Next Steps
Title: Next Steps
Pairing: Samezu Kai/Ushigome Soutarou
Rating: PG
AN: Follow up to Silent Minds
Finding out you were telepathic sucked, Kai sulked, finally pulling his own shirt on instead of the sick bay scrubs he’d been stuck with for the past… however long he’d been in here. Bad enough that the potential for telepathy had been what put him in here in the first place, actually triggering abilities that had previously been latent was completely unfair and inconvenient. Neither he or either of his brothers had shown any signs of the psi ability that was their heritage from their maternal grandfather and after he and Ragi had sulked about it for a while, in time he’d actually been glad they’d never shown any signs of it. Who wanted to know what everyone else was thinking anyway? Not him, that was for sure, except now he had no choice, thanks to that blockhead scientist on that backwater planet who apparently hated all Betazoids and their abilities.
At least now he knew what had been causing the headaches he’d been having, it had been the virus working its way through his system until he collapsed. The next thing he was aware of after that was waking up in sick bay, Soutarou hovering over him and looking like he hadn’t shaved for a week or something. “You look like hell,” he’d muttered, a little surprised at how rusty his voice was. “What’s wrong?”
Soutarou had beamed at him, relief etched all over his face. “It’s a long story,” he’d said, taking hold of one of Kai’s hands and squeezing it tightly. “I’ll tell you later.”
And really, Kai would have been - reluctantly - satisfied with that, except that the moment Soutarou took his hand, the inside of his head was exploding with worry and relief and he couldn’t help crying out, his hands flying to his head automatically and he just wanted it to stop. All of Soutarou’s emotions were screaming inside his head and he didn’t know how to block it all out. If Juri hadn’t had those inhibitors on hand, just in case, Kai didn’t know what he would have done, and so, while all the others got to leave sick bay - along with warnings about how they should expect headaches for a couple of days while their psilosynine levels stabilised - he had to stay. Something about Juri wanting to monitor his psilosynine levels to determine if they were going to return to normal or remain at the elevated levels they were currently at.
But finally he was free. Juri had relented enough to allow him to leave as long as he promised to stop by for a bazillion check-ups and to call her if anything - anything at all, Kai, no matter how small - felt off or unusual. You know, other than suddenly being telepathic when he wasn’t before. Tugging on the hem of his shirt, Kai did one last check to make sure he wasn’t leaving behind anything Soutarou had brought him during his incarceration. Hoisting his bag onto his shoulder he gave Soutarou a grin and pretended he didn’t notice the aborted attempt at reaching out to touch him. That was the worst part of all of this: that Soutarou couldn’t touch him without filling his head with all the thoughts and emotions running through his mind and risking another blackout or something. Oh, they’d tried; at first they’d assumed it was the shock of suddenly awoken abilities running slap bang into the storm that had been Soutarou’s emotions at the time and that once those had started to fade it would easier. Unfortunately, that proved not to be the case and now they couldn’t touch at all, at least not until he got this under control.
He didn’t know why, but it was only Soutarou he had the problem with; everyone else he could touch without problems but Soutarou… the one person he wanted to be able to touch and he couldn’t. Juri’s theory was that they were having problems precisely because they were as close as they were, that the strength of their emotions was what was overwhelming him. He’d been very tempted to tell Juri where she could stick that theory but in the end he’d reluctantly agreed that maybe - maybe - she was onto something. That didn’t mean he had to like it though and already he missed the casual touches that was such a part of their relationship; the sooner he got this thing under control the better.
“Shall we?” he asked brightly, nodding his head at the door. It might not be much but it was a start and maybe once he got out of here that would help, maybe the more familiar and welcoming surroundings of their quarters would be better than the sterile atmosphere of sick bay. Maybe he was deluding himself, but it was a delusion he craved right now. Soutarou smiled and nodded back, holding out his hand for the bag before Kai waved him off: he was telepathic, not an invalid. They were almost at the door when there came a loud crashing noise all around them and the ship shuddered, sending anyone not holding onto something tumbling to the floor. “What the hell?” Kai yelled, sprawled in an undignified heap on the floor. “Who’s shooting at us?”
