Whichever Way This Goes

Posted on Fri May 5th, 2023 @ 6:21pm by Captain Akiva ben-Avram & Commander Arianna Frost

3,116 words; about a 16 minute read

Mission: Season 1 Interlude II (E5.5)
Location: Outside Villa 17 | Temtibi Lagoon, Risa
Timeline: ID5 - Night

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Ari watched after Cal for a moment as he left, using the moment to conjure up the Deputy Administrator persona, the business mind to hide behind. Yes, that was the goal. She was good at this, switching up personas as needed for the situation. Real Ari needed some alone time. Yes! Walls going up! Good!

Frost took a deep breath then and turned to face Akiva. "So, you wanted to talk?" She opened with her hands opened at her sides and a little shrug. A silent, 'well?'

After quickly scanning their dark surroundings to ensure they were alone, and using the nervous gesture as an excuse to delay what he had up until now felt urgent enough about to track her down at dusk, Akiva's eyes ultimately fell on Ari, his colleague, his friend, his confidant, in a wary sidelong glance. "Are we okay?" A muscle in his throat twitched ever so slightly.

"That can't be the reason you're here." She thought to herself in that microsecond it took her to respond in surprise. "Of course we are!" She blinked her honest confusion away, "considering how you keep scrambling away every time I'm in proximity and we're alone, I should be the one asking the question really." The words spilled out faster than she could plug the hole in her shields.

"So, I will ask it too. Are we okay?" Frost turned to face him and sent a silent thought to the universe for it to be in her favor for a change.

Akiva look baffled, even a little hurt. "I've not been avoiding you. It's honestly seemed like the other way around. And I've been worried it was due to..." His chin buried itself in his chest, his cheeks flushing red. Was he really going to say it out loud? "... the spa." When she had given him a massage and accidentally primed him for much more--far much more. "You've felt distant since then and I wanted to apologize once again..."

Arianna blinked, reaching out with her hand, yet never quite getting there, a gesture of reassurance as well as keeping a distance at the same time.

"The spa was a clusterfuck beyond our control. Stop apologizing, please." She said, her tone softened. Arianna took a moment to collect her thoughts and decide what she was going to say. She didn't want to lie to him...never had, and the compulsion towards the truth was just as strong now as it had always been.

"I've been trying to give you space, Akiva." She said finally. "I see the effect I have on you and it's not fair for me to inflict that further while you are trying to reconcile with Laena. You need a chance to do that without my interference." Every word felt as heavy as lead.

"And the effect is not one sided. So, I am also trying to protect myself in the process." That shield she had hoped was up was crumbling faster than she could reconstitute it.

Hyper-focused as he was on every word she said, it took Akiva a moment to process the end of her little confession. "Not one-sided?" The implications suddenly made him feel very warm. Hot, even. Why was it so hot this time of night? "You mean that... you feel..." He couldn't bring himself to finish the sentence. Putting such words in her mouth was a bridge too far.

Arianna shook her head. "Yes, but it doesn't matter and it changes nothing." She said, trying to ignore the thundering in her chest.

In an unconscious effort to gain some distance, she stepped to the side and sat down in the sand, almost exactly at the same spot she had sat when she spoke with Cal earlier.

"We always promised to be honest with one another," Akiva said, stepping forward to keep from having to speak louder than necessary. "We said--" He lost his footing in the sand and tripped. Rather than land directly on Ari, he did his best to pivot his fall away from her. In the end, he wound up clipping her as he landed, which knocked her sideways into a roll that mingled with his own.

When they came to a stop, they were side by side, face to face, arms entangled, pulses racing, and dark brown eyes met green-gray.

"What was it we said?" Akiva asked, his breathing quick and rapid.

It all happened too quickly for any kind of reaction until they were in this position. Compromising, tantalizing and wholly dangerous all at once.

Oh this is not fuckin' happening again!" Ari was thankful for the thought that made her stop any further considerations no matter how much her bones craved it, she let the muscles that fought against temptation kick in.

She would have rolled away instantly had her arm not been stuck under his shoulder and in the sand, so she tried to move away as best and awkwardly as she could, trying to untangle herself from him.

"Made no promises to each other, Akiva," she said with a grunt as she attempted to perform unentanglement. "Friends don't need promises, they just do. What we do need is to think with our heads and not our hormones. It's just making things worse."

Surely he was as painfully aware of the fact as much as she was.

But Akiva recoiled. "Of course. Naturally. We are being clumsy when we must be wise." He began edging himself away from Ari until he was able to prop himself up on one elbow enough to get his other hand planted on the ground. "We're supposed to be enjoying our leave, but for some reason we keep ending up in--" First his hand slipped in the soft sand, followed by both knees. The motion sent him back into Ari who was only just getting herself up as well. Rather than tumble, Akiva couldn't help but fall directly on top of her, though he did manage to catch his weight to keep from totally crushing her. "--compromising positions."

