Beg, Steal or Borrow – The one where Rh'vaurek comes back... Part 3
by Commander Chelsea Dunham & Commander Isha t'Vaurek
Post Details
OLD:
(Raedheol) released a long hissing breath through his teeth, "Its my fault, Chelsea, all of it, because I couldn’t keep away," he said waiting for her reaction.
NEW:
"NO" Chelsea's conviction was strong and unwavering. "If anything Rh’vaurek, you have been her strength to do what she must. You have been her protection, her soul, in a world that has been harsh, cruel and merciless. Amongst all of this, your devotion and your known presence, even when you might have been invisible, has held her together. She loves you, my friend.
You have not been the reason she has been attacked by those who would destroy her, quite the contrary, you have been the reason she has not succumbed to them before now.
I believe that her enemies would have moved against her with or without your part in her life. Nniol would neither have stayed his hand nor advanced his cause further simply because you existed although I am convinced his course would have been simpler and easier without you. He just uses you as an excuse for his villainy. He would have been just as ruthless and evil if you had never been born, however, Isha, on the other hand would have been much more vulnerable!"
“There you go being kind again,” Rh’vaurek said through a half smile. “I’m not a nice man, Chelsea, don’t make the mistake of thinking I’m some form of saint - I’ve been as brutal with her as any of them … “
"I don't believe that. I think you may have been harsh at times, but Isha told me you believed she had betrayed you once and you were angry with each other for many years but that when you found out you were wrong, you started to take care of her and that you'd been there for her wherever she went ever since. That's not the behaviour of someone who is brutal for the sake of it.
I might be naive and easily fooled, but I don't believe there are such things as saints. We all have our faults and our weaknesses and anyone who claims otherwise is to be regarded as highly suspicious for that alone!
I don't know a lot about the Romulan way of life or your code of honour, no matter how much it may differ from my own culture's ideas, we can still respect one another's efforts to do what we feel is right."
Rh'vaurek edged along his chair, "Come here, Chelsea, I'm going to be inappropriate for a moment." He paused and looked at her. "Do I have to come and get you?" he asked as he waited for her to fill the space he had vacated.
~Inappropriate?~ Chelsea's heart rate rose. ~What does *that* mean to a Romulan?~ she wondered, a tiny bit worried.
"You were never fooled by me," he said wrapping an arm around her. "And relax, I'm not going to harm you ... I'm left wondering why you are so fraught - it can't just be Isha," he said as he pulled her against his chest. "I never had a family, you know, but you are becoming something of a sister to me ... and if my sister was unhappy, I would want to know why," he said.
Chelsea was moved again. "I'm honoured" she said, her voice little above a whisper. "Most brothers are forced to put up with their sisters just because they are born to do so but to become a nominated sister to someone as unapproachable as you..... no offence... that's both a gift and an accolade to me."
She didn't wait for his reply but here, nestled against his chest, she understood why Isha felt safe with him around. "I do honestly believe that Isha's plight is more than enough to make me as fraught as can be imagined. I am so desperately worried about her, as I know you are too"
"Driving yourself crazy is not going to help bring her back," he said shifting a little beside her, "and she would be the first person to tell you to stop being foolish. I've got people on ch'Rihan who will watch out for her, not least her mother ... believe it or not Llaiir t'Khellian and I found an understanding. Isha lost her mind when that useless husband of hers died and his bastard brother used her condition to start to take back over the House - Nniol wasn't allowing access to her to anyone. Their Auethnen, that's a kind of advisor, became concerned and sought out Isha's mother and told her what was happening, and also that Isha had been asking for me. Llaiir found me and requested my help. This was before I knew about the story I just told you, otherwise I'd have killed Nniol - as it was I thought him a conceited lout and I took a lot of pleasure in thwarting his plans. I stayed on her estate until Isha was ready to live again. What I'm trying to say, Chelsea is that she isn't alone, she might feel it at the moment, but she needs to be because she has to be pushed to the edge before she will accept help from anybody - even with all her resources she has an obtuse idea about showing that she doesn't need anything except herself but by the time she reaches Romulus she'll be ready, and they'll be waiting for her. We know she's taken care of, so what are we going to do about you?" he asked, "How do we restore happiness?"
