The Stand Up
Posted on May 1st, 2021 by Scott Ammora

Too much pent up energy. Negative energy. Just blow off some steam, Scotty. He heard his brother’s voice in his head. For one reason or another, whenever there was built up emotions or anger or whatever, Kason’s voice always echoed in his ears. Sometimes it was soothing, sometimes it was antagonistic, but this time it was true. Scott was vibrating with anxiety, more so than he’d felt when he stepped onto the Minerva… when he left Wes behind.

His older brother was right. An overload of exertion, reflection, and internal damnation had led Scott to where he was. The dream was still swirling in his head. The nightmare ever-present. He drew on his mother’s background in medicine, the times she had talked him through his problems as a youth, but even that had been tainted by what he saw while he was asleep. He thought he’d centered himself, but now found himself slightly askew of center. Scott had been unable to find the middle ground.

Kason’s advice it was.

Clad in his exercise clothes and a tank top, Scott bee-lined his way down the hallway towards the holodeck. He amped himself up, but he didn’t know why, he already was amped, but not in the best way. Rounding the last corner, he tapped the console almost viciously, “Computer, begin Ammora personal program, Theta Eight, two versus one, standard opponents.”

The doors parted as he stepped in front of them. He pulled off his tank top and threw it to his left… onto the tactical station of the USS Atlantis’s bridge.

“Unable to comply, another program is already in progress.”

“The hell?” Scott took a moment to take in his surroundings. This wasn’t the program he wanted, but this was his allotted time that he had requested. The Atlantis’s bridge wasn’t a place for a combat scenario, to be sure, but he didn’t know what he was looking at. Gazing across the room he saw a figure at the engineering station and he called out, “This is my time.”

“I’ve said that before.” 2^nd Lieutenant Rodney Styles swiveled on his heel, leaning against the console. “And yet, here we are… again.”

Scott’s breath caught in his throat, but his eyes didn’t leave Rodney’s. “Oh, uh, I-I’m sorry. It’s your time.”

“It’s yours actually.” Rodney said with a smile.

“No, I meant, I took yours so you can take mine.” Scott folded his arms across his chest, “You know, turnabout is fair play. It’s understandable you should back get some of what I took.”

Rodney waved it off, “I’m just joking with you, man, calm down. What was your plan for this time? More tactical training? I heard you did pretty well the last time you were on the bridge after we met.”

Really? Scott thought to himself. That’s nice to hear. “I held my own.”

“Sometimes that’s all we can do. I told you as long as you focus and feel the controls, you’re golden. And I wasn’t called to relieve you, so that’s a plus in my book.” Rodney laughed as he crossed the holo-bridge, resting his arms on the console next to Scott. “What brings you here today?”

The proximity to Rodney made the hair on the back of Scott’s neck stand up, “Uh, you know, the usual, tactical training, command scenarios, all that… yeah… standard stuff.”

There was an awkward silence permeating the air between the two of them. Rodney didn’t shift or adjust his stance, but his eyes told the whole truth – he wasn’t believing it. There was a continued lull in conversation, Rodney staying strong with an unwavering gaze, and a chewable tension followed. “You’re a bad liar.”

Scott laughed, “What do you mean? I’m here for my time and I’m ready to learn more at the tactical – ”

“You’re shirtless wearing workout pants.”

It was in that moment that Scott realized his vulnerability. Trying to ‘play it cool’ had long since passed. He moved to the tactical console and picked up his tank top, throwing it on, but entirely wrong. Putting his head through the arm hole, Scott fought with the fabric for a second or two. He stifled an obscenity and finally found the right process, pulling the shirt over his frame and down around his waist.

Rodney laughed, “Smooth.”

Again, the anxiety built. “Yeah, you know, I don’t need the time, actually, take it. All’s fair.” And he bolted for the holodeck door.

“WAIT!” The word from Rodney was commanding.

Scott stopped in his tracks. His breathing was heavy, his embarrassment obvious, but his professional nature held him firm to his posture. He turned, but only slightly. “What?”

“What had you planned on doing with your time today?”

“I told you, training.”

Rodney’s eyes were focused and intent, “Don’t make me ask the computer.”

An exasperated sigh, a slow revolution, and a less-than-honorable walk found Scott standing before Rodney. Not defeated, not successful, but open. “I have a program I run when I need to… blow off steam, as my brother would call it. Sometimes you got to get away and just go. You don’t think, you don’t reflect, you just… do.”

“You fight your way out of whatever you’re dealing with.”

“No, it’s not that, it’s – ”

“It is that, and you know it. Before you even walked in here I saw what program you wanted to run. You asked the computer to start it! So why don’t we do something else? Instead of holographic opponents, why don’t we spar? You’ve got anger you want to get out – that much is blatantly obvious – and I’ve got time to kill. Might as well blend it together, right?” Rodney pulled his shirt off and threw it to the same location that Scott’s shirt had laid moments before, and stepped back. “Computer, activate personal program Ammora Theta Eight. One on one, live characters only.”

