This just so happens to be my other submission for the super awesome lj Operation: C.A.F.E. Seriously, check that place out. Now that Secret Santa is over, Spyridon is planning on releasing monthly prompts. Please please please check them out, they're really interesting and even easier to submit (you only have to write a minimum of 500 words per entry).

Anyway, this was for rodlox, who suggested a situation that involved Reva and Annie on another mission... only this time one that had Annie shaking in her boots, so to speak. Warning, I wrote this in one night, so it is kind of majorly cracky. But it afforded me the opportunity to use my mad nerd skillz, which always guarantees a pretty fun ride. :)

$4$

"So, tell me, Walker, how are you doing out in the big unknown?"

Not for the first—or the last—time that night, Annie's eyes went heavenward and she heaved a sigh. "As best as I can, I suppose."

"What about our favorite little newbie?" Auggie continued, and for a second she pictured him in her mind, grinning to himself as he stared unknowingly over the edge of his computer screen, hooked to his Bluetooth and playing with some new desk toy to keep his hands ever occupied. Even if she was eye-crossingly bored, at least she always had Auggie to fall back on.

Annie craned her neck, chocolate eyes searching out the dark-haired techie in the rather crowded bar. She spotted two green women and about a dozen men with pointy ears in a matter of milliseconds, but it took nearly a full minute to find Reva Kline.

"She's doing surprisingly well, by all appearances," Annie drawled, an eyebrow hiking up as she took in the three guys—two in yellow shirts, one in blue—who swarmed Reva, overwhelming the tall little table where she stood. "I mean, considering this is the girl that considers social interaction something to be scientifically quantified."

"Annie, in this bar, that fact alone is going to be a help to her, not a hindrance," Auggie pointed out, and she could hear the contained laughter in his tone, even through the comlink. "She's among remarkably similar logic there."

"Yeah, because the face paint and clothing aren't weird enough," she muttered under her breath, nursing her Guinness tiredly.

"Hey," Auggie cried, half-serious. "Leave my people alone."

Annie chuckled, earning an odd look from the dude that had about 400-plus wrinkles on his leathery brown forehead. Like he had any right to judge. "I hardly think these qualify as your people," she said, drumming her fingers on the lacquered bar table.

"While I am admittedly the absolute epitome of cool, it should be mentioned that there was a time in my life that my father exposed me to the very compelling Star Trek franchise."

Annie's grin was immediate and risked taking over the entirety of her face as she processed Auggie's casual statement. "Really? You're a Trekkie? I totally would've pegged you for a Star Wars aficionado."

"Technically, I'm both," Auggie said with a chuckle, and she had a hard time not cracking up when the image of him dressed as Han Solo popped up in her mind.

"Nerd," she quipped affectionately, polishing off her Guinness. A guy settled down in a barstool to her left, far too close for comfort, and gave her the old hairy eyeball. She tried her hardest not to shudder visibly.

"Hey. It's the age of the geek, baby," he replied easily, making her snort into the glass she was still holding to her lips.

While I-look-like-I-haven't-bathed-in-a-month continued openly staring at her breasts, she mumbled, "Oh my God, where did you get that?"

"Some TV show. He wasn't wrong," Auggie sing-songed the last sentence, and she had a hard time arguing with him when he sounded like such a fun whackadoodle.

To her everlasting horror, the guy she had named Red Shirt McBadBreath in her head had apparently worked up the courage to speak to her. "So, uh, what planet do you hail from?" he said, leaning way too close to her and sending over another wave of overcooked onions.

Auggie may have been her best friend, and she may have had a secret weakness deep in the back of her heart for all people 'geeky,' but that in no way meant she was dealing with this guy's bag of crazy. "The real one," she deadpanned, staring straight ahead at the bartender fixing some kind of lime green cocktail in a fancy spiral glass. She may have been painted head-to-toe gold and wearing wicked looking cat eye contacts, but at least she wasn't trying to hit on Annie.

