Work, Jukka-Pekka soon found out, was the only possible antidote against emotional pain; and there was so much work to be had on DS9 that he could easily avoid descending into the true abyss of depression more than once or twice a day.
Forgetting Suvuk, on the other hand, was impossible. Everyone kept talking and complaining about the élitist Vulcan; when you sat down in Quark's or in the Replimat, you could expect some Starfleet personnel to sit gossiping about "pesky old pointy-ears" at the table next to you. And they kept getting new incidents to gossip about all the time, too. Hearing people talk, Jukka-Pekka had soon realized that his unwilling beloved was behaving completely irrationally. He kept demanding standards a Cardassian Gul wouldn't get fulfilled if he used torture. People said that after the third time he had turned up in Commander Sisko's office to complain about the "unacceptable irregularities" in station operations, he was seen crawling through the service tubes himself, three reels of cable under his arms and four different coupling tools between his teeth, as both the technical and the scientific personnel had refused his ourageously perfectionist demands. And after three weeks on the station, when Jukka-Pekka had just finished translating the Cardassian visitor guidance system in addition to his normal duties (he didn't replace it, as he rather liked the style), Suvuk had finally dug himself in, in some sort of service closet on the upper level of the Promenade which he had filled with infinite amounts of computing equipment he kept busy around the clock, correlating the most diverse and arcane data to be found on the station.
One night while sitting in the Klingon restaurant, Äänekoski overheard Lieutenant Dax and Major Kira complaining extensively about the Vulcan.
"That man is unbelievable", the Bajoran stormed. "You know, Jadzia, nobody can tell any more into how many systems on the station he has wired his console. He just watches everything we do aboard the station like a paluko waiting for its prey. I don't think any of that is connected with whales!"
"He's just searching blindly; that's a valid scientific method. All incoming data from the gamma quadrant passes his machines at some point, also everything my computer is running. I have no idea what he's actually looking for, though, He doesn't talk to anyone".
"He does. The other day, when that Orion slave transport almost crashed here, I found him at Quark's afterwards, and Quark complained that old pointy-ears had sat in his bar for three hours, ordered nothing and kept his best customers from drinking. He was sitting in a corner with three Klingons and was talking to them in Klingon, and hadn't even noticed we'd all been nearly blown to our atoms. Quark said he even gets information out of a Ferengi without paying. And when that drunken Orion started getting ugly, he just up and went away".
The Klingon owner of the restaurant began to sing. His deep bass drowned out the conversation on the neighbouring table, so Äänekoski got up to go.
Kira stopped him. "Lieutenant, you're the one who translated the Cardassian guidance system, aren't you?"
Jukka-Pekka turned to her. "Yes, sir".
"Why didn't you just replace the infernal thing, as was done with the more essential systems?"
"It was working flawlessly, Sir; it just wasn't comprehensible".
"Don't keep saying 'sir' to me, it won't help you", Kira hissed. "Why, may I ask you, did you translate the system into Federation standard only and not into Bajoran? This is a Bajoran space station, and all other systems are running bilingually".
"Those are the systems that were installed by Starfleet personnel, sir, and..."
The Klingon interrupted his aria. "Hey, you. You can talk shop when you're on duty. When I'm singing, you either listen to me or I kick you out".
Jukka-Pekka used this welcome interruption to escape.
In the Replimat Suvuk sat with some Bajoran monks and listened earnestly to their lore, so Jukka-Pekka turned around immediately and continued his escape into Quark's, where he sat for a while with O'Brien at a table on the upper level, talking about work until the Irishman declared he had to go home. If he wanted, though, he could get himself some Bajoran with whom he could once more translate the vistor guidance system. It he found one who wasn't completely overworked as it were; in the technical department at least there weren't any, but good luck.
Alone at his table, Jukka-Pekka idly glanced around the fascinating diversity in the room. Morn sat equanimously at the bar, behind which Quark's brother Rom was bustling hectically; all around were a Cardassian, Klingons, Humans, Bajorans, Bolians, Ferengi and one Vulcan who looked in for a moment, apparently didn't find what he was looking for, and went away again. Jukka-Pekka looked after him, feeling his mood blackening towards fullblown lovesickness, and ordered a beer and a lapinpysti from the next passing Ferengi.
"What did he do to you? He accused me of sleeping on duty and only talking to my sister when awake instead of transmitting his damn data. Of course Major Kira didn't want to hear anything about it and sent him to where the mirs-berries grow".
Äänekoski looked up and saw a young and rather handsome Bajoran man in a grey uniform, blond, lanky and with a noticeably dimpled chin. A Bajoran in a grey uniform. Just what he'd been looking for.
"Sit down", he said. Wanting to continue the conversation without condeming Suvuk (demonstratively pretending to dislike him was a cheap way out of his pain he had decided not to take under any circumstances), Jukka-Pekka, to his own astonishment, ended up rather close to the truth. "He didn't do anything to me. In fact, I fear I did something to him, and I think it may be partially my fault that he's behaving so antisocially".
"Oh, then you must be the other Lieutenant who chartered my cousin's ship with him. Sorry, I'm Ensign Andra Laz".
"I'd hoped never to hear the name of Andra again, but I'm sure you're innocent. You're the one who collected us from Marak where your cousin dumped us, aren't you?"
"Right. My cousin's impossible. So am I, by the way, but on a different level".
Äänekoski had to laugh. The little Bajoran promised to be a charming distraction. "My name's Jukka-Pekka Äänekoski, but you can call me JP; they all do".
"What's so difficult about the name Jukka-Pekka Äänekoski? I'm communications; I'm used to all sorts of strange Extrabajoran names. What planet are you from?"
"From Earth, from a weird coutry called Suomi, or Finland".
