Undaa, Hakar, Senes Stardate 2281.73
The night his father returned to Senes, Losha had left the apartment, unable to face the onslaught of emotions Sybok's arrival had brought on. He'd found some acquaintances hanging out in an area known as The Triangle and had gotten high. Though his friends had tried to persuade him to stay out longer, he'd made certain to arrive home before dawn.
The apartment was still - Sybok was apparently still asleep and had not noticed his absence. It would be several hours before the drug wore off and Losha was able to sleep. He lay in the bed, staring at the ceiling, feeling completely content. Thoughts of his mother's death, his father's absence, and the war and all its misery no longer troubled him. He was happy. The war was over, his father had returned, and it was time for a new beginning.
When he awoke in the early afternoon, it was with all the agony of withdrawal. Though not physically addictive, coming down from a sur high was emotionally devastating. He had gone from the feeling of pure ecstasy, to one of extreme despair. He felt entirely alone and was unable to stop from crying. He didn't even know why he was crying, his mind felt completely empty. This is what kept people hooked on sur - unable to cope with depression that eventually replaced the high, they sought to get high again.
Losha did his best to compose himself and left the bedroom.
"You missed breakfast. Are you hungry?" Sybok glanced over at him from the couch, apparently not noticing anything amiss.
"No. I'll just get some water." It would be a day or two before his appetite returned. He supposed he'd have to force himself to eat sooner than that so as not to arouse Sybok's suspicions, but the thought of eating now made him nauseated.
He returned to the living room and sat down in a chair diagonal to Sybok, placing his glass of water on the low wooden table.
"You went out last night." It wasn't a question.
"You heard me?"
"I heard you, yes, and I also heard you here." He touched his index and middle fingers to his temple. Losha said nothing, so Sybok continued on. "You are using drugs to try to calm your mind, and you are failing. I know you are experiencing great emotional turmoil, but the drugs will only make it worse."
Losha stared down at the glass on the table, ashamed.
"Emotions, even negative ones, are a part of all of us. You have to accept that first. Then you can let go of them." Sybok looked at him intently.
"I have accepted things. I have accepted mother's death. I have accepted the deaths of others. I had to accept you leaving me here. You don't know what it was like. I have accepted all of these things, but that doesn't make them go away. I will never be able to forget them."
"I don't mean that you should forget them." His father hadn't changed much, it seemed. He had always spoken in riddles. My mother died when I wasn't much older than you were when your mother died. I haven't forgotten her, but I have let go of the pain."
"You never told me that." Losha had asked his father about his family when he was young, but Sybok's response had always been that the past had been left behind, and no longer mattered.
"I wish we had all left Senes together, before the war. Then none of this would have happened." It was the one thought that had been foremost in Losha's mind for the past eleven years.
Sybok sighed. "You have seen my thoughts. This is not the way I had hoped things would be, but the past can't be undone, and I am here now."
Over the next few days, Losha tried to convince himself that it was only a matter of time before his anxiety dissipated. He went through the motions, trying to act as if he and his father hadn't been separated by eleven years of war and turmoil. But he wasn't used to his father being there without his mother, and he wasn't used to dealing with him as one adult to another. In his father's presence, he still felt as if he were ten years old. He hated it. Even when he had lived with his parents, he had been an independent child - it was the only way to get by when one was constantly moving from one place to the next - and living on his own from such a young age had made him even more so.
Speaking Vuhlkansu the majority of the time was also a sudden change for him. It was his first language, he would never forget it, but he found himself struggling to find the right words. Often they were on the tip of his tongue, but they eluded him. It hadn't been this difficult when he had first learned Standard, or Haka, or any of the other languages he had picked up as a child. He wasn't sure if the difficulty lay in the fact that he was now an adult or that his mind was damaged, or both. He began to feel isolated.
"I'm going to see some friends tonight," he told Sybok over dinner.
"Malar?" Sybok asked, putting his fork down.
"No, some other friends you haven't met."
"The same friends you saw the night I came home?" Sybok raised an eyebrow at him.
"No." It was half true. He didn't know who would be at the Maysal that night. Perhaps some of the same acquaintances he had seen at The Triange the other night, perhaps not.
"Velekh, you think I won't know when you lie to me?" Losha's mouth hung open. "Where do you plan to meet them?"
"The Maysal Artists' Colony." Perhaps, he thought, his father might assume he was only going out to look at artwork.
