Chapter Text
The idea first occurred to Jake during a really bad heat wave.
It was the first week of September and the thermometer went up to 37℃ * and stayed there. He was spending his Saturday morning on the roof of Deep Dish Nine helping Mr. O’Brien fix the air conditioner. (“damn Cardi summer. Damn defective machine.”) Which mostly meant handing him the right tool and listening to him mutter and curse.
Mr. O’Brien was wearing brown cargo shorts and yellow flip-flops, the only visible evidence of the man, in fact. Jake found himself staring at a blurry tattoo on the side of the mechanic’s calf. He had a vague notion that he’d seen something like it before. A hand appeared.
“Blue screwdriver.”
Jake absently supplied the requested item. Then it hit him. “It’s a lizard!”
“What?” Miles voice was muffled under the air-conditioning unit.
“The tattoo on your leg. It’s a lizard, like the one on that patch on your green jacket.”
“Hang on.” He emerged, squirming, from under the AC. “What was that? I couldn’t hear.”
“The thing on your leg. It’s a lizard. You have a patch like that on one of your jackets.”
Miles looked down at his leg, momentarily bewildered. “Wha-oh! Yeah, that. I forget it’s there most of the time.” He paused. “It’s a regnar **.”
“Why do you have a regnar tattooed on your leg?”
Mr. O’Brien was quiet for a long time, staring at his leg but not really seeing it. Jake was beginning to wonder if he’d forgotten the question, when he answered abruptly, “it was the name of my regiment. On the Cardassian front.”
“So…did you all get them?”
Yes,” Miles said slowly. “All of us that were left after…after Setlik. ***”
Shit. “Oh, um…I’m sorry I din’t mean -“
“No it’s fine.” Miles cut him off,hus voice flat and emotionless. “It’s just that I’m not used to talking about it.” With that, he wiggled back under the AC.
Then there was the longest, most awkward pause of Jake Sisko’s short life. Broken, finally, by another muffled request.
“Hand me a 5mm socket?”
* * *
It wasn’t the first time Jake had stumbled into awkward conversational territory before, not by a long shot, but something about the tattoo and Mr. O’Brien’s reaction stuck in his head. Later, while he was studying with Ziyal, he wondered (out loud and apropos of nothing) “Why do people get tattoos about stuff that makes them unhappy?”
She looked up from her calculus notes and frowned, absolutely confused. “Where did that come from?”
Jake explained.
Ziyal frowned again, thoughtfully this time. “Jake,” she said carefully. “Tell me about that scar on your arm.”
Jake’s eyes widened a little. “I thought I told you about that?”
She smiled, scrunching up her nose in that totally adorable way. She reached out and touched him lightly on the shoulder. “Tell me again.”
His checks got warm. “Ok. Um…well, my house burned down. When I was a kid. Maybe, like ten - no! Eleven years old. My mom and I were in it, the house I mean and…she - she didn’t make it. But my dad came home right as the fire department arrived. He ran in and got me out. The scar is from that fire.”
“So that scar is a story.” It wasn’t a question.
“Well, yeah. I guess.”
“Then maybe,” she said, slowly, slowly, leading him forward. “A tattoo is like a scar. But it’s for a story that doesn’t leave a physical trace.”
He chewed on that thought, “That’s…interesting.” Then he narrowed his eyes at her. Scrutinizing her face.
Her pale cheeks colored, “what?” She half laughed the question.
He reached out, touched the bar piercing on the bridge of her nose. “Are your piercings the same then?” He reached to the left and touched her earring. “What’s the story behind these?”
“Oh!” Her blush deepened, eyes cast down. “That’s…different. This is religious.”
“I know, but there is a story about it right? I remember talking about it in World Religions. The story of Leerah and the Prophets, right.”
“Jake,” Ziyal sounded embarrassed, and turned her head aside.“It’s not something we talk about it with…”
“Nonbelievers?” He smiled to take any sting from the word.
“Well…yes.” She smiled back. “Maybe if you ask a vedek?”
An idea was taking shape in Jake’s mind. “Maybe…”
* * *
In the end, he didn’t ask a vedek. He just asked everybody else. Because if scars and tattoos and piercings were stories, then he had a responsibility (as a future journalist, understand) to collect them.
The only hard part was figuring out how to get them all to talk.