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Captain James Tiberius Kirk was sitting in his chair on the bridge, face in hand as he said in a low, flat voice, “So there was a fluctuation in the transporter system?”“Uh,” Scotty said, eloquently. “Aye.”“So, instead of bringing back our reconnaissance team from the planet’s surface, we somehow managed to lock onto their ancestors?”“Aye, sir, it…. It would seem so.”“Who lived on Earth.”“Uh, aye.”“Like, two hundred years ago.”“Aye, sir.”“Thousands of lightyears away.”Scotty nodded, face red. Captain Kirk sucked in a deep breath, held it, and then let it out in one explosive gust. “Alright. Alright, fine. We’ve dealt with worse, right? Right. Alright, so how long until this is fixed and we can get our team back and put their great-great?-grandparents back where they belong?”“Should’na take too long, Jim,” Scotty said with some confidence. “We think we have the problem figured out already. Just will take a few, er, hours ta fix.”“How many hours?” Jim asked.“About, uh, thirty-two? Forty at the most, sir.”Captain Kirk rubbed at his temples. “About two hundred years… Do we have a 21st Century Earth historian aboard?”“Yes, Captain,” Spock interjected. “What do you need?”“Well, we can’t let people from two hundred years in the past wander around and freak themselves out. We’re going to need someone who knows the time they came from to make sure that they don’t see a lot of…” Kirk waved ambiguously around the bridge. “This.”Spock dipped his head. “Understood, Captain. I will alert the historian that their presence will be required in the ready room and have all necessary staff interacting with the…” He cocked his head toward Scotty, “21st Century humans debrief on how to handle themselves.”“Thank you, Mr. Spock,” Kirk said, very grateful.“I don’t know a lota ‘bout that time meself,” Scotty began slowly, “Bute, er, when I was with them, I did learn one thing.”Kirk glanced up. “What’s that, Scotty?”“Their clothes have genders,” Scotty answered, almost horrified. “They called me a miss, just ‘cause of me dress. And were very uncomfortable when I told them I was a man. Very confused.” He fingered the hem of his mid-thigh Starfleet issued red dress. Scotty didn’t wear his dress often, too nervous about having to go climbing up some ladders and having his underwear on display for everyone to see. He liked to wear it on his lazier days when he felt that the chances of having to climb anywhere or bend over were slim. (Sometimes, though, Linguistics Expert Nyota Uhura still liked to push something onto the ground and watch Scotty retrieve it for her. And Scotty likes to bend over very slowly and with legs locked in place so that the dress rose a great deal, giving his lass a good show.But that was their relationship and Captain Kirk was more humored than anything by their brazen flirting on the bridge).“It shows off your calves great, though,” Kirk muttered. He picked at the hem of his own Starfleet issued Command track gold dress. He liked the open, breezy feel of it when he was having a bad mental day.(It helped that Bones would put a hand on his knee and rub gently whenever he visited the bridge, no material between their skin. It helped that Spock had shaven Jim’s legs the night before and lathered them in lotion, making them silky smooth to the touch.It helped when Jim touched his own legs and felt the warm glide of his own skin and saw Spock and Bones’ eyes following the movement.Brazen flirting on the bridge – Captain Kirk was all for it).“Should we change?” Sulu asked, giving Chekov a concerned look. As best friends, they had coordinated their outfit today, as they did most days. (That morning, Sulu had received a holomessage from his husband and daughter. It was five days old, but it was ten whole minutes of his daughter modeling in her new golden dress that looked so much like the Starfleet Issued Command track gold dress. Sulu and Chekov had decided to wear their own issued gold dresses in solidarity with the little livewire). Captain Kirk took a moment to look around. Even the android was wearing their Starfleet issued dress. Several aliens on the bridge, unfamiliar with the binary gender system, were also in dresses. Really, the only two people not wearing dresses were Spock (who disliked having so much skin bare in public and also got cold easily, so he wasn’t likely to wear a dress unless he was lounging in their temperature-controlled suite) and Uhura, who had decided that day of all days to wear the pants-and-long-sleeve-shirt