Formalities

Posted on Mon Jul 7th, 2025 @ 12:26am by Ensign Ziahli Lorel & Lieutenant Kevan Dash

Mission: Pandora's Box
Location: Personal Quarters, USS Athena
Timeline: Evening of MD05 (Prior to rescue attempt)
2120 words - 4.2 OF Standard Post Measure

There hadn't really been a point where the habit had become a blatant intent. If anything, it had been as much the result of a consistently complimentary work schedule, and that was more down to Zade's work on the roster than any explicit effort to be off-duty at the same time. Eating meals together had become standard, swapping banter across the office was now a given, and at least a couple of times a week, Zia found herself on Kevan Dash's couch, trying to stop him from eating her share of the popcorn.

The current evening hadn't been remarkably different to any others, except for the fact that the Betazoid had been caught out several times not paying attention. Zia's observation skills and her astute grasp of information beyond what was offered directly had become familiar enough to be expected and it wasn't like the brunette to let the Trill get the upperhand. Preoccupation wasn't unheard of, she was a woman with a lust for unravelling mysteries after all, but she didn't often retreat inside her own head to do it. Talking things through made identifying patterns that much easier.

She was staring at the wall again. It wouldn't have mattered given her movie partner was still getting himself situated but it was exactly this kind of distraction that would result in them watching Predator for the fifth time in as many weeks.

"Oh I love this part...wait for it...If it bleeds, we can kill it..." he synced along to the dialogue with a grin, already reaching for more popcorn. When she tugged it clear of his reach, he frowned and looked over. "Hey..." A beat later and he was picking up on her body language a little more. "What's the matter? Normally you love some Arnie shenanigans..."

"Seems a bit of a leap of logic."

It was a relevant retort but stemmed entirely from reflex, a fact made all the more obvious by the sudden blink of realisation and the jerk of her head to stare at him for a moment. In the whole time they'd known each other, Zia hadn't really shown much capacity for embarrassment, and even now, caught out daydreaming, she didn't rush to deny anything. Reluctance stemmed more from a lack of immediate clarity rather than any desire to pose as being more focused than she was.

She shook her head. "Just distracted." Her features shifted into a far more familiar wry amusement. "Besides, you keep talking over the top of him anyway."

"Oh. Yeah. Well." He shrugged sheepishly, knowing she was right for calling him out on that particular habit. "Wait, distracted? By what?"

On any normal night, that would have been the cue for Zia to reassure him, tongue in cheek, that he was the only decent distraction in the room. Constant flirtation had become a comfort, increasingly so as they became secure in the understanding that the other didn't consider the banter 'too much'. There was an underlying sense of restraint that ran in contrast, however, a lack of pressure or presumption that might have surprised the daily onlookers. Kevan's mouth ran off on him ever bit as much as Zia's did but she was more than capable of deriving simple comfort from the layers he didn't often put on display.

It wasn't an ordinary night, however, and the true nature of her preoccupation was something Zia not only didn't feel a need to keep secret, but had been fixated on for hours in an attempt to figure out how to express it in a useful way. She frowned at the television, not an expression she wore often, and then looked back at the Trill.

"Just thinking about earlier. Over on the wreckage." By now, they'd been briefed on the fate of Zade's team and there was sadness to the Betazoid's expression, a general empathy that didn't seek to take too much credit whilst remaining compassionate. She hadn't really known Iska, he wasn't the type who made it easy for a person to get to know him, but she felt his absence as any telepath noted gaps in the normal slurry of psionic registers.

"The wreckage? Hmm. Things did get pretty hairy down there." His instinctive smirk morphed into a narrow-eyed expression. "You've never been really bothered by that before..."

"I did notice that the amount of times I've been shot at has increased significantly since I met you."

The Betazoid's playful tone wasn't forced, reassurance at least that Zia wasn't entirely fixated on pessimism suddenly.

"It's not that," she added pointedly, and then was left as any telepath was with the unenviable task of trying to explain the actual problem in terms that even came close. "We're here, we're fine, even though the others..." It wasn't survivor's guilt either, so she chose not to linger. "Point is, it's not the attack. There was that...feeling I got down there, that I couldn't explain properly. I'm not any closer to processing it but it's bothering the hell out of me."

"A feeling? Like what?" He asked, noticing her tone. His hand looped around hers for a moment, the movie temporarily forgotten. He refrained from taking the jovial route with a comment about feeling wild attraction to his heroics, instead giving her space to elaborate. "Must be something serious if it's still bothering you."

"It's difficult to put into words, telepathic resonance usually is, especially when it's not direct. I don't really have a frame of reference, which is not surprising. The conditions down there are pretty unique." Frowning at their joined hands, Zia puzzled out a way to verbalise the unsatisfactory conclusions she'd been trying to appease herself with for hours. "I suppose you could think of it like standing at a point where every surface is bouncing a repeated echo back at you. Only it's not one echo, it's..." She plucked a number from the air. "Hundreds. Thousands. So much distortion that there's no coherency but it feels like, if you could single out one, it would be trying to communicate something."

