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spacedogfromspaceI'll Be Your Battery Pack
Star Trek Femslash Week 2023
Christine's social battery is drained when she tags along with Nyota to the Language and Communications Symposium.
Fandom(s): Star Trek AOS
Character(s): Christine Chapel, Nyota Uhura
Tags: Chaphura, Fluff
Rating: General Audiences
Content Warnings: N/A
Word Count: 2332
Type: Oneshot, Standalone
Collection: Star Trek Femslash Week 2023
Written for Day 1 of Star Trek Femslash Week 2023.
Prompt: There was only one bed
Christine and Nyota sat next to each other on the shuttle, which was so full of passengers that by the time they had boarded there wasn't any space left in the overhead compartments for their duffel bags. They sat in their seats with their bags on their laps, which wasn't the most comfortable situation in the world, but they knew the shuttle ride wouldn't be too long.
Christine was feeling cramped. The number of people on board and the amount of noise generated by enthusiastic conversations, coupled with being weighed down by her own luggage was making her feel as if the walls were closing in on her. At least Nyota had let her take the window seat. The pane of glass to her right was her one respite. Hiding next to the window had another advantage: she had Nyota as a buffer between her and all the people who wanted to make conversation with them.
The passengers were mingling. There were a lot of introductions and hand shaking and discussion, which was quite different from the quiet shuttle rides that Christine was accustomed to. But this was no ordinary shuttle. The passengers were all heading to the same place - the weekend long Language and Communications Symposium held at an enormous conference centre in Los Angeles. Given the subject, the attendees were not only nerds, but chatty nerds. Nyota was just as enthusiastic as the rest, having no trouble meeting their fellow passengers and striking up conversations about panels and presenters and research developments. Christine hid behind Nyota. Which was just as well, as she didn't know the first thing about anything these people were talking about. She didn't recognize the name of a single person who had celebrity status among these people, and she was immediately lost whenever even the most basic of technological lingo came up. Talking to people was exhausting when she did understand the subject at hand, so she was perfectly content hiding behind Nyota and letting her field any questions.
She wondered if the entire weekend would be like this - crowds of people swarming and talking about things she could never hope to understand. She was even beginning to regret tagging along, when Nyota turned away from the tall Andorian she was speaking with to give her a warm smile.
"Hanging in there?" Nyota asked, sympathetically. "It's pretty loud in here."
Christine nodded. "It's not too bad," she lied, flashing a smile that she felt wasn't very convincing.
Nyota seemed to pick up on her discomfort, patting her arm apologetically. "Don't worry, we're nearly at the centre. It'll be better once we're out in the open air."
Christine nodded and turned to look out the window, feeling guilty. Nyota had invited her along to the symposium, and while Christine didn't have the slightest interest in the topics herself, she wanted to show interest in her friend's area of expertise. She decided that over the course of the weekend she would either be enlightened in the marvels of translator and subspace communications technology, or she would do her damnedest to act like she had been. And yet, she was already failing that quest before they even arrived at the conference centre. She hoped that Nyota was right and she would feel better once they got off the shuttle. It was difficult to act enthusiastic when you felt squashed into a tight space so full of voices that she could hardly hear herself think.
When they finally arrived at the conference centre and she stepped out of the stuffy shuttle onto the sidewalk, the tension in Christine's shoulders melted away. The voices around her didn't lessen in volume, but they seemed quieter when there was an expanse of air for the sound to vanish in, rather than ping-ponging around the metal walls of a small craft. That, and she was afforded more personal space. She sighed in relief. She was feeling better already.
"Is it too early to check-in to our hotel?" She asked Nyota. She hoped it wasn't. She wanted to lock herself in a room free of strangers to decompress for a bit. To her relief, Nyota shook her head.
"Nope, we can go right now and ditch our bags," she said.
Unfortunately for Christine, ditching her bags was all she got a chance to do at the hotel. The opening ceremonies were beginning soon, and Nyota didn't want to miss them, so once they had gotten their hotel room keys they literally opened their door, tossed their bags in, and left. Christine tried not to let her despair show.
