Fic: Culture Shock, Chapter 10: Athletics (Anders, Cottle, Ishay, and feat. Leoben's voice)
Series Title: Culture Shock
Chapter Title: Athletics (Sam, Cottle, Ishay, and feat. Leoben's Voice), 10/12
Rating: PG-13 (for language)
Characters: Ensemble
Summary: Crack. Starbuck's magic Viper needle leads the Fleet to modern-day Earth. And the Colonials thought learning to live with the Cylons was hard...
Notes: Apologies for taking forever to post this! I've got one chapter as-yet unwritten, but hopefully that will be changing soon. Much thanks to trovia for the artwork! Special thanks to safenthecity for letting me steal her brilliant Cylon paternity episode of Maury for Chapters 2 and 12. (Original is here.)
Chapter 10: Athletics (Anders, Cottle, Ishay, and featuring the Voice of Leoben Conoy)
Cottle might not have been having as strange a day as reading Childhood’s End while stoned silly might’ve made for, but he definitely had the worst headache of them all. Well, not counting Sam. Sam held a cold compress to his head as he sat in one of the exam rooms in Doc Cottle’s new office in a Vancouver suburb. Though Cottle had been offered jobs at various hospitals, he’d struck out on his own. He liked being in charge and not having to worry about how pissing anyone off might affect his job security. Plus, that psychological duct tape crap hadn’t transferred over perfectly in the medical realm. All the names were off just a little, making it hard to communicate and collaborate with Earth doctors. Morpha was morphine, pneumona was pneumonia, forceps were-well, that one was okay, but he was too old to be forced to relearn those kinds of things, godsdamn it.
Ishay, however, chose not to share such well thought-out reasons for his private practice when patients asked.
“It’s because no hospital would let him smoke indoors,” Ishay explained to Sam as she removed the blood pressure cuff from his arm.
“Is not,” Cottle grumbled, waiting for her to get out of the way so he could stitch Sam’s head wound up. “One of these days, Ishay, pow! Right over the moon.”
“Huh?” Sam asked.
Ishay shook her head. “It’s a reference to some ancient Earth TV show he’s obsessed with. Just ignore him. That’s what I do.”
As Ishay filled out Sam’s chart, she started to hum, then sing under her breath. “I see the universe, I see the patterns! I see the foreshadowing that precedes ev’ry moment of ev’ry day. Da da da doo da da day-ay-ay…”
Sam winced. “Uh, not to be rude, but…”
“To see the face of God is to know madness, baby. But His face ain’t nothin’, compared to you-”
Cottle barked, “For frak’s sake, Ishay, show a little sensitivity to the patient, will you?”
Ishay stood bolt upright and glared at Cottle. “You’re telling me to be sensitive? What the hell did I-” Then she caught Sam’s eye again. “Oh. Songs by Kara Thrace and Her Special Destiny would be a bit of a sore spot for you, wouldn’t they?”
Sam shrugged. “I try not to hold grudges, but the voice of the crazy Cylon who locked my wife up for months on New Caprica being all over every country station and him being hailed as the next Bob Dylan? Yeah, that’s still a sore spot.”
“Sorry about that,” Ishay said.
“S’okay,” Sam replied. “Lampkin thinks Kara’ll make even more in the settlement for her appropriation of celebrity identity claim against Leoben than she will against that coffee company.”
“Well, if you guys will end up getting a cut of the profits, then I won’t feel so guilty about buying his CD.” As she left, she added, “Good to see you again, Sam. Doctor, be nice.”
“We’re all just salmon in the stream, baby. Gonna swim our lives away,” Cottle mumble-sang to himself after Ishay left. Then he caught himself. “Sorry. So, why don’t you give me the background on this nice little gash on your forehead?”
Sam perked up, despite the pounding in his head. And his knee. And his shoulder, for that matter. Honestly, he appeared to be one big sore spot at the moment, with bruises of all different colors and ages blossoming on his arms and legs, even though he was just there to get the big cut on his head taken care of. Even so, Sam got really excited at the chance to tell someone about his latest venture. “I started a Pyramid league.”
“Did you now?”
“Yeah! Even before all this psychological duct tape stuff, I had never imagined that Earth would have civilization but not Pyramid. They just go hand in hand. It’s like not having something as basic as…as language, or weapons, or peanut butter.”
“Peanut butter?” Cottle repeated. “Exactly how hard did you get hit in the head?”
