Tension

Posted on Mon Apr 7th, 2025 @ 10:57pm by Lieutenant Axod Qo & Lieutenant Xex Wang

Mission: Mean Green Queen
Timeline: Mission Day 1 at 0000

[Deck 2, CMO's Quarters]
[1100]

The journey from the counselling office on Deck 5 to his shared quarters, was a very familiar one to Axod. A break in his schedule brought him back to his shared quarters for a while before lunch. The tall red headed man had spent little time in the cabin since he and Xex had last spoken, choosing to occupy his time with hobbies and time with his shipmates.

Entering the communal living space of the two men's cabin Ax took a spot on the spaces sofa. He retrieved a personal PADD from a side table, and pulled up the novel he was reading most recently, a Cardassian repetitive epic called For Service and State. It was an interesting cross section of what Cardassian culture was. He lifted his legs up onto the couch, and adjusted until he was comfy before setting out to read the next chapter.

He had only just eased his mind into the cadences of the story when the suite's door opened and a familiar figure strode through. In stark contrast to his appearances in the suite of late, Xex moved with a vigorous step, his entire body exuding energy. As the door shut behind him and he was no long backlit, it was obvious that he still carried a deep exhaustion; the lines were still deep-carved at the corners the edges of his mouth, his skin an ashier gray than usual. Within their sunken, bruised sockets though, his eyes glittered with feverish energy. The energy was laid over this like a thin shroud, an almost drugged buzz of excitement that seemed to animate the tired body beneath.

Without a word of greeting, a curious grin on his lips, Xex strode to the couch. He barely slowed as one knee hit the couch to the side of Axod's thigh and he leaned down, tangling his hand in the Doosodarian's collar as he claimed the man's lips in an almost frenetic kiss: deep, demanding, hungry for more.

Axod allowed himself to get lost in the moment, but only for an instant. He swiftly pulled his lips away from Xex's and turned away. "No." He said, setting his PADD aside to free up both hands. "You don't get to ignore me, and then act as if everything is okay all of a sudden."

Axod's 'no' froze Xex in place as abruptly as any stun. Frozen, but not backing off; it seemed the silvery man's ardor was unquenched even if he respected the other man's boundaries-- for the moment. “Better than okay,” he said, and close as he was, his voice was quiet, his grin full of a fierce, lively joy. Still half-crouched over Axod, he tilted his head to the side, bringing himself back into the other man's field of view. “Celebrate with me, Ax.”

"I'm not in a particularly celebratory mood." Axod said, pushing himself into a more upright position. He even turned his face away from Xex fixing his eyes on an ancient Doosodarian prosperity idol he'd acquired on his last visit to his homeworld. he could feel Xex's gaze as thought it were piercing his skin.

Xex's eyebrows climbed toward his hairline, perhaps surprised, perhaps simply intrigued. Despite the other man's obvious body language, Xex seemed undeterred. “Ah,” he breathed with understanding, “You need me to get you into the celebratory mood, hmm?” With Axod's head turned away, the curve of his neck stood out just next to Xex's lips, and he dropped them to the creamy skin in a coaxing caress.

Axod shifted beneath Xex’s weight, carefully maneuvering out from under him before pushing himself upright. His usually measured demeanor was nowhere to be found as he took a step back, putting space between them.

"I said no."

His voice was firm, though not loud, carrying a weight that made the words land like a physical force. A flush of deep carnation pink rose to his normally pale complexion, betraying the storm of emotions raging inside him. His gills flared slightly—a reflex, a tell.

"You don’t get to say the things you’ve said, treat me the way you have, and then act like none of it ever happened."

The words tumbled out before he could fully consider them, raw and unfiltered, driven by something deeper than logic. Resentment, hurt—maybe even something dangerously close to longing. He wanted to hold it in, to pull back before saying too much, but it was already spilling out, his chest tightening with the weight of everything unspoken.

He swallowed hard, forcing himself to steady his breathing. But his eyes remained locked on Xex, waiting, bracing for whatever came next.

Without Axod beneath him, Xex fell head first into the couch cushions with a muffled "mmf." Rolling to one side to flop right-way-up on the couch, he stared up at Axod, apparently really listening to the man for the first time since he'd come in the room. He looked up at Axod, a confusion written into the tilt of his head. "Treat you how I've--" Xex mouthed, as though trying to wrap his brain around an alien concept. "Axod," he said, both serious and mystified, "I'm not acting as though I've done nothing. I'm acting as though I've saved someone's life. I..." Xex's gray eyebrows peaked with confusion, "I thought you would be as happy as I."

Axod shook his head, a flicker of disbelief crossing his features. Did Xex really think he wouldn’t share in the excitement? The very idea stung, like an unspoken accusation buried beneath the words. His gills fluttered in irritation, but he forced himself to steady his tone.

"Of course I'm happy that Timmoz is doing better," Axod said, his voice firm but measured.