Starfleet Issued red uniform combination. “Huh,” Captain Kirk said. “I see we were all in a dress mood today. That doesn’t happen often. Is it a holiday?”Mathaii, a large, bald woman with a dark complexion, followed his gaze around the room and shrugged. “Is Leg Day a holiday?” She asked. “’Cause everyone is flashing some great legs.” Her eyes dropped to the android’s calves. “Mm.” The android looked as pleased as a piece of highly advanced machinery could.Kirk nodded in agreement. Then caught Spock’s narrowed eyes and cleared his throat. “Apparently, it’s Leg Day, Mr. Spock. We can’t all be expected to ignore this day of celebrating everyone’s legs. How many personnel do you think our space travelers require?”“Approximately three unless they feel the need to defend themselves or fight. This is including the historian. I myself should be excluded as my mannerisms and physical characteristics may not be so easily ignorable.” “With a hat, I think we could cover up the physical characteristics,” Captain Kirk said, eyeballing Spock’s ears.“Jim,” Spock said, developing an entire argument in that one word.Jim conceded. “Right, so, not you. But we should have someone of the senior staff supervising.” Then he remembered that he was part of the senior staff and his shoulders drooped. “Right. I’ll change and meet with the rest of the team in the ready room in exactly ten minutes.”“Captain – ” Uhura paused. She seemed conflicted. Finally, she shook her head. “You shouldn’t. My 21st Century history is rusty, but, from what I remember, not many people were comfortable with polyamorous relationships. Or even bisexuality. Or pansexuality. They considered it “greedy”, “cheating”, or “selfish”.”“Well, that’s just terrible,” Kirk said, frowning. He was suddenly upset and uncertain. Greedy? Cheating? Selfish? Sure, he’d been a skirt-chasing asshole in the past, but, two years into their five-year mission of exploration and study, he felt as if he had settled down nicely with his two adoring and sarcastic partners.Those words, though – they were familiar to him. He had said those words to himself when he had been with Bones while having feelings for Spock. But Bones and Spock had sat down with him and, instead of being offered an ultimatum, had been offered exactly what Jim had wanted: Both of them. Bones and Spock were even dating each other now, which they hadn’t been in the beginning. They’d been good enough friends, but… Well. Now they kicked Jim out of their suite so that they could talk with each other, or they went to science lab to run experiments together. They did things together without Jim and Jim kind of loved that because it was all the better when the three came back together and spewed on and on about their day. Besides, sometimes, Jim wanted to hang out with just Bones. Sometimes, Jim wanted to hang out with just Spock. It was great, this relationship he had, because it felt like he never needed for anything. Not to say he wouldn’t have been happy with just Bones or just Spock, but it was nice to feel like he had all three corners of a triangle instead of the beginning and end point of a straight line. He shifted in his chair, crossing his suddenly chilly legs.A warm hand landed on his knee and a thumb petted the curve of his knee cap. Warm waves of Spock’s loveadorationsympathy flowed into him like a tidal wave he happily went under. Fraternization on the bridge – commonplace. Wow, would Starfleet be pissed.“What if I just don’t say that I’m in a polyamorous relationship?” Kirk asked. It felt as if the crew as a whole turned to give him a doubtful look.“What?” He demanded.“You wouldn’t last ten minutes without saying something about how both of your awesome boyfriends did this or that,” Uhura explained, deadpan. “And if someone even insinuated that they were not okay with aspects of your sexuality?” She shook her head. “There’d be nothing left of them to send back to their time, which would endanger the existence of our crew now.”“Guys, I can control – ” The levels of doubt in the room because suffocating. “You can all go to Hell, I have great control.”“Uhura,” Spock said, slipping away and ignoring the captain’s comment. “Perhaps you would care to join the response team.”