That was indeed where they found themselves, far worse than before. Realizing the position he found himself over and atop of Ari who had been forced flat on her back and the incriminating proximity of the lower portions of their bodies, Akiva's eyes shot wide open. "Eli-eli, lamah azabtani!" Without a shred of the delicate grace in his last attempt to extricate himself, Akiva rocked back to his heels and sprang to his feet, waving his hands around to keep his balance. Looking up to the sky, long since dark, Akiva yelled, "What do you want from me?!"

As soon as he was off of her Arianna scrambled to her feet and moved out of range of falling Akiva's. She was still trying to process the dustup of the physical and emotional sensory input of the intensely physical situation that had just occured when he yelled.

"Storr and I kissed." She said, her back to him, unable to filter herself anymore.

She had feelings too, damn it! All this time she was trying to be the adult one, to hold back, to do the right thing and he just kept throwing information for her to deal with in her face.

It felt petty, it felt vicious, especially considering that the matter had been resolved with the affected parties, Storr and Jaya. Yet the compulsion to tell the truth, to the very man that kept vexing her heart and her internal filter choosing to malfunction at this particular time, won out. So there it was.

Akiva blinked in shock. "And Jaya didn't murder you? Is that how you wound up with the...gentleman entertainer?" He closed his eyes to hide the surge of emotion that shot up within him. "No," he said, fervently shaking his head, eyelids clenched tight. "It's none of my business who you kiss."

Arianna shook her head and turned around. "Well, he kissed me, to be more precise." Her tone was tired, her eyes hard. "After you zapped out, he zapped in, completely naked, and he was still under the influence of Jaya's hormones as you can guess what had been going on there before it happened."

She took a step forward, "Jaya knows...because we both told her. We had dinner together last night - where we had a good talk about...everything." Her eyes bore at him. "Including how my dumb ass wants what she can't have and how I love those two as family and that again, my dumb ass heart belongs to someone else."

Another step, "Matija works for me. He's my asset for whenever I am working in the area. I needed a cover for that night so I could go and do my job. Considering I had all of twenty minutes and no resources other than latinum and food, I think I did a good job of making eyes other than our own think I was having a wild night. And I brought us good intel for that effort. And everything you saw was an act. A very good one, but an act. Nothing more. He was disappointed and very willing mind you, but nothing happened, not even a kiss."

A pause as she crossed her arms on her chest, "hurts to think about, doesn't it? It hurt back then too when you told me about Laena...but I guess we just can't help ourselves but tell the truth, can we? And yet...we keep running and crashing. The blame here is not on God or the universe. Just us..."

Where did all of that come from, she couldn't help but wonder? Well no, she knew...it had been building up for months, what from her internal buildup to friends noticing and adding to it very vocally. It was bound to spill over sometime. She was only human, much as sometimes she liked to believe she was better. Ari just didn't think it would happen now.

That was a lengthy confession. The way it tumbled and eventually erupted out of Ari made Akiva flinch more and more until he was nearly stooped. What a fool he was...

"I have kept my word," Akiva said. "Laena and I have not been intimate since that night on DS9 when I was weak and she was articulate and..." No, that wasn't helping. "Now she is eager to renew what we once had but I have been having a hard time committing. I thought it was just the laws of my people..." He stared at his feet. "But now I wonder if it wasn't something else." When he glanced up, the look on his face suggested he had meant 'someone else'. If he had, he went on without correcting it. "I have hurt her and myself by trapping myself into a dilemma that may have no way out. Now I've hurt you." He bit his lip to still his quivering chin. "I'm sorry, Ari." And then he seized her in a hug, a gesture normally antithetical to his standoffish nature but in her company felt natural and wholesome as family holidays. "I'm so sorry," he whispered as he held her tight and did his best not to weep into her hair.

The embrace was not what she had expected to get. In truth she hadn't expected anything at all when the words came out. They just weren't going to be kept in any more. And when the fwump of the embrace knocked whatever air there was left out of her she realized she didn't have the strength to fight it any more.

Worst of all, he was apologizing for trying to sort himself out. What? Why? Guilt found its way back into her heart as she felt the remorse and the sorrow seep from him, in the way that he held her, in the colour of his hushed tone.

Thought of scrambling out of the dangerous situation she got pulled into for the third time just this evening fizzled out pretty quickly as she untangled her still semi-crossed arms from between them and wrapped them around Akiva returning the intensity.

