A/N: I'm pretty sure this isn't the chapter people were hoping for. I'll be hiding out at the end of the chapter if you want to throw things at me.
Martin walked into a bar.
Ouch.
Martin chuckled even though the joke was old and pretty terrible. But it was always the first thing that came to him whenever he, well, walked into a bar. Technically, The Spinning Dog wasn't a bar; it was a pub. Part of an international franchise with a location in just about any city you could name and just few blocks away from where he'd left Sophie. He'd had to sit in the bar where he and Spock had met the girls for over half an hour downing glass after glass of water and waiting for the detox he'd ordered to take effect. And the entire time, Sophie had been all over those two assholes from MIT.
He could have picked a different detox. One that worked faster. That mitigated the symptoms of intoxication or that neutralized the alcohol instead of completely eradicating it. But then he'd still have to deal with the inevitable hangover. The detox he'd taken stimulated the metabolism when it mixed with alcohol and burned it right out of the system and then went dormant. Unless you had another drink during the effective period, and then it would come blazing back to life.
The taste of the glucose solution the treatment came suspended in still coated the inside of his mouth and lingered on his tongue. It hadn't been cold enough to blunt the flavor, and orange wouldn't have been his first choice, but there hadn't been a selection. Martin knew the sickeningly sweet syrup was a precaution, giving the drug something to work on just in case it needed a kick to go inactive after it worked its way through the liquor and you hadn't had anything to eat in the last couple of hours. Just like he hadn't.
By the time he'd felt steady enough to leave, he'd almost felt sorry for the poor bastards Sophie had hooked into. They clearly looked like they'd just won the lottery. Hell, he'd been tempted to warn them about what they were in for, but those two dupes weren't about to listen to the guy warning them away from the hot girl in the see-through dress. He wouldn't have when he'd been in their position a year ago. Not when Sophie had been busy mopping up the vodka stain she'd so artfully put on the front of his pants.
Martin had bolted up the stairs and out onto the street almost before his head had had a chance to clear. At first, he'd just stood there next to the bar's crowded patio area and seriously considered admitting defeat and going back to the hotel. Given the way he'd scampered after Ponytail, he probably wouldn't be there, at least not until later, until after he'd figured out he wasn't going to get anywhere with her until he promised her...something. He didn't want to think what. The up side that he wouldn't have to deal with the Vulcan's pointed indifference until maybe the next day if he was lucky.
He'd headed towards the hotel because he hadn't been sure where else to go, but it had felt too much like tucking his tail between his legs and running away, and damn it! He hadn't done anything wrong.
He hadn't been sure exactly where he was going, but he'd walked more and more quickly until he was gulping air and ready to punch through the next brick wall he saw. Anything to make him forget how angry he was at Spock for not listening and at Uhura for being just the right combination of hot and smart to flick the Vulcan's "on" switch so that he wasn't thinking straight. But mostly at Sophie for being a manipulative bitch. And for treating him like an asshole when all he'd done was call her on it. And for making him doubt himself. He might not be the Starfleet golden boy his brother Hank was, but he wasn't exactly a washout, either.
He'd stopped on the next corner and commed Cadet Solórzano. Shattering his hand or getting dragged down to the police station for vandalism or property damage or whatever they called it in England was the last thing he needed. She'd mentioned earlier that she and the rest of the team were planning to meet the team from UCLA at some pub in the city center, and that's how he found himself walking into The Spinning Dog not more than 20 minutes after he'd left Sophie peddling herself for drinks at the underground bar.
The pub was well-lit and, from the look of it, crowded with tourists. Solórzano had said their group had a large table near the front windows, and while he recognized a few of the other teams from the Invitational through the glass, he couldn't see any of his teammates. Martin took the steps up to the entry two at a time, eager to see someone happy about his being there, and nearly stumbled when his knees gave a little. The detox was still working on metabolizing the alcohol is his system, and he was feeling a little shaky and nauseated. And he was starving. All signs that the drug wasn't done but that it had already burned through everything he had in him that wasn't liquor, including the shot glass full of glucose, and if he didn't get something to eat soon, it would start eating away at whatever stores of blood sugar he had left well before it got rid of the last of the alcohol.
The main room was almost disconcertingly familiar. It was the same large and open space as the location in San Francisco and filled with people. Martin couldn't see more than a few feet in any direction. As he searched the crowded room for his team, he heard a familiar voice call out.
"Schroeder!" Solórzano was standing on a chair, waving her arms. Martin raised his hand in return to let her know he'd seen her and wound his way through the people and tables to where she and the members of the UCLA team were gathered.
"Hey." Martin draped his coat over the empty chair next to Solórzano and across the table from the dark-haired girl she'd roomed with when she was an undergrad at Davis. He collapsed into it in a grateful heap and looked up. "What in the Alpha Quadrant are you doing?"
Solórzano was still standing on the chair searching the crowd. "I'm trying to get the server back over here. We've only got one pitcher of beer left and we all want to order dinner."
"You have to order at the bar."
"No, we don't. A girl came over when we first got here."
"Are you sure it was to take orders?"