“Racism was still a thing in the 21st Century,” Matthai pointed out without looking up from her station. “And sexism. Women weren’t allowed to get their tubes tied unless they’d already had kids and usually only with their partner’s consent. Black women?” She snorted. “I had a great-great grandmother get beat up at a protest in Ferguson, Missouri. A peaceful protest where cops showed up with military grade weaponry.” She paused, lost in her head for a moment, “From what I’ve heard, the protest got a lot of backlash for not seeming so peaceful.”Kirk groaned. “Okay. So – no guys in dresses because – clothes have gender? So, maybe skirts? No? Okay, well, we’ll figure this out. But, uh, okay.” He sat forward, planning. “What are the demographics of our guests?” He remembered that three of the people he had sent down to the planet had been people of color, one of them agender, two of them women, and one asexual. Surely, they wouldn’t have to send in a team of people who were – what? Not women? Not black? Then what else? Some other ethnicity and gender? But Scotty looked him in the eye and said, with regret, “Four white and male, just like us, and one white woman. But not with our upbringing. One of’em respected my dress, but the others? Mean ole bastards. Used some old language on me that I thought I’d never hear in this day and age.”“If it makes you feel any better,” Kirk said softly, “This isn’t their day and age.”“Not really,” Scotty said.Jim took a look around the bridge. Finally, he settled on Chekov, who was hunched over his console and trying to look as small as possible.As if he could feel Jim looking at him, Chekov whimpered, “Pleaze, sir, don’t send me in. I’m transgender!”“It’s okay, Chekov,” Sulu said, laying a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “They have no way of knowing that.”“But vat if zey call me a lady ‘cause I am so smol? I have already put on my makeup, I do not vish to remove it!”“You always do such a good job with your eyes,” Jim complimented.Chekov beamed. “Thank you, sir! Commander Spock taught me some of his tricks!”“You have proven to be a great student,” Spock said. He himself had also done a splendid job with his contours and eyes. His lips were even remarkably pink and lovely.Jim was probably biased about that, though. He loved looking at Spock just as much first thing in the morning when Spock hadn’t applied his makeup yet and his face was flushed a pleasant, pale emerald green. All the same, the blue eye shadow he had on made his eyes look heavy and sensual.Jim stared for too long, making Scotty and Uhura clear their throats at him. Spock maintained a blank expression, but Jim still upheld that he could feel how smug the Vulcan was.“Maybe we can consult with the historian, who can consult with the time travelers, and then we can find out what biases they may or may not have,” Kirk finally reasoned.“Maybe they’re not racist or sexist,” Uhura piped up. “The… issue with the dresses aside, maybe they are openminded about other things.”Scotty sighed and went to Uhura. Like the pet he was for Uhura, he got down on his knees (which had to be cold and uncomfortable, Kirk thought, wincing for Scotty’s naked legs) and put his head in her lap. “The lady told me I had ta shave me legs if I wanted ta put on a dress. To look more feminine. What’s that even mean?”Uhura scraped her nails through his hair soothingly. “Your legs are fine,” she said. “You don’t have to shave your legs.”“Captain Perfect Hair shaves his legs.”“Correction,” Spock interrupted. “Only I shave the captain’s legs.”“It’s a thing of his,” Kirk explained to Scotty’s expression of confusion.Uhura sighed and nodded. “It is.” Her and Spock’s failed relationship was less of a sore spot now and more of an event that had occurred in their lives, a growing point where they had helped each other become more before finding what they needed in a partner elsewhere. “We used to have a designated day where he would shave my legs, use sugar scrub, and then lotion. Sometimes, he even filed and painted my toenails.”Coming from her, it almost sounded like a chore she had had to endure. Luckily, Spock did not take insult and neither did Kirk.Jim shared a secret smile with Spock. Uhura saw it anyway and raised a wicked eyebrow.“What color?” She asked.Jim flexed his toes in his knee-high boots. “Electric blue.”“Ooh, nice,” Scotty said approvingly. He got up off the floor and gave Uhura a peck on the forehead. “Well, I’m gonna go get the transporter fixed so that we can get our guests back ta where they came from. Don’t need them on board any longer than necessary.”“I would like our crew members back soon,” Kirk agreed.