Star Trek: Starbase 777

SMTP -> get_lines(): $str is "250-DM3PR10CA2739404 [D] The confirmation that the message had been successfully delivered, to a PADD that by all means should not be able to ~~fly~~ receive messages any longer. A PADD that had been returning error messages for the past two years. It didn't make sense, it had never made sense, but whatever. That wasn't the point. The point was that... It was still there every time Allan had checked. He'd checked before they left to go to Vulcan, he'd checked as they were singing every song they knew in the shuttle ride there, he'd checked after, he'd checked before they set out to go to the location he'd double checked once, twice, three, maybe four times - because by all accounts it triangulated the location to the middle of the fucking desert. And despite how many times he said he wouldn't have to, Eshen had agreed to go with him there. For some reason. So here they were, trudging through the scorching desert, and even though he'd put on some ~proper desert robes~ instead of some shorts, it was already getting incredibly uncomfortable as he kept walking, his eyes fixed on the tricorder in his hand as it led them to the exact coordinates Allan had put in there hours ago. The device beeped steadily, guiding him towards the location of T'Alea's PADD - or whatever was receiving the messages in its stead. And eventually, it stopped beeping steadily and came to a rapid beep, and above a pile of sand was a small glimmer of metal. But instead of rushing right to it, Allan stopped, unsure of whether to just go right there and figure it out or if he should... take a mental break, so to say. "You know, I think we could probably..." were the first words to come out of the engineer's mouth, before he decided that yes, they could. x_divider

05:24

Nobody said they couldn't have some fun with this. As Allan was always the type to make positive of any situation, he found himself telling Eshen to record him (and then, of course, he would return the favor) literally sliding down the dunes of the desert as if they were snowboarding. And, honestly? It was a pretty fun break from all the walking, and - to be honest, he was no good at it, and that's what also made it fun. He was good at surfing on water, hoverboarding he was okay at, but snow- or, well, dune-boarding? Not as experienced. In fact, he hadn't really done something like this since, well. Since he'd convinced T'Alea to. Leaning his chin on Eshen's shoulder as he watched the videos and pictures as Eshen scrolled through them, the engineer laughed, shaking his head. "Oh, man, that's - those are ridiculous, but - send them to me, will you?" He asked, and then thought about it for a second and added, "Oh, send them to Mephistopheles, too. Fun little update." It'd probably take a while, after all, what with the slower connection in the middle of the desert - in fact, they may not even upload at all if they were unlucky - but they would, eventually, and that's what mattered. After that, his gaze turned back to the metal glaring out of the sand - he had no clue what it was. A PADD? A corner of something else? Some random piece of junk? An entire sunken ship or something? He had no clue, and the thought of it being something else honestly scared him a little as he looked at the area, still resting his chin on the other's shoulder. Whatever it was, it would solve at least part of this mystery. Or maybe it wouldn't. And both of those prospects scared him. "You know... I'm sort of - is it weird if I say I'm almost scared to go closer?"

[D] Ah, the desert. A place that was biologically very well-suited to him. What was probably boiling hot to Allan felt like a bit above room temperature to Eshen (and it was definitely Eshen today - Dion had no place here); he didn't realise he'd gotten used to the comparative cold on the Starbase until he was in an environment that suited him. However, psychologically, it wasn't very well-suited to him at all. The last time he'd been on this planet was when his father had sent him back to do the Kahs-Wan after 'not doing it right' the first time. The first time had been a challenge he hadn't minded overcoming, but the second time... Something about thinking it's all over only for it not to be was demoralising, and his second time had been much more of an ordeal. It did mean he was very qualified to help Allan survive in the Vulcan desert should something happen that prevented them from getting back to their shuttle, but it also sort of meant this desert was a source of trauma for the both of them. As such, while he was wary of too much close body contact in this heat, he often found his hand seeking out Allan's own. Luckily, Allan was an excellent distraction; when he asked Eshen to record him, he had eagerly agreed. Trust Allan to lift the mood even in the middle of the desert. "Sure, I'll send them. You know, this joviality of yours... Well, this is why I love you, you know," he said, turning his head enough to give Allan a lil kiss wherever he could reach. It was also helping his brain not automatically kick into Vulcansona Mode and shut all his emotions down. He didn't want to be like that around Allan. "But I love you still when you're scared - which isn't weird at all. Trepidation is to be expected in this situation. Would you like me to pick the... Metal thing up? It's probably going to be really hot to the touch anyway." Metal. Desert sun. He was surprised it hadn't just straight-up melted.

