AN: This is for my good friend Flume, whose wonderful fics Tiny Spark and Slow burn inspired me to write this. And by inspired, I mean forced. ;) Please do check them out as they're both amazing and well worth the read.
The first thing she says to him is a challenge.
Eyebrow raised, slim green fingers wrapped around a shot glass containing the most vulgar purple liquid Scotty has ever seen, she asks, "You think you can do better?"
He takes a seat across from her, and she smiles while drinking him under the table.
It progresses easily, almost unnaturally so. A small band of officers have taken to off duty drinking at various locations on the ship, the time and place changing depending on when and where Spock is working at any given time. Though it's not strictly against the rules, and Spock isn't the Captain (Kirk drinks with them, and lies when asked about it later) there's a general consensus that the first officer doesn't need to know about the majority of the shenanigans onboard, and for good reason too. There's nothing logical about drinking until you can barely stand.
Invariably, after even the likes of McCoy has begged off to bed, they find themselves alone together. It has become a bit of a competition between them.
They share bits of themselves between shots, just snippets really, but Scotty finds himself fascinated by the tilt of her head and the way she gives out those bits of herself. He has never met a girl like Gaila and when she talks it is like watching the pieces of an engine come together, sparking under his hands. He picks her apart and puts her back together. She doesn't seem to mind at all.
She has a bit of a reputation, as most Orions do. It doesn't trouble him, and during their drinking sessions it's not much of an issue. She flirts of course, and he's seen her in action enough to know that she is up for almost anything, but onboard she is dedicated and professional. More so than himself sometimes, though he'd never admit it. He finds this contrast of her intriguing, another gear in the machinery he's constructing out of their conversations. He's not sure what he's hoping to build out of it; sometimes when she laughs he has a hard time thinking at all.
When they finally reach their breaking points on any given night (he almost always reaches his first), they stand and clutch at each other as the room spins like a top around them, their bodies stationary, solid. He holds her to him, pretending to be off balance as she laughs in his ear and he thinks, 'I win.'
They take shore leave on a dusty planet in the Bilaren System, a planet Scotty mispronounces at every opportunity, much to Spock's barely visible annoyance. He agrees to meet Gaila at a bar just a few feet away from where they'll be docking and when she finalizes their plans she is flushed a deep, vibrant green with excitement. He can't help but mirror her emotions.
He's not sure what to call what they're doing, but he thinks about it a lot while he's changing to leave. They flirt certainly, it's second nature to her and slowly becoming more commonplace for him, but that's not the half of it, not really. They're friends, that's accurate enough, and he values her input, appreciates her humor, enjoys her company. And sure he finds her attractive. But what would you call all of that? He can't find the right word to encompass it all.
He walks into the bar and sees her sitting there, red hair draped over one bare green shoulder, eyebrow raised in silent invitation to the man sitting across from her. They're holding each other's gaze and as Scotty watches, she raises the glass to her lips and knocks back the shot like it's nothing. The stranger laughs, clearly overwhelmed. Scotty can relate.
In that one shining moment, all of his earlier thoughts, all those swirling, indefinable emotions, suddenly cement themselves as something solid and real in the pit of his stomach. He sways there in the doorway of the strange bar, his body pulsing with the newest piece of information though he's not sure what to do with it. The word he was looking for earlier floats to the top of his consciousness but he swallows it down like a shot. Just because he can define it doesn't mean he's going to, especially not when she's laughing and touching the other man's arm. He takes a step and his heart lurches before him. For the first time since he's met her, he feels like he's losing.
He walks up to them, hesitates, feeling like a character from one of those silly old movies McCoy is always watching. "You talking to my girl?" the hero in those films inevitably drawls. Then, before hitting another man, "Can't you hear? She said she wasn't interested!" But Gaila is interested, clearly, so he sits instead and smiles with a mouth that feels like it's gone to sleep. He gives a mocking half wave to the man as someone sets a drink down in front of him and dutifully ignores the look she tries to give him out of the corner of his eye.
She introduces him as a friend and the word feels heavy, like something he could drown under. He scoffs at his own inner dramatics and knocks the stinging liquid down his throat. Somehow it's easier to smile with a burning mouth.
He awakens to the vision of her floating over him, her hair tickling his face. She smiles at him briefly, relieved, and for a moment it's all he can see. He cannot think of any reason why she should be so happy but it's contagious, and when he grins back he winces at a sudden pain in his jaw.
And remembers.
Oh, well, damn.
"He punched me!" he says, outraged at the memory. When he tries to sit up the world spins and he decides not to move. Not yet. Better to conserve his strength. In case he, well, needs strength for something.
He's still a bit drunk, and her smile is gone now.
"Yes, well, you didn't have anything to do with that now, did you?" she asks him, and he can tell she's being sarcastic by the way she tilts her head and looks at him with wide open eyes. He knows that face. He's seen it roughly a thousand times before, always directed at him. That dirty face puncher wouldn't understand that look if he saw it; he couldn't know her, not like Scotty does. Not if he had ten shore leaves.
"I didn't start it," he says automatically, copying her innocent stare to the best of his ability. She grins at him again, a different grin, one that worries him more than sets him at ease, and places both her hands on the hips of her short skirt.
"Oh really? So you didn't refer to him as a nampot and tell him that he had, and I quote, 'a face like a back of a type-15 shuttlepod'?"
Ok, so he might have started it.
Turning his head into the starched pillowcase, he groans. He doesn't know what else to do.
"What's wrong with you Scotty?" she asks him, and her voice is lower now, softer. She crouches next to him, her green fingers lying next to his pale ones on the sheet. He would like to take her hand, tell her all the incredibly stupid and terrifying things that are running through his head now that she's close to him. He could open his mouth and say it, and if she doesn't return the feelings he can blame it later on the alcohol, on his aching head, on any number of things besides the truth.
Then suddenly, a flash: the vision of her arm on that of the stranger's, her soft laugh when she knows she has him reeled in and waiting. She's laughed with him before, but not like that. Never like that. He feels a surge of jealousy roll over him, soft and warm and familiar. Suddenly his confession is more accusation.
"How come you don't sleep with me?" he asks, and the angry widening of her eyes tells him it was the wrong thing to say.