"Aww, are you bonding with my people?" Auggie cooed, and she had to shut her eyes slowly to stop the eyeroll that she knew was coming.

"You're not funny," she murmured, barely moving her lips so Red Shirt wouldn't know she was speaking to someone.

"On the contrary, Miss Walker, I am hilarious."

"Hi, Annie, how are you doing?" Reva popped up over her shoulder, so quickly she successfully managed to startle Red Shirt from speaking. For a while.

Annie sent her friend a long, hard look. "I need a drink," she said flatly.

Reva's dark hazel eyes flitted from Annie's face to the bar top and back. "It looks as though you have already had two drinks," she observed, slightly more reserved than before.

Annie didn't miss a beat. "I need another."

"Now who are you, gorgeous?" Red Shirt oozed, and Annie tilted her head back in exasperation, glaring up at the dimly lit ceiling.

Reva didn't so much as glance Red Shirt's way, her eyes trained only on Annie. "Are you not having fun here, Annie?" she questioned, her heading cocking to the right and her extremely high ponytail bobbed along with her.

"Yeah, Annie," Auggie piped up in her ear, ever-helpful. "Are you not having fun?"

For the first time all night, Annie managed a half-hearted smile. "I'm fine, Reva," she said softly, spinning on her bar stool to face Reva. Turning the conversation away from her, she glanced around the bar. "What happened to all your suitors? You looked like you were having a great time."

"Suitors?" Reva repeated curiously. When she stared at her like that, sometimes Reva reminded Annie of a baby bird. "Oh, you mean the men that were talking to me. I would hardly qualify them as courting me for a relationship. I was merely using them to gather more information on our mark. Like you told me."

"Like you told her?" Auggie asked excitedly. "Whoa, Annie, what a heartbreaker! You just settin' 'em up and knockin' 'em down out there?"

Annie's jaw locked. "I swear to God, Auggie, when I get back, I'm killing you. I swear to God."

Reva's eyes lit up with understanding as she fixed the hem of her rather short red dress. "Oh, I'm sorry, Annie. Did I interrupt some sort of lover's quarrel between you and Auggie?"

A beat of utter and complete silence. And then, like thunder, Auggie's full, baritone laughter explodes through their comlink. Oh, what fresh, sweet hell had just been unleashed?

"No, Reva," Annie replied desperately, burying her face in her hands. Looking up sharply, she added, "We're not—what would possess you to think that?"

"Well, my observations made from firsthand experience regarding yours and Auggie's relationship, not to mention the statistical evidence that proves extremely close heterosexual coworkers have a tendency to succumb to what is commonly known as 'sexual tension' after a specific number of years depending on factors such as stress and high emotions, and that's not even factoring in the number of rumors that have circulated about the two of you in the off—"

"Okay, Reva!" Annie said, almost shouting as she put her hands palm up in the universal signal of please, for the love of God, stop talking. She could still hear Auggie laughing loudly in her ear. She really hoped he didn't hear that part about the rumors in the office. Or that statistical nonsense. "I get your point."

Reva stared at her blankly for a few seconds, then finally managed to compose her features into a grimace. "I'm sorry, Annie," she apologized, sounding slightly less like a robot than before. "Was that offensive?"

Annie sighed. "No, it really wasn't offensive," she managed, resisting the urge to pinch the bridge of her nose. "And you don't have to apologize. I know you didn't mean anything by it."

"You know, as a recommendation, there is some evidence to support that having sex greatly relieves frustration, which is something I believe you might be suffering," Reva added.

"Really, Walker?" Auggie immediately jumped in, too happy to interject. "Is that your problem? Frustration?"

Sending Reva the most infuriated look possible, she replied lowly, "No, Anderson, that is not my problem." Biting her lip to contain her annoyance, she added to Reva, "I'm sorry, but you really need to stop saying these things—you're only encouraging…"

She trailed off, because as she was speaking, a small, triumphant smile was starting to form on Reva's face. "Holy crap, you're worse than Auggie."