"Happiness? I don't know.... " Chelsea's sigh gave her away. "My heart doesn't understand the word right now. I'm so lost Rh'vaurek. I'm a complete mess emotionally." she admitted.
Rh'vaurek already had his suspicions, but he wanted to hear it from her, "I'll give you a choice, you can tell me why, or I can get that lamp, shine it in your eyes and start wringing answers out of you ... that's a joke," he added, not sure if she could tell when he was being serious or not.
Chelsea couldn't help but choke out a laugh in response to that. "I'm so glad you made that clear, thank you!" she replied, brightening. "But I'm sure you don't want to hear all about my imagined slights that are more than likely paranoia or misunderstandings" she made light of it knowing that Ryan and Rh'vaurek had come to blows in the past.
"Then let me ask you a question," he said brushing a thumb over her cheek, as he checked for tell tale dampness. It was there, and if the conclusion he had drawn was correct she wasn't going to thank him for asking his question, "If you are only worried about the safety of a friend, why are you sobbing in my arms and not those of your boy Milarno?"
"He's.... he.... has a lot on his plate. He has a dancing partner and they have to practise together a lot and there's to be a show so they're spending all their spare time together and ..... it's nothing.... well, only he won't see me, he sent me away when I tried to see him last night and so I can't sob on his shoulder about Isha or anything...." she finally got it out after a lot of hesitation.
"But I'm not complaining, because I've got a lot of really nice friends and hobbies too, and now I have a brother to fill the gap!" she looked up at him and smiled warmly. "I like that. I always wanted a big brother."
Rh'vaurek slid his jaw sideways feeling the bones crunch together, "A dancing partner ... and you are happy with that?" He looked down at Chelsea, his expression neutral. In his experience a man who would blow off a lover to spend time with another woman was not simply dancing; he had done it often enough himself when he could not be bothered to end an affair.
Chelsea took an instant breath ready to leap to Ryan's defence by reciting all the excuses she made for him in her own head but, looking up into the face of the man who had both frightened and fascinated her in the past and who was now showing her a completely different side to himself, suddenly, she felt like that bright light he had mentioned earlier was being shone after all. On her life.
"I.... he......" she began but her eyes met Rh'vaurek's and the words dried in her throat.
"No" she whispered in a tiny voice little above a murmur, but laden with misery.
Beyond the luxury of tears, Chelsea's heart cracked and her dry eyes held nothing but lost hopes and dark shadowy doubts. "but.... " one last protest in loyalty. "I *ought* to trust him, he deserves that much from me. If only I weren't such a horrible jealous person." She had turned the blame back on herself, unable to bear the idea that Ryan would betray her.
Rh’vaurek did not speak. He continued to hold her; if not, with the angle she had turned herself into so that she could see his face she would probably end up on the floor.
‘A horrible jealous person’ was one of the last phrases he would have chosen to describe the Bajoran, succumbing to easily jealousy involved being able to easily think poorly of another person, even one to whom one was close and then to project an intense and sustained amount of rage at that individual; he and Isha had turned jealousy, both founded and groundless, into an art form.
"and...... " gaining momentum with the self-depreciation "I have a hobby too. So you see, I'm just as guilty, I enjoy learning to fly and the man who is teaching me, I let him kiss me, so you see, whatever Ryan is up to, I kinda deserve it, don't I?" It was half a rhetorical question and half an attempt to convince herself.
“Slow down, Chelsea,” Rh’vaurek said. He eased round and shifted her along the seat before moving the one she had occupied earlier and taking both of her hands in his. “First, either Milarno is guilty of more than dancing, or he is not – if you suspect he might be then he has given you reason to think this way,” he shook his head, hardly able to believe he was going to say his next words, “personally, I think the boy is a waste of space; he’s uncommunicative, rude, self absorbed and has control issues. However, he would probably think it … dishonourable, for want of a better word, to be unfaithful to you, the fact that he is quite willing to manipulate you in this manner – and manipulation is what it is - makes me question what that honour is worth, but that is beside the point.”
