Whiskey Straight
+8 Hours from Operation Snake-Staff.
He could smell the smoke, imprisoned in the amber liquor. It nipped at his nostrils, daring to singe his throat.
John held the glass of Canadian whiskey like it was an old photograph, some key to an old forgotten memory. But there were no memories to imbibe in the glass, John didn’t drink. Not regularly. Instead the only thing inside, glazing the edges when he rolled his wrist, were promises.
Both old and new.
He took another soft sniff from the glass before rubbing his head with his other hand, his elbow resting on the glowing bar top inside Quarks on DS9.
The debriefing for Operation Snake-staff had gone on for hours and he still hadn’t slept since it all… happened. The additional discovery of the Borg Pocket Research zone had meant there was much more to go over. The fact that he had relieved himself of command for being emotionally compromised also meant there was more to talk about…
He set the glass back down, unsipped, and briskly pried the captain pips off his collar. They bunched together in his palm, and John thoroughly debated dropping them into his glass and drinking them down too. He slammed them down to the counter in a pile and snatched up the glass again.
The smell was agonizing.
He wanted to drink it so bad. Everything was telling him he should. After all, he had in essence lost the two most important women in his life in the same hour.
He had lost Ilana and he had lost the Albion.
No one in the bar around him could fault him for drinking away his woes. Quarks even had whiskey in stock for just these occasions. As a human, it was almost expected of him to drink in a moment like this… as the sun rose somewhere, blissfully unaware of what was lost the night before. Resigning himself he brought the glass close again so the bristles of his beard scraped the cup’s lip.
Lord, it wasn’t even watered down with ice.
Straight, strong, thick.
He wanted to try and drink it all away, even though he knew full well it wouldn’t work.
He wanted to drink it so bad.
… but he knew she wouldn’t have wanted him to.
The glass sagged away from his mouth again as he just stared at it, both elbows entrenched on the counter.
There was an audible groan that rolled down the bar, John had been at it with the same glass for near an hour. Even Woadie was getting impatient. Morn groaned audibly. There were whispers back by the dabo table of odds. Hadron kept his eye on the Human, after all, he had already paid but he had never known a human to buy a drink only to hold it.
John allowed the smell of it to get him drunk, that and the combination of exhaustion and physical weariness left by hours of adrenaline and shock. It was a potent cocktail to mix with Canadian whiskey. But, although John didn’t drink much (never outside of social engagements), he still preferred whiskey straight. No chasers.
But oh, how he was weak. He didn’t need to be strong anymore. He had already failed everyone.
Another breath of the fumes and he moved the glass to his forehead, rapping the edge into it again and again. Thump… thump… thump.
To anyone unaware this would appear to be the strangest predrink ritual of any culture. But, as it stood, there was only one person in the bar truly watching Traise that actually knew what it all meant.
John was still in many ways unaware. He buried his face into the glass, his nose clenching closed out of sheer reflex. The burn of the whiskey was already rolling down his neck before it even graced his lips.
And that was it. The realization flashed in front of his eyes and John went numb. It was over… he was done.
He tilted the glass back and the shadow from the doorway assumed its place next to him.
“I heard about your mate.”
John’s eyes clenched and he licked his still dry lips, “What do you want, Kul?”
“It should be obvious, I’m offering my condolences." There was no reply. "I know if anything ever happened to my mate-”
“Yeah, well it didn’t.” He lowered his hand to look at the Klingon warrior. The man appeared the same as he did half a day earlier, but his mode wasn’t tense. There was a look of honest empathy in his face before he flagged Hadron down.
“What are you drinking?”
“Canadian Whiskey,” it was a lie. He hadn’t drank a drop.
“Occasions of mourning like this require Bloodwine.” Kul flipped a strip of latinum on the counter, significantly overpaying.
“Well, you’ll forgive me if I stick with this,” another breath brought the burning into his lungs. Begging for the bitterness on his tongue.
The Klingon’s large hand cupped a mug of red, “A toast, to the departed.”
“Do you have to?” John turned to chastise the man.
Kul merely lowered his drink back down to the counter, “The war is over. We don’t have to be enemies.”
“Yeah? Well we sure as hell don’t have to be friends,” John tried for the drink, he needed it now more than ever.
“And why not?” There was an ounce of patronization in the voice, just enough, that it set John off. The truest irony of his life was that for a man who patronized everyone an awful lot he sure didn’t take kindly to it himself.