~::~The historian was, first of all, not human. The historian was, second of all, without gender. Third of all, the historian did not even vaguely resemble a human.Which meant that the historian was not going to be talking with their guests and getting a feel for what they were comfortable with.Halfway through the meeting, Kirk leaped up and exclaimed, “Bones! Bones, of course!”Because Bones was private, he wouldn’t remark about his polyamorous relationship. He also wasn’t big on dresses because he hated the breeze it created. He also was still pissed about the one time he did wear a dress and an ambassador aboard the ship had wolf whistled and tried to cop a feel. The ambassador had, of course, suffered the wrath of Captain Kirk, Commander Spock, and Linguistics Expert Uhura, but had possibly suffered the most at the hands of a livid Chief Medical Officer McCoy.And Bones was a white cisgender man! He could even have a good bedside manner when he needed to. Usually with children, but still.“Carol Marcus?” The historian added hopefully. Je was close friends with jer neighbor and weapons expert Carol Marcus and knew that she was a white, cisgender, heterosexual female. “That’s two right there,” Kirk said, accomplished.“We can request that Dr. Marcus speak with the guests and evaluate their social awareness,” Spock added.“Yes,” The historian agreed. “I will watch through surveillance and direct the questioning.”It all seemed so perfect.~::~It was not perfect. Jim and Leonard had both in the past flirted with Marcus, Leonard mostly to piss off Jim and Jim because he really appreciated beauty (Uhura would say that he appreciated it too much and that some would even say that he had been a womanizer, which, ouch, but true, even if his sexual escapades hadn’t just been women), but two of the four men saw the length of her dress and her pretty face and laid it on thick, like they thought Carol would be honored to ride them. The one sneered at Carol’s dress, muttering about how she was just asking for it.The two other men snickered and chuckled uncomfortably, clearly not liking what was happening, but not wanting to endure the wrath of the other three. “I can’t believe that our away team is descended from these assholes,” Jim moaned. “Attitudes change over time,” Spock reasoned. “There is a chance that your ancestors, long ago, owned slaves and thought nothing of it. You yourself have brought about the wrath of several civilizations by beginning revolutions to foster the ideals of equality, justice, and human rights. You are not your parents or their parents – you are a product of your time period, such has been every person in your bloodline before you.” “Makes you wonder if we would be the same people if we were born a century or two earlier, huh?” Kirk asked. On screen, Leonard had finally burst into a righteous fury, disgusted with everyone in the room. Carol calmly told Leonard to back down, which the man did after some grumbling, before rallying to her own terrifying defense.It was a disaster. The other woman in the room stirred herself into a fighting mood and when at Carol with teeth bared and nails pointed like claws. Carol very quickly subdued the woman.“This cannot be happening,” Kirk grumbled. “This is a nightmare.”“It is very hard to trust that sending them back after their time here will have no effect on the current timeline,” Spock voiced. “We can hope, though, right?” Kirk muttered. The historian hummed. “Question?”“Yes?” Kirk said.“Why do we not simply sedate them until it is time to return them to their time? Perhaps they will even fool themselves into believing that this had all been a dream. Humans of the 21st Century were very capable of ignoring situations or memories that discomforted them by pretending that they were false or had never really happened.”Kirk looked to Spock to confirmation.Spock cocked his head.“Okay,” Kirk said as Carol crushed her knee into someone’s crotch. “Let’s do that.”~::~When the transporters whirred and deposited Captain Kirk’s away team back on the Enterprise – returning their ancestors to their proper time period and planet – Kirk was pleased to note that everyone he had sent down were present (at least from what he remembered).Some niggling thought in the back of his head told him that Ensign Signori’s hair hadn’t been pink, but trying to remember what color it might have been slipped away like a dream. He smiled brightly. They all looked like they had been in an intense bar fight. “Glad to have you back.”The relief on Ensign Timothy’s face was overwhelming. They had a stiletto heel clutched in one hand and had looked ready to jab someone’s eye out with it. “It’s good to be back, sir.”