mitsubishievo

Entry tags:

[AU]

The work was monotonous, absolutely mind numbing, but that was probably for the best. It gave Kavinsky something to do, and it kept him, during the days at least, from thinking too much about Proko. The rest of the time, though? Well, he found ways.

During the days, he couldn't stop Proko from going out and doing whatever it was he wanted to do. Kavinsky tried to not worry about it too much. It was a big station, there were a lot of people. And a lot stranger looking people than Proko. As long as he didn't get flustered, nobody was going to think he was anything out of the ordinary. He wasn't special.

Except he was. And Kavinsky was definitely in trouble about it. So maybe he was staying out a little later than he needed to, coming back a little later in the evenings. That was alright. It kept him from thinking about things too much. And that was probably better for both of them, in the long run.

But damn if he wasn't exhausted.

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At first, he thought the way that Kavinsky left early and came back late had something to do with work. At first, Proko waited around, sometimes worried. They did not have the same way of keeping in touch as the Starfleet people did. He knew, obliquely, that Kavinsky was still here, but that was all.

And, eventually, he realized the absence had nothing to do with work, which confused him, and frustrated him. So he he stopped waiting around their quarters. He explored the station restlessly, and he spent time in the holodecks, trying to learn, trying to understand. He found a way to make a program, and he did his best to keep it encrypted and hidden. It was a place that felt like... where he came from.

He lost track of time. It was later than usual, and he wondered if Kav had made it back before he did. He took a route that passed by the bar, just to see.

The bar was a bustling noise, bodies pressed all around. There were three Starfleet ships docked on the station, and it seemed like all three crews had converged on the bar. Tonight, for once, was actually a night of working late. But that didn't mean that Kavinsky wasn't also smiling, flirting, with some of the boys as they worked their way through. He wasn't going to be working forever.

He saw Proko across the crowd, that fair skin, that slight flash of iridescence. He wanted to wave to him, but his hands were full of drinks.

Maybe he should feel relieved that Kavinsky was actually busy. He wanted to go over, to ask if he could help, but he wondered if that would lead to too may questions. Instead, he tried to find a spot at the bar. Maybe he could catch him long enough to ask anyway, once his hands weren't full. He looked at all the Starfleet uniforms, trying to remember what each color and each rank insignia on the collar meant.

It took a few minutes, but Kavinsky got away, back to the bar. He smiled at Proko as he came in front of him, setting a drink down in front of him. "Did you have a good day?" he asked, quiet under the noise of the bar, just for the two of them.

He offered a smile back, but it was just a flicker of expression. "It was a day," he said as he looked down at the drink.

"What is all this? Do you need help?"

"Shore leave, or way stopping, or whatever you want to call it." He smiled a little bit and shrugged. "Certainly won't turn you down if you want to come back here and help me out. Maybe we can clear these guys out of here in a more timely fashion between the two of us. I'm sure they've got a curfew or something."

Proko just nodded and picked up his drink. He downed it quickly and, with maybe unexpected ease, climbed over the bar to start helping. He stuck to the easy drinks - things that just needed to come out of one bottle or from one of the taps. Kavinsky and whatever other bar tender there was could focus on the more complicated drinks.

It wasn't that he was specifically distracted by Proko, but Kavinsky was maybe a little wandering, a little slower than he'd been a moment before. One of the other bartenders elbowed Kavinsky, hard, to try and get him going.

There were a lot of Starfleet uniforms milling about, after all. They couldn't keep them waiting.

If Kavinsky happened to keep a little distance between himself and Proko, just so he'd keep his focus, it was incidental. He had to keep his focus, after all. Plenty of work to do.

It was easy to work steadily with orders coming from all sides. Proko takes in the faces, the different species crowded around the bar. He saw many humans, Bajorans, even one or two Klingons - or half Klingons, perhaps - in uniforms. There was even a Vulcan or two, though most of them seemed content to avoid the chaos at the bar in favor of sitting further away.

Once or twice the iridescence on his skin flickered under stress, tinged pink and red before it faded again.

Slowly, the crowd thinned, and as it thinned, it became harder and harder to excuse his avoidance of the bar. Still, Kavinsky kept it up as long as he could. Now, it was flirting. Now, it was letting a trader or two grab at him more than they ought to. He was hoping that Proko was still occupied at the bar, with the small crowd that was still surrounding it. Maybe he would be able to wander off for a while, after they closed out the bar.

He started catching on, toward the end, that Kavinsky was avoiding him. It was in the way that he let the trader grab at him, the way he-- he laughed and smiled with a young Starfleet ensign. Proko kept his head down and focused until the voices thinned and faded. He stepped back, quietly cleaning his hands off with a towel.

