Tangled Psyche

Posted on Mon Oct 9th, 2023 @ 7:32am by Ensign Ilan Ocara & Lieutenant Sovas Nyseth & Lieutenant Dr. Daniel Brasken
Edited on on Mon Oct 9th, 2023 @ 7:33am

Mission: In-Between (S1:E5-S1:E6)
Location: Sovas' Quarters/Sickbay
Timeline: Date 2371-09-03 at 2120
4109 words - 8.2 OF Standard Post Measure

Sovas strode through the corridors of the ship, though it might be more accurate to call it stalking through them, as he struggled with the intensity of everything he felt. A strange mix of emotions crept through his veins like acid, simmering and growing more potent as he went. Fear, anger, confusion, and a kind of unsettled restlessness that he couldn't put a finger on. He didn't trust himself to do anything more than walk, to let the breeze of the ship's air-conditioning wash over him and hope it would wash away whatever this feeling was.

The incident with Immy's ghost had stirred the pot to boil over, and it was all he could do not to lash out at something or someone. He kept his pace steady, his gaze fixed straight ahead, and didn't allow himself to look around lest he get tempted to do something irrational.

Finally, he entered his quarters and tried to center himself. It was the same cabin he'd been given when he first joined the crew, though it had been repurposed for when he needed to seek refuge from the outside world and the demands of his duties. He took a deep breath and closed the door behind him, relieved to be away from the prying eyes and ears of the other crewmembers.

He stood in the middle of the room, listening to the reassuring hum of the life support, and took a few moments to center himself. Exhausted by the emotions running through him, he felt his body relax, and the tension gathering in his shoulders dissipated. He closed his eyes, and the day's events passed like a looping tape through his mind.

Just when he thought he'd regained his bearings, something stirred in the corner of the room. Slowly, with a sort of surreal dread, Sovas opened his eyes as he witnessed a dark shape spring out from the darkness. It took a moment for his mind to process that he was looking back at himself, though the look in his counterpart's eyes was half-crazed as they fell to the floor, grappling and rolling. The half-Vulcan growled as he fought with himself, feeling the blows and scratches rained down on him. With a profoundly guttural and animalistic sound, he lashed out again, the other Sovas hard as he thought a hurricane of rage welling up within him. He followed after the reeling form, smashing it with his fists before grabbing his counterpart's head and smashing it into the floor. He didn't stop until there was a bloody mess, and he stood unsteadily, using a hand to wipe his face, leaving behind a bloody smear as he looked into the mirror.

A frown formed on his grisly features before he moved over to his console, standing behind the display as he hit the call button to reach out to Ilan.

Ilan had been reading quietly in her quarters, having a glass of wine while quiet music played. While many might have considered her incapable of enjoying a night alone, she did enjoy them just as much as her other escapades. It was looking likely - much to her dismay - that she might become the new Chief Science Officer on the Vengeance. The Captain seemed "pleased" with her work - not that there was much work to do for "her department"; there never had been. They were a warship.

She sighed, turned the page, and was in the middle of a sip of wine when she heard the distressed voice over the comms.

"Ocara here... Sovas...?" She questioned slowly.

"Yes," Sovas replied, his voice ragged and strained. "I need your help, Ilan. I...I saw him, and he had my face..."

Even to Sovas, the explanation sounded crazy as he began to pace back and forth, the restless feeling coming over him again, restraining his hand from slapping against his head. "Can you come over? I need someone to see this to prove I haven't lost it."

"Yeah... yeah, I'll be right there. Just hold on." With that, she cut the comm, put a marker in her book, got up to put her shoes on, and left. She was dressed in her "at home" clothes, but she wasn't indecent; judging by the tone of his voice, she thought it best not to delay and change.

Arriving outside of his quarters, she reached out and hit the chime.

Sovas jumped at the sound of the sudden chime; he felt his heart racing as he narrowed his gaze on the door, his eye moving towards the form of his doppelganger lying on the floor, the carpet stained his greenish blood. The half-Vulcan sighed and shook his head. "Enter."

When she entered, Ilan would see him standing near the desk, the living room was in a bit of a disarray, the coffee table overturned, and a few of the chairs lying on their side or resting at haphazard angles. If she looked at the Ops Chief, she would see him wiping at his face as if trying to get rid of something there as he looked down at his feet, though nothing was there.

When she entered, saw the mess around her, and saw how Sovas acted, Ilan was immediately on edge. Something wasn't right here - something wasn't right with him. She knew she should leave immediately and call someone else, but she couldn't bring herself to leave him. She knew the half-Vulcan had very few - if any - friends on this ship.

She licked her lips and took a few steps forward but gave him room. "Sovas?"

