe we should just request that this place be closed. It seems to make people crazy."

The human laughed. "Then we'd have fights because there was no lounge. Let's go." With that, the two officers boarded a turbolift. "Deck Six."

They stepped off a minute later and headed down the corridor and into the lounge. "Okay, what's going on here?" the Bolian asked as he stepped forward, his hand on his phaser while the human officer approached the Vulcan who was on the floor.

"Does he need medical help?" he asked when he didn't see blood on the man. The Vulcan with the red hair and blood on his chin seemed far the worse for wear and the human Security officer reached for his phaser as well.

Jayla rushed in only seconds later, medkit in hand. The call had come after Vorian's body monitor had alerted her to an issue, so she'd already been in a turbolift when someone in Talons had called. "What's going on?" she asked. She spotted Dzhossen with blood on his chin and turned her tricorder in him. Steak blood. She quickly grabbed a napkin and thrust it into his hands before kneeling before Vorian. "He's in shock," she said, concern etching her face. "Too much input." She took out a hypospray and injected him with something that stabilized his heart rate and breathing. "I'll have to get him to sick bay immediately."

The Bolian looked at the human Security officer. "Go with them to Medical. I'll collect statements here," he said as he looked back at Dzhossen. "What happened?" He asked him.

Dzhossen was furious, trembling visibly as he tried to compose himself. This was going to be his fault, it was always his vault, blame the aberration. Hunching his shoulders defensively, he wiped the targ blood from his chin with the napkin that suddenly appeared. That done, Dzhozzen slicked back his hair and squared his shoulders, falling into parade rest. For some reason it was always easier to get yelled at when he was at attention or parade rest. Maybe it was practice.

"It was crowded tonight, I got my food and sat down next to him. He told me I couldn't sit there, called me V'tosh ka'tur, and that I was going to infect him. I mocked him. I might have gotten carried away. He came towards me, so I booped his nose. Booped. Are you familiar with that human tradition?" Illustrating his point Dzhossen touched the tip of his nose with one finger. "Booop!"

"What is a V'tosh ka'tur?" The Bolian asked as he took his hand away from his phaser. "Also, laying a hand on an unwilling recipient is technically an assault. What happened when you...booped...him?" There was no grounds to arrest someone for taking a seat with someone in a crowded lounge, so the Security officer overlooked that.

"Literal translation? Vulcan without logic. It's... I'm sorry, I'm not familiar enough with Bolian culture to provide you with a similar example. Like calling a Klingon a honorless targ or one of the many human racial slurs. Like insulting a Ferengi's mother. It's sort of a religious slur. If logic is the Vulcan religion, I'm a heretic. To most other Vulcan's that makes me somewhere between a mad dog and a tribble." Dzhossen shifted slightly and rubbed his hands behind his back. "I usually avoid Vulcans. I had no clue he was a Vulcan until I'd sat down next to him, really. I never would have sat down if I'd known he was Vulcan."

"Anyway, when I booped him, he dropped. Like someone told his computer to turn the lights out. I thought he was faking at first, but he didn't flinch when I nudged him and his pulse was weak when I took it. I assume it is at that point that someone called you and the... Doctor."

"Don't go anywhere," the Bolian said before he went to question some other witnesses who were waiting and got the same story from them before he returned. "I need you to come with me to Security to make a statement, Ensign," he said. "Everyone seems to corroborate your story, but it'll be up to him if he wishes to press charges on you."

The sigh was long and frustrated. "No offense, Constable, but it usually is."

The human Security officer looked at the Commander. "Do you need an emergency transport, Doctor?"

Jayla studied her tricorder again. "No, he's not that serious," she said, tapping her combadge. "Kij to Sick Bay. Send a hover gurney to Talons, please." In the meantime, she busied herself making sure he hadn't broken anything or cracked his head in the fall.

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