The whiskey was slammed down with such fervor the whole line at the bar looked for the briefest of moments as John posted an accusatory finger at the Klingon’s square, bearded, jaw. “Why not? I can give you twenty-three reason right now. All names. And you know what?” his arms flailed out, “I could give you about six-hundred and seventy more if you gave me the time. We lost twelve ships in the Kargas Counter Attack. When you used that virus encoded in my logs to shut down half our fleet’s targeting sensors.”
“We were at war.”
“No, Kul!” he jabbed his finger into the Klingon’s solid chest, “You were after power. Glory,” John practically spit the word, “Prestige.” John shifted back towards his spot and glass, the fumes making his head light after the shouting. Kul was still silent, but John couldn’t let it lie, he turned back one last time. “You want to know why we can’t be friends? Why I can’t admire you as an equal, or treat you with the respect you desire as my rival? That’s why. They are why. You are nothing more than a murderer to me, and I will never forget that. For them, I can never forget that.” The ambient music of the bar filled in the silence. John went back to cupping his glass, and started adding more promises to it.
“What can I do then?”
“What?” John spat.
“How do I make amends? That time is behind us now, and we need to move forward. What can I do to make up for their loss? How I can I start to balance it, make things right?” For the first time between them, one of them took a drink. Bloodwine flowed down an exasperated throat.
John stopped, a strange glimmer of something he once heard echoing Machiavellian in his ears. “Well, it’s a lot harder to save a life than it is to take one…”
Kul looked over, “What?”
“It’s easy to take a life Kul, but it is sure as hell a lot harder to save someone’s life. Truly save them.”
The Klingon looked defiant, and a hair bewildered, “We captain starships. We save people all the time?”
“Do you, Kul? Do you count them? Do you keep track of them after you let them go, give them their second chance? Save them from the cold abyss of space or worse? Do you make sure that everyone aboard that craft you rescue make it to where they are going safely, that their homes aren’t left empty? That they are not out risking it all again tomorrow?
“Trust me, Kul, it is a lot harder to save a life, truly save someone, than it is to take their life away from them.”
Kul thought about this, and weighed it like any other challenge, “One life saved for every life I’ve taken against you?”
John gave a solid, appraising look over the man and the accord they were striking, “A life for every crewman I lost from the Farseer. And a life for every member of my Fleet we lost from crewman to captain given up to you and Kargas. Do that and I will maybe start to think about you as something other than a monster. Do that and I debate giving you a chance.”
“A life saved for every life lost? Sounds easy enough.”
“It’s harder than it sounds,” Traise grinned.
“Then we have a deal,” Kul outstretched a hand.
John grabbed it, “And no putting people in danger to only save them, that doesn’t count.”
“John, please… do you really think I woul-”
John hadn’t let go, his grip was a vice, “It doesn’t count, Kul.”
“Fine, deal.”
They shook, then returned their attentions forward to their drinks. Both a little lost from where they were before they crossed paths. Silence again bonded between them.
“You know,” Kul said, “I finally realized where you got the name Snake-staff from?”
“Hmm?” John looked over, suddenly remembering the operation. His eyes glazed like the ring in his sloshing glass.
“It’s from a religious text, is it not? Referencing the staff of the Prophet Moses from Judaic folklore? 'And God told Moses, “Take up your staff and with it do my wonders.” ’ Am I right?”
John thought about religion for the first time all night. He nodded, the poor glass sitting unfulfilled again.
Kul continued the smalltalk, “Although I couldn’t determine if it was Judaic or Christian in origin.”
“Both,” John replied, “Islamic too, actually.”
“Hmm, I was not aware of that.”
Silence lurked again beyond their thoughts.
“You know,” Kul spoke, “In that folklore, after Moses freed his people he was forced on an Exodus in the desert before he reached the promised land. Is that what is next for you, Captain Traise? An Exodus?”
“You need to read up on your Terran Religions more,” John, exasperated and raw, stood up and walked behind Kul towards the door, “Moses never actually lived to reach the promised land.”
And he was gone, without a wave.
Kul turned to where John had been standing, and there on the counter was a crisp undrunk glass of Canadian Whiskey; lying next to it the four pips of a Starfleet Captain. The last words bounced around in his head and he turned shocked towards the door.
For the first time, he was scared for what his rival would do.