Title: Cooler Heads
Author: Vashti
Fandom: Star Trek: AOS, BtVS
Character(s): James Kirk, Oz Osbourne, Leonard "Bones" McCoy, var Enterprise crew
Rating: PG
Summary: Kirk wants to know who the redshirt is with a head as cool as Spock's and a face even younger than his own.
Length: ~1325 words
Prompt: Oz, "Vulcans aren't always the coolest heads in battle."
Disclaimer: Only the words are mine, and that's probably up for philosophical debate.
Dedication: Jedi Buttercup
Notes: See end.

The Enterprise rocked as another round slipped past the faltering shields. A number of consoles sparked - Spock's badly enough that he took a momentary step back. Burned hands weren't much use at a tactical station, although Kirk had no doubt that the commander could and would work through the pain if he had to. He was also sure that logic dictated the man not do anything stupid if he could avoid it. This was possibly one of the reasons their friendship was still tentative: logic dictated nothing of the sort to James T. Kirk. Or, it only did sometimes. Definitely more since he'd become the youngest captain in Starfleet history, but not nearly enough to make his first officer happy.

And there went his own console stuttering as power fluctuated throughout the ship. "Report!" Kirk barked over the noise of battle.

"Captain, they're-" Then Sulu's panel exploded in a shower of sparks. The helmsman reared back, covering his face with upraised arms.

"Scotty!" Kirk called into the comm on a rising note. "Why is everything on my bridge going boom?"

"'M sorry Captain," Scotty said, voice tinny over the damaged speakers. "That lucky hit they got in when the shields fluctuated didn't do the Enterprise no favors."

"Yeah. I noticed."

A blistering round of swearing brought Kirk's attention back to Sulu at nav. "My console's fried, sir," he called out.

Lips narrowed, Kirk silently prayed that his own console remained stable long enough to complete the commands he was inputting. "Redirecting nav to aux station."

Kirk watched as Sulu hopped out of his seat and sprinted the five steps from his station to Aux, shouting another "Report!" as the helmsman did so.

His console lit up with new data even as verbal reports flew through the air.

"Okay this is officially-" Kirk frowned. There was a redhead kid in Red crouched under the console. "Who is that?"

"Specialist First Class Osborne," the kid said. "From Engineering," he added before Kirk could ask. "Be done in a jiff-"

The console sparked again, the light bright enough to temporarily hide the Specialist from sight.

He popped his head out when it cleared, as if nothing at all had happened. "-two jiffs, sir."

Kirk frowned. "You do that." He slapped the comm, opening shipwide communication from his board. "Okay people. As I was saying, this is a little- Oh, what now?!"

His console had finally died on him, mid-shipwide speech. Swearing, he braced himself to launch out of his chair only to be met by the Specialist. "Give me three seconds and I can have fixed, sir."

Kirk's eyebrows rose. "Three seconds, Osborne?"

He shrugged one-armed, already passing his tricorder over the console embedded in Kirk's chair. "Technically about 3.5 seconds for a patch, not an actual fix, but that seemed a little over-precise."

He popped open an access panel behind the console display itself, poked at it a bit with a small hand tool (which caused a power flare-up), then stepped away. "Don't know how long it'll last. I'd have to consult with Lt. Uhura for something more permanent."

Who was currently up to her eyeballs fielding internal communication relayed by her department, and monitoring subspace lines for any useful chatter.

"Don't need it to go for long," Kirk muttered as he opened shipwide again. "Okay! This time for real, people! We didn't start this fight, but we're sure as hell going to finish it..."

"Lt. Uhura, you got half an ear I can borr...oh...kay." Kirk trailed off. She'd made the 'in a minute' sign even before he'd finished speaking. "Eh, it was worth a shot."

Coming up around his chair, he hit the comm. "Specialist Osborne, report to bridge."

"You can have him when I'm done with'im and not a minute before."

Kirk frowned. "Bones, everything all right down there? There's nothing in your report about an engineering problem in Medical."