"I imagine that place is still a drug den?" Losha looked at him with surprise. "I've lived here before, I knew the city well. I want you to be able to see your friends. But if your friends are all drug users like you, then you have to walk away from them. The drugs have damaged your mind, and they're going to continue to do so. Don't you see that?"
"The damage is already done. It can't be reversed." He had told himself this over and over. It was how he had come to accept it.
"You don't know that. And even if your mind is never as it once was, do you want to continue to destroy it?" He heard his father's words, but they didn't sink in. He didn't really care what happened to him, he hadn't for a long time. Sybok looked at him, surprised.
"You don't care? This place isn't good for you. I know Hakar has been a home to you for eleven years now, but no good can come from you continuing to stay here. You have friends here, and they have been important to you. But they haven't been able to help you the in the way that you need it. We can make a new beginning somewhere else."
For years, leaving Senes had been all that Losha thought about, but now that he was faced with the possibility of it actually happening, he was anxious. He had lived here half his life, as long as all the other places he'd lived put together. Despite the fact that he'd never completely fit in, he was used to Hakar. It had become comfortable. But his father was right, it was time to get away from this place, to start over someplace else. Hadn't he been thinking that just the other day?
"I don't want to live here forever," he replied, "but I need to say goodbye to my friends first."
"Of course." Sybok smiled broadly.
The sooner he left, the better. It would be so easy to get drawn back into a life that was comfortable, but destructive. Joa was in prison now, and Malar would soon be leaving to travel around the planet. She might never return. There was nothing left for him here except memories. He had plenty of other "friends," but their relationships had no depth. They could be counted on for a fun time if sur or kenal were readily available, but lacking that, they were little more than strangers. It was something he had given a lot of thought to during his time in jail.
"Tonight I will say goodbye to some of them. And tomorrow I will find Malar and there is someone else...someone I must visit at Inz Raan."
"Joa was a good friend to you."
"Yes."
"I don't sense any deception from you, Velekh, but I am concerned about you going to the Maysal. Do you have the willpower to resist any temptations there?" Sybok cocked his head, a look of misgiving on his face.
"I must."
"Then go."
He had told himself it was only one last time, for old time's sake. His friends at the Maysal had insisted. He'd truly gone with the intention of saying goodbye, nothing more, but he'd only put up nominal resistance. What was one last time?
Losha knew it was long past the time he should have gone back to the apartment, but he'd couldn't bring himself to leave. Yes, his relationships with these people was hollow, but he felt comfortable among them. Moving on to a new life began to seem daunting. So he stayed, even as the sur began to wear off. His anxiety increased and he found himself despairing over the idea of leaving the planet where his mother had died and Kadren and Vensar had died. He was also becoming agitated and angry, though the anger was not directed at any person or thing in particular. He didn't even know why he was angry.
He sat, back against a stone wall, staring at the stones that made up the wall opposite. Others sat against the walls as well, high or coming down from a high like him, not noticing him just as he did not notice them. A voice he recognized as belonging to Letaal was speaking rapidly in one corner. Why was Letaal always talking? Couldn't he ever shut up? Losha's anger began to focus on him. He was about to yell at him, to tell him to be quiet, when he heard footsteps coming from the outer room, the room that eventually led to one of the side entrances of the building.
And then suddenly his father was striding toward him.
"Velekh," he said, reaching down and placing his hands on Losha's shoulders, "kal-tor's hal-tor, let's go." It was an instant reflex. Losha shoved him backwards, but Sybok maintained his balance, and took a step closer. He was too close, practically in Losha's face. Losha shoved him again, hard.
"Ri tor esta me! Don't touch me!" He screamed.
"Think about what you are doing. This is not you speaking." There was a pitying look in Sybok's eyes.
"This is me!" He screamed. "This is who I am now! Get used to it!" The anger he had earlier felt at Letaal had transformed into an uncontrollable rage at Sybok.
"No." Sybok took a closer again and as he did, Losha moved to shove him again, but before he knew what was happening, Sybok had spun him sideways, one hand pressing Losha's arm into his side, the other holding his head down by the back of the neck. He would later learn the move was from ponn-ifla, a skill his father had mastered as an adolescent on Vulcan. He had no time to think about it at the moment, though, because he was almost instantly rendered unconscious by a nerve pinch.