Chance Encounters - Ekor/Kelas - Complete

Chance Encounters



conducting-cardassia

Ekor came to a stop in a darkened passageway between buildings. The walkway turned into a low-lit corridor that led further into the passage, which was lined by run-down establishments either obviously abandoned long ago, or vying for attention with no finesse whatsoever. Dilapidated electrical signs flickered their neon-lit messages into the seedy darkness, promising cheap alcohol, loud music and a vast array of even more disorderly forms of entertainment. “The Horned Regnar Club”, shouted one of the signs, depicting the silhouette of a male with an overly long, indecently engorged neck, exposed to his view in the brightest hue of orange and reflecting off puddles of oily liquid on the ground.

Ekor almost turned around on his foot, ready to leave and never think of this again. What in the world was he thinking? What possessed him to travel to Culat, of all places, and seek out the seediest, sleaziest part of the town, just to look for… he stopped. To look for answers. His pounding heart should have told him that this was a colossally bad idea, that there was no rhyme nor reason to what he was doing – but instead, it was uselessly pumping blood away from his brain to other, jubilant and decidedly less squeamish parts of his body.

He bit his lip as the thumping of bass-heavy music spilled into the over-acoustic entryway and into the pit of his stomach, where it sat as not-quite-queasiness. Ekor took a breath to steady himself and expelled it explosively, emptying his lungs as he had learned so many years ago.

“Stage fright, Laset,” his instructor’s voice echoed around in his mind, “you cannot defeat it, but you can trick your body into ignoring it. Now breathe, unless you want to tremble your way through.”

Gradually, his body accepted the signal of his breathing and fell into its conditioned response.

He’d come too far to turn back now, and at any rate, he was only going to look. Perhaps the monster inside could be appeased this way, he thought, digging a claw into his own palm.

It did nothing to stop the warmth pooling in his groin, and even less to stop his obsessive stirrings at the idea of that same claw pushing into someone else’s flesh. Ekor couldn’t think.

And that was the whole problem. For the past weeks, he hadn’t been able to think, to focus, to plan for his duty, without the monster rearing its head. If only he could manage until his apprenticeship started – then, he would be covered in work, and there simply wouldn’t be time – but there were even fewer options on Cardassia than he had previously assumed, and even if there had been conductors looking for apprentices in abundance, Ekor knew this couldn’t be rushed. Too much depended on his decisions now.

And so he found himself with too much time on his hands, and too little to do apart from wait. It hadn’t been long before his perversion had made itself felt once more.

With a disgusted growl, Ekor stepped in between the heavyset concrete buildings and into the dimly lit corridor.

As he approached the club, the door opened, and two rough-hewn service drones stumbled into Ekor’s way, drunk and reeking of sex, angrily growling at someone inside. As they turned, they fixed Ekor with speculative stares, gazes raking up and down his body. Ekor caught and held the larger man’s eyes, nothing of his nervousness showing outwardly.

There must have been something, probably in his stance, that told the men to back off. He wasn’t their type. Or perhaps it was simply that their monsters recognised his monster, and yielded to it.

Ekor was thrilled and disgusted.

Inside, the air was thick as yamok sauce, and pungent with a mixture of odors that Ekor didn’t care to examine too closely. People were dancing to music that was loud enough to be felt, violent, unrelenting beats making the floor shake. He would regret this in the morning, but as long as his temporary hearing loss would remain his only regret, Ekor would count himself lucky.

He fe lt the eyes of the men he passed, felt them on his body, saw heads turn, and took them as bolsters, like he always did. This was familiar. He knew how to handle an audience.

Ekor made his way to the bar, took a stool and ordered. After a while, his eyes had adapted to the stroboscope-like lighting, and he began to make out the dancers’ movements around the floor. Unlike he had initially thought, there was a lot of coming and going, almost like a bizarre form of choreography – men paired off or sometimes found themselves in small groups, and left together by side corridors and doorways leading further into the inside of the club.

He squirmed, just barely, at the thought of what was undoubtedly going on behind those doors and down those hallways. He was far too sober to let himself imagine it.

@xkelasparmakx



xkelasparmakx

Kelas was hiding in the washroom. He shouldn’t have been—it wasn’t as though it was his first trip to the Horned Regnar. He had in fact been quite the frequent visitor and was rather known by regulars. It was not unfamiliarity with his surroundings that bothered him. It was unfamiliarity of himself.

He’d done something rather stupid before his break from University. He’d let his mind go to places that had been unpleasant, and perhaps irrational, and in the process he had hacked his beautiful long hair in an attempt to make himself ‘less pretty’. Given the make of his facial features and body a change to his hair could only do so much. Not enough. And now that he was ‘home’ again and falling back into old habits he was staring into the dirty mirror above the sonic-sink that was out of service and looking at this thing in the mirror. The reflection unsettled him.

“It worries me that the sink is out of service as well,” Kelas muttered, reeling his thoughts back from heading down the pathway of how unhygienic– why did it matter? He’d certainly done any number of rather disgusting things at this place.

Kelas drew his fingers through his hair and frowned. It hadn’t grown much over his short break period and to make matters worse in coming back to Culat his traveling bag, which contained his bottle of hair oil, had been stolen when he’d gotten off the transport at the wrong stop. He didn’t feel pretty enough to be here now with his hair an odd length and frizzing as though he’d gotten a shock.

Pretty was how the men at this club seemed to enjoy him. Kelas might be having an inner war with ‘pretty’ but ‘pretty’ was what he used to get attention.

Enough pouting and hiding, Kelas.

He tugged the top half of his hair into a tail leaving the rest to hang down around his neck, and used the black strands to mostly hide the odd silver streak down the center, and left it at that. He purchased a small pot of blue body paint from the washroom replicator and painted his chufa and those two special scales on his very exposed neck and then pushed out into the crowd of people.

The music was particularly loud this evening. He enjoyed the steady pulse of the bass, however. Patterns and repetition comforted him and helped to anchor him.

He considered finding a partner to dance with but his confidence was still wavering. So instead he veered towards the bar and sat down. He fidgeted with his hands for a moment. He was still caught in thinking about his hair, wanting to pull his fingers through it, but the beautiful length was of course gone. His mind had a tendency to fixate. Stop thinking about it! He turned to the man next to him and gave a flutter of his eyelashes and a coy smile all the while keeping his head just a bit bowed, his shoulders a bit rounded, an obvious posture of submission.

“You’re new,” he said.



conducting-cardassia

Ekor had gotten more or less used to the steady assault on his eardrums and the sharpness of his drink, feeling, if not in perfect control, at least reasonably secure in his self-ascribed role of observer. What he lacked in certainty, he made up for in Those men, he thought, those men are lucky.

They were free to choose to dance, to attract suitors or go looking for someone they liked to watch, to pursue him, to go and touch, and perhaps to leave the dance floor when the heat got consuming. Though some, he realised with a flush creeping up his neck, did not even stop to leave. Ekor envied them.

He forgot that more than a few looked violent, that most would have duties at home that they were neglecting, that all they got from this was a few moments of carnal lust and the transitory rush of physical completion… but then, Cardassians had always been good at seeing what fit into their view, and not so much at seeing what they needed to see.

Ekor watched, noticing the dance between partners unfold in front of him – who would pursue, and who would be pursued; who would feign disinterest or play hard-to-get, who would touch and who would expose their necks, and it all was… not for him.

He didn’t realise his mouth hang stupidly open until someone addressed him.

“I’m…” In front of him was the most enticing creature he had ever seen. A man, a few years older, he thought, but shorter, and he had coloured his chufa and neck scales in blue; his hair was long for a man’s, though short for a woman’s, like some modern women were wearing in the Capital these days. It was flung about his head in an unorganised, wavy mass that fell to his scandalously low neckline, creating a halo against the stroboscopic light; he was looking at Ekor from his lesser height, smiling directly at him – he was so many things no Cardassian man had any business to be, but Ekor couldn’t tear his eyes away.

“I’m…” enchanted, his mind said, and it was true: he never would have imagined. He wanted to do things to this man, things that he had forbidden himself to even think about, but now those images exploded in his mind: the graceful slide of him to his knees, those lips lovingly closing around two of his fingers, breaths ghosting over wet digits…

Ekor recoiled from where his mind had gone, disgusted with himself, digging his claws into the glass he was holding. He wouldn’t want that, Ekor thought at himself, nobody would want that, unless you force… you Monster.

He knew he should get up and leave, and try to forget this man and how he was looking at him, but… “I’m… confused,” he finally blurted inelegantly (though this place was everything but elegant, so he thought it probably didn’t matter much), “and new… you could say that. You’re… “ beautiful, his mind provided helpfully, though what he said was: “not…?”

Oh, grand, he thought. That was smooth. Ekor cleared his throat, but his mind swam in a pleasurable haze of hormones and alcohol and wouldn’t be sobered that easily. “What’s your name?” he asked, then shook his head. “No, you don’t have to answer that… it’s none of my business. I just… this is my first time here. I was… watching.”

He met the shorter man’s eyes. “There’s much to see.”



xkelasparmakx

Kelas watched his new encounter very closely, his eyelids a bit lowered, as though he might be sleepy. But he was paying very close attention–taking in body language, and hanging on every word. The man had him holding his breath when paused after ‘you’re’ and then Kelas pouted a bit when he completed that sentence with a questionable ‘not’.

What did that mean? Not my type? Not… perhaps not a man. Kelas did tend to confused people. He was very aware of that.

“Kelas,” he answered, despite being told that he didn’t need to. It was probably dangerous to be known by his name, especially his first name, but danger was part of the fun and the intrigue for him. In fact it was rather improper to have one know you by your first name when they were no more than a stranger. Kelas didn’t particularly care.

His voice was naturally soft and not particularly masculine though he had been told on several occasions that he had a very calming voice. He worked to raise it loudly enough over the music.

“I’m sorry if I’ve confused you,” he said, tipping his head into a small bow, “I… am a man if that’s what you–if that’s what you thought I was ‘not’.”

His mouth hung open a moment on the edge of telling the man that he could prove this if the other was interested. That was how Kelas would have chosen to flirt. He was not very socially adept but he understood that he was often far too forward. Sometimes he did remember to try to be more… well. Discrete was not the word. An ability for him to be ‘discrete’ was still quite far away but he was trying to be a bit more aware of when something he might say could make another person uncomfortable.

Instead he closed his mouth for a moment and scrambled for something more “Cardassian” to say.

“If that’s what you’ve worn to try and pick up a partner for the night then…then…” the insult had began scathing enough but Kelas couldn’t think of how to finish it so it just died a bit pathetically. How embarrassing. He turned back to the bar and rested his chin in his hand and gave the decoration in his drink an annoyed flick. The bartender had brought it to him with a grin and a suggestive hiss which probably meant that if Kelas accepted the free drink he’d probably need to ‘repay’ the bartender after closing.



conducting-cardassia

“Then… what? Getting a little tongue-tied?” Ekor grinned at Kelas, leaning over slightly and into his space. “I seem to have gotten your attention, though” he said with a knowing glance, “I wonder what that says about your taste… Kelas.”

The name rolled off Ekor’s tongue with ease. Had he been completely sober, and hadn’t he been forced to shout over the music, he would have heard the lascivious, almost graphic form the name took in his mouth.

He measured Kelas up with another long gaze that pinned his eyes and raked down his neck ridge unapologetically. Ekor found his embarrassment rather endearing, and the fact that he’d given him his name tasted sweet and dangerous.

He downed it with a swallow of his drink.

In a purposeful movement, he put down the glass on the counter and gripped Kelas’ shoulder.

“And of course you’re a man – I wouldn’t go to this place to meet a woman,” he said a little more softly, closer to the shorter man’s ear. “New here, was what I think you’re not. But if I’m in error, do please forgive my assumption.”

The words themselves may have sounded timid, even submissive, but there was nothing submissive about the way Ekor said them. “Although if you are in fact new here, it certainly looks convincingly as though… this sort of establishment comes to you naturally,” he couldn’t stop himself from needling him just a little. Of course, that line of argument left his own metaphoric flank wide open to that very same accusation, but Ekor gave the invitation with intent.

Kelas was simply too charming, with his long hair and upturned gaze, and his delicate ridges, and his strangely, temptingly liquid, easily yielding gestures.

That was when Ekor’s warning flags finally caught up and started flashing all at once. His heart was beating as if he had been dancing for hours instead of simply leaning against the grimy counter while sipping a cheap alcoholic drink. He knew he was far too engaged to be ‘merely watching’ anymore, and the sober part of him was frantic; it was urging him to disengage, but before he could stop himself, he squeezed Kelas’ shoulder.

This was… not going according to plan, Ekor realised hotly; he had never imagined the monster so hard to resist, but he had to. If he didn’t want Kelas to be disgusted with him, he needed to put a leash on it and pull it tight, as tight as he could. It would perhaps diminish his enjoyment, but it… it was unavoidable.

“I’m not familiar with the customs here, but… I’m fairly capable at music.” Ekor stepped into Kelas’ space, feeling light-headed. “Would you care to dance?” he asked. As he did so, his breath ghosted over Kelas’ ridge.



xkelasparmakx

Kelas thought he would enjoy the way his name sounded in the other’s mouth if they were somewhere more private–and he did hope that the man would accompany him to one of the back rooms for something more private before the night was over.

When the man leaned close Kelas opened his mouth a bit to sip the others scent on the air. It was a good smell and Kelas was already thinking of how it might be to smell the stranger in other more intimate places, to bask in his arousal.

“Oh–oh new!” Kelas almost laughed. “I’m… no. I’m not. I’m… familiar,” Kelas said. “I’m sure some of the men I ‘know’ would use harsher words. Though… I suppose those words would not be wrong… or particularly… unwelcome.”

Kelas gave the man a small smirk and then the large hand was squeezing his shoulder. Oh–it was strong, and warm, and Kelas was certain it could be commanding. Perhaps later the man would grip both of his shoulders and push him down right to his knees.

Kelas felt his ridges growing a little warm already. A faint bluish tone was already hinting at each scale–though the lighting in the room may have rendered it unnoticeable just yet.

“Dance? Of course, jasi,” Kelas tipped his head in a respectful little bob. It had been a time since he’d been asked simply to dance. It wasn’t what he’d came for but it could certainly be fun and he intended to do his best to try to entice the handsome stranger into wanting him for more than a dance. He held a hand out between them, small and soft looking, with a little flourish. “Lead me.”



conducting-cardassia

Before Ekor could stop himself, his lips parted in a tiny, inaudible, “oh…”. He had never before been called Jasi by anyone, and for a second, his mind simply didn’t know how to handle it. He just knew that he loved it and would always, always long for it from now on.

At the conservatoire, they didn’t number their students as they did in other Institutes. Still, all he had ever been in his unit was Laset. First names were off limits, only ever used between close friends and in hushed tones, but in all his time there, no one had ever called Ekor anything but ‘Laset’.

And now, he was Jasi, and there was not a single part of him that did not triumph at the fact; just this one little taste, he thought, heat climbing up his spine. “With pleasure,” he said, and took Kelas’ offered hand, pulling him forward, only to suddenly stop him with the solid resistance of his body.

The yank caused a little of Kelas’ drink to spill onto Ekor’s sleeve, creating a wet patch on the simple linen tunic. Before Kelas could apologize, Ekor tipped his chin up. “That was my own fault,” he stated, gently taking the half emptied glass from Kelas’ hand. “Don’t worry about it.”

He would just have to wash his tunic, but that was a given anyway.

But oh, how he wanted… Kelas felt so good against his body, even through their clothes; it had been a while since Ekor had been touched with anything resembling affection, and he tightened his hold as he began to sway to the music.

Kelas was slight, dainty like a woman in some ways, but not soft, and nothing at all like one in others.

Ekor wanted to know more about him. The way his scales would swell if he bit his neck. Whether he would permit him to touch his nape, how the crown of his head would look when he’d be down on his knees… the way his mouth would feel kissed, filled, worshiping. The sounds he would make when he entered him…

Ekor squeezed him against himself, clearing his thoughts. Dance, he reminded himself, dance and hope you will never have the opportunity.

He guided his dance partner as he pleased, fluent, sensuous and yet raw movements mimicking the animalistic quality of the music. They closed in on each other, eyes locked, and separated again, only for him to forcefully pull Kelas back into his grip, legs twining together once more.

In more ways than one, it was like conducting.





xkelasparmakx

Kelas enjoyed the reaction he received upon calling the stranger ‘Jasi’. He would like to do it again with the man’s hand on his throat, or fingers tangled in his hair, maneuvering him in a different type of dance.

When this handsome man held him close it made Kelas tremble–not from wanting him, but from the closeness, from being held like that. It wasn’t the most familiar to him and it cause his anxiety to twinge a little. He didn’t consider himself made for being held like that, even for a short few moments, in dance.

When the man drew him back once again, more forcefully, that felt more familiar and was a bit of relief. The tension in his body eased a bit and he allowed his gaze to fall over the man’s face and to settle on his lips for a moment thinking again about how his name had sounded on them.

Kelas was wrenched out of that moment, however, by a heavy hand falling onto his shoulder from behind. He startled immediately, gripping the stranger more tightly, neck stiff, ridges flaring subtly in alarm. His heart was pounding, his mind immediately racing over certain unwanted events from his past.

Calm down, he reminded himself in thought. You’re in a public place, nothing like -that- is going to happen.

“This one doesn’t need you to dance with him,” a voice chuckled behind his ear.

Oh, he recognized the voice, and while that should have calmed him he was still gripping onto his dance partner rather hard. Be normal, Kelas! Don’t squeeze, breath regularly, smile. He did manage at least to force an odd sort of half-smile but it was maintainable only for a moment then fell away.

“He’ll go to the back with you and half the men in his club quite willingly,” a deeper laugh now.

The hand slid down from his shoulder, along his arm, to grip hard at his elbow. Painfully. Kelas gave a little gasp. This was the strange moment when desire twisted with his fear and humiliation. But tonight he realized that he didn’t want the familiar newcomer to take him away from his dance partner. And yet a nasty voice in his head told him that he did not deserve to enjoy the dance. He was not -for- dancing. He was for taking into the back room and being used.

Kelas had been staring at the chest of his dance partner, not wanting to meet his gaze, but he forced himself a brief glance.

“I… should leave you be,” Kelas said to his dance partner. “I’m… wanted.”

And after all that was why he was in this club–to be wanted. That was the thing he chased and longed for. Yet he was still gripping his dance partner. His hands better not betray him. He needed to let go, and disappear, and do what he did. ‘No’ did not seem like an option. When had it ever been?

A breath reeking of sour kanar seemed to drown him as the man leaned closer from behind him.

“What’s the matter with you, slut? You’re usually far more eager than this. Think you’re too good to choke on my cho’ch all of a sudden? Why are you shhhivering…” the familiar man hissed, “pathetic, pretty, little prey animal.”

Just go with him. Just go. He would have normally gone by now and been having fun, and everything would have been fine–but instead of grinning and following his ‘suitor’ away without much care for his own safety, only the desire to please, and be wanted, those things were absent tonight.

The bit of desire that had been swimming around amongst the other feelings was suddenly blotted out by fear. Memories of his short time in military school before he’d been able to fake an illness and get out, a certain memory of working on the docks, of how afraid he had been the first time it happened and then somehow… he had gotten used to it, embraced it, needed it.

“I think I’m… s-ssick,” Kelas said, quietly. Yes, you are sick.

If he didn’t leave now he was certain he was going to just faint forward against his dance partner. Gray spots were beginning to flutter before his eyes and he felt as though he was beginning to untether from his body. He let go of his partner, and attempted to free himself from the grip at his elbow, but in his growing detachment the attempt was unimpressive and unsuccessful.



conducting-cardassia

Ekor’s first thought was that Kelas had seemed neither drunk nor sick before. The second, dissonant mental image was of Kelas being violently ill on Ekor’s clothes. But then, finally, the fact that Kelas just seemed to stand there motionless caught up with him.

The newcomer wouldn’t let go, and in the spur of several conflicting moments, Ekor decided, neither would he.

He secured his hold around Kelas’ hips, marveling for a jarring second at how round they felt. Then, he caught a hold of himself.

Ekor leaned in, so he could speak into Kelas’ ear. It was delicate, just like his whole frame. “Kelas,” he said, careful to speak softly – he didn’t know if the brute who had interrupted them knew this name, and if not, Ekor was not about to give it away. He had more class than that; however, he needed to reach Kelas who had suddenly become unresponsive. “Kelas, snap out of it,” he entreated. “It’s going to be fine,” Ekor added, speaking with more confidence than he was feeling. “You are right, you know? You are wanted. By me. For this dance… which is all that matters… unless you would rather go with him?”

Oh, if only Ekor knew for certain what Kelas wanted. He had seemed to enjoy himself well enough, had moved fluently where he’d led him. Maybe he’d been a bit startled in the beginning, but the little glances they had exchanged had been heated and inviting, and they had left him wanting more.

Ekor had been so engrossed with their dance that he hadn’t even registered the interruption as intentional at first: people bumped into each other all the time, and it was usually resolved by quick eye contact, a bow or a nod, a touch to the other’s arm, and then everybody would resume their own entertainment.

It was only when the new suitor grabbed Kelas’ arm that Ekor realised what was going on, and what the stranger had said to him.

What he had said about Kelas.

And just like that, Ekor knew he wouldn’t let it stand. Even though Kelas was little more than a stranger to him, Ekor suddenly felt a surge of fierce, uncompromising protectiveness towards him. He didn’t understand it, or what it had to do with being called ‘Jasi’, he just knew these things were somehow connected and important, and that those ugly words couldn’t stand.

With his heart beating hard in his chest, Ekor straightened and squared his shoulders. “He’s not coming with you,” he said coldly, meeting the stranger with a challenging stare of his own, hoping only that Kelas wouldn’t prove him a liar after all.

There was quite some muscle on the man. He had the sort of build one gained from hard labour, and he was eyeing Ekor from narrow-set, small eyes that were sunken deep into the circle of his orbital ridges.

Ekor didn’t know how he knew, but it was the monster inside him that growled in anticipation as he stepped between the stranger and Kelas. “And I don’t care much for your tone.”

“Oh, ‘s that so?” The stranger faced Ekor, squaring his menacing bulk and filling his field of view. “You don’t ‘care for my tone’?” he asked mockingly, “How’d ya like my fist, then? Think you’re better than me, eh?”

