Disclaimer - I guess Paramount own some of them.
*
"She surprised you, didn't she?"
Kashyk turned his head towards the owner of the deep voice and rose his eyebrows. "No."
His lover chuckled, a wonderfully rich sound. "You used to be a better liar."
Had she taken that, too? He smiled indulgently. "You'd be the one to know about that, now wouldn't you?"
Gilada shifted until he was sitting up on the bed. "Ah, a nice little rebuke there. Obviously she surprised you a great deal more than even I suspected."
Turning his head back, Kashyk stared at the ceiling. "No, she didn't surprise me. I anticipated her response. I just didn't..."
"Plan for it? Are you willing to tell me why?"
"If anyone is listening to this conversation, they already have enough information to discharge me. I see no point in giving them reason enough to kill me."
"You know as well as I do that the only person who would dare to bug your quarters is-"
"-you," Kashyk concluded, closing his eyes and feeling the softness of the bed beneath him.
"Do you trust me?" Gilada asked quietly.
Kashyk smiled, and didn't know whether he was about to lie or not. "No."
"Exactly. And why should you? Trust has to be earned. It's gradual, and yet it's the foundation of every relationship - professional and personal."
"Despite what you may think, I have actually heard this speech before-"
"And you used it with her, didn't you?"
In the darkness beneath his eyelids, Kashyk listened to the sound of the ship humming. "Of course."
"Then why did you trust her? If you knew for certain - or almost certainly - that she was planning for your betrayal, why give her that opportunity?"
He shrugged. "To see if she would." He felt the other man shift on the bed.
"You strayed from protocol just to satisfy your curiousity?"
"Do you find something amiss with that?"
"Not from you. Not anymore." His lover moved down, leaning towards him.
Kashyk opened his eyes.
Gilada's face hovered inches above his. "Tell me about her. Every word, every sigh...did she scream? What was her body like? What were her eyes like? Her voice, her hair - presuming she had any. Tell me everything."
He knew, of course, that Gilada was simply using this as a distraction - a way to focus him on the physical aspects, as opposed to anything else.
It was working.
He also knew that later, he would think of her again. And Gilada - once more - would distract him.
That was his gift.
That was his purpose.
~FINIS