The opening ceremonies were crowded and loud. Housekeeping announcements were made, welcoming speeches were spoken, and one by one the featured speakers were introduced to so much applause and cheering you would have thought these people were rock stars. Christine hadn't heard of any of them.
After two hours of amplified voices layered over a sea of clapping, cheering, and talking, Christine's ears were ringing, her skull felt about to split open, and her jaw was sore from clenching her teeth. She put on her best - albeit strained - smile whenever Nyota glanced at her, but secretly, she was focusing all her energy on not running away.
The end of the opening ceremonies was unfortunately not the end of the night. Nyota dragged Christine along to the welcome banquet, which might have been nice if they weren't sat at a table with ten other people constantly talking to each other, and talking to her. She wanted to be polite, but she couldn't answer even the most basic of questions.
"Oh, I just have an interest in how it all works," she said in panicked vagueness in response to the question of what she was most looking forward to over the weekend. "It's all very fascinating."
Nyota came to her rescue. "She isn't in the field," she explained with a friendliness that Christine wished she could emulate. "Her area of expertise is medicine. She's here as my plus one."
"Here to take advantage of the parties then," a large human man with massive glasses said jovially, giving her an exaggerated wink. "Quite the ragers go down on symposium weekend. You're in for a treat."
Christine gave a strained smile and nodded. It would be impolite to express her thoughts on parties - that they sounded like hell.
She was hesitant to feel relief when the banquet was finally over and she and Nyota got up to leave, worried that their next stop would not be the hotel room, but one of these aforementioned 'ragers.' Nyota seemed to read her mind.
"Don't worry," she said with a reassuring smile as they stepped out into the cool night air. "I'm not much of a party girl either, we can skip out on the late night festivities."
Christine let out a sigh of relief, catching herself too late. Her face reddened. Worried that Nyota would think that she was too eager to ditch symposium events, she jumped to save face. "That's good. I was worried that if we went to any of these parties I'd be too tired to pay attention to the panellists tomorrow."
Nyota grinned. "Exactly," she said. "We'll be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed at nine AM tomorrow, and everyone else will be dragging themselves about like zombies," she said. "Besides, I take it you need a break. Clearly you need to recharge your social battery."
"Is it really that obvious?" Christine grimaced. She had tried to act like she was enjoying herself. For Nyota's sake. Unfortunately, Nyota was just too damned perceptive.
"You're just a little more introverted than most, that's all," Nyota said when she noticed Christine's embarrassment. "Nothing wrong with that. After the symposium is over I'm going to need a couple days away from people too."
As they stepped into the hotel lobby, Christine began to feel a bit better. The fresh air from the walk had cleared her mind and reduced her throbbing headache, and Nyota had successfully quelled Christine's anxieties. She had a faint smile on her face as they walked down the hall to their room, thinking about how Nyota had managed to prove herself a more and more amazing woman every day since the day they met. She was endlessly kind, absurdly brilliant, brave, cool under pressure, and so, so... gorgeous.
She was pulled out of her dreamy haze when they entered the room and Nyota stopped short.
"Oh," Nyota said.
"What is it?" Christine asked, barely managing to avoid walking right into Nyota.
"There's... only one bed," Nyota said, frowning. "I swear I booked a room with two."
Christine peeked around Nyota at the room's interior. Beyond their hastily abandoned luggage was a single queen-sized bed.
Nyota turned to her, grimacing apologetically. "Sorry Christine, I didn't even notice we were missing a bed when we dropped off our stuff."
"That's okay," Christine said, shrugging casually. But her heart picked up its pace.
Biting her lip and crossing her arms, Nyota turned her head to survey the bed again. "It's a bit late to go through the hassle of getting moved to a different room," she said dejectedly.
"I can sleep on the floor," Christine offered quickly. What she really wanted to say was 'I don't mind sharing,' but Nyota seemed upset about the one-bed room, and she gathered that she didn't like the prospect of sharing a bed with her.
