Chapter Two: What's the Divine Word for "Whoops?"
AUTHOR: Mnemosyne
RATING: PG-13
By the time movie night rolled around, Eros was
walking on a cloud. Literally. This was the easiest
assignment EVER. Already he'd set up his couple and
fired his love dart; it was all up to them now. He
was just hanging around to see how it all turned out.
He drifted through the corridors on his puffy cloud, watching the cheerful crewmen wander underneath him. Now and then he'd whisper something in a woman's ear, making her suddenly remember the dream she'd had the night before, or perhaps the fantasy she'd indulged in that morning in the shower. The blushes he encouraged were amazing. Other times, he'd poke some of the men in the side of the head, and watch them stumble as a particularly svelte member of the opposite sex walked past.
Ah, it was good to be Love.
Eventually, he found himself in the screening room. A good number of people had already turned out for the show. They clustered together in little groups, laughing and joking and throwing popcorn at each other's heads. That was one thing Cupid would NEVER understand about humans - their propensity for throwing things at each other. Food. Clothes. Issues of TV Guide. It was amazing more of them weren't sporting black eyes half the time.
Malcolm showed up exactly ten minutes before showtime, and like Trip had suggested, he was wearing a blue silk shirt, which highlighted his eyes nicely. A pair of black pants - tight, but not sinfully so - and regulation black boots finished off the ensemble. He looked quite dashing; a few of the women in the room raked appreciative eyes over his body as he made his way self-consciously to a seat well off to the edge of the room. Cupid shook his head; the man looked like he wanted to shrivel up and disappear. That would never do; not if he was going to impress grounded, practical, amiable Hoshi Sato.
Trip arrived a few minutes later. After spotting his friend hiding in the corner, he made his way through the maze of chairs towards him. "What're you hiding over here for!" he hissed as Cupid listened in. "Hoshi's going to be front row, center!"
"Trip, I can't do this." Malcolm sounded like he was about to be very sick. Very noisily sick. "It's just... It's too open. If there were fewer people here..."
"Malcolm, you're sitting next to her, for Pete's sake, not asking her to be your wife. People sit next to each other all the time. YOU sit next to people all the time. Hell, you sat next to me at lunch. Was that embarrassing?"
"Well, you ARE a bit loud-"
"That's not what I meant!"
"Okay! No. It wasn't."
"Exactly. And why's that? Because we're FRIENDS, and friends can sit together without being all nervous and jumpy. Okay?"
Malcolm exhaled heavily. "Fine, fine," he muttered, running a hand through his hair. "Bloody hell, disarming phase torpedoes is less nerve wracking than this."
Trip grinned and clapped him on the shoulder. "The wiles of the fairer sex are treacherous waters, Malcolm, but you'll pull through."
"Trip?"
"Mm?"
"Could we please not compare any of this to water? It's going to be hard enough to keep from vomiting on her shoes as it is."
"Oh, right. Sorry, buddy."
"Quite all right."
"Don't wanna ROCK THE BOAT or anything."
"Trip!"
The fair-headed man laughed. "Just kidding!"
Malcolm gave him a withering stare, but was distracted from voicing a response by the door opening and Hoshi entering.
The instant she stepped into the room, Eros knew something was wrong. Perhaps it was the way she carried herself. Perhaps it was the scent of expensive perfume that lingered around her like a dreamy mist. Perhaps it was the sultry look that sizzled in her dark-lashed eyes.
Perhaps it was the red, filmy negligee and stiletto heels. Yeah, that might have been it.
"Oh Maaaalcoooolm," she crooned in a deep, inviting voice, a sly smile gracing her rosebud lips. One slim finger crooked in the armory officer's direction, beckoning him towards her. "Heeeeeere, boy."
"Oh my God!" Malcolm and Trip croaked in unison.
"Oh me!" Eros yelped in turn.
Excited whispers buzzed through the room as the slender woman sashayed towards the two dumbfounded men, hips swaying enticingly. "I was going to wait until after the movie, but I couldn't go that long," she purred, sidling up to Malcolm and pressing against his body. She moaned happily as a pleased shiver worked up and down her spine. "Oooooh, you're even more muscular than I imagined. I bet you're really strong." She grinned. "I bet you've got lots of stamina." Giggling, she tickled her fingers under his chin. "You're going to neeeeeeed it!"
Malcolm turned frantic eyes to his friend. "Help!" he squeaked, trying unsuccessfully to peel the woman off his body.
Trip stared for a second, then shook his head and moved in. "Hoshi, what's wrong?" the engineer asked, trying to wrap his hands around her upper arms to pull her away from Malcolm. She was a slippery seductress, however; somehow, she managed to keep sliding out of his grasp.
"Mmm, nothing's wrong," she cooed, nuzzling Malcolm's throat. "Everything's perfect for the first time in aaaaaages. Isn't it, Mally-wally?" She giggled and nipped at Malcolm's pulse point.
"Help!" the armory officer squeaked again, even higher in pitch now, as he pressed himself into the wall, trying as hard as he could to get away from Hoshi's invading hands.
Eros watched the scene go past in a haze. Someone called Sickbay, but the med team was unable to sedate the amorous ensign, and ended up carrying both her and the overwhelmed armory officer back to the infirmary. The rest of the crowd filed out behind them, Abbott and Costello forgotten for the moment, abandoned for a much more interesting spectacle. It wasn't often they got to see something like a scantily clad communications officer climbing all over a thoroughly surprised lieutenant. The door swished shut behind the last of them, leaving Cupid alone with his dread.
This was bad. Very, very, very bad. Cataclysmically bad. When great-grandpa Kronos swallowed grampa Zeus and all his other grand-relations? Pretty bad. This? Worse. Why? Because the Goddess of Love had told him not to screw this up, and he'd just frigged that up like a one-legged circus clown.
