The Dragon and St. Del

A Vignette
by Mylochka

(Standard Year 2249)

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PART TWO

Sulu wondered if Del could hear his approach in his head before he could hear it with his ears.

“Shhhh,” the engineer cautioned without turning around as the helmsman came into range. “Don’ scare the fish.”

“Sorry,” Sulu said quietly.

DelMonde had found a pretty spot to put out his lines. He’d chosen a rock that projected several feet out beyond the rest of the shoreline, but was still close enough in to be shaded.

“Catching anything?”

“I doin’ fair to middlin’.”

The bucket was teaming with unfamiliar aquatic lifeforms that looked vaguely fish-y.

“Think we’re going to be able to eat any of this?” Sulu asked.

“Should be.”

Sulu picked up the tricorder the engineer had propped up against a small rock and did a quick read on the contents of the bucket. “They look pretty good, but….” The helmsman’s attention was drawn to a strong reading from the lake beyond him. “Del…there’s something out there.”

“Shhh,” the Cajun cautioned calmly. “You mean the ol' gentleman nappin’ at the bottom o' this pond?”

Sulu shook his head at the readings. “It’s big.”

“I know.”

“I mean, dinosaur big.”

“He ain’t gonna bother us if we not bother him,” Del assured him. Then indicated the extra equipment lying nearby. “You gonna fish?”

Sulu shook his head again, as he carefully replaced the tricorder. “I’m probably not much better than Chekov would be.”

“Well, I show you which end o’ the pole to grab,” Del drawled.

The statement had a surprisingly sexual overtone to it. DelMonde looked away as if he were a little surprised by it too. He responds to need, Sulu thought. After just one night away from Jilla, do I need enough to be noticed? Aloud he explained, “I’m just here to get some water. Chekov found enough solar cells to get the water purifier going.”

“I bet he proud of himself.”

“Yeah.” Sulu sat down on the edge of the rock near Del… but not too near. The view was wonderful. A dark blue lake surrounded by primeval forest rippled gently. From beyond the lake came the sound of a waterfall as the water spilled into a deep river beyond their sight. “He’s really disappointed that you aren’t helping him fix that navigational beacon.”

“He’ll live,” Del commented unrepentantly. “‘Sides, he never gonna amount to anyt'ing if his mama an’ I not stop shelterin’ him.”

Sulu smiled at this unexpected continuation of Del’s “stepdaddy” joke. “It’s nice to see you in a good mood for a change.”

“Wanna know a secret?” Del said, pulling on his line a little to clear it of a piece of wood that was drifting by. “It not my mood. It jus’ it this much easier on me t’ be away from people.”

“Really?” The thought occurred to Sulu that being in a profession that required you to be sardined in with 427 other people all the time was probably a poor career choice for someone who needed this much solitude to be comfortable.

“Well, what the hell I gonna do?” Del asked, responding to his unspoken comment. “Go off some place by myself, fish and drink bourbon the rest o’ my life? Though, that is actually sorta what most o' my uncles do fo’ a livin’…”

Sulu looked around, his thoughts turning once more to the one thing this place was missing. “It would get be pretty lonely.”

“Yeah. After a week, I prob’ly have a couple o’ mermaid girlfriends breakin’ my heart on the regular,” Del said, then gave him a sideways look. “Speakin’ of, you could calm down.”

“What?”

“Jilla, Jilla, Jilla, Jilla…”

“Oh, sorry.” He tried to stop thinking about her, but failed miserably. “I miss her.”

“Well, miss her then, but stop worryin’. Nothing goin’ on but you all worried ‘cause you t'ink she worried.”

“I know she is.”

“Yeah, she prob’ly worried that you worried that she worried,” Del concluded unsympathetically. “See, ya’ll are in what they call a dysfunctional emotional feedback loop even though you light years apart.”

Sulu shrugged and smiled. “I thought they called that being in love.”

“Dysfunctional emotional feedback loop just the clinical term fo’ love…” Del’s face suddenly went blank, then contracted a little as if he were in pain. “Uhhhh…”

Sulu tensed. “What is it?

Del’s hand on his leg stopped him from rising. “I t'ink we ‘bout to see somethin’,” he said, quickly drawing in his line. “You need to keep real still, all right? Don’ go fo' your phaser 'less I say somet'ing.”

“Okay,” Sulu agreed warily.

At first there was no sign that anything was out of the ordinary. He helped Del gather his equipment and move to the bank. When they were at what the engineer seemed to think was a safe distance, Del tapped Sulu on the back and pointed. An expanding circle of waves was beginning to form on the lake’s surface on the side far from them. As turbulence began to steadily increase, Sulu thought he could feel a thrumming sensation inside his head. Unseen birds screeched as the rolling and bubbling of the water intensified. The thrumming in his head grew louder until it blended in with the sound of something huge coming out of the water.