Ekor wasn’t so easily intimidated. He had spent most of his school years facing off against kids twice his size (and in the beginning, twice his age). He knew a bully when he saw one. This man wasn’t the first, and he wouldn’t be the last. “I’m service class, like you,” he gave a non-answer, wisely omitting the fact that he was sponsored.

“Full of yourself, is what you are,” the stranger sneered, spitting onto the floor.

Ekor’s scales and hair bristled, and he growled softly, dangerously. The man didn’t react. He was still crowding Ekor, who was wedged between him and a group of heavy, muscled men right behind him, who were mercifully ignoring them.

“Word of advice for your service class prUt,” the stranger hissed, “that slut isn’t worth getting yourself beaten up for. Ya can get better anywhere.”

Ekor ignored the backwards compliment he’d just been paid – subtlety wasn’t in this man’s repertoire, and in any case, Ekor wasn’t feeling like banter. Instead of backing down, he took a step forward, startling the brute who wasn’t expecting it. “I’m not getting beaten up,” Ekor stated calmly, staring into the stranger’s widened, suddenly defensive eyes.

“Come on, let’s go somewhere else”, he said to Kelas, grabbing his hand, and turned away, his back to the stranger.

Ekor knew he would take the bait.

He counted mentally, three, two, one… then, he pushed Kelas to one side and ducked to the other. The stranger came charging at them, but couldn’t react in time, landing a resounding punch right into one of the big dancers’ stomach.

Ekor saw the sudden victim of violence double over from the unexpected impact, and then he grabbed Kelas’ hand, and pulled him out of the crowd behind him, grinning. “Told you, I wasn’t getting beaten up today.”

As he watched the commotion grow and fists begin to fly, he was feeling exhilarated, and very very strange. While he knew he wasn’t easily intimidated, he’d never known himself to become so protective of anyone. And so fearless.

If necessary, he would have gotten into that fight. If necessary, he would have taken the beating, and all for that beautiful, short, enchanting stranger, Kelas. What have you done to me, he wondered, dreamily looking at his strangely wavy hair, feeling the urge to bury his fist in it.

“Are you alright?” he asked, worried once more when he remembered how stiff and not-quite-there Kelas had become. “Forgive me for the upheaval. It was either that or…” Ekor stopped. He knew he didn’t need to describe to Kelas what might have happened otherwise.

He just hoped Kelas didn’t find the commotion he had caused too embarrassing. And that he wouldn’t find out how hard Ekor had become inside his sheath.

“Would you… like to go somewhere else?”



xkelasparmakx

The following events were a bit of a blur to Kelas. His dance partner gripping his hips had brought him back to himself a bit, and then his voice against his ear–and then the rest of the commotion. Kelas was struggling to process that someone was stepping up to his defense.

Then in a whir everyone was fighting. He was pulled away from the crowd. The anxiety was gone and a rush of relief flooded him.

For a moment he simply blinked at the chaos of fighting men. Then he was being looked at in such an odd way, and spoken to. His ‘rescuer’ was still holding his hand and Kelas gave it a grateful squeeze.

“I’m fine,” he paused, and then added, “now, Jasi.” As for the upheaval? “There is nothing to forgive–I–what you did was–ah.” Words, Kelas! “Thank you. I… would like to go somewhere else…” Kelas said, a bit hesitantly.

Making his own needs known to others was not his greatest strength and the moment he had said so he felt that it must be selfish. This man had just saved him from something he hadn’t wanted. Had risked his own safety–for him.

“I’m… not… certain I am worth the risk you have taken. But I will thank you properly. In any way you desire, Jasi,” that seemed more appropriate somehow and yet Kelas was imagining he and this stranger just walking the city streets at night, hand in hand, talking. Perhaps even learning the strangers name. What must it be? Kelas imagined he would enjoy speaking it in the dark, quietly, testing it. How simple. But surely that was a silly thing to think about. He was not even good at conversation.

“Surely you wouldn’t want to be seen… outside of this place with… well. Someone whose wearing such a scandalous collar,” he settled on that. It was less harsh than ‘with me’ but that was more accurate to what he was thinking. Blaming it on his choice of revealing clothing was safe enough.



conducting-cardassia

“Certainty is entirely overrated,” Ekor said. His eyes were almost magically drawn to Kelas’ neck. They were standing close together, and Ekor was sure Kelas would see his pulse throb in his jugular vein. Adrenaline, he thought, but he knew as soon as it occurred to him that he was wrong. Or, not entirely right. The words ’in any way you desire, Jasi’ were echoing inside his mind, unspeakable delights playing out in his imagination. Things he had done to others, things he had imagined, and oh, things he hadn’t dared to even let himself imagine.

Ekor swallowed hard. He knew there was danger where he was headed, but something had happened to him in the floor, something unforeseen and unexpected, and he no longer knew what to do or think.

With a sudden grin, he snuck a hand around the back of Kelas’ shoulder and firmly grabbed him by the nape of his neck. Ekor pulled him into his frame. As he held him there, he ran his fingers over the scales decorating the subtle neck ridge, lingering on the one seductively painted in blue. It seemed to beckon him, to invite him to scratch and knead and bite and pinch hard, and Ekor let out a growl he couldn’t stop.

“And your collar is absolutely delectable,” he whispered into his wonderfully exposed ear, “Atsi.” His voice carried the barest hint of a tremor, and a part of him hoped that Kelas would hear it.

Oh, Ekor knew the situation was entirely out of control now, but it felt so good to do and say these things, and he repeated to himself what was quickly becoming his mantra, just a taste, and no more than that, just a taste... “Let’s leave, then.”



xkelasparmakx

Kelas gave a small noise of surprise when Jasi grabbed him suddenly, hard, by his neck and pulled him close. The center of each small neck scale blushed darker as Jasi touched them. Please, harder, Jasi–Kelas thought. But he dare not ask right now. His own pleasure was not as important to him as Jasi’s. The accompanying growl from the taller man only made him shiver though and his slit was growing wet. And then the delicious voice was in his ear, warm and whispering, tickling…

Atsi!

Kelas hung on to that word for a moment and allowed it linger in his mind. He was called many things by the men he met in this club, but ‘atsi’ was a wonderful word that he had heard seldom. The sound of it caused any ruckus or background music to drown down to a fuzzy, far away, hum. It was just Jasi and atsi and what would Jasi have him do?

“Oh,” Kelas said, surprised to hear instead that the stranger wanted to leave. He must have other plans. Surely he did want to be repaid for his heroism. He dipped his head in a respectful little bow causing a few stray strands of his messy hair to brush over his forehead and partially obscure his painted chufa. “As you wish.”



conducting-cardassia

Outside, Ekor rubbed his ears as they rang with the echo of the music inside the club. The air was warm, and once they had cleared the passageway to the Horned Regnar club, it stopped smelling of old urine and other unsavory things.

It was a pleasant autumn night. The rains would not start for another few weeks yet, but the scent was already in the air, promising a wet and muddy transition into winter in the coming months.

But tonight was still warm enough to be comfortable, even wearing plunging necklines and light tunics. For a little while they just walked quietly, and as Ekor put his hand in the small of Kelas’ back (to guide as much as to feel him), he hoped that Kelas didn’t mind the momentary lapse into silence.

As for Ekor himself, years among the ever present cacophony of the conservatoire had taught him to cherish quietude.

Culat bordered the mound of the Venkhat river and lay at the shore of Cardassia Prime’s only ocean. It was one of the oldest settlements on the planet, built for access to trade routes, and for many centuries, it had been the de facto capital and the center of cultural life. Some of Cardassia’s greatest musical minds had been based there and contributed to the city’s rich history, before it had become obsolete due to its relatively small size and lack of ceremonial spaces.

After a few minutes, the two men came to the ancient fish market. It was deserted except for an old man selling fruit off a cart to a few night shift workers and some of the more sober clubbers. Ekor briefly lifted his hand off Kelas’ back to buy an arati fruit from the man; it was ripe and deliciously smelling.

At a narrow, deserted bridge leading over a canal in a quiet side road off the market square, Ekor helped Kelas sit on the broad wooden banister. If Ekor stood between his legs, they were now about the same height, he noticed with a small smile playing around the corner of his mouth. He couldn’t help but think, perfect, how their bodies would fit together.

Ekor broke the soft, dark purple shell of the arati and removed a bite of the flesh inside. It was of a rosy brown colour and filled with small seeds, and the juice dripped down his fingers.

“Open your mouth, atsi,” Ekor said softly, offering the fruit.

He felt surreal, as if he were part of a painting come to life, and the tranquil gurgling of the water below only added to the dreamlike quality of the moment.



xkelasparmakx

Kelas was silent while Jasi lead on through the darkened city. He would have never dared to roam like this at night alone. But now with another person at his side it was quiet pleasant–especially with that warm hand a constant at the small of his back.

But surely his stranger must want something more from him than a walk, a stop at a fruit stall, a seat on the banister. Kelas allowed his legs to fall open, inviting Jasi, briefly sliding his fingers along his inner thigh. It still hadn’t settled into his mind that Jasi might just want a walk, a chat, to share some moments that didn’t involve wanting Kelas for his own pleasure. He purred at his stranger in the darkness.

“Oh…” he certainly hadn’t expected that the fruit would be shared with him. Kelas came from a small village that still held many old traditions that those in larger cities had discarded or completely forgotten about. In his village it was still viewed as a great intimacy for one to share food with another. It was a holdover from times of scarcity–a symbol that one would provide for his beloved.

Kelas nibbled the tip of his claw for a moment. The stranger couldn’t possibly know. He was only offering as a kind gesture and Kelas was not used to finding such gestures on nights when he visited The Horned Regnar. Deciding that at the very least it was unattractive to bite ones nails, he placed his hands palms down on the banister between his splayed legs, leaned forward, and opened his mouth just enough to accept the morsel and enjoy the feel of Jasi’s fingertips brushing against his lips.

He closed his eyes to savor the taste and texture of the fruit, ignoring the nervous idea that he should be watchful when alone in the dark with a stranger–but his stranger had already rescued him once. Kelas trusted him enough now that he could allow himself the moment to savor.

“Delicious,” Kelas said, opening his eyes now, and lifting a knuckle to his chin to catch a stray drip of juice.



conducting-cardassia

Before he could remove his hand, Ekor captured it in his own. Fixing his gaze on Kelas’ eyes, he slowly lifted the hand to his mouth, extended his tongue and licked off the arati juice with a little rumble in his throat. But instead of letting go, he pressed Kelas’ hand to his mouth. Pushing his tongue into the opening between his thumb and the first, slightly curled finger, Ekor tasted the unarmored skin of Kelas’ palm.

“Delicious, indeed,” he muttered into the damp hollow, delivering a playful bite to one of the soft pads of flesh. Kelas’ breathing was just audible within his earshot.

Ekor broke off some of the fruit for himself, which he ate watching him, observing him. Such an enchanting man, he thought, remembering the gentle spread of his thighs, suggestive but somehow still shy, the flutter of his eyelids, the way his chest rose and fell with his breath… he ached to find out how Kelas smelled and tasted in arousal, he wanted to open him up and tease him until he whimpered and begged for him to take him. ‘Please, Jasi,’ he imagined him saying in his mind, wide-eyed, breathy, and although it was by no means all he wanted to do to him, the thought of even this much made him hot and eager with desire.

Ekor growled suddenly and grabbed Kelas by the back of his head. His fingers buried in his full hair, he tipped back his head and pulled him flush towards himself, feeling Kelas’ knees as a cautious pressure to either side of his hips. “Yes,” he whispered, the sibilant stretching just a little into a hiss. He traced Kelas’ lips with the back of his fingers, carefully angling his claws so that he wouldn’t damage him; his heart was in his throat, and he felt his slit begin to swell at the sight of Kelas’s exposed neck so close up. It took all his willpower to keep himself from painfully tightening the grip in Kelas’ hair. “Absolutely accomplished,” he said, offering another bite of arati.

This time, when Kelas opened his mouth, Ekor did not withdraw his hand as soon as he’d taken the fruit. Instead, he followed the motion, and pushed two juice covered fingers past Kelas’ lips





xkelasparmakx

“Mm,” Kelas hummed as Jasi’s fingers followed the sweet taste of the fruit into his mouth. The tops of Jasi’s claws were smooth against the roof of his mouth and the press of fingertips against his tongue was welcome. He leaned forward sliding his mouth further down the fingers, minding the claws, teeth gently scraping over knuckles until hitting the last one and lingering there for a moment.

He lifted one hand to hold Jasi’s wrist and he could feel the pulse of his blood beating there. Kelas was pulsing too in other places where he would like Jasi’s fingers to be–and the fingers he was sucking on, giving Jasi a taste of his own, should certainly be replaced with a good hard cho’Ch.

He sucked at Jasi’s fingers, sliding back now, slowly pulling off until the claws re-emerged from his mouth. He licked his lips once.

“What other fruits do you have to offer, Jasi?” he asked, staring pointedly down between them, the glancing up again. “Something whose meat isn’t so… sssoft, perhaps?” he purred, “a bit more sssubstance. A thicker juice if I’m lucky.”

His heart was pounding hard now. Such things to say! Things that were not the proper Cardassian way to flirt and seduce. Who had time for that sort of drawn out dance? He drew a breath through his nose and tasted the arati, his stranger, and the night air of the docks all weaving together–the scent of his own arousal, and the scent of Jasi’s too.

“I used to work on these docks,” Kelas said, “if you can believe that. It was hard work. Perhaps tonight… hard pleasure instead.”



conducting-cardassia

Ekor groaned at the suction Kelas created; he was so sweet, Ekor thought, his mouth and throat so unbelievably wet and accommodating. There were some teeth, but the little nips and scrapes only served to emphasize the sweetness…

And then he opened his mouth. Ekor felt a magnificent rush of intense pleasure and shock at the same time, because Kelas had suddenly stopped being sweet; everything he said was pure, shameless filth, and Ekor had never felt such utter hunger before. Lust exploded in his mind, and before Kelas knew, Ekor was holding his head in place just so, licking, kissing and biting at his neck ridge.

“Hard pleasure,” Ekor repeated, his voice heavy. He bit hard, tightening his fist in Kelas’ hair, his other hand sneaking down between them. He wanted Kelas’ cries, his breathless surrender, and he was going to take it… “Oh, atsi…” Ekor whispered in his ear, “don’t…”

Ekor’s lips moved to soothe the bite, and he felt Kelas swallow thickly, “don’t… say those things to me…” Everything within him wanted to put Kelas in his place, to punish him for speaking this way, to put his mouth to use, make him keen, and Ekor closed his eyes with a pained hiss, “you’re destroying me, atsi…”

His fingers found the fastenings of Kelas’ trousers and slid them open just far enough so that he could wedge his hand inside, feeling the dip of Kelas’ chuva, the raised flesh trembling slightly as he rubbed it with his fingers. “Kelas,” he moaned, “Atsi… I want… I want you so much, but…” Another bite to his neck ridge that has Ekor on the brink of everting, “you don’t know what you’re playing with…”

You don’t know the kind of monster I am, Ekor thought, his mind caught in a torrent of violent desire, and for your sake I hope you never find out…

But he couldn’t stop. He shoved his fingers down further, finding Kelas’ slit swollen and wet. Mercies, Ekor was so ready to let the monster take over it hurt. “I can’t,” he whispered, even as his fingers started to trace the soft, pliant scales lining Kelas’s slit, “I want to, but I can’t… I… please… please stop me.”



xkelasparmakx

Kelas made a small noise of pleasure at the attention to his neck. The biting and hair pulling was especially welcome though his stranger would probably come away with a number of broken strands clinging between his fingers. When his mouth drew near again Kelas could sense that his actions were going to be something different–something gentle–not to bite him in the same spot which really would have been more welcome. The gentle attention to the bitten spot was strange to him and he nearly flinched away from it. Let it hurt! It didn’t deserve to be licked better. Did Jasi think him that fragile?

He was on the verge of glaring–for some reason–but then Jasi was speaking, and opening his pants, and touching him.

“Oh–” it felt good, in a way, but just as odd and ‘not right’ as the soothing to his neck bite. The corners of his mouth twisted downwards. How disgusting you would welcome men to leave you bruised and limping, marked, hurt, but have no idea how to tolerate being touched like normal person–but you’re not a normal person. Not you. You have never been–

Another bite to his neck interrupted his rushing mind. Kelas gripped the front of Jasi’s tunic hard and hissed lowly. Yes. That.

And even as he heard Jasi begging him to be stopped, warning him, there were fingers tracing his slit. How he wanted those claws to be inside of him. But Jasi was asking to be stopped. Pleading. Between his own arousal, the thoughts spinning in his own mind, and Jasi pulling him this way only to push him back, wanting and not wanting, was almost disorienting.

He had not let go of Jasi’s shirt, still clutching it tightly between both hands. But he was looking down at the stitching along one seem, squinting at it in the pale moonlight, and counting each stitch to try to bring his mind to some sort of point where he could focus and figure out what was going on. But he was only growing frustrated.

“Why would you ask me to stop you?” he said, “I don’t want you to stop–and I don’t know what it is that you’re afraid of. Do you fear you’ll hurt me?” Kelas scoffed, “my darling stranger I assure you that you cannot do worse to me than has already been done, inside that club, or elsewhere. Did you not hear what that man called me? How familiar I was? It isn’t untrue. Should I have stayed there? Those men know what I’m for. They use me as I am meant to be used. They hurt me and they… they don’t care… they-they…” Kelas shook his head for a moment to untangle his thoughts once more. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

“Jasi–or whoever you are–you don’t know what I want, or need, or what I am capable of enduring, or what I have endured. You see something small, and delicate, and pretty, I suppose. But do not underestimate my strength. If I was not strong enough to take a good fucking or many other things I would not be here now. You won’t break me,” Kelas tipped his head defiantly, his eyes glittering with pride, but his voice had waivered just subtly. “I’m usable, dis-sposable,” he hissed, “I am aware of what I am. But I am notbreakable.”

He may have come close to breaking, on occasion, but he never had now had he? And he supposed that really he had any right to break if felt like giving in completely. He was simply too stubborn to allow his mind, even at its worst, to take from him the things he had worked so hard to have–a chance at being a doctor–and his intelligence? He couldn’t give those things up to the worst storm of depression or erratic thinking. He chose to endure and he fought to endure even when all else would seem to wish to destroy him–other people, his own mind, his own body, his own desires. Kelas laughed.

“You’re a stranger who will vanish after we do or don’t do whatever it is we’re here for. I won’t see you again, and you won’t see me again. You will not need to worry about anything beyond what we do. No one else has, I assure you. I can take care of myself and I do not need you to rescue me, or to fear what you may do to me. Just do it–or leave me alone. You came to that club not to court a lover with dancing, and feeding, and gentle–what–touch–things–” Kelas finally let go of the strangers’ shirt and he just balled his fists unsure what was really upsetting him.

He could feel a twitch tugging the corner of one eye and that seemed funny too. Oh, he’ll leave now. He’ll think you’re crazy! Are you listening to yourself? And how must you look with your ridiculous hair, ridiculous makeup, your eye twitching. Wonderful!

“You came to that club to observe, or to fuck. If you have come to fuck then get on with it–if you have come to observe then you have had your fill and I will take my leave of you. Jasi.”

Even as he said it Kelas felt a strange sinking feeling. A part of him that seemed strange, and probably unwelcomed, wanted to stay sitting on that beam with Jasi even if the other man wanted just to hold him, or talk with him, or feed him more of that damned fruit. Thinking such things seemed to create a ball of sadness in his chest, heavy, and tugging. That is not for you.

His moment of boldness and bluntness had passed and his shoulders slumped, not in a submissive way, but in a tired way. He dropped his gaze from Jasi’s face, suddenly not wanting to look at him. How could he? This man was obviously different from the ones Kelas was used to interacting with.

“I… I don’t think I’m suitable for you,” Kelas said, his voice very soft now. He rested a gentle hand briefly on Jasi’s bicep. “You’re… different… and I… do not deserve anything differently than what I’ve always had.”

He removed his hand from Jasi’s arm, pushed his glasses up a bit, and forced himself to hold his head up instead of bowed, even if he still could not look this man in the face after all he had said.



conducting-cardassia

All air left Ekor’s lungs as Kelas spoke. Something inside him began to hurt, and he needed to breathe. Ekor felt as if he’d been doused with cold water, blinking in shock, almost stupefied, ridiculous, with his hand still down Kelas’ trousers.

He removed it slowly. What was he supposed to say? Or do? How was he supposed to react to the sudden crestfallen tone Kelas was using now, after all that harshness and anger, all those blunt, hurtful words?

Ekor bit his lips. He reached for Kelas’ chin, almost expecting him to shy away as he made him look at him. “Do you think I don’t want that?” He asked woodenly, swallowing against something sour forming in his throat. “Do you think I don’t want what they do to you? You’re wrong if you believe I’m any different than them, I’m not! You couldn’t imagine— or maybe you can, I don’t know… the things I want to do to you. The bruises, the cuts, the welts, all of it! I want…”

Ekor choked on the words, unable to look Kelas in the eye, but forcing himself to do so regardless. “I want all of that,” he whispered, shamed to his core, “more than you imagine. I’m no better than any of them, I just… I’ve spent so many years trying. There’s a monster inside me, Kelas, one that delights in your subjugation, one that wants to inflict pain, and I’ve lived with that knowledge for almost as long as I can remember.”

All of this was so different from what he’d expected of this night. He should have never accepted Kelas’ advances, he should have begged off, and left. Now, he was lost, and the monster was rearing its head as if there was the unmistakable scent of blood in the air. Had he just stayed put, he would have only had to wait until he could drown himself in his work. He should never have attempted to appease it in the first place.

“I…” Ekor shook his head once, his vision beginning to swim. “I didn’t come to fuck, or to observe,” he confessed. “I came to give the monster just… something so that it would leave me in peace, for a while. I came because I don’t… I don’t want to be that… thing, because didn’t know what else I could do, where else to go… but I never intended…”

He trailed off. What hadn’t he intended? He hadn’t expected to be sought out, and when he was, he hadn’t expected to be so enthralled by that simple word, Jasi. And then the monster itself had surprised him; he hadn’t known he could be so protective, and it had thrown him completely off balance.

“I’m lost, Kelas,” he admitted, “I have no idea what is happening, I just… I cannot let you destroy what I’ve worked so hard to be, no matter how much I want it. I can’t have you use me as an instrument to your own abuse. Yes, I know you and I won’t meet again after tonight, but is it really so unbearable to you to be touched with any measure of kindness? With more than contempt?”