Whenever Allan was here, he blamed his intolerance to the heat on the fact that he had lived in Boston for a good portion of his life; never that he was human. Puerto Rico was like, almost this hot in the summer, right, so - but he knew it really was because he was human anyways, and he was glad that Eshen at least was doing well in the temperature. Still, despite his hand being so sweaty, he was more than happy to hold Eshen's hand back when the other wanted to - although he made the decent effort of wiping it on his clothes before doing so. And, in more ways than one - he was always welcome to be a distraction. He'd probably gone an hour or so ago about the making of sand into glass and how the sand here was absolutely made from different substances than the sand on Earth, and therefore made different kinds of glass - and he'd likely gotten very technical with it, too, but somehow he made it all make sense, maybe. He hoped he did, at least. "Thank youuu, I appreciate it," he said as Eshen confirmed he'd send the videos, and then he laughed, smiling once again as he felt Eshen give him a kiss on the cheek, taking his chin off his shoulder and leaning over so that he could actually properly kiss him again. Mwah. "I love that you can make me feel loved with words I don't even understand, I don't think I could do this without you," he said, truly not understanding the word 'joviality' but he could assume it meant something positive. divider

23:57

And then he had to worry about what that next word- "Like uh, trepi... trepiation, was it? Is it like precipitation at all? Because despite the amount of times I've been here, I don't think I've been to Vulcan at a time when it rained, so..." He moved away and looked around at the endless expanse of sand and rock, feeling a mixture of awe and unease. For a moment, feeling a pang of fear as he contemplated the possibility of being stranded in the desert. The desert was beautiful in its own way, but it was also unforgiving and harsh and did it rain? He had no idea, but he was grateful to have Eshen by his side. When Eshen offered to pick up the metal object, Allan hesitated for a moment, then nodded. "Sure, go ahead, just, um- be careful, okay?" He still followed him there, of course, wondering what it could be. Unbeknownst to both of them, the object was actually much larger than could be picked up - it was the corner of a very large, rectangular shaped metal object that was buried underneath all of the sand - and if the sand was cleared off of it, it would reveal an entire door akin to that of a safe.

Right. Trepidation and joviality: two words he'd have to tell Allan about later, if he remembered. For now, he laughed and said he'd explain another time, and then stepped forward and tried to pick up the metal thing with a gloved hand, and when that didn't work, he started unburying the object with his hands, which felt terribly undignified. "The sand is bloody hot," he said, shaking his hands to get it off them. "Should've brought a spade. Ugh." He kept at it, stubbornly, because he didn't want Allan to burn his hands on the object or the sand. His hands were too valuable for engineering and other things to get hurt. It wasn't long before he realised this was going to take too long on his own, though, and no amount of heat tolerance was making his hands burn less when the sand was the temperature of near-boiling water, thought the gloves helped slightly. Frustrated, he rolled a one on his wisdom check and just fucking plunged both his hands into the sand as far as he could around the object and started pulling up with his hands.

At first, Allan was about to be extremely confused and concerned on why Eshen said the sand was bloody and hot, before remembering that no, that's just a term Eshen used. Well, other people used it too, but - yeah. Anyways, after getting over that, and hearing the term spade, he immediately ran back a few steps to where he'd left the little 'snowboard' they'd acquired and surfed down the dunes in. "Well - it's not exactly, um, spade-like, but it might help?" He held the board out to Eshen. While he admired the man's determination, he was hoping that it would at least help his boyfriend out somewhat - and hopefully stop him from burning his hands in the sand attempting to pull out such a large metal object from the ground. "Maybe if we just uh, start pushing the sand around it away from it instead of picking it up, that might be ... a little faster," he looked at the board and thought about how they could really make it any quicker. "Maybe if we split the board in half...?" Would that even work? He had no idea, but he laughed and tried to start to kick at some of the sand anyways on the opposite side that Eshen was at, pushing it slowly away from the ... whatever this was.