The giant nose of something gray and scaly broke the surface of the lake in a huge fountain of spray. As it dove back under, the creature’s barnacled back continued to make a huge, lumpy peak above the surface…. And continued… and continued… and continued. Del’s “old gentleman” had woken up from his nap.

The sheer size of the creature took Sulu’s breath away.

“He gearin’ up…” Del said, barely audible over the roar of displaced water and the distress of the waterfowls.

The helmsman was about to ask for what when the head of the creature exploded again from below the surface of the lake. The massive beast sprang up, up, up, into an impossibly high arch as it leapt over the edge of the waterfall and curved down towards the river below with another echoing crash of water and wildlife.

“Wow,” Sulu breathed, his heart pounding in his chest. He turned to Del. “Wow.”

“See,” Del said, picking up his bucket. “I tol’ you fishin’ was interestin’.”

*** ** ***

The two of them were not quite halfway back to their camp when DelMonde suddenly stopped walking.

“Del?” Sulu asked, taking him by the shoulder.

The engineer stared sightlessly passed him. “Somet'ing…out there.”

“Is it that thing from the lake again?” Sulu said, unholstering his phaser… although he didn’t know how much good it would do against a creature that size.

“No…” Still not focusing on anything, Del lifted his gaze. “Up… very far… Somet'ing… different…”

Sulu didn’t know if it were just the strangeness of the Cajun’s tone but he too began to have an eerie feeling – like someone had brushed cold fingertips lightly across the back of his neck. “It’s watching us?”

“Curious…” Del continued in the same hollow tone. “Maybe a scavenger…Lookin’…” The engineer blinked and suddenly focused on the helmsman’s face. “Sulu, this t'ing a predator.”

Without pausing to think about why he was doing so, the helmsman took out his communicator and flipped it open.

“Chekov, here.” The navigator’s voice crackled.

“Chekov, we’re getting…uhm, readings of a flying predator,” he reported.

“Shiny…Lookin’…Lookin’…” Del was saying.

There was the sound in the background of Chekov’s tricorder whirring. “Yes, I’m getting readings also. It’s well above us, though. Descending gradually.”

“Shiny…Want… Shiny…”

The hair on the back of Sulu’s neck began to stand up. “Chekov, “ he said, trying to stay calm. “Are you close to the shuttle?”

“I’m inside the shuttle.”

“Oh, shit.” Del suddenly seemed to come out the trance. He grabbed Sulu’s communicator and shouted into it. “Run, you son of a bitch, run!”

“What?”

“Don’t argue, Chekov, “ Sulu ordered into the communicator. “Don’t talk. Just get out of there! Now! Right now! As far away from the shuttle as you can run! Right now!”

“Now! Now! NOW!” Del seconded vigorously.

There was the sound of movement and shuttle’s perimeter alerts going off. “Boizhe moi,” Sulu thought he heard the Russian say before the line closed off.

The tricorder at Del’s hip began to beep as their proximity warnings were also activated. The engineer pointed above the tree line. “There he is.”

The creature looked like a big bird for a second, but steadily grew larger as it plunged groundward in a step dive. It was moving so fast that it was hard to pick out anything other than huge wings, a long neck, and clawed feet. With amazing fluidity, it disappeared below the trees then reappeared clutching the shuttle in its talons.

“Oh, God,” Sulu breathed. The damaged hull of the craft looked even more crunched than it had been before. If the navigator hadn’t gotten out… He desperately pressed the call button on his communicator. “Chekov? Chekov? Chekov, can you hear me?”

The communicator remained silent.

“Del,” Sulu said, not taking his eyes off the device, as if he could will Chekov into being okay. “Can you tell if he’s…?”

DelMonde looked off into the distance with a frown of concentration. “He not dead… He scared…. He real scared…” The engineer fell silent for a moment that went on far too long. “Wonderin’ where his communicator is…”

“Sulu?” The comm crackled back to life. “I’m here. I dropped my communicator and couldn’t find it for a moment.”

“Chekov!” Sulu released a big sigh of relief as he started towards the camp at a rapid pace. “Are you okay?”

“I’m… undamaged.”

“He got ‘nother damn nosebleed,” Del continued to report, picking up his gear and following. “No, he just t'ink he might, ‘cause he had to dive off the top o’ the shuttle.”

“That creature… it… stole the shuttle.” Chekov said, sounding more than a little dazed.

“No shit,” Del commented.

“Yeah. We saw that,” Sulu confirmed. “We were scared you were still in it.”

“No... no.”