Ekor wanted so much to be acceptable, an upstanding citizen, to use the chances he was given, and above almost all else at that moment, he wanted to be good for Kelas. But Kelas had made it clear that he wouldn’t accept gentleness, and Ekor couldn’t bear being rejected like that, as the person he had worked so hard to be. To have that thrown back at him and slapped across his face. Perhaps he was naive; perhaps it was folly to want more than a rough fuck in an abandoned alley, what did he really know of those things? What experience did he really have, outside of quick, silent fumblings in deserted rehearsal rooms, stolen bites and breaths and shameful, quiet releases?

Ekor shivered, suddenly feeling chilled. He couldn’t stand being wanted just because Kelas felt he didn’t deserve better. Was that all he was wanted for? The bare minimum of decency, and less than even that?

“Perhaps you’re right, and I’m ill suited for you… but you will have to decide that,” Ekor said softly. “If you want bruises, I can give you that. I can give you pain, I can… “ He took a deep, shuddering breath, “I can dominate you if that’s what you need, and, try me for treason, I want to.

“But if we do that, we’ll do it my way. We’ll do it because it’s what you enjoy, what we both… what we both enjoy, not because you think you’re expendable and don’t deserve any better. I’m not going to be party to your abuse, Kelas. If my… perversion is the only part of me that is attractive to you, then I want it wanted for what it is, not by default.”

Ekor extricated himself from between Kelas’ knees, the arati in his hand as bruised as he was feeling inside. “I’ll be over there,” he indicated a spot a few paces off toward the far side of the canal. “I have a room in a guest house nearby. I… I’ll give you all the time you need to decide what you want to do. If you find what I’m offering isn’t for you, you can leave and I promise I won’t follow… but if you want what I have to give, then you will come to me, and you will allow me to cherish your gift.”

Swallowing against the lump in his throat, Ekor quietly walked off to the side. He stood at the same banister, leaning over it a little, hoping that Kelas could not see the water in his eyes threatening to spill over. The canal was sluggish and murky beneath them, and he could smell the docks. The beast inside him felt hot and alive, and Ekor knew if Kelas decided to come, there was no way he could hold it anymore. It was terrifying, but at the same time, Ekor felt relieved.



xkelasparmakx

Kelas slid down from the railing and turned to face the canal with his thoughts. His eyes were wet and if the stranger was casting glances at him at all he would have noticed him swiping at his face repetitively. Kelas did not like to cry but the tears were coming silently anyway.

The word ‘abuse’ was lingering in his mind and it was a word he did not like to think about. Whether it was pride or some desperate form of self-preservation there was a block in his mind that did not really allow for him to accept that word as being tied to things that had been done to him. After all, the majority of it he had been quite willing to endure, so of course it wasn’t that word now was it? And the other things. The other things stayed pressed down very deeply. Not to be thought of. Not to be analyzed or named. Even coming this close to thinking of them made Kelas want to scrape his own claws over his skin to pull himself back again. Which lead to another thing–

Is it really so unbearable to you to be touched with any measure of kindness? With more than contempt?

Kelas felt almost nauseated replaying those words in his mind. He knew it was wrong, twisted, that he should want a slap in the face rather than a gentle caress. That he should want to be called terrible things rather than something most ridiculous such as ‘a gift’. A gift to be cherished. And this ridiculous man thought he was some sort of monster.

Kelas stared down into the murky water below, watching the moonlight catch here and there, and focused on stilling his breathing. His mind and his feelings were a great turmoil and he wasn’t even certain he wanted a sexual encounter any longer. Yet when would he meet someone again who might treat him as well as this man would? He felt his odds were probably slim. He did not generally attract such people. But he wasn’t sure he could allow himself to be ‘cherished’ if even for a night. It was a stupid word not meant for him–and if he did allow it–if it turned out that he could enjoy those things, that they felt just as good as being bitten, or bruised, or being made to bleed–he would only have the one night to remember having been treated like… like a person… and perhaps that was a dangerous thing to allow himself; a taste of something different. If he allowed himself he was certain it was something he could not only accept, but that he could long for, and it would be painful in ways that he did not welcome.

He let out a breath, rested his elbows on the railing, and dropped his head into his hands. Being reckless with his body was on thing, but being reckless with other parts of himself was a completely different thing. In his opinion this stranger was asking a lot of him. Too much, probably, and why? Kelas at least knew the answer to ‘why’.

He lifted his head again, and tapped his claws on the railing, one after the other until there were ten all counted silently and then back down again to one. Again, again, again. Then he glanced subtly to where the stranger was standing. It was a bad idea. It was possibly the worst idea.

He allowed a few more moments to pass between them in which his mind, always overthinking everything, had finally spun itself into a strange blank space. Then he closed the space between them.

“A monster would not have bothered to have such a conversation with me,” he said softly, “and a monster would not think of me… meof all people as a gift to be…” he paused, not even wanting to say that word, but he bringing himself to do so out of some odd place of defiance (I can accept a small amount of kindness, you see, you ridiculous person!), “cherished,” he said the word as carefully as he could, attempting not to spit it out of his mouth, but he was not certain how well it had come across.

He sighed.

“I’ve never been… a gift before,” he said, nearly whispering, one hand clutching at the other, his own claws biting at the back of his hand, seeking some sort of self-comfort that he didn’t know how to provide. “I could… I could… try,” he said at last, the confession almost frightening him somehow.



conducting-cardassia

Ekor wasn’t expecting him to come. After all that had been said between them, it was clear that whatever they could have wouldn’t be simple, and Ekor may have been young, but he wasn’t so dewy-eyed that he would expect someone he had met in a club to simply accept that.

As he drew his hands through his hair, his sensitive sense of smell caught the scent of Kelas’ arousal that was still clinging to his hand. Ekor drew in a breath through his mouth, scenting his own fingers surreptitiously.

If he was going to spend the night alone, this would be enough to spur his imagination.

But then Kelas was there after all, and Ekor’s heart felt suddenly liquid inside his chest. There were tear streaks on Kelas’ face that hadn’t been there before and he was clutching at himself as if he were as terrified as Ekor was.

There was no resistance when he carefully opened Kelas’ grip and took his hands into his own. “I’ve never been… Jasi, before either, Kelas,” he said, squeezing his hands. He wished for them to be Jasiand atsi once more as they began to walk down the narrow alley toward the guest house where Ekor had rented a room for the night.

He wished for those words to ring true once more, like a different, a somehow sacred reality overlaying the mundane. That sort of thinking bordered on the spiritual, and Ekor kept it to himself.

“I’ve never looked at anyone like this before, like I’m looking at you now” he admitted quietly, gazing ahead at the dark shadows of buildings lapping at the lamp-lit street, “and not thought myself vile for it.”

If nothing else, he would always remember that.

He would always remember that … that part of him could be protective instead of just violent, and if Kelas was as good as his word, he was about to learn how it felt to be completely wanted, to become Jasi in every sense, no matter how archaic.



xkelasparmakx

As they disappeared down the alleyway Kelas considered turning back just briefly, taking himself home, pretending that nothing had ever happened. But he thought that he needed to try this. That maybe he owed it to himself to allow someone to find a proper value in him just once–as idiotic as it seemed.

They came to a shadowed doorway and Kelas paused and placed a gentle hand on the strangers hip.

“You’re not vile,” he said, quietly but with obvious conviction. “Though you may be in the company of someone who is,” he laughed a bit at the end of that, though the sound was not particularly humorous. “Let’s stop thinking so much, and just allow ourselves to… enjoy our time together, whatever that may be.”

Kelas drew his hand away from the stranger’s hip and reached for his hair instead, tugging away the band that held some of it out of his face.

“Maybe we will free ourselves if only for a moment or two,” and when his hair was free, an obvious symbolic nod to his words, he gave his head a little shake to lay it into place as much as it would. The shadows touched his face and the moonlight slanted in just so to catch the grayish streak that had been hidden before and the light strands that slid down and fell around his face like drips of silvery rain. He looked up to the stranger over the tops of his glasses.

“Shall we?” he motioned towards the door attempting to appear braver than he felt.



conducting-cardassia

“If I’m not vile, neither are you,” Ekor said, knowing full well that on Cardassia, that kind of logic was treacherous at best, but who was to judge them now?

They were entering the guest house, and Ekor could see a touch of grey in Kelas’ hair, which somehow made him feel more sure about doing this than he’d felt the whole night so far. What a great way to learn, he thought, being with someone just a tad older — and as they entered the dimly lit hallway and waited for the lift to arrive: I promise I will make this good for you, Kelas.

The lift was a rickety old thing that rattled as it went up, and the light flickered just barely, throwing Kelas’ profile into relief, his glasses that were riding a bit low on his nose, glinting. Ekor thought he might want to kiss that face and rub his chufa against Kelas’, but he held himself back for Kelas’ sake.

It must have taken courage to come, knowing that what was on offer wasn’t what he’d gone out for.

Soon, they were standing in the hallway on the floor where Ekor had rented a room, waiting for Ekor to punch in the door release code.

The room itself was modestly sized, the bed probably just wide enough for two, and framed with a small nightstand on either side. Ekor regretted that it had no pleasant lighting, only the ceiling lamp that was installed and that, frankly, didn’t do much for the mood. Ekor switched it off as soon as they entered, and turned on the bathroom light instead. He left the door open halfway, so that the slightly friendlier light could fall into the living area.

At least the sheets were clean.

Sensing that it would be awkward to apologize for the lack of extravagance in any of his surroundings, Ekor held his breath.

He didn’t know if the silence in the room was too much: to him, it was always welcome.

Ekor studied Kelas’ figure in the indirect light that fell in from the bathroom, and couldn’t help but still find him enchanting. ‘Pretty,’ Kelas had said, but the word had sounded hollow and accusatory, and it didn’t do him any justice. He looked like an operatic heroine, a concubine at court, delicate and proud. Ekor cleared his throat, chasing away the image that had nothing to do with Kelas, but everything with Ekor.

He pulled him close, holding him by his hips. “I’m so utterly charmed,” he admitted, idly playing with Kelas’ hair for a few moments. It smelled of soap and possibly some product to make it soft.

Then, not wanting Kelas to think he would renege on his promise, Ekor hardened his gaze and tightened his grip without warning. He pulled Kelas’ head back roughly, delighting in the way his eyes flew wide over the rim of the glasses.

“Strip,” he ordered softly, “I want to see what I’m getting.”



xkelasparmakx

Kelas fell back into a more shadowy area, suddenly feeling a bit shy. Normally he would have been ready to put on a show and go through all the routine that he knew to be useful to get the attention he craved. But now his hands were shaking a bit as he slid the zipper on his tunic down. Half of him was being irrational and blaring at the back of his mind that the kind stranger would see him naked, his strange body, and send him away–which might even be for the better.

Kelas folded his tunic and sat it on one of the side tables fussing at the creases in it for a moment before remembering his task. His boots with the small heels came next. And last he slid the band of his pants down over his hips and stepped out of them, and folded those neatly too. He wasn’t certain if he was meant to remove his glasses as well but for now at least he opted to leave them. He pushed them up a bit and stepped out of the shadows so the stranger could get a better look at him: long neck, delicate collar bones with faint patterns of scaling, slim shoulders and an even slimmer waist, hips that curved in a pleasant, soft, round shape instead of dipping in, slender thighs that looked so soft on the insides.

Out of nervous habit a claw lingered at his mouth but he just caught himself from chewing it and forced his hand away, clutching that wrist with his other hand, both in front of his belly obscuring the upper curve of his chuva.

“For you…” he said at last, finding his voice but just barely. “Jasssi,” the word a hissed whisper now. He had said that word many times, he knew the men he sought out enjoyed it, but now it seemed so much heavier and he felt foolish for ever thinking he had known what ‘Jasi’ truly meant. Kelas blinked rapidly, the tip of his tongue darted out to wet his lips, his entire mouth now seeming dry as any desert on Prime.

“Your… your… gift,” he concluded, keeping his eyes down at his own feet now and counting his toe claws to try and keep himself calm enough to continue–he wanted to continue.



conducting-cardassia

Ekor watched through hooded eyes as Kelas undressed down to his scales in front of him. He had never seen a man like him before, so slender and subtly curved that if it hadn’t been for the flatness of his chest and the slightly too pronounced facial ridges, one could easily have mistaken him for a woman.

This was different. Gone were the mannerisms and the flourish, even the slightly smeared blue body color appeared incongruous with the simplicity of Kelas’ movements.

And then he saw tremor of Kelas’ hands, the hesitation in his step, the way he played around with his discarded clothes.

Ekor’s knees softened at the realization that what looked simpler to the eye was in reality anything but simple: it was honest. How easy it would have been to make this scandalous and provocative, how easy to have slipped into the role again, instead of this utter nakedness! But there he was, Kelas, atsi, presenting himself just so, and Ekor knew, just like himself, Kelas had never done this before.

Things that looked like this, on the surface, perhaps, but not this. Never this.

He couldn’t trust himself to remain standing, so Ekor sat on the edge of the mattress, light-headed, unable to look away. “It’s a wonderful gift,” he murmured without a trace of dissemblance. “Thank you… atsi.”

The word bore the same weight Kelas’ whispered Jasi had taken on. It was an expectation of surrender, it was acceptance of the power Kelas was offering, but it was also reverent acknowledgment for the very transformation that was happening between them.

His breath caught. He had never felt as beautiful.

Ekor gave up on separating the monster from himself – this was so different from what he had expected would happen: he still felt the urge to take possession, to command, and yes, to hurt – but it didn’t feel violent at all. It didn’t feel as though he was going to lose all control, any semblance of civilization, and become unhinged. This felt… exhilarant.

“Come here,” he said, his voice kind but firm.

As Kelas stepped up, Ekor leaned back, resting his weight on his arms so that he didn’t have to crane his neck to meet Kelas’ eyes.

“Turn.”

With every word he said, every little command Kelas followed, Ekor was getting more aroused. Kelas was stunning, all gentle curves and pale, soft thighs and buttocks, and he hadn’t even touched him yet.

Very soon, the damp patch forming in the front of his trousers would become visible, Ekor knew, but there was no embarrassment. Let him see the effect he has, he thought hotly.

Ekor took Kelas’ hands and held them apart. “Rule number one,” he said, turning Kelas’ hands so that the palms faced up, “no matter where, you do not deny me touch.” He let go of one hand, only to trace Kelas’ palm, uncurling his fingers and pushing his own in between. “No matter where,” he repeated, running his fingertip along the length of Kelas’ middle finger.

“Rule number two,” he continued softly, “you will address me with respect. I already know you know what that means, so I won’t insult you by explaining it to you, atsi.” There it was again, that intimate caress of a word. Ekor shivered.

“Rule number three: you will obey me.” Ekor fixed Kelas’ gaze with his own. “I tell you to drop to your knees, you drop. I tell you to open your mouth, you open it. You’re here at my discretion, and in turn, I will take care of your needs.” Running his hands along Kelas’ sides, he felt the flexible play of his scales, not so very different from his own. Softening his voice a little, he added, “as I don’t know you yet, you will tell me when your needs aren’t met, and what they are, so that the situation can be rectified.

“And finally…” Ekor swallowed over his frantic heartbeat. “Rule number four: if, at any point whatsoever, I do something to you that is not acceptable for you, you will tell me in no uncertain terms. You’ll tell me if I need to stop doing what I’m doing, and you’ll tell me if we need to stop altogether. Please,” he asked, kissing Kelas’ fingers, “please don’t let me become someone you despise.”

He couldn’t think of anything more important than that, and somehow, he couldn’t think of anything more to say right now, so he said the first thing that crossed his mind: “You may kneel, atsi.”

Oh, how ridiculous he suddenly felt, not knowing if atsi would even accept his rules, not knowing what on Prime he was going to do if he didn’t, or even if he did! “What… what do you like?” he asked, all attention focused on Kelas. “What would you like for me to do to you?”

xkelasparmakx

“I will obey you, Jasi,” Kelas said, his mind still swimming around the other parts of these ‘rules’.

The only ‘rule’ he had known before was to please his partner. Whether or not he wanted something was of lesser concern than the fact that his partner wanted it, and Kelas wanted to please, to be wanted. Jasi’s words were taking time to sink in and Kelas’ thoughts were edging around the idea that any of his former experiences were… wrong some how. The bare minimum fact that he had ever consented to doing such things had always served as enough to make those encounters better than the earliest things that he connected to sexual experience.

That he should deserve more than that had not occurred to him. There were things he had enjoyed, things he had tolerated for the pleasure of his partner, and things he had not liked at all but had not dared to object to aloud–a man once pissing on him had been nothing he had wanted and he had been anxious for days following that no amount of scrubbing his scales raw had been able to get rid of the strong stench of that man’s kanar soaked urine.

‘No’ just didn’t seem like much of an option to him especially if he had instigated an encounter himself. He had once shouted it, begged it, again and again and no one had listened to him. After that the word in a sexual context had very little meaning to him. It felt like something that was not allowed for him to express.

“Not… acceptable for me…” Kelas muttered to himself, as though he was trying to repeat words in Klingon, “my needs… my need is to please you…”

It shouldn’t have been as confusing as it was. Kelas closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He is asking you simple things, Kelas. Don’t be stupid.

“My needs,” he repeated, trying to come to terms with that, “I like… many things,” he paused and licked his lips, tilting his head a bit, hair falling into his face a bit as he did so. “I don’t completely understand why you’re so concerned with my pleasure, Jasi. I’m meant to serve you. But… “

And then there was one other thing to address. Jasi’s plea for Kelas to stop him if he was to do something that Kelas didn’t want. His immediate response was ‘how could I stop you if you wanted something?’ but he dare not say that. How weak would he appear then? But what did he say? His throat felt too tight as he searched for an answer. Finally he nodded.

“But I will… try my best to… ss-s-stop you if… if I don’t… want,” He’s not going to want you now. You’re being incredibly awkward. Unable to speak? Get on with it, Kelas. He pushed back memories of Bamarren, of his useless begging, and crying, and the inability to have stopped what had happened to him long ago. “If there’s something I don’t want,” he finished.

Kelas hunched his shoulders a bit, not in a submissive gesture but in a protective one. Why should the strangers rules and words make him feel so vulnerable? The things he was asking were good, and safe, but they somehow made Kelas feel even more naked than he was.





conducting-cardassia

For a moment, Ekor didn’t know what to do or say. Kelas was looking incredibly uncomfortable, when all he had intended was to make him feel safe. Ekor didn’t know much, but he knew he wouldn’t want his partner anxious or scared. But now he had somehow managed to achieve the opposite, and he didn’t understand his mistake.

How could he feel aroused when Kelas was clearly distressed?

Some part of him softened, instinctively knowing he needed to be careful now.

“You’re trembling,” he spoke softly. It was not a question.

Kelas’ skin felt dry and warm when he pulled him up to straddle his legs, but just in case, he had the computer raise the room temperature by three degrees centigrade.

Kelas seemed to be looking anywhere but at Ekor, so Ekor took his face between his hands until he met his eyes. “It’s alright, atsi,” he said in a quiet voice, “everything’s going to work out alright, don’t worry… here, let me…”

And with that, Ekor bent to kiss atsi’s throat, nibbling at his ridge gently, muttering promises of safety and reassurances how pleasing he was.

It was not a lie. Ekor found he delighted in his scent, in the little sounds he made breathing ever so slightly irregularly. Kelas’ hair tickled Ekor’s face as he found the sensitive spots directly below his ears, all gentle teeth and nips, pressing their bodies together, Kelas’ naked one against his own, clothed one. Ekor wrapped his arms around Kelas’ waist, guiding him to rub against his leg.

“So lovely, atsi,” he whispered praise into Kelas’ ear. “Do you wish to continue?”



xkelasparmakx

Kelas gasped as Jasi paid attention to his neck–usually it was one of his favorite spots because it made him feel so vulnerable–the soft, unprotected skin, the ability for a partner to just bite there and make him bleed, or press down and choke him if they wished–but Jasi was so gentle. Even his bites just below his ears were careful. They made Kelas shiver but also long for more, for the pain he was used to, and needed. But he was pleased for now, he found, to take things slowly. He needed to adjust to this gentleness if he were to be able to allow it; and he did want it.

“Yesss, please, Jasi,” Kelas said, “I do wish to.”

He was uncertain how he felt about being called ‘lovely’. That seemed like some sort of joke, really, but Jasi said it so sincerely that it seemed impossible for him not to mean it.

“Lovely?” Kelas repeated the word very lowly, testing it out, as he shifted his hips to grind his wet slit against again Jasi’s clothed thigh. The friction felt good and so did Jasi’s strong arms around his waist. He wasn’t certain about ‘lovely’ or about how gentle the bites were, but he was quite certain that he liked to be held and that he would miss having arms around him once this night was over.

“What can I do to please you, Jasi,” he asked, wishing to serve Jasi as well but he had not been instructed yet. He glanced down to Jasi’s neck ridges, more prominent than his own, and he wished for a taste but to do so without having been told would be to disobey and he had promised… but then again, what would Jasi do if he did disobey? Something a bit rougher, perhaps.

Kelas would save his disobedience for now. For now he would be good and wait for Jasi and think about the word ‘lovely’ a bit more.



conducting-cardassia

“You are pleasing me,” Ekor groaned under his breath, struggling to keep his own hips from thrusting up. The pressure inside was growing, swelling slick and warm. Instead of giving in to it, Ekor gripped Kelas’ hips with both hands and released the tension biting down on his slender neck.

“And you are lovely to me,” he continued under nips and bites, muttering the words into blueish flushed scales, so different from his own deep charcoal coloring.

Kelas might not be the picture of Cardassian male beauty, but he seemed otherworldly to Ekor, and worthy of worship. He couldn’t find the words that would reassure him and not scare him away, because how was he supposed to tell him that the way his neck arched when he threw his head back and exposed his throat might just make him evert? How could he say he still couldn’t believe that Kelas would not only tolerate but actually want this roughness? Would dismiss himself to his tender mercies and crave what he had to give? That he was all Ekor had only ever dreamed of, but had never allowed himself to dwell on, because surely there was no way anyone would really want…

The harder he bit, the more his fingers dug into Kelas’ flesh, the sharper his claws scratched at him, the louder Kelas’ little gasps and moans became, and the more frenzied he ground down into Ekor’s thigh.

