Pride Goeth

Posted on Mon Apr 29th, 2024 @ 3:44am by Lieutenant Marikit "Kit" Urso & Lieutenant JG Orion Wolff
Edited on on Mon Apr 29th, 2024 @ 4:05am

Mission: In-Between (S1:E7-S1:E8)
Location: Marikit's Quarters
Timeline: Date 2371-10-02 at 1915
4460 words - 8.9 OF Standard Post Measure

Orion was sulking. Nursing his shattered pride and bruised ego after the disaster that had been the evening spent with Andrei and Lyra.

He'd sequestered himself in the science lab since he knew that Andrei would never be caught dead in the place, and Lyra wouldn't be stalking around here without any specific reason since there weren't any kinds of projects that she had commissioned with them. So he was currently reading through the Vidiaan archives to distract himself from his feelings, which were still just seething and roiling beneath the surface like Andorian wolf eels. The archives were fascinating, and using what he found here would accelerate his research by years if not decades.

He ignored the chime from the locked lab doors and sipped his coffee, concentrating on the article he was reading. He wrote down a note to get one of the Vidiaan slaves who had experience assigned to his lab so he could pick the creature's brain. When the chime sounded again, he ignored it and accessed a new article detailing the Phage and the various other avenues of research unlocking its genetic code.

Finally, when the chime sounded in a successively short series, he growled and nearly threw his cup at the door before marching over and unlocking it. "Generally, a locked door means fuck off."

“Try that again, Lieutenant.” Kit snarled at his greeting. While she usually wasn’t one to ever pull rank, she wasn’t about to be spoken to in such a way - especially not by him. She stood just outside the doors with her arms crossed and an annoyed glare on her unique, attractive face.

Orion did his best to put on a welcoming demeanor before smiling as warmly as he could, he really didn't feel like entertaining anyone and while he liked Kit, he didn't think she was the right person to make his mood better. "Of course, typically when a door is locked, it means there's possibly sensitive experiments being conducted that can't be interrupted, you should have called ahead so I could have anything sensitive properly stored away, Lieutenant."

“Obviously not since you answered the door.” Kit gestured into the lab. “If there were important things happening, you’d have asked who the computer was and then contacted me like the respectful officer you most definitely are and told me you couldn’t be disturbed at the moment.” Kit placed a hand on her slight hip and simply looked up at Orion, stubborn and defiant of his false welcome. “I came here to see if you wanted to go get some food or something but fuck me for trying to be nice, I guess.”

Orion sighed and closed his eyes as he steeled himself emotionally to not be a caustic prick before giving her a little more of a genuine smile. "I would love to get some food. Just let me secure my station. Come in and wait if you'd like." He stepped out of the way to let her in before walking over to his work area, which definitely looked like he'd been living in it so far today.

For a moment, she just stared at him and was obviously rather sour, but she relented with a sigh and roll of her eyes while stepping into the lab. When she saw the state of it, her brows went up. What really had started off as just a simple want to hang out with a friend suddenly turned into concern when she genuinely didn’t see him working on any sort of project.

“You alright?”

"Peachy," He replied while moving over to the workstation and shutting down his console while downing the dregs of his coffee, making a face at the strength of the various flavors that had settled into the bottom. "Just you know, burying myself in work to distract me from life and one seemingly inexorable truth of the universe,"

He stacked some papers he'd been making notes on instead of a PADD as he looked up at her and locked them away in a safe in the department chief's office. "Though I'm sure Andrei hasn't been virginally chaste about proverbially dragging his balls over my face, has he?"

“I have no idea what you are talking about. What are you talking about?” Kit asked, watching him cleaning up his wreck of a space though she wasn’t judging; hers was no better.

Orion stopped and looked back at Kit as he narrowed his eyes a little as he tried to discern if she was just messing with him or Andrei really hadn't been spreading what had happened all over the ship. He finished the little bit of tidying he had in his hands before turning to face her. "I have history with Andrei and well, I made a play and it ended up working out badly for me and my pride, so I'm feeling a bit prickly."

