Hello, I’m Sheldon Parsons

Posted on Mon Jun 22nd, 2026 @ 11:53pm by Lieutenant JG Sheldon Parsons & Lieutenant Axod Qo

1,883 words; about a 9 minute read

Mission: Port of Call
Timeline: Mission Day 5 at 22:07

[Personal Quarters]
[MD 5: 2207 Hours]

Axod was curled up on the couch of his shared quarters, a real, honest-to-goodness paper book in his hands. ‘The Catcher in the Rye’ had been recommended to him countless times since his days at the Academy. It was an Earth classic from the 20th century that he had somehow never gotten around to reading.

It had been a quiet night. Xex was out, she hadn’t said where, and Axod had been looking forward to a rare, restful evening to himself. He opened the cover, letting the faint, dry scent of the old pages drift up toward him.

Then his combadge chirped. Axod sighed softly through his nose, the universal sound of a Starfleet officer realizing their quiet moment had just ended. He reached over to the side table, retrieving the badge and setting the book down carefully beside it, a finger still tucked between the pages to hold his place.

He tapped the badge.

"Parsons to Counselor Qo. I'm...I'm so sorry for the hour," a harried voice broke over the comm. "But I-I-I think I need some help. I'm having a panic attack and the things I normally do aren't working."The sound of Sheldon's irregular, rushed breathing could be heard over the line. "Is there any chance you're available?"

Axod stood, considering his words for a moment, weighing the request. The counselling suite felt like it was miles away, and the thought of trudging there at this hour held little appeal. Still, if someone had reached out, it meant they needed to talk.

He tapped his combadge again.

“Of course, Mister Parsons,” Axod replied, his tone warm but professional. “Swing by my quarters and we can chat.”

He closed the channel and let out a quiet breath, glancing back toward the couch. The book sat where he had left it, pages slightly fanned open, the evening’s quiet clearly over. With a small, resigned smile, Axod picked it up and set it neatly on the side table instead of his lap this time. Something told him he wouldn’t be getting back to Holden Caulfield anytime soon.

He straightened the room a little out of habit, nothing major, just clearing a stray mug and adjusting the throw draped across the cushions.If someone was coming to talk, the least he could do was make the space feel welcoming.

[Personal Quarters]
[Concurrent]

"Swing by my quarters and we can chat."

As the channel closed, Sheldon's anxiety spiked again. Qo wanted him to "swing by" his quarters? Walk down the hallway, take a turbolift, find quarters he'd never been to before...all while in the throes of a panic attack he couldn't stave off by himself. How was he going to do that? He couldn't do that. Sheldon could barely breathe, much less navigate multiple decks. And wait, double check...Shelly realized he wasn't breathing, which was why his chest continued to tighten and his blood thundered in his ears.

Breathe. In for four, hold for four, exhale for four. Box breathing, Dr. Bracco had called it. Sheldon focused everything he had on forcing himself to draw air in and slowly release it. The surging waters of anxiety receded only very slightly, but it was enough for his higher brain functions to get a foothold over his amygdala. No, he couldn't walk to Qo's quarters. But there was another way to get there more directly, though the sudden power consumption and activity trace might raise eyebrows up on the bridge. Sheldon didn't care.

"C-c-c-computer," he stammered through the invocation, "site to site transport to Counselor Qo's quarters. Authorization Parsons...Omega Tau Tau Epsilon Rho." His security code was a hold over from the Academy and had been a matter of cheeky fun ever since but here on Sojo, in the Delta Quadrant in the middle of a panic attack, Sheldon didn't smirk the way he did when normally using that code. Instead, he set his jaw, grit his teeth, and waited for the transporter beam to claim him.

[Counselor Qo's Quarters]
[Moments later]

The transporter deposited Lieutenant JG Sheldon Parsons several feet away from the Counselor, in a cleared part of the room where the computer had determined a safe beam in was possible. The young engineer wasn't in a fetal position but he was crouched and very obviously in distress. He didn't immediately see Qo, though, and gasped hard, once again trying to get air into his lungs. His body was making him breathe even as his brain was shutting down from panic overwhelm.

Axod dropped to one knee at Sheldon’s side without hesitation, the movement instinctive, practiced. “Mister Parsons?” he called, his voice steady but edged with concern, eyes scanning the lieutenant’s face for any sign of responsiveness.

After only a brief pause, he rose and crossed swiftly to the room’s replicator. “Computer, hypospray. One dose of Axonol. Emergency medical authorization, Qo-Tango-Alpha-One-Three-Nine.” The unit acknowledged him with a soft chirp, and a moment later the hypospray materialized in the familiar shimmer of light.