"Stop apologizing for being yourself..." she muttered into his shoulder. "I'm angry at the situation, not at you. I know you've been trying just as hard as I have..." her voice was still muffled, as she made no attempt to move, that feeling of home was just too strong, and she was too weak to resist.

"I'm sorry...I know I've hurt you too...it just all built up and I couldn't find the right words..." Ari was glad her face was buried in his shoulder for her eyes stung badly and she thought she was done with tears for the night, after the session with Cal.

"I don't know what to do," Akiva said as he cupped the back of her head and let her bury her face in his shoulder before tears were shed. Seeing her cry would be one wound too many. "But I know this is right. I don't know what family is. My father disowned me and I left home without forming bonds with my siblings. Maybe family is this." He withdrew just enough to look her in the face and give a sad but hopeful smile. "Maybe, until everything else gets sorted out, we treasure the feeling that has bonded us not as friends or lovers, but with something just as deep." Akiva brushed his thumbs across both of her cheeks and chuckled with awkward tension and expectant hope. "Arianna Frost, will you be my family?"

God, this situation was fucked up. And kind of sweet at the same time. Arianna pulled away a bit further, and considered him for a moment. They still needed to be adults about this, he was right. And there were other things going on that needed more of their investment and attention. Truth be told, she needed time too...to know what she was really feeling and how deeply she wanted to go.

Akiva was one of the most important people in her life. Right up there with Jaya, Storr, Leah and her parents and brother Rob. In the end, so long as that remained, she would be happy.

Not to mention the dark cloud called 'Omri ben-Avram is likely still alive'.

So, she gave him a gentle punch in his shoulder and threw on a smile. "I thought I already was! For shame!" Ari chuckled. "But seriously though, if there's one thing I've learned in my life is is that we make our own family and it doesn't need to be blood or defined by standard societal definitions."

Then she sighed, "but I need to say this, just so there is clarity. If there is a deeper level to be achieved, it needs to be because it's that person, not out of replacement, or loneliness or filling a gap till someone else comes along. Whether it's Laena or you or me or someone completely different, doesn't matter. Make a choice because of the person, not because of a lack of options. I don't do halfway shit, all I ask is you do the same, to whatever end. Out of respect. You're a good man and brilliant when your head's screwed on. You'll figure it out, I'm sure."

She took another step back, even though she wanted nothing more than to go forward. Frost felt lighter than she'd felt in ages. For as painful as tonight was, she was grateful to both Cal and Akiva, for 'talking it out' as it were.

The playful punch Ari delivered to his shoulder reminded him of the one his sister, Hadassah, had given him on graduation day. As a postgraduate student on Earth with hopes of interning with the Pan-Semite Union, she had been the one and only relative to attend. She had played up the occasion, delivering whatever she could muster to compensate for the absence of everyone else from home. As such, regardless of however Ari had intended the gesture, Akiva took it as quite sisterly. And, hand to HaShem, was that a cold bucket of water.

"I'm glad we talked," he said at length. "You've asked me to stop apologizing, so I'll resist the urge to do that. I'll just say thank you... for understanding and for... just being you." He let out the breath he'd been holding and smiled. "I don't make choices lightly either. That's why I like to figure them out before I make them. If it's meant to be..." He took her hand and gaze it an emphatic squeeze. "... if we are meant to be, then nothing can stop that. But if that is not to be, then I am grateful to know you and to have known you." A boyish smirk played at his lips. "Your Taskmaster might be an evil ben-zonah, but his punishment has turned out not so bitter, yes?"

Talk about gut-punching a nice moment there. It was only his hand squeezing hers that brought her out of that nasty spiral. Perhaps that too was still helping her hold back, the knowledge that that moment was still coming. The moment of devastating revelation. The moment Ari still desperately hoped for would not come. The truth of the Taskmaster.

"Much as I hate the circumstances that brought it about, I wouldn't change them." She said finally, giving his hand a gentle squeeze back. "You know...talking to Cal earlier...I realized that I am a little less alone than I thought. As dangerous as that is, in our circumstances, I am grateful for this little family we have built here."

"If I remember my Tactical studies, having something to protect gives us something of a home field advantage." Akiva noted her change in demeanor and wasn't sure how to process it. "We'll make it through, Ari. One way or another."

Arianna nodded, "We will." Then she sighed, "you should head back. I'm going to actully finish my walk and clear my head and then turn back in. Tired."

She was going to have a dip in the water and cool off first, once he was out of sight and out of reach. A reset was desperately needed.

"All right, then." Not knowing what else to do, Akiva took a few steps backward, bumped a shrub, turned to apologize, stopped himself when he saw what it was, and finally waved in parting. "Good night."

Arianna returned the wave, hoping the the darkness was hiding a gulp, "g'night!" She said and started slowly walking in the other direction.

 

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