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psalm_onethirtyoneTitle: Xenophile
Fandom: Star Trek
Characters/Pairings: Chekov, McCoy, alien.
For:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
snowyofthenight, for her participation in the Fic Drive.
The aliens are cold-blooded and have half a dozen kinked legs for ambulation. They exist partly on another plane, keeping their brains in a pocket dimension for ordinary day-to-day life, only removing them when higher function is necessary. It irks McCoy--damned if it isn’t a good idea, especially with brains as fragile and important as they are, but when Jim tells him to look them over with the tricorder it’s a hell of an extra bother. He finds himself trying to explain, in a patient slow voice, that they’ve got to pull their damned brains out of the damned ether and show them to him, because he can’t just guess at a location.
As far as he can tell, they can’t understand him, because there aren’t any brains forthcoming. To top it all off, Ensign Chekov is lurking around his makeshift medical tent, making apologetic faces.
“What do you want?”
“Excuse me, Doctor! I was only wisiting. I wanted to ask her what it is like to live in two planes.”
“Good luck with that. I’d like to see you try.”
And somehow the damned boy can. He babbles away, and the alien McCoy is looking over, a young female whose name is roughly equivalent to Earth birdsong and not easily replicable with humanoid vocal cords, brightens up somehow. She lets out of a string of whistles and chirps and trills, and Chekov claps his hands.
“Oh, God, I wish I could see it. I cannot say how it is in English.”
“I’m sure it’s fascinating. Why don’t you go tell Mr. Spock?”
“He’s wery busy, he told me to assist you.” Chekov beams.
“Wonderful. Then why don’t you tell this… young lady to let me see her brain?”
Maybe it’s that the Ensign’s supposed to be some kind of genius, but he turns back to the alien and trills out her name, pretty as you please, his throat vibrating like an ear drum; McCoy can practically see the sound waves. Then it’s, “Excuse me, will you show the doctor your brain? He cannot examine it through your skin.”
“You’re telling me she’s got it in her head right now?”
“She doesn’t keep it in her head, sir.” Chekov puts his hands over his abdomen. “It is more like here.”
“Why can’t I detect it?”
“I think because of her tissue composition.”
“How would you know? You’re a navigator.”
He looks embarrassed. “She said that her brain is enweloped in a casing of organic metal alloys when inside her body. I thought it might obstruct the tricorder, sir.”
“Damn right it would.”
And then there’s a sort of squeezing noise, like a sponge being wrung out, and sitting on the ground in front of them is a pile of tissue coated in what looks like gold leaf, shining delicately under the planet’s red sun. The alien looks at them expectantly through eyes like cold black holes on stalks, and Chekov’s beam turns back on.
“Thank you wery much!”
He goes on chattering to her while McCoy inspects the brain. The coating is deceptive; it’s actually quite soft. When she talks to Chekov, it pulses quickly, but the pulse slows when she’s listening. As far as McCoy can tell, it’s completely healthy. He doesn’t find tumours, cysts, abscesses, or any other kind of knot or lump, and there are no anomalies--or at least no anomalies that don’t look like they’re supposed to be there.
Finally he stands back. “I’m done here.”
There’s a query from the alien, and Chekov says, “He doesn’t need it any more.”
The noise the brain makes going back in is almost the exact opposite of the noise it made coming out, but there’s no Earth noise analogous for McCoy to wrap his head around. He has this idea that in the old days aliens were easier to inspect, he misses the galaxies full of humanoids. Non-Euclidean geometry was never his strong point.
He shakes himself back to the present and Chekov’s thick Earth accent.
“Done, sir.”
“Thank you, ensign. You can flirt with her all you like now.”
---
Title: Memory Alpha
Fandom: Star Trek, Firefly
Characters/Pairings: Inara/Uhura, Mal, Simon, Jayne
For:erinpuff and tainry, same as above.
“What you do in your shuttle is your business, but I believe I’m going blind in both eyes, ‘cause it looks like that lady you brought on board is wearing a Federation uniform.”
Inara shoots her captain a look that could quell lightning in space. “Nyota is an old friend of mine. I trust her with my life.”
“Yeah? Well, don’t go trustin’ her with ours.”