The Ferengi returned with the beer and the lapinpysti, and Andra Laz was mightily asonished. "He forgot to shake your drink, it seems".
Jukka-Pekka laughed again. This felt better! "It's just as it's supposed to be; took long enough until Quark knew how to do them. The transparent liquid on top is vodka, and the layer under it is some very sweet liqueur; Quark uses that sticky purple Aldebaran stuff, it's just about right. You pour equal quantities of the one onto the other and drink it in one gulp. Thus you get the full dose of alcohol without the burn. Finnish speciality".
He demonstrated, and Andra Laz watched him fascinatedly. "Two more Lapinpysti, and another beer", Jukka-Pekka ordered from the next Ferengi.
Five lapinpysti later Andra Laz grew rather affectionate, and Jukka-Pekka, no longer sober himself, enjoyed the uncomplicated distraction. In the habitat ring, however, the Bajoran decidedly staggered his own way, to Jukka-Pekka's surprise. He wasn't that uncomplicated after all, then. Well. If the lad needed a little campaign to conquer him, so be it; all the better the distraction.
The next morning they met for breakfast in the Replimat and began planning the Bajoran version of the visitor guidance system. Andra Laz, it seemed, spoke Cardassian very well and found some mistakes in the existing standard version. "I learned all my Cardassian from Suvuk during one single mind meld", Jukka-Pekka admitted. Andra Laz stared, but didn't ask any further questions.
Personally or professionally, Suvuk had never harboured misgivings against any manifestation of an offwold culture; but in the last few weeks he had observed himself to develop a definite aversion towards the Cardassians. This station, situated at such an eminently important position for the Federation, was a six-horned nightmare that made him wonder why it didn't simply lose structural integrity, considering the stresses and abuses it was exposed to every day. The Cardassian misconstruction was bad enough to start with (why didn't Starfleet just build a standard issue station here and blew the Cardassian desaster to countless very small smithereens, whatever smithereens actually were), but the laxity and arbitrariness with which Starfleet and Bajorans alike were administering this post was exremely deplorable.
Engineering was fully occupied by hunting down the newest malfunctions and found themselves unable to initiate any productive processes; they kept reacting feverishly to overcome the defects as they showed up, utterly failing to act one step ahead of their equipment as they should. And, considering the protocols of the last few months before their arrival, the presence of the miserable Finn hadn't changed the sitution by one iota. The whole stations was suffering from what was called, after an old Earth legend, "Jurassic Park Syndrome". The Starfleet technichian who'd repaired Suvuk's recycling unit had put in a very fitting colloquial nutshell by saying, "The frigging place is nothing but a testing ground for Murphy's law".
The recyling unit hadn't been the very worst, though. The worst had been the Cardassian voles who'd gnawed through his network just after he'd completed installation. Suvuk didn't quite understand why those pests had been nicknamed 'voles'; they rather resembled, huge, hairless rats with six legs and large, revolting ears. Suvuk, as a Vulcan, had been brought up to respect all life forms; even a lematya only wanted to live according to its instincts. This tolerance he had even extended towards the Terran pests called cockroaches upon which he'd happened in San Francisco. But when he woke up one morning to find two of these so-called voles gnawing his very pillow, he had grabbed them in horror and hurled them against the wall. They slid down in a slimy track of grey-purplish blood, but Suvuk hadn't waited to see them reach the floor; he threw over the nearest robe, stormed to his office and spent the whole day hunting down the deplorable beings and installing small force fields in all service shafts leading to his office to keep them away.
In the evening, he'd taken a bucket with a dozen dead voles or so to the biology lab to put into the decontamination unit; and that impertinent little hedgehog-faced doctor who was lurking there had mockingly addressed him as "great vole-hunter" and suggested he continue his heroic undertaking and free the whole station from those pests; that way he'd do something useful for a change. Well, Dr. Bashir was rather besotted with Jadzia Dax, and the Trill had never ceased pestering Suvuk about his work; and she kept reacting extremely emotionally on not receiving a reply to her annoying questions; doubtlessly she had influenced to Doctor against him. Suvuk had emptied his bucket into the decontamination unit without comment and retreated to his quarters.
There, the two 'voles' he had destroyed in the morning had had twelve hours to decompose at Vulcan room temperature and were emitting a piercingly unpleasant odour. Calling upon his self-discipline, Suvuk had calmly conveyed the two carcasses into the recycling unit and cleaned the wall and the floor from their decaying blood. But when he tried to put the tissue he'd used into recycling as well, the unit was leaking a slimy, greyish-brown substance that reminded Suvuk of the excretions from a sick sehlat. Very probably the recycling of such contaminated substances was not included in the refuse system's working specifications; so Suvuk summoned some hidden reserves of control, calmly scratched the semi-liquid remains from the unit and its environs and took the vessel containing it and the tissue he'd used once more to the biology lab and its more powerful decontamination unit.
On the way there, Dax had stopped him and asked what he was carrying so carefully; and against his usual habit, he'd lifted the layer of tissue off the bowl to show her. When the smell entered her nose, she reacted with a series of short retching noises and hurriedly turned away. He wouldn't have thought that such an old Trill would be disturbed by a substance that merely resembled a sehlat's diarrhea, but he'd overestimated her control.
In the biology lab, the young, round-eyed doctor pounced on him, screeching, "What did you do to my decontamination unit?!", as this was emitting the same abominable substance.
