#moreperfect

@more--perfect

They’d been fighting. Again. Much to the surprise of no one. Since their brief sexual experiment, that seemed to be happening more often. Liz chalked it up to frustration on his part, not that she ever expected him to admit it, and her own frustration which she also had no intention of admitting. Whatever the reason, she had had enough for the day and barked at him to do some work in the cargo bay. That was, after all, what he was supposed to be there for. Heavy lifting. She needed some space to breathe. 

Calming down took time. This particular instance took the better part of an hour. Liz managed to slow down enough to actually get some work done. A quick check of the time confirmed they were two hours out from their drop off location. It was time to start prepping for arrival and making final arrangements with the client to sign paperwork for the drop off. She didn’t want to be stuck on a starbase longer than necessary. They had a schedule to keep. 

Liz walked back through the ship to the Cargo bay. From her place on the upper walk, she scanned the room for Lore. “Hey, asshole!” She shouted at the silent boxes. “It’s time to start getting ready.” There was no answer. Not even his usual backtalk. They had been fighting, but that had never been enough for him to stop talking before. “Lore? Where the hell are you?”

She stepped down closer to the floor of the bay, scanning silently for any sign of him. Someone was moving. And talking. Hushed voices hissing back and forth. Liz padded, barefoot and silent, toward the sound. The last thing she was expecting to find were five men trying to stuff an unconscious Lore in to a crate. Before she even had time to fully take in the scene, she’d slipped two short but wickedly sharp knives from her belt. 

(starter for @more--perfect )

Cheryl was relieved to finally stumble upon a building after what seemed like hours wandering through the forest.  She wasn’t sure where the portal behind her house had taken her this time, only that it was unfamiliar to her.  Thank goodness she’d finally found this small cabin, which seemed to have lights on inside.

@more--perfect

Lore padded across the bridge of the Nomad as he did most nights - alone and annoyed. Liz needed sleep, obviously, and Lore was not a good bed partner for that. He got bored and bugged her, sometimes prodding and poking her to satisfy his curiosity, sometimes doing things he knows will drive her wild, but never being satisfied to let her sleep in peace.

So he sticks to flying the ship. After all, he can do that forever without being tired. Tonight he had been in the cargo bay making sure their shipments were in order for the next day. When he was finished, he headed up to sit at the conn.

The package looked horribly out of place on the control panel. He huffed out a laugh and snatched it up as he shook his head. Aniversary? Had it really been a year since he started flying around in this rust bucket?

He tore the paper unceremoniously, but paused and took more care when he realized the gift inside was a very old book. He tossed the wrapping to the floor and examined it. The Modern Prometheus. Not very well-versed in ancient human literature, Lore quickly did a search and read the entire novel in about three minutes. The words scrolled past his eyes until the book was done, and then he snapped back to focus on the cover of the book. “Huh.” What an odd gift. Lore shrugged and put the book down on the co-pilot seat.

After a few minutes of checking the auto-flight settings, Lore found himself thinking about the book and its implications. His first reaction was to absolutely hate the whole thing. It was some kind of old-fashioned mumbo jumbo. You couldn’t bring people back from the dead. And if you did, how would they even exist in the world? Then again, people have managed to preserve themselves in cryogenic chambers, through programs...it was possible something similar could be done using an android as some kind of golem or avatar or something. Would that be a new form of artificial life? Maybe the point of the book was not to make the monster look like a monster. Maybe it was supposed to show the doctor and all the people in the town in a bad light because they didn’t trust the creature who was, after all, pretty well-spoken despite his hideous appearance.

A minute later he was in Liz’s room, crawling onto her bed, and shaking her awake. “Liz,” he whispered loudly. “Get up. I have to ask you about this book.”

Liz knew when she left the gift sitting out that it was probably a bad idea. But Lore’s reaction to new things was difficult to judge so giving him space to take things in seemed like a better idea than hovering over him, forcing a reaction immediately. Still, being shaken awake by a less than delicate android was a bit of a rude surprise. 

Liz grumbled sleepily and swatted away his hands. “Lore, we’ve been over this. Terrans need sleep.” She slurred, only half awake. Rolling toward him, she wrapped her arms around his chest and pulled him in to a cuddle on the bed. If he was going to insist on being a pest, she was going to at least make use of how warm he ran. 

@more--perfect​

“Just make the connection,” Lore hissed to the Bolian. They were huddled in the main docking bay of Deep Space Station 14, the outskirts of Federation Space, speaking in urgent, hushed voices. “You promised me a buyer, you get me one. Don’t make me regret using you.” The blue-faced man nodded hurriedly and scurried away as soon as Lore released his grip. The android rolled his eyes. You just couldn’t find good business relations in this part of the galaxy anymore. His internal chronometer told him it was just past 17:00. They had two hours left to make this deal before he missed his lift out of here. If that Bolian didn’t get his ass in gear… Lore was pulled from his thoughts at the rapid approach of a human woman who took it upon herself to press a kiss right to his face. He reeled, doing a double-take, and then stared at her wildly. “Woah, what the hell?” he snapped, although his anger quelled once he got a good look at her - she didn’t look like she was on the offensive. An honest mistake, perhaps? Although how she could get him mixed up with someone else was beyond him. No one else on the station - on any station - looked like him. “Sorry, Sweetheart,” he objected. “You got the wrong guy.”

Interstellar shipping was one of those jobs that tended to take Liz all over. But even with frequent trips around the area, it wasn’t often she stopped at DSS14. Her clients tended to be the sort of people who’s business was kept well away from any Federation posts. Today was different, however. 

It took the better part of an hour for station security to clear her and another hour to get the cargo unloaded. By the end, she was cursing the client and making a mental note to start charging them more. A service fee for making her deal with overly pedantic Starfleet security officers. Even Odo wasn’t this bad.

Then, through the crowd, Liz spotted a face that made the whole headache of being there worth while. She was shocked that she hadn’t seen the Enterprise docked outside. But then, she had also been in the middle of a fight with one Lieutenant Commander Holland about docking at all, so maybe she’d missed it.

“Not Data.” Liz blinked at the familiar face with the very unfamiliar expression. It was extremely jarring to see someone she knew so well looking so completely foreign. Everything from his voice to his posture were wrong. From a distance, it had been less obvious, but standing next to him, it was eerie. “Very sorry, I thought you were someone else.”

[SMS] Ew wtf?

[SMS] I don’t get why you don’t just come and talk to me.

[SMS] Wait why did you just tell me you loved me while doing that?

[SMS] What???

[SMS] because last time I was cutting my nails on the bridge to told me I was firing nail shards everywhere and it was gross. 

[Text: Not Lore] Did you wake me up just to insult me?