“Pretty hard,” Sam admitted. “Anyway, the GEECs have this program where they’re trying to encourage Colonial culture to take root and grow on Earth. They gave me a grant to start up a Pyramid league. Someday, we’re going to be global, but for right now, I’m focusing on Vancouver.”
“Makes sense,” Cottle said. “Lots of Colonials settled in this area.”
“I got a lot of the old gang to join.” Sam started ticking off names on his fingers. “Kara, of course, Athena and Helo when they’re planetside, Racetrack, Skulls, Narcho, Seelix, Hotdog-I even got a few of the old bridge bunnies.”
“Really?” Cottle said, more to keep Sam busy talking while he finished reading his file than out of actual curiosity.
“Yeah, and they’re surprisingly good. Dee may be small, but she’s really quick, and Hoshi-man, Hoshi has a scary competitive streak. He may look like a pushover, but when he’s on the court, that man is out for blood.”
“Hoshi’s a Pyramid player?” Cottle raised an eyebrow at that, now a little more intrigued.
“Yeah, surprised me too, but Dee told me I should go over to his and Gaeta’s apartment and ask. After the two of them stopped laughing and looking at me funny and muttering something about uniforms in the ‘70s version, whatever that means, Hoshi said yes, and Gaeta signed up to do stats.”
“So did Wild Man Hoshi give you this interesting collection of scrapes, bumps, and bruises?” Cottle said, closing the folder and looking up at Anders.
“No.” Anders shifted on the exam table, looking a bit embarrassed. “I got ‘em from recruiting.”
Cottle pulled back and made a face. “What?”
Sam sighed, like he’d told this story a few too many times before. “The GEECs gave me this grant to spread Colonial culture on Earth, so part of the deal is I need to get Earthlings interested in Pyramid, too. So, I figured the best place to start would be with Earthlings who like to play Earth sports.”
Cottle’s frown deepened. “Okay, so you gave a few talks at some amateur sports clubs. That still doesn’t explain-”
Sam shook his head. “Nah, I wanted to take a more hands-on approach. Figured the best way to connect with Earth sports fans was to make it a cultural exchange, you know? So I joined every Earth sports club I could find, figuring if I showed interest in them, their players would be more likely to try out my program.
“The first sport I tried was basketball, where I got this big bruise on my shoulder. Let’s just say that the term ‘jump ball’ doesn’t exactly mean what it sounds like it does, and leave it at that.”
He lifted his shirt a little. “And then I got this rash on my abs from sliding into third base.”
Cottle drew back from Sam, a shocked expression on his face. “Okay, I’ve heard of getting rashes from ‘third base,’ but how did you get it there?”
Sam looked at him equally oddly for a moment, and then it clicked. “Oh, you’ve talked to Hotdog recently, haven’t you? Yeah, not the same kind of third base that he slid into. This one was an actual base surrounded by sand, not a sexual metaphor.”
Apparently eager to get the Hotdog-related image out of his head, Sam quickly continued, “And of course, since this is Canada, I tried hockey, too.” He pointed to the particularly nasty bruise above his knee. “There was no miscommunication on that one. One of the players just decided to haul off and hit me with his stick. It’s amazing how mild-mannered these Canadians are in everyday life, versus what they turn into on the ice. It’s like a country of Hoshis. I’m thinking maybe that’s where they get out all their anger, so they can be nice and polite the rest of the time.”
“So what sport is the gash I’m supposed to stitch up from?” Cottle said, pulling his tray with supplies for the stitches up next to Sam. “Rugby? American football? Boxing?”
Sam took a deep breath. “Curling.”
Cottle was about to put in the first stitch, but instead he stopped and looked Sam in the eye to make sure he wasn’t joking, or more severely concussed than he’d previously diagnosed. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t that the sport where people sweep ice with brooms?”
“Yes.”
“I’m failing to see how that could be a contact sport. Particularly contact to your forehead.”
Sam sighed. “It wasn’t so much the curling itself.” He grimaced. “They forgot to mention in our cultural adjustment classes that locker rooms apparently aren’t co-ed here.”
“Ah.”
“Yeah.”
Cottle shrugged and set to work on the stitches. He didn’t even realized he’d started absentmindedly humming Leoben’s biggest hit, “I’m God, He’s God, She’s God, and Hey, You’re God, Too!” until Sam heaved a big sigh. So much for his bedside manner, Cottle thought to himself, though he wasn’t particularly bothered. He figured even Sam would have to admit, the song was damn catchy.