“Really? I couldn’t tell that at all.” Kit said dryly, her brown eyes lingering on him while he finished up what he was doing. “You seem so warm and fluffy and welcoming, after all. What did you try to do that backfired so spectacularly, exactly?”

"I decided in an overabundance of wisdom that I was going to show Lyra," He paused and then smiled a moment before continuing. "Commander Cassiel, that she had options and she didn't have to settled for used goods like Andrei,"

Maybe he was being arrogant in saying he knew best for Lyra, but he would die on the hill saying that she could always do better than Andrei. "I decided to invite them both over for dinner, power move and all, things were going well, I made and served dishes from each of our nations, something distinctive and flavorful."

While she listened, Kit blinked several times and watched Orion as he continued to clean up. “Okay pause the story and hurry up with the maid act. I don’t have all day and sounds like you need a drink, honestly.”

She wasn’t really even sure what he was starting on, but it definitely sounded juicy.

"Yeah, yeah." He sighed and shook his head before finally finishing up as he shrugged out of his lab coat and motioned towards the door to get them headed on their way. "Wanting to wait til we have alcohol for me to spill my guts too or just wanting to get out of the lab cause of the stories about the lab being haunted by the former science chief?"

“I’m an engineer, give me five minutes and a hyperspanner and I’ll handle the cyborg - incorporeal or not.” She placed a hand on her hip and gestured with the other one. “We going to After 11 or you wanna come over and hide your shame in my quarters?”

"Sure, we can hide it in your quarters, besides you probably have better booze." He shook his head at her boast but not doubting it for a second as he stepped out of the way so she could take the lead to her quarters. "Always so eager to learn of your crewmates' epic failures?"

“Just yours, Woofy.” Kit smirked and began walking with him down the corridor and to the turbolift where they stepped on immediately. “Deck two.”

She looked at him then and tilted her head. “How are you settling in by the way now that we are actually on a work schedule and not just a pleasure planet?”

"Settling in fine, most of my time is left free since there isn't much call for my services," He shrugged and turned his attention to Kit as the lift started to move, the hum pleasant background noise as he considered what he'd been doing was more or less the clerical work that had piled up from the lack of leadership.

"Felt more like a file clerk than a science officer given that the psycho cyborg never filed any official reports and Ensign Ocara filed them, but I'm still double-checking everything."

"And you? How has life been treating you?"

“Oh fine I guess. Working hard all the time, making adjustments and getting everyone used to my type of flow in the engine room. We’ll get there.” She stepped off the lift with him and took the short walk down the clean corridor to the door of her quarters and quickly input the code.

“Come on in.” She invited as the lights came up, revealing her quarters that were still quite spartan, but on the wall next to the door was a large stack of boxes. “Any booze requests?”

"Something strong and kicks like a mule." He stated simply, if he was going to rehash this shit then he was going to do it with something that would at least help take the sting out of it.

"Damn. Okay then. Go sit down." She instructed and moved over to one of the boxes, opened it to look inside, then slid it off to look in the one under it. She pulled out a bottle of emerald green liquid and two glasses and wandered over to the couch.

"Alright, let's hear it."

Orion accepted the drink from Kit as he made himself comfortable on her couch, taking a sip of the verdant liquid and having to give it a look before he continued with another drink. "So I had decided to make a power move, to show Andrei that he wasn't top dog around here and to show Lyra that she had much better options that Andrei cause I know him and I know that he's one batted set of eyelashes away from falling cock first into another woman."

"Hold on, hold on. Back up." Kit laughed and flopped down on the couch with him, giving a long sigh. "What's the deal with your beef with Andrei? This some nobility bullshit thing?"

"Right, right," He nodded and seemed to take a moment to gather his thoughts in order to gather them to share with her the past he had with Andrei. "It is a nobility bullshit thing, my father is the Dominion Lord of Europe and the Petrovs were one of his subjects. We spent a great deal of time together as a consequence of our circumstance, we more or less grew up together."