Chelsea's loyalty didn't like to hear Ryan criticised and she opened her mouth to try to defend him but Raedheol continued steadily on to his second point.
“Second, there is nothing wrong with having a hobby – that in itself does not give him a reason for closing you out, which is something he should not have done in the first place – what else are you supposed to do with your time? I would look to the lady, if she’s intent on getting her claws in he must have given her some reason to think he is a prospect, in which case he has done something more than dance … of course she could just be very keen on winning this dancing competition and have no idea of the fact that he is being a bastard to you.”
"I don't really know her. Ryan says.... " Chelsea began but stopped, realising how childishly naive it was only to know what Ryan had told her, rather than finding out for herself. "But how could Nora not know how much time he's spending with her especially when she was there when I called on him last night and he sent me away angrily for disturbing them?
I suppose you're right though, she could simply be intent on winning and just not caring about me. After all, to her I'm simply *his* problem. I feel I should go to the competition and watch but I don't have the courage to. I watched them rehearse once and they dance so closely, moving as one. It's such a beautiful, intimate, graceful combination that it makes me wish I could be that close to him but I'd be too clumsy." Chelsea was matter of fact about it.
Rh'vaurek's jaw tightened, Chelsea was doing nothing to improve his initially low assessment of Milarno - he could fight reasonably well for a medic, but it was Rh'vaurek's own complacency in not taking his assault seriously that had allowed the outcome of that altercation ... "It is one thing to pursue alternatives," he said, equally matter of fact, "if you cannot or will not commit, but it is quite another to flaunt it in front of them," he said. "You've done nothing wrong - and what's a kiss if it is done in the moment? If you were not my v'Rinam, my adopted sister, I would kiss you myself to show you how little it means."
Chelsea opened her mouth to object that it would mean a great deal to her but closed it again like a goldfish when she realised that could be taken in more than one way and get her into all sorts of trouble. She blushed and gazed intently at the insignia on Rh'vaurek's uniform.
"I don't think he meant to flaunt.... alternatives?" She flushed again as the meaning of this sank in.
"You don't? Whenever I wish to annoy Isha in that manner I mean to flaunt. It might not be fair on the woman I use, or on Isha, but it elicits the right effect, and believe me, she is very difficult to control ... put it in the context of your situation and you might see what I mean."
"That's so devious! To deliberately make her jealous so she'll..... would you actually have kissed me if I weren't your *v-Rhinam*?" She tried her best to pronounce it as well as she could. "And if you had done, would it have simply been with the intention that I should tell Isha so you might toy with her emotions?"
Rh'vaurek ran a hand through his hair, "Aside from the illustration of your own dilemma, if you had kissed me I would never have spoken with you again, and nor would Isha. I already hinted that I vet all her friends ... you in particular know her well enough to know how she would feel about that and if you proved willing to strike at her soul like that, well, I doubt I would ever get the stain off my lips."
"Worse! What a villain!" Chelsea protested, pretending to be angry with him but recognising the deeper and more touching side of this revelation. "You would use me to pique her for your own nefarious ends and then reject me as a consequence?"
He reached out and patted her on the cheek, a singularly patronising gesture, "Well, before I kicked you out of my bed you might have learned a thing or two, like don't fuck with the Tal'Shiar," he joked with a lopsided and lascivious smile. "Didn't I just tell you I wasn't a nice man?" he asked with false surprise at her expression.
Chelsea didn't know whether to push his hand away from her cheek in rejection of the patronising manner or laugh at the roguish way he was grinning at her. She settled for a grin and a light shove of his arm.
