Healing Baths

It had been too long anyway since Val had had a proper spa day, and he desperately needed one. He ordered his usual milk bath, but added aloe and anything that would moisturize and heal into the mix. This was more than just beauty upkeep, this was repair. He knelt in the bath and dragged handfuls of the warm, cloudy mix through his hair.

Rai walked through the steamy room, naked save for a soft beige towel wrapped around his head, and another draped over his shoulders. He bore a bright violet mud mask on his cheekbones and forehead. He spotted Val out of the corner of his eye. "Oh, it's you."

Val frowned at him a moment, waist-deep in his milk bath, his fingers mid-tangle in his hair. When he realized who it was, he burst into laughter.
"Captain, that's a nice color on you."

"You think so?" he asked, placing one hand on his hip, he used the other to pat coquettishly at the towel on his head. "I'd like to think it brings out my eyes."

"I especially like the purple," Val grinned. "What treatments are best before being shipped out to battle, I wonder?"

"Volcanic minerals and ground pearls," he said. "I'm not interrupting you, am I? I was just passing through to the sauna."

"Just soaking," Val said. "Don't let me keep you from your sauna, if you'd rather get to it."

Rai located a nearby tub and sunk into it. "No, I have about six hours left, and nothing to do to fill it. Oh by the way," he said, pausing, "Don't let Lieutenant Inabnet know I've been seeking your services, we had a bit of a falling out, and I fear it would wreck her," he said, and waited for an attendant to draw a bath.

Val paused in his preening and seemed to blanche.
"What do you mean, you had a falling out?"

"Oh you know how it is. Close quarters, pretty girl, lonely station. We had a little tryst, but she was... far more into it than I. I had to end it before she got more attached. She doesn't know that I prefer, well," he gestured broadly to Val.

Val let out a tiny groan and simply sank under the waterline of the bath.

His eyes shot over to the Bajoran. "You already told her, didn't you?"

Val came back out reluctantly and wiped his face.
"No... but she guessed."

Now it was Rai's turn to groan. A scantily clad young male attendant had drawn hot water, and at Rai's bidding had filled it with flower petals and perfumed oils.
"Never again," he said. "What a terrible idea that was."

Val was silent a while.
"Have you had secret trysts with crew members that *did* work out well?"

"None that didn't end in awkwardness or transfers," he said. "Just because we haven't a regulation against it, it doesn't mean we should do it." He splashed his feet gently in the water.

Val wanted to explain to Rai that there were people specifically available to alleviate loneliness without obligation or strings who were *not* ticking time bombs of emotional instability, but he didn't want to appear callous to either of them. After all, he had no idea what had transpired between them.

"Perhaps it will all come out in the wash. And by wash, I mean your mission."

"From now on, nothing but paid companions," he said, vocalizing Val's unspoken suggestion. "Hopefully I can talk her down from whatever mental cataclysm she's going through now during the mission, though is prefer that Akhil handled it. I should clean up my own messes."

"Why Captain, I'm very flattered," Val teased with a smile, drawing the bathwater over his arms.

"What can I say? I've always admired your type of professionalism," he said, and leaned back to wet his hair.

Val was very pleased that Rai didn't seem angry with him for telling Pren. And if he had the Captain as a regular client, whether it was sexual or not, he'd have nothing to fear from life on the station. Even if war did break out.

"Well, I'll be available and waiting when you return."

"I'll certainly take you up on it," he said, and drifted into a troubled nap in the tub.