He swirled his drink around in his glass as he considered his shared past with the other man before taking another drink and making a face as he sighed. "Andrei and I grew up perpetually both each other's ally and enemy depending on the circumstances we found ourselves in, we competed against each other in just about everything, Andrei was the more athletically inclined, while I was more intellectually gifted."

"Andrei and I competed for many of the same women, he would be more interested in short-term conquests, while I worked to maintain something of a more stable reputation. I've had my dalliances, but they were always careful and considered."

“Okay… so what’s the beef? What did he do to you that made you do… whatever it was that you did?” She prompted and took a very small sip of the very potent drink she had given them.

"Have you seen his face?" Orion gave Kit a dubious look with the tilt of his head as if to emphasize that should just be enough. "Andrei has always been something of a self-absorbed prick, having been able to simply coast by no matter what chaos he happened to cause around him, but to the point the final straw between us came when I refused to acknowledge the greatness of the Petrovs and all that they'd accomplished and I merely reminded him that his family's legacy was marred by betrayal and that everyone still remembered it even if the Emperor had forgiven it."

Kit’s brows lifted and she tilted her head slightly. She knew Orion was a bit more sensitive than most, but this seemed excessive even for him - like there was a giant chip on his shoulder. It didn’t make much sense to her really unless Andrei was always the winner, which really she wouldn’t put past him.

“Alright so he was a dick, you were a dick. How did we get where we are?”

"I'm getting there, you were the kid who would gulp down their dinner in one go just to get to dessert." Orion shook his head as he took a more conservative sip of the dark green alcohol. "So coming to the Vengeance was something of an unexpected reunion for the both of us and when I found out that he was involved with Lyra, well...I decided that he was punching far above his station and that she deserved a more proper nobleman."

"So when I ran into her on the holodeck, she told me that Andrei wanted to invite me to his quarters for dinner, I preempted any plans he could make and invited them to my place, be a gracious host and show her the difference between Andrei's boorish, juvenile tendencies and something more refined."

“Dessert is delicious and I make no apologies.” Kit shrugged and pushed her boots off of her feet so she could fold her legs up onto the couch. “I take it that didn’t work out too well for you.”

"Most certainly not." He agreed while leaning back onto the couch and shaking his head while the sour memories caused his stomach to turn in a mixture of anger, revulsion, and anxiety. To try and calm it, the Terran nobleman sipped his drink and looked up at the ceiling of Kit's quarters, no different from his but a change given the changes he'd made. "I had made dinner for us, cooked everything myself, and if you want to know about that I'll answer."

“Nah. I assume everything was good and you’re competent at cooking. The meals you made on the Gladius on occasion were always good.” She shrugged and scratched her head through her short hair, ruffling it a little. He was taking forever to get to anything good, but she was trying to be patient about it.

"Dinner started off well enough, jabs back and forth between me and Andrei," He began while swirling his drink in front of him, focusing on the motion of it as he crossed his leg over a knee, considering the evening and running over and over again in his mind. He shook his head to drag himself out of his memories before continuing his story "Me not being so subtle about my interests or intentions toward Lyra, but things started to turn after we got to dessert, rum balls drizzled with chocolate, and the pair excused themselves to use the bathroom where they started fucking and then moved it over to my bed, making sure that I was quite aware of what they were doing." He explained to Kit and had to pause to take a sip from his drink, making a face at the burn of it. "They weren't quick about it and Andrei made sure to leave my bed more or less ruined."

“Wow.” Kit blinked a few times and looked down into her glass as if she were contemplating if it were strong enough, but it was the strongest thing she owned. “So just like that they got up? Why’d they even bother with the pretext of the bathroom?”

"Because Andrei had said he needed to use the bathroom, and when he's rock hard, he'll never pass up the chance to show off the bulge," he replied to Kit and took a long drink from his glass, doing his best to ignore the prolonged burn he was feeling. But they turned into a game to take their time humiliating and making sure I knew my place."

