Basic Instinct

Posted on Sun Jun 21st, 2020 @ 5:21am by Cailus Griffin & Lieutenant Kalin Brennan-Griffin PhD
Edited on on Tue Jul 7th, 2020 @ 1:30pm

Mission: Into the Wild
Location: Holodeck 1/Shae's quarters
Timeline: After - Mending a Friendship

A Mission Post by Lieutenant Kalin 'Shae' Brennan PhD & Lieutenant JG Cailus Griffin
Mission: Into The Wild
Location: Holodeck 1/Shae's quarters
Timeline: After - Mending a Friendship
Thu Jul 20th, 2017 @ 10:35pm


During the afternoon shift, Cailus worked as he always did. In the busy moments, working with others, he focused just like every other day on the job. During the drills in the Brig simulating a mass prisoner exodus, he was the same brutal perfectionist, catching one poor ensign in an uncomfortable headlock when she made a mistake escorting him as her "prisoner". In a tactical readiness meeting with the XO, he was his usual sharp, grim self, and Commander Glyndar didn't seem to notice any difference in her subordinate's behaviour.

In the quiet moments afterwards, however, doing the exceptionally uninteresting paperwork, his mind wandered to Shae. He'd made a substantial assumption, and based on her expression when she'd seen Mindo, he'd been dead wrong. Cailus had yet to see true anger in her, but knew enough to recognise its absence. He'd sometimes distract himself for a minute at a time as he filled in forms and read reports, speculating and wondering, before catching himself with the same refrain.

He wasn't wondering about Shae's feelings for Mindo out of jealousy or paranoia, or at least so he hoped. Cailus had made the choice to trust her, and found to his relief that his instincts generally agreed with his will. Instead he wondered what Shae had said to Mindo in the Mess Hall, what she was thinking, what she was feeling. Since meeting that woman in that science lab, he had been compelled to the mystery that was Kalin Brennan and her uncanny way of breaking his preconceptions about her. By defying his latest preconception, by not being as furious as him with Mindo, she had inflamed his curiosity anew.

After his shift, Caiius was once more caught in that distracting chain of speculation as he leaned against a wall, watching Aoife in the pool. She and her nurse, Rebekah, were running late with the physical therapy, and they were still working hard in the water when he'd arrived at the holodeck to pick Aoife up. He was yanked from his thoughts as Aoife and Rebekah started one of their last exercises, and smiled as Aoife splashed the water energetically under Rebekah's tutelage. Damn, he was proud of that little girl. She'd come so far from the terrified toddler he'd first met by his bedside in the Tornado's Sickbay.

Aoife chirped in excitement, even using the specific call she used for Shae and Cailus, as if to say with her bright smile, 'Father, Father, look what I can do!'. She was so full of energy and enthusiasm, and endlessly eager to please her parents as she proudly waded through the water without needing to hold onto Rebekah during a lap. She even managed to take a step up when it was time to get out of the pool, but she needed Rebekah's help after the first step; even still, that did not stop her tail from wagging happily. Now out of the pool, Rebekah wrapped Aoife in a towel, trying to dry her off so she could get the child dressed in her regular clothes, but Aoife was so excited, she would not sit still long enough, calling for Cailus with a chirp.

Aoife's excitement was infectious, and Cailus was outright grinning as he walked over and crouched down to help change her. "You're doing wonderful little one," he said quietly, using a corner of the towel to dry Aoife's arms and focus the toddler's attention so that she would stay put. "It won't be long before you'll be racing me and Mommy everywhere we go, the rate you're going."

"Once they get started, that's usually how it goes," Rebekah chimed in. Once Aoife was dry enough, Rebekah slipped a little dress over Aoife's head and down over her colorful swimsuit, then collected her shoes, handing them to Cailus. "See you tomorrow, kiddo," she said with a grin, then found a towel for herself. Aoife immediately raised her arms to Cailus to be picked up.

About that time, the holodeck doors were opening, revealing a rather flustered Shae.

"Rebekah, I'm so sorry I'm late, I got held up with some paperwork-" Shae started, then she saw Cailus. "Oh, hi," she said bashfully. "I thought it was my turn to pick her up." She didn't sound upset at all that he was here, if anything she was grateful that he had been here for Aoife when work held her up.

"Slow day, so I thought I'd come down and see you two," Cailus said simply in reply, balancing Aoife into her favoured position on his forearm. He didn't embrace Shae or kiss her as he would in private, although his smile was warm nevertheless. "Everything alright?"

"Eh? Oh, everything is fine, I just lost track of time," Shae assured him. She gave Rebekah a wave to acknowledge her, then started walking back to her quarters with Cailus and Aoife. "How did she do today?" she asked Cailus as they walked.

