Rage Therapy

A deafening Klingon battle roar rang out as two bat'leth clashed, straining against each other. Sweat beaded on Akhil's forehead and bare chest, the leather of the weapon's handle digging into his palms as he held his ground against a fearsome Klingon hologram. His opponent bared his teeth, and Akhil responded in kind, throwing his weight and pushing the warrior off. He swung, slashing him across the arm, and without a moment's hesitation, knocked the hologram's legs out from under him and brought the blade down into his chest with another loud cry.

He rose, panting, just in time to deflect the blade of another attacker. His lungs burned and his thick body was covered with a sheen of sweat, but his mind was crystal clear in its rage and purpose. It was all he could do during the 0600 command meeting to maintain professional composure in the face of his new assignment. If he did not think better of Commander Rai, he would have questioned the sanity of putting an ex-Tal'Shiar in charge of a Federation war ship. There had to be a hidden intention in him being assigned as the Romulan's tactical officer, Akhil reasoned. He did not trust her. He was loyal and he would do his job, but he was not stupid. If Rai secretly hoped to get a Klingon breathing down her arrogant neck, he got it.

The hologram flickered and Akhil miscalculated his step - the blade nicked his side. The pain barely registered, but spurned him on to attack, driving the Klingon opposite him across the room. Hi attack was relentless as he imagine a very different face on his opponent.

As T'Pren trotted through the station, weaving around civilians and Starfleet officers alike, she locked everything else out of her mind but the path to the Holosuites and one mantra:

Please be alone, Akhil, please be alone, Akhil, please be alone.

She wasn't sweating when she arrived (Vulcans don't do such things), but she had completely forgotten that her hair was French braided, leaving her ears exposed, and her face was extra pale and drawn. She stopped outside the proper suite, tugged down at her uniform, and pressed the chime to let him know someone was outside.

The alert was an irritation on his otherwise focused mind. His blade slashed the headlocked throat ear to ear, and Akhil dropped the body with a disgusted sneer. It was still contorting his features when he unlocked the suite for the intruder, his chest rising and falling with heavy breathing. He rounded on the doors, blade still in hand.

At first T'Pren was taken aback by the fierceness and disgust on Akhil's expression, which seemed especially strange in contrast to his usual demeanor. But that was before she took in the blade, the chest, the sweat, the Klingon aggression in action.

She swallowed thickly and put a hand out to grip the door because between Lorelei, the mystery Cardassian, and this, the poor half-Vulcan was having a hell of a time keeping her lust under control. Rather than jump Akhil right then and there, the normally sweet and polite little halfie brushed into the Holosuite and shut the door behind her.

T'Pren took one slow look around the room before meeting Akhil's gaze with a desperate fire in her eyes. "Care to fight something real?"

He did not expect Pren, but he was not exactly surprised to see her. The snarl smoothed only slightly as he looked her over. The room was bare - just the essentials of several Klingon blades mounted on the walls, and a wide open space. "Can you hold a bat'leth?" he asked gruffly, turning away from her to pick up a second blade.

It was more than a little disconcerting, how quickly T'Pren's baser emotions had switched between submissive to predatory. She eyed the weapon in question, but considerably less than she eyed the Klingon's bare back.

Focus. That's not what you're here for.

And yet she was already automatically stripping down to the regulation tank under her uniform. In contrast to the careful folding she'd done earlier, this time she tossed the outer part of her top in a corner and stretched her bared arms.

"I'm no Klingon," she admitted, trying to keep the husky quality that seemed to be creeping into her voice firmly out of it, "but I can hold my own."

The half-Vulcan frowned in surprise when she realized she'd already begun to slowly circle the counselor.

Akhil turned, thrusting the weapon at her. His face was unreadable.

With her hair already out of her face, there was nothing left for T'Pren to do but wordlessly take the bat'leth. Despite the way her blood was running hot through her veins, she took it with the respect it was due and twirled it twice between her hands to get a feel for this particular blade.

Her own expression became one of laser-like focus, a shark narrowing in on a hint of blood. Without ever taking her gaze from Akhil's (which was a feat, considering what the rest of him looked like), she put one foot behind her into a defensive position and waited with leonine poise for him to make the first move.