After clearing more sand away from the metal structure, it would become more apparent that the metal object was truly just the corner of something even larger than either of them could lift- some sort of large hatch door to something with a combination lock on it akin to that of an old-style safe. It was also clear at some point that it wouldn't be possible to dig it completely out - it was just the tip of something buried far deeper under the sand, at least 5 feet or so under.

He pulled out his hands before they got too burned after realising that 1. Oof ouch metal hot, and 2. With gloves on his hands, he didn't have enough friction on the metal to be able to pick it up, and he wasn't going to try that again without gloves. He shook his hands as though somehow that would make them less hot, then took the board from Allan and started digging; his hands stung, but he grit his teeth and bore it. "I don't know about splitting it in half," he said as he dug, "I know it's a little overprotective of me, probably, but I'm just really worried about you overheating." Vulcan was like if the Sahara desert was a whole planet, after all. Even Vulcans stayed inside when it was high noon. "Can we open the door of this thing while it's still stuck in the sand? Or just phaser a hole in it or something?"

"We were just walking and surfing dunes and you're worried about me overheating from pushing some sand around with a board?" Allan asked, tilting his head with a smirk, although it soon became a frown as he tried to think of any better ways to do this. Thankfully, he'd packed them plenty of water - which he actually took a sip of and then handed the bottle off to Eshen - and even more thankfully, Eshen had suggestions when he had none. "Phasering a hole, I feel like could risk harming whatever's inside, but opening the door... that might be... yeah, stop digging, I can maybe..." he moved around so that he could sit against the sand and lean against the structure, looking at the door with his hand on his chin as he played around with the combination lock on it. "Yeah, this is one of those vintage shits. Good thing I binged those vintage heist movies a bit ago, or else my next suggestion was to pour our water on the sand to make it easier to move." Which was a bad idea and he knew it. It would not, actually, make the sand any easier to move and it would waste their water. "So like, if it's accurate to the movies, all I have to do is like... twist it until I hear a click, kinda. Hopefully." He laughed, and then pressed his ear closer (but not against, he wasn't that stupid!) to the door and listened as he started turning the dial verrrrry slowly.

"Surfing the dunes was veryh necessary," Eshen said, before taking the water bottle and having a sip and stepping back to let Allan do his thing (he didn't really have anything to contribute), though he wasn't actually that thirsty. It helped that Vulcans didn't really sweat - at least, not as much. It wasn't very practical when you lived on a desert planet; the benefits of sweating were not outweighed by the loss of water. Mostly their internal biology had adapted to become used to functioning in such temperatures. The side benefit of this was that he didn't ever have to deal with looking gross and sweaty after a workout or anything else physically strenuous, which his vanity greatly enjoyed.

"Very," Allan said with a fruity laugh, now on the... third? Number? Truth be told, he had never cracked a safe like this before. He was a fucking software engineer, not an actual old-time heist master, but he still, for some reason, thought he could do this as he heard the numbers barely click as he turned the dial. Like, they were always so cool and sexy while they did it, so clearly all he had to was be equally - well, he was anything but cool right now in the desert sun, actually. Additionally, the numbers were arranged was just a little... strange. It seemed to be that the numbers were just 3... 3.... 3.... 3.... "Is it just-" he leaned away from the safe door as he went to the 3 again, looking at it with a puzzled expression on his face. "Okay, I'm starting to think that maybe I'm not doing this ri-" Well, he'd never know if he was doing it right or not, actually, because the door swung open and whacked him right in the fucking face. Cool. "Shit, what the-" he stumbled back into whatever direction Eshen was in, grabbing the other man's arm as he looked at the safe, now with the door wide open and a - a hand retreating back inside. "Um... hi..?" (edited)

If one were to peer inside, they'd easily see a much larger room below the door, about the size of a small kitchen or a large bedroom, with another door inside and to the left. And, of course, the Vulcan man who stood inside in a green casual robe, looking up at the two ... "Visitors?" He asked, pushing a bit of his gray hair behind his ear and squinting at them, looking to be at least 90 years old. "You are here because...?"

