Chapter Text
Archer is woken several hours before his alarm by insistent chiming at his door. He could’ve sworn he had just dragged himself into bed and gone to sleep. Trying to shake off the residue of General Vherill’s liquor cabinet from his incredibly fuzzy brain, he chugs the glass of water by his bedside, only spilling about half of it down his front, stumbles into his boots and tries to find his shirt that he’d thrown on the floor before going to sleep. “Computer, time?” he demands.
Porthos gives a sleepy whine from his dog bed, then settles back to sleep as Archer rubs his ears in passing.
The time is 0300 hours.
The chiming does not stop. He gives up and wraps his blanket over his shoulders before pressing the door-open button.
He blinks muzzily at Shran.
Shran. Standing in his doorway, about to jab the door chime again, looking absolutely incensed. His antennae are set wide and his teeth are visibly gritted. He must’ve flown up to Enterprise as soon as he got the message.
The very drunk message where he’d confessed his feelings for Shran. Shit, he’d even quoted Jane Austen at the guy, if he recalls correctly. No coming back from that .
“Good morning?” Archer says hoarsely, then clears his throat.
Shran fixes him with a glare, eyes blazing. “Good morning,” he says with far too much intensity.
“What-”
“Can I come in.” It’s not even a question.
Archer’s heart sinks. “I guess you don’t wanna yell at me in the hallway, huh.”
“I will, if I have to!”
“Yeah. Sure. Come on in.” He steps aside, offering a wry half-smile.
Shran stalks inside and the door swishes shut. “So. You think I’m going to yell at you.” His voice is suddenly eerily calm.
The switch-up is unnerving. “I mean, you were. Just now.” Archer winces, wrapping his blanket a little more tightly around himself. “It’s three in the morning, Shran, I’m not entirely… ”
“You are really-” Shran begins then cuts himself off, stepping up to Archer, crowding him back against the closed door.
“Really what?”
“Realy difficult to deal with,” Shran says, clearly trying to be diplomatic.
“Look, Shran, I’m sorry. This is about the message, right?”
“You have to ask?”
“It doesn’t have to affect anything, I promise.” If he’s managed to insult Shran somehow, or, again, tumble into some cultural misunderstanding, there’s no way he’s going through another ritual combat, hungover. Or, ever again, actually.
“It affects everything, Pinkskin.”
Archer sighs. “Right.”
Shran’s antennae draw together, straight and tense. “…You love me,” he says hoarsely.
“Yeah,” Archer says, defeated. “I do.”
“And this isn’t a result of some variety of political blackmail.” His eyes narrow.
“Fuck no.” Archer is a little offended.
Shran momentarily gives him a consoling little pat on the arm. “It’s very unlikely, but I do have to ask. So you waited to mention it only now.”
“Well, you know…” he shrugs. “It’s one of those things.”
“What things.”
Archer can only give a second, helpless shrug.
Shran sighs. “ You frustrate me very much. Do you know how long I believed you felt nothing but simple friendship? That I destroyed any chance I may have had with you by accidentally marrying you?”
“It’s a screwed-up situation, I know,” Archer agrees. Then, “Wait, you were thinking about having a chance with me?”
Shran’s antennae stand straight up. “You didn’t know ? Didn’t even think ?”
Archer tries to process this. He’d hoped. And not very often, either. “You’re acting as if you were obvious about it!”
“I was! Painfully obvious! For an intelligent man, you are woefully-” Shran cuts himself off before insulting him, which Archer thinks that he might even be able to get used to. “But, Thavan was right about you. You do speak well. ‘Half agony, half hope,’ indeed.”
“It’s Jane Austen,” Archer says automatically. “‘Persuasion.’”
“He puts it well.” Shran shakes his head and lays both hands on Archer’s arms. “I agree. We’re putting off the divorce. Indefinitely.”
“Jane Austen was a ‘she,’” Archer says dumbly, the blanket falls off his shoulders, and then he can’t help grinning against Shran’s mouth when he is yanked down and kissed in fond frustration.
They barely make it back to the bed.
--
Afterwards, Shran runs a cool hand idly up Archer’s stomach and chest. “Your thorax really is shaped differently,” he murmurs. “What a travesty of a statue that was. I kept telling Zhrii, she hadn’t captured you. ”
Archer tries not to laugh, but can’t help it when Shran cautiously pokes him in the bellybutton.
“No exo-skeletal structures… Just flesh.”
“No dick pincers either,” Archer adds. “Would've been nice to know about those ahead of time. This would be the first time I almost lost an eye giving a blowjob.”
Shran turns a deeper shade of blue and pinches Archer in the side. “ You should’ve told me you didn’t have any! Will you let that go? I retracted them, didn’t I?" he adds sniffily.
“It's a 'sex as an extreme sport' thing isn't it. I just know it. You Andorians have to make everything into some adrenaline-fueled competition. Next time I see someone with two equidistant scars on their face, I'll know-”
“Oh for the love of- Shut up, Pinkskin.” Shran hits him with a pillow.
Archer tries to duck away, laughing, but gets it full in the face.
--
Trip spends the first few of days of his leave catching up on sleep, trying to get T’Pol to watch classic horror movies with him with various degrees of success, and eating pie. He only goes down to the planet on day four with a little pamphlet from the Andorian Imperial Ministry of Tourism.
He eats some street food, gets a few souvenirs, gets stared at by a few Andorian kids who’d never seen a Human before, and then visits a few art galleries. The public area of the Imperial Guard district has a few sculptures too, and some nice rock gardens – so he gets himself a slightly overpriced slushy-type drink and wanders on over there.
According to the pamphlet, the art display features an interactive panel-type Q & A session with some of the artists. He gets stuck in line behind a large family with lots of little blue kids that also stare at him, and a young couple from the Rigel system.
He comms T’Pol up on the ship and tells her she should’ve come with him to check out all this artsy stuff, but she denies it, citing logic. As if. He doesn’t mention that he’d gotten her a cute little bracelet with little orange stones in it from a little gift stall set up in one of the courtyards.
The next courtyard over is a little quieter.
“‘The Beginning: Archer’s Alliance: a sculptural display by artist Chalthen Zhrii,’” Trip reads out loud, then steps past the sign. “Fun.”
The artist herself stands beside the sculpture, and waves Trip over. “You must be Commander Tucker!” she says. “ I have heard much of you. Welcome.”
“Thank you!” Trip says, then actually catches sight of the sculpture itself and freezes in his tracks, momentarily blinded. “Holy- Wow. Would you look at that.” He whistles. “I can’t believe the Imperial Guard gave this the O.K.” He casts a quick glance at Chalthen. “No offense.”
“Actually, Commander Shran was very involved in the process.” Chalthen shrugs. “As one of the very few people who actually knows Captain Archer personally, he was our most helpful consultant and our greatest critic. Even now, he keeps complaining…” The artist imitates Shran’s clipped tones, “‘He’s not tall enough! Make him handsomer! You’ve made his ass too flat!’”
Trip’s gleefully astonished guffaw nearly chokes him.
“I did the best I could, with the few holo-images I had and the way the Commander described the Captain, but you must understand… Beauty is subjective, and detailed description is not a strong suit of those military types. ‘Handsome,’ really isn’t much to go off of.”
“Oh, that’s amazing. The captain is not gonna believe this.” Now curious, Trip peers critically behind the statue. “…But, and I can’t believe I’m saying this, I agree with Shran.”