"You have really beautiful nail beds."
Sylvia Tilly mentally repeated that mantra over and over again, until she reached the safety of her quarters. Yes, her special needs room, where there was not any polyester and viscoelastic polyurethane foam in sight. Her safe sanctuary from the universe at large, especially she been too much of a Silly Tilly.
God, she knew she babbled, but sometimes the verbal floodgate opens and she vomited words and thoughts at warp 9.9 and…hadn't the grieving Stamets pretty much told her to put a lock on it? But politely.
After he had called her incandescent, (and she was pretty sure he meant it in a good way, not a crack about her flaming red hair) all the while he wore the beatific face of a man who has lost everything and come to a hard-earned armistice.
Nail beds.
She had commented on his nail beds!
Then she had to reposition his pinkie (which was still a stupid word, and would FOREVER AND EVER UNIVERSE without END, MIRROR or otherwise) and he had loudly "OWWW!"d.
And she had panicked, because Saru wore the face of a Displeased Dad, and the rest of the bridge team had THAT look on their face, that meant she was being 1,000,000% Silly Tilly or even worse, that the Silly Tilly had done a Dilly by Breaking their New Captain. (And how she hated that nickname, but at least it wasn't Capt'n Killy!) Then, she finally had glanced his way (after making sure that she hadn't ripped off his finger, though the probability had been low but his ow of pretend pain had been quite convincing!), he had been smiling.
All ninety seven of his perfectly white teeth displaying.
And that hadn't been enough.
There had been DIMPLES.
So… Captain Devilish Dimples of the beautiful nail beds, he became.
No, no, no. She did not have a crush on Captain Dimples. No, no, no.
Though she had been through the musician thing, and the soldier thing, and now maybe it was time for her to have a Dad!Thing, and no, she hadn't double checked his age when it flashed up on the view screen and well, maybe she had, and well, yes, he was old enough to be her father… but THE DIMPLES!
DIMPLES! Oh, and just the amount of greying hair that made him hot, combined with the DIMPLES and the twinkle in his eyes. (And God help her if he ever winked, as her ovaries would explode and what a mess that would be!)
And those new uniforms showed off his perfectly pert butt and … she really wished that Hugh Culber hadn't died, besides the fact he was DEAD, and she missed him dreadfully, and Stamets was bleeding to death from grief, and running away from his pain, but she and Culber had played, "Brig, Befriend or Boink" a few times in the cafeteria when they had been off-shift during late nights, and… and … she could have segued into other things...
Like she had never boinked a real man. There had been a random hook up or two, but nothing more. Certainly, there had never been an experienced man with dimples.
The next morning started off extremely well. Her hair was neatly contained (well, her mother wouldn't have approved of it, but it was thoroughly contained), her uniform was pristine and then, just after she ordered her green juice with extra, extra green as it behooved a Serious Ensign who was Going Places, she was requested to report to Captain Pike's office as her meeting had been rescheduled. To five minutes ago. So being Tilly, her mind ran through a thousand and one explanations on why her meeting had been rescheduled and all of them bad. Broken pinkies, perhaps an infected hang nail of some sort? Or maybe, Logical Sciences had complained about her utility closet, thought it was rather spacious for a woman that never moved.
"Enter," Captain Dimples entoned…no CAPTAIN PIKE!
She was going to be a proper Ensign, newly permitted into the Command Track program. She'd keep her mouth shut after a polite, professional greeting.
Naturally, that went to heck.
Immediately.
Captain Dimples stood as there wasn't a chair to be found in his ready room. He continued staring at a PADD, when he finally spoke. "Ensign, I hope you don't mind that I rescheduled our meeting. I was coming down with a bit of the Crestian Flu and I was hoping…"
She squeaked then as that quip meant that he KNEW about Captain Killy and her climb to the I.S.S. Discovery's Captain seat. Her squeak sounded like a horde of baby tribbles being loaded full throttle into a kill zone which caused Captain Pike to trail off with, "You might… have…something… I… could take..."
He looked up, and oh, God help her, the dimples were on full display, and his eyes were literally bouncing with unconcealed amusement.
"Ensign?" he quipped. He then quirked one eye brow at her. "I'd tell you to take a seat but there appears to be a shortage of chairs on Discovery."
That was something she could fix, her mind offered. That perfectly pert rear of his might appreciate a nicely padded chair, said her inner vixen, who after twenty-three years of unexcused absences, had finally decided to announce her arrival with a licking of her lips and a salacious glance at Captain Dimples' absolutely incredible hands. Plus, she purred. Loudly.
"I'll get you some. Immediately. Arms? Armless? Padding? Heavy padding? Do you want a conference table? Do you want two? It might be crowded but I can make them fit! Or I can reassign space on level 3."
Her poor PADD was quickly tapped, so that she could offer him a vast variety of chairs, sofas and love seats.
BAD TILLY, BAD TILLY, she chastised herself, even as she pitied the soul that had a chair that Pike requested. They'd wonder how they found themselves on the floor and where their chairs had gone, she'd swipe them that fast.
He nodded his head, blinked several times during her verbal diarrhea and then dimpled. "And people tell me that I talk fast."
That helpful tidbit proclaimed, he walked towards her side of the table and then he leaned against it.
Her inner vixen noticed that Captain Dimples smelled very good, very good indeed.
"Ensign? Do I make you nervous? Or do you normally hold warp speed conversations?" was his calm response to her perceptible uneasiness.
Her mouth engaged before her brain offered several helpful suggestions along the lines of 'no'. Instead, her mouth confessed, "Y-y-y-yes."
Long, slow exhale was his response, and her mind (and ovaries!) went places that would have made an Orion Slave Girl blush and turn in her Sister of Perpetual Pleasure Achievement badge so she could join a nunnery. Her inner vixen energetically began to fan herself even while she made a comment about having her own personal summer.
"Well, Ensign, I actually called this meeting to discuss your involvement with the Command Track Program, but I'm glad you were honest in your answer. I'm not Lorca, he abused your trust in him, and I know that I will have to work very hard to regain your trust."
Tilly's inner vixen giggled, "He said HARD! NOT JUST HARD, HE SAID VERY HARD!"
She stammered then, and blurted, "You don't have to, I mean, I'm just an Ensign and you've got more important people…Commander Saru…"
He held out both hands to staunch her verbal bombardment. And yes, they both looked at his pinkie.
"Ensign, you are in a very critical part of your career with Star Fleet. Unfortunately, your previous experiences had not always been as positive as I would have preferred, so as your Captain, for as long as I am here on the Discovery, I am planning on taking a hands-on approach for mentoring you."
She was stunned into complete speechlessness. Vixen Tilly had already devested herself of her uniform while she mentally rummaged through her clothes to find something suitable for Hands On Instructions from Captain Dimples.
Inner Vixen yelled, "HE SAID HANDS ON! AND THERE'S NOTHING TO WEAR! I AM NOT WEARING DISCO JAMMIES DURING HANDS ON TIME WITH CAPTAIN DIMPLES!"
"After I get some chairs, of course," he added, complete with dimples.