“Almost was,” the engineer reported grimly. “That why he had to jump clear o’ the shuttle. Stubborn bastard had to stay an’ double check his fuckin’ readin’s…”

“I couldn’t believe how fast it was descending,” Chekov defended himself. “How did you know that it would go after the shuttle?”

Sulu looked at Del for an acceptable explanation.

“Jus’ say logic,” the Cajun advised softly.

“It seemed like it was a logical target.”

“Yes,” the Russian agreed, as predicted. “I suppose so. It would be an anomalous enough to draw note.”

“An’ shiny,” Del added. “That t'ing love shiny.”

“You believe you were in communication with the creature?” The navigator sounded dubious.

“I believe your ass ‘bout to become th' gooey center of a piece o’ shuttlecraft candy fo' that t'ing.”

There was a pause on the other end, then, “Oh, no.”

“What is it?” Sulu asked anxiously, once more increasing his pace as they drew near to being within visual distance of the camp.

“He busted his tricorder,” the engineer supplied, slowing.

“My tricorder is… Noel, I am perfectly capable of reporting my own thoughts, thank you.”

“Yeah?” The Cajun caught up enough so that he could speak into Sulu’s communicator. “Well, you not capable o’ followin’ a simple command like ‘run’, though, are ya, ya dumb fuck?”

“I’m starting to see debris,” Sulu said, noting the glint of metal in the tops of the trees above them.

“I think some of the deck plating fell out of the hatch,” Chekov confirmed.

“An’ almost hit his stupid, empty head,” Del added, as he and Sulu came though a thicket at the edge of the clearing where they had crashed the shuttle. It was now vacant except for a line of downed trees, a twin pathway of rutted ground, some glints of metal, and a lone figure in gold and black.

“What are you looking for?” Sulu asked.

“His phaser.”

“My pha… Noel, stop it.”

“Only if I not have t’ hear you whine ‘bout your fantasy ‘bout how you t'ink that if you not drop your phaser, you coulda jumped out of the shuttle an’ shot that t'ing… which you might coulda done if you run when we said to.”

Chekov looked up and upon seeing how close his fellow officers were, closed his communicator. Either that, Sulu thought, or he’s overcome with Del’s typical tender concern for his close brush with being lunch for the flying reptile.

“What are we going to do?” the Russian asked as soon as they were close enough to hear him without his having to raise his voice.

“Get the hell out o’ here,” Del recommended, scanning the skies.

“But the shuttle…”

Sulu picked up a square of decking that had stuck upright in the ground. “I don’t think there’s anything we can do about it, Pavel. Unlike that big reptile, we can’t fly…”

“An’ that t'ing tagged us as mammals,” Del said, picking one of Chekov’s blankets off some underbrush.

“So?”

“For it, t'inkin’ ‘Mmmm, mammals’ is like you t'inkin’ somet'ing like ‘Mmmm, meatloaf’,” Del explained, bending over to pick up something. It turned out to be the navigator’s phaser.

“It be back,” he warned, handing Chekov the weapon.

*** ** ***

“I think you were right,” Sulu informed Del as he set his pack down on the floor of the shallow cave where they had decided to make their new base.

“’Bout what?” the engineer asked irritably as Chekov moved beyond him to scan the dim back of the enclosure.

“About your moods,” Sulu said, breaking out one of their precious solar cells. “This morning, you said that the way you seemed didn’t have anything to do with your mood; you were just more relaxed here because we’re so far from other people.” The helmsman activated the cell, flooding the cave with a pale echo of sunlight. “I think I can see it. You’re in a bad mood now, but are still more relaxed than usual.”

Despite his light tone, the helmsman was actually very ill at ease. The loss of the shuttlecraft concerned him greatly; however, more than that, the feeling of being in contact with the alien creature had left him anxious and unnerved. For some reason it made him feel like he was on the verge of making a terrible mistake.

It had been almost equally disturbing to see Del’s extrasensory perception in action. Sulu had known the Cajun for so long that he come to ignore the fact that he was a telepath. Del didn’t usually do much to draw attention to it. Since not caring what other people thought looked very similar on the outside to not knowing what other people thought, it was easy to forget that he was a Sensitive. Compared to the way Ruth and Jilla reacted to the other people’s concerns, Del seemed more like an Insensitive. Sulu had no doubt that there were people on the Enterprise who had no idea that Del was a telepath at all and simply thought of him as a moody person with a puzzling tendency to blame his chronic migraines on other people. The way the engineer had reached out into the minds of Chekov and the creature had been a rare demonstration of the power, accuracy, and focus of which he was capable.

