One In The Side

Posted on Fri Jan 31st, 2020 @ 7:05pm by The Narrator
Edited on on Tue Feb 4th, 2020 @ 10:58am

Mission: S2:1: Into The Drowning Deeps
Location: Aimee Paulsen's Quarters, Canopus Station
Timeline: MD 2 : 17:10

Aimee Paulsen had barely escaped from her office realizing she had several hours before her next appointment and was in desperate need of alone time. She locked the door to her office and made her way rather swiftly to her quarters, once there she pressed her back against the bulkhead for a moment and looked out the window into the space around the station and sighed heavily. "Computer lower lights, lock the door, and I do not wish to be disturbed," She said.

The computer chimed as if it understood her plight.

Aimee made her way to the back side of her quarters, stripped down to nothing, and got into the shower before activating the water instead of the sonic portion. She turned it so that it was just hot enough on her flesh that it gave her a slight cold chill up and down her spine before closing her eyes and sighing quite heavily. "These people are a bit too much..." She said to herself out loud.

"You're telling me."

The voice came from below, and between her feet. Looking down, between the swirling eddies of water and soap, a bright blue eye could be seen peering up through the grate. And that chipper, devil may care voice...

"Hello!" Bar'soon said from the shower grate. "I don't mean to barge in, but I am in dire need of-"

Aimee was letting the water flow over her when she heard the voice, "What the," She looked down and saw the eyeball. The girl immediately screamed and went charging out of the shower where she went sliding across the floor, nearly falling on the floor. "What in the hell!" She shouted as she desperately clawed at the open shower door. "Don't you ever knock you perverted weirdo!"

Her heart was racing as she reached up and grabbed the towel to wrap around her body. Not that it mattered because that Bar'soon thing had seen everything already anyway, "What the hell do you want now?" She snapped.

"A little bit of help!"

...anatomically how? How was he able to fit into the shower drain. The grating pipe had a diameter of maybe 10 centimetres. And yet he was most of the way out of it, his left arm free, his right pinned against his waist, which narrowed waspishly to fit into the drain. Maybe Shishimi were like cats and rats, able to fit anywhere they liked as long as their skulls could pass through?

"I come to you in an hour of existential crisis and all you can do is think of your self!" he whined, and with his free hand patted his chest. "What about my needs, huum? What about the dread that fills me to this very moment with dread!?"

Aimee's breathing eventually settled down as she stood in the corner of the lavatory holding the towel tightly to her chest, "Well I was taking a shower and I prefer people not see me with only what God graced me with!" She snapped back sarcastically then her tone seemed to change slightly, "Now then... What is your existential crisis that called for you to come through my drain and see me in my birthday suit?" She asked. Her heart was at least not pounding anymore.

"Sharona," Bar'soon sighed. "You know that she is fated to die soon. 80 to 90 years from now, oh how wicked a fate to have such a short span of time in which to visit even a small number of life's pleasures. I have not stopped thinking about here since that revelation in your office. To know that someone who has control of my hearts can be so cruelly taken away from me in but a blink of an eye...I cannot abide. I must know how you all stand to live such short and wretched lives."

Aimee had tilted her head slightly wondering what on earth this weird Bar'soon son of whatever and holder of something or another had disturbed her wonderful shower to ask her that question. Clearly, Sharona had made some horrific mistake and now the Counselor was paying for it, "We manage by enjoying as many of life's pleasure as we can. Though some of us aren't able to enjoy them when we look like this," She said without indicating herself, but that was who she meant.

"Or, when strange goo-like aliens come through the station plumbing system like you did," She answered him. Then she knew she was going to regret her next question as equally as she had regretted the previous one, "Why do you ask?"

"Well you are a counsellor are you not? Surely you must have some idea of how crushingly depressing life for such fleet-footed fools must be! I want you to help Sharona through her malaise! To ease her mind so she might not worry too deeply about my state of being. For, you see, I am a deeply caring monarch." At this Bar'soon had gotten himself free of the bathroom drain. His bones were snapping back into place with a sound that was just as traumatic as the entire scene. "Now how quickly do you think you can fix her so I might begin courting her in earnest?"