She shrugged. "Take orders. Fawn over Zhelen. Same thing. Anyway, she put our drink order in and brought them to the table."
"Speaking of, where are Zhelen and Gunheim?"
"Playing pool with Dave and Heather. Do you remember everybody?" she asked and gestured to the other girls at the table.
"Yeah, Angela, Kelly, and Carissa, right?" Martin turned towards them.
The well-endowed blonde at the end of the table giggled, and Martin took a moment to appreciate the way her shirt pulled tight across her breasts when she laughed. "It's Caressa," she corrected, her voice light and breathy. "Like the word caress with an 'a' on the end."
Across the table from him, Angela, a pretty dark-haired girl, rolled her eyes fondly and smiled. "I'd tell you that she's drunk, and let's not kid ourselves, she's a little drunk. But she's like this sober, too."
"Good to know. I won't ask her anything taxing." Martin reached for the pitcher of dark beer in the center of the table and an empty glass. He paused for a second and briefly considered the wisdom of drinking on an empty stomach, especially with the detox still active and bubbling away. Probably not the best idea, but he filled the glass anyway. He'd just sip at it and make it last the rest of the night. And he'd get water with his food. He was topping off the glass when a frigid, blue hand clapped him on the shoulder.
"Schroeder," Cadet Zhelen murmured in his ear. "What happened to your 'sure thing'?"
"No comment." He grimaced and reached for a pile of napkins and wiped up the beer that had sloshed over the rim of his glass when the Andorian greeted him. He shouldn't have said anything to Solórzano. The girl couldn't keep anything quiet. It still mystified him how she'd survived resistance training.
"Is this all the beer we have left?" asked a red-haired girl who had followed Zhelen over from the pool tables and slipped into the empty chair next to Angela. Another girl with black hair took the chair next to her. Heather and Dave. Martin recognized them from the pub quiz the night before.
"Hey, Martin." Cadet Gunheim smiled at him, and she sat down at the end of the table. "Celli said that your plans fell through."
"Yeah. Is this the only thing you guys have to talk about?"
Zhelen broke in. "No, but the tale of your romantic failure was most amusing." He looked up at Solórzano hopping around on the top of the chair, waving her arms and looking more and more like a demented go-go dancer. "What is she doing?"
"She's trying to get someone to take our order," Martin explained. "I told her we need to order at the bar."
"That will be unnecessary." Zhelen raised a long arm and beckoned to a girl on the other side of the room wearing an apron and a tight t-shirt emblazoned with a picture of the pub's coat of arms, and Martin was surprised to see her respond immediately.
Solórzano let out a frustrated snort and glared down at Zhelen from her perch on the chair. "How do you do that? I've been waving my arms for at least 10 minutes." She took Zhelen's proffered hand and jumped off the chair. She crossed her arms over her chest and stared up at the Andorian. "Well?"
"I am 199 centimeters tall, blue, and very attractive to female humanoids," he stated, as if this was the simplest thing in the world. "And I have no doubt she has heard the tales of the sexual prowess of Andori males. Exceptions tend to be made." Zhelen turned to take in the rest of the occupants of the table, his antennae poised and eager.
Caressa giggled, and Gunheim rolled her eyes. "Down, boy."
"Yeah," Heather said, flipping her red curls over her shoulder with a smirk. "Didn't you embarrass yourself enough at the pool table?"
"I was merely being chivalrous," Zhelen replied with a sniff. He took his seat and smoothed his white hair back from his forehead.
"No, he wasn't." Gunheim poured the last of the beer into her glass. "The only person he beats at home is Aracelli," she said, gesturing to Solórzano. "And she sucks, too."
Solórzano scowled at the other girl before her expression softened. "Oh, who am I kidding? I can't even pretend to be offended because she's right."
Their laughter was interrupted by the server, who had sidled up to Zhelen with a seductive smile. "So love, what can I get for you?"
The next several minutes were a blur as food and drink orders were given, and Martin basked in the mostly female company he found himself in. He took a small sip from his glass, feeling settled and at home for the first time all night. Angela watched him from the other side of the table, and Martin leaned in towards her, his smile brightening. "What?"
"You just seem really happy for a guy who just got dumped."
He ignored the dig and nodded. "I am. I'm so glad I caught up to you guys." The brown-haired girl's answering grin was the best thing he had seen all night. "So, tell me what Solórzano was like as an undergrad."
A/N: I only own Start Trek in my dreams. In my reality, it belongs to someone else, and I only profit from this in non-monetary and yet still totally fulfilling ways.
I almost feel like I should apologize for this not being the direct continuation of the last chapter. But Martin isn't done being Martin yet, and I needed to get him in the right place. The next chapter is on target to be up before the end of the month, so the suspense won't last too long.
And speaking of the next chapter, I mentioned that I'd give advance warning when the content veered into M-rated territory. That starts with the next chapter and will continue into the one following it, at least for the first bit, so if M-rated stuff isn't your jam, chapter 14 is best avoided. There's some M-rated content at the very beginning of chapter 15 as well, but that one is harder to skip, so maybe just ignore the first six paragraphs or so. Happy May!