Work Text:
Well, Scar had gone and put his foot in the intergalactic space pie.
The year was sometime in the close future. Humans had discovered space travel. They were quickly being acknowledged by alien races as they sent their calls to the far reaches of the universe, but so far only a select few had made it there.
Scar G. Times was not one of those lucky few- the son of nobody affluent, a middle-class worker with a day job at a local Goodwill, he was one of the last people on Earth that you'd expect to be rolling with the aliens.
But he had friends in strange places. And those friends could get him on a ship headed to a nearby spaceport, for the low price of his monthly paycheck.
He had nothing to lose, so he put in his two weeks and handed over the money and packed his toothbrush and a fresh pair of underwear and a few other important things in a $15 suitcase he'd bought from Walmart, and, nervously, boarded the ship.
"Credentials?" asked a bored-looking woman at the front desk who looked three years out of high school, at most. Scar nodded nervously and handed over the small slip of paper. Would she know this was illegal? Would she recognize his sloppy signature and think it suspicious? Would all of this be for nothing, would he die alone on the streets?
Miraculously, she waved him forward. His ears were ringing so loud he couldn't hear what she said. "What?"
"Said your seat was in row 21-A," she repeated. She smiled. "Nervous, huh, flyboy?"
"Yeah," said Scar. "It's my first time in space." He tried for a winning smile, but knowing his mood, it probably just looked like he was mildly sick.
That's how he found himself sitting in his seat, firmly strapped into whatever this space bucket was made out of, praying he wouldn't have to pee in the time it took the ship to take off. Somewhere outside, a loudspeaker rattled off names, dates, procedures in a drone. The people sitting next to him in well-proctored suits looked rich, bored, and the sort of people to own five cars.
"Welcome to Starflight Airlines," a perky feminine voice announced from the intercom. Scar tried to sit up straighter. "Please remember to stay buckled in for the first thirty minutes of the flight. No food or drinks are allowed in the cabin. If you start to feel the symptoms of nausea, there are paper bags in the back of the seat in front of you." Scar idly wondered how the people in the front row would handle motion sickness if that were the case, but his thoughts were interrupted again by the same voice. "Enjoy your flight!"
Well, he'd gotten this far.
He'd try his damn best to enjoy every moment of this flight if it ended up in him dead or arrested.
He woke up an undetermined amount of time later by someone poking him in the shoulder. He hadn't remembered falling asleep.
"We're here," the guy said. "Naptime over." He walked off before Scar had a chance to even react to that information.
His suitcase was somewhere near the exit, he remembered that. He'd slapped a random Star Wars sticker on it before he left, as well as a sticker a friend of his had gotten with the purchase of a g2cb binder and had no use for. Were they in space? Had he come to the right spot? He opened the door, noted with distinction that this hallway was not the one he'd walked in, walked down it, and grabbed his suitcase.
The pressurized door opened with a satisfying hiss, and Scar just walked out of it and stared, mouth agape.
It was like a mall. It looked a really big gigantic mall with escalators at the far end and glowing shops on the sides (was that a Starbucks????) and so many PEOPLE. Well, very few of them were people. The rest of them were aliens of all shapes, sizes, and calibers.
It was exactly what he had been hoping for.
He just had no idea where the fuck to go from here.
Some of the vendors had signs above them in several languages, including Galactic and English, so Scar decided to poke around a bit even though he was thoroughly broke and would just end up wishing for things he couldn't buy anyways.
It was about 15 minutes into his impromptu shopping trip that he realized that yeah, none of these currencies were American dollars anyways. But still, that food looked DELICIOUS, and yep that was definitely a Starbucks, and now he really wanted a cake pop.
He decided to go to the Starbucks anyways to stare longingly at the cake pops like some starving raccoon, but before he could fully get there he heard two dudes arguing in a language he barely understood, having stared at a dictionary of it really hard before he showed up here: Common, the intergalactic lingua franca of space communities. It was some sort of argument about a... pay agreement? Some guy hadn't gotten the proper amount of food he wanted. Scar walked over to listen and maybe get involved.
"Come on," the first guy argued, sounding really annoyed and also tired. "Listen, man, my ship leaves in 15 minutes. Just bake me another one of these and we can get it figured out."
With the other guy's accent, Scar could barely make out what they were saying, but it was something along the lines of "you only paid for two! I will not give you another one!"
"Gentlemen, gentlemen," he said, walking in and raising his hands in a gesture of (he hoped) goodwill and peaceful intent. "What seems to be the issue?"
They just stared at him. He assumed he hadn't made his intents clear enough. "Why are you two arguing over food? Here," he said to the vendor, opening his suitcase and rummaging around for something he could exchange. Uh, a toothbrush? Did aliens brush their teeth? Sure. He handed the plastic-wrapped object to them and gestured towards the food item the other guy had bought. "Here. Why don't you give me one of those and we'll all be good?"