Ekor shoved his hand between them, keeping his claws safely pressed flat onto the damp fabric. He bit into a delicate aural ridge until he felt the skin almost give, and was greeted with an obscene gush of slick against his fingers.

“Look at the mess you’re making,” he murmured into Kelas’ ear, shudders in his breath. “You really like this, don’t you, atsi?” It came out as barely more than a whisper. “This pain?” In his mind, he was beginning to soar.

Ekor couldn’t believe how wrecked his voice sounded as he lifted his hand and displayed the glistening sheen. The scent, as it hit the roof of his mouth, was unbelievable, the knowledge that he had done this, how he had done this, overpowering his senses and his restraint. With a guttural growl, Ekor pushed their groins together, licking, tasting Kelas’ arousal.

When he was done, he didn’t hesitate to take two saliva-wet fingers to Kelas’ slit and push them inside as far as they would go. “How… disorderly,” he whispered, belying his chastisement with thrusts designed to make Kelas squirm, “you should be charged for that…”

And tried and convicted and punished, Ekor thought, but bit first his lip and then, harder, Kelas’ shoulder as he started to finger fuck him in earnest.



xkelasparmakx

Yes, yes, yes Jasi, I do love it– Kelas’s mind was nothing but wrapped up in his pleasure, his pain, and Jasi. Any anxiety over the situation was far, far gone. Jasi’s hands seemed to thrill him with their warmth and pressure, his mouth seeking all the right places, his possessive growl–Kelas groaned with pleasure. He wanted Jasi to possess him fully.

“Find me guilty and ex-ssecute me on your mighty cho’Ch, please-ss,” Kelas hissed, pushing down to meet Jasi’s thrusting fingers, “I need you.”

Though Jasi’s fingers inside were amazing too. Kelas shifted his hips this way and that hoping to catch a sharp claw craving the electric burst of pain that would fly along his nerves and deep into his lower belly where it twisted in the greatest pleasure–where his prUt was swelling and wishing to evert. The pressure was building.

He wondered if he would be in trouble–bad–if his movements caused Jasi to hurt him. Make him bleed, even. But he wanted that. There it was–the catch of a claw inside his purse as he moved a certain way. He cried out at the sudden shock of it but the sound of pain shifted to a needful groan at the end. He began to whine and make little keening noises in his throat, mouth closed.

Don’t whine! You do not need to evert when Jasi hasn’t even removed his clothing yet. Greedy slut!

Kelas trembling fingers found his chuva flushed a beautiful shade of blue and he stroked it briefly then attempted to calm himself a bit–control his movements to something less frantic, ease his breathing. His eyes were hooded as he peered at Jasi over the tops of his glasses.

He licked his lips.

“Can I ssssee you, Jasi? Tasssste you? Touch pleassse?” he hissed lowly, squeezing tightly around Jasi’s fingers.



conducting-cardassia

“See me?” Ekor asked, panting almost as harshly as Kelas, “when you’re hiding yourself from me?” Ekor curled his fingers, claws grazing soft mucous membranes, eliciting another shocked widening of his eyes and forcefully suppressed whine from Kelas.

“When you’re trying to use me for your pain, instead of asking me for what you need, like you promised?” Ekor couldn’t see it, but when he withdrew his fingers from Kelas’ purse, he smelled the scent of blood on them. There couldn’t have been much, but Ekor didn’t know if he liked it—he’d had no say in the matter, and was it even safe? Not knowing didn’t sit well with him.

He buried his face in Kelas’ neck, feeling the thrum of his heartbeat as he kissed a line down his throat, then took a handful of his hair in his fist and tugged painfully. “You don’t get to break the rules without consequence, atsi.” Ekor’s tightening grip put the emphasis on the word and its meaning.

With a movement that was all wrist and strong, deft fingers, he began to rub Kelas’ chuva, treating the sensitive ridge to punishing friction, too rough to be really pleasurable. It only drew more sharp hisses and needy whimpers from Kelas. Ekor bathed in the sounds as they went straight to his ajan, all the subtle nuances of pleading in them filling his senses.

Growling (because he would have moaned otherwise), he peppered bites across Kelas’ chest, leaving multiple tooth marks blossoming in his wake, before he pushed him off his lap and to his knees on the hardwood floor.

Never dropping his gaze from Kelas’, Ekor undressed. The tunic was the first to go, revealing thousands of flat, small scales in speckled patterns of shades of brown and grey, winding all along his sides before subsiding into the soft, larger belly scales. He teased his chula to flushed thickness for a few moments, before dropping his hands to where the very top of his chuva was just visible above the waistline of his trousers.

Ekor opened his belt, and, on second thought, slipped it through the loops and set it aside with his heart pounding and the blood rushing in his ears.

“I’m afraid your execution will have to wait,” he smirked, mockingly drawing his finger over the rim of his chuva. He stopped before he could drive himself mad with the need to evert. “I have a different punishment in mind for you, first… for blatant and wanton disregard of the rules, and for attempting to hide yourself from me, after.”

Leaning in, Ekor fixed Kelas’ with his eyes, and slapped him lightly across the cheek. There was no force behind it, but Ekor felt something shift inside him. For a split second, he feared what he might do if Kelas let him, that he had no right to do this.

He took hold of Kelas’s chin. “Is this still okay?” he asked quietly, hoping to convey just how important Kelas’ honesty was at this moment.



xkelasparmakx

Kelas’s mind was becoming a tangle as Jasi spoke, as Jasi acted–he listened, realized his errors, was confused by them, by Jasi–by many things. Jasi was upset with him for forgetting the rules and how could he have done so? They were still new in his mind but he knew what he was supposed to do and had not. If Jasi only knew how difficult it was to understand that it was okay, even desirable, for him to express his needs. How selfish that would make him feel. But it was true he had also been selfish to use Jasi–he hadn’t even realized. His mind had chosen to focus on the fact that Jasi wanted him to feel pleasure to the exclusion of the rest of the rules because processing all of them at once was, apparently, too much.

And then there was–

There was a break in his thoughts when Jasi’s hand met his face. Kelas flinched in surprise not that it happened–but that it wasn’t the hard crack that he felt he deserved for disobeying. Instead it was soft and something about that made him almost angry. It was just another thing to be confused over.

If he needed to be punished, and he knew that he did, for so many things–then it needed to be hard. And if it had been wrong to ask to see Jasi then why did he remove his shirt anyway? If—

The thoughts were jumbling again and he needed to stop them. They were overwhelming and it agitated, made him feel as though this was just yet another thing wrong with him: that he struggled so hard to compartmentalize his thoughts as most Cardassians were able to do as a default.

He forced his eyes to meet Jasi’s but he felt so many things that he didn’t want to look. Instead of thinking them he needed to say them. That was what Jasi seemed to want from him.

Kelas, you can’t say all of those things. It won’t be productive to the mood. He’ll be disgusted by you. He’ll want to stop.

But if he did not speak then he was disobeying, and if he should say things that would make Jasi wish to stop, wish to be rid of him, and did not say them… he would be guilty again of hiding, and of using Jasi for what he wanted and he could not do that to this man. He didn’t want things to stop: he wanted to learn how to please this man, he wanted to make him feel good, to be good himself somehow…

The last thought sent a wave of despair washing over him.

What a ridiculous thought to have. It wasn’t the same as usual need to just be wanted, to please. He’d never thought of it as wanting or needing to be ‘good’ before and in a way he wished that thought had never occurred to him. Because how could he? He couldn’t possibly be good. The only good in him was intelligence and his commitment to use it to serve the State and others when his medical studies were complete. That was his only way to be good somehow. If he could help others. If he could serve others.

Jasi was not letting him serve…

Kelas squeezed his eyes closed against all of the thoughts. He didn’t want to be distressed. He didn’t want to stop. None of these thoughts should have been relevant to what they were doing, should they? They were tied to his past, and to his future, and to things that were deeper than sex in a rented room with a stranger. Why couldn’t he just put them all away into neat little boxes and filing cabinets in his mind and focus on what they were doing? Why did it have to be so much.

In the club it was so much easier. That was a box. It was an orderly box. He knew what he was there for, what was expected of him, what would be done to him, what he would do in return–the routine was familiar and it made sense to him. He went there so often that the repetition of it somehow comforted him even when he was partnered with someone particularly brutal. It was still the same somehow.

“Jasi…” Kelas said at last, quietly, “it is okay but…”

He was afraid that he must stop this. That it was too much for him to figure out, that maybe he’d been wrong and he couldn’t do it–he had messed up already–afraid that if he stopped it, though, that he would never feel Jasi’s hands on him again, hear his voice, meet someone who cared for his pleasure and his needs–but even if he did not end it now it would end. This was only one night and he knew that very well. But it was night that he desperately wanted.

But that was also… selfish.

“I want to continue. Very much… so much… but there are so many things I… I’m wrong and I don’t understand so easily the things that you ask of me, or the way that you… the rules, my needs… my needs… if only you knew how strange that was to me that you should care… for my needs. My needs are… inferior. Almost meaningless…” Kelas paused, forced his eyes open–Jasi hadn’t told him to close them. It was so hard to look at this man now, though.

“I feel bad and guilty and selfish… if I were to express… them. But you make it a rule that I must… and I did promise… and I don’t understand why but… please, I want to be good for you… for one night I want to be…”

Keep yourself under control, Kelas. You sound crazy. You’re rambling. Disjointed. He doesn’t want to see how every part of you is broken–wrong–disgusting. Speak to him in sentences like a proper Cardassian being. Stop being so emotional, weak, do not cry–you can fall apart later if you must but not now. He’ll be disgusted if he isn’t already. He’ll send you away. Well, he can’t possibly want you for sex any longer. He’ll send you away anyway. Why does it matter now? Because I want to please him–I don’t want to go yet–selfish!

Kelas resisted the urge to scrape his claws at himself, to chew one of them, to rock himself a bit–to find some sort of way to relieve his distress without dumping it all out onto the floor at the feet of a stranger who had not asked for all of this and who–though he may care more than most–would not care about all of those things or any of those things. It would be too much.

“I didn’t mean to hide,” Kelas said at last, reigning things in just a bit, “how could I… how could I tell you that I can’t… that I can’t…” he had never expressed this out loud before and the words wanted to stay inside but he had to say. Jasi wanted him to express what he needed and he would at least succeed in that one thing before he left. He could do at least one thing right tonight. “If I don’t have enough… pain… I can’t evert. It just… doesn’t… h-how could I… tell you that absolutely everything about me is so wrong, even that, a basic–” Kelas’s voice began to quiver with anger now, anger at himself– “a most basic biological–”

He balled his fists against his thighs all tense and upset but he had managed to say it, managed to say it in fact while looking Jasi in the eyes–and that made him feel both intensely strong, and intensely weak, for he was showing this man too many things that revealed the depth of his self-disgust and wrongness.

“I am not lovely,” Kelas said, his voice barely a whisper, “I can’t let you lie to me. I want… to be so lovely for you… but I can’t be. This is only a night, Jasi, that you should have for your pleasure. Not for… my… for all of this nonsense,” Kelas motioned to himself, the anger deflating now into just a sense of hollow failure. The cynicism he had displayed earlier was back on his face; the rest was gone. Yes, nonsense. That’s what he was and it helped to shore up his emotions by dismissing himself as something ridiculous. “I don’t belong here with you. That’s all. That’s all this is,” he said, his voice stronger now, his eyes almost hard. “I can leave you be to find someone who does. We’ll just… we’ll just pretend that none of this has happened then.”

Oh, and what a lie that was. As if he could ever forget what he might have been close to for a moment. If only he could forget that someone had called him ‘lovely’ even if it was a lie. That someone had been gentle… it didn’t matter. It couldn’t be allowed to matter.

Kelas sighed heavily.

He felt tired, and worn, and he was drifting around the edges of numbness now–probably out of self-preservation.

“I am truly sorry. I’m sorry I disobeyed, I’m sorry that I can’t be good, I’m sorry that I promised you, that I was selfish, that I asked to see you…I’m sorry you’re aroused and that I’ve probably ruined that. I… I don’t like to let men down in that way. To bring them pleasure at the end is… one of the few good things I can do with myself.”

Kelas finally closed his eyes again. He felt like an open wound before this stranger and he did not like it. He did not know what was next. What he expected was to be punished for being weak, and strange, and for letting someone down so spectacularly. But this man did not do anything that Kelas was used to.

“Thank you for… for trying with me. You have done nothing wrong. It is my fault. Please… do not be discouraged. I think my reactions are… unique to… myself and to past situations and that if you had someone else here with you now, not me, that you would have a very pleasurable time. I have enjoyed everything you’ve done, and… those rules and things that confuse me… they are good rules to have. I appreciate your effort, your consideration…”

He finally stopped here and went completely silent. It felt like he had said everything now, or at least what he needed to say, maybe. Least of all did he want his partner to resort back to thinking of himself as some sort of monster when he had been so good to him.



conducting-cardassia

Ekor wanted to do so many things at once. He didn’t know where to start when Kelas finally fell silent where he was sitting, kneeling on the hard, cold floor, finally allowing himself the respite of no eye contact.

All the while he’d been talking, Ekor had felt—what had he felt? There had been an urge to interrupt and correct Kelas’ assertions at first. How could he not know that his needs mattered? How could he simply sit there and tell him he couldn’t be good? That he wasn’t lovely? He had done nothing but please him, he had made his mind spin with unknown pleasures and his body pulsate with lust. How was it possible that he didn’t know that?

Yes, he had broken the rule Ekor had set, and yes, he had been wrong to make him instrument to his own injury without gaining his consent to such an action—but was that really so different from the way Ekor had just taken the liberty of his face?

With a sinking feeling, he began to understand the mistake he had made, and with that came the realization that what was happening now was his own responsibility. Kelas was blaming himself for every little thing that went wrong, and oh, Ekor just wanted to tell him how wrong he was about that, he wanted to tell him that none of this was actually his fault.

Ekor bit his lips. This was painful, he thought, and his heart cracked open. He’d been entrusted with something that seemed, now, infinitely fragile—what a lie that had been, he thought, remembering Kelas’ protestations to the contrary, and wished he had known before entering into their little adventure.

And yet, he couldn’t bring himself to regret it. Any of it. But he didn’t speak, for fear of making things worse. How must it have been to suffer so much that one’s needs became… nonsense in one’s own mind?

As Ekor stayed put where he was, listening and agonizingly holding Kelas’ gaze, more words began to spill forth. And he couldn’t help but feel horrified at all the secrets he was being given free access to. He had no right to this information, no right at all!

Both of them knew it was just a night, and one night was all it was ever going to be, and yet, somewhere along the way, it had become so much more, for both of them. And now Kelas’ deepest, darkest secrets were spilling forth, ripping themselves free in halting tones, whispers, small, broken voice ghosting in the space between them.

Ekor had always heard too much. It was his blessing, the reason why he had been given the opportunity to study at all—but it was also his curse: he had never heard so much pain in a Cardassian voice. He had never been given that much of anyone, as when Kelas admitted the strange deviance of his arousal response.

There was so much yearning in Kelas’ voice even as he lied to him over and over, insisting that they could just let it go, that he could just leave and let Ekor have a little squeeze with someone else, someone less… broken.

Ekor had always heard too much, but he had never been so close to wishing he didn’t.

He understood that Kelas would not hesitate even an instant and go back and get himself hurt on the prUt of someone who didn’t care one whit what he did to him. And he finally began to realize why that was, perhaps, easier for Kelas. He didn’t have to show himself then—just be there, a hole to be fucked and abused. To please his partner du jour.

Ekor felt ill. How hard it must have been to come here, he thought, knowing that there would be no hiding—because Ekor had made it perfectly clear that he wanted his honesty. And then Kelas had slipped just a little bit, had fallen back into his habit just minutely, and Ekor had slapped him across the cheek for the misstep.

Oh, he knew Kelas would have wanted him to strike him harder, but that would just have been ever so much more wrong.

This? This was not what Ekor knew how to handle (how could he?), but the alternative would have been So. Much. Worse.

A part of him wanted to grab Kelas and shake him until he found some sense, but the honesty betrayed by his voice was so raw and naked that Ekor felt ashamed for even thinking it.

Without a word, he helped Kelas sit on the bed, pulling back the covers in case he wanted use of them. Then, he stood and opened his boots, slipping them off to reveal his boldly mismatched socks. The transgression of orderliness that felt so rebellious when he got dressed every morning felt barely worth mentioning. Ekor toed them off, discarding them on the floor.

The trousers came next, and finally his soaked through undergarment.

All of it joined the little heap of clothing on the floor.

Ekor silenced the part of his brain that made him want to fold the items up neatly. This was not a time for distractions.

This was the time for him to be naked, and he knew just losing his clothes was not going to be good enough. Ekor knelt on the floor. It felt a little wrong, a little unusual for him to be there, but it was nothing compared to how Kelas must feel. He took Kelas’ hands in his own and kissed his fingertips. “I know you… don’t really want this right now, but… I think…”

He trailed off. What did he think? That he could just soothe the hurt in Kelas’ soul with a few gentle words and unwanted kisses?

But he couldn’t think of anything other that he could offer. Pain? He could certainly do that, but there was already too much of it in Kelas’ eyes, never mind his voice.

And hadn’t he just added to that pain? Hadn’t he been just as uncaring, as selfish as Kelas’ other lovers, for trying to slake his lust and satisfy his sadistic urges on him?

The only thing he could think of offering was something he owed a dozen times over for all the secrets he had been given. “I had… no right to slap you like that. And…” he swallowed, looking up. Kelas wasn’t meeting his eyes, but he wasn’t moving away either and his hands remained slack in his own.

It worried him.

“I had no right to your secrets,” Ekor added. “But you gave them anyway, to a stranger who hadn’t even given you his name. So, the least I can do, is to give you mine.”

He closed his eyes, shamed and humbled, before looking up again and finally finding an answering gaze to meet his. “It’s Ekor.”

He couldn’t imagine what else to say. All he wanted was to give Kelas back a little of his sense of self and agency, and perhaps that was selfish of him, too… but it was hard to know how much Kelas was disgusted with himself, and if he could do anything to help him feel a sense of worth without having to resort to self abuse, he’d do it.

Sitting on the bed next to Kelas, Ekor drew his legs under his body. “If you still wish to… please me… I’m at your disposal,” Ekor said softly. It sounded selfish to him, but perhaps, given the alternatives, it was the least selfish of options. “There is no obligation,” he hastened to add nonetheless. “We could also… just lie together and talk…. or not talk. Whatever you want.”

Almost shyly, he bent his head to Kelas’ chest and kissed his chula. He wanted to ask forgiveness, but couldn’t bear the thought of having it dismissed as unnecessary. Forgive me, atsi, he thought, but didn’t say aloud.

xkelasparmakx

He had expected to be sent away after that terrible speech. He was embarrassed, ashamed, and what further use could Jasi have with him now?

He was helped onto the bed and he watched silently as the covers were pulled back, inviting him if he wished. He stayed quiet and small-feeling as Jasi stripped from his clothes–what was he doing? And he knelt on the floor which was rather shocking to Kelas. He swallowed hard as Jasi took his hands and pressed his lips to each finger. They were so soft–and the gesture felt somehow intimate to Kelas, different than any sort of gesture he had ever been shown before by quite a long way. His hands were trembling so hard, limp in Jasi’s, as he just tried to take everything in stride and to figure out what this kind, gentle man, was doing.

Had Kelas not been in such a poor state he would have certainly admired the strong, handsome body, but just now it was of little interest to him in that way. But the fact that they were both now naked did make him feel just a bit better. The kneeling was odd to him. But the kisses to his fingers were… a bit nice if he allowed himself to think so.

He’s trying to comfort me, Kelas thought. Even though I’m so embarrassing, and strange, and such a disappointment…

He listened to Jasi’s words come carefully, a bit haltingly at times as his own speech had been. His secrets–he had put too much upon the stranger by confessing, in his moments of weakness, but he was so depleted now that he couldn’t even berate himself for anything more.

Then he heard Jasi’s name.

It seemed to sit in his ears for some time as he turned the sound of it over in his mind. It stayed there as Jasi–as Ekor–continued to speak, and then surprised him again by placing a kiss to his chula. It felt undeserved at the very least. But there was no show of cringing, or flinching, no fight in him left to rudely dismiss it. Now that he had no barrier to erect as a defense against the gentleness, no more energy to fight against it, all he could do was to feel it–it felt so very nice.

He finally squeezed the hands that were holding his. He held them firmly.

“Ekor,” he tested the name quietly. It was a very pleasant sounding name, though with his Northern accent and soft voice it sounded just slightly different than the way Ekor himself had said it.

He didn’t know what else to say, or do, even though he had been offered so much. He just held Ekor’s hands, not wanting to let them go, and thought of his name over, and over, until eventually he realized that he had grown calm–the trembling had subsided, the tension in his shoulders and back had eased. Despite the lingering shame at the deep things he had confessed he did feel a bit better now.

“Ekor,” he repeated, “I ruined our fun,” he said quietly, giving the man a weak and brief smile. “I wanted… I didn’t want to… fail so spectacularly,” he gave a small sigh. “I don’t know why you’re being so kind to me, dear Ekor, why… but… I’m grateful for your kindness.”

He let go of one of Ekor’s hands but cupped the remaining one with both of his small ones for a moment then traced a finger over each of Ekor’s knuckles. He had good strong hands, Kelas thought, that had things not gone so poorly he would have enjoyed having more of on his body.

“Slapping me doesn’t disturb me,” Kelas said, “when I said that you couldn’t really hurt me, I did mean that. I’m not fragile–not… physically speaking, and if I wasn’t strong enough… you would have never met me tonight. I’ve survived. Despite how weak I must appear now, I have always been strong enough to exist when I should not, against all odds. I’m quite defiant in some ways, Ekor, in my very existence. But I am reckless with myself when it comes to this aspect of my life. I do not have much regard for my physical safety so long as it pleases. It never… it really never occurred to me that my disregard for myself could hurt someone else–that it could hurt you. I don’t mind myself being hurt anymore, but I do not like to hurt others. It goes against the very thing I hope to be when my Sponsorship is completed,” Kelas stopped here and lifted one hand to his mouth and chewed one of his claws a little.