No one seemed to have an answer for him, but there was a lot of activity going on over in the small alcove that served as Juri’s office: Juri, Dana and Ami were hovering around the comm and nodding a lot before Juri cut the link and clapped her hands together sharply. “Okay, listen up!” she called. “We’ve got a lot of refugees coming on board and they’ll need immediate attention. I need everyone who can use a medical tricorder to pitch in and try to get some order to the chaos. Alright, people, move, they’ll be here any minute.”
“I think we should leave while we can,” Soutarou suggested and Kai nodded hurriedly, picking himself up off the floor and grabbing hold of his bag. “Agreed.”
As if on cue the air shimmered with teleportation beams - the most critical patients being sent directly to sick bay while everyone would be coming up from the transporter room - and Kai had one moment to take in the brain-searing agony before the world went black.
***
When awareness slowly started to return the first thing that Kai noticed was that he was warm and that it was quiet inside his head for the first time in days. The second was that Soutarou’s arms were wrapped protectively around him, holding him safe. The third was that the fingers resting against his temples were really kind of cool and Soutarou’s hands were usually warmer than that and-- He frowned, his brain fuzzily trying to make sense of this without actually opening his eyes: Soutarou’s arms were around his waist, there was no way Soutarou’s fingers could be cradling his head at the same time unless Soutarou had been hiding a second set of arms somewhere, so who…? He slowly forced his eyes open to find Lt. Ryu Tendou staring down at him intently. He yelped and flinched away reflexively, the lieutenant calmly sitting back on his heels, waiting patiently for… something.
Kai looked around in confusion: they weren’t in sick bay anymore but they weren’t in his and Soutarou’s quarters either. The room did look vaguely familiar though and he eventually pinned it down as his old set of quarters, the one he’d had before he and Soutarou took the plunge and moved in together. “My old quarters?” he asked quizzically, going to sit up before Soutarou tightened his grip and made that effectively impossible. Kai found it hard to complain about that though, because Soutarou was holding him for the first time in what felt like forever and his head didn’t feel like it was about to explode; he was going to make the most of this while he could. Instead, he rested his hands on top of Soutarou’s, revelling in the fact that he could. Even if only for a little while, depending on how long the quiet lasted.
“It was the closest place,” Soutarou replied quietly. “Our quarters are over the other side of the ship and you needed help sooner than that.”
“But… we were in sick bay,” Kai said slowly, trying to piece together what exactly had happened.
“Yes, but--”
“What do you remember, Samezu?” Tendou interrupted, giving Soutarou an apologetic look. “That’s probably a better place to start.”
Kai didn’t think it was but it didn’t really matter, did it? Obviously he wasn’t going anywhere until this was all cleared up. “We were in sick bay,” he repeated. “I was leaving, Juri had finally discharged me.” He ignored the faint chuckle behind him at the growl that came out in. “Then… I think somebody shot at us?” he hazarded and Tendou nodded. “That’s it. Next thing I know I’m waking up here.” And now if somebody could fill in the obvious gaps in his memory that would be just great, thank you.
“We just entered Trill space,” Tendou said after a moment’s thought. “We’re still on the fringes and while most of the area is unoccupied there are still a couple of colonies scattered over the sector.”
“And one of them got attacked,” Kai guessed. Well, it wasn’t as if anything else were going to have happened, after all.
“That’s right. It was an agricultural colony, not much there worth raiding for, but,” Tendou shrugged, “that’s never stopped raiders before and I doubt it ever will. We received the distress signal but we didn’t arrive in time, the raiders had already destroyed most of the colony; that blast you felt was more along the lines of a parting shot but they made a relatively quick exit. I suppose they felt less confident going up against a Starfleet vessel, even one as small as this.” Tendou’s tone made it very clear what exactly he thought about that. “We beamed up the survivors, the most critical went straight into sick bay. Unfortunately,” he added with a smile that seemed almost… sympathetic? “Unfortunately your shields are non-existent and you took the full force of all that pain, collapsing before you even got out of sick bay.”