"On the floor, the...imposter, he attacked me and had my face," He spoke with a surprisingly calm voice, though his eyes were a bit wild as he looked down at the ground, then back to her. "I knew something wasn't right when I came in; he came out of nowhere, and I defended myself; I didn't let him win...I didn't hold back."

“Alright. Come here. Come sit down on the couch.” Ilan directed and gestured to his couch, though she did not go before him. She looked down to the floor again to confirm nothing was there and then looked back up to Sovas.

The half-Vulcan frowned and nodded as he moved a little robotically towards the couch and took a seat as he settled down, his features frowning, working as if trying to sort through the tumult of emotions he was feeling inside him. He finally looked down at his hands, rubbing his palms against each other as he seemed to be trying to wipe them clean again. "Ilan, am I going crazy? I feel like I'm going crazy..."

“I don’t know what’s going on,” Ilan admitted, moving toward him but not joining him on the couch. Instead, she wrapped her arms around herself and frowned. “There’s nothing there, though, Sovas. There’s nobody… there’s no blood.”

The half-Vulcan blinked again, frowning as he looked at his hands as if seeing them for the first time and then looked over to where the body had been lying. His eyes narrowed as if he didn't trust what he saw before shaking his head. "I...Ilan, I'm not doing well..."

“No, you’re not.” Ilan agreed gently and took a few steps closer. “Do you want to go to sickbay…?”

"So the butcher's there can kill me again and resurrect me?" The half-Vulcan snapped, frowning as he looked away from Ilan. His gaze returned to his hands as he considered what he'd thought he saw, how real the blood had felt on his skin, the feeling of crushing the other Sovas' head. "I'm sorry...that wasn't fair...I think I need to; my condition is getting worse."

“I’m sure Doctor Brasken did what he could, Sovas,” Ilan said, closing the distance, reaching out, and placing her hand on his forearm. “Your condition is complicated. There’s no easy answer, even for a skilled physician.”

He wanted to lash out at her, tell her that he knew it was complicated because it was in his head, but a part of him held his tongue before he looked up at her. "Complicated...that's a good word for it," He sighed, his shoulders slumping down as he considered if this would be his future. Would he be driven crazy, or would it be something less spectacular, and he would die lying on a bed?

Frowning, she knelt before him when he slumped and placed her hands on his knees. “Do you want to head there now? I’m here, tell me what you want to do. Did something change with your… guest?”

"I don't know." The half-Vulcan mixed a growl and a sigh that conveyed his frustration and didn't seem to justify his feelings. "Inside the holodeck, when hunting Immy, something shifted...my feelings became more intense, all I wanted to do was savage everything...and I don't know why, but it started when I was on the abandoned version of the Vengeance."

“Okay…” Ilan frowned, trying to think. She hadn’t been part of the debacle with Immy, but she had helped in the solution. “Try to focus and see if you can feel what is happening with the entity. You’ve been able to before.”

Had he? Or had the entity just tricked him?

He didn't know now as his hands lifted to his head, and he grasped it tightly, growling again as his fingers pressed against his skull that felt two sizes too small before he looked up at Ilan. "It...feels...angry...upset but scared? I don't know how to describe it; it's...I want to break something; we were in a recreation of the sacking of Troy. It felt good to slaughter and murder the Trojan soldiers, but that was when I first had the anxious, uneasy feeling..."

"Well, I don't find that surprising. It allowed you to do something, and your body was likely in fight or flight... You chose to fight." Reaching up, she grabbed his wrists gently with her hand. "Take deep breaths. Let's get you to sickbay, alright?"

"A-Alright." He nodded, seeming a shadow of himself as he moved to stand under his power, his fingers twitching for a moment as he looked up at her, then frowned before letting the dark-haired woman guide him towards the door and beyond.

Ilan placed her hand on the middle of Sovas' back, rubbing him gently and then reaching up to tap her commbadge. They were off alpha shift, of course.

"Ocara to Brasken."

"Go ahead, Officer Ocara." Daniel picked his head up from the screen he had been studying.

"Doctor, I'm bringing Lieutenant Nyseth to sickbay. He is very unwell and needs to be seen immediately."

"Understood; I will have a med bay prepared." Sure enough, the call was what he expected, considering his attention had been drawn to the screen by the alarm he had set in case Sovas' hitchhiker caused further problems.

When the link was cut, Ilan turned her attention to Sovas and gave him a reassuring smile. "We'll get it figured out, Sovas. Just try to keep steady, keep focused. Do you want me to stay with you or drop you off?"

"Stay." He replied, and while he wasn't one of the door kickers of the Marines or the hard chargers from Security, Sovas had never been a fearful man. Still, with that one word, it was as if he was giving into a lifetime of emotions that had been repressed every time he'd experienced it. His hand tightened around her hand as he met her gaze.

"Then I'll stay." She assured him, walking to the turbolift and continuing to rub his back. "It's going to be alright, Sovas. I promise."