For the next few days it had been neccessary to keep all refuse in buckets, intensifying the station's similarity to a garbage dump. And all the personnel had given Suvuk reproachful looks during those days, until the second replacement communications officer, chatting again with his sister while on duty, had heard from her that there had been some old Bajoran computer virus intended to make life miserable for the Cardassian occupation force on the station. For some reason, it hadn't gone off as planned. She'd sneaked the program in herself, but the people who'd written it were all dead, as far as she knew, and she had no idea how they'd gone about. Luckily, O'Brien had been able to isolate and neutralise the damage after that. But why the 'voles' had triggered the virus neither O'Brien nor the Bajoran woman had been able to explain. It was Murphy's law, as the technician who'd reinitiated Suvuk's decontamination unit had correctly remarked.
When disquieting energy losses occured shortly afterwards, they had been traced to somewhere around the Promenade; and everyone had blamed Suvuk and his improvised network. But what was he to do when O'Brien declared that maybe he'd find the time to wire his station in three weeks' time? By all the craters of T'Khut, he needed to work now and not in three weeks' time! And of course, they had to send Äänekoski to check on the energy conduits that led to his network. Without a word, the Finn had gotten to work, and Suvuk had fled from his office. In Quark's he found nobody worthwhile to talk to, so he ordered a mineral water, sat down on an ancient Romulan(!) gambling machine, and started winning. The Ferengi assured him desperately that this was impossible. He'd bought the machine only last week at a bargain price from a...
Suvuk had pocketed his winnings and returned to his office. He pulled the Finn, who seemed to be reconfiguring the whole network, from a service hatch and wordlessly took him into Quark's, sitting him down on the offending machine. And indeed, the Ferengi cheat in the Romulan antique had been the cause of those mysterious energy drains.
Unfortunately, Äänekoski had not left his network in working order; and as the improvements the Finn had begun implementing were technologically too complicated even for Suvuk, ha had to suffer him in his office for three more evenings after the Lieutenant's shift was over. At least the human did not again attempt to insinuate himself upon Suvuk. But the Vulcan couldn't endure his presence; while Äänekoski cursed the computers in Finnish, Suvuk went to ops and tried exchanging some data with the pathfinders on Memory Prime, which was extremely tiresome owing to the convoluted interface protocols. And then, of course, there was that second replacement communications officer lounging at his station beside Suvuk, talking to his sister on the northern continent in the most dreadful Bajoran slang about men and computers. Suvuk needed immense control not to lose his composure and behave in an un-Vulcan way when he had to listen to the utter banality with which the Bajoran discussed his problems with men in general and in particular, while he found himself completely unable to deal with his painful emotions about just one man.
So, he had complained to Major Kira about the Ensign's private use of station equipment, but to no avail whatsoever. Kira seemed to regard the controlled Vulcan as a legitmate target for her Bajoran temper anyway, and her voice had risen more than usual while explaining the usefulness of Andra Adarys' informal involvement in station business. She and her brother could talk about men and computers as much as they wanted as long as there was time if they talked about whatever was neccessary most in a crunch. Or did the Vulcan object to sitting beside a man interested in other men? Well, this was a Bajoran station, and the Bajoran culture had always maintained...
Suvuk had fled again. What with Andra Laz at the communications console and Äänekoski in his office he had retreated into Quark's, but as the Ferengi seemed to have no other nefarious projects going on just now, so he'd pounced on Suvuk and tried to press all sorts of services on him. When repeated rounds of "Vulcans don't drink alcohol" and "Vulcans don't use any holo installations" had remained without avail, he'd finally gone and found some peace in the Klingon restaturant, listening to the proprietor's singing and discussing Klingon opera with him long after closing time.
He got on very well with sober Klingons, Suvuk realised once more. All the other station personnel, official and civilian alike, seemed to experience some difficulties with the Vulcan way of living and working. Keiko O'Brien, for example. She'd actually had the nerve to ask him if he could spare the time to explain the basics of Vulcan philosophy to the kids at her school, as if she couldn't see that he indeed had more than enough to do. And that unctuous Cardassian with his shamelessly expensive tailor's shop who kept trying to sell him allegedly Vulcan robes. Seemingly, this Garak had some suspicious sort of soft spot for the utterly clueless and naive young doctor. This made him try and regard the Vulcan as his own kind and pull him down to his own deplorable level, as he, shadow creeper and all-purpose spy that he was, had once observed Suvuk and Äänekosi meeting unawares in the Replimat and simultaneously turning on their heels.
Suvuk refrained from comment, but in the privacy of his own mind he could find no similarity between a bored Cardassian half-heartedly fishing for a distraction and a tortured Vulcan mere weeks away from the next bout of pon farr, plagued by the memory of just a few moments of forbidden gentleness and closeness; the comparison was positively offensive. And yes, he was still tortured by that brief, stolen emotion of tenderness and belonging. Not for a long, long time he had felt so accepted by anyone as in those days of complicity or even friendship with Äänekoski; and he'd never experienced anything like the moment when he came to in Jukka-Pekka's arms after the Cardassian attack. He'd never been loved before.
But he was not to have all that; he'd denied himself anything of that sort long ago, when in that corridor at the cybernetics institute in ShiKahr...
No point in thinking of that, either. But every time he saw the Finn, he remembered the churned-up emotions of his concussed soul, remebered rejecting a wonderful man a deeply repressed part of him had wanted, whom he even needed, as his slowly rising hormone level kept suggesting, and who definitely wanted him right back.
But it was morning; and calmly Suvuk went to the replimat to get his breakfast. Nobody would be able to see through his controlled facade and discover the sadness, the longing and the anger raging beneath, almost uncontrollable now. Only concentration upon his work was now able to silence what Äänekoski's closeness aboard Millenial Falcon had woken in him.
He avoided a gesturing grey elbow, noticing that it belonged to the irresponsible Bajoran communications Ensign. Having joined the breakfast queue, he turned back and realised with a jolt that Andra Laz was sitting at a table with none other than Jukka-Pekka Äänekoski, discussing some diagrams and flirting with his eyes.