He was speaking too much again but almost wanted to just speak to Ekor about normal, mundane, things. He wanted for Ekor to know him as more than this sad, shameful, creature who frequented sick clubs to be used like a whore. But why would a stranger to whom he had been meant merely for sexual gratification be interested in any other aspect of himself? That was asking an awful lot and it seemed silly. Indulgent.

His emotions had settled around him as though sediment suspended in roiling waves had finally been released upon the waters growing peaceful–the sand and grit had filtered back down to the bottom–yes–that part of him was growing steadily more calm and collected. But now that those waves had ebbed away he felt so impossibly tired. His head felt heavy, and his arms, and his eyelids, and probably his legs if he tried to stand would feel rather useless.

The last thing he wanted was to try and stand have his legs fold beneath him. He didn’t want to accrue any further embarrassment. Under normal circumstances Kelas was a rather proud person but tonight he had given that up for awhile and later he would probably feel injured there. But it didn’t feel quite right to stay…

“Could we just… talk a bit until I… I think I need to sleep a bit before I go. Lethargic. I won’t stay–” he assured Ekor, “but I need just a few moments. Please. I won’t take up any more of your evening then, dear Ekor.”

He felt guilty for asking, but he reminded himself that this kind and thoughtful man–Ekor–had once again offered to put his needs first and perhaps to forget that again would be worse than to ask his question.

“I’m listening now… you have told me to express… what I want. Are you…” Kelas paused and rubbed one of his eyes with his sluggish hand, knocking his glasses off his face, only half-realizing it. “Are you certain?”



conducting-cardassia

Dear Ekor… The affectionate words echoed in Ekor’s mind.

They had broken the boundaries of a casual encounter about an hour ago, on that bridge. There was intimacy between them, unplanned for, but, to Ekor’s mind, not unwanted… and those two words rang as an acknowledgment of that fact.

“I’m very certain,” Ekor said, plumping up the pillows at the head of the mattress, offering them to Kelas to lean against. “Wait here,” he added, getting up and padding over to the small replicator unit let into the far wall. It looked old and didn’t inspire much confidence, but Ekor didn’t need much.

He scrolled through the available programs, water, some fruit juices that he wasn’t too keen on trying from the replicator, a few tea blends, and, for some inexplicable reason, yamok sauce. Everything else would need payment, and he was pretty down on his monthly allowance just having made the trip to Culat.

Kelas looked like he could rather use a good hot mug of rokassa juice, so Ekor checked nonetheless, but someone had apparently considered it a good idea to exclude that little commodity from the menu entirely. So, he tapped in an order and ended up with two mugs of redleaf tea – no syrup, which Ekor regretted – but at least the tea was hot.

Crawling onto the bed, he gave Kelas one of the mugs and sat up against the headboard next to him. Now that the heat of the moment had somewhat dissipated, he realized that the room wasn’t too well heated. Ekor shivered a little and pulled the covers up as he put an arm around Kelas’ shoulder, inviting him to lean onto his.

For a while, they sipped their tea without speaking.

“You don’t have to leave, you know,” Ekor said finally. “I didn’t really have any plans for tonight.”

He hadn’t. All he had really wanted was to get out of Kardasi’Or for a while, and try clear his head, which had given him a hard time lately. With too little to do to keep himself busy, he had been so preoccupied with his lust that he wasn’t getting anything done, and he simply hadn’t known what else to do.

Ekor took a breath. What he was about to do wasn’t part of any Cardassian social protocol he knew, but Kelas had confessed so much, it just… he felt he needed that now. Perhaps so that he could be judged, because judgment meant order, and order was preferable to this state of not-knowing, of questioning, of doubting. Perhaps, for his peace of mind, it was worth giving away some of his secrets. Order meant he knew his place, and could start to understand.

“I like… to hurt a lover. I like to have power over them, I’ve known that for a long time,” he began quietly, finally voicing what he had never confessed to anyone. “When I was twelve years old, I realized it. I was horrified, that I would… gain satisfaction from the subjugation of another. I couldn’t imagine that anyone would actually want…”

He let out a shaky breath. “Would actually want to be subjugated and hurt. All this time… all this time I’ve been thinking that the only way I can sate myself is by violating other people. Not just hurting, but violating… I grew up knowing, Kelas, that something in me was just fundamentally opposed to…” Ekor took a sip of his tea, lowering his voice, “to dutiful service to the State.

“An element with the basic urge to violate and destroy that which constitutes the foundation our Union is built on, cannot be tolerated. We all learn that. We know that to be true.

“And in my mind, I was… that element. Whatever else I might be would always be tainted by who I was inside. You didn’t fail, Kelas.”

Ekor felt his throat grow tight at the enormity of what had happened today. Yes, he had made mistakes, they both had made mistakes! But those were simple mistakes that could be remedied, they weren’t sick at the core. To hold someone dear and hurt him, both, and be wanted that way — it had never occurred to Ekor that it might be a possibility!

“I have never… never done this before,” Ekor admitted, though by now that was painfully obvious, “and I didn’t know that… even if a slap in the face doesn’t disturb you, I think it might disturb me…? I wasn’t… expecting that possibility, and I’m uncertain about what really happened there, but it doesn’t matter! I will figure it out, in time. But you, Kelas… you didn’t fail, you gave me the greatest gift I could ever receive.

“You gave me back my right to be a part of our State.” Suddenly, it all became just a little too much. Ekor’s vision swam in unshed tears. “Do you know what that feels like?” he whispered, his voice broken by the passion of the thought.

“I know now… that it’s possible. Perhaps there is someone for me… because we’re Cardassians. Where there’s one, there are many. You’re one, Kelas. And that’s worth infinitely more to me than whether I get to fuck you.”

He hadn’t intended to make a speech. Ekor’s heart was pounding, and he felt overwhelmed, but also unimaginably lighter than he had ever before. Without Kelas, he wouldn’t know any of that. He wouldn’t know that his monster was fiercely protective of the very lover it sought to dominate. He wouldn’t be in this bed blinking away tears of joy.

“I would… like to have your head in my lap,” Ekor said softly. “Kelas.”

xkelasparmakx

“I do know what that feels like,” Kelas said, leaning into Ekor a bit. He was so warm, and even though he had quickly drained much of the tea in his mug–grateful that it wasn’t sweet–there was still warmth in his hands clutching the cup as well. The warmth and the sleepiness was easing him. The nearness to another Cardassian being without… without it having to be the way it usually was.

“I too grew up knowing that I was fundamentally flawed in many ways,” Kelas yawned. “And I have fought for the thing that I feel would… perhaps make up, in a way, for my many shortcomings as a Cardassian being. Mm… no one wanted to sponsor someone like me, Ekor. Not to follow the path I knew that I must. It is, unsurprisingly, an unconventional path. But–I brought myself to this city, to the University, and I sat outside the office of the head of the department until she was utterly exhausted of seeing my face. When I received the letter that she would sponsor me… that was my chance, as you say, she gave me back my right to be a part of our State. That is exactly how I felt–that there was a chance for me yet,” Kelas paused, and added– “to be good in some way for Mother Cardassia.”

And again in the direct opposite of how a Cardassian should be, guarded and secretive, Kelas found that there were so many more things he wanted to tell Ekor.

But not now; Ekor had told him something special and he didn’t want to disrespect that by speaking more about himself. He only wished to express that he did understand–that in this way they were similar.

Kelas sat his mug aside, and he gave a quick little touch of his chufa to Ekor’s cheek, and then dutifully and without pause, or anxiety, he curled up on the bed and rested his head in Ekor’s lap. He hadn’t expected such a simple action to make his chest swell as it did–to feel full, and calm, and delighted in just this one simple moment. He couldn’t recall having ever felt a moment in such a way as this and he wanted to savor it.

“Mother Cardassia,” Kelas said, almost chuckling a bit, “I’m sure no one in this city uses such–” he paused to yawn again, muffling it onto the back of his hand, “archaic phrases.”

Since coming to the city he had worked to ease his Northern accent down a bit but it still showed through especially in times when he was too tired to really mind it properly and if that hadn’t given him away that we some misplaced wanderer from a much smaller, what many would refer to as a ‘backwards’ part of the world, then his use of older language surely would.

For some reason he was certain, though, that Ekor would not care. He could have judged him harshly on so many other things already.

“Maybe this is why you’re fond of me, of all people–” Kelas said, the bit of tired humor still creeping around the edges of his voice. “If anyone was to tolerate me and all of my strangeness as anything more than a… a fetish… then they would certainly need to have a bit of a defiant nature.”

“We have helped each other tonight,” Kelas said, extending his arm along the length of Ekor’s leg, and petting the bony mound of his knee just briefly. “You have made me remember that I am a person. I think I had nearly given in to the idea that I wasn’t,” his voice grew quiet now, respectful, and sleepy, “thank you, dear Ekor. If I never see you after tonight I will always… hold fast to what you have given me.”

conducting-cardassia

Ekor stroked Kelas’ hair, smoothing it back from his face as he lay there, snuggled half under the blanket and half up to his leg. “As will I,” he said softly after a while of hanging onto his thoughts in private.

If what Kelas had said was indeed the case, what he had done to Kelas would sooner or later show its full face, and Ekor only hoped what Kelas would see then was not going to be cruelty.

In the sanctity of his own mind, Ekor admitted sentiment: he felt sadness for the boy he had been. Had he known any better, had he known that this was a possibility, he could have spared himself so much self loathing, he could have spared his sponsor much grief and yes, he could have spared himself the fights that left him injured more often than not.

They never went for the hands – it had been the understanding among students that in physical altercations, one would never go for the hands; the teachers followed the same rule with their punishments, after.

But Ekor: he had been reckless, had picked fights, had provoked bigger classmates until he had eventually found himself with a badly sprained wrist. He’d been lucky it hadn’t been broken—nonetheless, it left him unable to perform or practice for weeks, and that was the first time he’d really asked himself why he was being so difficult. Why he was so hard on himself all the time. Why he was sabotaging himself at every turn.

He always had, from the day he was first brought to the Conservatoire.

The weeks after his injury were filled with chores and menial work as soon as he could move his hand again. He wasn’t allowed back into classes until another two weeks after he had regained the full range of his movement.

He never found out if the one who had given him the sprain was ever punished in any way, but then, it didn’t matter to him at the time.

Perhaps Kelas and he had more in common than either of them were willing to admit.

Ekor pushed the gloomy thought aside and drained the rest of his tea. In his lap, Kelas was beginning to breathe deeply.

The sight of him, painted eyelids drooping and finally closing, stirred a deep tenderness inside Ekor. The feeling was wholly unknown. He had never felt this way before. As he gently stroked Kelas’ cheek and temples, careful not to wake him, he knew with a terrible, terrible pang, he just knew this affection, this infinite care, was the monster’svery own. It felt like a deep rumble in his soul, and his world shook in its foundations.

Finally, silently, the tears came.

Ekor wept. For the boy he had been, and for the monster he had hated so much he had denied it its existence.

When he was done, he replaced Kelas’ head on one of the pillows. Kelas stirred, but didn’t wake, and Ekor pulled the blanket over both of them.

During the night, his arm came around Kelas’ waist and he pulled him close in his sleep as they lay back to belly, both unconscious, and finally

resting.

Reprise - Ekor/Kelas

conducting-cardassia
Reprise, n.:
an act of repeating something
music: a part of a song or other piece of music that is repeated

Ekor paced in the small closet the university staff had appointed him to change and prepare. There hardly was any space at all, but he was glad he had what was there to himself. The tunic he was wearing was of a simple but trim cut, black, with ornaments sparingly applied to the hemlines and the slope of his collar. Ekor had saved credits for more than two years to have it made, and the figure he cut in it was dashing.

Outside, his classmates were heard preparing, warming up their instruments: it was pandemonium.

He crossed his wrists in front of his chest, halting the tremor in them by pressing them against each other. His stomach sat high, clenched with nerves, and Ekor deeply regretted not having thought to bring a flask of hot rokassa juice.

This was it.

Tonight’s concert was unofficially part of their graduation rite: each year, Central University invited their dignitaries, their best professors and functionaries as well as some of the more promising student body to hear the graduating class of the State Conservatoire for Music in an evening-long concert. And although it wasn’t codified anywhere in the regulations, to do well here meant a great deal. To do poorly, even more so.

Ekor swallowed hard. His throat was tight and his stomach was in knots, but as he opened the flat oblong box that contained his conducting baton, he knew he had made the right choice.

It had been more than thirty years since any of the Conservatoire students had chosen to perform as a conductor—by far the more common choice was to play as an instrumentalist and leave directing to one of their instructors—so the official announcement of tonight’s concert (and those that were to follow on their tour of Cardassia’s universities) had caused a little bit of an anticipatory stir.

Breathe, Laset. He heard instructor Partak’s dark and calm voice in his mind. You cannot beat the nerves, but you can force your body to ignore them.

Expelling his breath, Ekor pushed the air out of his lungs completely, deeply emptying himself. His body’s instinct was to draw in more, but Ekor resisted the urge, compelling it to relax. In a fight, Cardassians’ lips would be ever so slightly parted, taking in the scents on the air for any advantage or early warning.

Ekor closed his with purpose, slowly relaxing his jaw and touching his tongue to the roof of his mouth, signalling to his nervous system that there was no danger. After a few minutes, he felt his throat begin to loosen, and when he held his hands out in front of him, they were steady, for now. There was still time until the concert started, and he would have to repeat the exercise.

Ekor had never been on the campus of a university before, much less that of the Central University in Culat. He had of course seen footage of their main auditorium, and like all of them, had been warned of the venue’s difficult acoustics—but when their transport had first arrived three hours earlier, Ekor had been awed by the sheer size of the place. Multiple buildings were connected to each other by a system of walkways, it was almost like a whole town of its own. As they passed, Ekor read the plates of each entrance; the sprawling edifices were dedicated to various sciences:
E 35 a: Mathematics, C 17 m: Exobiology, P 8 d: Law and Justice, G 23 a: Medicine, and so on. It was dizzying.

The Conservatoire was small by comparison, but that far from the only difference. There were no children here, and most of the students were women.

Like Ekor himself, his classmates were quiet as they took it in. Like him, they had been brought to the Conservatoire at varying ages during their childhood, and what seemed like a vast and terrifying space then, had in fact been relatively small and quite sheltered in more ways than one.

As Ekor had expected, the final rehearsal went poorly to middling, and now, just few minutes before the event, tension could be felt keenly in the stiffness of their limbs, the curtness of their nods and the hushed tones of their voices.
Taking another deep breath, Ekor pocketed the baton inside his waistcoat and stepped out of the closet.

As was custom, the whole ensemble took their places in silence behind closed curtains. Ekor spoke a few words with each of them as they walked onto the stage; he would join when the curtain went up.

This was all or nothing. His future depended on all of them as much as theirs depended on him and each other, but Ekor knew them. He knew what they were capable of, what was difficult for whom, he knew when to moderate and when to draw them out. Mistakes would happen, as they always did—but they were the best Cardassia had to offer, disciplined and excellently trained.

When Ekor finally took the stage in absolute silence, he didn’t feel nervous any longer.
Cardassian music was by and large played in ensembles of varying sizes; there was no room for soloist histrionics, and in music, as in all of society, each individual person was only valuable insofar they contributed to the whole.

The students were seated where they could keep contact both with Ekor and with each other. As conductor in chief, it had fallen to him to make selections and arrangements, to plan out the whole concert from the first bar to the last note. Ekor had taken pains to choose pieces that let each of them show themselves from their best sides without showing off, had switched around parts where some found themselves struggling, had replaced some of the pieces with others that would allow for the proper dramatic progression of the music as the concert went on.

This ensemble was his very own instrument, and he was going to make it shine.

As the first solemn notes rang out into the darkened auditorium, Ekor’s focus narrowed, and the world around him fell away. And when the last sound of the ultimate bar had faded into a whisper, and the audience remained transfixed in their seats for several more minutes, Ekor knew he had done well.

Kelas slid his fingers nervously along the polished wooden beads. He slid them up and down the slender braids woven here and there into his hair, making them click, making them clack, against each other, against his claws. The music should calm him once it began.

He had been unsettled lately between the increasing workload from his studies, and his attempts to keep himself away from his bad habit. He hadn’t expected that he could be completely successful, knowing his own mind and his obsessive tendencies, but he was pleased that he had managed to decrease the frequency with which he visited the clubs and sought out the pain. He would have been more pleased with himself if he could have stopped completely. But he was trying not to be too harsh on himself. He wasn’t certain he could handle that just now. On some of the nights he stayed in he would take to hurting himself to find his pleasure but that could only go so far when he longed for certain things.

He was certainly downing an unhealthy amount of Rokassa juice to try and handle how wound up he was becoming. This years room mate, Mira Elan, said that he reeked of the juice constantly now and when she said it she wrinkled her nose at him. He told her that she wasn’t very attractive as a Bajoran when she did that–which irked her.

He had tried a few other remedies to find some calm but some of them didn’t do anything, another had him out for four hours–and he certainly couldn’t waste that amount of time in a nap coma these days–and another had sent his skin blistering up in a nasty rash and bad shed that had put him in quite the ill mood for the better part of a week.

In misery with his skin itching and peeling and his nerves on edge he had gone out one night to haunt the bridge over the sluggish river, near the docks, to remember the taste of fruit juice on fingers, and he had gone to the inn and up to the door–but of course Ekor was not there.

When he visited the Regnar he half hoped to see Ekor seated at the bar, or stepping out of a shadow, and Kelas could take his hand and they could leave that place behind and–do what?

Sometimes Ekor handled him roughly. Sometimes their encounter was an improved replay of the real one, but a more successful version, Ekor’s cock down his throat fingers closing his nose choking him on it–Ekor fucking him, making the bed shake, making it hurt in the best way–Ekor’s claws on his skin and his teeth at his throat…

And sometimes it was Kelas pressing his chufa against Ekor’s palm, nudging for a pet like an eager hound, leaning against Ekor’s shoulder, taking in the scent of him, and the rhythm of his breathing.

When Kelas lay awake at night, in the depths of unforgiving insomnia, brought upon by his own anxiety, he would allow himself to use Ekor as a calming salve. He would allow himself not just to think about things, but to feel things. To stroke his own fingers through his hair but imagine they were Ekor’s, to speak into the darkness if Mira wasn’t there and imagine Ekor was listening, to wish and fool himself into thinking the pillow beneath his head was a strong pair of naked thighs and that he needn’t be worried. He was safe.

Only at night. He couldn’t turn to that silly fantasy during the day to calm himself. He knew how his mind was and if allowed himself to call upon Ekor too much that would soon become his only way of coping and one unhealthy outlet would only shift to another. That was not his goal.

After all Ekor was gone. He was a phantom and a good memory and that was all. It was unlikely Kelas would see him again any time soon and even if he did happen upon him…
Kelas leaned forward in his seat, shifted, clicked the beads. Stop thinking about him, Kelas. Jas–Ekor is gone and he is now your Cherished Memory. Visiting his memory infrequently will keep it safe. If you recall it too often it’ll only cause you to yearn too much.

But at least Ekor had inspired Kelas to try and tame himself a bit. He knew he could only change so much, and there parts of him that would never budge, but if could figure out how to control himself better, and how to behave a bit better, then it was possible that at some point in his life he could find someone like Ekor–someone who would treat him well, or at least well enough.

“Kelas, stop fidgeting,” Mira was a very tall and lanky girl made up of warm brown tones. She swatted him.

“Slap me harder, I might enjoy it,” Kelas quipped at her.

“Hush,” she nudged him with her pointy elbow, “don’t be crude.”

He pursed his lips, tugged one cuff down over a slender wrist, then another, and then after a few moments of forcing himself to sit still he couldn’t take it any longer and returned to toying with the hair beads.

“I don’t know why you wear those. Only to annoy others?”

“I wear them, now and then my dear, because where I come from that’s what we do. The various colors, the number of beads, even where they’re worn–the front, sides, back, near the top of the hair or at the bottom… they’re not merely a decoration. They’re a form of communication. Though I admit I do wear mine only for decoration when I feel so inclined to wear them at all. I choose the colors because I enjoy them… and the more you complain about my habits the more I intend to irritate you with them.”

Click-clack.

Mira sighed.

“If you were interested in women it might be that the we were courting, the way we argue,” Mira said.

“And if you were interested in men,” Kelas added.

Mira’s lips twitched at the corners.

“How could anyone be interested in men when there are women?”

Bantering with Mira was a good distraction for him and he appreciated her for it. He placed his hand briefly atop hers where it rested on the arm of her seat; a small nod of affection. He felt better as the curtain began to rise.

The entire program was stunning–breathtaking–and Kelas had been so immersed in it that he not fidgeted with beads, tugged at his cuffs, or counted the tiles on the ceiling at all. His focus had been tethered to the performance completely and it washed over him in a way that felt like cleansing. It chased thoughts and anxieties out of his mind and gave him a space, for awhile, in which could exist apart from anything else. It was intoxicating.

After it had ended he sat still in his chair, his eyes hooded, still soaking everything in as though basking. If only they hadn’t been so far in the back. He would have loved to have been closer, to have heard more, to have seen the faces of the musicians and more of the conductor too–Kelas had been so drawn to his movements and they had commanded his attention just as strongly, perhaps even more so, than the music itself.

At least people around them began to drift into conversation as Cardassians love to discuss everything, and Kelas the odd one, still slouched down in his chair and just feeling… he could have stayed there in silence for quite a bit longer if everyone else would have allowed the silence to endure.

After the concert had ended with the customary silence followed by a long, enduring round of applause, the auditorium began to empty as people stood and filed out into the reception area. From backstage, Ekor could hear them discuss the concert on their way out.

“… too bold,” someone said, but was passionately interrupted by their seating neighbor:
“You have got to be joking! Something daring, for once!”

Ekor didn’t hear what else she had to say as they made their way out, and not even his ears were sharp enough to catch their conversation anymore.

“He’s too young for Bakhret’s Elegy at the Oasis!” someone else exclaimed.

“Oh, come off it, Peldek! You’d say the same if he’d been 81 years old and halfway in his grave! Mark my words, that one’s gonna be remembered.”

“Yes, for butchering the Elegy!” came the heated reply from the one called Peldek. “I’ll give you that he’s got guts, taking up the whole—”

“Vass’st, he’s got more than ‘guts’! I cannot believe I’m hearing these words out of your mouth—the whole concert was a complete power move, and the counterpoint in Remembrance was sublime!”