Sovas nodded as they paused at the lift of the door, both he and the entity soothed by Ilan's presence as he pressed the call button and looked at the very plain doors. "My father would be embarrassed and ashamed of me right now...I'm afraid, and his chosen heir can't be afraid and find a way to survive..."

“Well fuck him, first of all. Second of all, he's very far away. He’s not going to find out unless you tell him.” She shrugged slightly and stepped onto the lift with him.

"I had to kill my brother even to become his heir because he wanted the most biologically superior child to survive...I don't think he quite understood what he was talking about." The half-Vulcan chuckled weakly before looking over at Ilan to see her reaction.

"Most Terran men don't." Ilan returned with a snort and shook her head. "Too busy being stubborn and arrogant, thinking they are kings of the world when they are nothing more than another single, sad person in the grand scheme of things. Very few men have earned the right to be as arrogant and proud as they are."

Sovas nodded as he thought of the numerous times they had gone hunting, the beasts and other creatures that the young man had to kill, either as a lesson in survival of the fittest or just a lesson in how cruel the world could be. "You aren't wrong, and my father is one of those who thinks trophies earned him the right to be that way."

"Stop putting stock in his shitty opinion and live your own life, Sovas. We probably won't even be back home during his lifetime. What does it benefit you to continue to live in his shadow?" She asked, lifting a brow and looking at him though she stepped off the lift when the doors opened.

Sovas nodded as he stepped out after her, considering her question since it didn't benefit him, and his father would be long dead by the time they ever saw home again. He looked up to ensure he wouldn't run into anyone as he caught up to Ilan, and they made it to Sickbay.

As the doors to Sickbay opened up, Daniel wasn't far away with his oddly silent tricorder in hand. Two nurses were finishing up in a med bay as they restocked it to Daniel's specific request. Meanwhile, he greeted the two as they entered and directed the medical probe toward Sovas. "Good Evening. What brings you here at this hour?"

"My unwelcome guest," The half-Vulcan frowned as he looked at Brasken and the tricorder. "I...I experienced a very realistic hallucination; I was assaulted by myself and killed them."

"This was after...several violent encounters during a situation on the holodeck." He supplied while reaching up to run his eyes and trying to ignore the exhaustion suddenly washing over him.

Daniel nodded as his eyes went between the operations officer and his tricorder readings. "How very interesting...I likely would have sent for you shortly after Officer Ocara chimed in had she not." The doctor turned and gestured to the med bay as he heard the nurses finish and leave the area. Usually, they would stick around, but considering Sovas' condition, the fewer people within swinging distance, the better.

"Is it alright if I stay?" Ilan asked, looking at Daniel. "He had mentioned he would like if I did on the way here."

The idea was not Daniel's favorite, considering the parasite latched on to Sovas and how it likely moved from host to host. Still, considering the readings, it was likely that the request was made to keep Sovas a bit calmer while he worked, and he would have to keep an eye on things as they went. "For now, yes."

Sovas frowned as he looked between Brasken and Ilan, knowing that they were both real, but for some reason, he felt like they were something out of a dream. Real, but not quite real. However, the longer he stared at them, the more the air around them became fuzzy. It was not fuzzy, more like he was seeing something around them; it reminded him of the alcohol at the festival. When he saw the auras around people, they seemed to distort the air around their bodies but didn't extend very far as he reached out a hand towards Ilan and Brasken's faces. "I...you both have auras, I see them..."

"And on that note..." Daniel trailed off as he took Sovas' hand and moved to lead him to the medical bay more directly. "What can you tell us about these auras? Are there differences between Ilan and myself, or are we essentially the same?" He figured keeping the man's intellect engaged was worth the detour while he got settled in for further tests.

"They...they are the same like it's around both of your bodies," Sovas explained while looking at them, then frowning again as he focused on Brasken. "Yours is moving around your head, like in a wave, and shimmers like a prism breaking up the light; it is very...distracting."

Ilan listened to Sovas and frowned. She recognized him saying that, but it took a second to connect. She placed her hand on the hybrid's back while she followed along. "Sovas... is it like when we were on Anorra? When we had those drinks?"

"Yes," He confirmed, his attention turning towards her and eyes narrowed a little like he was trying to focus on something he saw. "Though without the pleasant intoxication that went with it, it's all decidedly more unpleasant. I might express what I feel as being a little terrifying since I'm feeling violent impulses, and I don't know what to do with them."

"Speaking of..." Daniel started as they reached the biobed, and he left Sovas' side to get a hypospray. "I have developed a cocktail that I think should help significantly with those impulses. A mild sedative mixed with a combination of anti-psychotics tailored to your...physiology." Considering the last time he injected Sovas with something in a situation like this, he essentially tried to kill him, Daniel figured it better to inform him about what was being injected this time to keep any anxiety from that off the table. With that, the doctor pressed the instrument to Sovas' arm, and the soft hiss indicated the delivery of the medication.