Theoretically, Suvuk had heard that among humans and other such species there was an emotion called jealousy. But while love was a real temptation to his Vulcan control, jealousy was to him an exotic phenomenon he only knew from reports. Still, he correctly identified the emotion that unstoppably raged through him at this moment, breaking down all his barriers and spreading over him like a stun field as said jealousy. Seeing Jukka-Pekka with another in this way, and the Bajoran Ensign of all people, was unbearable. His imagination was all but overpowered by the wish to attack Andra Laz with a lirpa and chop him up into many very small pieces. He found himself unable to continue with whatever he'd done before, and could barely contain the urge to pounce on that table and throw the Ensign off - whatever he needed to be thrown off from.
People queued up before the replicators shoved at him, and an importunate glance settled on him like a large, buzzing insect. Over there, three tables away, Garak was having breakfast with Dr. Bashir and grinning at the Vulcan with such slimy understanding as any Cardassian could muster. The good doctor, completely consumed by his own importance, as usually noticed nothing whatsoever.
Suvuk reliquished his place in the breakfast queue and took flight; but in turing he suddenly met the enquiring smile in Jukka-Pekka's eyes. Shoved out of the breakfast queue by a hung-over Klingon, he stumbled awkwardly onto the Finn who grabbed his wrist and so broke his fall. Their inexplicable telepathic connection had survived their estrangement without a dent, and now whispered to him, I am still there for you, Suvuk, if you need me. Suvuk broke loose and hissed, low enough for only Äänekoski to hear, "You have no idea, Lieutenant. Get out of my life!"
"Mulla on niin paljon oikeutta tässä asemassa olemista kun teillä, tai ennemän, kun mä oon hyödyllinen ja te ette!", Äänekoski answered, loud and scornful, incredibly hurt by this new rejection. He had seen with his own eyes what happened to Suvuk when he saw him sitting here with Laz...
The connection was still holding! Forcibly, Suvuk tore loose his mind and fled, using all the external calm he could still muster (not much) to reach the refuge of his office.
But there a new and completely different problem was waiting for him. In the half darkness in front of his closed door, a small, quietly crying life form with two black braids was cowering before the most gigantic Cardassian vole he'd ever seen.
Whatever his misgivings against emotional involvement, Suvuk fully shared the attention and respect any Vulcan showed towards children. In an eyeblink, Suvuk grabbed the 'vole' and threw it over the railing to the lower level, where it was greeted by piercing screams. The human child remained crouched down, crying louder "I want my mommy" and "Atashi no oka-chan ga hoshii da". Obviously the O'Briens' little daughter. Whatever she was doing here.
Suvuk gently picked up the small creature. It pressed itself against him, sobbing; the child's primitive, overpowering emotions invaded him through the touch.
All anger was forgotten; Äänekoski simply vanished from his mind. With his Vulcan discipline he contained the child's terror, gently pressed it down and carefully pushed it out of his conschiousness. The little girl loosened her grip, looked Suvuk in the eyes and asked, "Burukanjin-san, atashi no oka-chan wa doko da no?" Suvuk smiled, indeed, smiled at her, and gently put her on her own feet. "Shite imasen yo", he answered. "Mimashô ka?"
"Hai, mimashô", she answered earnestly. Suvuk extended two fingers to her, which she took, and together they went down the stairs to the Promenade and Odo's office.
Extremely astonished glances were following them, but Suvuk's concentration was solely with the child. Vulcans would not comfort their children emotionally, of course; after an unpleasant occurence they would teach the child how to logically deal with it. Suvuk now followed exactly this pattern, although he spoke Japanese. He explained in simple words to the small creature how all wild animals were afraid of intelligent life forms and that a human or Vulcan was stronger than a wild animal when controlling his or her fear. If she met such a wild animal again, she shouldn't crouch down but stand as tall as she could and shout out loud so the animal would take fear and run away, or at least not harm her until help arrived. If she was quiet, nobody would hear her, and if she made herself small, the animal would think she was just a small animal herself. Wasn't that logical to her? "Hai, burukanjin-san", she anwered seriously. Suvuk smiled at this title, and was still smiling when they arrived in the Constable's office.
Quark was there, whining loudly about somebody having thrown a life vole at him and one of his dabo girls. "You have much more massive security problems here, Constable", Suvuk interrupted the Ferengi. "There are wild animals on this station that have now taken to attacking small children. You should try and contain the pests before they harm anyone. This small person was actually threatened by one such so-called vole".
"Pest control is not part of my duties, unless the pests walk on two legs" - a short glance at Quark - "but lost children are, as long as everything else is quiet", Odo remarked drily. "Well, little lady, let us try and page your mom, shall we?"
This, however, proved to be unneccessary, as now an upset Keiko O'Brien stormed into the security office, a crying, about thirteen-year-old Bajoran girl, obviously the babysitter, in tow. Emotions welling over upon seeing her child, she swept the small girl up into her arms and exclaimed, "Molly, you're not to run away and frighten your mommy like this!"
Suvuk deplored this maternal reaction which effectively destroyed all his endeavours at sensible behaviour about the event, making Molly cry again, but he knew full well that his opinion wasn't called upon in this instance, and so he left the security office to finally start his work.
Translation! Äänekoski says to Suvuk in the Replimat, "I've got the same right to be on this station as you, Lieutenant, or even more, as I'm useful and you aren't".
Molly cries again in Japanese "I want my mommy", and then asks "Mr. Vulcan, where is my mommy", and Suvuk answers, "I don't know. Shall we look for her", upon which Molly replies, "Yes, let's look". After Suvuk's "lecture" she answers his question if that wasn't logical to her by saying "Yes, Mr. Vulcan".