When Aimee became a Counselor after four years of pre-medical schooling and psychology schooling she had never once dreamed that she would be standing naked in her lavatory on a station a number of light years from home being asked to Counsel someone on their strange love life. Add to it that Aimee was stuck being a thirteen-year-old girl who was starting the strange half phase of puberty again for the umpteenth time since she was transformed. She didn't have an answer to his question, she didn't want to have an answer to his question, and the embarrassment she was feeling because she was exposed was making it far worse for her.

'I should have gone into the sciences,' She thought to herself before answering his question with one of her own, "When you say fix her what do you mean?"

"Drugs!! Your species has some understanding of advanced pharmacology after all your people did extensive testing of my royal personage when I came on board," Bar'soon said as with a wet popping sound his foot came free. He stood up, his gown/robe of cheaply replicated fabric doing its best to self clean the gunk from the drain. "Apparently I am something of a medical marvel, which I could have told anyone. And did. In fact, it was the first thing I said when they presented their doctors to me. 'I am a medical marvel!' I said, and you know what they did? They did tests! The gall not believing me! I was a king! I ruled over the entire northern continent with a fair and just hand! I even brought electricity to the masses of the lower valleys by installing rows of transformer substations atop their hovels."

He strode out into her quarters and looked around as though seeking something.

"Huum...I had assumed from my reading of your literature that you would have a chaise lounge? A seat that is also a bed, truely a marvel..." he muttered, before jumping into a lying position on the sofa. "This will do. Now, let us talk about my beloved prescription! Do you have anything that can cure the existential dread of her limited mortality? What flavours do you possess? Do you know of crankleberry? Gart root? Oh you must know of a pabble! Pabbles are the most delectable of fruits, and only slightly poisonous."

Aimee strolled out of the lavatory without bothering to remove the towel, "I... You want what now?" She asked with her head slightly tilted to one side as she stared at him, now laying on her sofa. She wasn't a Medical Officer she was a Counselor, her Doctoral was in helping people with their mental and emotional well-being not drugging them up so that they could live longer. She still had one arm wrapped firmly around her front half so that she could adjust the towel.

"You want me to drug Sharona so that she becomes immortal like you?" Aimee asked while making her way around the corner to her replicator, got up onto the stool in front of her replicator, and pressed a button. "Dry red wine circa 2309," She ordered and selected the one that suited her fancy. Alcoholic beverages were not something she typically drank because of the weird affects they had on her sometimes. But, this case was entirely different and she needed something to bring her down from the insane amount of angst she was feeling in that moment.

"You want me to give her..." She muttered as she came around some of the furnishings holding the towel up in one hand and the wine glass in the other. She sat down, "I don't think such a drug exists," She told him. "Now give me something more realistic that you want please?" She asked and in that moment nearly drained all of the wine in one shot.

"Oh no!" Bar'soon face rippled in disgust. "I have seen pictures of how your people age, ghastly business. No, I merely want you to drug her so that she does not worry to unduly about her coming death. I want our short sweet elopement to be a happy haze."

Aimee swallowed the last little bit of the wine, but remained in her chair. "Well, at least he doesn't want her to live well past her prime I suppose... Thank God he doesn't realize that I'll live forever or so the Doctors seem to think..." She thought to herself before placing the empty wine glass on the coffee table. "I see..." She responded and took a very long and dramatic pause to debate whether or not she should try to escape back to her office.

"Well, I cannot condone the course of action that would lead Sharona to be drugged so that she wouldn't experience anything but pure joy out of the love you have for her," Aimee managed to say to him. "What I recommend is that you find someone else who would love you with unending devotion... Someone who, like you, will live an exceptionally long life."

"Huum...that would solve one problem, but then I would need to see you on a bi-daily basis to sooth the bleeding wound of my broken heart. You don't understand...when our eyes first met, there was a spark! Like a psychic kick in the teeth! it was electrifying, like some force other than my own was compelling me to obey her every command!" Bar'soon sighed. "Could I have some wine? I feel this conversation requires it in a gestural representation role."