Kevan's eyebrows raised, not having really heard Zia explain something like that before. "I know it was chaotic down there but I didn't count on it being that bad. What do you think caused something like that? Was it the conditions, or something in the wreckage?"

"That's the thing." Zia lifted her shoulders in defeat. "I have no idea. If I could figure out the cause, perhaps I could figure out what it was, or vice versa, but it's hard to come up with any kind of working theory on either when everything about this ship seems to have a giant question mark over it. I will say that it's not anything like the usual clutter of being surrounded by people." Catching his look, Zia lifted an eyebrow and added in amusement, "Non-telepaths can be a noisy bunch at times. Part of adjusting to life away from Betazed is getting used to that. This was different and it frustrates me that I can't explain it."

"People rarely understand things that have no explanation," Kevan shrugged. It was a weirdly philosophical remark - and purely accidental. "I've learned not to try. Too much going on up here, you know." He tapped his temple with a wink.

There was a measure of tolerance nestled behind the withering look Zia afforded that particular claim. "Is that right? And what is currently preoccupying Sage Dash, beyond the ongoing audio commentary?" Her eyes flicked towards the paused movie for context.

His grin remained. "Just that my girlfriend is so preoccupied that it's distracting her from movie night. Isn't that enough?" After his moment of sincerity, he was back to playing the same cards he'd started out with.

Not only that, his methods hadn't changed. Still, if distracting her entirely was his goal, Kevan had at least earned a measure of success. An arched eyebrow was playfully quizzical, though the constant cheat-sheet Zia wielded allowed her to gauge some understanding of the emotional context she was dealing with. It gave her time to temper her own response with something appropriate enough not to cause complete awkwardness.

"Should I leave so you two can be alone then?"

It was a playful challenge, a dig that curled the corners of her lips into mischief that, at the very least, indicated the bold claim of defined relationship hadn't caused offense.

Kevan's look of 'I took that personally' lasted all of a few seconds before he grabbed her hand and squeezed. "Seriously, though. I can't promise I have solutions. Just effort."

If there was one tried-and-tested way to get Zia to move on from one mystery, it was to provide her with an entirely new one. Fixing Kevan with a quizzical frown, the Betazoid then took his hand, pulled his arm around her and shifted over to claim a spot close enough to capitalise on the imposition of a snuggle.

She let him get about five minutes futher into the movie before the lines of inquiry started.

"So, why the change of heart?" As was the case with most of her questions, Zia didn't hesitate at assuming a base level of understanding. In this case, it was the perception of Kevan's reluctance to solidify any kind of personal relationship. "You know there's no expectation you start applying labels to anything, right?"

"Dunno." He half-shrugged. He wasn't one for labels himself, having typically played the field and having been burned the last time he tried to commit to something. "You don't seem to be against the idea though, right...?"

"It might help if I knew what the idea was." Verbalising direct communication attempts wasn't as eloquent as handling the exchange telepathically but the tendency still stemmed from the same upbringing. Just like any incident scene, there wasn't a whole lot of place for assumption, though carefully wielded intuition was often a boon. Content to remain curled up facing the television, Zia added for consideration, "But I'm here, not somewhere else, with no current plans to go anywhere else." This included the people occupying other spaces.

"Well, I'm not exactly talking about moving in or anything crazy like that..." he quickly reaffirmed. "But maybe we just make it a little more official. If that's something you'd like?" he suggested, feeling as though he was testing the waters a little and looking for an indication from her. It was a huge disadvantage that she could likely read his thoughts - or at least his emotions.

The urge to investigate often pushed Zia into over-bearing territory if she wasn't careful but she caught herself in time, and contemplated the fact that any further clarification could probably wait. Certain distinctions were necessary; 'official' meant a lot of different things depending on the individual's expectations. Still, the situation was unsettled at best and she didn't judge her own nerves to be in the best place to tackle a discussion about boundaries. Instead, she let his face hover close to hers and murmured, "I think, if you want to call it a relationship, that involves at least one fully-formal date."

"Formal? A holodeck visit to the homeworld doesn't count then?" He retorted affably, before raising a hand to stop her from explaining further. "No, no. I get it. Something proper then. And not 'movie night'." A pause. "You're sure about this?"

It was difficult to keep from sounding a little exasperated with him. "Do you honestly think I'm here for the movie?"

A pointed look towards the frozen screen was a reminder that there was a certain level of investment that went beyond mere friendship already in her choice to indulge his stress relief, yet again. Dark eyes held Kevan's gaze and Zia's mood shifted just slightly, a side-step towards the intuitiveness she was capable of when she wasn't so hell-bent on trying to out-sass him.

"I think there's a discussion to have about expectations," she added truthfully. "And boundaries, but that seems a lot after the couple of days we've just had so let's just try for something really basic to start with..."

To emphasise her point, she sat across his lap to block his view of the television.

"How many others have you asked this week?"

The glint was back in her eyes.

Although he had been duped at first, that last little look was what tipped her hand enough for Kevan to drop the momentary deer-in-headlights look. "What, you think anyone else I asked could possibly resist this?" he grinned. "Just promise me one thing, though. If Teyo offers to fix your sonic shower, you'll call me first, okay?"