Aoife squirmed a little, her tail wagging even as they walked, and Cailus huffed with amused exasperation as he struggled to keep her balanced on his arm. "I'd say that Aoife had a lot of fun in the water," he commented as they entered a turbolift. "I don't think I've ever seen her this energetic."

"These exercises usually tire her out, so it's a good sign, she's getting stronger, healthier," Shae replied. "Also, I think she's happy that things are starting to calm down after, well, you know... She knows something hasn't been right between us..." Shae reached out to gently brush her fingers over Aoife's cheek, then rubbed the child's ear affectionately, her expression unreadable. "It's been tough holding everything in when she's around; I didn't want her to see how upset I was, but she still knew..."

Cailus' face visibly darkened at the reference, and he was silent for a moment as the turbolift moved. "She noticed it with me too," he agreed quietly as the 'lift doors opened and they began walking down the corridor to Shae's quarters. His tone turned hesitant, plainly uncomfortable. "If you want to talk about...well, Mindo...then I hope you know you can talk to me. It could help a little."

"I appreciate that," Shae said, but her tone was somber. She was quiet until they reached her quarters where she shed her duty jacket and started getting the table ready for dinner. "I'm not sure what to say... I'm still trying to figure things out, and I know you're working through things..." she said as she looked through replicator patterns. "I guess one thing I'm grateful for, that I still have a friend in Mindo. I hope that doesn't upset you," she said, looking over at Cailus to make sure he was okay with her still being friends with Mindo.

Depositing Aoife in her high chair, Cailus winced as Aoife shook her head wildly, showering him inadvertently from her still-damp hair. "I can't say I'm happy about it," he said with blunt honesty, although his voice was glacially calm. "Regardless, I have no right to control who your friends are, and I wouldn't even if I could. I can hardly complain about your capacity for forgiveness and compassion given how we met."

He briefly disappeared into the bathroom before returning with a small towel, drying Aoife's hair properly, ears and all. "I'd just like to understand how you're not angry or...well, uncomfortable with him. That's all."

"Well, I am uncomfortable with him," Shae stated simply, then sighed. "How could I not be? I've simply accepted that being uncomfortable will be inevitable for a while... But why should I be angry with him? From his perspective, he didn't do anything wrong; at the time, I hadn't had a chance to tell him that you and I were together, though I think he may have figured it out, but he saw that... that I was in distress and... well... he acted, did what he thought was best." Shae paused to collect her thoughts, her eyes meeting his with uncertainty. "I still feel guilt, but only because... Stars above, this hard to explain!" Another sigh and she punched in some commands to the replicator, then replicator hummed to life and she started setting their meal out onto the table. "I feel guilty because I betrayed you, Cailus, I hurt you, but what happened between Mindo and I... I was losing control, and it could have happened with one of my subordinates; I could be facing charges, I could lose my career had it been anyone else, but Mindo understood, and what happened... It was what it was, just nature and no emotion, simple as that. I'm not saying that what we did was right, but knowing what you know now of my instinctual drives, neither can you say it was entirely wrong either."

Shae's point about the risk to her career was one that Cailus hadn't considered. Having finished drying Aoife's hair, he put the towel away and was quiet for a few moments. He silently shrugged off his own grey-and-black jacket and opened his yellow undershirt collar before looking back at Shae.

"Do you know that I went to go see Mindo, in his quarters?" he asked with quiet contemplation as he helped Shae with the plates and cutlery.

"I suspected that you might, but I didn't want to pry... When I talked to Mindo earlier, he said you came by," Shae said. "He didn't go into details, and I didn't ask, but I can venture a guess as to how it went. I know you were simply doing what you thought was best, trying to protect me."

Cailus smiled sadly at that. Harriet had had a tendency to blast his ears off when he tried to "protect" her, and Shae's patient understanding, by contrast, was rather refreshing.

"I assumed he took advantage of you for his own desires," he said bluntly as they sat down, their meals ready and waiting on the table. "Even when he said that he didn't intend anything like that, that his biological instincts reacted just like yours, I didn't believe him. I thought it was just an excuse, or that Mindo was lying, either to me or himself. After defending him to the Captain, saying that Mindo could be trusted...hell, it felt like a betrayal of us both."

"No! Oh my stars, nothing like that," Shae said. She reached over the table to give his hand a comforting squeeze. "I'd rather not give you the play-by-play because I don't think it would help in your efforts to put this behind us but... I can promise you, he was not taking advantage of me. If anything, I didn't give him much choice in the matter, and going into our talk in the mess hall, I kind of worried that me might think I took advantage of him. You do know that his kind are often abused in this way, right?"

Cailus had smiled back as she rubbed his hand, but at those last words, he sighed. "Yeah. There was a big scandal a few years after Captain Kirk made first contact with them. The Federation Council went berserk when the whole thing came to light." He was tempted to tell Shae about Mindo's own history with abuse, but decided against it; the man deserved his privacy. "Look, Shae, my point is that when push comes to shove, I'm human. There's just so much about you and Mindo that I don't really understand, can't really understand, because human instincts are nowhere near as powerful as some other species."