The alien continued staring, then seemed to process that a trade was being made. They muttered to themself in their own language, got one of the foods, and handed it to Scar, who promptly gave it to the other guy. "There!" he said cheerfully. The other guy just stared too, then sighed and pulled out some sort of box shaped device. He motioned Scar over to a nearby table and handed him the translator.
"You're really bad at Common," it read.
"Did I offend anyone?" Scar typed back, and handed the translator back.
The other guy typed for a minute. The strange food item sat forgotten next to his elbow. "No, probably not," he typed back.
"Okay, good," sighed Scar in English. "Did I even order the right thing?"
"Oh, English," said the other guy. He chuckled. "Yeah, you did. Thanks for that, but- you could have just used money, you know that right?"
"I'm broke," said Scar with a slightly embarrassed half-shrug. "That toothbrush was basically the only object of value I had in my suitcase here." He patted it, and the other guy just raised an eyebrow.
"I wonder," he muttered, thinking and looking at Scar silently for a bit. "What's your name?"
"Scar."
"I'm Cub," said the guy. "How would you feel about meeting my captain and maybe getting a job on a ship?"
Scar gasped. It was everything he had been hoping for. "Really?" he asked excitedly.
"Yeah, sure," shrugged Cub. "I mean, that vendor over there was really not wanting to give me what I paid for." He chuckled and thumbed backwards. "If you can charm your way into buying a space burrito with a toothbrush, you'll be useful on a spaceship."
"It's leaving in fifteen minutes, right?" asked Scar.
Cub checked his watch. "Ten now."
"Then we have no time to waste," he said, getting up and moving towards the door. Cub just stared for a bit. "Aren't you hungry?" he asked.
"Well, maybe if I could have that burrito," said Scar. "And maybe if you could buy me a coffee from Starbucks and a cake pop."
"No shame," laughed Cub. "Come on. Let's get you some food, buddy."
They walked together towards the shop, the human and the humanoid, laughing and jostling, one toting a suitcase and a space burrito, one with a bag full of more space burritos. They walked out a few minutes later with drinks and one with a cake pop.
"Dock 17-A," muttered Cub to himself. "Dock 17-A. Ah, it's over there!"
"So are you the captain of this ship?" asked Scar as they walked towards the aforementioned blast door. "Or what?"
"Or what," said Cub. "No, I'm not the captain. But he's a nice guy, you'll see. He'll take to you pretty quick, if you let me handle the talking."
"Oh," said Scar, slightly nervous.
The door opened, and the operator nodded and waved them through. They walked down a hallway quite similar to the one Scar had come out of a little while before, and he must have been visibly nervous because Cub poked him on the shoulder. "You'll be fine," he said. He rapped on the door.
A voice on the other side said something, muttering, and then the door opened. Behind it, a very large man in green armor and a helmet waved, arms crossed. Scar could track the exact moment his face fell, and he had to fight the urge to step backwards.
"Hi," he said, trying to be as confident as possible, giving the guy a little wave. "I'm Scar."
"Cub," said the guy in a deadpan British accent after a short pause, "you'd better have a good explanation for this."
"I do, actually," said Cub, stepping forwards. "X, this is Scar. Scar, this is X, the ship's captain. Scar's looking for a job on this ship."
X looked Scar up and down quickly, then nodded. "They do look polite enough," he mused. He waved his hand in a "go on" motion.
"I was getting some food, and the vendor wouldn't give me what I paid for," continued Cub. "This guy walks up, says something in the worst Common I've ever heard spoken in my life-" Scar winced at that "-but he got one for me with a toothbrush! A toothbrush, man!" Cub was excited now, and gesticulating with both hands, the food all but forgotten. "I swear, this man's awesome. Also, he's broke."
"Yeah," interjected Scar. "I kind of blew my entire monthly paycheck to get here. I promise I'll try and improve my Common, though!" He grinned, and X just sighed again, although he was smiling underneath the helmet.
"Full name?" he asked, and Scar felt the start of an adrenaline rush. "Scar G. Times," he said. "The G stands for Good."
X nodded and typed something into his wrist keyboard thing. "Age?"
"24."
"Languages spoken?"
"Uhh, English," said Scar. "But I did learn some Spanish in high school, if that counts?"
"Right," said X, tapping a bit more and pressing another button, which beeped. "Welcome aboard. You'll be our Interpereter once you get the hang of Common, if that's alright?"
"That would be great," said Scar. "Thank you, Cap'n."
"You can just call me X," said X. "Cub, I don't know how you keep convincing me to let people aboard, but come on, I think we have a spare room next to the storage bay. I'll introduce you to everyone else aboard when you're ready."
"Sir?" asked Scar, running up next to him as they walked up to be next to him.
"Yes?"
"Can I have a hug? It's been a long day for me, and you look like you give really good hugs."
"You may indeed, Mr. Good Times."