Malcolm Reed walked down the corridor and turned into the mess hall. It was 1900 – Hoshi would be here like she was every night at 7. He scanned the noisy eating area.
And there she was.
Sitting next to Travis, smiling at something he had said.
He sucked in a deep breath and approached her.
"Here is the new translator," his voice cracked on 'new' and he cursed himself, "I updated it with those languages that were in the database of the alien species that we…."
His voice trailed off as she reached up and took the silver machine, brushing his hand in the process.
Hoshi turned it over in her hand. "Pretty soon we won't even need a linguist on board," She said, smiling "There were almost 200 languages in that ship's database."
"We'll always need someone to push that little hailing button," he teased, trying not to imagine life without Hoshi Sato.
Hoshi smiled, "Would you like to join us?" She motioned to an empty chair across from Travis.
As much as he wanted to, he could not break his date with Commander Tucker.
"Sorry," he said, "I promised Trip that I would burn him in the workout room tonight."
"Malcolm, take it easy," panted Trip as he glanced worriedly over at his friend, who was running like there was a big, mean, ugly Xindi on his tail. Trip had been in a medium jog for 20 minutes… Malcolm had been in a flat-out sprint.
Malcolm looked over at Trip and pushed the treadmill he was on to top speed, "Make me," he smirked.
Trip turned his off completely and leaned on the bar while he watched Malcolm sweat.
"It's about Hoshi, i'nt it?" Trip laughed.
"Wha? - aaaaaaaaaah" Malcolm had stopped running to face Trip completely at the mention of Hoshi, and had promptly gotten thrown on the floor.
"It is not," He flipped over onto his stomach and began to do pushups.
Trip stared in wonder, then walked over and turned off the still-running treadmill.
"5 6 7" counted Malcolm, ignoring Trip who was now standing over him.
"Why don't you just ask her out already?"
"10 11 12 13"
Trip stared down at him, patiently.
Malcolm began to clap his hands together in between pushups.
"16"
"Oh, wait that's right, Travis and she are already…"
He didn't get to finish because Malcolm had stopped mid pushup and fallen flat on his face.
He glanced up, from where he lay, at Trip's smiling face.
"Not funny at all, Mister Tucker, not goddamm bloody funny at all."
"OK, OK, Travis and Hoshi aren't going out at all," Trip mimicked Malcolm's British accent on the at all, "Not goddamm bloody going out at all."
Malcolm heaved a sigh of either relief or exhaustion
"They claim that they are strictly friends…. With benefits."
Malcolm made as if to rush him but then, ever-constrained, stopped himself.
"Trust me on this one," Trip looked Malcolm directly in the eyes and emphasized his all of his words, "I definitely know there is nothing physical going on between Hoshi and Travis. Trust me, they do not feel that way about each other. OK?"
Malcolm jumped to his feet, gritting his teeth "Come and spot for me."
"Wow, man," Trip said as they walked through the corridor towards the mess hall, "I STILL can't believe that you can bench 375 pounds."
Malcolm shrugged indifferently.
"What's wrong, Reed?" Trip asked, "You aren't acting like you're on steroids anymore."
They stepped into the turbolift. Trip pushed the button for the deck they wanted.
"I STILL can't believe that you can bench 375 pounds."
"Yeah…" Malcolm said.
Hoshi and Travis came out of the mess hall just as Trip and Malcolm were approaching it. Malcolm stopped dead in his tracks. Trip raised an eyebrow and then pushed Malcolm forward.
"Hi."
"Hi."
"Hi."
"Hi."
"How was your workout?" Hoshi asked.
"It was, uh, fine," Reed stuttered.
Trip regarded Reed's nervousness and smirked at it, "Did you know that Malcolm can bench 375 pounds?"
This caused Reed to blush.
"How was your dinner?" Reed asked to change the subject
Travis laughed, "Hoshi found out that Crewman Perez spoke Tagalog so we HAD to talk to him for, like, an hour. We as in Hoshi of course."
Hoshi shrugged, "Tagalog is my favorite language."
Malcolm filed this away for future reference. He had actually gone to prep school with a boy from the Philippines. Malcolm had asked him to teach him some Tagalog once, just out of curiosity. The only word he still remembered, though, was besa – beer.
Malcolm smiled, imagining himself in some Tagalog-speaking country, trying to carry on a conversation with some villager. He had enough trouble talking in English – especially when he was talking a certain beautiful linguist.
"Well, Travis and I need to get to bed – early shift tomorrow," Hoshi said, "Thank you for the updated translator, Malcolm."
A pang of jealousy ripped through Malcolm's torso at the mention of Travis. He did like how she said "Malcolm" though. Sexy was not something that his name was. But her voice…. Yes, her voice somehow made his name sound extremely nice.
"You like him," said Travis once they were in the turbolift.
"Who?" asked Hoshi staring straight into her hand, pretending to be concentrating on the new translator even though she was really thinking about how hot Malcolm Reed's hair looked when it was wet and messed up after showering.
"You like him, you like him," repeated Travis, with a smile, "You want to hug him , you want to kiss him, you want to love him…."
Hoshi glanced up, "Do you know any other crew members who speak different first languages than English?"
"Yes, Malcolm Reed."
Hoshi sighed.
Travis flashed her his trademark grin, "He speaks the language of love. Fluently."
Hoshi ignored him.
"I think he would like it if you had a conversation with him," Travis prompted.
"Tempting, but I think I'll just go conjugate Klingon verbs."
"You know ya wanna."
"Did you know that the Klingon's have over 87 words for disembowel?"
"Did you see the way Malcolm was looking at you?"
Hoshi finally broke, "Yeah, he is kinda sweet"
Travis grinned.
"How good is bench pressing 375 pounds, anyway?"
Travis raised his eyebrows twice "You are SO shallow."
Reed stared down at his plate of food. He watched Trip eat hungrily. Trip looked up.
"I still can't believe you can bench 375 pounds, Mal."
Reed picked up his fork and stuck it in his mashed potatoes.
"Eat, dammit, Reed."
Reed set the fork down and picked up the Ketchup bottle. He squirted a tablespoon or so on his potatoes and recapped the bottle.
Trip set his own fork down and leaned forward intent on Malcolm's face.
Malcolm mixed the potatoes and ketchup together with his fork until it was all orange. He scraped his fork off on the side of his tray and began to pick at his chicken. He moved on to his salad.
"How come you always freeze up when I mention Hoshi or we see her?"
The fork with the cherry tomato on it stopped halfway to Malcolm's mouth.
"See?" Trip smirked.
Malcolm glared at him and flicked the small tomato at him.
It bounced off of Trip's chest and landed on his tray.
Trip picked it up and held it between his index finger and thumb.
"Also," he said staring at it, "Aren't you allergic to tomatoes? She's really gotten to you."