Disclaimer: I don't own Star Trek
Title: Bitch mode
Summary: Mariner helps out the medical division sometimes. Mariner gets T'lyn's attention. Mariner ends up with a new friend.
...
"Lieutenant Mariner, would you please induce anesthesia in the patient?" T'lyn asks as she readies her injection.
Mariner looks up from the noob she's compressing. Livik. Little bastard ran instead of fighting off the parasite- broke his ankle and any respect anyone in lower decks had for him. She grabs his lapels and yanks, sending their skulls crashing together. He flops uselessly down onto the bed.
"Not the way I would have proceeded," the Vulcan says, but seems impressed nonetheless. "You have good reaction time."
"Yeah, yeah, whatever. Can someone hand me the glue gun?"
Mariner is, by technicality, medic approved. But no one likes medic Mariner. Mariner doesn't like medic Mariner. Occasionally there's simply too big an issue to not employ her, however, and Dr. T'ana will (chipperly, the old hag) bellow, "Mariner! Bitch mode!" and she's off and running. Tendi thinks of it as a weird sort of bonding ritual they have, but Mariner just tries to get it over with.
Case in point: Jack Ransom, currently bleeding underneath her.
"'Glue gun'?" he asks, eyes wild. "No one uses glue anymore!"
"Shut, shut, shut up." Tendi throws her a healing gizmo and she waggles it. "Looks like one of those old glue guns, see?"
"You don't even know what it's called?"
"Oh, for fuck's sake, Ransom, don't be a baby. You've seen me do this before."
Ransom mutters something that sounds suspiciously like, "You've not had a reason to kill me before" under his breath, and yeah. Mariner's still a bit miffed about the promotion. But she's more miffed about this squirmy fuck that's refusing to get healed. "Could I possibly get an actual medic over here?" he shouts.
"Oh, fuck right off!" she yells over him, nullifying the command. Mariner turns and bangs her hand against the rung, again and again, until her middle finger dislocates. She sticks it in his face as she turns on the machine, showing it slowly meld back into useful flesh and bone. "Y'see? I know what I'm doing."
"Why are you like this?" he asks, suddenly hushed.
Mariner, straight-faced, holds the gizmo to his side. "I have no idea."
"I have theories."
Mariner pauses. She was on her way to her room when T'lyn had- accosted her, or whatever. T'lyn isn't like Tendi, whose all sugar and sweetness until shit gets real. T'lyn is a stone-cold baddie by Vulcan standards, which makes her a stone-cold baddie to nerd standards, and by transitive property that makes her a stone-cold baddie by Mariner standards as well.
But she's still Vulcan through and through, and Mariner had done her best to keep her conversations with her factual and brief. It's not easy for her to do; Mariner likes talking, but she knows she's a lot. She made Tendi seem calm and collected. So she cocks her hip and says, "Theories about what?"
"You told Commander Ransom you have no idea why you are the way you are," T'lyn is poking and prodding at her padd now, and Mariner suddenly realizes she probably has charts about this. "I have theories."
Oh, Mariner thinks, this is gonna be fun. "I'd love to hear them, if you have time."
"I would not have accosted you if I did not have time," she says, and- hell yes, proper word choice! "I've read through your files."
"Oh, yeah, I have those," she says, enjoying the Vulcan twitching at that. "Most of it is redacted."
"I'm aware. I bypassed those redactions."
And honestly? Funniest shit Mariner's heard all week. She knows she should probably be pissed at the intrusion, but it's not like Tendi hasn't tried, and Rutherford had probably gotten access, and Boimler's heard her horror stories. Mariner's an open book- minus the parts she's legally unable to talk about- and the idea of T'lyn, busy Vulcan woman, taking the time to decrypt her files to write a smear report is just. Mariner couldn't make that shit up. "That's amazing."
"I am very gifted, yes," T'lyn says, bringing up a hologram and holy shit she does have charts. "I think a lot of it draws back to your untreated C-PTSD. You were diagnosed at a young age but have not sought out therapy. Why?"
"Have you met the ship's therapist?" She shakes her head. "He speaks entirely in food metaphor."
"Ah," says T'lyn, probably making a mental note to avoid him. "There is also a long history of various ailments you did not let heal by medical means. Is this a form of self-harm?"
"No. I have a high threshold for pain and tend to forget injuries until they're detrimental," Mariner sums up. It's fancy talk for other Ensigns are weak bitches and I'm not.
"You are also untreated for bipolar. You seem to show a lot of symptoms for mania episodes."
Mariner pauses, because she's honestly forgotten about that one. It's been a long time since she thought about it, and even longer since she got meds for it. "Yeah, I- I usually schedule shore leave when I'm hitting the depressive episodes."
T'lyn raises a perfectly kempt brow, and a Vulcan raising their brow is no fucking joke. "You are showing signs of anxiety. Have I hit a sore spot?"