T. B. C. .....
A jp between
erie'Khrein Rh'vaurek Raedheol (NPC)
and
Lt. Cmdr. Chelsea Adams
ACMO, DS5
by Commander Chelsea Dunham & Commander Isha t'Vaurek
Post Details
| Title | The one where Rh'vaurek comes back... Part 3 | |
| Mission | Beg, Steal or Borrow | |
| Author(s) | Commander Chelsea Dunham & Commander Isha t'Vaurek | |
| Posted | Sat Aug 08, 2009 @ 4:10pm | |
| Location | Sickbay | |
| Timeline | (Current) |
(Raedheol) released a long hissing breath through his teeth, "Its my fault, Chelsea, all of it, because I couldn’t keep away," he said waiting for her reaction.
NEW:
"NO" Chelsea's conviction was strong and unwavering. "If anything Rh’vaurek, you have been her strength to do what she must. You have been her protection, her soul, in a world that has been harsh, cruel and merciless. Amongst all of this, your devotion and your known presence, even when you might have been invisible, has held her together. She loves you, my friend.
You have not been the reason she has been attacked by those who would destroy her, quite the contrary, you have been the reason she has not succumbed to them before now.
I believe that her enemies would have moved against her with or without your part in her life. Nniol would neither have stayed his hand nor advanced his cause further simply because you existed although I am convinced his course would have been simpler and easier without you. He just uses you as an excuse for his villainy. He would have been just as ruthless and evil if you had never been born, however, Isha, on the other hand would have been much more vulnerable!"
“There you go being kind again,” Rh’vaurek said through a half smile. “I’m not a nice man, Chelsea, don’t make the mistake of thinking I’m some form of saint - I’ve been as brutal with her as any of them … “
"I don't believe that. I think you may have been harsh at times, but Isha told me you believed she had betrayed you once and you were angry with each other for many years but that when you found out you were wrong, you started to take care of her and that you'd been there for her wherever she went ever since. That's not the behaviour of someone who is brutal for the sake of it.
I might be naive and easily fooled, but I don't believe there are such things as saints. We all have our faults and our weaknesses and anyone who claims otherwise is to be regarded as highly suspicious for that alone!
I don't know a lot about the Romulan way of life or your code of honour, no matter how much it may differ from my own culture's ideas, we can still respect one another's efforts to do what we feel is right."
Rh'vaurek edged along his chair, "Come here, Chelsea, I'm going to be inappropriate for a moment." He paused and looked at her. "Do I have to come and get you?" he asked as he waited for her to fill the space he had vacated.
~Inappropriate?~ Chelsea's heart rate rose. ~What does *that* mean to a Romulan?~ she wondered, a tiny bit worried.
"You were never fooled by me," he said wrapping an arm around her. "And relax, I'm not going to harm you ... I'm left wondering why you are so fraught - it can't just be Isha," he said as he pulled her against his chest. "I never had a family, you know, but you are becoming something of a sister to me ... and if my sister was unhappy, I would want to know why," he said.
Chelsea was moved again. "I'm honoured" she said, her voice little above a whisper. "Most brothers are forced to put up with their sisters just because they are born to do so but to become a nominated sister to someone as unapproachable as you..... no offence... that's both a gift and an accolade to me."
She didn't wait for his reply but here, nestled against his chest, she understood why Isha felt safe with him around. "I do honestly believe that Isha's plight is more than enough to make me as fraught as can be imagined. I am so desperately worried about her, as I know you are too"
"Driving yourself crazy is not going to help bring her back," he said shifting a little beside her, "and she would be the first person to tell you to stop being foolish. I've got people on ch'Rihan who will watch out for her, not least her mother ... believe it or not Llaiir t'Khellian and I found an understanding. Isha lost her mind when that useless husband of hers died and his bastard brother used her condition to start to take back over the House - Nniol wasn't allowing access to her to anyone. Their Auethnen, that's a kind of advisor, became concerned and sought out Isha's mother and told her what was happening, and also that Isha had been asking for me. Llaiir found me and requested my help. This was before I knew about the story I just told you, otherwise I'd have killed Nniol - as it was I thought him a conceited lout and I took a lot of pleasure in thwarting his plans. I stayed on her estate until Isha was ready to live again. What I'm trying to say, Chelsea is that she isn't alone, she might feel it at the moment, but she needs to be because she has to be pushed to the edge before she will accept help from anybody - even with all her resources she has an obtuse idea about showing that she doesn't need anything except herself but by the time she reaches Romulus she'll be ready, and they'll be waiting for her. We know she's taken care of, so what are we going to do about you?" he asked, "How do we restore happiness?"