Forgetting Suvuk, on the other hand, was impossible. Everyone kept talking and complaining about the élitist Vulcan; when you sat down in Quark's or in the Replimat, you could expect some Starfleet personnel to sit gossiping about "pesky old pointy-ears" at the table next to you. And they kept getting new incidents to gossip about all the time, too. Hearing people talk, Jukka-Pekka had soon realized that his unwilling beloved was behaving completely irrationally. He kept demanding standards a Cardassian Gul wouldn't get fulfilled if he used torture. People said that after the third time he had turned up in Commander Sisko's office to complain about the "unacceptable irregularities" in station operations, he was seen crawling through the service tubes himself, three reels of cable under his arms and four different coupling tools between his teeth, as both the technical and the scientific personnel had refused his ourageously perfectionist demands. And after three weeks on the station, when Jukka-Pekka had just finished translating the Cardassian visitor guidance system in addition to his normal duties (he didn't replace it, as he rather liked the style), Suvuk had finally dug himself in, in some sort of service closet on the upper level of the Promenade which he had filled with infinite amounts of computing equipment he kept busy around the clock, correlating the most diverse and arcane data to be found on the station.
One night while sitting in the Klingon restaurant, Äänekoski overheard Lieutenant Dax and Major Kira complaining extensively about the Vulcan.
"That man is unbelievable", the Bajoran stormed. "You know, Jadzia, nobody can tell any more into how many systems on the station he has wired his console. He just watches everything we do aboard the station like a paluko waiting for its prey. I don't think any of that is connected with whales!"
"He's just searching blindly; that's a valid scientific method. All incoming data from the gamma quadrant passes his machines at some point, also everything my computer is running. I have no idea what he's actually looking for, though, He doesn't talk to anyone".
"He does. The other day, when that Orion slave transport almost crashed here, I found him at Quark's afterwards, and Quark complained that old pointy-ears had sat in his bar for three hours, ordered nothing and kept his best customers from drinking. He was sitting in a corner with three Klingons and was talking to them in Klingon, and hadn't even noticed we'd all been nearly blown to our atoms. Quark said he even gets information out of a Ferengi without paying. And when that drunken Orion started getting ugly, he just up and went away".
The Klingon owner of the restaurant began to sing. His deep bass drowned out the conversation on the neighbouring table, so Äänekoski got up to go.
Kira stopped him. "Lieutenant, you're the one who translated the Cardassian guidance system, aren't you?"
Jukka-Pekka turned to her. "Yes, sir".
"Why didn't you just replace the infernal thing, as was done with the more essential systems?"
"It was working flawlessly, Sir; it just wasn't comprehensible".
"Don't keep saying 'sir' to me, it won't help you", Kira hissed. "Why, may I ask you, did you translate the system into Federation standard only and not into Bajoran? This is a Bajoran space station, and all other systems are running bilingually".
"Those are the systems that were installed by Starfleet personnel, sir, and..."
The Klingon interrupted his aria. "Hey, you. You can talk shop when you're on duty. When I'm singing, you either listen to me or I kick you out".
Jukka-Pekka used this welcome interruption to escape.
In the Replimat Suvuk sat with some Bajoran monks and listened earnestly to their lore, so Jukka-Pekka turned around immediately and continued his escape into Quark's, where he sat for a while with O'Brien at a table on the upper level, talking about work until the Irishman declared he had to go home. If he wanted, though, he could get himself some Bajoran with whom he could once more translate the vistor guidance system. It he found one who wasn't completely overworked as it were; in the technical department at least there weren't any, but good luck.
Alone at his table, Jukka-Pekka idly glanced around the fascinating diversity in the room. Morn sat equanimously at the bar, behind which Quark's brother Rom was bustling hectically; all around were a Cardassian, Klingons, Humans, Bajorans, Bolians, Ferengi and one Vulcan who looked in for a moment, apparently didn't find what he was looking for, and went away again. Jukka-Pekka looked after him, feeling his mood blackening towards fullblown lovesickness, and ordered a beer and a lapinpysti from the next passing Ferengi.
"What did he do to you? He accused me of sleeping on duty and only talking to my sister when awake instead of transmitting his damn data. Of course Major Kira didn't want to hear anything about it and sent him to where the mirs-berries grow".
Äänekoski looked up and saw a young and rather handsome Bajoran man in a grey uniform, blond, lanky and with a noticeably dimpled chin. A Bajoran in a grey uniform. Just what he'd been looking for.
"Sit down", he said. Wanting to continue the conversation without condeming Suvuk (demonstratively pretending to dislike him was a cheap way out of his pain he had decided not to take under any circumstances), Jukka-Pekka, to his own astonishment, ended up rather close to the truth. "He didn't do anything to me. In fact, I fear I did something to him, and I think it may be partially my fault that he's behaving so antisocially".
"Oh, then you must be the other Lieutenant who chartered my cousin's ship with him. Sorry, I'm Ensign Andra Laz".
"I'd hoped never to hear the name of Andra again, but I'm sure you're innocent. You're the one who collected us from Marak where your cousin dumped us, aren't you?"
"Right. My cousin's impossible. So am I, by the way, but on a different level".
Äänekoski had to laugh. The little Bajoran promised to be a charming distraction. "My name's Jukka-Pekka Äänekoski, but you can call me JP; they all do".
"What's so difficult about the name Jukka-Pekka Äänekoski? I'm communications; I'm used to all sorts of strange Extrabajoran names. What planet are you from?"
"From Earth, from a weird coutry called Suomi, or Finland".
The Ferengi returned with the beer and the lapinpysti, and Andra Laz was mightily asonished. "He forgot to shake your drink, it seems".