Aimee tilted her head slightly and realized that she too needed more wine, but resisted that urge. "Maybe if you find someone else who loves you with equal devotion and," She had gotten up and walked over to the replicator, "Had an equal lifespan as you," She continued to speak. "Computer red wine same as before," She said and grabbed the glass. Aimee was a little wobbly as she made her way back, placed it on the table, and slid it forward. "Then you're bleeding heart wound would be healed without my assistance."

"Does he even have a heart?" She thought to herself, "Besides I'm not entirely convinced that Sharona could ever love you as much as you love her. And, what happens when she succumbs to the long years of her life? You'll experience the same pain as you believe yourself to be experiencing now... I would recommend someone who, like you, lives forever." Aimee concluded. "Sharona you owe me so many bars of Gold Pressed Latinum that you'll never be out of my debt..." She thought to herself.

"Yes. Yes you are right."

He sniffed, sat up on the couch and took the wine glass. He then tilted his head back, pouring the glass of wine down his throat in such a manner than entire regions of France awoke in terrible pain and anguish only to be silenced with a lip-smacking proclamation of. "Tangy."

He then began to eat the glass.

"You're right," he said as he took another bite out of the rim, his teeth grinding the replicated fused silicate into razor shard sand. "I should focus on my one true love: my people. They need me you know? I mean, yes, there are so many of them but I love them, everyone. From the lowliest courtier to the highest of my concubines. I mean yes there is the peasantry, but that more scenery really. One rag wrapped raggamuffin is so much more like the rest."

Base and stem followed, chewed and swallowed like a party favour.

"Yummy," he said, dancing his fingertips over his stomach. He delicately pointed to her glass. "I don't mean to be rude, but all of this pining has made me absolutely famished."

Aimee blinked as she watched Bar'soon eat the wine glass and begin to speak about his people. She wanted to sigh with relief that, at the very least, he seemed to have finally accepted the fact that Sharona would never love him. "You owe me a moon Sharona... I think I'm going to ask you to melt down all those bars of gold pressed latinum so that I can just line my quarters with it." She thought to herself while masking her smirk.

"There you go," She said with a reassuring nod of her head, "Focus on your own people because they need you as their leader to be completely devoted to them," Aimee told him. The grinding of the glass was getting to her, but she managed to mask that too. She was going straight to Sharona after this and telling her just how many bars of gold pressed latinum and how many yachts she wanted for this service...

"Yes. YES! Yes, you are absolutely right! Oh, I knew confiding in someone who knew the tangled weave of the heart would be the right call," Bar'soon said between bites of glass. He stood up, a dramatic flourish to his stance. "You are right! My people need me! What do my four hundred murderous siblings know of proper rule, decorum, or the proper placement of place settings? NOTHING! They know nothing because I am Bar'soon'fo'da'gree'nars, Third of his Title, holder of the lightning throne, guardian of the sacred skulls of Antiok and ruler of the world of Shishimi and all its celestial companion!"

He then walked purposefully, dramatically, and with absolute conviction of his cause out of Aimee's room. This tour de force was only ended when the door did not open dramatically for him, and he bounced off it with a bone-breaking crunch. And so the Counsellor's night was compounded with interruption, high-grade drama, and an unconscious psychopath with literal blue blood.

Somehow this was going on her permanent record.
Somehow.

Aimee watched as Bar'soon collided with the door, collapse to the ground, and then the door proceeded to open. She rubbed her forehead before reaching down and hitting the communicator, "Counselor Paulsen to the Infirmary I have an unconscious psychopathic person named Bar'soon the incredibly ridiculous title laying at the door in my quarters. He ran into the door and well that," She said as she was getting off her sofa in order to leave.

=/="Counselor can you repeat that? You said Bar'soon ran into the door and is now unconscious?"=/=

Aimee stepped over him, "That's correct," She answered as she went into the kitchenette, "Could someone please come and remove him?" She requested before stepping up onto a stool in order to reach the top of her counter.

=/="On our way."=/=

Aimee heard the communications system disconnect as she stood there looking at the unconscious blob known to her only as Bar'soon the ridiculous all while waiting for the medics to come and haul him away. She needed to get herself to the infirmary, but that would come later... Much later.