He instinctively held Allan behind him as the potential threat of what appeared to be... some guy in a safe? He looked down. No, some guy in a secret underground bunker. He wasn't actually surprised by that; a lot of people lived underground on such a hot planet. He gave the Vulcan a ta'al and a blank look, not sure exactly how much emotion he might find offensive, and pushed a bit of his own brown hair behind his ear to draw attention to its pointiness. "We came here tracking some sort of signal. Allan's... Actually, he'd probably explain better." He stepped aside so Allan could talk to the man, though kept a hand on his arm. He would hold his hand, but there was another Vulcan right in front of them.

"Um-" Allan was a bit frazzled at this point, not having expected a whole entire fucking person to be down here, but - he hadn't exactly been expecting finding a PADD in the middle of the desert straight up, either, so. He looked down at Eshen's hand holding his arm and took a deep breath, stepping a little closer to the bunker, as if it would shade him a little from the sun. "Right, so... about... two years ago, I lost ... someone close to me in a shuttlecraft accident, and- well, it was assumed from the evidence that there was nothing left of the accident, and that would have included her PADD device - which has... returned errors when messages have been sent to it for the past two years. But um, sometime last year, it started not giving that error and said that messages were being received, which implies the device is online, somewhere, and I triangulated its location to... well, exactly to here." He took out his own PADD and brought up his calculations, handing it carefully to the Vulcan.

The Vulcan gave a ta'al back to Eshen, listening to both of the men as they explained why they were here. A PADD device? He had... hm. He took the PADD device that the red-haired one gave him and looked at it curiously before nodding and setting it down on his table, turning around and putting a hand on his chin as he thought about which PADD device it could be talking about. "You can come down if you'd like," he said, stepping aside and looking through what looked like a filing cabinet, "it may... take me a while to find the device. I - my name is Borak, I... study the connectivity of our satellites out here in the middle of the desert, naturally a lot of devices are needed to accomplish this purpose."

Eshen looked at the entrance, hesitating (perhaps wisely), looking at Allan questioningly to see what he thought of all this, before picking Allan up (unnecessarily) and hopping in. He stared at Borak for a moment to see if he was about to try any shit, then looked around, scanning the area. "I am Eshen," he said flatly, putting Allan down. "I am afraid I do not know much about technology, but let me know if I can help, for his sake."

Borak nodded as the visitors came into the room. The room itself was very plain: there was a small mini-fridge, what looked like a pantry, and a counter in one corner of the room - the rest was filing cabinets stacked against the wall, a rectangular rug across most of the room, and a small, square table with 3 chairs around it. Not too far away from the table was a door with no handle on this side of it. Borak eventually pulled out a few PADDs from the filing cabinet, setting them on the table and looking back at the screen of Allan's PADD to see if any of them - each of them labeled with stickers that had numbers written on them - matched the device ID of the one on Allan's screen. He shook his head and took the few PADDs back, put them back into the filing cabinets, and took out a few more, comparing them again. He did this what must have been three times before he spoke again, handing a PADD to Allan. "This one," he said.

As on edge as Allan was, he laughed some when Eshen picked him up to hop down into the bunker, smiling up at him before sitting down at one of the chairs at the table, watching as Borak made... several attempts at finding the device and then handed him one. "I'm .. Allan," he said, taking the PADD into his hands and turning it over to look at the number written on the stickers. "..thank you." The numbers seemed to match the one he had been looking for this entire time - but the suspicious thing was that the PADD looked completely undamaged. Perhaps it had been in some sort of container in the explosion, and that container was somehow found by someone before anyone else got there to investigate the site and had its contents sold elsewhere? He wasn't really too sure. Regardless, when he clicked the button to turn the device on, it failed to do so. "Um - Eshen, did you still have the charger I brought...?" He asked, not sure if he'd packed it or not (he had).