Jukka-Pekka laughed again. This felt better! "It's just as it's supposed to be; took long enough until Quark knew how to do them. The transparent liquid on top is vodka, and the layer under it is some very sweet liqueur; Quark uses that sticky purple Aldebaran stuff, it's just about right. You pour equal quantities of the one onto the other and drink it in one gulp. Thus you get the full dose of alcohol without the burn. Finnish speciality".
He demonstrated, and Andra Laz watched him fascinatedly. "Two more Lapinpysti, and another beer", Jukka-Pekka ordered from the next Ferengi.
Five lapinpysti later Andra Laz grew rather affectionate, and Jukka-Pekka, no longer sober himself, enjoyed the uncomplicated distraction. In the habitat ring, however, the Bajoran decidedly staggered his own way, to Jukka-Pekka's surprise. He wasn't that uncomplicated after all, then. Well. If the lad needed a little campaign to conquer him, so be it; all the better the distraction.
The next morning they met for breakfast in the Replimat and began planning the Bajoran version of the visitor guidance system. Andra Laz, it seemed, spoke Cardassian very well and found some mistakes in the existing standard version. "I learned all my Cardassian from Suvuk during one single mind meld", Jukka-Pekka admitted. Andra Laz stared, but didn't ask any further questions.
Personally or professionally, Suvuk had never harboured misgivings against any manifestation of an offwold culture; but in the last few weeks he had observed himself to develop a definite aversion towards the Cardassians. This station, situated at such an eminently important position for the Federation, was a six-horned nightmare that made him wonder why it didn't simply lose structural integrity, considering the stresses and abuses it was exposed to every day. The Cardassian misconstruction was bad enough to start with (why didn't Starfleet just build a standard issue station here and blew the Cardassian desaster to countless very small smithereens, whatever smithereens actually were), but the laxity and arbitrariness with which Starfleet and Bajorans alike were administering this post was exremely deplorable.
Engineering was fully occupied by hunting down the newest malfunctions and found themselves unable to initiate any productive processes; they kept reacting feverishly to overcome the defects as they showed up, utterly failing to act one step ahead of their equipment as they should. And, considering the protocols of the last few months before their arrival, the presence of the miserable Finn hadn't changed the sitution by one iota. The whole stations was suffering from what was called, after an old Earth legend, "Jurassic Park Syndrome". The Starfleet technichian who'd repaired Suvuk's recycling unit had put in a very fitting colloquial nutshell by saying, "The frigging place is nothing but a testing ground for Murphy's law".
The recyling unit hadn't been the very worst, though. The worst had been the Cardassian voles who'd gnawed through his network just after he'd completed installation. Suvuk didn't quite understand why those pests had been nicknamed 'voles'; they rather resembled, huge, hairless rats with six legs and large, revolting ears. Suvuk, as a Vulcan, had been brought up to respect all life forms; even a lematya only wanted to live according to its instincts. This tolerance he had even extended towards the Terran pests called cockroaches upon which he'd happened in San Francisco. But when he woke up one morning to find two of these so-called voles gnawing his very pillow, he had grabbed them in horror and hurled them against the wall. They slid down in a slimy track of grey-purplish blood, but Suvuk hadn't waited to see them reach the floor; he threw over the nearest robe, stormed to his office and spent the whole day hunting down the deplorable beings and installing small force fields in all service shafts leading to his office to keep them away.
In the evening, he'd taken a bucket with a dozen dead voles or so to the biology lab to put into the decontamination unit; and that impertinent little hedgehog-faced doctor who was lurking there had mockingly addressed him as "great vole-hunter" and suggested he continue his heroic undertaking and free the whole station from those pests; that way he'd do something useful for a change. Well, Dr. Bashir was rather besotted with Jadzia Dax, and the Trill had never ceased pestering Suvuk about his work; and she kept reacting extremely emotionally on not receiving a reply to her annoying questions; doubtlessly she had influenced to Doctor against him. Suvuk had emptied his bucket into the decontamination unit without comment and retreated to his quarters.
There, the two 'voles' he had destroyed in the morning had had twelve hours to decompose at Vulcan room temperature and were emitting a piercingly unpleasant odour. Calling upon his self-discipline, Suvuk had calmly conveyed the two carcasses into the recycling unit and cleaned the wall and the floor from their decaying blood. But when he tried to put the tissue he'd used into recycling as well, the unit was leaking a slimy, greyish-brown substance that reminded Suvuk of the excretions from a sick sehlat. Very probably the recycling of such contaminated substances was not included in the refuse system's working specifications; so Suvuk summoned some hidden reserves of control, calmly scratched the semi-liquid remains from the unit and its environs and took the vessel containing it and the tissue he'd used once more to the biology lab and its more powerful decontamination unit.
On the way there, Dax had stopped him and asked what he was carrying so carefully; and against his usual habit, he'd lifted the layer of tissue off the bowl to show her. When the smell entered her nose, she reacted with a series of short retching noises and hurriedly turned away. He wouldn't have thought that such an old Trill would be disturbed by a substance that merely resembled a sehlat's diarrhea, but he'd overestimated her control.
In the biology lab, the young, round-eyed doctor pounced on him, screeching, "What did you do to my decontamination unit?!", as this was emitting the same abominable substance.
