That Awkward Moment

Posted on Fri May 12th, 2017 @ 3:42am by Petty Officer 3rd Class Avery Stiles & Ensign Jonathan Forrest

Episode: Preparations
Location: RCS Thruster Junction Baker 13

The last two weeks had been strange for Avery. And frustrating and that wasn't just the fact that the entire yard staff insisted on poking around the innards of the ship interfering in ways that constantly had him spending extra time undoing whatever it was that they had done. It was an aggravating experience, to say the least. He grabbed the tricorder and popped open the access port for the main EPS relay to the thruster.

His personal life was another matter entirely. Ever since he walked out on the dinner with Jonathan, which turned out to be not nearly as awful as he thought, his thoughts kept drifting back to the other man. He had been the one to call it off, he really wanted to talk to Theo but knew he was busy and even then he was off spending time with who Avery was pretty sure was the love of his life. The two had crossed paths a few times since that evening and had really one had stuck to pointless jabber.

Jonathan had been surprised when Roo had called him out of the blue, and they had chatted about mostly nothing for two hours. He was back on Earth, Australia. of course, he was running some clinic but was planning on going back in space in another six months.

The Helmsman had gone to the holodeck a few times, but other than that and his talk with Roo, he'd been focused on work

So, he had taken a day off. He just had to have some private time. He was in the corridor, headed to the arboretum when he almost literally ran into Avery.

"Uh, hi," he said, "how have you been doing. It's been a while."

Avery slammed his head into the open hatch and in the process, dropped his tricorder onto the ground. "Oh, yeah... um hi."

"Are you okay?" Jonathan asked concernedly as he bent down to retrieve the tricorder for the other man.

"Yeah, fine... totally fine," answered Avery quickly. He stood there for a moment and then rubbed the back of his neck. "Look, is it just me or is this... weird?"

"No, it's not you. It is kind of weird. I mean I just got off the com with Roo, my, I don't know ex. I think you'd like him, he's a doctor. Look, if I came on too strong the last time I'm sorry I never meant for you to feel uncomfortable and you were, it still looks like you are."

Avery shook his head. "No, my best friend is bisexual... it's the 24th-century mankind is more enlightened than this, right? It was my fault really, I should have been more clear in what I wanted or what I didn't want."

"I don't know if we want to be having this conversation in the hallway, but why don't you tell me what it is you want, or perhaps a better question is do you know what you want?"

"No... yes... I mean hell I don't know what I want," Avery answered. He sighed heavily and slumped his shoulders. "I know that you are a nice guy and I know that I want to hang out with, I mean I thought that was where we left things."

"That's fine, "Jonathan replied, "I'm in no rush for anything other than friendship What if we try another dinner. This time in public in one of the lounges or holodeck. Something like that."

Avery perked up at that comment. "Alright, what about dinner on the station. I hear they have a decent Bajoran place."

This brought a smile to Jonathan's face, "I like Bajoran food.  I'm off now if you are. I know it's kind of spontaneous, so we can always do it a different time if we need to."

"I probably need to finish this first," Avery replied, gesturing towards the RCS EPS conduit. "But it shouldn't take me long, you can keep me company if you want. We can go after that."

"Sure, I'm not much of an engineer, that's more, my sister.  But we can chat and I can hand you a tool or two."

"I think you mentioned her before," Avery replied, as he went back to work on the conduit. "So, um are you and... Roo was it, going to get back together?"

"Yes, it is Roo, but no, not really. Don't get me wrong, I think he's a really nice guy and we had something special. But the key word there is had. We're still friends and if we ever run into each other again, well, let's just say we'll spend some quality time together."

"You need me to give you anything yet?"

"I assume by quality time you mean... time in the bedroom?" Avery asked. "And yeah, can you hand me that spanner?"

Jonathan grinned and shrugged his shoulders. "That's exactly what I mean," he replied before bending over and picking up a spanner, "as long as I was still, you know single."

Avery swallowed hard and choose not to take the bait. "Well, there are plenty of good looking guys on the ship. I'm there is one out there for you. Do you think you could hand me that calibrator?"

It took him a few seconds to locate the requested item. which he picked up and handed to the engineer. "Here you go, and yeah I'm sure there are some good looking guys here. You're one of them."

Avery felt himself blush and was glad that his head was hidden by the access port. "Um, thanks, man but I think we should focus on finding you someone that's not...you know me. I mean someone that's not a friend."

Jonathan shrugged his shoulders. He missed the other man's blush because he could not longer see his face. "I was just making an observation, "he replied coyly, but there's nothing wrong with your being good looking and a friend. Is there?"

"I guess not, my friend Theo is pretty good looking," Avery replied. "Alright, just about finished. Give me another three minutes."

"Not a problem, I can wait," Jonathan replied, "anything else you need me to hand you?"

"Nope, I think it's done," Avery said, as he scooted out from underneath the access panel. "Let me just drop this stuff off in engineering and then we can go get something to eat."

"Okay, sounds good," Jon said as they started walking.

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