Arithmetic of Souls, Part II
Posted on Tue Nov 11th, 2025 @ 12:45pm by Lieutenant James Constantine & Lieutenant Ezra Van Wijnbergen
Edited on on Mon Nov 17th, 2025 @ 5:32am
1,436 words; about a 7 minute read
Mission:
Episode 2 - The Sins of History
Location: The Sidebar Lounge - Deck 5 - USS Artemis
Timeline: MD017, 2115 hrs
The question had brushed against an old and familiar place inside of him. He let a breath out through his nose, shoulders easing with it.
"My parents are both Betazoids," Ezra offered, his voice sincere and forward. "Adoptive, obviously. I spent my formative years there. It's not like I could live in that house and not become used to listening past spoken words."
James just watched him for a long moment, his mind immediately going to what that must have been like...growing up as a non-telepath amongst telepaths. He had known the opposite, but it was different...for Ezra, it could easily have been framed as him 'missing' something. "That must have been exhausting," he finally replied, bluntly.
Exhausting. That was definitely the word.
"Not always," he said after a pause. "Sometimes it was like standing in a room full of music you couldn't hear. Other times it was like being the only one who didn't get the joke because I'd only heard the punchline and not the setup." Ezra thought back to the early days when his mother and father would suddenly stop speaking but would continue to look at each other intently. It was something he'd grown accustomed to until his mother decided to teach him to open up enough to hear fragments of her thoughts.
"So Criminal Investigations then," Ezra said, giving the thinnest-lipped smile one could imagine. "Tell me about it."
"Same game, but completely different rules," James chuckled weakly as he shook his head, leaning on the bar as he looked into the drink. "You're trying to track down the most lawless members of society, using a framework of process and procedures that are bound by countless rules and regulations. But it's not enough to solve it, and find them, you have to do enough to prove it to people who come from completely different walks of life. And there's so much conflict...civil rights vs victim rights...justice vs safety...politics vs well, everything," the slight curve of his lips softened the words though.
Ezra found himself letting the words sink deeper into his mind. Civil rights versus victim rights. Justice versus safety. Politics versus everything. James did not speak like a man reading off a board of hypotheticals--there was something lived-in about it all. The edges sounded worn and heavy--like he'd clung to someone who'd carried loss early and never seemed to put it down. Abandoned or bereft, Ezra couldn't say for certain. But it had the same timbre he'd once heard in his own voice, years ago, before he learned to give any kind of shape to his grief.
"How's it been," Ezra asked, his tone even, "working here? On the Artemis. How does it hold-up to your previous assignments?"
Constantine took a moment to glance around the bar, as if it might help him make an accurate assessment. "It's a more...rigid timetable on a ship," he chuckled softly, not meaning to sound as if he was considering his words so carefully, it was just the closest word he could find. "And siloed...people do what they do, rather than needing to be Jacks and Jills of all trades."
He drew the glass toward him, tipped back the final swallow, and set it down carefully on the table.
"Sorry again... for the mess," he said, his words almost completely swallowed by the chatter around them. He stood slowly, his six-foot-five frame nearly hiding half of the room from Constantine. "If you ever find yourself down on the medical deck... stop by. You know, if you're there."
Ezra flashed a thin-lipped smile that disappeared as quickly as it had come.
"Good night, James."
James blinked with mild surprise at Ezra's sudden move to leave. He wasn't a sensitive soul by any stretch of the imagination, but he couldn't help but wonder if he'd committed a faux pas. "Something I said?"
The six-foot-five advocate paused, the crowd still humming around him like a machine of voices and gestures. He turned back slightly toward Constantine, his hand still resting on the edge of the table where the empty stange had sat.
"Not you," Ezra said, his voice low but clear enough to cut through the cacophony. He glanced around at the press of bodies around them. "Too many voices at once. I feel like I'm drowning."
He gave a faint shrug, a gesture that was more self-effacing than anything else. "I've never been good at the hive."
"Ah..." Constantine nodded slowly with understanding, thinking on it as he glanced around the room. He got up, motioning to the bartender to get them both a bottle before motioning Ezra to follow him out. "We can find a quiet corner."
Ezra hesitated a moment, then he caught Constantine's motion and the subtle beckoning. They found their way to the opposite corner of the Sidebar, where the crowd and the noise seemed a little more distant.
Constantine kept going until they were in the very corner. He subtly shifted a few chairs at the corner table, forming a casual barrier between them and the rest. Instead of sitting at the table, he moved to sit in the arch of the viewport. The starscape was on one side of them, the corner bulkhead on the other. He let out a soft breath as he rested back against one side of the arch, sipping from the bottle. "I guess you spend a lot of time listening to people, hm?"
The counselor silently dragged a chair from a nearby table, before turning it backward and sat, his massive forearms braced across the backrest. The lighting here was softer, pooled instead of glaring.
Ezra shrugged at the question. "Yeah," he said softly. "My last assignment on the Papineau was pretty much that." He motioned to James for the bottle. "People tell you some strange things when you stay silent long enough--I'll bet you know that trick, too."
Constantine laughed softly, a small almost sly half smile pulling at his lips at being found out. "The impulse people have to fill silence, especially humans, has always been fascinating...and very helpful. It gives a whole new meaning to the phrase 'give them enough rope to hang themself with'...although, I suspect you don't use it quite so cynically."
The large-framed victim advocate counselor leaned forward slightly, his arms crossed on the chair's back. Outside the viewport, the stars looked like little pieces of silver in inky, black water. He tipped the bottle, the amber liquid crossing his lips and down his throat. It burned slightly, but the taste was sweet and gentle on his tongue.
"No," he said with a smile. "I haven't had anyone strung-up yet."
He passed the bottle back to Constantine. "Several years ago, I probably could have--if I had continued in law."
"You were a lawyer?" Constantine asked, his eyebrow arching with surprise as he reached for the bottle. He searched his features as he sipped, resisting the urge to quest out with his mind. It wasn't his business to pry beyond what he wanted to say. "What made you switch lanes?"
Ezra leaned back a little, admiring the view of Bajor once more.
"I studied law," he began simply, "and for a while I thought that's where I belonged."
He gestured to Constantine for the bottle. "It wasn't where I started. I attended the University of Yalnos on Betazed first. Studied xenopsychology and sociology. I liked learning how people worked, what made them break and what made them mend. Starfleet Academy seemed like the logical next step. I studied Federation Law and jurisprudence. I thought maybe law school might be interesting--but I knew I could never stand and speak in a courtroom. So I did my MJ at the Starfleet Legal Academy. Three years there, reading statutes, writing arguments, watching professors claw at each other over a comma." He smiled faintly. "It was a good education in the limits of idealism."
A Joint Post By
Lieutenant James Constantine
Criminal Investigations Officer, USS Artemis
Starfleet Criminal Investigations Unit
Lieutenant Ezra Van Wijnbergen
Victim Advocate Counselor, USS Artemis
Starfleet Criminal Investigations Unit
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