Thinking back on the incident now, Sulu realized that the navigator’s reaction – or rather, lack of reaction -- was part of what had been puzzling him about the roommates’ odd relationship since they’d arrived. Chekov’s “Stop it, Noel” had been delivered in the same way one might scold a companion for indulging in an annoying habit – like humming or biting his nails. There had been no fear, outrage, or even disbelief – which was perhaps the most surprising given the robust amount of skepticism that the Russian tended to maintain about psychic phenomenon. Did Del read him so often they’d both become used to it? Did he read everyone like that all the time?

Sulu fought the strange sense of panic that always rose up inside him when he felt like people were able to find out too much about him. This planet was starting to make him feel like he had a fine layer of itching powder on his skin. This was a feeling that he somehow had the sense that DelMonde was capable of relieving -- if only the helmsman could figure out a way to get the engineer to talk about psychic sensitivity in the relaxed, casual way he’d done when they were at the lake.

“What the hell you doin’?” Del asked, unslinging the bag from around his shoulder. “Workin’ on your damned telepathy merit badge? O’ course I in a bad mood. I hot. I tired. I thirsty. I hungry. For three miles I been totin’ this damn bucket o’ fish, a broken navigation beacon, and your fuckin’ fucked-up tent.” The engineer let the aforementioned item drop unceremoniously to the ground. “An’ on top of that, my future stepson here in high danger o’ bein’ eaten by a dragon later today or court-martialed tomorrow. ‘Course I in a bad mood. Try to fuckin’ focus, will ya?”

“I doubt I’ll be court-martialed,” Chekov said glumly.

“For lettin’ a giant, flyin’ creepy-crawly make off with that much Starfleet equipment in one swoop?” Del said, looking for a cool spot to store his fish. “Hell, soon as Sulu give the word, I riggin’ a brig up in the back o’ this hole jus’ so we can throw you in it.”

The Russian was still crestfallen enough about not getting a shot off at the flying reptile to not be amused.

“You were under orders to drop everything and run.” Sulu reminded him… not for the first time that afternoon. “Not to try to engage the creature.”

Chekov didn’t seem at all cheered as he broke out the water purification unit and began to set it up at the sunny mouth of the cave.

“If you two start up again on how much damage a single phaser could or could not do to a giant flyin’ lizard, I gonna strangle one or both o’ ya,” Del threatened, dragging Sulu’s tent next to a cave wall and fashioning it into a cushion to sit on.

"It wasn't your fault that thing decided to go after the shuttle," Sulu told the navigator, as he helped him pour water into the unit from the small cooking pot that fortunately had been left next to the fire instead of being stowed in the shuttle.

Although the delay in the navigator's evacuation of the shuttle had grown longer and more inexcusable in Del and Chekov's imaginations with each re-hashing of the event, it had become quite clear to Sulu that the real problem was how far inside the belly of the overturned shuttlecraft the navigator was when he'd gotten their call.

Chekov had taken the deck plating off and crawled into a cramped quarter of the engine accessway hoping to find a way to power the food processor straight from the craft's batteries. When he got their call, he'd been flat on his back, wedged into a space so tight it could barely accommodate the width of his shoulders. He hadn't understood the Cajun's first warning and had thought that it might be directed at Sulu instead of him. Immediately upon hearing the helmsman's command, though, he hastily secured the power conduit he was working on and began to wriggle out of the accessway as quickly as he could, pausing only to retrieve his phaser from his box of tools.

"And what the fuck a phaser doin’ in your toolbox?" the engineer had asked more than once.

When the proximity alarms had gone off, Chekov had, like Lot's wife, turned back for a near-to-fatal second to check that the predator being detected was the flying one Sulu and Del were warning him about, not something equally menacing which had also arrived on the scene and would be waiting outside the shuttle to gobble him up.

The rest of the navigator's escape time was taken up in the awkward task of climbing up the deck of the shuttle to get to the hatch. The helmsman reflected that they could just as validly be obsessing on why they hadn't chosen to flip the shuttle over onto its feet or constructed a ladder to get in and out more quickly.

"No one blames you," Sulu assured the Russian.

“Speak fo’ yourself.” DelMonde sat down heavily and uncapped his flask.

Chekov scowled as drinkable water began to drip into a cup, then turned to ask DelMonde, “Are you going to cook?”

“I guess.”

“Could we have something other than coffee and bourbon tonight?”

“Entirely new menu,” Del assured him. “Bourbon and fish… since you let the creepy-crawly take the coffee.”

An ominous silence suddenly settled over the new inhabitants of the cave.

“We lost the coffee?” Sulu looked down at the navigator, frowning.

“I put it in the shuttle,” Chekov explained. “So it wouldn’t get too…”

The Russian withered under his commanding officer’s displeased gaze.

Del gave a resigned sigh and re-capped his flask. “I be gettin’ that brig ready.”

“No, it’s all ri…” Sulu automatically started to dismiss, but was once more struck by the weight of his subordinate’s offence. “You lost the coffee?”

