U.S.S. Enterprise 2260
"May I join you, Commander?"
McCoy fervently wished that he could deny the fact that the voice right behind him very nearly made him jump out of his skin. Unfortunately, the clang of his dropped fork against his plate ensured that nearly every crew member in the dining hall turned around in time to see him almost accomplish that very feat.
Terrific.
While waiting for his heart rate to return to normal, McCoy twisted around in his chair to look up at the elf that had somehow managed to sneak up on him.
Everyone knew that a Vulcan's auditory sensitivity was generally superior to that of a Human. Few people knew, or at least no one seemed to mention, that a Vulcan's ability to move in absolute silence was apparently superior to that of a prey-stalking cat. They acted like cats, too, and the unblinking green stare was starting to be creepy.
The elf tilted her head slightly.
Definitely a cat.
"If I have startled you, Commander, I apologize. Such was not my intent."
Right. Of course not. Just like it hadn't been her intent to endanger Enterprise crewmembers (including McCoy himself) by withholding valuable information while in enemy territory. For some unfathomable reason, neither Sulu nor Dr Marcus seemed to bear any grudge about that, even though they (and McCoy) would be completely justified in doing just that.
Fine. McCoy had no trouble letting them take the high road and holding a grudge all by himself. He'd certainly had enough practice in his life to know the knack of it by now.
"Could've fooled me," McCoy muttered. The elf didn't move, and people were staring. One of the many things McCoy hated was being watched while he ate (which he would finish doing once he figured out a genteel way to retrieve his fork from where it had skittered to the other side of the table. And when there was no longer an elf standing behind his chair).
"Do you need something?" McCoy bit out. A reason to leave, maybe? The elf tilted her head to the other side. McCoy debated whether to dub her 'Mittens' or 'Snowball'.
"An answer to my query would be appreciated," she informed him quietly, clearly expecting him not to actually remember whatever the hell she'd said that had made him nearly hit the ceiling.
Challenge accepted.
"'May. I. Join. You'," he parroted slowly, twisting around in his chair to lean back against the table, which was not overly comfortable, and crossing his arms.
No. Way. In. Hell.
The elf merely blinked serenely. McCoy rolled his eyes. "That depends. Do you come in peace?" And what a sad, sad universe if the alien didn't at least get that reference. The elf's prim, straight, hands-behind-back posture straightened even more, however the hell that was possible.
"I do," she said. Her quiet voice had hardened slightly. "Will I be received thusly?"
Snark seemed to be the only kind of humor Vulcans weren't allergic to.
"Maybe you don't know, since you're new here, but this," he nodded to the room in general, "is a dining hall. And dining halls," he gave up on gentility and turned briefly to snatch up his escaped fork, "are for eating in. And since you don't seem to have picked up any food from—"
The elf swung one lithe arm forward from behind her back and opened her fingers to display the apple in her hand.
McCoy glared. The elf stared back. He counted to a full minute before finally pushing another chair out with his foot. Whatever the elf was after, might as well get it over with. "People don't come to me unless they have reason to," McCoy told her. It was a behavior that he had no intention of discouraging. "So what's your reason?"
"Education," the elf replied, alighting upon the chair. She produced a small, no doubt dangerously sharp blade from somewhere, and the skin of the apple began to meet a terrible fate.
"Whatever it is you're wondering, I'm the wrong person to ask. Try Uhura." That woman had the patience of a saint and the mystery of a work of God. Her patience with Vulcans being the mystery.
"I have already spoken with Lieutenant Uhura concerning this matter. Her counsel proved insufficient." Apparently another Vulcan trick no one ever mentioned was their ability to speak with perfect clarity while eating a sliver of apple. McCoy didn't bother with his own food. He would finish when she left. Which had better be soon.
"What do you want?" he demanded.
"To learn why you habitually employ slanderous appellations in the address and reference of your crewmates." Her tone could have scratched diamond.
McCoy just stared at her, waiting to see if she was serious, or if she would leave if he just waited long enough. Unfortunately, he was still hungry, so waiting her out wasn't an appealing option.
He sighed and leaned forward, resting his arms on the table, and met her accusing stare with deliberate calm.
"Alright, first, they're called nicknames. 'Slander' is pretty much reserved for politics."
"Evidently not."
"Secondly, people who've known each other for a while are allowed to give each other nicknames. It shows—"
"I am both aware of and familiar with the concept of nicknames, Lieutenant Commander. My mother once frequently applied them to both my brother and myself. Lieutenant Uhura, Commander Spock and I have each been known to use them in regards to one another. However, none of those nicknames include or ever included racist insults. The same cannot be said of your own utterances."
McCoy blinked.
