bakerstreet | The Attached Meme

The Attached Meme

Inspired by the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode of the same name.

Comment with your character, specifying name, canon, and gen/shipping/smut preferences, and/or tag someone else.
You and the other person now have two problems. One, you're aware of each other's surface thoughts regardless of either of your wishes, and two, if you try to distance yourselves from each other you're struck with nausea and vertigo until you manage to get close again.
Optionally, roll for or choose details:
1. You've been captured by some hostile force and had devices surgically implanted into the backs of your necks in order to facilitate interrogation. The mental link between you and dependency on proximity are just side-effects. Can you escape under these conditions?
2. You've been cursed by a spellcaster or supernatural being who wants you to "learn a lesson". Whether that's a real lesson about each other made possible by forced openness and time spent together or just the lesson of "don't mess with me" is an open question, and figuring it out may be key to having the curse broken...
3. One of you has suddenly awakened to latent paranormal powers, or your existing powers are suddenly misbehaving -- perhaps due to unforeseen interaction with the other person's abilities, if they have them. Maybe you could solve this, or at least the part about having to stay near each other, if you could only gain control over your power...
4. You were both willingly part of a scientific experiment, whether one of your own design or something you both volunteered for, and this... was not the result you signed up for. The mental link may or may not have been a known goal, but the involuntary aspect and the inability to separate aren't things either of you expected. Can science undo what it has done?
5. You both came into contact with an unknown substance, whether by accident or simply because of mutual curiosity, and this was the result. Now if you're going to be able to have privacy relative to each other again, you're going to have to figure out what it is and why it had the effect on you it did in order to find a way to counteract it.
6. Your choice, or something new!
Have fun!

Now that he was looking at him, up close and personal, McCoy could see that there were some differences. Eye color for one - seeing blue instead of brown, on top of having a younger version of Jim here was enough to make uneasy, that same twist of disquiet that came with seeing that other Spock's beard. So far, at least, this one didn't seem bloodthirsty.

Or he was waiting for an opening, he thought grimly. McCoy wished he hadn't thought it just then, but after too much time spent in that other universe, it was hard to shake that feeling like you had to watch your back.

So this likely was another Jim, so at least he didn't have to deal with Jim aging back down to nothing, which was the only plus he could see here. More brushes with other realities. Good lord. McCoy wanted to sigh. They were barely into the first week of this month and here he'd begun to think they were out of the woods when it came to finding trouble head first. That just maybe this month might be a quieter one.

McCoy got settled on the stool, smoothing back his hair and rubbing wearily at the back of his neck. He'd signed up for this, and most of the time he enjoyed the mission, but there were days - and this was one of 'em- where it aged a man early. He was in his forties going on sixty at this point. Jim (any universe's version of him) needed to come with a warning; may be hazardous to your health and add ten years to you.

"Don't worry about getting it dirty, we can sterilize it," He said absently. He leaned over, jotting more notes down, then gave him a Look. "I hope I don't let up on you, you need it. My version of you doesn't have any of those yet - 'course you could do with watching your health more before you get them. You aren't going to stay in your twenties forever.'

Fingers threaded together and settled over his chest, blue eyes or no, Jim looked like he always did at rest. There was something so stiff about him when he thought and though anyone that didn't know him might assume that this was the spitting image of a carefree captain without a care in the world, McCoy could see him for what he was, deeper down. Good captain could make the stress of it seem effortless, though their brains could never stop working, not even for a moment.

The smile on Jim's face was fleeting. "You keep threatening to take bacon out of my diet," he said before sitting up again. Restless and for good reason. He was about to open his mouth again when the door slid open and the third Spock he had met so far in his short life strode in with his arms clasped behind his back. There was something wary in Jim's eyes towards the Vulcan, who greeted him with a single raised eyebrow. "Took you long enough," he said, an attempt to be cheeky underlying something far more subtle.

Spock looked Jim over and turned to McCoy. "Doctor? A word?"