And he was. He was a counselor, after all—compassion was second nature to him. He understood the relief, the joy, the weight lifting off everyone’s shoulders now that Timmoz was improving. It mattered. It was important. But that didn’t erase everything else. It didn’t change the unspoken tension that lingered between him and Xex like a shadow neither of them dared to acknowledge.

The fact that Xex even questioned his sincerity only deepened the divide between them. Had things really soured so much that Xex doubted him like this?

Axod exhaled slowly, gripping the edge of his sleeve between his fingers as he fought the urge to say more—words he wasn’t sure Xex was ready to hear. Instead, he simply held the other man’s gaze for a moment longer before looking away, the weight of unspoken truths settling between them like an invisible wall.

Xex leaned back into the couch cushions, stretching his arms out along the back of the couch and crossing one leg over the other. “Mm,” he said, sounding entirely unconvinced, “You certainly sound like a happy man. The happiest I've maybe ever encountered.” Sarcasm saturated his tone and he craned his neck to the side, trying to hold Axod's gaze, even as the other man turned away. Pressing his lips into a thin line, he took a deep, steadying breath through his nose and pushed himself to his feet.

A couple steps brought him in front of Axod once again, thrusting his face into the Doosodarian's field of view. “I'm sorry,” Xex said, although he didn't sound as contrite as he might have. “You are clearly in no mood to celebrate and I want to respect that. But equally, I will not let this chance to honor life pass by. Good night, Ax.” And with that, he took a step back and turned in one fluid motion, making for the suite's door.

Axod stood still, his hands curled into loose fists at his sides as he watched Xex move toward the door. The other man’s words rang in his ears—frustratingly dismissive, as if this was just a matter of mood, as if this rift between them could be brushed aside with a simple ‘good night.’

"That's it?" Axod said, his voice quiet but sharp. His gills flared again, a clear sign of agitation. "You walk in here, ignore everything between us, and now you walk out just as easily?"

The sharp tone halts Xex's steps and he half-turns as though to retort, only to blink at Axod, confusion wrinkling his brow and turning him all the way around to face Axod as he continued.

He let out a dry, humorless chuckle, shaking his head. "You talk about honoring life. You’re right—that’s important. But do you even realize what you’ve been doing, Xex? How you've been treating me?" His voice wavered, not with uncertainty but with the sheer weight of everything he hadn't said before now.

He took a step forward, not to stop Xex, but to stand his ground. "I’m not mad because you’re happy. I’m mad because you only seem to want me when it’s convenient for you. When you need comfort, when you need a distraction, when you have something to celebrate. But when I needed you? When I was feeling cast aside? You weren’t there." His jaw tensed, his fingers flexing before he crossed his arms over his chest in a rare show of defensiveness.

"You're not the only one who has feelings, Xex. But maybe that never mattered to you."

The words hung between them, heavier than either of them had expected. Axod wasn’t sure what he wanted in return—an apology, an argument, anything but indifference. But whatever Xex chose next would tell him everything he needed to know.

Axod's outpouring of feeling hit the silvery man in successive waves of accusation, each rocking him with more confusion than the last until his expression became one of pure bewilderment. “Axod,” he began, cocking his head to the side as though studying some perplexing curiosity, “Do you really--” Frowning deeper, Xex stopped, his expression firming as he gathered his words. Taking a breath to help order his thoughts, he started again. “You believe that these last--” he paused, briefly shocked to realize it had only been, “--days I have been deliberately avoiding you, ignoring you to put my needs ahead of yours?” His tone is frustratingly reasonable, as though he were laying out the pieces of a logic puzzle, rather than attempting to untangle an emotional mess.

Axod stood in the center of the room for a long, breathless moment, his posture rigid and his expression carefully neutral. Every inch of his body felt taut with restraint, as if the very air around him had become charged, pressing against him in ways he couldn’t quite ignore. The easy intimacy they once shared—the quiet smiles, the soft laughter, the warmth that came so naturally between them—now felt like a weight, a pressure against his ribs. It was as if that intimacy had been replaced by a heavy, suffocating silence he could not escape.

He didn’t know when it had started, this shift. It hadn’t happened all at once, but gradually, in subtle ways that were hard to pin down. Still, he felt it now, the awkwardness between them, the absence of the comfort they’d once taken for granted. It was there in the space between them, a gap that felt like a chasm.

“Right.” Axod’s voice came out calm, though there was an underlying edge that betrayed the effort it took to keep it steady. He allowed his eyes to flicker briefly over Xex, but quickly looked away, unable to hold his gaze for more than a second. “Well... that’s certainly the impression you've been giving off for a while now.”

He took a long, steadying breath, the kind he often used in his work as a counselor to ground himself when emotions threatened to spill over. He felt the weight of everything he had kept inside of him, everything he hadn’t said, settling heavily on his chest.