Nyota's head whipped back towards her, her long ponytail swinging behind her. "No!" She said quickly. "No, it's my fault we didn't get the right room. I'll sleep on the floor, and tomorrow we'll get the front desk to switch us to another room."
There was an awkward silence, and they both looked at the floor. The carpet was a thin mat, grey and... stained.
Christine steeled herself for rejection. "The floor looks really hard and gross," she ventured cautiously. "A queen is big enough to share."
Nyota met her eyes and grimaced slightly. Christine's heart fell, knowing Nyota was going to reject the idea. And if Nyota would rather sleep on a disgusting and uncomfortable hotel room floor than in a bed with Christine - platonically - what did that say about Christine's chances with her romantically? But Nyota surprised her.
"Would you mind?" Nyota asked in a hopeful but apologetic tone, as if Christine had offered to do her a massive favour.
Christine blinked, confused. "Of course not?" She answered.
Shifting her weight to another foot, Nyota looked awkward. "It's just that..." Nyota brushed an invisible strand of hair behind her ear, eyes flicking to the floor. "I know that being around people takes a lot of energy from you, and that you need your space to recharge. I don't want to make you uncomfortable all night long by being in your personal space and sapping your energy."
It took a moment for Christine's brain to compute what she had just heard. Nyota didn't want to share a bed with her... because she thought that she would be exhausted by it? That couldn't be anything further from the truth, but... well, she couldn't blame Nyota. She was just being observant. How could she have guessed at the one exception to the rule?
"Sharing my personal space won't drain my energy," Christine said slowly. "Not if it's you."
Nyota looked up, those bright hazel eyes showing surprise. "No?"
Christine shook her head, wrapping her arms around herself nervously as she continued. "You're special to me, Nyota. I don't feel tired from hanging out with you. Quite the opposite, in fact. It seems like the closer I am to you, the more I 'recharge,' as you put it. You give me energy, not take it from me."
"Oh," Nyota said, seeming a bit startled. Christine grimaced inwardly, ready for Nyota to decide that she was a weirdo, or a creep, and abandon her for the rest of the weekend, and possibly forever after that.
But Nyota didn't do that. "So... I'm like your mobile battery pack?" She jested.
Christine blushed, and a smile forced its way onto her face. "I mean, if that's how you want to refer to it," she answered.
"I'll be your battery pack. It would be an honour," Nyota said with a grin. "So... does this mean neither of us has to sleep on the gross floor?"
"Nobody is sleeping on the gross floor," Christine confirmed.
"Great," Nyota said with relief, making an exaggerated gesture of wiping non-existent sweat from her brow to make Christine giggle. "We should hit the hay. We'll need to be up early if we want a chance at breakfast before the panels start."
"I'm way too tired to argue with that," Christine said, picking up her duffel bag. "Dibs on the bathroom," she said quickly, rushing into the little washroom with her bag.
"Hey!" Nyota called after her. "Not fair!"
Christine emerged not long afterwards, dressed and ready for sleep. "Bathroom's all yours," she said sleepily as she passed Nyota, shuffling to the bed in her oversized flannel pyjamas. She wasted no time curling up beneath the covers.
She had nearly fallen asleep by the time Nyota finished changing and brushing her teeth, and barely registered when she switched off the lights and shuffled herself into the bed. But she became acutely aware of her surroundings when, a few moments later, a pair of arms tentatively wrapped themselves around her. She tensed in surprise.
"Sorry," Nyota said, pulling her arms back to herself. Christine turned to give her a quizzical look and Nyota winced, embarrassed. "Sorry, I just thought... you said that the closer you were to me the more..." She trailed off awkwardly.
Christine knew what she was referring to. "So... you wanted to cuddle?" She asked, managing a slightly teasing tone. She couldn't see, but she knew by Nyota's behaviour that she was blushing.
"Well... yeah," she admitted. "If it's alright."
Smiling shyly, Christine shuffled closer to Nyota, snuggling up to her. "It's perfect."