Ad Astra :: Star Trek Fanfiction Archive ^{Beam me up, Scotty.}

Chapter Text

"Seriously, you're driving me crazy! It's 'yes' and not 'aye'!"

Scotty narrowed his eyes at the self-proclaimed Corry the Magnificent and thought about how nice it would be to knock the man's mouth out of commission for a little while. He wouldn't do it, but he sure thought about it. "Patient as I've been, ye dinna have--"

"Don't." Corry looked like he was just as frustrated, and ran both hands through his hair as he paced around the other side of the table.

Scotty twitched. How many times had he heard that since this whole tutoring thing began? "--don't have to keep harpin' on me!"

"You still sound like-- like you just walked in off of the heather or whatever!"

That was absolutely the wrong thing to say. Scotty didn't even blink, just launched into a somewhat impatient tirade against Corry. Except, in Doric. After about thirty seconds of him speaking that particular dialect, Corrigan was staring at him open-mouthed and so Scotty raised an eyebrow. "Fit?"

"Was that English...?"

"Think ye sae? Ah dinna ken," Scotty said, then went back to his own, far-less-Doric native. "If ye're goin' tae accuse me o' just steppin' off the heather, ye should at least know what that sounds like."

Corry shook off the Doric, complaining, "That still doesn't change the fact that it's 'yes' and not 'aye'!"

Back to this again. Corrigan was pacing around in agitation, though Scotty got the distinct impression that Corry was actually enjoying his frustration in some way. That it was as much funny for him as irritating.

"It's nae that big a deal, is it?"

"Ayuh!" Corry said, stopping in his pacing. Then his eyes went wide and he hastily amended that. "Er, yeah!"

Too late. Scotty eyed him. Really eyed him, delighted in some maybe-less-than-kind manner, with a slow grin crossing his face.  Probably the exact kind of grin a shark might give when coming upon a wounded fish, in fact. "What was that?"

"I said 'yeah, it's that big a deal'," Corrigan replied, but it was obvious that he was squirming a little, skating eye contact. "Because we already answer--"

"No, no. Ye said somethin' else before that." Scotty rested his elbow on the table and pressed his chin into his palm, grinning even more broadly at the other cadet. "What was it? Ayuh?"

Corry cleared his throat. "It's-- it means the same thing, it's just--"

"Ayuh. Ayuh." Testing the word out like it was a fine mouthful of whiskey, Scotty decided he kind of liked it. Plus, it had the effect of making Corrigan turn red. Never mind the irony, which was (obviously) the best part.

Corry grabbed his books off of the table. "I'm gonna go and get dinner. See you tomorrow?"

Completely unable to let this pass, Scotty beamed back. "Ayuh!"

"Anyway, I dinna have--"

"Don't."

"Ayuh. Anyway, I don't have to go an' tell ye that the calculations ye just did were all wrong." Scotty didn't even let the smirk he felt cross his face at the way Corrigan winced at the affirmation, but it was a near thing. "Wicked good try, though," he added, and was awarded with another wince.

"Okay, seriously. I totally understand that you're trying to prove a point, but isn't this going a little far?" Corry asked, a bit of a pleading note in his voice. After a week of this, he was obviously more than willing to come to a compromise.

"That depends, really," Scotty replied, keeping his expression and voice neutral. "Are ye just about done railin' me on the 'aye' versus 'yes' question?"

Corry nodded, emphatically. "Aye."

They had finally found a common language.