"Happiness? I don't know.... " Chelsea's sigh gave her away. "My heart doesn't understand the word right now. I'm so lost Rh'vaurek. I'm a complete mess emotionally." she admitted.
Rh'vaurek already had his suspicions, but he wanted to hear it from her, "I'll give you a choice, you can tell me why, or I can get that lamp, shine it in your eyes and start wringing answers out of you ... that's a joke," he added, not sure if she could tell when he was being serious or not.
Chelsea couldn't help but choke out a laugh in response to that. "I'm so glad you made that clear, thank you!" she replied, brightening. "But I'm sure you don't want to hear all about my imagined slights that are more than likely paranoia or misunderstandings" she made light of it knowing that Ryan and Rh'vaurek had come to blows in the past.
"Then let me ask you a question," he said brushing a thumb over her cheek, as he checked for tell tale dampness. It was there, and if the conclusion he had drawn was correct she wasn't going to thank him for asking his question, "If you are only worried about the safety of a friend, why are you sobbing in my arms and not those of your boy Milarno?"
"He's.... he.... has a lot on his plate. He has a dancing partner and they have to practise together a lot and there's to be a show so they're spending all their spare time together and ..... it's nothing.... well, only he won't see me, he sent me away when I tried to see him last night and so I can't sob on his shoulder about Isha or anything...." she finally got it out after a lot of hesitation.
"But I'm not complaining, because I've got a lot of really nice friends and hobbies too, and now I have a brother to fill the gap!" she looked up at him and smiled warmly. "I like that. I always wanted a big brother."
Rh'vaurek slid his jaw sideways feeling the bones crunch together, "A dancing partner ... and you are happy with that?" He looked down at Chelsea, his expression neutral. In his experience a man who would blow off a lover to spend time with another woman was not simply dancing; he had done it often enough himself when he could not be bothered to end an affair.
Chelsea took an instant breath ready to leap to Ryan's defence by reciting all the excuses she made for him in her own head but, looking up into the face of the man who had both frightened and fascinated her in the past and who was now showing her a completely different side to himself, suddenly, she felt like that bright light he had mentioned earlier was being shone after all. On her life.
"I.... he......" she began but her eyes met Rh'vaurek's and the words dried in her throat.
"No" she whispered in a tiny voice little above a murmur, but laden with misery.
Beyond the luxury of tears, Chelsea's heart cracked and her dry eyes held nothing but lost hopes and dark shadowy doubts. "but.... " one last protest in loyalty. "I *ought* to trust him, he deserves that much from me. If only I weren't such a horrible jealous person." She had turned the blame back on herself, unable to bear the idea that Ryan would betray her.
Rh’vaurek did not speak. He continued to hold her; if not, with the angle she had turned herself into so that she could see his face she would probably end up on the floor.
‘A horrible jealous person’ was one of the last phrases he would have chosen to describe the Bajoran, succumbing to easily jealousy involved being able to easily think poorly of another person, even one to whom one was close and then to project an intense and sustained amount of rage at that individual; he and Isha had turned jealousy, both founded and groundless, into an art form.
"and...... " gaining momentum with the self-depreciation "I have a hobby too. So you see, I'm just as guilty, I enjoy learning to fly and the man who is teaching me, I let him kiss me, so you see, whatever Ryan is up to, I kinda deserve it, don't I?" It was half a rhetorical question and half an attempt to convince herself.
“Slow down, Chelsea,” Rh’vaurek said. He eased round and shifted her along the seat before moving the one she had occupied earlier and taking both of her hands in his. “First, either Milarno is guilty of more than dancing, or he is not – if you suspect he might be then he has given you reason to think this way,” he shook his head, hardly able to believe he was going to say his next words, “personally, I think the boy is a waste of space; he’s uncommunicative, rude, self absorbed and has control issues. However, he would probably think it … dishonourable, for want of a better word, to be unfaithful to you, the fact that he is quite willing to manipulate you in this manner – and manipulation is what it is - makes me question what that honour is worth, but that is beside the point.”