Soutarou’s arms tightened around him again and Kai tilted his head up to look at him. “That bad?” he asked quietly and Soutarou nodded silently, his fingers stroking Kai’s stomach lightly.
“That bad.”
Kai winced and squeezed Soutarou’s hands tightly. Damn, he’d really been putting Soutarou through hell the past couple of weeks, hadn’t he? He’d have to make it up to him somehow.
“Anyway,” Tendou continued, “Doctor Shiraki had her hands full so she called me instead, thinking I could help you better than she could. We came here because we needed somewhere quiet but, as you already know, your own quarters were too far away. This was the next best place.”
“What did you do?” Kai asked curiously. “I know you did something; the only person in my head right now is me.”
“I put some shields around you,” Tendou shrugged. “They’ll block out the noise for now, but you’ll need to learn how to construct them yourself. That can wait a couple of days though, give the refugee crisis a chance to settle.”
Kai nodded slowly, then sighed. Great, more lessons. He’d thought he’d be free of all that once he’d finished university, but obviously that wasn’t the case; here he was, a student all over again. “Alright,” he agreed. “And I hate to sound ungrateful after all that but can I go now?”
“Kai!” Soutarou hissed, giving him a not so sharp smack on his stomach where their joined hands were resting, but Tendou only smiled.
“Of course; we’re finished here. If, however, you think there’s something wrong with the shield before we begin constructing your own, let me know.”
“I will,” Kai agreed hurriedly. “Come on, Soutarou, let me up. My legs are going to go dead otherwise.”
Soutarou sighed in resignation but let go anyway and Kai scrambled back to his feet, wincing a little at the pins and needles in his left foot. Damn, didn’t get up soon enough. Maybe if he just walked - or hobbled, anyway - on it for a bit he’d get some circulation back there sooner. “Come on, Soutarou,” he said again, holding out his hand to help the other man up. “Let’s go home.”
Pairing: Samezu Kai/Ushigome Soutarou
Rating: PG
AN: Follow up to Silent Minds
Finding out you were telepathic sucked, Kai sulked, finally pulling his own shirt on instead of the sick bay scrubs he’d been stuck with for the past… however long he’d been in here. Bad enough that the potential for telepathy had been what put him in here in the first place, actually triggering abilities that had previously been latent was completely unfair and inconvenient. Neither he or either of his brothers had shown any signs of the psi ability that was their heritage from their maternal grandfather and after he and Ragi had sulked about it for a while, in time he’d actually been glad they’d never shown any signs of it. Who wanted to know what everyone else was thinking anyway? Not him, that was for sure, except now he had no choice, thanks to that blockhead scientist on that backwater planet who apparently hated all Betazoids and their abilities.
At least now he knew what had been causing the headaches he’d been having, it had been the virus working its way through his system until he collapsed. The next thing he was aware of after that was waking up in sick bay, Soutarou hovering over him and looking like he hadn’t shaved for a week or something. “You look like hell,” he’d muttered, a little surprised at how rusty his voice was. “What’s wrong?”
Soutarou had beamed at him, relief etched all over his face. “It’s a long story,” he’d said, taking hold of one of Kai’s hands and squeezing it tightly. “I’ll tell you later.”
And really, Kai would have been - reluctantly - satisfied with that, except that the moment Soutarou took his hand, the inside of his head was exploding with worry and relief and he couldn’t help crying out, his hands flying to his head automatically and he just wanted it to stop. All of Soutarou’s emotions were screaming inside his head and he didn’t know how to block it all out. If Juri hadn’t had those inhibitors on hand, just in case, Kai didn’t know what he would have done, and so, while all the others got to leave sick bay - along with warnings about how they should expect headaches for a couple of days while their psilosynine levels stabilised - he had to stay. Something about Juri wanting to monitor his psilosynine levels to determine if they were going to return to normal or remain at the elevated levels they were currently at.