At first, Sovas felt panicked rage and fear as he turned his attention immediately onto the doctor, reaching out to grab the other man's wrist as he lifted it away, grip tight as he felt his heart starting to hammer away inside of his chest. "If you have tried to kill me again, I swear they will need to use these facilities to sew you back together." The words came out in a dangerous hiss like the warning of a serpent before it struck. Though as he sat there, he was able to experience his feelings numbing a bit, not as sharp, and he saw the aura fading around Brasken.

"Sovas... Sovas..." Ilan called to the panicked man and placed one hand on his shoulder, one on his back. "You're alright. Take a deep breath. Relax. Dr. Brasken is only going to help you. No one is going to try and kill you."

His focus on the doctor broke the moment he felt other hands on his body, his attention turning to Ilan, frowning as either he or his guest seemed to be trying to figure out this sensation of emotional numbness, a quiet feeling for him that he wasn't used too. Like the calm eye of a storm before the eye wall came barreling back to wreak havoc and destruction. He looked at Ilan and saw the aura fading from her as well. "This...is an unusual sensation; I feel things, but it is like they are quiet but in another place..."

"In his defense, I did try to shock his system last time to remove the life form, which meant trying to make it think he was dying." Daniel looked at the monitors, seeing things stabilize as the medication did its job. He could see a separation of the two brain wave patterns. His eyes narrowed, moving rapidly over the information as he moved around the biobed. The creature could adapt, but adaptation only went so far when the subject's body couldn't absorb everything on a chemical level. "I could hardly attack the thing the same way twice, after all."

Ilan looked at Daniel, her brows raised in a questioning "really" type look. She was aware of what had happened - she'd been told - but that didn't necessarily mean now was the best time to bring it up, given she was trying to help calm Sovas' nerves.

The half-Vulcan's attention went to Brasken as he mentioned trying to kill him to get rid of the entity, his eye narrowing for a moment before the rush of anger peaked and then just went away as he turned his attention back to Ilan. "I didn't try to hurt you, did I? Before whatever Doctor Brasken gave him kicked in I...I don't remember much specifically other than I thought I saw myself trying to attack me."

He paused and frowned again as if considering the words he had said. "Which sounds crazy when I say them out loud."

"No, Sovas, you didn't try to hurt me. You called me to help you." Ilan assured him, her voice low and soothing. She slowly rubbed across his back while pressing lightly on his shoulder to coax him into lying back. "So that is what we are going to do. Trust me."

Sovas frowned and then nodded, letting her guide him back, feeling much calmer, and her presence here allowed him to relax more since he, at the very least, trusted the woman. He let out a slow breath; his heart rate wasn't going a million miles a minute anymore. Brasken would be able to see that the two patterns had completely separated now, while similar, had their recognizable profiles.

Daniel spent most of their conversation watching the monitors after showing little to no remorse over having brought up the subject of the near-attempted murder. He would not apologize for something he had well under control and viewed as a necessary step in his attempts to clear the life form from a crew member. If Sovas took it personally, that was something that he would have to work out on his own. He considered the records for a few minutes before sighing and shaking his head.

"Even with these readings, I still have no way to remove this creature from you. The best at this point would be to chase it to another host...but...perhaps..." The doctor drifted off as he continued watching the screens, and then his hands moved with purpose. "Energy patterns aren't really....but then again..." Snapping his fingers loudly, he raised his head to the pair with a grin. "Two days...I need two days, and we can resolve this for you."

"Two days? After all this time, its really just going to take two days to fix this?" Sovas turned his attention to the doctor, even though he felt his emotions dulled, the skepticism that settled on his face was as clear as day. "Will you be trying to murder me again?"

"Rather the opposite, actually. I do not want to reveal too much with the intelligence and adaptation this has shown, however." Daniel glanced between Ilan and Sovas before speaking again. "Would you prefer sedation or confinement?"

"Sedation unless I prove to be too dangerous." The half-Vulcan replied while considering the cryptic reply from the doctor, though he did suppose Brasken was right. "Two days then."

Ilan had again remained quiet for the exchange, but even she had to admit she had been briefly annoyed by Daniel's delay of two days when Sovas was obviously so very unwell. The explanation as to why did calm her, but she had a million questions she wanted to ask that she knew she might not get the answers.

But she would try.

She looked at Sovas then and gave a small smile. "We'll figure this out."

With a nod, Daniel loaded up the hypospray with a strong sedative and injected Sovas in the neck. "See you in a couple days then." He waited for the solution to completely knock out the man before hooking up the transfusion device to maintain the medication levels for the next couple days and then collecting a few samples and heading out of the med bay with a small tilt of his head at Ilan as he left to their next project.

END