Akhil almost smirked. Very well. He squared his shoulders, lifting up the weapon to hold it in both hands. The attack was immediate, accompanied by a horrible roar. Their blades connected twice, forcing Pren back each time.

It may be a Klingon weapon, but T'Pren's strategy was fairly Vulcan. She clearly was at a disadvantage physically, so her best bet was to get an idea of her opponent's fighting style and try to ferret out his weaknesses. If he had any.

She fought silently, with intention and practically meditative breathing, and with the clash of their blades the second time, twisted quickly around Akhil's much larger body to throw an elbow hard into his side. It probably would have been an almost comical hit from someone of her size to someone of his...but she also had Vulcan strength and a fine knowledge of pressure points.

When her skin made contact with his, she got a telepathic flash of his rage and, catapulted by it, immediately drove forward with her bat'leth pointed low.

Pren's elbow connected sharply with the gash in his side, knocking the wind out of the Klingon. He ducked, narrowly avoiding her blade, and met it on the come back. He was savage noise to her Vulcan silence, but he could see where she was going with this now.

The onslaught came again, the moment Akhil found his footing. He was big, but he was fast and relentless, not giving Pren a moment's breath to re-group. He switched to one hand and their blades connected. In a split moment that followed, the weight of his punch sent Pren careening across the floor. Akhil lunged.

Now this was more like it. This was something to keep Pren's mind and body and whatever else occupied.

She fought well, even as disadvantaged as she was against a man like Akhil, taking the jarring connection of their blades as best someone of her build could hope to do. T'Pren saw the punch coming a second too late, but relished the charge both of her own adrenaline and what she took of his at the contact of their skin. But when he lunged, she was ready, grinning noiselessly. She hurled herself out of the way, rolling back up to one knee and sweeping her free leg brutally at the back of Akhil's knee, knocking him closer to her level so that she could bring the bat'leth down at his head.

The half-Vulcan was absolutely positive he would catch her blade with his, but the movement of going in for the kill was worth more than trying to win a battle she knew was beyond her prowess.

Akhil's bat'leth slammed back against hers, the blades scraping against each other with a horrible noise. The Klingon's next impulse was to ram his ridged forehead into his opponent's, and he stopped himself just as the thought occurred to him. There was a moment's hesitation - enough for Pren's blade to dangerously connect with his once more - and he was back in focus. A flurry of advancement followed, and suddenly, with a wrench that would leave her wrist sprained, the Klingon knocked her weapon out of Pren's hand and twisted her arm behind her. He held her against his chest, his two hearts hammering under the thick layer of muscle, and his ragged breath washing over the top of the Vulcan's head. The cold steel pressed into the delicate skin of the lieutenant's throat, sharp edge touching down on a pulsating vein.

"That's enough," he said hoarsely.

T'Pren gave a small cry when her wrist twisted, and had every intention of diving for her blade and continuing the battle until she found herself up against Klingon chest.

She couldn't remember a time when so much of her skin had touched so much of someone else's. Certainly not as an adult. Or maybe she was just not thinking clearly -- well, she was definitely not thinking clearly.

Her own heart fluttered like a hummingbird at the bottom of her ribs, no doubt tangible through the thin layer of fabric she still wore. Said shirt was wet now, but T'Pren didn't sweat, so it must have been entirely from contact with Akhil.

She didn't struggle, not with the blade against her neck, but she did tilt her chin up and hold her whole body taut and rigid while she remained captive. And that Klingon bloodlust was seeping through his skin into hers so that the lieutenant stared straight ahead like a trapped animal, green eyes wild even as they narrowed in focus.

"That's not enough for either of us," she practically growled.

Akhil breathed in, then exhaled slowly. His breath, the smell of leather and sweat all washed over Pren, radiating off him. "It would be irresponsible of me to continue," he said, his voice still a growl deep in his chest, but more measured now, "And you will have to use your words."

"I can take it," T'Pren insisted, that husky quality still infecting her voice. She'd given up caring about it now. Her whole body was vibrating with their joined rage and adrenaline and heated blood.

Despite her Vulcan mind's dire warnings, she pressed back into Akhil's chest and took in several deep breaths. "You won't hurt me."