Did she really just call him a racist? The Enterprise had encountered more than anyone's fair share of primitive societies that segregated their citizens based on something as silly as eye color or vocal pitch. Even one that practiced infanticide of any individuals born with an entirely harmless mutation which caused the strands of their fur to grow straight rather than curly. And she dared put him on the same level as that?
"Now you listen here—"
"I do listen. I've been listening. And since you don't seem to even be aware of the problem, I am forced to assume that I'm the only one who has bothered to listen. While I admit that some of the nicknames you bestow are harmless and occasionally quite apt, others are nothing short of derogatory."
"Name one."
" 'Hobgoblin'."
McCoy couldn't remember the last time he had legitimately scoffed, but the ridiculousness of this situation was unbelievable, so he did.
"Do you even know what that means?" He deliberately kept his voice low, mindful of the quartet of Red-shirts only two tables away. The elf's volume seemed not to have changed in the slightest. Nor had the rate of her apple-peeling.
"Yes, I am aware of how the term is defined. I am aware of its etymological origins. I am aware that you utilize it in a blatantly offensive manner."
"Well, I know that I've never called you that. And I know that Spock doesn't seem to care one way or another what I call him, and if he does, he can tell me himself." McCoy pushed back from the table and stood to leave, too irritated to care that he was abandoning his meal.
"Inky-skinned nigger."
McCoy froze. She could not have just said that. She was still seated, still neatly slicing slivers from that damn apple like nothing in the universe was wrong. A quick glance around told McCoy that while a few people were giving the two of them odd looks, no one else had heard. No one looked enraged, anyway. The elf didn't give McCoy time to figure out how the hell to respond.
"If you were to refer to Doctor M'Benga in such a way, do you think he would care?" she asked quietly, as blithely as if she were asking him to pass the salt. Where had a Vulcan even learned those terms? She didn't stop there. "If you were to refer to Lieutenant Sulu a squint-eyed nip, do you think he would care? If you were to refer—"
"What the hell are you trying to do?" McCoy hissed.
The elf's hands finally stilled and rested upon the table, the palm of one cradling a mutilated fruit, the fingers of the other holding a glistening blade.
At least she'd shut up.
Slowly, she rose, arms falling close to her sides, and McCoy was struck again by how small she was. Not very tall and twig-thin, she appeared brittle, vulnerable. Large eyes and dainty movements added to the impression; no one, meeting her, would perceive her as a threat.
McCoy certainly hadn't, until he'd seen her kill an armed and armored Romulan warrior three times her size. Kill him easily.
He took a step back, away from her. Not yielding or retreating, but rejecting. Showing her that she didn't fool him and that she wasn't welcome in his space. He saw her eyes track the move, and knew on some instinctual level that she understood his meaning.
McCoy suddenly noticed the ambient silence, and realized that all motion in the entire hall had ceased. Everyone was watching him and the elf, and he honestly wasn't sure whether or not she was planning to kill him.
At least there would be witnesses.
He saw a gleam in his peripheral vision and his eyes flashed to the knife in her hand. Thin fingers carefully twisted the knife around until the flat of the blade rested against her palm and the handle reached past her fingertips.
" 'I come in peace,' " came the whispered reminder, and she extended her hand to him.
Offering him the knife.
McCoy knew that there was some kind of symbolic power-play going on, and was pretty sure that he didn't understand all of it. What did the knife represent? By surrendering her weapon, was she capitulating, letting him win? Or would taking the knife mean that he was conceding defeat, by accepting something from her? Or was it supposed to mean that she was trying to meet him halfway? Or was she just messing with him for her twisted idea of fun?
Or he could be smart about this and realize that any chance to deprive an unpredictable psycho of their weapon is a chance that should be taken, symbolism be damned.
He snatched the knife from her hand.
"Now," McCoy still kept his voice low, despite the fact that everyone in the room would be able to hear him anyway. "I would appreciate an answer to my query."
And just to prove that this day could get weirder, the elf smiled. At least, that's what he hoped the slight, one-sided quirk of her lips was supposed to be. Letting her now empty hand fall, she leaned back, half-perching on the table, and brought her other hand up in front of her, rolling and twirling the apple over and over again.
"If I recall correctly, you wish to know what the hell I am trying to do.
"It is clear to me that you consider the pejorative terms that I have spoken to be both inappropriate and offensive. I wish to tell you that I consider the terms that you have spoken to be equally so. 'Green-blooded hobgoblin' is far from the worst that Spock and I, and our parents, have been called. Throughout our childhoods, Vulcans had, and I suspect still have, absolutely nothing complementary to say about us. I had hoped, perhaps naively, that by escaping company of the Vulcan variety, we might escape such…treatment.
"So I am trying, Doctor McCoy, to ask you to act more like a mature, open-minded scientist and less like a schoolyard bully. Good day."