The Russian shrugged apologetically. “I’m afraid so.”

“We brought the coffee pot,” Sulu said, bringing that item out of his pack and holding it out accusingly. “Even though the two of you knew that Chekov had lost the coffee.”

“To put water in,” Chekov explained, taking it from him and using it to replace the half-filled cup. “I’m sorry it’s gone. I know you like coffee. Water is better for you, though.”

Only iron discipline, years of friendship, and Starfleet’s strictures against striking a fellow officer prevented the helmsman from giving the navigator another bloody nose.

Had Sulu been two steps further away from dehydration, he might have dashed the cup of purified water Chekov offered to the ground. As it was, he had to content himself with giving the navigator a frown that was intended to clearly communicate that further comments extolling the virtues of non-coffee liquids would not be tolerated. As the Russian, seemingly oblivious to the magnitude of his transgression, held out the tragically misused coffeepot to refill his cup, Sulu let his eyes drop toward the back of the cave to let the navigator know that the construction of a small, uncomfortable, rock brig was still under serious consideration.

“There was not very much of it left at any rate,” Chekov said, glibly tossing off this completely irrelevant observation as he drained a cup of water with a shocking lack of contrition.

“Del…” Sulu smiled slightly as an idea for another suitable punishment came into his mind. “Chekov said you knew some story about his losing his clothes.”

“What?”

The question had an immediate, electrifying effect on the navigator. Getting exactly the sort of deer in headlights look on his face the helmsman had aimed for, Chekov held up a hand begging for clemency. “Sulu, Sulu, no. Please.”

“What story?”

“I think it was something about clothes,” the helmsman persisted mercilessly.

“Clothes?”

“I think I said under no circumstances mention such a story,” the navigator corrected.

The Cajun was still in the dark. “I not know what story you talkin’ ‘bout.”

“Something about the wrong clothes,” Sulu remembered.

“Oh.” Del leaned forward. “This by any chance go along wit’ a ‘Much has been made of the fact that in a few instances I happened to...’ preface?”

The helmsman took his cup of water and went to sit down on the tent beside the engineer. “I believe it did.”

“Oh.” Del companionably added some bourbon to Sulu’s water. “Then this the story ‘bout how T-Paul an’ I fucked so many of the same women that one time he came home wearin’ my clothes.”

Bozhe moi,” the navigator groaned, covering his eyes.

Sulu smiled. This was obviously going to be as good as he hoped it was going to be. “Really?

“You denyin’ it?” the Cajun asked Chekov.

“I object to the way you choose to present the facts,” the Russian retorted.

“All right, then you watch me an’ speak up if I start to tell it wrong.” The engineer turned to the helmsman with an exaggeratedly earnest look on his face. “Now, Sulu, the first t'ing you should know is that this a story ‘bout unspeakable ingratitude.”

“Is it?” the helmsman responded in kind.

“Shameful, unforgivable ingratitude -- on my part.” Del put a hand over his heart. “Now, you not forget that.”

“I'll try,” Sulu promised as the navigator groaned and added more water to the purification unit.

“There was this ol' gal in San Fran who had a place in the mountains,” Del began. “Real nice, real quiet.”

“The girl?”

“No, the place,” the engineer corrected as if surprised that his friend would make such an error. “Well, I spent a weekend or two wit' her up there an’ then later in a followin’ week, she calls me up an’ says I left a few o' my t'ings at her place an’ could I come get ‘em right now -- if you know what I mean?”

“I think I do.”

“An’ I was studyin’ for a test so I say, ‘Woman, I be there when I there.’ An’ that woulda been all she wrote, but…” Del gestured expansively towards Chekov, who had brought the coffeepot over to re-fill Sulu’s cup. “This prince among men, sensin’ me on the verge o’ social disaster...” Since the navigator was now pouring the engineer a cup of water and was close enough to be clapped on the shoulder, the Cajun did so. “This young saint, tossin’ aside any care fo’ the danger to his own virtue from this obviously desperately horny older woman I had temporarily taken up wit’, says, ‘Noel, my friend, continue your studies. I vill go get your things from this person’.”

“Wow,” Sulu said, nodding to show how impressed he was.

“I actually did pick up the items for you,” Chekov pointed out as he handed the engineer a cup.

“Yes, you did,” DelMonde said as if he’d been waiting for this response. “An’ I ain't never said thank you fo’ that, have I?”

“No,” Chekov replied diffidently as he poured himself a cup of water. “You haven’t.”

“An' here the ingratitude I wanted you to look for, Sulu -- the shockin’ ingratitude that I usually jus' skip right over like it not an important -- or even very interestin’ -- part o’ this story.”

Sulu made a tsk-tsk noise with his tongue.