God, that physique. Scott peered at Rodney’s torso: defined pecs and sculpted abs. He stared longer than he cared to admit and suspected that Rodney knew it too. “Computer, belay that.” Scott moved to the door, but not really. He found himself staring at the holographic turbolift that would, virtually, go nowhere. He backpedaled towards the archway and stopped just short, an abrupt cessation of his exit. “You take this time, and, uh, just use it for whatever. I’ll see you around.”

“You stood me up!”

Fuck.

“You didn’t show.”

It was as if the archway had been made of concrete. Scott was halted in his tracks, stopped by the words more than anything physical. He didn’t know what to say. He had forgotten. Had he, or had he subconsciously avoided it? The uncertainty lingered for a moment, but he knew he had to respond. “Things came up, we should reschedule.”

An audible chuckle followed his response. Rodney stood poised and collected. “The words you’re looking for are: ‘I’m sorry’. You know, in case you needed guidance.”

“My place, I’ll replicate and – ”

“Bullshit, Scott, I call bullshit.”

Scott scoffed openly, “Oh, now we’re on a first name basis?!”

In an instant, Rodney was in his face, in all his own bare-chested glory, pressing Scott up against the science station. “You are powerful, but reckless! You are smart, but reckless! You are talented, but still ridiculously reckless!” Rodney’s breath was palpable in that moment, their closeness intense, and the electricity was pulsating with the same reckless abandon that Rodney was telling Scott he embodied.

Scott attempted to slide away, and he failed, “Rodney…”

“We’re on a first name basis now, yeah?” Rodney eased up, took a step back, shaking his head and smiling as he did so, “I don’t know what you’re going through… but it’s something. You’re beating yourself up over whatever it is, and you shouldn’t. And you know it.”

Scott rolled his eyes, “You’re an empath? Betazoid?”

“You didn’t read my file after I asked you to dinner? You’re a poor excuse for a security and tactical officer then.” Rodney stated matter-of-factly.

Scott smirked, sarcastically, “I would call that an invasion of someone’s privacy. Much like reading someone’s emotions.”

“For God’s sake, man, I’m not an empath. I studied and minored in psychology at the Academy. I could read you from a kilometer away, blindfolded, and hearing you say two or three sentences. You’re not that difficult to understand.” Rodney realized that his words may have packed a backhanded punch more than he intended, but he wasn’t far off from the truth. Scott, to him, was a fairly easy read. Or, at least, so he currently thought.

There was no way to argue that point; the words wouldn’t come even if he wanted them to. Scott stood up, yielding the physical support of the console behind him, and stood as tall as he could. He was still well below Rodney’s height, but he stood tall nonetheless. “You don’t know me.” Wow, how cliché did you just sound? Scott thought.

Rodney moved forward again and tapped two fingers poignantly into Scott’s forehead, “This…”

“Don’t,” Scott brushed Rodney’s hand away, pursing his lips.

Rodney repeated the tap into Scott’s sternum, “…gets in the way of this.”

Scott managed another wry smile, “Or maybe it’s the other way around?”

“We haven’t known each other long, and forgive my bluntness, but either way, let’s do this. Get it out there. Whatcha got?” Rodney moved away from Scott to the main level of the bridge. “Spar?”

“No.”

“Velocity?”

“Rodney…”

“Hoverball? Parrises Squares?”

Scott exploded, “No, damn it, no! Stop!” Scott shook his head, putting his hands on his temples.

Rodney was obviously taken aback, his movement away from Scott showed it. There was a pause and he searched for words, finding none. Finally, he spoke: “Maybe I don’t get you.”

Scott grabbed Rodney’s shirt and threw it at him with more force than he intended, but the point was real. “Don’t try! Okay? Just… don’t.” Scott pulled his gaze from Rodney’s, looking around the holographic bridge for something to center on, but found nothing. He was scrapping for an anchor to bring himself back to the moment, but found himself more disjointed than before he had walked onto the holodeck. Taking a full inhale he turned his attention back to Rodney, “Trust me. Don’t. It isn’t worth your trouble.”

Pulling his shirt back up over his head, Rodney finally conceded, “Fine then.”

“You teach me a bit on the tactical console, you come by my quarters and ask me to dinner, and then you corner me on the holodeck when I don’t show up; does that seem like a normal social progression to you?! You studied psychology, you said, so does that seem like normal personal boundaries to you?!” Scott was seething, the vein in his neck that he had too often been told about was surely throbbing and becoming more pronounced. Truth be told, Scott wasn’t even sure why he was so upset. He just was.

“I didn’t – ”

Again, Scott raised his voice: “Then don’t!”

“Okay!” Rodney met Scott’s intensity with his own outburst. “I apologize. Uh, yeah. Enjoy your holodeck time. See you later… Ammora.” He moved purposefully and quickly past Scott and out into the corridor, the doors sealing behind him.

Scott watched him leave and the doors reconnect. Pushing the hair back that had fallen in front of his face, Scott took his shirt off once again and laid it where it had been dropped when he had first walked in. He cracked his neck and his knuckles, shook off the nerves and tenseness that had built with his interactions with Lieutenant Styles, and placed himself on the center of the bridge. “Computer, end program and start a new one. Personal program, Ammora Theta Eight… three on one. Advanced opponents.”