"Shit," he muttered, indulging in an uncharacteristic moment of vulgarity. Humans had some uses, at least.
Well, his head hadn't exploded yet, so his mother must not have been paying attention to him at the moment. Good. Now it was time to focus on damage control.
How in Hades was he going to fix THIS?
Before he had a chance to wrap his head around THAT problem, however, an entirely new one cropped up, as a phaser shot ricocheted off the ceiling near his head.
"Holy-!" he exclaimed, covering his head with his arms and ducking away. Yes, he was a god, and on that note, immortal, but still; no one liked people shooting at them.
"Who are you and what have you done to Ensign Sato?"
Cupid peeked through his fingers. A tall, slender woman stood beneath his cloud, staring up at him with remarkably cool eyes. Green tinge to the skin, pointy ears...
Oh, Pluto. T'Pol.
"How... How do you see me?" he asked, trying not to sound like a jibbering idiot.
"Currently, I see you as an interloper floating on an indecipherable cloud in the middle of the screening room. How would you expect to be seen?"
"What? Oh! No. No, I mean, how CAN you see me? I'm supposed to be invisible!"
The Vulcan arched her eyebrow. "Invisibility is impossible. Even a cloaked ship is not invisible - it is merely an illusion."
Cupid furrowed his eyebrows. "Huh?"
She stared at him for a second, then moved on. "You have not answered my question. Who are you, and what have you done to Ensign Sato?"
He sighed. "Long story," he told her, shoulders slumped dejectedly as he let his cloud drift downwards until he was even with her eyes. "Short version - I'm Eros, God of Love, and my mother Aphrodite sent me here to find the loneliest, most miserable person onboard. I saw Malcolm and boom! Perfect choice. So I shot Hoshi with my phaser arrow of love. It was SUPPOSED to be simple, but something obviously went wrong. Very, very wrong." He groaned and buried his face in his hands. "Oh man. Mom's going to KILL me."
There was silence for a moment as the morose god let himself dwell in gloom. It wasn't a place he normally liked to dwell - he preferred tropical beaches with lots of bananas.
Then, suddenly, a stinging pain ripped through his shoulder. "OW!" he bellowed as he jerked backward, covering his shoulder with one hand as he glared at the Vulcan. "Why'd you shoot me!"
T'Pol considered him with calm eyes. "If you are truly an omniscient being, then the wound will not harm you. If you are a mortal, then the wound will be quite painful, but not life threatening. Either way, the problem is settled. One way, you are proven correct. The other, I have unmasked a delusional man with possible crazed intentions. It was a logical choice."
Cupid glared at her. "Tell me, when you look at yourself in the mirror, do you see a psychopath?"
"No."
"Because you are one, you know."
"No."
Eros sighed. "Well, fine then. Here." He took his hand away, revealing his perfectly mended shoulder. Even the uniform was unharmed. "Happy now?"
T'Pol arched her eyebrow again. "Intriguing."
"Yeah, I'm a regular Botticelli."
"Actually, I believe that was your mother."
"Hah! You believe me!"
"I believe nothing. However, it is logical to presume you know something about what has happened to Ensign Sato."
"Only what I told you, T'Pol."
"How do you know my name?"
"Told you. I'm a god. Now will you help me?"
"I do not know what I can do."
"Well for one, you can talk to them. I can't. They can't see me, remember? Still don't know how you can..."
T'Pol lowered her phaser and stood at ease. "I presume it has something to do with my Vulcan proclivity towards logic. It is... illogical for an invisible man to be floating on an invisible cloud in the screening room prior to an Abbott and Costello film."
"I'll have to agree with you there."
"How have you cured such ills in the past?"
Cupid shrugged. "Well, that's the thing. I sort of.... haven't."
"What do you mean?"
"My mother usually cleans those things up for me. The ill-conceived marriages. The poorly timed love affairs. The accidental amorous leanings towards a goat or a pig or a grove of poplars..."
"Perhaps you should contact your... mother about this."
"NO!"
T'Pol looked as taken aback as a Vulcan could look. "Why not?"
Eros shifted uncomfortably. "She... Well, she more or less implied that if I screwed this up, she was going to... make life pretty miserable for me. Only in a divine way, so I'm thinking plagues of locusts and possibly something involving having my skin flayed for the next two hundred years. "
"I see."
"I bet you do."
They stood quietly for a moment.
"May I see your phaser?"
Cupid looked up sharply. "Why?" he asked suspiciously, cuddling his phaser close to his hip.
"I do not see a bow and arrow. Therefore I presume you shot Ensign Sato with your "phase arrow of love" using that phaser." She held out her hand. "May I examine it? It may provide us some clues."
"Well... Okay." He handed over the phaser, releasing it reluctantly. He'd never liked sharing his toys, not even as a little cherub.
T'Pol took the weapon and began looking it over with a practiced eye. "I believe I may have located your problem," she told him evenly.
"What? How!"
She held it up for his inspection. "There are two settings on a standard Starfleet issue phaser: stun and kill. The former issues less of a jolt than the latter. Your phaser is set to kill."
Cupid paled. "You mean..."
"It would appear you shot Ensign Sato with enough... love spell to kill."
Eros groaned. Now, remember, his mother had said, keep the magic mellow. You throw too much at these humans and their heads are liable to explode from the lust.
"Kill me now," he whimpered.
"We have already established that is impossible. Have you a plan to fix your mistake?"
"No."
"Then if you wish to avoid contacting your mother, I suggest you think of one. Quickly."
//Like before my head explodes and I turn into a chicken,// he thought morosely.
It really sucked being Love.
TBC....