Ekor allowed himself a wide grin. Those two were as good as on their way to an empty room, he speculated, satisfied with their reception. He did take pride in the counterpoint in question. Midnight Remembrance was a classic which required an immense amount of coordination: based on a rather simplistic tune, it went on to vary and expound upon the theme, over and over. Performers were expected to interchange parts, and to add their own elaboration of the theme, always repeating, never copying. Ekor had composed the closing section for tonight’s concert himself, a counterpoint after the ancient Hebitian way to honor his sponsor and instructor, Orma Kovok.

As he made to join the other musicians in the anteroom, he heard another voice proclaim its owner’s disagreement, though with what he had no idea: “no, no, no, no! It’s no secret that Cardassians aren’t the best at hearing, but not even you can be as deaf as that!”

Cardassian audiences: it didn’t matter if they passionately agreed or disagreed, as long as there was passion. Passion made the difference of having engaged with something, of having made it a relevant part of one’s memories, of allowing it to shape one’s perception, of feeling rather than just sensing. Passion made it personal, worth debating with someone respected or loved.

It didn’t matter that some thought he was too young, or that others thought he’d butchered this or that piece—disagreement was all part and parcel of what it meant to become a renowned musician on Cardassia Prime. There was no performance so perfect that everybody would love it: if it was worth listening to, there would always be those that violently disagreed with it; if it was simply bad, or distastefully contrived to be deliberately provoking, people would shrug and get on with their lives.

Someone who only ever invoked apathetic indifference could never hope to ascend to any sort of recognition as an artist.

Controversy, real controversy, the ability to stir the minds and emotions of an audience: that was the most important test a performance could be put to—and Ekor knew he’d passed with flying colors.

Back in the anteroom, the musicians were celebrating. Someone had broken out some blue kanar, which flowed copiously as it was passed around. Someone pushed the bottle into Ekor’s hands and cheered.

“To success!” cried one, “to the future!” another, “to Cardassia!” a third; Ekor nodded, grinning: they could agree on that last one. Under their combined cheers, he took a healthy swig of the stuff, enjoying its peculiar, sweet-and-mint taste, and the burn it left behind as it went down.

Perhaps a little too much of the burn! Ekor coughed, eyes watering. “Oh, chaos! What in the world is this!?”

“Special edition,” sing-songed Rekat gleefully, “with extra zing!”

Ekor gave her a glare but didn’t refuse another good swallow. “You’re going to be the end of me yet,” he wheezed, feeling even his ears burn. “I have to get to the reception. Anyone with me?”

Everybody tried to make themselves invisible. Ekor rolled his eyes. He guessed it was fair enough that he went there first: after all, it looked like his name would be the one on everyone’s lips, and nothing would be gained by not letting them have a bit of fun first.

After the excitement and anticipation of the concert, the reception was just a minor issue, although if pressed, Ekor would have admitted to feeling nervous. He didn’t know whom he was going to meet—all he did know was that as a conductor in fact (not only on record), receptions like this were going to make up a major part of his work.

He needn’t have worried over much; instructor Kovok was handling the inquisitive and excitable, and had everything well in hand when Ekor joined her. Although she never lost her formality around him, he knew from the expression in her eyes that he’d made her proud today. He’d vindicated her tireless conviction to support him, even if he had been anything but easy. Her nod as he stepped up to her side told him she saw him making Cardassia richer in the future, and that simply felt glorious.

There was a flurry of activity while Ekor answered questions and dutifully and gratefully gave credit to all the ensemble, but most of all, to instructor Kovok herself. He owed her so much, the least he could do was to acknowledge his debt in public.

After a little while, the other musicians began to mingle with the crowd—all of them visibly relieved (and somewhat disinhibited)—and some time later, Ekor found himself wandering aimlessly back into the dimly lit auditorium.

He climbed the stage and sat at the edge, letting his legs dangle. Carefully, he removed his baton from the pocket inside his tunic and weighed it in his hands. Today had been a great success for him, and he was grateful, profoundly grateful to his instructors, and Kovok especially, for the work they had invested in him.

Still, he didn’t know if he felt any… different, now that it was over. It was oddly disappointing, although if pressed, Ekor couldn’t have said why. This was supposed to be his moment of truth, but it didn’t quite feel like that. It didn’t feel like…
… like the day after his spontaneous trip to Culat a month ago.

When he’d returned to the capital, he had been vibrant with new experience, with realization and epiphany.

Today, when they had arrived in Culat—this time in a shuttle transport and with a distinctly more reputable destination than the Horned Regnar night club—Ekor had forbidden himself to look for that bridge near the docks. The one that tasted of arati fruit and body paint on neck scales. That sounded like yielding little gasps, and the word Jasi, whispered in his ear…

They had probably not even driven by close to it, but regardless, Ekor hadn’t let his mind go there. It would have distracted him terribly if he had.
He’d focused on his task all evening, compartmentalized to the best of his ability, but now that that part was over, Ekor couldn’t help but let those other thoughts flood back in.

He must be close, he thought. Kelas had told him about being a student at the university, so he had to be close… the thought thrilled Ekor who bit his lip, rolling his baton between his thumb and two fingers.

Oh, he had thought of Kelas often, after that one night. Sometimes he had been huddled in his sheets, tracing the seam of his slit with eager fingertips, imagining the slickness there to be Kelas’… Or it had been quietly, never making a sound as he everted into his hand in the communal shower late at night, spilling himself over cold tiles and incandescent thoughts of taking possession of Kelas’ mouth. His ajan. Owning his pain and pleasure. His jubilant soul.

After, he felt guilty for using him in this way. Kelas had been so much more than that, would always be so much more than that to him. Would such thoughts even be welcome, after what had passed between them, if he knew of them?

Ekor was used to dismissing this thought. Both of them had known they would never see each other again. They had both accepted that, and there was no reason to wish otherwise. No practical reason, at any rate.

But now it was like a voice inside Ekor whispered promises of close by into his mind, and as he sat there, with his baton twirling idly about, he couldn’t bring himself to be… practical.

He let himself remember Kelas’ face, the halo his wild hair had formed against the backdrop of the stroboscopic club lighting. His strange way of speaking. The way he had struggled, the way he had finally surrendered. The fierce, unrelenting protectiveness he had inspired. The tenderness that came after the ordeal.

His own catharsis.

He owed Kelas too much not to let himself think of him on this night of triumph.

“To Kelas,” he whispered into the silence, wishing he had brought his glass.


Kelas and Mira sat on the edge of the fountain just outside the auditorium. Now that the calm trance of the beautiful music had fallen away Kelas was eager to discuss the pieces. He was going on about Remembrance while Mira nodded, occasionally responding enthusiastically, but she was also watching the brightly color fish swim in the fountain and now and then she would dart her hand into the moonlit water to try and catch one.

“The entire performance was so… powerful,” Kelas said, and then he gave a little indignant cry when Mira splashed too hard and sent droplets of water spraying his face and the lenses of his glasses.

“Sorry,” she said, “I almost caught it that time,” she gave her hand a flick to rid it of access water while Kelas used the hem of his shirt to clean his glasses. “Music is all about neuroscience, you know,” Mira said, “the pauses, the building up to a climax, it stimulates increased activity in the caudate. The abstract pitches become a primal reward cue. Temporal cues signal that a potentially pleasurable auditory sequence is coming and this can trigger expectations of euphoric emotional states–a sense of wanting, and reward prediction. It gets the dopamine flowing!

Our neurons search for order within the music. We’re trying to make sense of this flurry of pitches. Some of the notes we can predict, but not all of them, and that’s why we listen and wait for our reward– for the pattern to be completed.”

Kelas listened to her intently and near the end he peered up at her through the shadows, lingering on some of her words, thinking deeply.

“If our brains are wired to find the completion of patterns as rewards, and upon that completion chemicals are released that make us feel good… hm. Perhaps that’s why I have such a preoccupation with counting, keeping things neat and organized, repetition… why Cardassians in general have a particular appeal to creating elaborate filing systems, sameness among us, orderliness…”

“Yes,” Mira said, growing eager at the discussion, “of course we know of Voran Eket’s riding hound, the one he trained with the bell–”

“Of course, it’s one of the experiments we first learn of in basic psychology–”

Mira leaned in closer, interrupting, casting her voice low.

“The hound has been trained to hear a certain sound, to anticipate, to expect the reward and he drools and he feels good anticipating his reward. It goes beyond completion of patterns. It is training. It is why most of us never stray from the path of our lives set out before us. We continue on in the same class as our families because it is a pattern that we have been trained to complete. We don’t question our duties because they have been trained into us, reinforced by the ringing bell of the State, the anticipation that if we complete the expectant pattern of a ‘good Cardassian’ that we will–somewhere–in the end I suppose–have a reward for our sacrifices, for following along dutifully, for completing the pattern. Each step along the predictable way completes a bit more of the pattern and we have been trained to be happy with that, to drool, to need to finish it as it ‘should be’. Few stray from the patterns of Cardassia, Kelas. It doesn’t feel good to us. We have all been trained like hounds…”

Kelas was listening to her even more intently now, their faces so close, her voice hushed–he was hanging upon her every word and it felt like she was violating him deeply some how to express this and yet–he knew it to be true. Perhaps since he himself deviated so drastically from the pattern the State set forward, perhaps he was so inclined to find it other things, to obsess as he did, because he needed other outlets that would allow him to keep a pattern–some Cardassian bit of normalcy when he was very much not following along a normal pattern in life.

His mouth was half open, his eyes wide, with all sorts of things to consider and perhaps he was on the edge of discovering new ways to understand himself. He had taken several psychology classes and learned many things but the way Mira spoke to him now–it hadn’t occurred to him.

“Kelas,” Mira drew back suddenly, and placed her fingertips to the left side of his chest. “You’ve lost your student badge.”

“Oh,” it took him a moment to bring his thoughts in. He glanced down at the spot. It was empty and he couldn’t show up to classes tomorrow without it properly displayed. Soon he would be able to turn it in and the colors on the medical badge would be changed to that of a full-fledge doctor. “I must have lost it in the auditorium.”

“You’d better check,” Mira said, “oh–don’t expect me back tonight. I’ll be staying with a friend. You can have the place all to yourself.”

“I expect I’ll be doing a lot of thinking,” Kelas said.

They parted ways and Kelas headed back into auditorium. He counted out the rows that would bring him to the row where he and Mira had sat for the concert. Counting, patterns, anticipating his reward of finding his badge. How wonderful it was to have a friend in neuroscience. Mira was incredibly intelligent though if she had ever expressed her idea of the hound and the bell as the citizen and the State to the wrong person she could find herself in a bad situation. Mira was too smart for that.

Kelas wandered down the row until he came to their seats and then he got down onto the floor to search. There was the pin glinting in the shadows. How had he lost it anyway? He’d probably been fiddling with it without realizing. He stood up and fastened the pin to his tunic but then he realized that he was being watched. He could feel it, and when he turned to see who it was there was a figure seated on the edge of the stage.

Even in the shadows there was something that struck a cord of familiarity. He drew a breath through his mouth to scent. He could smell himself and the lingering scent of Rokassa, and he could even smell Mira still there, and there so many scents of all around him the people who had all been there not long ago–stale scents but still lingering–but one was not stale yet and despite the distance between himself and the figure on the stage he could smell it and it was Ekor’s scent. Or was his mind playing tricks on him?

His heart began to pound as he made his way out of the row, into the main aisle, and towards the stage. What if the figure was just an illusion of his longing body and mind? The scent?

Ekor had mentioned that he had a talent for music.

He paused a short distance away from the stage.

His mouth felt dry, his tongue heavy, his heart still hammering–he wasn’t certain he could even find his voice to call out the name. But he took a deep breath and gathered himself. He wanted to see Ekor again, but this could be a great disappointment if it wasn’t him, and only a shadow of yearning instead.

“Ekor?”


Before he could catch himself, Ekor had lost hold of his baton, and it spun out of his hand, landing a few paces ahead with a clatter. He winced, hoping it hadn’t broken on impact, but then, a moment later, that worry became a minor matter.

There was only one person in Culat who would call Ekor by his private name. His heart missed a beat. “Kelas…?”

Ekor slid off the edge of the stage and picked up his baton, sliding it back into its pocket as he walked towards the figure in the shadow. Something about the shape of his hair was different, but as he took a closer look, he was sure.

“Kelas!” he breathed, taking in the familiar, gently curved build of the man. He grinned, almost running, suppressing the urge to close the distance between them.
“You were just on my mind… I’m so fortunate to see you again!”

As he stood in front of Kelas, he wanted to embrace him. He wanted to ask so many questions, all of which would be entirely too exposing: if he had sometimes thought of their night together, if he had regretted it, if he had touched himself to the memory, if his heart was pounding right now… and many more. Ekor held his tongue, with difficulty, but he offered Kelas his palm to touch.

His skin had felt so warm in that little room. In Ekor’s mind he was there once more, feeling flushed, pliant scales under his fingertips.

As he blinked the thought away, he noticed the badge proclaiming Kelas as a student of medicine. A future doctor… Ekor’s respect for the other man increased some more: it couldn’t have been easy to get into the most prestigious university program Cardassia had to offer, as a man no less, and on top of all that, Ekor reckoned, Kelas must be a fair bit older than his fellow students.

The memory of their night came back in full force. Ekor remembered the words and thoughts they had exchanged, what being here meant to him: this was Kelas’ sacred duty.
How much had he worked, how much pain had he endured, how hard had he fought to realize this dream of being good, in that particular way that only Cardassians dreamed?

Of course, none of these questions was a fit topic to address in their current situation—which, in all honesty, Ekor did not even know to define. Kelas looked tense, almost nervous. Was he as excited about meeting again as Ekor himself was? Was he feeling the same, bone-deep longing?

Oh, only one way to find out, Ekor thought. When in doubt, strike up a conversation.

“Did you enjoy the concert?” he asked with a bit more eagerness than was entirely seemly. “Be ruthless, please. I shall suffer your displeasure nobly,” he added. “And if it should be harsh, I shall nurse my broken heart for a while, after which, of course, I shall teach you the error of your ways,” Ekor grinned.

It was such an ambiguous thing. Half of Ekor wished Kelas had enjoyed himself immensely, and half—the flirtatious half—hoped Kelas would say something outrageously critical (and uninformed), so that he might debate and persuade him over to his way of thinking.

Kelas wasn’t certain, for a moment, that he could breathe. As ridiculous as it was it seemed that for the briefest moment his lungs had just forgotten how to work until his chest was burning for air and he had to make a conscious effort to draw breath, to remind himself to do it again, and then he was a little better.

He pressed his small palm to Ekor’s larger one and before thinking if it was a correct response or not, he slotted his fingers in between Ekor’s and curled them over against the ride of Ekor’s knuckles. The warmth seemed to go right through him–from palm to his very core, and he relaxed a bit.

“Oh–” how did he respond to that question? His head was still swimming a bit just from seeing the other man again when he was certain he never would, at least especially not this soon.

To argue that the concert had been horrible would probably have been more proper–to get Ekor riled, for them to banter as he bantered with Mira, but unlike the routine of Cardassian socializing Kelas felt all strange about the various aspects of it. To him it seemed more natural to banter with Mira even though they were only friends and it meant nothing more. To argue with Ekor under false pretense that the music had been subpar in any way felt very wrong to him. For one thing it hadn’t been at all and why wouldn’t he want to express to Ekor how he really felt?

Since he could never really untangle the rules or fit them into making sense in his own mind he did what he usually did and just ignored them.

“I would like to argue with you and see you flush dark but… I’m afraid I must tell you it was beautiful. Moving, sublime–I think I may have gone into a trance at the end. I just sank down into my chair and… felt. Things. I know I should put them into words, to discuss them with you like a proper Cardassian, but I wouldn’t know where to begin. My lack of words does not mean a lack of feeling, Ekor. It means that I feel so deeply that I… I can’t find words,” it was almost a shaming thing to admit to.

A Cardassian who couldn’t find words?

But Kelas was certainly alive with excitement both over remembering the performance, and seeing Ekor again. He could barely keep himself still and his mind was going in so many different directions he was going to lose track if he didn’t focus on something.

“My dear friend Mira was speaking to me after the concert about patterns in music, about how our brains are wired to enjoy music because it’s all about anticipating a reward–we can predict many of the notes, but not all of them, so if done correctly with the right amount of unpredictability, we will become euphoric when the notes come that complete the pattern. It’s brilliant and you’re brilliant–all of it, the entire–it was magical!”

So magical that it has brought us together again, Kelas thought.

He wanted to say more, to delve into a deep discussion with Ekor, but he was simply staring up at Ekor’s face, at the light in his eyes, as enrapt with him as he had been with the concert. Was there some sort of pattern that they needed to finish? Is that why they found themselves together again?

But Kelas had no way of knowing if Ekor would even want to see him again in that way. After all the first attempt had not gone well. This might be better if it was just conversation, and yet Kelas wanted it to be much more. He knew better than expect anything but how many times had he already imagined seeing Ekor again? Could it be possible that Ekor had ever thought the same about him since their parting?


Ekor stood there, listening to Kelas, barely hearing the words he was saying over those he wasn’t. There was desire, so plain on his inflection that Kelas might just as well have come at him, accusing him how ill-advised the whole concert had been, instead of paying him one of the sweetest, most heartfelt compliments Ekor had ever received—and if Kelas’ tone hadn’t given him away, his fingers slotted between his own, curled over the back of his hand, would have done it.

Ekor didn’t know how Kelas did it. There was something so enticing about him, better than his fantasies, better than the solitary peaks he had given himself to those images in his mind.

There was something that lured and ensnared him.

Instead of gently extricating himself, Ekor mirrored Kelas, pressing his hand closer and tightening his grip, digging his claws into the back of Kelas’ hand. This was improper, but Kelas’ breath rushing out of his lungs was a reward that rooted Ekor on the spot.
He slowly came closer, grateful that his conducting tunic concealed the thrum of his pulse lodged in his throat. His heart was beating as fast as when it had been time to enter the stage.

Suddenly, unexpectedly, the night had opened to an even fuller potential for Ekor. Could they… would they try each other again, tonight? How Ekor wanted to make those imaginings of his a reality…!

Ekor watched as Kelas’ eyes widened, their foreheads were almost touching—if the wrong person were to come in now, there would be questions. Consequences. Ekor leaned in, only his breath touching Kelas’ neck scales as he spoke in his ear.

“I’ve heard the conductor is too inexperienced for Elegy at the Oasis,” he whispered hoarsely. Was that a shiver in Kelas’ frame? Oh, he hoped it was, he hoped Kelas felt like this too.

“I’ve even heard he butchered the whole piece with his excessive youth and boldness,” Ekor incited, pressing their bodies closer together. Heat, pure heat… the beast in him stirred, and Ekor welcomed it. He could do that boldness he stood accused of.

Kelas’ compliments from before were still ringing in his mind, his endorsement much hoped for and welcome, and he wanted to see his passion rise in the heat of his defense.

“One such as him couldn’t even begin to comprehend the musical depth of Elegy, he’s barely more than a hatchling! And a service class hatchling at that…” Ekor said with a convincing imitation of the snobbery he sometimes encountered, “you really surprise me with this talk… of magic… I would have taken you for a better judge of the arts,” he provoked. “Debate me, Kelas. Prove me wrong.”

They were standing so close together now, Kelas had nowhere left to hide, but he wasn’t trying to.

Ekor let his fingers hover a bare few millimeters over Kelas’ neck, feeling the warmth gathered there just from their exchange of words, indecent, almost obscene; Ekor wanted nothing so much as to sink his teeth and claws into the flesh there and make Kelas bleed and scream in delight and pain.

But this was not the place—he was very aware how much trouble they both would be in, if he were to show the kind of bad judgment that would see them forgetting themselves here; no, they had to keep a modicum of decorum, at least until they could get away elsewhere…

Kelas’ mouth went dry as Ekor spoke, and continued to speak, his words growing more and more harsh, his contact bolder, closer–demanding of Kelas to debate him–and those claws digging at the back of his hand. It was entirely arousing, and the fact that Kelas had gone some time now without this sort of contact, it made him wish to be wild and desperate and drop down to Ekor’s feet right there and beg to pleasure him.
Control, Kelas.

He was being asked–no demanded–to channel that passion into his words. How best to argue? Would he do it correctly? He had been so poorly socialized that he was aware of those shortcomings and often worried over it. But Ekor had proven to have been so understanding before–more had gone wrong between them than a simple flirtation so he trusted that if he mangled this gesture, that Ekor would not react to him poorly.
Still, he very much wanted to get this right.

He took a deep breath and gathering his thoughts, he took a small step towards Ekor. They were already so close that that closed the gap completely. For Kelas it only served to emphasize how much smaller he was but he tilted his head up, gave his hair a shake, burned Ekor with his most defiant look–

“Whoever would say such things is a foolish hekant and furthermore is as bland as a handful of groat,” Kelas said.

“Perhaps the conductor is young, still wet from shrugging off his egg sac, but youth does not dictate experience and passion. And besides–there are some things that are quite pleasant… when wet… dear Ekor.

I see no reason his age should matter. His soul is where his passion was born, and what has spurred him to hone his craft, and a soul is not dictated by number of years. And yes he may have been bold–very bold–but I find that quite appealing. In our society we are not encouraged to risk, are we, unless it benefits the State? Oh… in which we do not call it risk, but service. Otherwise we must never step out of line with what is dictated to us as ‘right’.

Through being so bold the conductor has allowed us a freedom to experience ‘risk’ without any consequence to pay. We are allowed to feel that obscene rush of defiance vicariously through the music. And that is the best that art has to offer–to stir, to cause the observer to feel and experience so forcefully that it causes one to question. It is a dangerous art, however. Some people are afraid to find that they feel alive, truly alive and awakened, when they connect with such risk.

An observer may become angry or ashamed for having been brought to such an experience. They may wish to hide their shame by attacking the creator, pretending that what was sublime was dull. Cardassians lie as a rule, and we lie most often to ourselves. To be truthful is to be naked, without protection, and few are willing to bring oneself to such a state of submission.

But the piece–the climax of such a daring piece and the naked truth of it is that it has nothing to do with age, or class, and I think…” Kelas lowered his voice to a whisper, daring to say it, “that it is a longing little bud trapped down deeply inside many of us, even some of the most repressed citizens, that is yearning to blossom, if only for a moment to be above the constraints of order and mundane normalcy. The conductor has commanded not only his instrument, but with his mighty baton, he has guided those who are willing to truly accept the experience to rise to a height that is beyond a simple melody. The height of the performance, the crescendo, the orgasm at which we burst apart at last by his design… that is a gift.”

