Chapter Text
Lore had been on the starship Enterprise for somewhere around 37 days, 10 hours, and 14 seconds.
Not that he’d been counting.
He sat in his room, which consisted of a small couch, a table in front of said couch, a vanity, and an alcove for the bedroom. He felt like he knew every single inch of it by now.
After the Enterprise had captured him in Dr. Soong’s house, ripped the emotion chip out of him, and taken poor sweet Data back, he had stayed in the brig for about 10 days. During that time he saw little of anybody else besides the security guards and the occasional appearance from his brother or Counselor Troi.
Until, at the end of those days, Captain Picard visited to let him know personally that he would be granted the role of acting Ensign and allowed to participate in work on board.
The alternative was being disassembled by greedy cyberneticists who only wanted to construct more of him. To poorly replicate the work of Dr. Soong and put an obedient android on every single ship in the fleet.
It sounded quite nice compared to what he was experiencing now.
He sunk further into the couch. He was wearing a shirt and sweatpants. The moment his “shift” had ended he had torn off the clothes they had given him. They were the same clothes he wore when he was first reactivated. A yellow wrap-around jumpsuit and a black shirt underneath, each with the Starfleet logo embroidered on the wrists.
Lore didn’t want anything to do with this god awful Federation.
“To boldly go where no man has gone before” my ass! He couldn’t even leave his room!
There was a forcefield strategically placed just outside his door, so other people could get by but he couldn’t do so much as open the door without it sending some sort of alarm to who knows where. Probably the bridge.
There were only two ways it could be deactivated.
1. If an officer with sufficient security clearance disabled it with a special string of words and numbers. Unfortunately, the only people who had done this so far were Data and Counselor Troi. Still unfortunately, every time it was just to pay him a visit, and not to set him free.
2. If superior and security officers were notified that he had an event to attend or opportunity to socialize where he would be accompanied by at least 3 fellow officers, allowing him to stay outside of his quarters longer than usual.
Lore didn’t have sufficient security clearance. And Lore didn’t have any friends who wanted to invite him to Ten Forward to “socialize”.
The door chimed.
Lore didn’t have any friends, because nobody wanted to be friends with the dipshit who had hurt their precious Data. Every single day as he helped with science, or engineering, or wherever he was needed, people’s budding smiles would quickly fade as they realized he wasn’t the golden boy. Wasn’t Lieutenant Commander fucking Data.
The door chimed again.
He sighed, but he didn’t bother to straighten himself up.
“Come!”
The doors opened and the person walked in. Slicked back dark brown hair, pale yellow irises, off white shiny skin, just like his.
“Hello Lore.”
Lore groaned internally. He watched Data as his eyes flickered around the room and across Lore, as if anything had changed. Lore waited until Data’s eyes settled again to speak.
“Hi,” he leaned forward, “What is it?”
“I have brought with me some old Earth board games,” it was then Lore noticed the stack of boxes Data was holding, oh joy, “And I believe it would be a nice bonding experience if we were to play them together.”
Lore let out a long sigh. He quickly glanced at each of the boxes, picking out Clue, Chutes and Ladders, a couple boxes he couldn’t quite see the names on, and he noticed a deck of cards in Data’s other hand.
God, was he serious? Was he actually stupid enough to try and form some kind of bond between them?
He briefly weighed his options. It was this or go back to wallowing on the couch for the foreseeable future until his next shift began and a security officer appeared to escort him to wherever he’d be working.
Yeah, the latter sounded better.
“I’m okay, actually. You can leave now.” Lore gestured towards the door.
Data cocked his head. “But Lore,” oh, here we go, “it seems as if you have nothing else to do.”
“Yeah, and? It’s better than playing childish games with you.”
“Hm.” Data looked away. Then he turned away, and left the room.
Lore went back to twiddling his thumbs.
….
Four days passed before Data tried another stunt.
Lore’s time on the Enterprise and as an acting Ensign only got worse.