“It was a simple mistake,” Chekov protested preemptively. “Under similar circumstances, anyone could have done the same.”

“Oh, but so few o’ us ever get the chance you did,” Del pointed out, before turning back to Sulu. “So, later that day... much, much later that day, this one come runnin’ in swearin’ up a blue streak. He already 10 minutes late for a lab. He cut his trip back so fine he needed to go straight there to be on time, but he not able t’do that ‘cause he had somehow gotten a hold of a defective uniform tunic.”

“It wasn't that big,” the navigator muttered, once more in advance of the narrative.

“An’ lo an’ behold but the one he got on was all stretched out,” Del continued, heedlessly. “The cuffs were down to here...”

“Not that big.”

“The shirttail be hittin’ him ‘bout halfway to his knees and he jus’ could not figure what happen to make it stretch out so. I told him to calm down, he prob’ly jus’ ordered it wrong from the computer…”

“I don't remember you're telling me to calm down,” Chekov muttered. “I think it was more in terms of ‘You probably just fucked up, you fucking moron’.”

“So there he is, mad as a bull, threatenin’ to send in an official complaint on ever'body an' anybody -- which,” Del turned momentarily back to the navigator. “I so wish to God I not stop you from doin’ -- when he finally checks the label inside the sleeve.”

“And it's your tunic,” Sulu concluded.

“An' it my tunic,” Del confirmed, “which he -- in what some have speculated was an over-sexed haze -- managed to put on an’ wear halfway back to the Academy ‘fore he even notice.”

“They all look alike,” the navigator insisted.

“So,” the Cajun concluded, holding up his flask to toast his roommate. “That is the story of my shockin’ ingratitude in response to a favor done fo’ me by this paragon o' virtue.”

Sulu shook his head, although he was well-satisfied with the story. “You really ought to thank him, Del.”

“Oh, no. Since the primary point o’ this story is my ingratitude -- not, mind you, an illustration o' what a slut-monger this li’l fellow turn into when he finally got out o’ his parents' house -- then if I apologize there be no reason fo’ me to ever tell it again... And I tell ya, if this boy ever becomes admiral I be right there at the ceremony tellin’ this story.”

“The tunics were all identical!” the Russian burst out.

“And jus’ how the hell many uniforms were there layin’ on that bedroom floor that day?”

“Well,” the navigator conceded. “Only two of them were from the Academy....”

*** ** ***

Thinking of Pavel Chekov as a “friend” or “liking” him were concepts so alien to Noel DelMonde’s way of thinking that after Sulu had suggested the idea, he kept puzzling over it in spare moments.

This seemed to be a suitably spare moment. He and the Russian were sitting on a big flat rock outside their cave working while their food cooked. Sulu was taking a nap inside in preparation for manning the first watch of that night. Del was working on the navigational beacon while Chekov cleaned the fish. Actually, the Russian thought of what he was doing as primarily being the tasks of dissecting, cataloguing, and scanning specimens – but that didn’t matter. The fish were being methodically cleaned, cut up, and dumped into the stew with some roots and herbs the Russian had also “catalogued” and “dissected.”

Del turned the idea of friendship with Chekov over in his mind as if it were as faulty as the device he was working on. The primary problem was not that he disliked the navigator, but that being “friends” with him was utterly and completely unnecessary. More than that, it would probably ruin some of the things he enjoyed about the relationship they had established.

For example, the two of them could sit no more than five feet away from each other -- as they were now -- and be perfectly quiet with each man keeping his own thoughts and his own feelings to himself. In Del’s opinion, there was nothing more civilized and restful. If they were friends, they might be tempted to ruin this peaceful arrangement by doing something stupid… like talking… or having to be concerned about how the other person felt.

And “liking” Chekov would make him a less ideal candidate for the “what if” game…

Because as a child his extra-sensory abilities had seemed less of a gift and more of a horrible disability, Del had from that time played a little "what if?" game with himself. He picked someone normal... or "non-gifted" as he'd been taught to call it -- and compared himself to them. It was always important to him that his life be just as good as if not better than this less burdened person.

At first, his chosen "normal" was his cousin Coleridge. Cole was about nine years older than Del, good-looking and confident. Since he was one of Noel's aunt's boys and had a different last name, Cole had been one of the first ones to call him "Del" instead of "Noel." Fond of nicknames, Cole had with intentional irony called him "Shorty" -- because even as a child, Del had been long-legged and tall -- and non-ironically called him "Devil-boy" because Cole -- like many of Del's relatives -- thought the child was possessed or the victim of a particularly maleficent curse that had probably been directed towards Del's parents.