Kelas stood there trembling with anticipation against Ekor. The passion was alive in his eyes and everything he said, to his feeling at least, had been completely honest. He was aware that he had riddled his argument with innuendo from trapped buds, to blossoms, to orgasms, but Kelas found that he related the experience of many great things to sex as a rule. It was normally a relation that he had to be aware of and to manage cutting out of speech when it would be offensive or inappropriate. This conversation was most certainly the later… and he wasn’t certain that this too was not too bold… probably obscene of him to say such things.

But perhaps in this situation it would be appreciated.

Ekor was holding his breath. He felt Kelas' little shivers and tremors thread through what little space was left between them; he didn't dare move, lest he close the distance and forget decorum and ruin his career before it even got off the ground. But oh, how he longed for Kelas' lips delivering on the promise they had alluded to with their lurid language, how he longed for them wrapped around the thickness he felt pressing against its confines inside, straining, wet, and devoted in their service.

"What an engaging tale you weave, my dear Kelas," Ekor growled deep in his chest. The dust of the old auditorium was heavy on his voice and bursts of sound and laughter from the reception going on outside flowed into the relative silence of the deserted lecture hall. "A fascinating take," he repeated, his lips centimeters from Kelas' skin, "in which you outrageously equate orgasm to climactic submission, and submission to honesty in service, and service to risk... and all that, to music."

The truth was Ekor had never felt so known. "... in which you further equate this young conductor's performance to climax itself, the pinnacle of lust," Ekor breathed, letting the sibilants linger softly. "And perhaps you are no further from the truth than many in the audience, and closer..." he blew air over the neck ridge closest to him, raptly watching it flush a darker shade of blue, "closer than most.

"For what do they know about his passion, but what they allow themselves to hear in the music filtered through minds that are trained into toothless subservience to convention? What if you're exactly right, my dear? What if this is the pinnacle of his lust: to offer an opportunity to defy that learned ennui, a moment of utter, honest nakedness?"

Ekor took a half-step back, delighting in the look of barely concealed longing Kelas gave him. The hand still twined with his own was gripping hard as the images Ekor had provided seeped into Kelas' mental landscape.

"There is risk for him, too," he said, squeezing his fingers tight. "He must never go too far as to become attached to the extremes of atonality and dissonance, for that would surely ruin what he might have otherwise built." He swallowed thickly. "Because it simply wouldn't do to strike down even the most daring minds with too much force, incite them against him... no, he must never do that... but too little dissonance is no good either.

"He must make them want to let him guide them." Ekor lowered his gaze to Kelas' chest, noting that his student badge was pinned to his shirt with a little tilt to the right. He took it between his fingers, turning it a little, like he had twirled his baton, before straightening and re-pinning it. "He must make them want to listen, he must make them long for more, and he must make want to trust him with their submission."

Ekor took the baton out of his tunic pocket. "This," he said, digging the wooden tip into the slope of Kelas' chin where it dipped down into his throat, "this is nothing without..." He applied a twist of pressure until he felt Kelas explosively release the air through his nostrils, "... without that."

"Any fool with a pair of hands and a rudimentary grasp of proper dramatic progression can hop on a stage and wave their wand about—and surely even that fool would find those in the audience who mistake conventionality for creation and think themselves enchanted. But this conductor of ours, he risks it all... he must pour his passion into every inch of wood, into every stroke of this cane." Ekor drew the sharp tip over the laryngeal protrusion of Kelas' throat. A thin, dark line formed in its wake. "He must make count every release of tone and change of rhythm. And tell me, Kelas: does he not, by the control he exercises, and the freedom he offers, serve in turn?

"What if this service is what he longs for, what if it is everything he has ever dared to look for? What if your submission is not coincidental, not as clandestine as you might have thought? If it is not without consequence, nor even unexpected? What if it's what he wants? What if that is the shameful secret of his love for music, would you still be defending him so fiercely?

"Would you still let him touch you then, Kelas?"

Will you? Ekor thought, but didn't ask aloud. He felt all the inexperience of his youth at once. Oh, he had thought long and hard about what he had done wrong the first time they met. He'd often imagined having done better, and now that they were standing mere centimeters apart, exchanging heated stares and innuendo, Ekor wanted nothing more than that.

Kelas's mind began to swim with all the words, finding them difficult to hold onto while Ekor was so close, the baton at his throat, the press and release, the controlled force--he tried to pull Ekor's words into meaning and hold onto them long enough to figure out a proper reply. They were important--he did not wish to disrespect Ekor by appearing lost in the conversation when it meant so much. He knew that it meant so much.

Kelas closed his eyes just briefly, opened his mouth slightly to taste the air--there was barely any between them it seemed and it was heavy with Ekor's musk which Kelas wanted to grasp and rub all over his bare skin, to bite, to inhale. His free hand rested briefly on his chula, slightly swollen beneath the collar of his shirt, and then the delicate fingers slid up his long and tender throat to trace the thin line of raised skin left by the press of the baton, and then the fingers moved towards his neck ridge. He watched Ekor through hooded eyes, smirking ever so subtly as his fingers hovered just shy of fondling his own neck scales--then instead he curled his a lock of hair around his fingers and the light glinted from the shine buffed into his long claws.

"I would defend him still. There is no shame in passion," Kelas said. "And I would allow him touch me--I might even beg... on my..." Kelas paused and glanced briefly, as if to make sure they were truly still alone, "on my knees if it would please him... and I think it would."

Kelas let go of Ekor's hand, took the smallest step back, giving a bit more room for them to breathe.

"Hmm," Kelas glanced down to his student badge, and tilted it back again, even though it bothered him as well for it to be off-kilter. The action was completely deliberate for another reason. He tried his best not to smile too much then--to keep a serious expression instead of revealing how much he was enjoying even testing Ekor by fiddling with the badge. The smile touched his lips just briefly before he was able to school it away but his eyes were still twinkling, giving him away anyway.

"You speak of attachment, to one thing or the other, how this could ruin his music one way or the other... so there must be balance. It is key."

Deciding to drop the talk of the 'conductor' as though he were some third party, Kelas stepped close again, holding his own hands together, on the verge of wringing them as his playfulness edged away towards nervousness.

"We could balance each other if we tried," Kelas said, lowering his voice, "I believe we could... and I would never wish to ruin you--him--the ambitious young conductor. We both must serve, we both risk each time we meet, don't we? Our desires endanger either of us... and yet... we cannot put them off entirely, can we? But... if there need not be an attachment one way or the other, that it might... ruin the music... it is understood. No one else need know of his desires, or whom he may choose to guide, who may listen to him, who may long for him. He keeps his secret wrapped in notes and rests, deep down behind bars of written music, perhaps he thinks of it only in perfect measures structured neatly to keep everything in the 'proper' places... but sometimes there are moments when the music must live on its own, when he must direct it out from the place where someone else has written the rhythm and rules.

We all have our secrets and we all have music that we long to play, that we long to hear so badly it aches. I can be your secret too, Ekor. You can keep me tucked away where no one can find me, in a song that only you and I know, and you can conduct me as you wish. We can serve one another in our secret ways, in the ways that we long for," Kelas tipped himself up on his toes, leaned towards Ekor's ear, let his breath ghost warmly there for a moment before dropping his voice to a whisper. "And there will be no one there to tell us that we must not."

Two paces back now, really leaving some space, and straightening the badge again.

"My room mate has gone out for the night," Kelas said, "and it is a bit late. Perhaps I should take myself to bed for good nights rest."

He paused to partially unzip his tunic, revealing a peek of the undershirt, as he retrieved a mini-padd from the inner pocket, and then zipped it again. His fingers danced briefly across the smooth screen and then he sat it down on one of the benches.

His heart was pounding hard now. He wanted to hurry away before Ekor could respond to him. Things were becoming heated between them and either they would continue, or they would not, but if they were to continue they would need to do so elsewhere. This way they would not be spotted leaving together, if Ekor chose to deliver the 'lost padd' to him tonight, or leave it at the lost items kiosk, he would have to wait and see--though he was betting on one answer over the other.

Kelas hurried away quickly.

If Ekor lifted the padd and viewed the screen he would find Kelas's building name and room number, along with the word 'unlocked'.

And if he came after to follow-up on their game, perhaps to even punish Kelas for running away so abruptly, then Kelas would be waiting for him seated naked upon his bed. He was not certain when the reception would conclude, but Kelas was willing to wait until then, drawing his fingers carefully along the mark left on his throat.

Ekor growled under his breath as Kelas playfully undid the work, such as it was, he had done on his badge. He wanted to grab the little minx by his wrists, twist him, slam him into the wall and leave a good, strong bite mark on his neck for provoking him so brazenly. But he couldn't, not here, not while the reception was still going on just beyond the entrance of the auditorium, so Ekor bit his tongue and left it at the non-verbal warning.

And then Kelas... seemed to offer himself to him, and Ekor's mind blanked completely. Even though they had only met the one time before, even though they had been little more than strangers about to fuck the living daylights out of each other then, even though both of them had accepted that they wouldn't be seeing each other again—even though all of this was true, Kelas was offering something more.

Ekor stood there, listening, his baton fittingly upright at attention, but unheeded in his hand. Kelas was right, oh if only he knew how right he was. They were both risking much just by being in this room together... and yet, Ekor couldn't stop listening to what Kelas had to say. He couldn't stop himself imagining it in vivid detail.

"Nobody would need to know," said Kelas, flashing a sly little grin, and Ekor knew he was lost. "I can be your secret," and in a fit of utter madness, of feverish desire, Ekor agreed with it.

They could be each other's secret: Kelas—Atsi— would be his to have, to take control of, to punish for his insolence, to open, lay bare and possess. And he would become Kelas'... Kelas' what? He asked himself. His lover, his taskmaster and disciplinarian, his... Jasi.

Ekor was still trying to wrap his mind around the proposal when Kelas took a few steps back, flashed his undershirt as he removed a padd from inside his tunic, and left—not without leaving the padd gently glinting its invitation in the dark, and not, Ekor noted with amusement, without straightening his badge again.

My dear Kelas, he thought, watching him retreat. Run, little prey. I'll catch up with you later.

With a deep, shuddering breath, Ekor gathered himself and pocketed his baton once more. He should find its case and put it away properly, but, remembering the beautiful way Kelas had yielded to its pressure, he decided against that.

He returned to the reception in a haze of scent-memory powered fantasies. Ekor could barely muster the patience to remain there until even the most ardent of the audience were satisfied, their questions answered, nods and polite small talk exchanged. When Instructor Kovok finally dismissed him, he didn't even try to hide his relief—a fact that, by her answering knowing smile, did not go unnoticed.

Ekor cleared his throat. "Instructor...?"

"What is it, Laset?"

Ekor flushed darkly. "I... nothing, Instructor. Goodnight."

"Goodnight, Laset." She looked after his retreating form fondly for a moment. "Have fun," she muttered to herself, once she was sure he was out of his earshot. This wasn't her first graduate concert, and some things never changed. She would make sure they found Laset in time, before they moved on to their next venue.

***

His bag slung over his shoulder, Ekor met a few of the others on his way out, but didn't stop to converse: they'd have much time for that on their tour of Cardassia's cities, yet, and besides, he needed to find a building.

Which meant he either needed to ask someone, or would have to find a campus plan. He only vaguely remembered where they'd driven by the medical building, but even so, there was no way he could be certain that the building Kelas had indicated on his padd was anywhere near there.

A quick check of Kelas' padd didn't provide anything helpful, and once he'd exited the main building, he found the square in front of it devoid of any helpful signs. There were some pointing out where to find the Mathematics department, even Medical—but nothing to do with student housing.

So, when a pair of students came along, Ekor had to ask for the way to the building.

"Why?" asked one of them curtly, sweeping a strand of hair out of her field of view. "What do you need to be there for?"

Ekor was taken aback by her rude, flirtatious manner and excessive curiosity, but answered in kind, nonetheless. "A... friend lost his padd. I'm returning it, not that it's any of your business."

The student narrowed her eyes at him. "Why don't you just leave it with the kiosk? If your friend isn't completely disorderly, he'll find it there."

"I'm afraid he's really... quite disorderly," Ekor said, grinning. "Extremely so."

The two women exchanged a glance. "How disappointing," said the one who had stayed silent so far, with an openly appraising look at his neck and hips. "If you change your mind, we're going out. There's a bunch of musicians on campus, it's gonna be fun."

Of that, Ekor had no doubt, but he had different plans. "So I've heard," he agreed, "but I really need to help out my friend with a padd..." ling, he thought to himself.

"Oh, well, if you've made up your mind... Go straight down here, until you reach Math, then take a right toward the canal, but make sure you turn left again at Astrophysics. Then follow the road until you come to a small square lined with dorm houses. It'll be the fifth off the right hand side," said the first of the students again. "And tell your extremely disorderly friend he's a lucky man... to have such considerate friends, of course."

Ekor smirked. "Of course, thank you," he agreed. "And I promise I will make sure he knows exactly how lucky he is."

***

Ekor found the building without difficulty. It was one of many student dorm buildings, drab and utterly unremarkable but for the square layout of its many windows, each belonging to another tiny flat. There was still light behind several of the windows.

Kelas' floor was a few levels up, and when Ekor tried the door, he found it as the padd had promised: unlocked.

Rules

–MUST BE 18+
–Do not send mean and nasty asks
–No Godmoding
–You may bug me about a thread if I haven’t replied
The following things may be done but we may need to discuss specifics first:
–NSFW
–Shipping
–Blood/gore/character injury
–Dubcon (depending on situation)
–Kinks
–Major character death (outside of canon character deaths)
–Rape or noncon
The following is not okay
–Suicide or death by cancer - can’t for reasons.
VERSES:
To learn more about mainverse Kelas check the 'about'.
Alt timeline Kelas: I can play younger Kelas. He would be a young adult studying at university - this Kelas is not as chill as his older self. He may be a bit of a mess to handle at times but he’s a lot of fun. Beware for him being hypersexual and confused. He is still a good boy though. He just needs to figure some things out. If you’d like to know more about this younger Kelas you can read here - this fic is not yet finished but it will be eventually - https://archiveofourown.org/works/8822437/chapters/20228236

Two out of three.

(no subject)

I want to be your instrument. Make me sing.

(no subject)

Only the one that hurts you
Can make you feel better
Only the one that inflicts pain
Can take it away
Erotica

(no subject)

Some, they like candy, and others, they like to grind,
I'll settle for the back of your hand somewhere on my behind.
Treat me like I'm bad, even when I'm being good to you,
I don't want you to thank me, you can just spank me.

Headcanon Time

When Kelas is frustrated, or overwhelmed (sometimes overwhelmed by good things like pleasure after really great sex), or sometimes just because he’s feeling defiant–he will forget about speaking standard Kardasi (or in some cases deliberately do it) and will speak how native Northerners (Nokarans) speak which is a creole mixture of their old language and standard Kardasi. It’s considered improper and even offensive to some. The State mandates a standard language for purposes of unification. 

Anyway, Kelas reserves it only for when he’s really wanting to irritate or throw someone off, or his brain reserves it for those high stress-high pleasure moments where it just comes naturally because it’s how he had always used to speak before going off to school and being made to speak ‘properly’. He does still speak with a Northern accent so that gives him away anyway, though sometimes he tries more than others to soften it down. 

He is also fond of sayings that are directly linked with Northerners–and sometimes he just makes shit up and says ‘there’s an old Nokaran proverb which says’ and waits to see if people will believe him or think it’s bullshit. He thinks this is fun. 

The Assignment - Kelas and Erzek

 

 

His first thought was to question the order. His second thought was to bow thoughtfully and assure Enabran Tain that he would see to it to the best of his abilities, that he would not fail, and most importantly that he would perform the task so well that it would not even be necessary to have such a position in the future. Erzek Temar, second son of Glinn Erza Temar, had learned always to disregard the impulsive first thought and act on the speculative second. That second thought amused Tain, as his second thoughts frequently did and he warned Erzek that Doctor Parmak might seem pliable on the outside, but beneath that conciliatory exterior was a man made of far stronger conviction than many in the Order.

 

Erzek wondered if that was meant as a slight against him, but decided that it didn’t matter.

Affront, revenge were first thoughts and he discarded them as easily as a spent disrupter coil.

 

Instead he smiled wider, nice teeth, long neck, scales polished, teased for being nearly half again a preening sunbird as his senior Pythas Lok. Erzek always ignores the ignorant jeers and reminds himself that affront is a first thought. It’s beneath him because Erzek is a special case having been recruited into the Order at a much older age than standard. But that was exactly how Erzek engineered it deciding that his intellect and ambitions would be much better served in the Order than the Military. Once that was decided he kept his ears open, knowing that the dissident movement was stronger away from the capital where the fools thoughts their treachery wouldn’t reach.

 

They didn’t count on Erzek’s cunning when he heard a few whispers from his classmates.

 

His father says he was lucky and that only fools seek the Order out so willingly. Erzek always smiles and thanks his father for his counsel as a dutiful son in their correspondence. His first thought is always to kill the man. His second thought is to remain just unassuming enough that the only traits which stands out are his loyalty and capability. So far Tain has taken little notice. Until today, that is.

The assignment is one that earns laughs and false aplomb from his fellows. Tain’s personal physician Doctor Parmak is a known dissident sympathizer amongst the Order. Doctor Parmak is an overly sentimental and weak fool according to some, a brazen Nokaran whore according to others, but as far as Erzek is concerned he’s a way to the top. Doctor Parmak, Tain decided is in need of a watchful eye, of monitoring, of censuring and silencing when need be. With a firm but gentle touch was clearly emphasized and Tain felt that he was best suited for a job.

 

Tain felt that he was best suited to guard the defiant and opinionated doctor.

 

Tain was wrong. Erzek is going to do far better than that.

 

Erzek is going to teach him proper behavior, one subtle manipulation at a time.

 

He stops outside the door to Doctor Parmak’s infrequently used office, knowing that there will be preparations underway for the annual Order physicals, the pathetic ruse Tain devised to justify the presence of the overly pretty ornament “tending to his needs”. Doctor Parmak should be in then. Erzek pastes on his most solicitous expression as he knocks.

xkelasparmakx

 

Kelas is in his office. He has been cleaning it, fussing at cobwebs, re-arranging things that had somehow gotten ‘unarranged’ in his absence. Obviously Tain, or someone in his employ, had snooped around and left it disorderly on purpose as a reminder to him that he was being watched. Kelas sniffs, and frowns, how dare his books be out of order? Unacceptable.

 

He kicks a little stool towards the bookcase to reach the highest shelf. The room is small bordering on cramped but at least it is functional and one of the walls has a set of floor-to-ceiling bookcases that Kelas would have enjoyed in his own modest home if he was ever inclined to splurge. He pushes himself up onto the tips of his toes to reach, wobbling a bit–damn being short! 

 

Maybe if he topples over and breaks something, he thinks, he could skip out on having to do the physicals. After all Kelas Parmak had not completed his extensive medical training in order to keep Enabran Tain’s lackeys in shape. But here he is. One does not exactly say ‘no’ to Tain if they wish to be alive and Kelas has too many things to do to be dead just yet. 

 

Besides–if he doesn’t preform the physicals then he won’t be able to mark half of the agents ‘unfit’ for something or another he has found (made up, really–in this case medical ethics could be eschewed). If he marks enough of them perhaps the entire Order could fall at his hands. Of course that would be far too suspicious. But one could fantasize anyway.

 

One more book on that very top shelf and at least things will be in order and he can deal with the rest of the day without frowning too hard. Another hop onto the stool, stretch, and tip-toe. He hears the swoosh of the door open behind him. 

 

Whomever is walking in at this moment will have the loveliest view of his bottom from this position–the pants that he has worn tailored to show off his hips especially, the way his tunic dips down low in the back, showing off the tops of his shoulders, upper portion of his back, and his neck. He has woven his hair into double braids that morning, interspersed with beads, specifically for the purpose of keeping his hair from obscuring that scandalous back neckline. A hint of blue in the chufa, a hint of blue stain on the lips, and his act of defiance-by-dress is complete. 

 

If he is forced to show up for this rubbish then he will at least dress himself as inappropriately as he can dare just out of spite. He knows very well that Tain enjoys to look at him but that he would have been expected to dress more modestly, and probably more in line with his gender, than this when seeing patients for Tain. Well. One could only keep Kelas Parmak under their thumb to some degree. If Tain had preferred him to wear something else then that was just too bad.

 

There, the last book in place.

 

Kelas turns on the stool to face whomever has entered his office–and that puts them at exactly the same height. 

 

“Hello, Dr. Parmak,” Kelas greets his arrival, giving a polite little bow of his head, “I didn’t have anyone scheduled just yet–am I to assume you’ve arrived early for your physical?” He steps down from the stool and goes to his desk to retrieve his PADD. “If you’ll please sign in and highlight your name on my patient list.. then we may begin.”

cyrelia-j

 

Erzek’s first thought upon seeing the scandalous form of the doctor is a fascination with the body. Nothing so base as pure mindless lust. Those sorts of thoughts are beneath his ambition. Rather, his artist’s eye sees the curves, the elegant lines, particularly concentrated around the hip, make a study of the hair, of the symmetry. He does not entertain such base thoughts as his hands on those hips nor his mouth to the back of the exposed neck, to the shoulder, biting ridges, and Erzek certainly does not begin to think the words opening the torrid tale “He beholds the beauty of blindness as he carefully plucked the spectacles from the kneeling doctor’s face, a ritual before pulling that mouth to service him”.

Those are first thoughts and easily thrown away.

Doctor Parmak is little better than an object, a composition of little biological machines working in tandem to create a small, delicate looking thing that breathes and holds out a hand. There, that’s a much better thought. Erzek holds out his own hand always always wrapped in gloves. He’s certain he’s never left a print anywhere that he can imagine, never allowed any of his fellows to touch his bare skin. He is aware of the dangers of any in the Order getting leverage over him, getting advantages. He knows that they’ll seek to exploit them and Erzek is always exceptionally careful not to leave a scale not to leave a single hair where any could find it, scrubbing his scales nightly, checking for loose hairs as he removes the piece over his actual hair.

 

Only Enabran Tain is privy to that information.

