The Aftermath

Posted on Sun Jun 21st, 2020 @ 4:56am by Cailus Griffin & Lieutenant Kalin Brennan-Griffin PhD
Edited on on Tue Jul 7th, 2020 @ 1:10pm

Mission: New Moon Rising
Location: Shae's Quarters
Timeline: After "Heat Of The Moment"

A Mission Post by Lieutenant JG Cailus Griffin & Lieutenant Kalin 'Shae' Brennan PhD
Mission: New Moon Rising
Location: Shae's Quarters
Timeline: After "Heat Of The Moment"
Sun Jun 11th, 2017 @ 7:59pm


Even Aoife knew something was wrong when Cailus picked her up from physical therapy. During the entire trip back to Shae's quarters she looked up at him with such distress, making those little, wordless noises that ripped into Cailus every time. He dropped her off, exchanging a few tense, cursory words with Shae, before leaving once more. Despite everything he had promised earlier, it was too damned hard, even with Shae clearly just as torn as him. If anything, the betrayal stung all the more as time passed, with more questions slipping into his mind, unbidden.

Had she really, truly been so overwhelmed by her hormones that she couldn't control herself, even with all she'd been through in her life? Was there a part of Shae, a deeply buried part, that yearned for something he couldn't give? Was she...actually...interested in Mindo? Did she care for him as more than a friend? Did he care for her?

No answers came. Not good ones.

Afterwards, having not had the chance to exercise the previous day, Cailus attacked the ship's gym with rare fury. He ran until his legs burned to exhaustion and he pumped iron until his arms could barely move, sweat flowing freely. He brutally assaulted the punching bag with short, efficient, rapid-fire strikes, the other users of the gym looking around with alarm when his prosthetic hand slammed right through the material.

It still wasn't enough, so he pulled a double shift. The Security officers assigned to the Gamma shift, typically used to a quiet, peaceful evening of work, were thus subjected to six hours of hell. They field-stripped phaser rifles again and again until their hands were raw. They practised close quarter combat under the cold, watchful of eye of Cailus. They fought holographic enemies in the holodeck, the environment shifting from sub-zero Arctic conditions to a blazing hot Vulcan desert at Cailus' capricious whim. None of them, somehow, protested. They were Starfleet officers, the elite of the elite, and they all knew that such strenuous, unexpected training would help in the long run. Moreover, that cruel look in Cailus' eyes frightened more than a few of the younger officers, and worried the rest.

Finally, at 0100, Cailus forced himself to go to his quarters. He was physically more drained than he'd been in a long, long time, but even after a brutally cold shower, sleep would not come. He tossed and turned, scowling all the while, but rest proved impossible. At first he thought it was because of that blasted memory, but as his arm draped over the empty side of the bed, he realised with exhausted confusion that it was something different.

This was the first time he'd slept in his own bed in over a week...the first time without Shae next to him, her tail tickling his chest as it so often did, her hand so often in his as they slept. With frustration he threw the covers off, bare-chested but wearing loose, silky pants, and he stormed over the viewport in the darkness.

"It takes no damned sense," Cailus growled, glaring outside at the stars, his fists clenched. He punched the transparent glass with a grunt of exertion, the skin of his artificial hand splitting slightly at the impact, and he swore under his breath.


Shae was in no better shape, but instead of being able to work out in the gym or field strip rifles, she had to push it all down, all that agony and she had to pretend it wasn't there for Aoife. By the time Cailus had brought her by, she had disposed of her old bedding and replicated new ones; the bed was made and everything was tidy, the smell was gone, replaced with the scent of strong cleaning solutions, and Shae was dressed, though he could see the irritation on her skin that she had taken another rather vigorous shower, but at least she was no longer crying. And Aoife definitely noticed that something was wrong between them, but didn't know what; all evening with her mother Aoife could tell that Shae was only pretending to be her normally cheerful self, but hugs certainly weren't going to be enough to fix this.

After dinner, Shae started to feel the urge again, but thankfully with no males nearby she was able to maintain control, though she did contact Sickbay to inform the Doctor of her condition and that she was discontinuing her treatments for a while; she wasn't going to risk an actual trip down to Sickbay, not when her control over herself was iffy at best, and as for the treatments, they had caused her cycle to come early and even before that it was proving to be too much of a disruption. So unless Adaestron managed to find a less disruptive manner of helping her, she was just going to have to continue on without the treatments.

So she continued about her day as usual; clean up dinner dishes, play with Aoife, bathe Aoife, read Aoife the Thumbelina book, settle Aoife into bed... Everything was about Aoife, which gave her focus, but the whole time she was miserable, missing Cailus and in such discomfort from her cycle that it was nearly unbearable, but she wouldn't let Aoife see any of that, she had to be strong for Aoife. Once Aoife was asleep, Shae tried another cold shower to help calm her down and lower her body temperature; it helped, barely, but really there was only one thing that could help her at this point and she didn't foresee any visits from Cailus anytime soon. Shae ended up going to bed early simply for the fact that she was still exhausted, but also because she couldn't bring herself to do anything else, she couldn't bear to act like everything was normal any longer. She let herself cry, but even then she had to hold back for fear of waking Aoife, and after a while she realized it was easier to simply hold it all in and not cry at all, so once again she held it all in, wiped the tears away, and tried to sleep.