Like everyone else, the little boy’s violent rages, incoherence, and random voicing of other people’s innermost thoughts spooked Cole. However by the time Del's mother had managed to civilize her wild child to the point that Del could hold a reasonable conversation, Cole had grown into a daredevil adolescent who was enchanted by the fact that he was actually related to someone who was almost inarguably possessed or the victim of some notably bad gris-gris.

In this albeit odd fashion, Cole was actually rather proud of Del and could be relied upon to slip a little Johnnie Walker Red into the boy's drinks upon request.

With the passing of time, though, keeping up with or even outdoing his older cousin had become less and less of a challenge. Cole had made a series of uninspired life choices and now seemed to have turned all his creative powers on thinking up newer and dumber ways to cheat on whoever his wife was that year.

Just as Cole had begun his descent into the mundane, and life at the Clave had Del convinced that "normal" was a figment of the collective imagination, Pavel Chekov was assigned into his life. Here at last was the perfect comparative marker for the "What would my life be like if I weren't gifted?" game. Chekov was a person of similar goals with a similar level of intelligence who was the very definition of non-gifted.

The little Russian was even better suited as an exemplar of the "normal" life than was Del's friend Jeremy Paget, who, although technically not a sensitive, was almost too intuitive and empathetic to count as not being gifted. Del ruefully recalled that he had thought Jer's near obsession with Kamikaze also disqualified him as a suitable parallel. "Love could never lay me so low," the Cajun remembered thinking.

Failure, he had found, was an important part of the “what if” game too. Jer and Cole’s major and minor defeats had in the end made the Cajun sad, thus ruining any real sense of triumph he might have derived from competing with them. With Chekov, though, it was entirely different. Not only was Del less emotionally attached to the navigator, Chekov had an uncanny way of bouncing back from misfortune that made his failures very palatable. The Russian was like a little rubber ball. The engineer could watch his roommate’s life as if it were an episode of the “Perils of Pauline” – more in terms of “How he gonna get out o’ this?” than in sympathy. Chekov had a knack for scrambling out from under the unkind fingers of fate just like he’d dove out from under the dragon’s claws before it hit the shuttle. A much more true and useful gift, in the Cajun’s opinion, than damned telepathy.

So from the Academy onward, Del had begun to silently keep a running tally of his and his roommate’s successes and failures, triumphs and defeats -- not only in a competitive way -- but as a continuing test of his mother's oft-repeated dictum that if he learned to control himself, he could live just as good and happy a life as anyone.

Of course, he knew that there were several who would question that he’d ever learned to control – or behave himself…

“You do this?” Del asked aloud, holding up an amateurishly joined conglomerate of parts.

Chekov bit his lip as he looked up from slicing through fish guts. “Is it ruined?”

How you do this?” the engineer rephrased unsmilingly.

“I disassembled one of the corroded solar cells, wrapped the parts in the conductive meshing from the cell…” Chekov paused before confessing. “…and then fused them with my phaser.”

The Cajun narrowed his eyes as he shook the part warningly. “If I ever catch you doin’ anyt’ing like this on any vessel I work on, I swear to God I gonna tape your fingers together an’ weld ‘em to a bulkhead. You understand me?”

Chekov gave a long sigh that was equal parts sullen and guilty.

“But…” DelMonde inserted the component inside the beacon’s casing, closed the hatch, and pressed a button.

The Russian’s grin went from ear to ear as the device blinked into life. “It works!”

Del mussed the navigator’s hair in congratulations. “I make an engineer o’ you yet, mon fils. That is, if you not blow us both up first.”

*** ** ***

Sulu frowned into the cup. “It doesn’t look like coffee.”

“It’s not really coffee,” Chekov admitted. “Just a temporary substitute.”

“It too thin to be coffee,” Del observed critically.

It was just after sunset. The three of them had made a second campfire on the plateau above the roof of their cave, agreeing that it would give the person keeping watch a better view of the entire surrounding area.

With tricorders, having a 360 degree view wasn’t that critical, but it had a certain psychological value and was inarguably more scenic. Their cave sat tucked away on a natural terrace in the south face of the small, flat-topped hill. To their right stretched out the valley where they’d landed. To their left was the lake. Around them were the rocky tops of other hills. Visible from this height were the peaks of the mountains to the north where the tricorders told them that flying dragon like the one who had stolen their shuttle lived.

Sulu sniffed his cup disdainfully. “It doesn’t smell like coffee.”

“It’s more like a tea, I suppose,” Chekov said, refilling his own cup.

DelMonde took a sip and promptly spit it out. “Only if ‘tea’ is Russian fo’ ‘swill’.”

The Russian turned back to the only person he had ever had any hope this brew might placate. “It contains a high concentration of the native equivalent of caffeine.”

“It taste like tree bark,” the engineer complained.

“It is tree bark,” his companions informed him in unison.

“It can be prepared differently if the texture is unacceptable,” Chekov offered.

