Chapter 2
Chakotay was exhausted.
Not only was he still sore pretty much everywhere from his brief tussle with Tuvok a few days back, the captain was still exhibiting all the good nature of a rabid woodland creature with a pinecone up its fuzzy little backside, and trying to keep the peace was starting to take a toll on him.
Not that he could particularly blame her; he didn't imagine that having your two best friends, for all intents and purposes, try to kill you would put most people in a particularly good mood.
Still, the stilted conversation and sad-puppy eyes were starting to get a little hard to handle. Particularly when he knew that any attempt to answer that big-eyed, beseeching gaze with a friendly word or kind gesture would be met with one of two responses: she would either wriggle determinedly out of any sort of contact and bolt, or death-glare his overtures into non-existence.
A handful of times over the past few days, he'd tried to bring up what had happened, get her to actually express what was going on in that pretty head so that he could get the opportunity to let her know that hey, he felt pretty rotten over it too, he really wasn't particularly fond of waving weapons at her and the rest of his ultra-extended family, and finishing up by taking over her ship. However, whenever he managed to catch her alone and get a word in edgewise, she mysteriously came up with a big pile of priorities that absolutely could not wait another second.
He had been reluctantly prepared, at this point, to let her deal with it in her own time – there wasn't a known force in the universe that could make Kathryn Janeway do something she was disinclined to, anyway, and he didn't put much faith in the unknown in this case – until he had begun to notice the reactions of the crew.
It seemed a fairly even split: half were taking the command team's example and giving each other shifty, mistrusting eyes and generally avoiding all contact. The other half seemed to take a good deal of joy in giving the two of them the sort of knowing, amused looks often reserved for bickering couples in public places, which was little better.
Once or twice, he'd begun to say something, reproach her on the terrible example that the two of them were setting for the rest of the crew, but had backed off when the puppy-dog showed signs of turning into a very pissed off and possibly rabid wolf. Although having his jugular ripped out literally as well as metaphorically would make a rather fitting end to the week, he was rather fond of it as it was, whole and in its proper place. This was, essentially, why he'd abandoned his initial plan this evening of simply badgering her until she finally talked to him about the week's events.
(He had, incidentally, been much more reluctant to abandon his second plan, which involved tying her up in some sort of vaguely erotic pose, accidentally dislodging most of her clothes as he went, and then refusing to untie her until they'd had a long, meaningful conversation in which the animosity between them as of late would be resolved. Eventually, he had recognized this plan as far more dangerous than the first. As fond as he was of his jugular in tact and in its proper place, he was even fonder of his man-bits remaining in tact, and was rather ridiculously fond of the aforementioned in their proper place.)
Although, the plan he'd gone with hadn't ended much better.
The wine had been intended as a peace offering, of course, but he'd also wondered if a couple of glasses might lure out Tipsy Kathryn, or even Slightly Buzzed Kathryn. Both were significantly more communicative than the Mad as Hell and Trying Desperately to Hide It variety that had been present on the bridge all week.
Unfortunately, before either Tipsy or Slightly Buzzed could emerge, their far noisier and more unpredictable sister, Drunk Kathryn had made an appearance. While he had spent a certain degree of time around Drunk Kathryn in the past and found her a rather delightful companion, never had he done so while the object of her ire. Therefore, he found his role adjusted somewhat, from pillow to punching bag.
Well, sort of. In as much as she had spoken to him at all. Mostly she just sat there and glared at him around guzzles straight from the bottle as though she suspected him of plotting another mutiny that would begin with instituting ship-wide Prohibition.
Upon admitting to himself that he wasn't going to get any sort of conversation out of her this evening, meaningful or otherwise, he had eventually left her to get some rest, with the full intention of doing the same.
"If this day can possibly get any worse," he muttered as he crawled into bed, "I swear I'll take up polka."
Thus content that the Fates had been sufficiently and stupidly tempted for the time being, he ordered the lights out and flopped almost immediately into unconsciousness.
Ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, Bananaphone!
"What the hell?" he breathed, out of bed in an instant.
Ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, Bananaphone!
"Computer, turn off current musical selection!" he barked.
"Unable to comply," the computer replied, smugly he would ever after insist, as the singer chose that moment to add helpfully,
I've got this feeling, so appealing, for us to get together and sing—Sing!
"Computer, end current musical selection before I hurt you!"
"Unable to comply," the computer repeated.
"Why?" he ground out.
"Current musical selection is protected—"
Protected! Looking up quickly, he repeated the command and snapped out his override code.
"Unable to comply," the computer informed him cheerfully.
"Why?"
"Requested action requires Level 10 clearance."
"Level—oh, goddamnit, Kathryn!"
"Please restate request."
"Shut up!"
"Please restate request."
It grows in bunches, I've got my hunches, cellular, modular, interactive-odular…
"Someone, please end my life," he groaned, rubbing his eyes wearily.
"Please restate request."
"ARGH!"
Meanwhile, just a short distance away, Kathryn was already dropping into the sleep of the blissfully content, the soft, indistinct strains of one of the most obnoxious songs in human history – punctuated by Chakotay's vehement critique of said song – the sweetest lullaby she could imagine.
Approximately three and a half minutes later saw Chakotay breathing a sigh of relief as the final strains of the song filled the air.
"Well, that was—"
Boop-a-doop-a-doop-doop!
"Dammit!"
Boop-a-doop-a-doop-doop!
"Okay…maybe she programmed it to play through twice and then shut up and let me sleep," he mused hopefully.
