A/N: A little something that I wrote for the VAMB 'Delirium' challenge a few months back. Thought I'd dust it off and post it here :)

Thanks to Uroboros75 for the beta.

Disclaimer: No, it's not mine. I just own an overactive imagination and a cat, and I doubt anyone besides me would desperately want those.

A Touch of Delirium

"You're delirious."

She pauses mid-sip, glass poised at the threshold of her lips as she gives him a quizzical look. A smile curves over her face before she begins chuckling, the glass moving away from her mouth.

"I beg your pardon?" she asks between hiccuping laughs.

He quirks an eyebrow at her, motioning to the wine glass nestled between her fingers. "That's your… what, fourth glass? If I didn't know any better, I'd say you were as bad with this stuff as you are with coffee."

"Oh, come, Chakotay," she says with another playful grin. "I'm perfectly fine. I'm just enjoying the company of my fellow crew members," she adds with a few grandiose hand gestures.

"I'd say you're enjoying a little more than that, Kathryn," Chakotay answers before quickly casting his gaze into his own glass.

When he looks back, her one eyebrow is perking skyward while the other scrunches into her forehead. Her mouth is open and drooping slightly at the one side. If he wasn't already toeing the line of insubordination he would have found her expression hysterical.

She gathers herself after a moment, much longer than he would have expected of her. However, inebriation and enthusiasm seems to have subdued a few of Kathryn Janeway's usual traits.

"Really?"

He manages a nod. "You did say that you saw Tuvok in a flamingo dress and Harry in a sombrero. I'm not even going to ask what you saw me in."

"Nothing I'm willing to admit," she whispers just loud enough so that Chakotay can hear. "Though I'm sure you would have found it flattering."

Chakotay takes a moment to dispel the very inappropriate imagery creeping into his mind. His captain is intoxicated, delirious and definitely asking for a hangover, and yet he's letting that sneak into his mind?

I really need to ask Tuvok about those meditation techniques, he thinks as he takes another sip of his own wine. Unlike Kathryn, Chakotay has sipped his wine slowly and avoided intoxication thus far.

Of course, now that Tom has broken out the Romulan Ale, that might all change. He's seen Kathryn's glimpses over to the bottle of blue elixir, and he has a very, very bad feeling about the outcome should she get her hands on it.

"Kathryn," he says, placing a gentle hand on her shoulder. "I'm going to get you some water. Wait here for a minute."

He would later swear that he had his back turned for only a moment (to which the Doctor will roll his eyes and give him an accusatory glare) before he heard loud cheers and shouts from the crowd in Sandrines. He now turns, curious and also dreading, to see Kathryn Janeway bounding through the crowd, her legs lifted high up in a dancer's stride as she leaps over them. The euphoria coloring her features is as alluring as it is worrisome, and when she hops up onto the bar and pops open the Ale, Chakotay knows that things are about to take a serious turn in the wrong direction.

"Alright," Janeway shouts, her voice laced with intoxication. "Who wants some?"

The flood of responses makes Chakotay's jaw drop.

She may be caught up in her intoxicated delirium now as she serves up the cerulean brew to her own officers, but in the morning she will definitely be nursing one hell of a hangover.

Kathryn pours a few more glasses and then lifts the bottle up to her lips, drinking up the last dregs of Ale.

Chakotay's face falls into his one free hand with a groan. He sets his own glass aside, thirst lost but certainly not quenched.

This is the last time I let her make a bet with Paris, he thinks with a touch of annoyance.

Part two to follow!