"Nah, I just- I forgot I had meds for it again. Keep forgetting to take them."
"Mm," T'lyn says, and casually sticks a needle into her neck before Mariner has time to blink. "There you are. You will operate at more normal levels now."
"Damn, girl," Mariner says, slipping on the factual and brief part as she rubs the spot, "You're quick."
"It's useful for taking down disruptive patients." Which is T'lyn fancy talk for I can calmly tackle someone to the floor if needed, and do it fast.
"Now it's going to make me dizzy," she bemoans; the crux of why she forgets to take it.
Another needle in the neck. Mariner's not as gifted with Vulcan people as she is Klingon, but she's pretty sure this makes them friends.
"I'm not taking it!" Shaxs bellows- but when isn't he bellowing?- as he ducks and dodges T'lyn's steady hand. "We don't know what that will do to Bajorans!"
"Lieutenant," says T'lyn, in what Mariner is starting to read as her I will kill you voice. "Bajoran DNA has nothing to do with the effectiveness of this vaccine."
It's a ship-wide mandate, curtesy of dear old mom. Mariner is pretty sure whatever cosmic entity they're flying through is one they've flown through before, or at least she has, and most of the upper decks is now standing around rubbing their shoulders and pretending they're cool for taking it like big boys. Shaxs is the one exception, and for what could almost be seen as good reason; he only takes shots from T'ana.
"Take it like a man, Shaxs!" Mariner yells, ignoring Boimler's slap to her elbow for it.
"Can I go now?" Rutherford is complaining, looking antsy to get back to his work. They all quietly pray the Engineer hasn't been ripped from something vital as Shaxs runs across the room and ducks over a med bed. "C'mon, Papa Bear! Just do it!"
"This is bad behavior for the medics, Baby Bear," Shaxs calls out, ever loyal, as he upturns a bed at T'lyn's feet. "Don't do what I do!"
"Mariner," sighs T'lyn, in the most monotone of voices. "Bitch mode."
Mariner leaps over the fallen table, crouching when Shaxs tries to punch her in the face. He's got good aim and a slow reaction time as she weaves around him, grabs an arm, and casually throws him to the floor with her weight. Shaxs' stronger than her, but she's got an arm, which she twists whenever he struggles. T'lyn sighs in relief as she stabs him in the arm.
"You broke my wrist," Shaxs whimpers against the ground.
"Don't worry, Lieutenant," Mariner says. "We can wave a light over it."
"I took blood samples," T'lyn tells her over dinner. Mariner's loaded up on ribs while the Vulcan politely works through a chickpea-potato chaat. "I find your physiology fascinating."
Mariner sucks some sauce off her pinkie. "I wondered why you stabbed me, like, four times."
"It's difficult to find a good vein on you."
"I got a freckle right here-" She points to her inner elbow- "Works perfect every time."
"Noted."
"Tendi's taken blood from me before. I guess you guys think it's really interesting that I keep my scars?"
T'lyn nods. "While it's not unheard of to heal to the point of scarred skin, it's mostly undocumented on potential side effects. I aim to find any strange inconsistencies in your genetics and write a thesis paper on them."
"Lemme know if you find something, alright? Especially deadly stuff."
"That is my duty. Are you familiar with genetics?"
"Basics. Tendi's always been the genetics girl in our group. My area of expertise is local customs and hand to hand." It's really hard to be factual and brief when every part of her is screaming being a badass as an answer to her question.
"Your files indicate a strong connection to Klingon culture," T'lyn says, pulling up The Charts again. "Do you believe in Sto-vo-kor?"
"I think it's badass, but not inherently real."
"I will add a note," she surmises, which tells Mariner she just signed a 'no' on a do not resuscitate. Fair enough- medics are all about following religious customs as well for their duties.
Mariner twirls a bone between her fingers, picked clean. "That's why I could never be a medic. If someone came to me like 'let me die to go to superheaven' I'd be a dick and save them. Or, well, try to. I've got all the basic classes for the Ensign level of duty." Been around the block as many times as she has, you know a little of all of it. She could pass as an Engineer if she really had to. A shitty one, but hey. Duct tape worked for the ancients and it'll work for the Cerritos.
"Sometimes," T'lyn says with a shrug, "All that is required is an Ensign."
"Take it or you're demoted!"
"That's your lamest comeback yet, Captain!" Mariner bellows, smacking her hands away. "The Captain needs her medicine, damnit! Stop making this difficult!"
Freeman, damn her, does not stop making it difficult. She grabs her wrists and tries to do a swinging turn that'll knock her off-balance, but Mariner slams her head into her mother's nose. "The crew comes first!"
"There isn't a crew without a Captain!"
"Beckett, I can and will send you to the brig!"
"Oh, no, not my favorite place!"