"There is a charger there that should function," Borak said, gesturing to the plug in the wall which did, in fact, have a charger plugged into it. "Let me know if it is not suitable, some of these are older models."

"Oh! Oh, okay, um, thanks-" Allan said, grabbing the cord of the charger and then pausing as he brought the charger's end to the PADD, looking at the charger and then back straight across at Eshen as he unplugged the charger slowly, unsure of how to proceed here, but he - while he was trying to keep a straight face, Eshen would probably be able to tell that he looked scared, somewhat. "Um, I... I think it's the - wrong model, yeah, Esh-Eshen, would you mind um, com.. comparing the two and um, handing me the one from the bag...?" The two chargers, he'd meant, but it was hard to get across his words when he was really just trying to tell Eshen without tipping off Borak that at the end of the charger was a suspicious amount of fucking blood, an amount that made it seem like Borak hadn't just pricked his finger or something while he was handling it, considering how it was sort of a dark green all around the cord in different spots.

It was part of Eshen's job to read microexpressions, so he picked up on Allan's fear immediately - but he'd smelled the old dried blood before that. Klingon nose. He reached into the bag (some kind of backpack?) and got out the charger to compare them and approached Allan, handing him the charger and glancing at Borak behind them. If only he'd brought his Bat-leth... He had no idea what the capabilities of this guy were, but many Vulcans were trained in Suus Manha to keep themselves physically fit and disciplined. He glanced at the man's body type (checking him out, but in a different way than usual) to try and judge how much of a threat he was, but even Vulcans that looked wimpy could be surprisingly agile and capable. He said he spent his time studying satellites or whatever it was, but that could be a lie... Then again, he had no idea what the hell else someone would be alone out here in the desert for.

"Oh, um, yeah, that's - the correct one," he said out loud, whispering a smaller 'thanks' to Eshen as he took the charger without the ... dried blood on it and plugged it into the PADD, pressing the button to turn the device on and watching as the screen lit up with bated breath. It came to the home screen just fine, and there was that same default PADD background screen that was typically issued to Starfleet officers. After swiping the screen to presumably unlock it, he was met with a screen to enter in a passcode. T'Alea only ever used one passcode while he knew her, so it must have been- Access denied. Further incorrect attempts will result in the wiping of data from this device. Allan stared at the screen in confusion. PADDs typically... did not have that sort of protection mechanism, especially not for standard-issue PADDs given to low-ranking Starfleet officers. "That's... Borak, how do you test the connections of the satellites when the PADD isn't unlocked?"

"I've managed to send messages to it from the other devices to test its connection - it receives a notification when it receives the message, although I can not read the contents of the message due to its locking mechanism." Borak stated simply. It was hard to tell his body type behind his rather loosefitting robe, but he didn't look particularly strong, at least. His hands were a bit calloused at the palms, but the rest of him didn't seem to be that different from your average 90-year-old Vulcan who lived in an underground bunker in the desert. "It is possible that someone has tampered with it before I acquired it, or that it was damaged during the explosion."

Eshen thought he looked a bit old for a mere 90-year old Vulcan, but hey, not everyone could age gracefully. "I don't see why someone would tamper with it, unless they had some sort of... agenda, or if the contents of the PADD were very classified." Lots of Starfleet things were classified, to be fair, but this would mean the PADD was classified beyond most of Starfleet's clearance, including theirs. "But still, that sounds more likely to me. I don't really see why being damaged would change the password to something else, and that the device apparently is in some sort of mode where if you enter the code too many times it wipes the entire device... My PADD just locks me out. Unfortunately, it's not within my skillset to get past such a barrier." He glanced at Allan, the l33t hacker.

It was true. Not everyone could age as gracefully, and Borak was clearly an example - he looked as if a 90-year-old human was cosplaying a Vulcan. "It is more likely that it would be a result of being tampered with, then," he said with a small nod, it did make sense that damage would not make such software changes to a device like that. "I hope that you are able to find out what has happened here, perhaps T'Alea had some part in something unknown." He stated. It was unlikely that the PADD would be tampered with for any other reasons. "You are welcome to take the PADD with you, I can easily get another one to run my experiments with."