Sulu favored the Russian the sort of look that in ancient days would have warned a retainer that it was getting perilously close to the time to sharpen his swords and start work on a death poem. “It’s drinkable,” he pronounced parsimoniously. “It’s just not coffee.”

The navigator sighed deeply. “I should go to bed so I can get an early start tomorrow.”

“On what?”

“Hunting down the dragon so I can retrieve our supplies,” he replied in mock earnest.

“We’ve decided that’s too dangerous,” Sulu said crossly, not realizing that the navigator was joking.

“It’s less frightening than the prospect of you without coffee.”

“Oh, yeah, I wit' you,” Del seconded. “’Sides, I runnin’ out of bourbon.”

“I imagine so.” The navigator stacked his empty bowl on top the engineer’s. “Our fish and bourbon was more bourbon than fish.”

The Cajun shrugged almost apologetically. “I had do somet’ing t’ kill the taste.”

Chekov shook his head. “And you had always told me that a good Acadian cook could prepare an old boot in dirty dishwater and make it taste better than filet mignon.”

“An ol' boot an’ dirty dishwater have better flavor than the roots an’ grass clippings you found fo’ us to eat,” Del replied, collecting Sulu’s plate and handing it to his roommate.

“Oh, so it was my ingredients that ruined the taste?”

“They sure not add anyt’ing.”

“I was certain that, as usual, you would point out some way that it was my fault,” the navigator said, putting the bowls in a bucket of water to soak. “I’m actually relieved. For a moment, I thought that perhaps Russian taste buds weren’t highly enough developed to appreciate fine American cuisine.”

“Don’ get sassy, boy,” Del warned, tossing his utensils into the bucket one at the time. “’Member, I know all your secrets.”

Chekov snorted dubiously. “Do I have any left?”

“We not scrapin’ the bottom o’ the barrel yet.”

“At least I have secrets,” the Russian retorted. “Since you make no effort to conceal your bad behavior, everyone knows yours.”

Sulu felt sufficiently revived by the navigator’s bark tea to smile and say, “There is that, Del.”

The engineer crossed his arms and frowned. “I think it past your bedtime, non?”

Chekov rose, picking the bucket up by the handle. “You aren’t coming?”

Del looked down in the direction of the cave mouth and made a face. “I not know how much sleep I be gettin’ in that spider-y lookin’ hole.”

The navigator finished his tea off in a single swallow before consigning that cup to the bucket too. “Good night, then.”

“Good night.”

A few steps down the path through the standing rocks that led down to the cave’s mouth, a thought seemed to hit the Russian. He turned back. “I wasn't a… a… a slut-monger.”

Del rolled his eyes. “Oh, I knew this comin’.”

“It's completely ridiculous,” the navigator argued belatedly. “It isn't even a word.”

The engineer raised his flask to his lips. “There not a word fo’ what you were, son. I had to improvise.”

“But compared to you...”

“Compare to me,” the Cajun granted, “you were -- and are -- a nun raised in a convent.”

“Then why make such a...”

“’Cause you take it so seriously. That always your problem...”

“And what makes it funny,” Sulu said, feeling good enough to be a little apologetic.

“Sweet Mary, even when you did have a one night stand, it a very serious one night stand... with flowers an’ a thank you card afterwards.”

The Russian frowned. “I never sent a thank you card.”

Sulu knew that this meant he had sent flowers at least once.

“You not do drugs,” Del began, enumerating the Russian’s lack of vices on his fingers. “You not do smoke. You not do guys. You not do ménages. You not do groups. You not do kink -- which, hell, I think covers 90% of everyt’ing outside missionary position fo’ you… If I not know you like to drink like a fish an’ fuck like a dog in heat, I’d’a sworn I was roomin’ with a candidate fo’ the priesthood.”

“One does hear some pretty wild stories about Russian priests...” When Sulu got an evil look from Chekov, he added, "Although Rasputin can hardly be considered typical of Russian clergy."

“If not fo’ your uncanny willin’ness,” Del continued, “an’ some even said eagerness -- to offer not only emotional comfort but sexual solace to women whose desires I had somehow frustrated...”

“What Noel refuses to acknowledge,” Chekov interrupted, turning to Sulu to plead his case, “is that he had a habit of leaving in me some awkward positions...”

“Which, for him, is anyt’ing other’n missionary…” the engineer put in.

“In our cabin -- more than once -- there would be a naked woman lying on my bunk sobbing. What was I to do?” the Russian demanded rhetorically. “In my place what would you have done?”

Del and Sulu shared a look before answering in unison. "Called a shuttlecab for her."

“Oh.” Chekov rolled his eyes with exaggerated innocence. "Now they tell me..."

*** ** ***

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