"Why was he rock hard though?" Kit frowned and shook her head. "Your food is good, but not that good."

"Since Lyra had been stroking him under the table at some point, I suspect that's what got him hard." He admitted to her and glanced over at his friend before smirking. "Though thank you for the vote of confidence for my food."

For a moment, Kit was silent and considered what she had been told, then she suddenly laughed. "Well, that sucks, but also what did you expect really? You're trying to steal his woman away."

Orion was quiet as she laughed at his situation, feeling a flare of anger at that but he tamped down the feeling before draining his glass and shaking his head. "I hadn't taken that into account for my plans, I don't know why, but it did happen and it doesn't change my feelings on what happened."

"Why do you even want her that bad? Just because she's Andrei's woman?" Kit asked, reaching for the bottle to refill his glass.

"Fuck her being Andrei's fucking woman." The Terran noble growled as his grip tightened around his glass before managing to let out a few deep breaths. "I know what kind of man Andrei is, I know that as soon as he loses interest, she'll be tossed aside, forgotten like the others but kept as his because he can't stand the idea of them moving on and because he doesn't deserve a woman like her."

"Okay but like... why? What do you mean a woman like her? You don't even know her, Orion." She pointed out and her face scrunched slightly. "Why do you care so much what Andrei does with her?"

"Why? How could I not care because of who Andrei fucking Petrov is!" He exclaimed, practically jumping to his feet as he started to pace around the coffee table and shaking his head, doing his best to keep his drink from spilling as he touched his forehead and shook his head. "I know the type of man that he is, the disrespect he is going to visit on her because he can't be bothered to pull his head out of his ass to realize that she is a singular woman that he isn't worthy of."

"How do you know that?" Kit asked, perfectly calm and instead seemed a bit exasperated by the outburst. "Again, you don't even know this woman outside the fact she has a gorgeous face, great tits, and a magnificent ass."

Orion turned his attention to Kit as he tried to figure out how to explain what he knew from his past as a noble and his own knowledge of Andrei. "Lyra is the surviving child of the former Lord of Brazil, who had lost his position to a coup, everyone thought she and the rest of her family on the estate had been killed, but she survived and she's here...and as for Andrei, I know the type of woman he goes after, there is always something that sets them apart."

“So… you’re basing your desire off the fact she is Andrei’s woman and you like the same type?” Kit asked and then chuckled. “That’s not saying much there, really. From what I understand he’s fallen dick first into half the women on the ship. That doesn’t really indicate any sort of discernment on his part outside of ‘willing wet hole’, so not really anything that sets them apart outside of maybe their position on the ship is somehow useful to them, so he puts them in all sorts of positions that make them squeal.”

Orion shook his head, realizing how ridiculous it all sounded actually saying it out loud to another person before shaking his head. "I'm basing it off the fact that I want to utterly destroy Andrei Petrov, take everything that is his and leave him a broken shell knowing that there is no way he can ever recover from what I do to him."

“So it has nothing to do with her and everything to do with Andrei.” Kit smirked and shook her head. “Don’t you think that makes you an asshole, Orion? Like you piss and moan about Andrei being an asshole, but what exactly has he done to you since you’ve been on the ship? We were on Sikaris most of the time after being transferred and he was busy with Stagg, not you.”

"It doesn't matter what he's done now, if anything he deserves to be taken down off his high perch to show him that he isn't invincible, because it's a hard lesson he's never been forced to learn." The Terran man growled, Stagg's name sticking in his mind as a potential ally in his quest for revenge, he didn't care if it was shortsighted, he wanted Andrei's world to burn, the fact that the other man had the audacity to say that Orion did everything to copy him had always rankled him since they were farther apart from each other in appearance and personality.

"Only because he decided to cause an issue with Stagg over something we'd handled in house, but the Princeling always has to have his way or he'll break the toys and go home." Orion shook his head before giving his drink another generous sip, sighing heavily as he thought about every time Andrei hadn't gotten his way and resorted to violence or extortion. More often than not violence.