Allan nodded as Eshen pointed out that damage wouldn't change the password. "Yeah, it... wouldn't really do that, so... I'll-" he clicked the PADD's screen on again, looking through the contents of the screen that were able to be displayed without unlocking it, and sighed. "Yeah, I'll have to use my tools back home to try and get into this-" he froze when Borak mentioned T'Aleas's name. He hadn't... it... "Thank you, um- we should... probably get... going, then, but - just in case, do... do you have any information I can contact you with?" He asked, his voice shaking slightly as he held his own PADD out to the other man.

"Yes," Borak nodded, inputting his contact information. He did not see why the boy would need to contact him, but he figured it was no harm in giving him the information. "I wish you well."

"You... too," Allan looked back at Eshen as he put the two PADDs back into his bag and then looked up at the hatch of the door again, not exactly ready to go back into the desert sun but the sooner they did that, the sooner they'd be out of it again. "I'm... honestly not sure how to get back up, are you gonna have to lift me?" He smiled a little, seeing as there was strangely no ladder or anything of the sort.

Eshen's ear twitched. How did he know T'alea's name? Allan seemed intent in leaving, though, so he didn't want to stay and question Borak further. They could always take note of this location and come back to ask more questions later. "I can climb up and then help you up. Unless... Borak, how do you get back up?" He said, looking at the man.

Borak looked up at the opening, rather confused. He squinted at Eshen and then looked up again after a solid like, 30 seconds, then nodded. "Ah. I do not often go up, but when I do, I do have a... wait here." He said, then went through the push-door to the next room. He came back perhaps a minute or two later with a small stepladder. It looked brand new, really. "I apologize for forgetting this earlier, but you may use it."

Allan, being as scared as he was now, hesitated upon grabbing the ladder but did, opened it up, and sat down on the top step - about two or three feet off the ground - to make sure it was sturdy enough. He stayed sitting there as he looked back at Borak. "...you don't go up often?"

"I," the man paused, and shook his head not once, but twice, as if he was trying to get some sort of bug out of his hair. "... do not. I have most of my supplies here and rarely make the trip back home."

He wondered if Borak had been doing this job for long. It seemed a bit boring and isolated, even for a Vulcan. He had little else to do but say, "Right, well, we should be going, but we'll be in touch." The urge Allan to go up the steps so he could hop on out of this weird little bunker and they could get back to the shuttle, though just before he hopped up from the last step he glanced back to give the room and Borak one last look to see if he missed anything.

Allan went up the steps and out of the bunker, back into that hot sand, but he was at least glad to be out of there. Meanwhile, Eshen would notice from this viewpoint a few things he did not notice while on a level view: an entire row of hyposprays sitting on top of the filing cabinet, a faint blue glow coming from the above the push door, and - as the opening was positioned sort of close to the minifridge - a strangely rotten smell that, combined with the smell of dried blood to be absolutely rancid. Borak himself simply stood and gave a small nod. "I will promptly respond to any messages I receive from you, then - it takes a while for messages to go out here."

That scent... His Klingon nose told him that was either food that was very, very out of date, or corpse stink. He considered asking about it, or any of the other details, but he wanted to discuss things with Allan before he asked any prying questions about the man, and since he couldn't do that within earshot of a sharp-eared Vulcan, he wasn't going to risk conflict and therefore Allan's life just to satisfy his own curiosity. He wanted Allan to find closure, but it was more important that he, you know, stayed alive. He was aware that it would be hard to get back in after they left, but hopefully if they needed to they could knock on the door again with the (very fair) excuse of asking if he had any water to spare. With his course of action decided, he too left the bunker, and then as soon as the door was closed, pulled Allan close to him and whispered: "Either someone died in there or his food is utterly spoiled. What do you want to do?" (edited)

Allan's gaze was currently fixated at the ground, biting the inside of his lip a little. When Eshen pulled him close to him, though, he opened his mouth slightly to take a deep breath, looking up at Eshen as the question hung in the air. What did he want to do? "I..." he started to speak, but he couldn't shake the feeling that there was something sinister going on in that bunker, and the thought of someone having died in there only made his fears more acute. He was scared, panicked, upset- and he felt sort of helpless all at the same time. "I... I don't know." He looked down at the sand and then swallowed, trying to take another breath to say more after that but all that really happened was that trembling feeling that came when he knew if he spoke another fucking word he'd start crying - so he didn't, took the deep breath, and looked back at Eshen again, green eyes giving away the emotions inside of him without the words.