He sat on the couch, the cushion beginning to sink into the frame from all the times he sat there, doing nothing. Once again, he wore a shirt and sweatpants.
The door chimed.
“Come.” He said, quite unenthusiastically.
His brother entered the room. Once again, holding boxes. Maybe the same ones. He didn’t care to observe too closely. A deck of cards in the other hand.
“Hello, Lore. I have come to ask you again if you would like to participate in playing old Earth board games with me.”
Did he always have to be so painfully formal? It was board games, for fuck’s sake.
He thought for a moment, considering again doing this or sitting alone in this awful room for hours. Well, what did he have to lose?
“Fine, then.”
Data tapped his comm badge, and Lore was briefly confused before he said,
“You can come in, please.”
As Lore watched Commander La Forge, Commander Riker, and Counselor Troi file into his room, whatever thoughts he had of this night actually going well faded quickly.
“Lore, this is Geordi La Forge, William Riker, and-“
“I know who they are.”
The silence was brief and likely awkward for everybody else besides the two androids. Data moved forward and let the boxes drop on the table, placing the deck of cards next to them. He picked one box out of the stack and placed it on the middle of the table.
“I think that we should start by playing “Clue”. What do you think of that, Lore?”
As Data talked, the other three officers moved closer and took seats around the table on the floor. They left a space on the couch next to him, likely for his brother.
Lore didn’t answer. He just glared at Data.
“I have decided to take your silence as a yes.”
Data opened the box and set up the board, getting some help from the others present in unpacking the dice, pawns, cards, and papers. Lore didn’t help, but he leaned forward to get a good look at everything they were pulling out of the box.
They all chose their characters. Commander Riker took Miss Scarlet, Counselor Troi took Mrs. Peacock, Commander La Forge took Colenel Mustard, and Data took Mr. Green. Lore took the only male character left, which was Professor Plum. He observed that almost everyone’s characters matched with their uniforms. Commander Riker’s strawberry uniform with the bright red of the vaguely woman-shaped pawn, Counselor Troi’s bright blue dress matching with her own pawn, and Commander La Forge’s achingly mustard colored uniform matching with his.
He was wearing a deep gray shirt and Data was wearing his signature bright yellow uniform as he sat down on the couch next to him. It gave Lore some kind of pang in his chest to notice that he and Data were the only ones who didn’t match their counterparts.
The game went by in a blur of dice and eventually, it ended with the murderer being Professor Plum in the ballroom with the revolver.
Nobody laughed.
They moved on to Chutes and Ladders.
….
The atmosphere was uncomfortable as they cleaned up the games, but Lore helped clean up this time. Data asked Commander La Forge to take the board games back to his quarters as he requested everybody else file out. Data stood up and moved to sit on the floor, on the opposite side of the table as Lore. He grabbed the deck of cards and began to shuffle.
“You call him Geordi.”
Data looked up, but his hands kept shuffling. “Yes, I do. He is my best friend.”
Lore scoffed.
“What is it, Lore? Do you find the fact that Geordi is my friend to be absurd?”
“Maybe I do,” Lore said bitterly, “I don’t think it’s that unbelievable that I find it “absurd” that someone would willingly be friends with you.”
Data stopped shuffling the cards and began to divide them evenly between him and Lore.
“I have known Geordi for quite some time. Perhaps if you took the time to talk to other officers you could make some friends as well.”
Lore was almost shocked. What was he trying to say? “Do you think you’re fucking better than me? Because some loser had to settle for your company?”
A minute’s long silence, then Data said, “I am sorry, Lore. I did not mean to offend you.”
God, he said it so matter of factly. “You don’t mean that. You can’t even feel sorry.”
“Lore, I-“
“Just leave,” He spat.
Data looked away and then stood up. He walked towards the door, casting a quick glance back at Lore before leaving.
He could almost feel the forcefield go back up, trapping him once more within the room.
Data had left the deck of cards on the table.