"That's because there isn't. The specialist, on the other hand… It's like the only prerequisite for gettin' on this boat is a complete lack of self-preservation."

"What the heck happened between here and getting back to engineering? I got my last injury report..." Kirk glanced over at Uhura.

She held up a 3 and a 0 with her fingers.

"...half an hour ago."

"Yeah, well, you forgot one. Says he got injured workin' on your console."

Kirk scoffed. "No way. I was sitting right here…" He swore.

"Uh huh," Bones said, completely unsympathetic. "I'll send him up when the dermal regeneration's done and he's got at least half a ration bar in him. If you got any other broken toys up there, y'mind sending them sooner than later?"

"Bones…"

The grunt he got back would have been grounds for insubordination if anyone else had tried it. Kirk just rolled his eyes and settled himself into his chair. "Kirk, out."

"Specialist First Class Osborne reporting, sir."

The words were as crisp as any Starfleet could offer, but there was something about the inner confidence in the kid's tone that almost made it sound lazy. Kirk found his eyebrows rising as he wondered if that's how he sounded when he saluted. "At ease, Mr. Osborne."

As Osborne relaxed, Kirk glanced at the PADD that Rand had given him. "It says here that you're a Canid."

Osborne met his eyes as Kirk looked up. "Yes, sir."

"And that you're, like, three times older than you look. Dude, no fair."

Osborne's lips twitched, like he wanted to smile but didn't think it was appropriate, even if his captain was young enough to be his grandchild…and probably sounded like it. "I used to think the same thing when I was younger."

That Kirk found surprising. "How so, Mister? And please have a seat. This isn't actually an interrogation, despite the opening salvo."

Which made Osborne actually huff and smile. At least Kirk had proof that he wasn't as bad as Spock. Once they were settled, Kirk asked his question again.

The younger (looking) man shrugged. "I guess when you're young, you spend a lot of time wanting to be like everyone else. As you know, sir, there aren't a lot of Canids on Earth. It's only recently that anyone realized we were a separate, non-Terran, species."

"Instead of just incredibly long lived, youthful, really strong and resilient regular humans. Yeah, I bet that must have been wild."

"Wild is one way to put it. Humanity loves it when the unknown pops up in their backyard," Osborne said with a mild deadpan that might have even pleased Spock.

Kirk frowned remembering that, until Canids had been officially "discovered" most of them had hidden themselves, not understanding how or why they were outliving everyone they knew and nor keen on becoming a science experiment. Or being burned at the stake, depending. "I retract my previous statement."

Osborne merely shrugged.

Suddenly uncomfortable, although the man sitting across from him seemed completely unchanged, Kirk glanced at the PADD again. "So, uh, wife and kid?"

"First officer and lieutenant commander on a science ship, respectively."

"And you're just a specialist? No interest in being an officer?"

Osborne grinned with an earnest pleasure. "Bay looks better in gold than I do, sir. I get all washed out."

Kirk barked a surprise laugh, forcibly reminded that the man was a California native. A grin to match Osborne's was still on his face when he finished. "That was a cool head you showed up on the bridge earlier. That come from living three times as long as the rest of us?"

"Nah. I play bass."

"Oh yeah?" Kirk considered him for a moment. "You don't happen to play Tri-D Chess do you?"

Osborne shrugged. "I've been known on occasion."

"Ever play Mr. Spock?"

"Doesn't seem fair to challenge a superior officer," he said seriously, but that strange half-smile was back and Kirk found himself snorting in amusement.

God he loved his strange little crew.

in[Fin]ite

Author's Note: I wrote this ages and ages and ages ago as a response to a challenge I had issued to Jedi Buttercup. I didn't particularly like my ending, so I let it sit, with the intention of getting back to it after it had percolated for a while. Instead, I completely forgot about it. Then last year Jedi Buttercup answered the challenge, excellently, and I remembered my piddly little attempt at a response. I'm still not happy with the ending, and I'm never going to be as fantastic a writer as Jedi Buttercup, but I do like this story for itself. So here you go. :)