For the next few days it had been neccessary to keep all refuse in buckets, intensifying the station's similarity to a garbage dump. And all the personnel had given Suvuk reproachful looks during those days, until the second replacement communications officer, chatting again with his sister while on duty, had heard from her that there had been some old Bajoran computer virus intended to make life miserable for the Cardassian occupation force on the station. For some reason, it hadn't gone off as planned. She'd sneaked the program in herself, but the people who'd written it were all dead, as far as she knew, and she had no idea how they'd gone about. Luckily, O'Brien had been able to isolate and neutralise the damage after that. But why the 'voles' had triggered the virus neither O'Brien nor the Bajoran woman had been able to explain. It was Murphy's law, as the technician who'd reinitiated Suvuk's decontamination unit had correctly remarked.
When disquieting energy losses occured shortly afterwards, they had been traced to somewhere around the Promenade; and everyone had blamed Suvuk and his improvised network. But what was he to do when O'Brien declared that maybe he'd find the time to wire his station in three weeks' time? By all the craters of T'Khut, he needed to work now and not in three weeks' time! And of course, they had to send Äänekoski to check on the energy conduits that led to his network. Without a word, the Finn had gotten to work, and Suvuk had fled from his office. In Quark's he found nobody worthwhile to talk to, so he ordered a mineral water, sat down on an ancient Romulan(!) gambling machine, and started winning. The Ferengi assured him desperately that this was impossible. He'd bought the machine only last week at a bargain price from a...
Suvuk had pocketed his winnings and returned to his office. He pulled the Finn, who seemed to be reconfiguring the whole network, from a service hatch and wordlessly took him into Quark's, sitting him down on the offending machine. And indeed, the Ferengi cheat in the Romulan antique had been the cause of those mysterious energy drains.
Unfortunately, Äänekoski had not left his network in working order; and as the improvements the Finn had begun implementing were technologically too complicated even for Suvuk, ha had to suffer him in his office for three more evenings after the Lieutenant's shift was over. At least the human did not again attempt to insinuate himself upon Suvuk. But the Vulcan couldn't endure his presence; while Äänekoski cursed the computers in Finnish, Suvuk went to ops and tried exchanging some data with the pathfinders on Memory Prime, which was extremely tiresome owing to the convoluted interface protocols. And then, of course, there was that second replacement communications officer lounging at his station beside Suvuk, talking to his sister on the northern continent in the most dreadful Bajoran slang about men and computers. Suvuk needed immense control not to lose his composure and behave in an un-Vulcan way when he had to listen to the utter banality with which the Bajoran discussed his problems with men in general and in particular, while he found himself completely unable to deal with his painful emotions about just one man.
So, he had complained to Major Kira about the Ensign's private use of station equipment, but to no avail whatsoever. Kira seemed to regard the controlled Vulcan as a legitmate target for her Bajoran temper anyway, and her voice had risen more than usual while explaining the usefulness of Andra Adarys' informal involvement in station business. She and her brother could talk about men and computers as much as they wanted as long as there was time if they talked about whatever was neccessary most in a crunch. Or did the Vulcan object to sitting beside a man interested in other men? Well, this was a Bajoran station, and the Bajoran culture had always maintained...
Suvuk had fled again. What with Andra Laz at the communications console and Äänekoski in his office he had retreated into Quark's, but as the Ferengi seemed to have no other nefarious projects going on just now, so he'd pounced on Suvuk and tried to press all sorts of services on him. When repeated rounds of "Vulcans don't drink alcohol" and "Vulcans don't use any holo installations" had remained without avail, he'd finally gone and found some peace in the Klingon restaturant, listening to the proprietor's singing and discussing Klingon opera with him long after closing time.
He got on very well with sober Klingons, Suvuk realised once more. All the other station personnel, official and civilian alike, seemed to experience some difficulties with the Vulcan way of living and working. Keiko O'Brien, for example. She'd actually had the nerve to ask him if he could spare the time to explain the basics of Vulcan philosophy to the kids at her school, as if she couldn't see that he indeed had more than enough to do. And that unctuous Cardassian with his shamelessly expensive tailor's shop who kept trying to sell him allegedly Vulcan robes. Seemingly, this Garak had some suspicious sort of soft spot for the utterly clueless and naive young doctor. This made him try and regard the Vulcan as his own kind and pull him down to his own deplorable level, as he, shadow creeper and all-purpose spy that he was, had once observed Suvuk and Äänekosi meeting unawares in the Replimat and simultaneously turning on their heels.
Suvuk refrained from comment, but in the privacy of his own mind he could find no similarity between a bored Cardassian half-heartedly fishing for a distraction and a tortured Vulcan mere weeks away from the next bout of pon farr, plagued by the memory of just a few moments of forbidden gentleness and closeness; the comparison was positively offensive. And yes, he was still tortured by that brief, stolen emotion of tenderness and belonging. Not for a long, long time he had felt so accepted by anyone as in those days of complicity or even friendship with Äänekoski; and he'd never experienced anything like the moment when he came to in Jukka-Pekka's arms after the Cardassian attack. He'd never been loved before.
But he was not to have all that; he'd denied himself anything of that sort long ago, when in that corridor at the cybernetics institute in ShiKahr...
No point in thinking of that, either. But every time he saw the Finn, he remembered the churned-up emotions of his concussed soul, remebered rejecting a wonderful man a deeply repressed part of him had wanted, whom he even needed, as his slowly rising hormone level kept suggesting, and who definitely wanted him right back.
But it was morning; and calmly Suvuk went to the replimat to get his breakfast. Nobody would be able to see through his controlled facade and discover the sadness, the longing and the anger raging beneath, almost uncontrollable now. Only concentration upon his work was now able to silence what Äänekoski's closeness aboard Millenial Falcon had woken in him.
He avoided a gesturing grey elbow, noticing that it belonged to the irresponsible Bajoran communications Ensign. Having joined the breakfast queue, he turned back and realised with a jolt that Andra Laz was sitting at a table with none other than Jukka-Pekka Äänekoski, discussing some diagrams and flirting with his eyes.
