Title: A Matter of Attire
Genre: General/Humor/Romance
Pairing: Janeway/Seven implied
Characters: B'Elanna/Seven
Rating: T (due to some salty language)
Summary: B'Elanna gives fashion advice to the last person she'd ever expect to ask her.
Author's notes: Hello and welcome to my very first fanfiction! Please be kind as I also have no beta. Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy it!
Disclaimer: Just the usual quick disclaimer that I don't own any of the creations of the Star Trek franchise or Paramount, and am only borrowing them for the moment for personal entertainment and writing practice. I'll return them unharmed after this flight of fancy.
"Lieutenant. I require your assistance."
The dull click of heels against the carpeted deck stopped abruptly around the area of the Chief Engineer's knees, which were sticking out from under a workstation. She was stuck making routine, and highly frustrating repairs for the second time this week.
"Can't it wait, Seven? I'm kind of busy."
"The matter is urgent."
"Ship's safety urgent?"
"No."
Laying on her back, B'Elanna Torres grumbled under her breath and jammed the hyperspanner a little left of where she had meant it to go. The workstation above her protested by showering her with sparks. "Aww fuck!" she slammed her hand against the metal casing.
Rubbing her sore knuckles, the engineer tried to preemptively cut off an undoubtedly awkward conversation with the former drone. "Well, Seven, I'm stuck fixing this thing, so we'll have to chat another time."
"You do not have to move to assist me. I will speak to you while you are working."
Unseen, B'Elanna rolled her eyes. "How efficient."
"Indeed."
There was a very un-Borg-like pause. The engineer continued working, waited for Seven to continue. The suspense was starting to get to the half-klingon.
"...so...what's this urgent issue?" B'Elanna lead.
"I have a romantic engagement."
B'Elanna sat up in shock only to bang her head on the underside of the workstation.
"Lieutenant! Are you damaged?"
"Kahless.." the engineer hissed through her teeth. "...I'm fine." She rubbed her ridges but remained on her back. "You're asking me for dating advice?"
"You have achieved successful coupling."
"What?! I - I suppose that's true." she began to relax and started tinkering with the workstation once more. "So what's up?"
"I am confused by the matter of attire."
"You came to me for fashion advice? I thought that was the doctor's turf?"
"Clarify the reference t-"
"Area of expertise," interrupted the Engineer. Another unusual pause followed. B'Elanna may have even detected an awkward shifting of heel-clad feet, which was all she could really see of the drone.
"The doctor's choices are insufficient."
"It's okay. The whole pastel skirt deal isn't really my thing either."
Girding her loins, B'Elanna recalibrated the spanner and tried again. No sparks. Progress had been made.
"Lieutenant?"
The brunette grunted a response.
"Why do individuals complicate interaction by designating specific garments to social contexts?"
"That's a bigger discussion than I'm willing to go into today, but think of it this way. The goal of a romantic engagement," B'Elanna barely refrained from using sarcastic air quotes; they would confuse Seven and derail the conversation into endless explanations of colloquialisms, "especially an initial one, is to impress the other person."
"I thought the goal of romantic engagements was to remove garments."
Torres snickered. "Well, impressing the other person tends to facilitate getting some ass."
"Explain."
The ardentness of that demand was almost cute, and B'Elanna smiled a tiny smile to herself. Seven of Nine the fourteen year old boy. Who knew. The engineer began her final scans of the repaired equipment. Hopefully if she'd done this right she wouldn't be back here next week after Chapman messed up her systems again.
Speaking of Chapman…"When you go on a date you are testing the waters - seeing if you are interested in the other person, sexually or emotionally. They are doing the same thing with you. If you like them, you want to show off the best sides of yourself. Clothing can be one way of setting the scene. It should make you feel good. Confident. Confidence is what is ultimately sexy."
"I...I wish to wear pants."
"Totally acceptable."
"But the doctor -"
"The doctor can shove it."
"Where?"
B'Elanna slid out from under the workstation just enough to look Seven in the face. She detected a definite twinkle in the ice blue eyes, before bursting out in laughter. Pulling herself out from under the workstation, she hit a few keys and was rewarded with all the right beeps. "That's right baby, you're doing so good," B'Elanna cooed at the workstation.
Behind her, Seven flushed briefly before her nanoprobes removed the heat from her cheeks. The Lieutenant was not an unattractive individual. Biological processes were very confusing.
"Here we go," B'Elanna brought up several images on the screen, "the wardrobes of 2,000 star systems to choose from. I think these are probably what you're looking for." She narrowed the search terms.
Seven scrolled through the selections.
"Nice. Ya, that one will look good. Maybe with this vest? Totally. And the flats. You need the flats for sure."
"Captain to Seven of Nine."
Seven shot up to stand at attention even more rigidly than usual. B'Elanna would have sworn the drone was going to sprain something, a la Harry Kim, if she wasn't already practically perfect in every way. The eagerness to please was rolling off in waves.
"Captain. Seven here."
"I'm just touching base to see if we're still on for a philosophical discussion at oh-nineteen-hundred?"
"Affirmative."
"Good! See you then!"
"I am looking forward to it as well."
"Me too."
"with great anticipation."
"It should be fun."
"I am looking forward to it."
"Seven?"
"Yes, Captain?"
"I'm going to go now."
"Yes, Captain."
Seven closed the commlink. The statuesque drone looked abuzz with panic and excitement, which for her amounted to a subtle widening of the eyes and tensing of her shoulders. She walked over to the standing engineer and at a full arms'-length away clasped B'Elanna by the biceps, looking into her eyes very seriously.
"Thank you for your assistance, Lieutenant. I must leave."
And with that, six feet of Borg ingenuity walked out the door, a slight lilt to her commanding stride. The doors whooshed shut behind her.
B'Elanna stood there in the middle of the room. Well that had been one of the weirder eight minutes of her life. "Was that some Borg version of a hug?"
The empty room did not weigh in.
"You would not believe the day I had." The doors to their quarters hissed shut behind her and B'Elanna could feel her shoulders begin to relax.
"Vorik grinding your gears again?"
"Not so much today, thank the gods." B'Elanna unzipped her tunic and shrugged out of it, tossing it haphazardly on the couch. Tom came up behind her and began to rub her shoulders.
"mmmm...ow"
"Sorry, babe. too hard?"
"ung...no, keep going.."
"that's what she said."
"Pig."
"Light of My Life."
The comfortable pause of the married stretched between them as Tom continued his ministrations.
"...aren't you going to ask me my gossip?"
"It's killing me. Spill."
"A certain Ex-Borg came to ask my advice."
"On what? How to kill a targ with the pure force of logic? Oww!"
That would be a new bruise for the Doctor to ask awkward questions about.
"No! She wanted my fashion advice." The massage abruptly stopped, and she could feel the tell-tale-tremor in his hands. "Thomas Eugene Paris, don't you dare laugh at me. I won't tell you the best part."
"It gets better?" Tom burst out in barely contained glee.
"Not telling."
"Aww, 'Lana! Please!"
"Nope."
"You can't leave me hanging!"
"Well...shoulders. Stat."
"Yes, Ma'am!" Tom quickly got to work.
"She was getting ready for a date."
"WITH WHO?!"
"I didn't ask."
"WHY NOT?!"
"Tom! Tom! Stop jumping on the couch! I just thought we should let the old girl have some fun for a while."
"Seven having fun? I can't wait."
B'Elanna coughed, "...yeah, Seven."
"I need to talk to Harry. We need to set up a betting pool right away."
"Oh come on, we'll find out who the mystery person is soon enough, when it all inevitably explodes…"