Chelsea's loyalty didn't like to hear Ryan criticised and she opened her mouth to try to defend him but Raedheol continued steadily on to his second point.
“Second, there is nothing wrong with having a hobby – that in itself does not give him a reason for closing you out, which is something he should not have done in the first place – what else are you supposed to do with your time? I would look to the lady, if she’s intent on getting her claws in he must have given her some reason to think he is a prospect, in which case he has done something more than dance … of course she could just be very keen on winning this dancing competition and have no idea of the fact that he is being a bastard to you.”
"I don't really know her. Ryan says.... " Chelsea began but stopped, realising how childishly naive it was only to know what Ryan had told her, rather than finding out for herself. "But how could Nora not know how much time he's spending with her especially when she was there when I called on him last night and he sent me away angrily for disturbing them?
I suppose you're right though, she could simply be intent on winning and just not caring about me. After all, to her I'm simply *his* problem. I feel I should go to the competition and watch but I don't have the courage to. I watched them rehearse once and they dance so closely, moving as one. It's such a beautiful, intimate, graceful combination that it makes me wish I could be that close to him but I'd be too clumsy." Chelsea was matter of fact about it.
Rh'vaurek's jaw tightened, Chelsea was doing nothing to improve his initially low assessment of Milarno - he could fight reasonably well for a medic, but it was Rh'vaurek's own complacency in not taking his assault seriously that had allowed the outcome of that altercation ... "It is one thing to pursue alternatives," he said, equally matter of fact, "if you cannot or will not commit, but it is quite another to flaunt it in front of them," he said. "You've done nothing wrong - and what's a kiss if it is done in the moment? If you were not my v'Rinam, my adopted sister, I would kiss you myself to show you how little it means."
Chelsea opened her mouth to object that it would mean a great deal to her but closed it again like a goldfish when she realised that could be taken in more than one way and get her into all sorts of trouble. She blushed and gazed intently at the insignia on Rh'vaurek's uniform.
"I don't think he meant to flaunt.... alternatives?" She flushed again as the meaning of this sank in.
"You don't? Whenever I wish to annoy Isha in that manner I mean to flaunt. It might not be fair on the woman I use, or on Isha, but it elicits the right effect, and believe me, she is very difficult to control ... put it in the context of your situation and you might see what I mean."
"That's so devious! To deliberately make her jealous so she'll..... would you actually have kissed me if I weren't your *v-Rhinam*?" She tried her best to pronounce it as well as she could. "And if you had done, would it have simply been with the intention that I should tell Isha so you might toy with her emotions?"
Rh'vaurek ran a hand through his hair, "Aside from the illustration of your own dilemma, if you had kissed me I would never have spoken with you again, and nor would Isha. I already hinted that I vet all her friends ... you in particular know her well enough to know how she would feel about that and if you proved willing to strike at her soul like that, well, I doubt I would ever get the stain off my lips."
"Worse! What a villain!" Chelsea protested, pretending to be angry with him but recognising the deeper and more touching side of this revelation. "You would use me to pique her for your own nefarious ends and then reject me as a consequence?"
He reached out and patted her on the cheek, a singularly patronising gesture, "Well, before I kicked you out of my bed you might have learned a thing or two, like don't fuck with the Tal'Shiar," he joked with a lopsided and lascivious smile. "Didn't I just tell you I wasn't a nice man?" he asked with false surprise at her expression.
Chelsea didn't know whether to push his hand away from her cheek in rejection of the patronising manner or laugh at the roguish way he was grinning at her. She settled for a grin and a light shove of his arm.
T. B. C. .....
A jp between
erie'Khrein Rh'vaurek Raedheol (NPC)
and
Lt. Cmdr. Chelsea Adams
ACMO, DS5