More explosive laughter, and Reva did a weird, hoppy dance thing that was equal parts dorky and cute. "Did it work, then? I've been attempting to improve what people consider a sense of humor."

Annie took a long, shaky breath. She was not getting paid enough for this damned job. "Oh, yeah," she said, smiling in a way that she hoped conveyed support. "You're doing a great job with hu—"

"Hey, so how would you two like me to introduce you to my Loading Bay?" Apparently, Red Shirt had not taken the hint that they were having a conversation that did not involve him. Which was unfortunate for him, because had he been paying closer attention to Annie's mood, he might have been prepared. Well, maybe.

Whirling around, Annie grabbed Red Shirt by the collar, yanking him out of his seat and nearly nose-to-nose with her. "Now listen here, you pervy freak. If you hit on me or my friend one more time, I will hit you so hard Scotty won't have to beam you up because you'll have already entered atmosphere!"

"Got it?" she snapped, giving him a little shake for good measure. His eyes were the size of saucers, and the second she let go of his shirt he took off like a shot. Reva didn't waste a second sliding into the spot he'd just vacated, crossing her legs at the ankle and fixing her skirt once more rather primly.

"Heartbreaker," Auggie interjected after a beat.

"I swear, Auggie," Annie muttered under her breath. "Kill."

"I gotta admit, I did appreciate the 'Beam me up, Scotty' line."

"Oh, I did, too!" Reva agreed, raising her hand to hail the bartender. "What's good to drink here?"

The bartender didn't bat a fake eyelashed-eye. "I mean a good Orion's Belt," she offered, tossing some of her white-and-gold ringlets over her shoulder.

"Sure, that sounds great," Reva replied, grinning happily. This was actually the most energetic Annie had ever seen Reva. It was pretty adorable, truthfully.

As the bartender fixed Reva an extremely fruity-if-doubtlessly-tasty cocktail, Annie eyed her friend's outfit. "So, the costume," she drawled, nodding towards her skirt.

A light pink blush graced Reva's high cheekbones, and she nodded. "She's one of my favorite charcters," she explained, once more fingering her hemline. "Nyota Uhura. I wanted to go with the original hairstyle, but mine refuses to stay in that beehive for longer than an hour, and I can't stand the wigs. So I was forced to go with the slightly more disappointing 2009 Star Trek incarnation."

Annie stifled a snigger at Reva's clinical explanation but went along with it. "Not a fan?"

"No, it was an acceptable adaptation," she replied, "And it was greatly helped by the high attractiveness of the male cast. Particularly the actor that plays James Kirk's father in the beginning."

Auggie had subjected her to the movie over the summer, and she had a hazy memory of thinking the guy Reva described as being hot, but not much more. Chris Pine was definitely hot, though. "Yeah, I can agree with you on that one," she muttered. She really hoped this was killing Auggie back in the DPD.

Reva's expression turned slightly more conspiratorial. "Plus, I've kind of had this lying around since I bought it for Comic Con two years ago," she confided guiltily.

Annie laughed, and for the first time all night she didn't feel like she was a freak in a crazy bar. "That does make sense," she admitted, laughing louder as Reva daintily sipped her cocktail. "I mean, you might as well get as much use out of it as you can."

"That was my logic!" Reva exclaimed, nearly sloshing her drink.

They both laughed at her excitement. Sure, they may have been earning some extra stares because of Annie's complete lack of costume, plus Joan was probably going to berate them later for getting distracted on the job, but Annie didn't nearly have enough fun in her life. Not to mention female friends.

She was going to cash this weirdass night for all it was worth.

$4$

I think I just went up like 200 geek points writing this fic. I made so many random references to various TV shows and movies, and that's not even counting the Star Trek and Star Wars crap.

I also seriously Googled Star Trek drinks. Orion's Belt is a real thing—you can find the recipe online. It looks like it might be decent, if you like uber-fruity drinks and lots of alcohol.

Anyway, I'm exhausted. Age of the geek, baby. We rule the world.