Bond of Friendship - Part V - T'hy'la

Posted on Sunday, 26 July 2020 - 10:46am by Lieutenant JG Maximus Mackenzie

Mission: Operation: Jabberwocky
Location: Earth, Japan
Timeline: 2393 - MD06

Previously on Bond of Friendship....

Haru laughed. “Yeah. That was the first night that …” he allowed his voice to trail off as if lost in thoughts of what once was.

Mac stood and walked over to Haru and took the cup from his hands. He laid it on the table and clasped Haru’s right hand in his own right hand. He pulled the man up. “Come with me.”

“Where are we going?”

“The same place we went that night. Perhaps we need to loose ourselves for a few hours. It’s something that we’ve been dancing around the entire time we’ve been together. The thing that we dance around whenever we get together.”

Haru was silent for a moment. He looked at their clasped hands. “I’ve missed this.” There was a pause. “I’ve missed you and … us.”

Mac led Haru towards the master bedroom where they could get lost in one another, at least for tonight. Something neither had allowed since their parting after graduation from Starfleet Academy. These were memories, thoughts he allowed himself to relive whenever he needed comforting, whenever he needed balance and strength. Perhaps it was time to analyze things a bit more but for the moment he didn’t intend to. Now he just wanted to be in this moment, to feel alive if even for a brief moment and to shut out the loss and pain that both men had had their fill of over the last few years.

And now the continuation...

Several hours later it was Max who was the first to wake. He slipped into his boxers and slipped out of the room letting Haru sleep. He cleaned up a bit around the living room area and then ordered a coffee. He sat at the kitchen bar area thinking about everything.

He smiled as a kiss was placed on the back of his neck. “You are supposed to be resting.”

Haru got himself a coffee and took the opposite side across from Maximus. “Yeah well when I woke up you weren’t there. I wanted to find you and here I am.”

There was a silence between the two men that Max broke. “We should talk about all this. We lived in a dream world all through the Academy, there was a pull from the first day we met during first year and it continued until we graduated and for me beyond. I mean we’re friends but this is more Kaito,” he said using Haru’s middle name again.

“It is. I’ve been with others but when I need strength I come back to this.” He motioned between the two of them.

“Kavela.”

“What,” Haru asked over the rim of his own coffee.

“What you Vulcan’s call T’hy’la a term that can mean friend, brother, lover or all at once, who souls meant to be together. On Earth it is called soulmate but it cannot capture the essence as well as Capellan and Vulcan can. Earth language is limited.”

Haru gave a chuckle, “Well don’t you sound Vulcan.”

Max smiled, “I have my moments. It could also, of course, be your influence.”

There was a stretch of silence that Haru broke this time. “So what do we do?”

Max shrugged. “I don’t know. Why do we have to decide now or ever? This thing between us it is there, we both know it is there, it is something that gives us strength.”

Haru sipped his coffee. “When I started my last relationship…I loved her, I did but it was not like this.” He paused. “I knew... I know that I will never love anyone as fully as what we have. I will never feel for anyone as I feel about you.”

Max smiled a hint of a blush drawing on his cheeks. “I feel the same. I may enter relationships but you will always be my source of strength.“

Haru sighed. “So what do we do then?”

“Ah, that question again.” He paused. “My answer, again, is I don’t know. Why decide?”

“I don’t want to loose you, us, this,” Haru confided.

Max shrugged. “It’s been years and you still haven’t so what makes you think you will?”

Haru paused. Something floated in his mind. “What if we could have our cake and eat it too?”

Maximus laughed, his rich baritone laugh filling the room. “Oh?”

“I’m part Vulcan.”

“Yes I know. Your ears are a source of endless fascination for me.”

It was Haru’s turn to blush, “Yeah well what of the Tel, the co-joining of minds.”

“A mind meld.”

“But more. A tel-tor. A bond joining our minds so that when my pon’farr is triggered we would be drawn together.”

Max nearly spit out his coffee. “Are you talking about marriage.”

Haru sighed, “In a sense but not by Earth standards. We could have marriages, legal ones, outside of our relationship but we would be drawn together every seven years. It would not be a full marriage bond but a telan. We’d be bonded less then a marriage but more then a betrothal. It could always stay thusly. I trust nobody with my life more then you. I will never feel for anyone what I feel for you. I may love, perhaps, but never will my feelings ever be stronger for anyone then they are for you.”

Max was silent.

“Maximus, you cannot tell me you do not feel the same.”

Max looked up. “I struggle with this.”

“What part.”

“What if I do not want to marry anyone else what if I can live with what we have my whole life? We both want to command one day and marriage does not a good captain make. You are so much to me and everyone else has commented that our relationship is unusually close for friends but that is because what we have transcends friendship. It is as if a whole was separated by light years and each half exists but when we’re together we are that whole. Why seek other relationships. We do not have to make this a formal one but it could sustain us through all that comes.”

Haru reached out and took Max’s hand. "The Telan, I would not want to bond with anyone other then you. To link our minds in a cycle for life. A deep bond of the mind where we exist separately but will always be drawn to one another. It would not be a marriage bond like the one Alexandra and Soral share but nonetheless it will be just as deep made so by how we feel.” He paused. "Now that we've talked about it I don't think I could seek another companion either. It would not be fair to them. My soul and heart would belong to you and I could not give to them what is only reserved for you."

Max sighed. “The Telan. Let’s do it.”

Haru smiled. “Vulcan temple just two towns over. Tomorrow we’ll go.”

To Be Continued...

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