But finally he was free. Juri had relented enough to allow him to leave as long as he promised to stop by for a bazillion check-ups and to call her if anything - anything at all, Kai, no matter how small - felt off or unusual. You know, other than suddenly being telepathic when he wasn’t before. Tugging on the hem of his shirt, Kai did one last check to make sure he wasn’t leaving behind anything Soutarou had brought him during his incarceration. Hoisting his bag onto his shoulder he gave Soutarou a grin and pretended he didn’t notice the aborted attempt at reaching out to touch him. That was the worst part of all of this: that Soutarou couldn’t touch him without filling his head with all the thoughts and emotions running through his mind and risking another blackout or something. Oh, they’d tried; at first they’d assumed it was the shock of suddenly awoken abilities running slap bang into the storm that had been Soutarou’s emotions at the time and that once those had started to fade it would easier. Unfortunately, that proved not to be the case and now they couldn’t touch at all, at least not until he got this under control.
He didn’t know why, but it was only Soutarou he had the problem with; everyone else he could touch without problems but Soutarou… the one person he wanted to be able to touch and he couldn’t. Juri’s theory was that they were having problems precisely because they were as close as they were, that the strength of their emotions was what was overwhelming him. He’d been very tempted to tell Juri where she could stick that theory but in the end he’d reluctantly agreed that maybe - maybe - she was onto something. That didn’t mean he had to like it though and already he missed the casual touches that was such a part of their relationship; the sooner he got this thing under control the better.
“Shall we?” he asked brightly, nodding his head at the door. It might not be much but it was a start and maybe once he got out of here that would help, maybe the more familiar and welcoming surroundings of their quarters would be better than the sterile atmosphere of sick bay. Maybe he was deluding himself, but it was a delusion he craved right now. Soutarou smiled and nodded back, holding out his hand for the bag before Kai waved him off: he was telepathic, not an invalid. They were almost at the door when there came a loud crashing noise all around them and the ship shuddered, sending anyone not holding onto something tumbling to the floor. “What the hell?” Kai yelled, sprawled in an undignified heap on the floor. “Who’s shooting at us?”
No one seemed to have an answer for him, but there was a lot of activity going on over in the small alcove that served as Juri’s office: Juri, Dana and Ami were hovering around the comm and nodding a lot before Juri cut the link and clapped her hands together sharply. “Okay, listen up!” she called. “We’ve got a lot of refugees coming on board and they’ll need immediate attention. I need everyone who can use a medical tricorder to pitch in and try to get some order to the chaos. Alright, people, move, they’ll be here any minute.”
“I think we should leave while we can,” Soutarou suggested and Kai nodded hurriedly, picking himself up off the floor and grabbing hold of his bag. “Agreed.”
As if on cue the air shimmered with teleportation beams - the most critical patients being sent directly to sick bay while everyone would be coming up from the transporter room - and Kai had one moment to take in the brain-searing agony before the world went black.
***
When awareness slowly started to return the first thing that Kai noticed was that he was warm and that it was quiet inside his head for the first time in days. The second was that Soutarou’s arms were wrapped protectively around him, holding him safe. The third was that the fingers resting against his temples were really kind of cool and Soutarou’s hands were usually warmer than that and-- He frowned, his brain fuzzily trying to make sense of this without actually opening his eyes: Soutarou’s arms were around his waist, there was no way Soutarou’s fingers could be cradling his head at the same time unless Soutarou had been hiding a second set of arms somewhere, so who…? He slowly forced his eyes open to find Lt. Ryu Tendou staring down at him intently. He yelped and flinched away reflexively, the lieutenant calmly sitting back on his heels, waiting patiently for… something.
Kai looked around in confusion: they weren’t in sick bay anymore but they weren’t in his and Soutarou’s quarters either. The room did look vaguely familiar though and he eventually pinned it down as his old set of quarters, the one he’d had before he and Soutarou took the plunge and moved in together. “My old quarters?” he asked quizzically, going to sit up before Soutarou tightened his grip and made that effectively impossible. Kai found it hard to complain about that though, because Soutarou was holding him for the first time in what felt like forever and his head didn’t feel like it was about to explode; he was going to make the most of this while he could. Instead, he rested his hands on top of Soutarou’s, revelling in the fact that he could. Even if only for a little while, depending on how long the quiet lasted.
