Heat Sensitivity || askthesuperiorofficer + askcaptainarcher
The heat made Shran sluggish— he could literally feel his blood moving more slowly through his body— but otherwise, he showed no ill effects. Not yet, anyway.
He narrowed his eyes at Archer.
"Maybe that monk shouldn’t have been in a bar in the first place. And racist." The man had just been asking for a good beating; he knew Archer agreed with him, even if his diplomacy had gotten in the way. "And I was RATHER more inebriated than you, Archer."
A side-effect of the blasted heat. The second he ate or drank anything, his body greedily metabolized it; the alcohol had gone directly to his head, in a way he wasn’t used to, and while the effect hadn’t lasted long— it had been explosive.
"Well. Who knew you were such a lightweight?" He smiled wanly over a sweat-slick shoulder at the Andorian. Crinkling crow’s feet left clean lines in the dust accumulating around his eyes. He knew that in a more hospitable climate Shran could drink him under the table— hell! through the damn floorboards— but watching the volatile blue frenemy go from emotionally vulnerable to so angry he thought it necessary to suplex the barkeep… Well. Let’s just say Archer was feeling a little more equal in footing. All the foreign spirits had wrought on his human physiology was a slight headache. "And I think that monk had every right to be in a bar on his own planet. Don’t your people have any protocol for interacting with alien species? This is an enlightened warp capable species, Shran! Possible allies. When the Vulcans catch wind of how we fumbled first contact…” He sniffed, and tasted coppery dirt at the back of his throat. “Starfleet’ll probably demote me to ensign.”
The longer Archer spoke, the more visible the quiver of Shran's antennae became. His lips thinned even more than usual-- but he waited it out with a patience born of heat exhaustion, on a cellular level.
"Enlightened?" The pause between the end of Archer's speech, and his own reply was quite nearly comical. "Because they've got warp engines and some fancy architecture and stupid rituals about flowers?" He huffed, but it lacked some of his usual fervor. "Enlightened."
He shook his head slowly, and almost instantly regretted the action; he was already dizzy from the heat. No need to make it worse.
"And if they do penalize you, there's always a place for you in my ranks." It was a simple truth, nearly unimportant in it's obviousness. To Shran, at least.