Twenty-three repetitions later, it began to dawn on him that perhaps the music wasn't going to turn off by itself, and Action would have to be taken.
"Chakotay to Janeway."
He was met with the distinct sound of a comm. badge being swatted around and repeatedly dropped by a particularly disoriented hand. Finally, a reply.
"Mrrrggph?"
He grinned at her sudden fluent grasp of the dialect of Hangover.
"Feeling a little under the weather, Captain?" he asked kindly, and far more loudly than necessary, relishing the warm happy glow that her groan of pain produced.
"No, I'm just fine. I was asleep, if you must know."
"Lucky you," he said flatly, glaring viciously in her general direction.
"Ohh, are you having trouble sleeping?"
Gritting his teeth until he could nearly hear them cracking, he determinedly tamped down the reply he really wanted to make.
"A little bit, yeah."
"Why don't you try counting some sheep?"
With this kind suggestion, the link terminated.
"…What just happened?" he demanded of no one in particular.
Nothing daunted, he tried again.
"Chakotay to Janeway."
"Come on, that was what, two sheep? I think you need a few more than that."
"I don't think imaginary sheep are going to solve this."
"I hardly think you can make that judgment when you've given it so little time. Just go back to bed, and maybe throw in a goat or two."
"Wait a—"
"Goodnight, Chakotay."
With a heavy sigh, he waited for the line to disconnect, already preparing to try again.
But then, faint but unmistakable, a childish tune reached his ears.
"Neener, neener, neener."
He stared at his comm. badge in disbelief as the line finally disconnected.
"That vindictive little—"
With a deep, calming breath, he bit back the rest of this decidedly annoyed statement.
"Okay, self, listen; you can't depend on Captain Crazypants to fix this. At this point, she's more likely to make things worse if you push the issue. Now, you've slept through a lot of things louder and more annoying than this in your life, so within the next two minutes, you are going to learn to ignore the music, and go calmly and sensibly to sleep."
Another fifteen minutes later saw him jamming his pillow over his head as though he intended to merge the two somehow. Sure, it was becoming increasingly difficult to breathe, but that was a small price to pay to have the Bananaphones pounding into his brain a little less.
Thirty seconds later saw him gasping for air, and throwing his pillow angrily at the wall.
"Okay, self, change of plans."
He reached for his comm. badge.
"Chakotay to Torres."
"Torres here."
"B'Elanna, I'm having some difficulties with my computer. Could you come take a look?"
Seconds passed in silence, before a sudden stream of vile profanities burst forth from the small device.
He blinked, bewildered.
"Uh, what?"
With a noise of fond impatience, Torres repeated her previous string of curses, this time much more slowly and calmly.
"Right," Chakotay sighed. "I guess that means you're not going to help me."
"Nope! 'Night, Chakotay."
"'Night," he said gloomily, although she had already terminated the link.
Well, this was just great. His last hope, gone just like that. Only thing to do now was sit tight, try desperately to filter out his surroundings, and wait for Kathryn's better nature to resurface.
Yeah; he was in for the long haul.
He kicked the leg of his coffee table. Dammit! If only he had paid attention when she was going on about their fantastic new computer system, he might be able to find a way around this
"I miss the old computer system," he pouted. Sure, it had an overwhelming tendency to freeze at inopportune moments, crash at equally inopportune moments, and make parts of the ship incompatible with other parts, but at least it was user-friendly. And incredibly easy to break into. This new system that Seven and her Borg pals had installed a few years back was just…confusing.
Ah, but wait! The little light bulb floating above his head was suggesting that there might be another way to handle this, that wouldn't involve fruitless wheedling to Kathryn or B'elanna.
"Commander Chakotay to Seven of Nine."
"What is it, Commander?"
"Seven, I'm going to need your help with something…"
"Thank-you for coming so quickly, Seven," he said approximately five and a half minutes later. "I hope I didn't wake you."
She looked at him strangely.
"I do not sleep, Commander."
"Well, I hope I didn't interrupt your…recharging?"
"Regeneration. And yes, you did."
"Oh; sorry."
"It is irrelevant. What's the problem?"
He stared incredulously.
"What's the—Seven, don't you hear that?"
She listened closely for a long moment, absorbing the background music.
"I don't understand," Seven said. "What is a Banana Phone?"
"Why don't you ask Captain Janeway?" he asked, glaring resentfully at the wall. "She's the one who found this number."
Mulling this idea over and apparently finding favour with it, Seven tapped her comm. badge.
"Seven of Nine to Captain Janeway."
"Seven? What time is it?"
If the young woman noticed the the remnants of the evening's unscheduled bender in her captain's voice, she showed no sign of it.
"Captain, what is a Banana Phone?"
"A Bananaphone! Good question, Seven. Unfortunately, the explanation is a little too complicated to go into here, but if you'd like to meet me in Holodeck 2, we can talk about it in more detail."
"I will be there shortly," the young woman agreed, already starting for the door.
"Wait a minute!" Chakotay objected frantically. "You haven't—oh, never mind," he finished when he realized that he was talking to the empty spot that Seven had previously occupied.
Left alone once more with his extremely limited Raffi collection, he sighed heavily and headed for the replicator.
"Give me a green felt hat, a pair of suspenders, and a tuba. Apparently, this day can get worse."
End Notes: Okay; so, in addition to my inexplicable obsession with getting Janeway drunk, I also have a deep and abiding urge to make Chakotay a total weenie.