Chapter Title: Athletics (Sam, Cottle, Ishay, and feat. Leoben's Voice), 10/12
Rating: PG-13 (for language)
Characters: Ensemble
Summary: Crack. Starbuck's magic Viper needle leads the Fleet to modern-day Earth. And the Colonials thought learning to live with the Cylons was hard...
Notes: Apologies for taking forever to post this! I've got one chapter as-yet unwritten, but hopefully that will be changing soon. Much thanks to trovia for the artwork! Special thanks to safenthecity for letting me steal her brilliant Cylon paternity episode of Maury for Chapters 2 and 12. (Original is here.)
Chapter 10: Athletics (Anders, Cottle, Ishay, and featuring the Voice of Leoben Conoy)
Cottle might not have been having as strange a day as reading Childhood’s End while stoned silly might’ve made for, but he definitely had the worst headache of them all. Well, not counting Sam. Sam held a cold compress to his head as he sat in one of the exam rooms in Doc Cottle’s new office in a Vancouver suburb. Though Cottle had been offered jobs at various hospitals, he’d struck out on his own. He liked being in charge and not having to worry about how pissing anyone off might affect his job security. Plus, that psychological duct tape crap hadn’t transferred over perfectly in the medical realm. All the names were off just a little, making it hard to communicate and collaborate with Earth doctors. Morpha was morphine, pneumona was pneumonia, forceps were-well, that one was okay, but he was too old to be forced to relearn those kinds of things, godsdamn it.
Ishay, however, chose not to share such well thought-out reasons for his private practice when patients asked.
“It’s because no hospital would let him smoke indoors,” Ishay explained to Sam as she removed the blood pressure cuff from his arm.
“Is not,” Cottle grumbled, waiting for her to get out of the way so he could stitch Sam’s head wound up. “One of these days, Ishay, pow! Right over the moon.”
“Huh?” Sam asked.
Ishay shook her head. “It’s a reference to some ancient Earth TV show he’s obsessed with. Just ignore him. That’s what I do.”
As Ishay filled out Sam’s chart, she started to hum, then sing under her breath. “I see the universe, I see the patterns! I see the foreshadowing that precedes ev’ry moment of ev’ry day. Da da da doo da da day-ay-ay…”
Sam winced. “Uh, not to be rude, but…”
“To see the face of God is to know madness, baby. But His face ain’t nothin’, compared to you-”
Cottle barked, “For frak’s sake, Ishay, show a little sensitivity to the patient, will you?”
Ishay stood bolt upright and glared at Cottle. “You’re telling me to be sensitive? What the hell did I-” Then she caught Sam’s eye again. “Oh. Songs by Kara Thrace and Her Special Destiny would be a bit of a sore spot for you, wouldn’t they?”
Sam shrugged. “I try not to hold grudges, but the voice of the crazy Cylon who locked my wife up for months on New Caprica being all over every country station and him being hailed as the next Bob Dylan? Yeah, that’s still a sore spot.”
“Sorry about that,” Ishay said.
“S’okay,” Sam replied. “Lampkin thinks Kara’ll make even more in the settlement for her appropriation of celebrity identity claim against Leoben than she will against that coffee company.”
“Well, if you guys will end up getting a cut of the profits, then I won’t feel so guilty about buying his CD.” As she left, she added, “Good to see you again, Sam. Doctor, be nice.”
“We’re all just salmon in the stream, baby. Gonna swim our lives away,” Cottle mumble-sang to himself after Ishay left. Then he caught himself. “Sorry. So, why don’t you give me the background on this nice little gash on your forehead?”
Sam perked up, despite the pounding in his head. And his knee. And his shoulder, for that matter. Honestly, he appeared to be one big sore spot at the moment, with bruises of all different colors and ages blossoming on his arms and legs, even though he was just there to get the big cut on his head taken care of. Even so, Sam got really excited at the chance to tell someone about his latest venture. “I started a Pyramid league.”
“Did you now?”
“Yeah! Even before all this psychological duct tape stuff, I had never imagined that Earth would have civilization but not Pyramid. They just go hand in hand. It’s like not having something as basic as…as language, or weapons, or peanut butter.”
“Peanut butter?” Cottle repeated. “Exactly how hard did you get hit in the head?”