Cailus wasn’t entirely sure what he was doing when he went to her quarters. He was barefoot on the deck, still wearing the same dark blue silk pants with a plain white-shirt, thrown on at the last minute. Just like before, his body was torn by contradiction, the conflicting urges to turn around or keep on going. The desire to see Shae, no matter what, won out, but only just.

When he found that Shae hadn’t locked him out, Cailus was impossibly, stupidly relieved. Not turning up the lights, he carefully, silently tip-toed to the bedroom, where Shae lay.

They didn't say much over the next few minutes; the memory was too strong for them both. Instead, they put action to thought, relieving Shae's need as best they could.

=========
A little later...
=========

“Better?” Cailus whispered, his eyes mere inches from hers, the fabric of her tank top magnified against his chest.

“Not really,” Shae said weakly.. “Oh Stars, it’s never been this bad before!” she rasped out in frustration. She was still fighting so hard to restrain herself, resisting the urge to pounce on him; maybe if she had shown such restraint earlier, there wouldn’t be this tension between them now. That thought only succeeded in bringing the tears back. “Cailus, I’m sorry, I’m so so sorry!”

Shifting around to Shae’s left side, Cailus propped himself up on his elbow next to her, realising with alarm that she was still shaking like a leaf. Carefully he touched her shoulder, his worry growing; she was on fire, her typically cool, pale skin almost too hot to touch.

“Was it this bad earlier?” he whispered, caressing her shoulder with his mechanical hand.

“No,” she replied quietly, not sobbing but the tears still were streaming down her face. “I wasn’t expecting it, I didn’t realize I should have been resisting; I could smell him and I wanted more, and I couldn’t think, everything was so hazy, I just couldn’t think, couldn’t reason things out, I was just drawn in by the smell of him. I knew what I was doing, but it was like… autopilot, and I didn’t fully realize what had transpired until I saw you. Seeing you snapped me to my senses. I can usually resist the urges I feel, but I usually know when it’s coming, I can feel a build up, I was completely blindsided today. But I promise, I’m in control of my actions now, I won’t do it again, I swear, Cailus, please believe me.”

Listening reluctantly, Cailus closed his eyes, as if that would help. He found that perversely, he wanted to know what had happened; not knowing how long they had been together, how it had started, whether Shae really had fought, whether she’d truly been blindsided…

“...It doesn’t matter,” he finally said, answering both Shae and his own broken line of thought. Hesitantly he wiped the tears from her cheeks as he looked down, the silhouette of Shae’s face highlighted by the dim starlight in the brief silence after those words.

“I don’t think I could live without you,” Cailus murmured, his tired arm already starting to ache from supporting his weight. “It hurt. It hurt more than anything besides when they told me about Harriet and Victoire. I can either...no. I trust you. Hell, I forgive you. Seeing you like that...I can’t imagine what it’s like. You were in pain...you are in pain.” Stroking the line of her jaw, he sighed. “This isn’t natural, what we have. This isn’t a normal relationship. It’s too strong, too quick.”

Tilting his head slightly, Cailus bent down, kissing her again lightly. “And I don’t care.”

Shae shivered under his gentle caress; she didn’t deserve it, didn’t deserve him! But she couldn’t deny his forgiveness when she wanted it so badly, couldn’t deny his acceptance when it was so pure and heartfelt. They were like to stellar bodies in orbit around one another, always drawn to the other like they were caught up in each other’s personal gravity, and she didn’t want to fight it anymore.

“Love you…” she said in the faintest of whispers, wanting to give him something to remember as the last shred of control began to slip from her grasp; she couldn’t fight it anymore and he smelled too good.

==========
Even later...
==========

Shae looked over at him, sated and shivering, both in pleasure and at the chill of the room that she could finally feel. Her eyes were still glazed over with this animal drive, but now there was a softness to her eyes. She reached out with a trembling hand to touch his face, gentle and curious, a faint memory dawning on her; her mother was never so wild and feral. Had Shae the chance to grow up with her biological parents, her instinct would have learned from example instead of watching human relationships and thinking them silly creatures, but maybe they weren’t so silly after all… Maybe what Shae felt wasn’t nonsense…

“Never again,” she said with a rumble in her chest. “Now, only you.”

Locked in place by her gaze, Cailus sighed in contentment as he lay there. He didn’t quite know what he was seeing. That look in Shae’s eyes was new, somehow, but he couldn’t quite pin down how. She spoke with unusual firmness, a faint undercurrent of that same, animalistic quality in her tone, but beyond that…

She loves me.

There would be hell to pay in the morning, Cailus knew. Such actions did not just vanish into the ether. There would be consequences and problems, tension and more pain to come. There was no quick fix for such things.

Still…

She loves me.

“Together,” he whispered back at her, entranced. “Always.”

“Always,” she echoed softly, her eyes closing. Fatigue and the need for sleep was taking hold of her fast, but she forced her eyes open one last time. “Always,” she said once again, her tone once again soft and light, and her eyes were clear of the haze, she was looking at him with meaning and purpose and with such affection and adoration. There was still shame and so much pain, both of which would fade with time, but there was no denying the love displayed in those azure orbs. “Always, love…” she whispered, her eyes fluttering closed as sleep finally pulled her under.