Shaking his head, he let out a short, dismissive sound, more out of frustration than anything else. “Maybe this was a mistake.” His hand swept through the air, an almost theatrical gesture, indicating not just the space between them but the entirety of the relationship they had built, everything that had come before. The weight of those words—those simple words that he had long been afraid to say—hung between them like a damning verdict. He had said them out loud now, and there was no taking them back.

He stood there for a moment, his gaze fixed on the floor as if avoiding Xex's eyes, unsure of whether he wanted to see the reaction to those words or not. The silence stretched between them like an unspoken question, and for a fleeting second, he wished he could take it all back. But deep down, he knew he couldn’t. He couldn’t continue pretending that everything was okay when the truth was so much more complicated, when his heart had been bruised by the very person standing before him.

Axod's confirmation left Xex with an utterly stunned expression, his face blank as he struggled to catch up to something that had obviously been eating at his roommate for long enough to create a canker, an unpleasant growth of pain and sadness. Unfortunately, the tumor was purely metaphorical, else Xex might have had a chance at excising it. As it was, between the two of them, it was Axod himself who specialized in matters of the heart. Which, Xex reflected, was probably why this pain had festered, unnoticed in his single minded obsession to save Timmoz's life.

The silence stretched long enough that even Xex felt the palpable tension while he gathered his thoughts. He knew this moment called for a precise, but gentle touch: the merest swipe of a scalpel. He was just afraid that all he had was a cudgel.

“Axod,” he said, his voice quiet in deference to the suite's tense atmosphere. “These last few days haven't been about me. They've been about my patient. But I can--” he paused, his features scrunching as he worked out whether his words are true or not, “I can see how it might seem otherwise.”

Still appearing more bewildered than anything else-- though remorse and indignation somehow both reached briefly for supremacy-- he finally simply answered Axod's somber statement of mistake. “If you think so, I will respect your choice,” Xex said, his words sounding especially formal even amidst his typically correct speech.

Tears welled in Axod’s dark blue eyes, though not necessarily from sadness. It was something more complex, an overwhelming tide of emotions pressing in from all sides. He swallowed hard, trying to keep his composure, but the weight of unspoken words and tangled feelings made it difficult.

"I think this has become more complicated than we intended," he said, his voice flatter than he had meant it to be, as if dulling the edge of his emotions might keep them from spilling over. His breath hitched slightly, and he dropped his gaze, unwilling to let too much vulnerability show.

Only because you made it so, Xex thought, and if the brief flash of annoyance in his expression was anything to go by, the words were on the tip of his tongue. But rather than letting them blurt forth, he pressed his lips together, holding them in and smoothing his features until something more constructive could emerge. Still not entirely willing to let his celebratory mood evaporate beneath the heat of Axod's hurt, Xex decided to try one more time to take them back to the casual beginnings of their acquaintance. Taking a cautious step forward, he extended a hand. "It doesn't have to be," he said, quirking one corner of his mouth upward, "Come celebrate with me."

Axod blinked rapidly, his vision blurring as he fought to keep the tears at bay. His emotions swirled in a tangled mess—pride for Xex, sadness for himself, and something else he couldn't quite name. He forced a small smile, though it didn't quite reach his eyes.

"You should celebrate," he said softly, nodding as he reached out, placing a firm yet fleeting hand on Xex’s shoulder—a gesture meant to be supportive, but also a barrier. A way to create space.His voice faltered for just a second before he added, "I... I have reports to catch up on." The lie felt heavy on his tongue, but it was easier than admitting he needed to be anywhere but here. Without waiting for a response, he took a step back, willing himself to hold it together.

One gray eyebrow lifted, but his skeptical look was the only challenge Xex gave to the lie. A snarky reply about the reports bringing Axod satisfaction rose in his throat, but Xex swallowed it back down and said instead, “I will. Have a good night.” Curiously, it sounded heartfelt rather than formal. Then, mercifully, he turned from Axod and strode for the door, leaving the Doosodarian in peace.

Axod stepped into his bedroom without so much as a backward glance. The door hissed closed behind him with that all-too-familiar sound; soft, final, and deeply isolating. For a moment, he stood still, eyes fluttering shut as the silence wrapped around him like a heavy shroud.

This was his sanctuary. His quiet refuge from the chaos beyond those doors. But tonight, it felt more like a cell.

He didn’t cry. He refused to. Not here. Not now. The emotions swelled in his chest, pressing against his ribs like rising water behind a dam, but he gritted his teeth and held the line. The ache was there undeniable but he buried it beneath layers of practiced stillness. All he allowed himself was a long, slow exhale as he crossed to the side of the bed, every movement weighted with exhaustion that had nothing to do with the physical. The room was dim, lit only by the faint ambient glow from the control panel. It was enough. More than enough.

A Post By

Lieutenant Xex Wang
Chief Medical Officer

Lieutenant Axod Qo
Chief Counselor