Theoretically, Suvuk had heard that among humans and other such species there was an emotion called jealousy. But while love was a real temptation to his Vulcan control, jealousy was to him an exotic phenomenon he only knew from reports. Still, he correctly identified the emotion that unstoppably raged through him at this moment, breaking down all his barriers and spreading over him like a stun field as said jealousy. Seeing Jukka-Pekka with another in this way, and the Bajoran Ensign of all people, was unbearable. His imagination was all but overpowered by the wish to attack Andra Laz with a lirpa and chop him up into many very small pieces. He found himself unable to continue with whatever he'd done before, and could barely contain the urge to pounce on that table and throw the Ensign off - whatever he needed to be thrown off from.
People queued up before the replicators shoved at him, and an importunate glance settled on him like a large, buzzing insect. Over there, three tables away, Garak was having breakfast with Dr. Bashir and grinning at the Vulcan with such slimy understanding as any Cardassian could muster. The good doctor, completely consumed by his own importance, as usually noticed nothing whatsoever.
Suvuk reliquished his place in the breakfast queue and took flight; but in turing he suddenly met the enquiring smile in Jukka-Pekka's eyes. Shoved out of the breakfast queue by a hung-over Klingon, he stumbled awkwardly onto the Finn who grabbed his wrist and so broke his fall. Their inexplicable telepathic connection had survived their estrangement without a dent, and now whispered to him, I am still there for you, Suvuk, if you need me. Suvuk broke loose and hissed, low enough for only Äänekoski to hear, "You have no idea, Lieutenant. Get out of my life!"
"Mulla on niin paljon oikeutta tässä asemassa olemista kun teillä, tai ennemän, kun mä oon hyödyllinen ja te ette!", Äänekoski answered, loud and scornful, incredibly hurt by this new rejection. He had seen with his own eyes what happened to Suvuk when he saw him sitting here with Laz...
The connection was still holding! Forcibly, Suvuk tore loose his mind and fled, using all the external calm he could still muster (not much) to reach the refuge of his office.
But there a new and completely different problem was waiting for him. In the half darkness in front of his closed door, a small, quietly crying life form with two black braids was cowering before the most gigantic Cardassian vole he'd ever seen.
Whatever his misgivings against emotional involvement, Suvuk fully shared the attention and respect any Vulcan showed towards children. In an eyeblink, Suvuk grabbed the 'vole' and threw it over the railing to the lower level, where it was greeted by piercing screams. The human child remained crouched down, crying louder "I want my mommy" and "Atashi no oka-chan ga hoshii da". Obviously the O'Briens' little daughter. Whatever she was doing here.
Suvuk gently picked up the small creature. It pressed itself against him, sobbing; the child's primitive, overpowering emotions invaded him through the touch.
All anger was forgotten; Äänekoski simply vanished from his mind. With his Vulcan discipline he contained the child's terror, gently pressed it down and carefully pushed it out of his conschiousness. The little girl loosened her grip, looked Suvuk in the eyes and asked, "Burukanjin-san, atashi no oka-chan wa doko da no?" Suvuk smiled, indeed, smiled at her, and gently put her on her own feet. "Shite imasen yo", he answered. "Mimashô ka?"
"Hai, mimashô", she answered earnestly. Suvuk extended two fingers to her, which she took, and together they went down the stairs to the Promenade and Odo's office.
Extremely astonished glances were following them, but Suvuk's concentration was solely with the child. Vulcans would not comfort their children emotionally, of course; after an unpleasant occurence they would teach the child how to logically deal with it. Suvuk now followed exactly this pattern, although he spoke Japanese. He explained in simple words to the small creature how all wild animals were afraid of intelligent life forms and that a human or Vulcan was stronger than a wild animal when controlling his or her fear. If she met such a wild animal again, she shouldn't crouch down but stand as tall as she could and shout out loud so the animal would take fear and run away, or at least not harm her until help arrived. If she was quiet, nobody would hear her, and if she made herself small, the animal would think she was just a small animal herself. Wasn't that logical to her? "Hai, burukanjin-san", she anwered seriously. Suvuk smiled at this title, and was still smiling when they arrived in the Constable's office.
Quark was there, whining loudly about somebody having thrown a life vole at him and one of his dabo girls. "You have much more massive security problems here, Constable", Suvuk interrupted the Ferengi. "There are wild animals on this station that have now taken to attacking small children. You should try and contain the pests before they harm anyone. This small person was actually threatened by one such so-called vole".
"Pest control is not part of my duties, unless the pests walk on two legs" - a short glance at Quark - "but lost children are, as long as everything else is quiet", Odo remarked drily. "Well, little lady, let us try and page your mom, shall we?"
This, however, proved to be unneccessary, as now an upset Keiko O'Brien stormed into the security office, a crying, about thirteen-year-old Bajoran girl, obviously the babysitter, in tow. Emotions welling over upon seeing her child, she swept the small girl up into her arms and exclaimed, "Molly, you're not to run away and frighten your mommy like this!"
Suvuk deplored this maternal reaction which effectively destroyed all his endeavours at sensible behaviour about the event, making Molly cry again, but he knew full well that his opinion wasn't called upon in this instance, and so he left the security office to finally start his work.
Translation! Äänekoski says to Suvuk in the Replimat, "I've got the same right to be on this station as you, Lieutenant, or even more, as I'm useful and you aren't".
Molly cries again in Japanese "I want my mommy", and then asks "Mr. Vulcan, where is my mommy", and Suvuk answers, "I don't know. Shall we look for her", upon which Molly replies, "Yes, let's look". After Suvuk's "lecture" she answers his question if that wasn't logical to her by saying "Yes, Mr. Vulcan".