“Listen I’m not saying Andrei isn’t an asshole, but you’re not any better here.” Kit waved a hand, gesturing to Orion as a person. “Really this screams like you have some sort of complex about the entire thing. It isn’t attractive on any level; but maybe you nobles don’t really care about any of that.”

She was trying to be as diplomatic as she could communicating with him, but this whole thing was a load of horse shit.

"So what do you suggest I do? Ignore him? Go about my business as if nothing else had happened?" He asked, his attention turned towards the Terran woman, a commoner but he was wise enough not to just lash out at her without reason or cause. Mostly. She'd always proven wise and valuable counsel; he trusted her opinion and he would at least listen to what she had to say.

“Yeah, actually. That’s exactly what I’d say you should do until he gives you an actual reason for you to be acting like… that. Maybe he’s changed, maybe not; probably not if we are being honest but still, you didn’t even give him the chance.” She shrugged, even lifting her hands to exaggerate the motion. “Right now though you aren’t winning, in fact I think you got yourself a sound ass whipping and frankly it kinda sounds like you deserved it.”

Orion hated to admit it but he knew she was right. He'd deserved what happened in his quarters, everything had been unprovoked and he hadn't let Andrei prove he was changed man or not and a decade could certainly change someone. "Commoners always have a way of eloquently putting things in such ineloquent terms."

“Because we aren’t concerned about all the bullshit you people are.” Kit downed the rest of her drink and then sighed. “Besides, really, what would any of that accomplish? I don’t know if you’re aware but three of the five highest ranking members of this fleet all have the last name Petrov or the woman variant.”

"You know your insistence on pointing to the logic of the situation is extremely infuriating, right?" Orion smirked a little since he was trying to back away from the annoyance and shortsighted anger of it all.

“Gods I know I hate it.” She agreed with seeming solemnity on the point and let out a dramatic sigh. “Also I’d be careful with Cassiel. Rumor is her teeth are sharper than her boyfriends’.”

"Sharp teeth, noted." He nodded and downed the rest of his drink, turning his head to the side and giving it a shake as he felt immediate regret at doing that as everything seemed to just start tasting and feeling like burning. He felt his face flush with blood before shuddering and managing to walk a straight line back over to the coffee table and set the glass down.

"That is intense, tastes almost as potent as the stuff you brewed up in your still back on the Gladius." He commented and then held up a finger. "Only green."

“Very green.” Kit agreed, obviously leaning toward tipsy herself. “But you’ve got a good tongue… palate… whatever. It’s the same stuff, just the last batch before I left to transfer over to here. Maybe I’ll find a place to set it all up again, who knows. Anyways besides fucking around with Andrei, make any friends?”

"I've gotten friendly with Ensign Ocara, I think you and her would get on well since she has some of your no nonsense sensibilities." He moved to take a seat on the couch carefully since he didn't want to miss it given how potent this stuff tended to be.

"Didn't you clean a phase coupler with this stuff?"

“Don’t worry about what I’ve done with this, you wanted something strong to drown your shame in and I gave it to you.” Kit waved a hand in his face in a half dismissive way. “And I’m not giving you more, otherwise you’ll be crawling to your quarters like a dog. You sure aren’t staying here with me.”

"Fine, fine...don't need anymore cause it'll make my insides melt out and I like them where they are." He grumbled while moving to stand up, doing so slowly since he needed to prove that he could manage it and not be dragging himself along the ground like had happened on the Gladius a couple of times. "Probably best I don't get stuck here...could just site-to-site transport or something."

“Oh come on you can’t be that drunk and you’re like… two doors down. Get it together Orion.” Kit said and reached up with her leg to kick him in his rear though it was light and playful. “Get out of my room.”

"Hey now, no violence....I haven't done anything to deserve that." He grumbled and started taking swaying steps towards the door, pausing as it opened so he could steady himself against the door frame. "See you later, don't have too much fun."

With that he stepped out into the hallway and started heading toward his quarters while letting the buzz of the alcohol take away the sting of his savaged pride.

END