 

The handshake is an unpleasant reminder that he’s going to be subject to that yearly vulnerability, that yearly drawing of blood, that series of tests mean to gauge his fitness. He’s trained hard, careful to compensate for any weaknesses in eyesight that might stand out, careful to make sure he knows what will be found in his blood. He wakes early every morning to participate in the early exercises to keep fit, ignoring the sneers of those passing him by as he feels the muscles work. He knows that Doctor Parmak is looking for any reason to discredit him. The doctor is always working against them and while Tain may tell them that they should always expect to be tested, Erzek knows the difference between a test and sabotage. He gives a careful shake of that hand, firm but quick, smiling blandly.

“Not yet. You’ll notice that I’m not scheduled until next week, after Gala Nok number fifty three,” he recites smartly. Erzek is always careful to keep the arrogance from his tone, voice smooth and earnest, sure to keep the censure from it, always deferential when correcting those that need it. “I can see that you have a lot of preparations to make,” Erzek observes, discreetly wiping his gloves hands on his trousers. “My assignment may have slipped your mind.” Erzek is sure that Tain hadn’t told him, deciding that leaving the matter secret wouldn’t allow for any protests. “I’ll gladly refresh you doctor,” he says stepping away, content to maintain that careful space bubble.

 

“We understand,” he says hands behind his back (those damn soldier habits and training hard to break) “that you require extra assistance. We worry about your safety and we worry about the strain of your position and so we thought that you should be assigned an extra hand to ease your life.” Erzek uses the Order “we”, a bit formal, another series of snickers from his colleagues, but that’s proper speaking and it keeps him distant and aloof without being rude. “I find it very useful myself to have a few external reminders for my behavior and habits. I’m sure you will as well.” He knows the doctor want and so he knows not to smile but again to maintain serious, sober, a slight lift of his chin just daring the doctor to defy such an innocuous declaration. Small steps, small steps, one simple agreement at a time, Erzek thinks.

 

Too easy.

xkelasparmakx

 

Kelas watches the man watch him–patient examining doctor–instead of the right way around. But that is typical to expect from an Order agent. Kelas is used to eyes that stare and try as if to decipher some meaning from him. Let him look. 

 

He frowns at the word ‘assignment’ and once the assignment is explained he sighs, and rolls his eyes towards the ceiling, and counts for a moment.

 

“First of all, Mr. Erzek, if that is your name–which it probably isn’t–indeed I would have noticed that your appointment was not until next week… had you introduced yourself like a proper Cardassian being. I’m afraid I don’t have any other-worldly powers handed down from the Ancients–if you belief in them–to render your name by merely staring at you long enough. Call me old fashioned, but I need it to be said,” Kelas swipes the PADD away since it was no longer necessary and places it down on his desk. 

 

He folds his arms over his chest.

 

“Secondly, I’m not a child in need of a keeper,” he sniffs, “I know very well you’re not here to help me with the ‘strain of my position’. How offensive to imply that I cannot handle my occupation and duties on my own. I do not need my life to be eased unless it is by extracting those from it who would meddle needlessly.”

 

His first reaction is to sit down in his chair and have a good, if brief, pout over the situation but that would be unbecoming. These agents are all about their ridiculous mind games which Kelas hates to play or to be played but if necessary he probably can play them. He finds them tedious and ridiculous. It is the reason he is terrible at flirting in the traditional sense and has long ago given up on it.

 

Instead of sitting down he steps into Erzek’s personal space, having noticed the man likes to keep a distance between them. This will at least ruffle his scales a bit if Kelas is lucky. He works his frowning lips into a kind, gentle, smile–closer to the one he uses with his regular patients, though that one is always genuine, and this one is not.

 

“If you would prefer to bore yourself hanging on my coat tails then… by all means, I suppose,” he gestures to his office. “You could make yourself useful.” He takes a step back from Erzek and plucks a scloth from the corner of his desk and holds it out delicately tweezed between two fingers. “The spines of my books are dusty. I wouldn’t want to be untidy now, would I?”

 

He has in fact already dusted the books but he isn’t about to let this ridiculous man dictate his behaviors and mannerisms. The Order has him as their doctor. They can just tolerate some things. It isn’t as though he is out in the city center inciting rebellion. And this man can fake-dust his books. If he wants to spy and to pry then Kelas will insist upon giving him tedious tasks and making it as difficult as possible.

 

How could his behaviors and mannerisms be un-Cardassian anyway? Oh. He knows how. But at the same time it is absurd. His scales are Cardassian, his blood is Cardassian, his DNA is Cardassian–therefore his actions are by nature Cardassian whether they measure up to social norms or not.

 

“Please, be a dear for me. You’re so nice and tall you won’t even need to use my step-stool to reach the top.”

cyrelia-j

The words write themself, Erzek thinks as he takes the cloth silently. “That smart Norther’s mouth is silent as it works, the fine hair soft between fingers that tighten, the hips moving slowly because this will not be over quickly…” Dismissed, wiped away with his hands grasping the cloth, even with gloves not wanting to touch Parmak’s hands more than necessary. He was unable to help the absent tense as the air current shifted space warmed, taking every measure of self control not to step back at that invasion of his space, warmth bleeding into the usual chill of air around him.

           Erzek doesn’t allow irritation to linger as he gives a low bow that might be considered mocking by some. He’s always careful not to allow any of that derision show.

           “Of course it is my pleasure to use my natural biological advantages to serve in any way that I might,” he says taking only a few steps before setting the cloth down on the shelf and taking a PADD from inside his jacket. “Please excuse me,” he says softly, the soft tones always good for keeping ire from his voice. “I find my notes to be useful,” he says as he begins writing the carefully coded words. Should anyone be careful enough to decode his custom cipher they would read the words of the story so far as it’s been playing out in his head.

 

“I had forgotten we had that in common… our unusual backgrounds,” he murmurs more speaking to himself. “When I had first come here I did not have the benefit of the early training so it took considerable time to acclimate to observation.” Erzek continues the story, continues the conversation. “It was a poor assumption on my part to think that you would be so similarly adapted. You are correct, I should not expect a special case to be versed in our traditional Order protocols. Serving the Order is not the same as serving Tain so you would not have the same ingrained recollection of ‘Erzek Temar is notable for his gloves, his lack of eye contact, and his disdain for casual speech even amongst his peers’.” It’s a game that the new initiates play, guessing agents by observation alone especially where a lot of them don’t stand out.

 

Erzek deliberately refrains from so much as glancing at Doctor Parmak as he writes and speaks, putting the PADD back in the inner pocket when he finishes.

“There we are,” he says satisfied as he takes up the cloth again. “I have made sure to take the necessary notes so that I can properly commit to memory any behaviors or speech that you might find upsetting when I retire for the evening.” Erzek begins dusting, letting silence settle just a moment, smiling inwardly where it will never be seen. “At this time Enabran Tain has not seen fit for my assignment to fall outside of daylight hours and I think if we work well together then it will not be necessary for me to recommend any changes,” he adds sure to make the balance of power clear as he is obedient in his task.

xkelasparmakx

Kelas isn’t thrilled about all this note-taking but he decides to go on about his day as usual. He plans to ignore Erzek being there at all. To hush him at every turn and tell him that he works best in silence. For all Kelas is concerned Erzek can become a decorative sculpture in one corner of the office. 

He hasn’t decided yet what he will concede to this ridiculous game, and what he will not. For now he feels defiant–should Tain not be happy enough that Kelas is serving him medically–when his qualifications and specialty would dictate his usefulness more appropriate elsewhere? When he is serving Tain in other ways when Tain calls him. Is Kelas really that much an affront to the image of the Order? He’s only a doctor.

He sees his first few patients and waivers between behaving himself, or doing something that deliberately peeve his new guardian. The idea is still in the back of his mind of failing certain agents as well but throughout the morning he keeps his evaluations honest and aside from his dress and appearance, he seems to behave professionally enough. 

But by midday, and without time for a break for a meal or even a snack, Kelas begins to feel moody and irritated. 

“Wouldn’t it be more fitting with the Order to check up on me at random intervals, instead of to stand and watch over me all day long? To check up on me intermittently would yield better results. You might surprise me, catch me off guard doing something ‘un-Cardassian’ whatever rubbish that’s meant to be. Mother Cardassia would be ashamed of you I think. Who are we to dictate how her children should behave or whom she would find worthy of her acceptance, hm? Of course it is mere speculation. I wouldn’t wish to offend the State.”

Kelas has never really heard anyone outside his village use the term “Mother Cardassia” to refer to the Union. He is aware that gives away a heritage that many label ‘inferior’ but he doesn’t care. It could have been worse, after all. There are plenty in his home village who still know of the old ways, who still pray and call upon Oralius. What reaction would he have if he muttered old Nokaran curses under his breath, or sat down on the floor in the middle of the office, face upward toward the sun in the sky, and began to pray to a deity the State thinks they have vanquished long ago. Oh, poor Erzek might suffer an aneurism or a mental collapse. 

Though in reality, as much as Kelas might want to do it out of spite and shock-value, he knows better than press his luck on some things. Should he be recorded officially as a follower of Oralius (which he was neither officially nor unofficially) he could face consequences and he wasn’t about to risk his career or freedom for a few moments of spite presented as a false prayer to old gods.

But he does prefer to think of Cardassia as a loving mother and that just maybe–she can accept her children even with their flaws, so flawed as he is it is a more appealing idea than the harsh sameness that is dictated by the State. It isn’t a believe in any gods, not really anything as sacred as it sounds to be, it is just a bit of hope that Kelas holds onto to keep himself from becoming too cynical and fed-up. 

When he had first come to Culat, out of his village, to study he had thought it best to hide any part of his ‘inferior’ heritage but as time had gone on he had taken bits and pieces out again to help himself exist in a way that was healthier–deciding that Mother Cardassia might be gentler than the State helped Kelas to be a bit gentler with himself as well. There had been a point in his life, not all that long ago, when he’d felt all he ever deserved was punishment. Luckily his meeting with a special stranger had brought him to question this, and had lead him to figure out a way to find kindness for himself.

“After all,” Kelas says, glancing to Erzek and attempting to keep his voice convincing enough, “we have all been taught that the State knows what’s best for us and I am but a lowly Nokaran physician. My head is full of ridiculous things. What would I know about what’s decent or indecent? Perhaps you can find a modicum of grace to spare any ill feeling at my backwards thinking.”

cyrelia-j

           This is going to be more difficult than he had initially anticipated. First thought discarded. The second comes to him quickly on the heels of the first, more helpful, clarity, and Erzek feels the little ping to the side of his temple which is a smile captured before it can escape, bottle and shuffled, noted but disregarded. The second thought says to him that Northerners are dogs and if one cannot to appeal to their reason then they must be treated as such. Erzek blinks at Doctor Parmak with a slow, considering tilt of his head, careful to remain expressionless but sure to cast his expression down nonetheless as he calls benevolence to his tone.

           “Mother Cardassia…” he murmurs softly, careful to cast censure softly. He isn’t sure if the doctor will need to strain to hear when he drops his volume. “That’s quaint,” he supplies, “and your humility is appreciated. The task is a great one and I appreciate your input into the process, Doctor Parmak.” He looks up from his notes, eye contact just long enough before fixing his expression on some other point of the room. The entire process had been thoroughly unengaging until now but he brings himself back, not allowing a lingering expression over lips and shoulders. That would be scandalous though he cannot help but catalogue the angle, the slope, the artist making a study of the lines and he finds himself lost a moment as his mind moves from the written word to the pencil over the page, sketching the lines of the doctor’s body.

Alright, maybe it lingers after all.

Erzek nearly sighs but refrains. This is the lead in that he needs, after all. It will allow him to modify the subject’s behavior more readily and simply. Tain after all, had given him a free hand and Erzek intends to use every bit of that leeway. He’s already studied the space, already thinking of the devices that he’d swiped from his cousin, one device in particular.

Internal laugh, small smile on the outside. “We do not expect those less fortunate to know what is and what is not appropriate but… that is why I’m here, doctor.” Deferential duck of his head. “I am here to assist but I can see that my presence is… unsettling,” he says carefully making another note.

“Yes, that Nokaran whore mouth is good for far more than speaking sedition. The best way to quiet an obstinate savage is to gag him, to keep him carefully trained.” Erzek writes before taking the PADD under one arm.

“I shall leave you for today so that you might recenter yourself…” amused, he pauses, “Mother Cardassia has a calling for me as well tonight but I believe that in the morning you will see things differently.” He gives a low bow, lower than Doctor Parmak should deserve, eyes down already seeking out the optimum location on the shelf, right between the pages of one old book in particular “On the Diseases of the Cardassian State” which is less a medical text but thought to be a carefully masked dissident manifesto shrouded in the most bland of medical dissertations.

Yes, Erzek knows just the thing…

 —

Northerners are little better than hounds and must be trained, handled, and treated as such. Their intellect may be on par with those of better blood, but they have tendencies and weaknesses which Erzek fully intends to exploit. The device is small, however it isn’t a flat paged monitoring device but rather a device capable of emitting a very particular noise by remote. It’s a sound that only registers to certain frequencies- Nokarans and hounds, Erzek thinks amused, recalling that it’s a high pitched and unpleasant sound fast and sharp and the tests he’d conducted on his father’s least cooperative stud, a massive one eyed son of a glitch yielded quick results.He expects the same here, he thinks as he greets the defiant doctor the next morning.

He notes that Doctor Parmak is dressed as scandalously as ever, the curve of those hips just as defiant, Erzek’s hand curling and uncurling as he gives a bow, hands behind his back. He was sure to know this time, sure to keep a small smile as the Doctor greeted him with annoyance. Erzek had sketched last night, had sketched out the scene, Parmak on his knees, the frames of his spectacles slipped down on his nose, mouth open slack, and in Erzek’s mind that negates what little power the doctor thinks he may command, the images overlaid, the delicate savage reduced on the page to nothing but a slavish ornament.

“Good morning, Doctor Parmak,” he says politely. “I’m here today to observe again but you have my assurance that I have no intention of censure or interference. Perhaps if I can make enough positive observations we can reduce the breadth of our assignment.”

“After all,” he continues fondling the spines of the old book, careful that his body obscures the quick movements of his hand, “we understand things better than you think.” Erzek holds up the notepad, feeling a quiver of excitement through his fingers not thinking of the next scene but knowing that it will come to him as he takes his notes. But as for the doctor… The small control beneath Erzek’s sleeve will ensure the proper response conditioning to any… undesirable behavior. Simple, clean, done.

A Trip to Cardassia City - Kelas and Dakar

Doctor Miran had been working overtime that night, pulling threads behind the scenes of the emergency ward. Something about Cardassia had changed drastically within the two last days – the amount of drunken brawls gone really badly had doubled, and although most of her patients were swift to be treated, they lined up really fast.

Keeping up with the most mundane mendings had gone completely south, and to make matters worse, two of her colleagues had straight up vanished, which didn’t keep their patients from needing care. The patient they’d gotten had been badly beaten, and while most damage was soft tissue – bloodied nose, bruises – and could be fixed quickly, his transverse ribs had taken enough of a beating to be fractured, and the only treatment available for that was surgery, which the emergency care couldn’t offer him, due to his lack of status.

Miran never felt good when a patient left her establishment still in pain – the resources to treat them were there, but laws forbade her, and she preferred to keep in line, she didn’t have the guts to go against order, and knew consequences would come down pretty hard if such would happen.

But, that didn’t mean there weren’t other ways. There were people more daring and open to possibilities than herself, and one of them was one Doctor Parmak. She was nervous about calling him – not because she thought her errand might be an inconvenience to him, but because she’d heard some of his seminars, and reckoned he was quite good. Good enough that talking to him was out of the question, the people she admired coincidentally happened to be the people she therefore feared the most.

 

Still, braving herself with confidence as she sat there in front of her com panel – midnight had come, and she’d finally finished her last patient (ruptured aorta) – she comforted herself with the fact that the reason she looked and sounded tired, was that she’d done good work.

Any doctor could appreciate that.

So, there. That was what had to be done – she had said she’d do it, so she’d do it. Really, she’d just been digging around with surgical tools in a person’s chest cavity, surely pressing a button to make a call should be infinitely less intimidating in comparison.

"My bedside manners to myself certain leave a lot to desire,” she muttered in defeat and just pressed the button, sending away a com signal.

It was then that it struck her that maybe, just maybe, she should’ve waited to the morning.

Kelas groaned as his PADD chimed on a table beside his bed. He had just gotten to sleep after a long day but he grabbed the PADD immediately to investigate. He had two patients who were both commanded to summon him at any time of the day or night given that both were having high-risk pregnancies.

One was carrying twins– not two separate eggs but the even rarer sort–two fetuses in one egg. There were few recorded identical twins that had ever been birthed and only in recent times had technology been developed enough to allow for better methods that might see such an egg survive and hatch two healthy infants. The egg would need to be delivered prematurely, by excising it from the womb rather than delivery by ajan, and then it would be kept under very special conditions in the medical lab and with much skill and a bit of hope–all would go well enough for everyone involved.

Another was in danger of uterine rupture should her egg grow too large and Kelas was keeping a very close eye on her, employing several medications to help maintain the elasticity of the malformed organ, but the risk was still great. They had discussed in depth of aborting the egg early on, an option that very few doctors would ever offer, but after much consideration his patient had opted to continue with the pregnancy. It was neither of these contacting him, which Kelas was grateful to see. An indication that both patients were–assumingly–still well enough at the moment.

Instead the name “Dr. Miran” flashed back at him in the darkness.

 

"Computer, lights to 50 percent,” Kelas said, and then he answered, forgetting to consider that he wasn’t wearing any clothing.

Kelas always preferred to sleep without it. His gray hair was piled into a heavy bun atop his head to keep himself from tangling it at night. At the last moment before the doctors face appeared onto the screen Kelas remembered his glasses and snagged them from the bedside table.  

“Doctor Miran, hello,” he said, and then finally remembering that he was not dressed he clamped a hand over a very obvious bite-mark-bruise on his exposed neck ridge. The rest of his neck and chest she would just have to ignore. It was her fault for contacting him so late at night anyway. “To what do I owe the... hm. One can not exactly label it ‘pleasure’ at this time of night. Even physicians must sleep at some point, my dear.”

It was an unruly, but not entirely inappreciable, display that met her. Now, she’d treated enough patients to know a bite mark when she saw one, but that hadn’t prepared her for this – at least it wasn’t recent enough that she would’ve interrupted the activity. Amusement took over her otherwise anxious state and she failed to suppress a hearty grin, evading eye contact for just a moment to better compose herself.

 

“Doctor Parmak,” she had to clear her throat, realizing too late that her mouth had gone all dry.

“I’m sorry for calling at this hour, I don’t have the luxury to wait until morning – it’s about a patient who visited the emergency ward today. I had to send him home with several fractured transverse ribs, and what I suspect is a series of withdrawal symptoms. He got into a fight over a hypospray,” she detailed with an eye-roll. "He claims it was just medical treatments he needed, something about hormones, but I wouldn’t be surprised if that was a lie,” she shook her head, hair bobbing in the movement.

“I told him I’d contact someone who occasionally offers a helping hand to those who can’t afford things,” she paused, hesitating a bit before she added, in a more hushed voice, “he doesn’t have an income. I tried to access his file,” she drummed her fingers on the table in front of her, “it wouldn’t load – databases these days – and then I got called into surgery, so I don’t have much more to give you in regards to that, all I know is that he has no money, and that he’s suffering, because I’m not allowed to help him. The entire ward is on its knees,” she had to stop herself there, before she’d say something un-Cardassian.
 

 

Kelas listened to her speak intently, frowning a bit here and there. When she was finished he gave her a courteous nod.

 

“Mother Cardassia sees value in every life–and so do I,” Kelas said, pausing. He was tempted to say more, to have a little rant about certain State policies that he did not approve of. But these days he tended to do better at reeling himself in–most times. Having spent ten years in a labor camp had done nothing to change his ideals but it had done something to remind him when it would be best to be silent. It was an annoyance to have to shy away from speaking ones’ mind. 

 

Kelas drew a deep breath through his nose. He was obviously agitated over the conversation, that the young man should be turned away, but he gave doctor Miran a small smile and softened his eyes.

 

“Of course I will help, dear,” he said kindly, “it seems fortunate for this young man that I will be in the city tomorrow. I have a prior engagement arranged for tomorrow evening. A lecture in fact over recent advances in the use of hormonal stimulation when a gravid patient is suffering from dystocia due to exhaustion during parturition.” Kelas paused and tapped a claw to his chin in thought, “I can re-arrange my morning schedule to depart earlier than I had planned. But how would I find this young man? If he has no income, is he living on the streets–or has he provided a location?” 

 

Kelas was already thinking of what items he would need to pack to treat the young mans’ injuries, and how many hypos he could manage to take with him and how he could falsify records to explain away their absence–everything must be recorded and all records submitted to the state on a monthly basis. Most physicians were required only to submit their records quarterly but since having his license re-instated after his stay in camp he was watched more closely than others and the guidelines placed upon him were more rigid. Still, Kelas was intelligent enough to find ways around things when necessary.

 

He continued to provide hormones illegally if the patient was denied access by the State, he continued to preform abortion if requested by his patient, he continued to ignore the law that would require he prescribe hormones to women who were still of breeding age if they came to his office regarding inability to conceive. Kelas would ask them if they wished to have more children–a question that would often surprise his patient. But more often than not he would have an answer, often fearful and in hushed tones, that the aging mother was tired and did not in deed wish to have more children. In the eyes of the State it was not meant to be a question, or something one could refuse, but Kelas offered it as such. What right should the State have to make such important decisions over the body of one person?

 

Of course Kelas did his duty each time in falsifying records that he had in actuality prescribed hormonal treatment for those patients. That allowed him a perfect way to hide away extra hypos of estrogen and progesterone to provide for patients who were denied hormonal therapy for other reasons.

However if this young man needed testosterone it would take a bit more thinking to come up with a way to disguise the usage of those since Kelas did not have a secret back-supply. In truth Kelas preferred to treat patients with chronic hormonal issues, or patients seeking gender affirming treatments, with hormonal implants. It reduced the use of hyposprays altogether and was much more efficient. But the process for approval was much more lengthy and more likely for denial–which Kelas found particularly ridiculous. 

 

Coming back from his thoughts, he added with a sweet smile–

 

“Also…if you find yourself with any free time on your hands tomorrow evening, perhaps I’ll see you at my lecture?”