Akhil pulled the bat'leth away from her throat, driving it into the floor. He remembered, suddenly, the effect his touch had on her the night before - or, that morning. His huge hand broke contact, releasing Pren's aching arm, and he stepped back. "Don't be a child, you are smarter than that," he spat. His anger was not directed at her, it was simply dying embers now. "Computer, end program."

First Akhil took away his touch and with it that extra adrenaline and rage. As the fury of it drained out of her, T'Pren turned around to regard the Klingon, still fairly intent on jumping on him now that she'd been released. She even took a step in that direction, prepping to leap at the shirtless counselor, but then the word 'child' hit her like his earlier punch and she took a step back.

But the punch, at least, had treated her with respect. This time the fire in her eyes was affront masking hurt. Her lips twisted into a much gentler version of the sneer he'd had when he opened the door for her. T'Pren's instinct, of course, was to shoot back that she wasn't a child...but she was also well aware of how childish that would sound.

Instead she stood glaring at Akhil, shaking out her arm and gritting her teeth so he wouldn't see her wince.

"Don't call me that," was all she said, voice dangerously low.

"I will not, if you do not behave as one," Akhil replied. His voice was calm now, but his eyes met and readily held her challenge. That alone spoke of the respect he held for her even if he dressed her down. "You fought well," he said after a pause, then added, "I take it I am not the only one with whom the command meeting did not agree."

T'Pren breathed out sharply through her nose at Akhil's response, but instead of agreeing with him about the command meeting, she turned quickly away, still riled up from the fight and whatever else was going on with her, and headed to the corner to pick up her uniform top. Her shoulders lifted and fell dramatically without the half-Vulcan making any attempt to calm her breathing.

"The Cardassians called me a child," she said finally, snarling at the corner as she stripped her tank top over her head. She wasn't bothering to hide her nudity so much as she was the conflict and anger in her face. "'Girl'. 'Good girl'."

The lieutenant seethed as she tossed the wet shirt to the ground and began to put her arms through her outer uniform.

Akhil turned away immediately, waiting for her to be dressed before looking at her again. "I did not do that, Pren. I am neither a Cardassian, nor your enemy. But I know first hand the dangers of poorly channeled anger."

Perhaps it was the sweetness in Akhil's turning away or the willingness to reveal his own struggles with rage or even just the reminder that he wasn't the enemy. Perhaps it was a combination of everything. But as T'Pren carefully did up her shirt with the hand that didn't ache, studying the Klingon in all his modesty, her fury finally slid away, leaving her apologetic and considerably more in control.

"You wouldn't have hurt me," she said again, softly this time. "That's not who you are."

Don't bet on it, Akhil thought bitterly, recalling his impulse to headbutt her into a certain cracked skull. He glanced sideways and turned around fully when he saw the she was in uniform once more.

"Perhaps you would do better," he said at length, "With physical counseling." Their sparring revealed something to him. Pren was floundering out of control of her own life and her past, at war with the two conflicting natures that made up her incubated identity. She tried to impose control on herself by favoring either the human or the Vulcan side without ever being able to decide which suited better - because in reality the only thing that would suit would be the reconciling of the two. The inevitable failure to live up to either spun her out again and left her ridden with guilt and reverted her to the identity of a test subject that needed guiding. In giving her a structured battle ground, he could initially fill that role, the Klingon thought, until she began to find her own ground and stand up against him.

"Do you want that instead of a couch and conversation? I will still make you talk. And you will listen to me and you will respect my seniority and authority in the sparring room. You will stop when I tell you to stop, or you will fight till you drop," the authority of his military past was heavy in his voice as he measured Pren down from the height of his towering figure.

Well, that was something no other Starfleet counselor had ever offered. T'Pren's human gaze locked forcefully onto Akhil's just at the idea of fighting through her feelings, sparking a vivacious green.

"Yes," she promised almost breathlessly. "Yes to all of that."

"Fine. You will attend the group mok'bara sessions at 0800 every Sunday," Akhil replied. Structure, discipline and community - Pren was neither alone nor unique anymore. "And we will meet in the holodeck to spar one on one during your scheduled counseling sessions."