A Sin To Tell A Lie?
Summary: It was probably not a good idea to lie to your captain, but sometimes it just had to be done…
Standard disclaimers apply: do not own, no profit, etc.
Spoiler: post-Minefield
Author's note: Yes, I know, everyone's waiting for updates on the other stories, and yes I'm working on them—honest!—but this dopey thing popped into my mind and wouldn't go away…so I figured it was best to pound it out and get it over with…
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Laying on the biobed in Sickbay that night, Malcolm mentally replayed the day's events. He felt guilty about having deceived Captain Archer—especially in light of how the rest of the day had gone—but salved his conscience by telling himself that Archer had made it necessary.
When he'd first gotten the invitation for breakfast with the captain he'd fretted mightily about what exactly had earned him the attention. A brief, discreet chat with Trip hadn't given him much insight though it had helped him steel himself for the possibility that the captain would be overly…sociable. So he had made the conscious decision to remain respectful (of course) while professionally distant; it would be unseemly to be overly chatty with one's CO, after all. He resolved to answer any questions put forth while not giving up too much personal information, if needs be feign interest in any personal natterings that might come from the captain, and endure their time together as best he could.
He sighed at the memory: he'd gone to the Captain's Mess like a man heading to his own execution, unsure of what would transpire and dreading the possibility of getting to know his CO (or worse, having the man get to know him); by the end of the day he'd wound up pinned to the outside of the ship like part of a butterfly collection with Archer out on the hull alongside him struggling to save the ship and the ship's Armoury Officer from an errant mine and mysterious, belligerent aliens. Reed's earlier façade hadn't held up under the circumstances and he'd giving the captain far more information about himself than he'd ever imagined giving to anyone. Laying in Sickbay now that it was all over, though, the thing that was staying with him was from breakfast.
He'd lied to his captain. He'd been dreading spending time with the man, and had consciously, willingly, and with premeditation lied to the man. Of course, he hadn't planned the exact lie, but he had decided ahead of time to deflect any personal questions if at all possible. So when the subject was broached, the lie followed…
"I don't much follow sports, sir."
Well, technically not a lie while the topic had specifically been football—the World Cup held absolutely no interest for him. Nor for that matter did most other professional sports: he found tennis boring and golf doubly so, baseball was to him just a bunch of people taking turns running in circles, proper football was only mildly entertaining, and American football was unfathomable. Now Aussie football could be fun to watch—the main rule seemed to be 'kill the bloke with the ball but don't forget to invite him to the pub after the game'—but he didn't follow any particular team. If he happened to catch a game upon occasion it was a bit of a treat but he didn't actively seek them out.
Water polo…well, whoever had come up with water polo had doubtless been bloody well insane—he couldn't begin to imagine either watching or playing the game. He had played cricket as a youth but his interest had waned before too long, and there had been a brief period when volleyball held some small interest but only because a girl he'd fancied once-upon-a-time had played. He'd played basketball with some fellow cadets in the Academy for a time—and despite his smaller stature had actually been quite good at it, truth be told—until he decided that his studies deserved more of his attention than chasing about after a big orange ball.
The lie came into play because there actually was one sport that he did indeed "follow", one that held his interest both as observer and participant, though he doubted he'd ever be able to admit it to any of his shipmates and certainly never to Captain Archer. Especially not after having lied about following sports. Besides, the people he worked with had an impression of him as a prim and proper fellow, the picture of decorum. It was an image and reputation he'd carefully sculpted over the years and he certainly wasn't about to throw all that work out the window.
Besides, even if he did tell them, they'd never believe it. Hell, most people didn't even view it as a "real" sport, and it certainly wasn't something that should interest a proper Englishman let alone something that said proper Englishman should have won trophies for. And he had won trophies. Lots of trophies, all carefully tucked away in a secure location. He wasn't the sort who had to have them plastered all about for the world to see. No, no, that would never do—it wouldn't be proper to be a braggart about such a thing. It was enough that he knew, enough that he could pull up a mental image of his prizes whenever he wished and, if needs be, take one or two of them from their safe haven to reminisce over his alleyway victories.
