let's do the time warp again
"A trill and a hewmon walk into a bar..."
But you've heard this joke before, and you don't need to stay through the end.
Tonight, Jadzia's looking at Captain, no Commander, Sisko from across a table in Quark's, extolling the virtues of steamed azna. (You hate steamed azna, the first Dax host in two hundred years who refuses to eat it. When you told Benjamin, Captain Sisko, Commander Sisko, Ben (you can't quite figure out what to call him, and when, so you always call him Ben), he almost fell out of his chair laughing.) But, tonight, you close your eyes and Jadzia's telling Ben that it will add years to his life.
"But I don't want to add a hundred years to my life if I have to eat steamed azna."
They come to you like dreams, the memories, in flashes and bursts, and you're never quite sure what's real and what you've imagined. And you never signed up for this, your mind barely wraps around it all, and someone else's memories tickle the edges of your consciousness. (But, then, how can anyone prepare for this? How can anyone really prepare?) So you get dizzy, some nights, lying in your bed and watching your lives flicker beneath your eyelids.
The klaxons blare. The Cardassians flicker on the viewscreen, "surrender now or we will destroy you." You can still taste Benjamin's mouth, still taste the gumbo he ate for dinner beneath your tongue. You faintly remember that this happened six years ago. It may have been a dream.
You can't always separate reality from fantasy, with Jadzia.
Her fantasies are more vivid, more real, than anything you've personally experienced. Hasperat tastes spicier; every touch is electric. But, then, her reality seems more fantastical than yours, too, so maybe it's you.
Maybe it's you: your failure, your deficiency.
You open your eyes, stare up at the ceiling.
You're explaining Trill friendships to him, or, rather, Jadzia is. He's saying that it's weird, yes, but that you won't stop being friends because he remembers you as Curzon. "Old man," he calls you, "Dax."
The klaxons blare and you're halfway to Ops when you trip over your own feet.
Jadzia's legs were longer than yours, she walked faster, and you were mimicking her gait in that blurry space between awake and asleep. So you sprawl on the floor in a pile of too short limbs and bang your head against the wall.
This isn't your emergency. It isn't even your life.
The klaxons blare, and you want to go home. (You have no home. You have 8 different homes.) You briefly contemplate stealing a shuttlecraft and hiding in a cave on Bajor for the rest of your, this, life. You'll crawl out again only when it's time for Dax to find a new host.
And then Captain Sisko's kissing you. Her. You're, no she's, kissing him, and he tastes like gumbo. It's later that same night, or the next night, and maybe Jadzia's dreaming and maybe this really happened. Your head hurts; you never asked for any of this.
You'd heard stories, of course, and legends. You have so many questions, so few answers, and the people who can help you all live in your head. They're not talking, though, they're saying far too much.
You crawl back into your quarters, lock the door behind you.
Ben's still kissing you, still kissing her, still kissing.
And Benjamin's your oldest friend, and your newest, and you don't want to know that he tastes like Cajun cooking and coffee. You don't want to remember the way his hands slid down your- no, Jadzia's- body, and up her impossibly long legs.
His taste.
You don't want to recall, in stunning technicolor, the look on his face when he pushes into you, first with his fingers and later with his penis, and you definitely don't want to taste yourself, taste Jadzia, on his tongue.
He called your name, screamed Dax, when he came. And you whimper, bite your lip, and touch yourself. The images keep coming, vivid and intense beneath your eyes, and you orgasm with his name on your tongue.
And you sleep, finally. You sleep. The klaxons continue to blare.
You wonder if you'll blush, tomorrow, saying "good morning" to Captain Sisko.
"A trill and a hewmon walk into a bar..."
There is no punchline.