“It was the closest place,” Soutarou replied quietly. “Our quarters are over the other side of the ship and you needed help sooner than that.”
“But… we were in sick bay,” Kai said slowly, trying to piece together what exactly had happened.
“Yes, but--”
“What do you remember, Samezu?” Tendou interrupted, giving Soutarou an apologetic look. “That’s probably a better place to start.”
Kai didn’t think it was but it didn’t really matter, did it? Obviously he wasn’t going anywhere until this was all cleared up. “We were in sick bay,” he repeated. “I was leaving, Juri had finally discharged me.” He ignored the faint chuckle behind him at the growl that came out in. “Then… I think somebody shot at us?” he hazarded and Tendou nodded. “That’s it. Next thing I know I’m waking up here.” And now if somebody could fill in the obvious gaps in his memory that would be just great, thank you.
“We just entered Trill space,” Tendou said after a moment’s thought. “We’re still on the fringes and while most of the area is unoccupied there are still a couple of colonies scattered over the sector.”
“And one of them got attacked,” Kai guessed. Well, it wasn’t as if anything else were going to have happened, after all.
“That’s right. It was an agricultural colony, not much there worth raiding for, but,” Tendou shrugged, “that’s never stopped raiders before and I doubt it ever will. We received the distress signal but we didn’t arrive in time, the raiders had already destroyed most of the colony; that blast you felt was more along the lines of a parting shot but they made a relatively quick exit. I suppose they felt less confident going up against a Starfleet vessel, even one as small as this.” Tendou’s tone made it very clear what exactly he thought about that. “We beamed up the survivors, the most critical went straight into sick bay. Unfortunately,” he added with a smile that seemed almost… sympathetic? “Unfortunately your shields are non-existent and you took the full force of all that pain, collapsing before you even got out of sick bay.”
Soutarou’s arms tightened around him again and Kai tilted his head up to look at him. “That bad?” he asked quietly and Soutarou nodded silently, his fingers stroking Kai’s stomach lightly.
“That bad.”
Kai winced and squeezed Soutarou’s hands tightly. Damn, he’d really been putting Soutarou through hell the past couple of weeks, hadn’t he? He’d have to make it up to him somehow.
“Anyway,” Tendou continued, “Doctor Shiraki had her hands full so she called me instead, thinking I could help you better than she could. We came here because we needed somewhere quiet but, as you already know, your own quarters were too far away. This was the next best place.”
“What did you do?” Kai asked curiously. “I know you did something; the only person in my head right now is me.”
“I put some shields around you,” Tendou shrugged. “They’ll block out the noise for now, but you’ll need to learn how to construct them yourself. That can wait a couple of days though, give the refugee crisis a chance to settle.”
Kai nodded slowly, then sighed. Great, more lessons. He’d thought he’d be free of all that once he’d finished university, but obviously that wasn’t the case; here he was, a student all over again. “Alright,” he agreed. “And I hate to sound ungrateful after all that but can I go now?”
“Kai!” Soutarou hissed, giving him a not so sharp smack on his stomach where their joined hands were resting, but Tendou only smiled.
“Of course; we’re finished here. If, however, you think there’s something wrong with the shield before we begin constructing your own, let me know.”
“I will,” Kai agreed hurriedly. “Come on, Soutarou, let me up. My legs are going to go dead otherwise.”
Soutarou sighed in resignation but let go anyway and Kai scrambled back to his feet, wincing a little at the pins and needles in his left foot. Damn, didn’t get up soon enough. Maybe if he just walked - or hobbled, anyway - on it for a bit he’d get some circulation back there sooner. “Come on, Soutarou,” he said again, holding out his hand to help the other man up. “Let’s go home.”