Spearing a bit of sliced carrot, he glanced at Shae's long ears pointedly. "I don't just mean the magic ears, the sense of smell or that beautiful tail. It's the deeper things."

"I know, and I'm doing my best to help you understand," Shae replied with a sympathetic smile, blushing slightly that he called her tail beautiful. "It helps that I was raised with humans, so I know how this affects you. Truth is, there's a lot about myself that even I don't understand; I didn't have my mother to teach me, to tell me why I do and feel some of the things I do. Some things I've figured out, a course of comparative biology at the Academy certainly helped, but there are some things I'm still guessing about. It's like trying to figure out a yawn or a sneeze, or even worse trying to hold one it; sometimes it feels like the more I fight what I feel, the more the urges persist..." she explained as best she could while she helped Aoife use a spoon to guide food to her mouth.

Cailus nodded as he chewed his steak, watching Shae help Aoife eat. "Is there anything else that you might want to mention?" he asked gently. "I promise to try and be...accepting. Even if you have some life-long secret desire to shapeshift into a Klingon." Cailus tilted his head to the side, grinning, looking bizarrely boyish for a moment without his beard. "Although if you stop bathing entirely, love, we may have a problem."

Shae blushed crimson. "Never have I had such a desire, and I am rather fond of regular bathing" she said. Then she cleared her throat as she considered bringing up something she wondered if she should keep to herself. "Though... though I have wondered... w-would you prefer if I was human?" she asked uneasily. "I can- You've seen I can clearly pass as one, and my instincts are still there, I just push them down, so... is that something you would want?"

That quite effectively threw Cailus for a loop, and he was frozen for a moment after Shae asked the question, a steak-laden fork hovering in front of his mouth. He carefully lowered the fork to his plate, peering at Shae intently.

"I could tell you what I believe," he said quietly, intensely. "Ultimately, though...Shae, what do you want? Forget about me for a minute."

Shae's gaze lowered as she thought about this, then she looked at Aoife, the child's face already quite messy from her attempts to feed herself. Aoife didn't understand all the adult conversation, but she could see something big going on in her mother's eyes, and she chirped with a big smile, causing Shae to smile as well. "I hated pretending to be human," Shae confessed as she gazed into her daughter's eyes. "At first, it wasn't so bad, but after a while it felt like I was losing a piece of my identity denying this other side of myself; even though my face was essentially the same, towards the end I found that I couldn't even recognize myself in the mirror, and to finally be free to just be myself after so long... it was such a relief. And now I've got Aoife, and she can't hide that part of herself, she learns from my example, she would be so confused if I tried to live that way again." Shae looked at Cailus again. "I may be at odds with what I am, but I don't want to be human again."

"There's your answer," he said quietly, smiling softly once more in relief. "I was hoping you would say that. Shae, as much as I love you for offering...you should never feel that you have to change yourself for me. I fell in love with you, which means all of you. Even if you might drive me crazy sometimes. I've only just gotten over how ticklish your tail is when we're sleeping, after all."

"Thank you, Cailus," she said with a soft smile at his gentle reassurance. "I didn't think you were the kind of person to want me to change, but... after all this recent drama, I couldn't help but wonder if maybe it might be easier if I-" Shae dismissed the though by shaking her head. "But in all fairness, if there is something you are having trouble dealing with, like my tail, you can tell me. That wouldn't be changing me, just a means for us to adapt to one another, you know?" And for a moment she wondered if he would tell her that he didn't like it when she nipped at him during... um... fun times...

Returning to his meal with greater enthusiasm having sensed that the serious discussion was ending, Cailus raised an amused eyebrow, smirking. "Like I said, I've gotten used to your tail. Anyway, the same goes for me, Shae. If there's anything I can do to make life easier, feel free to ask."

"Pleasdontgrowyourbeard," Shae said in a rush, immediately blushing and nibbling on her lip.

Confused by Shae's embarassment, Cailus frowned, glancing at Aoife as if Shae's daughter could provide some insight. He rubbed his jaw curiously where a fair sized stubble had already returned. "Why?" he asked, flummoxed.

"It itches!" Shae stated, her blush deepening. "Y-you know, when we're, uh, together... it's, mmm, distracting..." Truth was she liked the way he looked with the beard, and learning to tolerate the beard during intimacy was... interesting, but she didn't know if she could deal with the stubble while waiting for the beard to grow back out.

Swallowing some cauliflower, Cailus' confusion grew. "You've never complained before," he muttered, thinking back. "When we're together...oh." His eyes widened, and Cailus blushed fiercely right along with her as realisation bloomed.

"Ohhhh..."