Run in
Posted on Tue Sep 27th, 2022 @ 12:40am by Commander Dean House & Lieutenant Commander Bonnie "Bon-Bon" Durnell
Mission:
*CD*
Location: Deck 9
Timeline: Current - Before Survival 101
Dean stopped a moment once he was far enough away from the Ready Room doors they wouldn’t stay open after he passed through them onto the Bridge. Smiling lightly, reaching to thumb the returned pip. Crossing the Bridge over to the Turbolift. Without thinking about it he called for the deck that he and Bonnie had been working on the transwarp beaming. Stepping out of the lift into the corridor.
Not looking up from her data PADD Bonnie was multitasking. She was trying to file her mission report, check data related to transwarp beaming and walk at the same time. She also kept switching the page back to the planet report and Dean (Pretty Boy)'s status after hearing he was injured. Her worry was external as she barreled full steam down the hall.
Dean wasn’t quite expecting to see her, in fact, was he actually avoiding her? At least subconsciously? It was quite possible, but only if he didn’t want her to see him like this.
He may have seen her before she ever got close to him, but with her attention diverted, her eyes down, she ran straight into him like a car into a wood fence. She stumbled, twisted, tripped over the four entangled feet and fell forward. In a mess of hair, bodies and equipment she fell.
There wasn’t any catching her this time, or even half doing so. Nope, they both went down. Dean didn’t get near as all tangled up as she did as he wasn’t going at warp seven. Regardless they did. With a bit of a thud, he landed on his back. Taking a moment before fully seeing who it was, Dean just laid there a moment.
“Ugh, oh my, sorry, sorry.” She said as she began picking herself and her belongings up, her hair still filling her vision. She had no idea it was Dean. It wasn’t until she pulled her hair back, picked up her PADD and looked up slightly did she get a catch of who she had run into. He was looking back at her with that big dumb grin he always had, and she was in a mood.
“Ugh, it’s you.” She said striking him firmly with her PADD. Then she looked closer at his face. “I knew it. I had heard you had gotten into a fight.” She raised the PADD again, “Why,” she struck him with it. “Didn’t,” she struck him again. “You,” and again. “Let them heal you?” She struck one final time as the sound of her PADD cracking filled the silent hall.
“Yeah it’s me. You know, you didn’t have to get up. I was quite comfortable with you on top.” Yes there was that grin, certainly at the position that they’d been in. Getting up once she had. Looking to actually see where he was. Oh..okay, that was not the intended deck. Also, here it came.
The part he was not looking forward to when he saw her again. Dean wasn’t going to really attempt to stop her from doing it. If she needed to, to get it out, he was going to let her. As long as she went from worry hitting to rather violent hitting. Waiting for her to finish before even trying to get a word in. That thing before, like in the bay. Pulling her in close to hug her, again, if she let him. Or did her little half struggle thing, then gave in. “I did let them heal me. Just….not all of it…Kins.”
Her brow furrowed in anger partially at the weird nickname as he had not yet discovered her real one, but mostly at his stubborn reliance on self healing. “You’re an ass. You know it? You chose to walk around with those bruises when you know damn well they can fix you in a heartbeat.” She reared back.
“And another thing, you do know your weapon that you love so much, has a wide beam stun setting right? You don’t have to play macho man with your fists every chance you get.” She was fuming and flustered and for some reason still fumbling with her equipment now that she had to deal with a broken PADD. Still she would be grateful later that it had saved her place.
She was let to rear back, not that he was going to keep her there anyway. That was her choice. “I’m aware they can, and I chose not to for a reason.” Dean would even try to help her with the PADDs if she’d let him. “Yes…but, they don’t when the power cell runs out. Besides, which would you be more angry at? My getting hurt but alive, and wanting to heal some my way or having not done anything and letting Nora and Remal get overwhelmed, captured, hurt or dead?”
“Who… who is Nora?” She asked before shrugging it off as him being quirky again. “You know the answer. I’d rather you do your duty to the mission. But, use your head.” She tapped her temple with a finger, her only free finger. “You’re no good to anybody dead, and as far as I’m aware, you’re not invincible.” She paused, “Are you?”
Dean started to answer who he meant by Nora, but she’d already moved on. “I did use my head actually.” She could take that one of two ways, or both ways. She’d probably take it as the obvious one, the punching bag. “I’m not sure. Should we test it out?”
“What, test my theory? You’re just trying to push my buttons aren’t you?” Flustered she looked down the hall. “Which way are you heading anyway?” She asked with a roll of her eyes.
“Maaaybe..” Giving a bit of a thought as he moved to fall in step with her. “I’m not sure I really gathered a decision on where I was going. I just ended up here.”
“See, not using your head again. Anyway, I only wanted to know so I could go the other way. If you’re going to be so reckless with your life, why would I want to know you better. You would just end up another person I’d have to cry over losing.”
“You know just as well as I do, it was a joke.” Dean shook his head a little bit. “I don’t particularly like seeing you cry, besides. It’s me, you’d probably rejoice.” He didn’t mean that last part, now just trying to get her to smile. “Um. Oh! I know what my brain was thinking. I was headed back to the bay to see if there was something else to come up with. We still have time.”
“It wasn’t funny. Of course I’d cry over you, ya big dummy. You’re my friend. We’ve know each other for a while now and if I lost you it would feel like I’d be losing a part of myself. Besides, who would make Deanwhiches if you ended up vaporized?” She was frustrated but sincere with her words.
Dean sighed and dropped the act all the way now. “I love you too, Bonnie. I don’t want anything to happen to you either. You also don’t have to wait until I’m around to get me to make you one. You can just call and ask.”
He had used the 'L' word causing her cheeks to burn. She was confident they weren't there in their relationship and that they were just friends. But the thought occurred to her that maybe he had received the wrong signals. She knew many boys over the years who had gotten their wires crossed. Instead of nipping the bud right away, she opted to chicken out.
Instead she turned away and commented, "Maybe later on that sandwich. I, uh, I need to run these calculations through the simulator. I'm trying what you suggested and changing space time to think of space as the object in motion instead of the object being transported. Lots to do, okay?" She was hoping he would leave it at that.
There was an eyebrow raised a little, as he caught the blush. Dean really didn’t expect anything else. He knew what way he meant it, figuring so did she. Being there was no fuss over it, and she wanted to get back to what she was doing. The food he did say she didn’t have to wait, not that he said right this second. “I thought you finished that thought,” giving a little shrug. “Okay, I’m going to go see if I can remember what the hell it was I was doing down here or going to I guess.”
"Um, okay, see you then, um later." She gathered up her things and hurried down the hall, not looking back. She was honest in that she had calculations to run, but then she always did. What she didn't say was the Captain had signed her up for a survival class she would be attending later that day.