T'lyn stands between them with the last hypospray on deck, looking almost flustered. Of all the things the Vulcan expected, Mariner would bet a shouting match between a Lieutenant and her mom wasn't high on that list.
Mariner flinches and grabs her side, mindful of the bleeding. Gonna need to stopper that soon, maybe get some old rags and shove them in there. Mariner's good at hick medicine; the kind that works but hurts or smells or both. Captain Freeman, Starfleet through and through, is not.
And, well. It's her mom. Who the hell takes medicine from their mom?
"Beckett," says the Captain, faux-calm. "Take the damn medicine."
Mariner cracks her knuckles. "Take it or I kick your ass."
"Your father is going to hear of this-"
"No fair, he always takes your side!"
"Mariner," says T'lyn, seeming to have finally taken a side. "Bitch mode."
Mariner whirls on her, about to demand to know what the hell the Vulcan thought she was doing right this second, and Freeman takes that opening to get her in a lock. She tries to kick her shins and- whelp, hypospray, right to the face.
"Traitor," she slurs, already halfway gone. Her face meets the smooth metal floor before she has the luxury of passing out.
Stitches are old school, but they fucking work. Tendi takes a blow during the healing process and Mariner, not able to reach the machine from the table, snags some string and a surgical needle and goes ham. Sources later will differ on how many pain meds she was on, but Mariner is a 'difficult patient' who refuses such frivolous things. They block her ability to fight.
Mariner defends the Cerritos, then T'ana demands her help, and she honestly forgets about it until she's stumbling through the motions for bed and Boimler takes one look at her mid-undress for a sonic shower and faints, the fucking baby.
"Fascinating," T'lyn says, and she can't tell if the Vulcan means the red sketches across her gut or Boimler on the floor.
Tendi, thankfully, is used to this, and grabs a pair of scissors so the stitches don't get melded with her skin. Rutherford is equally used to this and just laughs and shakes his head. "You're wild, Mariner."
The Orion makes quick work of the metaphorical dam on her insides, snipping the sutures and holding a fancy dohickey to the quickly reopening wound. "When you told me you fixed this, I thought you meant you got the hypo."
"Haha! Rookie mistake."
Tendi lightly smacks the side of her not bleeding. "I didn't make Lieutenant just for you to die on me, asshole."
"Is that an order?"
"I can make it one!"
"Sucks to suck, Tendi! We're the same level now," Mariner says, in one of the few times she's actually happy to be promoted. She's certainly willing to keep up the ranks if it means keeping her friends- especially if said friends end up taking over a ship someday. They might actually be fun to work with.
Tendi glares at her and Mariner, wisely, shuts up. T'lyn is adding notes to her file in the back and it's enough to make her giggle, spasms that hurt against the grinning cut.
T'lyn demands more samples, and that means sitting in the medbay.
The place is kinda spooky at night. They keep the lights low to let everyone sleep, but it reminds her a lot of the ship morgue. Only real difference is the lack of pull-outs. T'lyn flicks a vial of something and puts it into a machine. She's always wondered what the flicking was for.
"It helps the reaction," T'lyn says, catching her gaze. "Do you and the Captain always try to beat each other?"
"Only when it suits us."
"Noted."
T'lyn bustles about the area, but something is off. She's as studious as ever, as quiet as ever, but there's some kind of lag that has her taking the extra second. It's small, which makes it big. She's worried.
"I'm not gonna die," Mariner assures her.
"I'm aware of that." T'lyn pulls up her chart, adding something in small letters Mariner can't read. "If it was a case between the life of one and the life of you, who would you choose?"
"That's dumb," says Mariner. "My life is as special as anyone else's."
"Hmm." T'lyn backtracks her original typing, putting self-sacrificing on her- report, or whatever this is becoming. "Have you ever killed someone?"
"I'd get arrested for trying to answer that," she replies, which means yes.
T'lyn doesn't seem surprised by her lack of response. She swipes the screen over to genetic data of another patient. "You do not mind my probing. You listen but do not understand, which means you listen just to hear. I had... a feeling that you needed that hypospray. It shouldn't impede our tests."
I'm worried, Mariner hears, that you'll want to stop being my friend. "Of course not. You're an amazing medic."
T'lyn cracks the tiniest, faintest smile. It's more of a middling of her mouth than an upturn. But to Mariner, who knows Vulcans, that's a big deal. Maybe even a bigger deal than a raised eyebrow. "You have more Klingon in you than you know."
"Maybe," she says, feeling pretty alright with that.
Author's Note: Me, writing Star Trek with absolutely no outside Star Trek knowledge except for Lower Decks, with 15 tabs open: this is going wonderfully! I'm going to get such a great grade in fan, something that is normal to want and possible to achieve!
As always, correct me on things I did wrong! I'm really new to Trek, so don't hesitate. It's fun to learn!
-Mandaree1