“Pretty hard,” Sam admitted. “Anyway, the GEECs have this program where they’re trying to encourage Colonial culture to take root and grow on Earth. They gave me a grant to start up a Pyramid league. Someday, we’re going to be global, but for right now, I’m focusing on Vancouver.”
“Makes sense,” Cottle said. “Lots of Colonials settled in this area.”
“I got a lot of the old gang to join.” Sam started ticking off names on his fingers. “Kara, of course, Athena and Helo when they’re planetside, Racetrack, Skulls, Narcho, Seelix, Hotdog-I even got a few of the old bridge bunnies.”
“Really?” Cottle said, more to keep Sam busy talking while he finished reading his file than out of actual curiosity.
“Yeah, and they’re surprisingly good. Dee may be small, but she’s really quick, and Hoshi-man, Hoshi has a scary competitive streak. He may look like a pushover, but when he’s on the court, that man is out for blood.”
“Hoshi’s a Pyramid player?” Cottle raised an eyebrow at that, now a little more intrigued.
“Yeah, surprised me too, but Dee told me I should go over to his and Gaeta’s apartment and ask. After the two of them stopped laughing and looking at me funny and muttering something about uniforms in the ‘70s version, whatever that means, Hoshi said yes, and Gaeta signed up to do stats.”
“So did Wild Man Hoshi give you this interesting collection of scrapes, bumps, and bruises?” Cottle said, closing the folder and looking up at Anders.
“No.” Anders shifted on the exam table, looking a bit embarrassed. “I got ‘em from recruiting.”
Cottle pulled back and made a face. “What?”
Sam sighed, like he’d told this story a few too many times before. “The GEECs gave me this grant to spread Colonial culture on Earth, so part of the deal is I need to get Earthlings interested in Pyramid, too. So, I figured the best place to start would be with Earthlings who like to play Earth sports.”
Cottle’s frown deepened. “Okay, so you gave a few talks at some amateur sports clubs. That still doesn’t explain-”
Sam shook his head. “Nah, I wanted to take a more hands-on approach. Figured the best way to connect with Earth sports fans was to make it a cultural exchange, you know? So I joined every Earth sports club I could find, figuring if I showed interest in them, their players would be more likely to try out my program.
“The first sport I tried was basketball, where I got this big bruise on my shoulder. Let’s just say that the term ‘jump ball’ doesn’t exactly mean what it sounds like it does, and leave it at that.”
He lifted his shirt a little. “And then I got this rash on my abs from sliding into third base.”
Cottle drew back from Sam, a shocked expression on his face. “Okay, I’ve heard of getting rashes from ‘third base,’ but how did you get it there?”
Sam looked at him equally oddly for a moment, and then it clicked. “Oh, you’ve talked to Hotdog recently, haven’t you? Yeah, not the same kind of third base that he slid into. This one was an actual base surrounded by sand, not a sexual metaphor.”
Apparently eager to get the Hotdog-related image out of his head, Sam quickly continued, “And of course, since this is Canada, I tried hockey, too.” He pointed to the particularly nasty bruise above his knee. “There was no miscommunication on that one. One of the players just decided to haul off and hit me with his stick. It’s amazing how mild-mannered these Canadians are in everyday life, versus what they turn into on the ice. It’s like a country of Hoshis. I’m thinking maybe that’s where they get out all their anger, so they can be nice and polite the rest of the time.”
“So what sport is the gash I’m supposed to stitch up from?” Cottle said, pulling his tray with supplies for the stitches up next to Sam. “Rugby? American football? Boxing?”
Sam took a deep breath. “Curling.”
Cottle was about to put in the first stitch, but instead he stopped and looked Sam in the eye to make sure he wasn’t joking, or more severely concussed than he’d previously diagnosed. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t that the sport where people sweep ice with brooms?”
“Yes.”
“I’m failing to see how that could be a contact sport. Particularly contact to your forehead.”
Sam sighed. “It wasn’t so much the curling itself.” He grimaced. “They forgot to mention in our cultural adjustment classes that locker rooms apparently aren’t co-ed here.”
“Ah.”
“Yeah.”
Cottle shrugged and set to work on the stitches. He didn’t even realized he’d started absentmindedly humming Leoben’s biggest hit, “I’m God, He’s God, She’s God, and Hey, You’re God, Too!” until Sam heaved a big sigh. So much for his bedside manner, Cottle thought to himself, though he wasn’t particularly bothered. He figured even Sam would have to admit, the song was damn catchy.