“Please, Mal.” She resettles the brocade silk that falls from her shoulders to her feet, robed around her like some kind of half-draped statue. Uhura can understand them perfectly well--the Earth-that-was languages were the first she learned, and the Chinese dialects are nowhere near as difficult as some of the Romulan ones, let alone those that are further out in the galaxies uncolonised by Starfleet Federation.
She takes a step forward. “Excuse me, Captain Reynolds. I’m Nyota Uhura, senior communications officer on board the Enterprise. My captain, James Kirk, was placed on outstanding warrant databases throughout the Federation two years ago for aiding insurrectionists. You’re probably familiar with his name.”
“She speaks Chinese? You didn’t tell me speaks Chinese!”
“You assumed she didn’t.”
Inara’s captain gives Uhura a hard stare. “If you’re on the run from the Federation, why are you wearing their uniform?”
“We’re flying under the radar,” she says coolly.
Inara rests a hand on her arm. “Nyota, let’s go. My shuttle’s ready for you.”
---
The shuttle is dimly lit and private; sound seems to catch in the heavy tapestries on the wall. Uhura can hear it, all the echoes of all the past things lying weighty and incoherent in the silence. Inara is setting a low table for tea, the fragrance of gardenias rising and mingling with her incense.
“You have a beautiful home.”
Inara turns and smiles. “I’m glad you like it. I apologise for Mal. I told you how he is about the Federation.”
“Captain Kirk is almost as bad. Commander Spock is the only voice of reason sometimes. If we didn’t have him I’d be afraid we were going to become openly defiant. He’s the one who suggested changing the name of the ship and arranged for the crew’s false papers and screenings.” She sighs. “I made three docking arrangements under false names to-day alone.”
“You can always be yourself here. I put an extra robe on the bed for you.”
“Oh, thank you.”
It’s a relief to take off the heavy Starfleet tunic and change out of her boots. Inara’s robe is pure silk and lies on Uhura’s skin like air, so light she can hardly feel it. A few moments later Inara gets to her feet and crosses the room, circling her arms around Uhura’s waist.
“It’s good to see you again.”
“Sometimes I think you picked a better career,” Uhura says, soft as a whisper against Inara’s cheek.
Inara laughs. “You’re a liar. The tea’s ready.”
---
Inara’s wide bed is a glorious change from the regulation mattress in Uhura’s room. She sinks into it blissfully while Inara lets down her hair and slips the robe off over her shoulders.
“Is Christine still in love with your first officer?”
Uhura laughs. “Still. Remember when I thought she was the most beautiful girl in Starfleet?”
“Oh, I remember. I was so jealous.”
Inara sits down on the side of the bed, turning to stroke Uhura’s cheek with one hand. She has her own smell, separate from the shuttle and the tea and the incense, all those scents getting tangled up together inside the bedroom. Uhura lets out a sigh and smiles.
“I was afraid that after all this time you wouldn’t still want to--”
“I knew you were on the run. I didn’t expect you to send me a holotab.” She leans down and kisses Uhura’s mouth, her hair falling over one shoulder and shielding them, her long hands pulling loose the sash on Uhura’s robe. “I’m just glad I was able to see you again.”
“I don’t know if you will again.” Uhura wonders why she’s talking about this now, of all times, when what she wants most is to enjoy Inara’s friendship. Maybe so the pillow talk afterward can be about happier things. Maybe because she’s the senior communications officer and she’s been trained to communicate. “To-morrow we’re leaving again. The captain said it wasn’t likely that we’d be coming back here.”
“Mal travels around.” Inara opens Uhura’s robe. “Besides, I have your hailing frequencies.”
Uhura tries not to laugh, but she does anyway, shivering at the same time--she never has managed to have any other reaction to Inara when she’s being mock-seductive. “I guess you do,” she says, as she reaches up.
---
“Damn, Inara had another girl? Why didn’t anyone tell me?”
“What an imposing question,” the doctor says in a wondering tone. “It certainly is curious to think that Inara would want to keep her life private from you, Jayne.”
“Damn straight it is,” Jayne growls.
Uhura blows Inara a kiss from the docking door and waves. She waits to see Inara wave back before she turns and walks back to along the docks towards the George S.