He returned just as quickly, lowering himself back beside Sheldon, the device held carefully in his hand. “Mr. Parsons, this is a sedative,” Axod said, his tone gentling, measured to reassure rather than alarm. “It will help you relax, if you’d like it.” His expression remained open, earnest, giving the lieutenant space to choose even as the urgency of the moment lingered beneath the surface.

Sheldon heard the voice before he fully registered where he was. Qo's quarters. Right. He'd transported there. The Engineer that was his inner problem solver had sorted getting him to the Counselor in the quickest way possible. And now here he was, crouched on Qo's carpet at 2210 hours with his heart trying to exit his sternum. And the counselor had just appeared beside him with a hypospray and a voice calibrated so carefully to not frighten him that Sheldon felt something in his chest respond to it before his brain even had the chance to catch up.

He looked at the hypospray. Then at Qo's face. Then back at the hypospray. Every version of this conversation he'd had with himself over the years — the one where he insisted he was fine, the one where he explained that he had techniques, the one where he made it clear he didn't need chemical intervention thank you very much — every one of those conversations required a functioning prefrontal cortex, and Sheldon's was currently at the bottom of a very dark ocean somewhere, decidedly very unavailable. What he had instead was simple and animal and true: Just make it stop. Please just make it stop, some part of his brain squirted through the cracks of the very solid mental wall he felt slammed against.

"Yes," Sheldon said. The word came out smaller than he intended. He swallowed, tried again, managed something closer to his own voice. "Yes. Please."

He stayed very still as Qo administered the hypospray, his right hand gripping the soft red fabric at his collar with the focused intensity of someone holding onto the only familiar thing in the room. The effect wasn't immediate, but it was still mercifully quick. Within a minute or two the leading edge of it arrived — not a curtain dropping dramatically to suddenly block off the panic — just a gradual loosening of the thing that had been coiled around his chest since before he'd reached for the comm panel. His heart, which had been conducting itself like it had been running an Academy-qualifying 10K fitness test, began to slow. His breathing, which had been shallow and truncated for the better part of an hour, found its bottom again. Sheldon became aware that he had been holding his shoulders somewhere near his ears and let them drop.

The room finally stopped feeling like it was collapsing in all around him. Sheldon sat down fully on the floor — no longer crouching, just sitting, back against whatever piece of furniture was behind him — and took a breath that went all the way in for the first time in what felt like a very long time. He held it for a count of four as Dr. Bracco had taught him. He released the breath slowly, then did it again. And as Sheldon did so, he moved on to Bracco's next step: "Name something you can see," she'd instructed him the last time a panic attack like this had hit. As his eyes roved the room, he noted many things in his field of vision, all of them grounding himself in his new locale in Qo's quarters.

Sheldon noticed his hands had stopped trembling. Thanks to the sedative and his steps — or, most likely, a combination of both — he was slowly coming back to himself, eyes still moving to land on things that would anchor him in the present. That included Qo's face now, which he found himself looking at properly for the first time since arriving.

"Thank you," Sheldon said. His voice was his own again — steady, quieter than usual, but his. He cleared his throat softly. "For the..." he gestured vaguely at the hypospray, then seemed to decide that wasn't sufficient and gestured equally vaguely at the general situation. "For all of it. I'm sorry for just...beaming here," Sheldon sounded half-shamed. His hand had found the V of his cardigan collar again without his permission. He noticed it but let it stay there. "I don't — " he started, then stopped. Tried again. "I've been meaning to make an appointment with you. I just kept — " Another stop. The sentence had several possible endings and none of them reflected particularly well on him. "I just...kept thinking I had more time."

Axod nodded slowly, his expression settling into a mixture of understanding and quiet concern. “There’s no blame to place,” he said gently. “We’re here now.”

He eased himself down onto the floor beside Sheldon, moving carefully until he found a comfortable position at his side rather than looming over him. The choice felt intentional, grounding, collaborative. “Let’s take some breaths together,” Axod suggested, his voice calm and steady. “How does that sound?”

Then he waited. There was no urgency in him, no pressure to answer quickly. He simply remained there beside Sheldon, patient and present, prepared to sit in the silence for as long as was needed.

Which, as it turned out, ended up being about seven minutes. Sheldon had fallen into silence next to the Counselor, noticing the man’s calm, measured breaths and attempting to match them. Watching Qo’s chest slowly expand and compress provided something easy to focus on —something easy that just so happened to also help regulate his nervous system. And as the sixth minute passed, so too did the embarrassment.

“So um…hello,” Sheldon licked his lips to re-wet them after so much breathing. “I’m Sheldon Parsons. And…I could really use your help,” he said, face slacking into forfeit. 

=/\= A joint post by… =/\=

Lieutenant Axod Qo
Ship’s Counselor

And 

Lt JG Sheldon Parsons
Acting Chief Engineer

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