The advantage of him being in Vulcansona mode right now was that he could keep himself together while Allan was breaking apart. He looked into the man's eyes, then wrapped one arm around him and another on the back of his head to gently pull Allan's forehead onto the crook of his neck. He couldn't do it for too long since it was hot, but he hoped it would still help. He kissed the top of Allan's head, even though it was probably a bit sweaty and gross. "The way I see it, we either go back in or we leave. We can have some time to rest - and cry a bit if you'd like - and then think about it then, or I can make the decision for the both of us right now. I will say, though, that... I know you want closure, and I want that for you, but I don't want to get into trouble alone in the desert like this." Fighting some random Vulcan in a bunker and dying was not what he'd call a warrior's death (or a Starfleet officer's), and, frankly, he'd had enough terrible experiences in the Vulcan desert. It was possible they could come back later with more people, too.

Yeah, it helped. It helped more than Allan expected it would, actually, as he wrapped his arms around his boyfriend and - for not too long, because after all, it was hot - squeezed him tightly, even if it may not have registered so tightly for the other. When Eshen kissed the top of the head he breathed out in the same way he did as if he was about to laugh, cry, or both, but before he could do either he pulled away, simply leaving his hands resting on Eshen's wrists as he leaned back. "I don't.." he looked down and shook his head, somewhat actually recomposing himself as he looked at Eshen and took another breath, sort of puffing up his cheeks a little in thought before he breathed out a sigh. "Does it ... sound weird if I say I'd rather cry somewhere colder?" He asked, his eyes showing a little bit of a smile even if he didn't actually have one at the moment. "It's ... sort of ... we'd need to do more before trying to do anything there, and - I think it's just best to go back to the station, I... work with whatever," one hand lifted up the bag around his shoulder that had the PADD on it, "whatever's on the device, try and maybe... contact someone he might possibly work for if he's really... a researcher, I guess... but-" he squeezed the palms of Eshen's hands and let go with another deep breath, "there's not much we can do here right now without knowing anything else."

Eshen laughed, and it felt like he hadn't done so for weeks even though he'd only been playing his Vulcansona for ten minutes. Despite everything, it was a relief. "You make me laugh at the most unexpected times..." He gave Allan a lil smooch. "It's not weird at all, ashayam. Let's go back to the station and focus on what's within our ability, then. Or, well, yours." And so he pulled Allan gently by the hand towards the direction of their shuttle.

When Eshen laughed, it was hard not to laugh with him, and then his smile did actually come back to him now, especially upon receiving the lil smooch. Very important. "You're the one whose laugh is so damn contagious, amado mío," he said, still laughing with a blush on his face as he pushed a hand against his side jokingly. Affectionately. Both, as he used that same hand to hold Eshen's when he pulled him gently in the direction of their shuttle. "No, no, ours," he corrected, after all- "I mean, I'm hoping we don't have to get uh, whatever... Vulcan... security authorities? Involved, but, I think you'd do a lot better talking with them than I would," he followed up his words with a lean up to give Eshen a kiss on the forehead just 'cause. He didn't do the talking because... mostly because he was never all too great with speaking to authorities on, well, anything unless he knew them well. Like Mephistopheles. And Alizati. And fuck, he missed them so much. [D] And, well, luckily for them, they were going home - station home, that was. Did Allan start crying, like, 10 minutes into the shuttle ride? Maybe. Did Eshen introduce him to Dolly Parton during the shuttle ride? Also yes, and that, combined with singing along to nearly every Queen song and a billion other jams, were more than enough to have Allan not quite forget, but in fact - actually look forwards to what was to come.