Mentally tucking away his trophies he considered why the game appealed to him. Most sports that he'd encountered were played in such impressively-named places…basketball and volleyball had courts, American football had the militaristic gridiron, baseball had a diamond. Granted, cricket was played on a pitch, but that still sounded better than a game played in an alley. Made it sound like it was peopled by a bunch of thugs and hooligans or something, and that was an unfair characterization.
Oh, all right, it was an unfair characterization most of the time. A number of times, when he'd been playing for fun and the pints had been flowing freely, they'd probably all looked like a bunch of rabble-rousers. And maybe that was part of the appeal: the players and spectators were so much the same at that time, eating and drinking together, and enjoying the game together, barriers between player and observer blurred beyond notice. Name another sport where the spectator could, at any time of their choosing, decide that they too wanted to play and could go pick up a ball, find an available alley, and have a go at it. You'd never see that at a baseball game or water polo match. No sir. His game was accessible to all.
And then there was the whole physical-attribute thing. So many sports required things that he didn't have—height and bulk, namely. In his basketball days he'd known that oftentimes he'd been looked upon as a bit of a runt on the court. That was part of why he'd actually been so good at it: opponents would underestimate his abilities because he was shorter that everyone else and he very much enjoyed disabusing them of the belief that height was everything. He was small but also fast, and whether passing to teammates or shooting for the basket his aim was true. It paid to have a marksman on the team.
Skill and stamina were pretty much universally required in any sport, and he did have those going for him. It was just that he enjoyed using those attributes differently. Rather than bashing about with a bunch of people chasing after a bouncing ball, he preferred the mental challenges of his game using a ball that you bloody well did not want to have bouncing off your foot. Take your stance, stand steady, hold the ball just so, focus, acquire the target, stride forward, let fly, and watch for the explosion at the other end.
Yes, he had to admit, his love of blowing things up played a role in his choice of sport: where else short of skeet-shooting could you get that satisfying percussive sound and watch pins fly like so much shrapnel? God, he missed that sound! When he got back to his quarters he might have to pull up the vids he had of various tournaments and play them through. Wearing headphones, of course—couldn't risk having it overheard now, could he?
He thought again of his public image amongst his crewmates. How would they react if they knew? What would they think of their prim and proper stiff-upper-lip straitlaced Armoury Officer if they ever saw the trophies, the vids and photos of him playing, his team shirt and customized ball? Would they even believe it? Probably not…the image of Malcolm Reed at a bowling alley throwing strikes and spares in between slices of pizza and mugs of ale would be too far-fetched. Hell, he couldn't envision many of them doing it, either, except maybe Trip.
Mind going back to his time with the captain, pinned to the hull, he allowed himself the faintest of smiles. He'd started off the day worried about being trapped with the captain for breakfast and had wound up trapped with the man in far more serious circumstances. He'd had so many concerns about decorum and rank, about socializing with one's captain, and out on that hull Archer had put paid to much of it.
So, maybe there was one other crewmember he could visualize doing it. Maybe at their next breakfast he could make a clean breast of it, confess that he'd fibbed about the sports thing, and see what the captain thought of bowling. His smile broadened at the absurd image of bowling with Trip and Archer, and it broadened further as he resolved that even if he did tell them what sport he preferred, he'd never let on how many perfect games he'd bowled. That would be bragging, after all. Let them find out on the lanes. There was a reason his teammates had pinned him with the nickname "Deadeye", even going so far as to make off with his bowling ball and having the moniker emblazoned upon it. He'd been upset when the ball went missing but quite touched when they'd gifted it back to him. The exploding bowling pin had been a nice touch.
His smile slowly evaporated as he replayed his earlier thought: their next breakfast. When they'd first been interrupted Captain Archer had said they'd have to reschedule. There would indeed be another 'breakfast with the captain', and now the captain had oh-so-much-more personal information and insight about him. And if the captain had been painfully gregarious before, he'd be positively chummy this time.
Oh…bloody hell.