Maybe he threw it at Kavinsky before he eased out from the business side of the bar.

He was in the middle of a particularly flirtatious line when the towel hit him, and Proko was gone out the door before he could really see him go. His stomach twisted, fell out a little bit.

It only took him a second to make sure he was clear to go after him, but Proko was gone by then. Kavinsky was left standing there for a moment, feeling stupid and helpless. Why should he?

He swore under his breath and headed, slowly, back toward their quarters.

Proko had gone straight back to their quarters, too tired and too worn to go anywhere else. He had just finished changing when Kavinsky arrived. He put his day clothes in their small laundry pile.

For a moment he was without a shirt, revealing the faint iridescent lines elsewhere on his body.

Kavinsky caught iridescence, fair skin, the long-limbed expanse of Proko's body. His eyes lingered longer than he ought to, breath caught in his throat, until he realized that he ought to look away.

"The hell'd you throw that towel at me for?" His voice didn't sound nearly as steady as he wanted it to.

"Why are you avoiding me?" he fired back, all his iridescent marks flaring red for just a moment. "Even tonight, when I am there. Sometimes you do not come back here until I am already half asleep."

He frowned, frustrated and uncertain, and he looked toward their window almost longingly.

"Do you not want me here anymore, Yosef?" he asked quietly. "Why did we come to this place?"

"I was trying to work!" Kavinsky snapped back, finding that fortitude that he'd been missing in the first round, now that Proko was mad with him and letting him know about it. "We were both working and there were a lot of people. You can't be mad at me about that. And so what if I go out some nights?"

The quieter, more personal question almost offended him. It twisted in his ribs. He hated it. "It's safe here. We're safe here. Safer. Of course I fucking want you here."

"Leave early, come back late. Not some nights, most. You are not always working." Proko hugged himself like he was trying to hold his body together. He drifted away from the window. "I will find things to do."

Maybe if he could keep himself occupied, away, he wouldn't feel Kavinsky's absence so sharply.

"Do you want me to wear a tracker?" Kavinsky snarled, fingers curled into his slacks. "I could start wearing a traditional earring again. We could hide it in there. And then you could know exactly where I am all the time, since you apparently can't just ask me."

It was cruel, probably. It wasn't as if he was being any better. He wasn't explaining himself. Proko didn't know what any of this was, and it was cruel of him to expect that he would just understand. He uncurled his fingers and rubbed his forehead.

"Forget it. I'm taking a shower."

"Forget it," he agreed quietly. Because he would never ask this nebula of a boy to wear something so crude as a tracker. Because he didn't understand the tension and he didn't know how to ease it. His scales flickered dimly as Kavinsky moved toward the wash room.

Proko sank onto the bed, feeling the weight of a collapsing star in his chest. Maybe in dreams it would be better.

Kavinsky let the door shut behind him. He started the sonic shower. He let the noise fill the whole room, but went nowhere near it for a moment. He put his hand briefly on a bulkhead. And then he punched it, feeling the ache of it up his whole arm in the aftermath.

His knuckles hurt. He climbed into the shower and let the sonics clean off the grime of being on his feet all day. And when he was done and the shower was turned off, he sat in the corner of it and just tried to breathe. It wasn't coming easy.

The door slid open and Proko slunk into the bathroom. He sat on the floor across from the shower, nearly under the sink, and just looked at Kavinsky. He wasn't sure what to say or what to do, only that he hadn't wanted to just sit out there on the bed, alone.

For a moment, Kavinsky didn't move, like maybe that would be better. Except that Proko had just pointed out that he was ignoring him and--it was complicated. He didn't know how to explain it without making this weird, after that kiss. They'd been sharing a bed, but he'd been so careful about that since that kiss.

He was very aware of his nudity, of his aching arm and throbbing knuckles. "...do we still have that med kit?"

"Yes, we do," he answered, watching Kavinsky almost stubbornly. Then he sighed and got up so that he could get said med kit. He sat down again and nudged it toward the edge of the shower.

He'd shuffled out of the shower, at least, by the time Proko had returned with the kit, grabbing the hand towel to discretely drape over his lap until he could get up and change. He leaned against the wall, rooted around in the kit until he found the tricoder and some basic tape. He wasn't about to take himself to the station medical facilities over punching a wall. Taping up the knuckles that were hurt would be just enough.

It was clumsy work. He shouldn't have done it to his dominant hand. Sheepishly, he glanced at Proko. "...help me?"

Proko did as asked and took the tape from Kavinsky. He worked carefully, holding Kav's hand still while he wrapped his knuckles.

"Why did you hit the wall?"

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