Fandom: Star Trek
Characters/Pairings: Chekov, McCoy, alien.
For:
snowyofthenight, for her participation in the Fic Drive.The aliens are cold-blooded and have half a dozen kinked legs for ambulation. They exist partly on another plane, keeping their brains in a pocket dimension for ordinary day-to-day life, only removing them when higher function is necessary. It irks McCoy--damned if it isn’t a good idea, especially with brains as fragile and important as they are, but when Jim tells him to look them over with the tricorder it’s a hell of an extra bother. He finds himself trying to explain, in a patient slow voice, that they’ve got to pull their damned brains out of the damned ether and show them to him, because he can’t just guess at a location.
As far as he can tell, they can’t understand him, because there aren’t any brains forthcoming. To top it all off, Ensign Chekov is lurking around his makeshift medical tent, making apologetic faces.
“What do you want?”
“Excuse me, Doctor! I was only wisiting. I wanted to ask her what it is like to live in two planes.”
“Good luck with that. I’d like to see you try.”
And somehow the damned boy can. He babbles away, and the alien McCoy is looking over, a young female whose name is roughly equivalent to Earth birdsong and not easily replicable with humanoid vocal cords, brightens up somehow. She lets out of a string of whistles and chirps and trills, and Chekov claps his hands.
“Oh, God, I wish I could see it. I cannot say how it is in English.”
“I’m sure it’s fascinating. Why don’t you go tell Mr. Spock?”
“He’s wery busy, he told me to assist you.” Chekov beams.
“Wonderful. Then why don’t you tell this… young lady to let me see her brain?”
Maybe it’s that the Ensign’s supposed to be some kind of genius, but he turns back to the alien and trills out her name, pretty as you please, his throat vibrating like an ear drum; McCoy can practically see the sound waves. Then it’s, “Excuse me, will you show the doctor your brain? He cannot examine it through your skin.”
“You’re telling me she’s got it in her head right now?”
“She doesn’t keep it in her head, sir.” Chekov puts his hands over his abdomen. “It is more like here.”
“Why can’t I detect it?”
“I think because of her tissue composition.”
“How would you know? You’re a navigator.”
He looks embarrassed. “She said that her brain is enweloped in a casing of organic metal alloys when inside her body. I thought it might obstruct the tricorder, sir.”
“Damn right it would.”
And then there’s a sort of squeezing noise, like a sponge being wrung out, and sitting on the ground in front of them is a pile of tissue coated in what looks like gold leaf, shining delicately under the planet’s red sun. The alien looks at them expectantly through eyes like cold black holes on stalks, and Chekov’s beam turns back on.
“Thank you wery much!”
He goes on chattering to her while McCoy inspects the brain. The coating is deceptive; it’s actually quite soft. When she talks to Chekov, it pulses quickly, but the pulse slows when she’s listening. As far as McCoy can tell, it’s completely healthy. He doesn’t find tumours, cysts, abscesses, or any other kind of knot or lump, and there are no anomalies--or at least no anomalies that don’t look like they’re supposed to be there.
Finally he stands back. “I’m done here.”
There’s a query from the alien, and Chekov says, “He doesn’t need it any more.”
The noise the brain makes going back in is almost the exact opposite of the noise it made coming out, but there’s no Earth noise analogous for McCoy to wrap his head around. He has this idea that in the old days aliens were easier to inspect, he misses the galaxies full of humanoids. Non-Euclidean geometry was never his strong point.
He shakes himself back to the present and Chekov’s thick Earth accent.
“Done, sir.”
“Thank you, ensign. You can flirt with her all you like now.”
---
Title: Memory Alpha
Fandom: Star Trek, Firefly
Characters/Pairings: Inara/Uhura, Mal, Simon, Jayne
For:
erinpuff and tainry, same as above.“What you do in your shuttle is your business, but I believe I’m going blind in both eyes, ‘cause it looks like that lady you brought on board is wearing a Federation uniform.”
Inara shoots her captain a look that could quell lightning in space. “Nyota is an old friend of mine. I trust her with my life.”
“Yeah? Well, don’t go trustin’ her with ours.”