Now that riled Kirk up and he slid down off of the bio bed. "If you're going to talk about me, you might as well do it in front of me," he bristled.

Good god, they have had that look like they'd rather be anywhere else but sickbay, like two seconds lying down was going to cost them the ship. Jim might look like he was completely relaxed, but McCoy knew him well enough to know otherwise, just from that tension in his shoulders and hands. He wanted to be up and about, not sitting idle.

"That's not all he'll get you with if you continue with the way you're goin'," McCoy said with some relish. Talking about another him like he was a stranger and not him was still never going to get old. But if their version of him was McCoy at all, he only needed two guesses as to how he'd react.

With the faint relief at seeing Spock show up, was the uneasy feeling that it certainly took the Vulcan long enough. He'd just been thinking that. He needed Spock a lot earlier, but there you had it. McCoy shot the younger Jim a sharp look. Sit down. "If you're really James Kirk and a Starfleet officer, you'll understand why we gotta follow the proper procedures."

McCoy stood up, locking the PAD in a drawer and stepped outside with Spock. Always the optimist, the doctor started with, "I hope you're not going to tell me that's our Jim, or our universe is melding into theirs or one of them is imploding, or we're never getting our Captain back."

With a nose turned up at the locked desk drawn and a niggling sensation in the back of his head that he actually knew how to get into it, Jim snorted at the older versions of his friends and crew and settled back on the bed. His eyes just scanned the unfamiliar-familiar ceiling, attempting to discover why, exactly, he thought he knew every inch of the sickbay and yet, obviously did not. This wasn't his ship. His ship was a piece of art. This one seemed two generations behind.

Once secluded away from prying ears or eyes not quite the right color, Spock resumed his typical stance, feet apart and hands behind his back to gaze down at the doctor.

"Preliminary scans do not show similar circumstances to those in which we had previous encounters with parallel universes, doctor." Quick and to the point. That's our Spock. "That being said, his biological scans do not seem entirely accurate with those in the database. You, however, would be the expert on that particular fact. The margin for error is roughly two percent, which I believe is also the same marginal different between chimpanzees and humans. There is one other thing of note. This Jim Kirk's delta brain waves are impossibly high...as are yours. I have requested a sensor diagnostic to be performed immediately."

If it weren't for the fact that he was exactly where he should be and Spock was right here, McCoy would have given in to the need to pace, to look around and check and double check everything was as he left it, because there was something mighty funny about this ship-

McCoy had a brief moment of relief. He could knock some of those worst-case scenarios off. Spock, of course, was quick to find some way to take a dig at humanity any time he found a chance. A frown started on his face. Course they could always start examining what percent of similarity Vulcans and humans had. Of course a connection proven at all or had much basis, since Vulcans were from what he'd seen, an entirely different species, but it was a way to take a dig at Spock having that pesky human fifty percent to him.

Besides, what had Vulcans come from? Those lizard things he saw skittering near the arena? For Jim's sake, McCoy kept a lid on it. Barely.

"What? Why do I need a scan? I've been on the ship the entire time," McCoy got out. He kept his voice down - the walls could be damned thin when they wanted to be. He didn't bother to hide the aggravation. "And why the devil did you request a scan on me behind my back?"

"Standard procedure, Doctor," Spock said with as much respect as his otherwise emotionless voice could muster. "Anyone in the vicinity of the malfunctioning transporter had been required to undo scans, performed in the transporter room once the malfunction was detected. In this case, Mr. Scott triggered the scan. Doctor, as of now, you and this version of the Captain have nearly identical delta wave functions. I would advise more testing."

There was a movement, slight as it was, of the Vulcan's eyes towards the room at McCoy's face just before the door opened.

It turned out that Jim hadn't had to rely on thin walls. He could more of less sense the words as they were said, the indignation of the unwarned scan, and the implications of it. Jim was no longer smiling or cocky. He had no stomach for it. "Figure it out, Spock. Whatever you need to do, do it," Jim said, taking the reigns because he was still on the deed to this ship, age appropriate or not.

The Attached Meme

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