“Please, Mal.” She resettles the brocade silk that falls from her shoulders to her feet, robed around her like some kind of half-draped statue. Uhura can understand them perfectly well--the Earth-that-was languages were the first she learned, and the Chinese dialects are nowhere near as difficult as some of the Romulan ones, let alone those that are further out in the galaxies uncolonised by Starfleet Federation.
She takes a step forward. “Excuse me, Captain Reynolds. I’m Nyota Uhura, senior communications officer on board the Enterprise. My captain, James Kirk, was placed on outstanding warrant databases throughout the Federation two years ago for aiding insurrectionists. You’re probably familiar with his name.”
“She speaks Chinese? You didn’t tell me speaks Chinese!”
“You assumed she didn’t.”
Inara’s captain gives Uhura a hard stare. “If you’re on the run from the Federation, why are you wearing their uniform?”
“We’re flying under the radar,” she says coolly.
Inara rests a hand on her arm. “Nyota, let’s go. My shuttle’s ready for you.”
---
The shuttle is dimly lit and private; sound seems to catch in the heavy tapestries on the wall. Uhura can hear it, all the echoes of all the past things lying weighty and incoherent in the silence. Inara is setting a low table for tea, the fragrance of gardenias rising and mingling with her incense.
“You have a beautiful home.”
Inara turns and smiles. “I’m glad you like it. I apologise for Mal. I told you how he is about the Federation.”
“Captain Kirk is almost as bad. Commander Spock is the only voice of reason sometimes. If we didn’t have him I’d be afraid we were going to become openly defiant. He’s the one who suggested changing the name of the ship and arranged for the crew’s false papers and screenings.” She sighs. “I made three docking arrangements under false names to-day alone.”
“You can always be yourself here. I put an extra robe on the bed for you.”
“Oh, thank you.”
It’s a relief to take off the heavy Starfleet tunic and change out of her boots. Inara’s robe is pure silk and lies on Uhura’s skin like air, so light she can hardly feel it. A few moments later Inara gets to her feet and crosses the room, circling her arms around Uhura’s waist.
“It’s good to see you again.”
“Sometimes I think you picked a better career,” Uhura says, soft as a whisper against Inara’s cheek.
Inara laughs. “You’re a liar. The tea’s ready.”
---
Inara’s wide bed is a glorious change from the regulation mattress in Uhura’s room. She sinks into it blissfully while Inara lets down her hair and slips the robe off over her shoulders.
“Is Christine still in love with your first officer?”
Uhura laughs. “Still. Remember when I thought she was the most beautiful girl in Starfleet?”
“Oh, I remember. I was so jealous.”
Inara sits down on the side of the bed, turning to stroke Uhura’s cheek with one hand. She has her own smell, separate from the shuttle and the tea and the incense, all those scents getting tangled up together inside the bedroom. Uhura lets out a sigh and smiles.
“I was afraid that after all this time you wouldn’t still want to--”
“I knew you were on the run. I didn’t expect you to send me a holotab.” She leans down and kisses Uhura’s mouth, her hair falling over one shoulder and shielding them, her long hands pulling loose the sash on Uhura’s robe. “I’m just glad I was able to see you again.”
“I don’t know if you will again.” Uhura wonders why she’s talking about this now, of all times, when what she wants most is to enjoy Inara’s friendship. Maybe so the pillow talk afterward can be about happier things. Maybe because she’s the senior communications officer and she’s been trained to communicate. “To-morrow we’re leaving again. The captain said it wasn’t likely that we’d be coming back here.”
“Mal travels around.” Inara opens Uhura’s robe. “Besides, I have your hailing frequencies.”
Uhura tries not to laugh, but she does anyway, shivering at the same time--she never has managed to have any other reaction to Inara when she’s being mock-seductive. “I guess you do,” she says, as she reaches up.
---
“Damn, Inara had another girl? Why didn’t anyone tell me?”
“What an imposing question,” the doctor says in a wondering tone. “It certainly is curious to think that Inara would want to keep her life private from you, Jayne.”
“Damn straight it is,” Jayne growls.
Uhura blows Inara a kiss from the docking door and waves. She waits to see Inara wave back before she turns and walks back to along the docks towards the George S.
