Title: Discretion
Series: Tales from the Lower Decks
Written for: st_20_fics Table, Prompt #01 - "Are you laughing at me?"
Characters: Spock, Kirk, OC Matthew Turner (seen elsewhere such as A Celebration in Infinite Combinations and Insontis)
Warnings/Spoilers: written by me? :P
Series Summary: The adventures of an ordinary Maintenance man aboard the Enterprise, and his observations of the developing trifold powerhouse which is Kirk, Spock, and McCoy.
This Bit Summary: During a nighttime ship's crisis, Ensign Turner discovers the story behind Spock's infamous furry green slippers.
This Bit Word Count: 1336
A/N: Just a tiny little Christmas gift to all my lovely readers - a happy holiday season to you, and my apologies for a lack of progress in my current WIPs. Now that the holidays are almost over, I hope to return to the writing scene (as soon as I can properly assimilate the amazing tragicness which was the Merlin finale). Spock's slippers originally appear in a couple other of my fics, so here's a nod to my personal continuity.
Prompt #01 – "Are you laughing at me?"
In my not-inexperienced opinion, the worst part of being aboard a starship is the not infrequent occasions in which dignity must be sacrificed for safety or duty.
Being hurled out of bed (literally) by explosions outside the hull on the ship's night in question was bad enough, but then to hear from a frantic Lieutenant DeSalle, the gamma shift duty officer, on my way to the turbolift that an unidentified ship with intense firepower had just opened fire on us out of nowhere – now that put a whole new level of alarm on an already bad situation. By the time the lift was taking me to the Bridge, I was already in verbal conference with Lieutenant Masters regarding malfunctions all over the ship, one of which was the Engineering console's life support motherboard. That was the reason for my being summoned to the Bridge for repairs rather than Engineering; I simply happened to be closer to the Bridge than to the Engineering and Maintenance decks.
And to compound an already rubbish situation, I'd only just realized with dismay that my uniform tunic was on inside-out when the lift began to slow, preparing to stop at Deck Five – the command crew quarters. Mr. Spock was going to have my head for being out of uniform, and I mentally resigned myself to a diatribe regarding dress code, the primary premise of which being that it would take just as much effort to put the tunic on right-side out instead of inside-out, and it was illogical to make such a plebian error, you lot of humans are most illogically inept, etc., etc. The fellow is a stickler for regulation, and while uniforms are of course secondary to safety in a ship's crisis, I was still resigned to hearing about yet another elementary error I'd unwittingly made in my hapless – hopeless? - career.
As it turned out, however, I shouldn't have worried.
The captain of the Enterprise is a man secure enough in his own command image (and obviously, at this time worried enough for his beloved ship, whose warp engines were apparently nonfunctional if poor Scotty's frantic reports were any indication) to not give his own lack of proper dress code another thought. Judging from his mussed hair and dark-circled eyes as he stumbled into the lift, he had simply thrown on his Starfleet-issue bathrobe over his pajamas, and stomped into his boots on the way out the door. I was much amused to hear him distinctly curse the day he entered Starfleet in expressive colloquial Klingon, before he blearily registered my presence and immediately censured himself, straightening to attention with a look that hovered somewhere between alert and being utter rubbish at faking it.
"Mr. Turner."
"Captain. On my way to the Bridge to repair circuitry in the Engineering console," I explained, more to stall for time than anything else, because he looked for all the world like he really couldn't care less until he'd had a large coffee.
"Sir," a patient voice spoke from behind him, and I again wondered if Vulcans ever sleep, because Spock sounded for all the world like he'd just meandered calmly in from a little stroll in the arboretum.
"Sorry," Kirk said loudly over the red alert klaxon that began wailing again just then, and scooted out of the way to let his First into the lift as well. I edged backward as far as I could in the small space, thoroughly uncomfortable with sharing close quarters with two of the high command chain, and did my utmost to make myself invisible for the next two minutes.
Scrubbing a hand roughly through some fabulously chaotic hair (Mr. Spock in contrast looked immaculate as ever, from what I could see), Captain Kirk yawned briefly and then snapped to full attention, idly glancing up at the flashing red light before comm-ing the Bridge.. "Bridge, status," he said impatiently, frowning.
A sudden blast rocked the ship then, and the lights around us flickered. I fervently prayed the emergency protocols would hold in the event of a malfunction, as my idea of a gallant and brave death in space was most definitely not being smashed to bits at the bottom of a turboshaft.
Spock's raised eyebrow seemed to me to say he thought that was a clear enough report, though DeSalle's voice crackled through the static as well. "The ship refuses to identify itself, Captain, and only replays a message our universal translator keeps interpreting as basically a No Trespassing sign. Lieutenant-Commander Scott reports the warp engines took a direct hit, and we're venting plasma at an alarming rate. They're not pursuing us through evasive maneuvers, however – just firing on us if we swing too close to certain coordinates. I believe it might be a stationary guard ship, sir."
"Slow to one-quarter impulse, and then begin backing away from it," Kirk commanded, tightening the belt of his robe. "Mr. Spock and I are…" he trailed off, staring incredulously at the floor.
"Captain?"
"We'll be right there, Lieutenant, carry on," he replied, still staring. I surreptitiously craned my neck in an attempt to see what exactly had so arrested his attention. "Mr. Spock."
The Vulcan's face showed what looked to me like genuine cluelessness as to the reasons for Kirk's behavior. "Yes, Captain?"
"What in the name of all that's logical have you got on your feet?"
Spock glanced downward, and then back up again, entirely unconcerned. "I believe they are a somewhat psychedelic variant of house slippers, sir."
That was a bit of an understatement, in my silent opinion – because I've never seen such a peculiar shade of fluorescent green in my life, shot through with flecks of silver and gold. It looked rather like our genteel First Officer was stepping on two pregnant chartreuse tribbles.
"Well, that I could have told you, Mr. Spock," Kirk retorted, still staring at the offensive items. "But you're never going to convince me that you picked them out yourself!"
"Negative."
Worry lines had faded temporarily from the captain's face into a quizzical smile. "So…?"
"They were a…I was told a Christmas gift, from Dr. McCoy, last holiday season." A slight blush colored the tips of Spock's ears, to my fascination; obviously, embarrassment is logical under certain circumstances. "While quite garish, they are nonetheless entirely functional. It would be illogical to not utilize them for their intended purpose."
"You sound like you're trying to convince yourself, in addition to me," Kirk observed, no longer trying to hide a wicked grin. The man was poking a bear; he is certainly braver than any of us lesser mortals aboard, to so provoke a Vulcan to wrath.
Spock just looked highly affronted, as much as it's possible to look with only eyebrows and a tiny frown for expression. "Certainly not, sir."
"Of course, Mr. Spock." Suddenly realizing that I was still in the lift (I had tried my best to look like I was tuning them both out, though it was next to impossible), Kirk visibly pulled his amusement back under a façade of professionalism, his dancing eyes the only remaining indication. "Your economic use of the resources available to you for your state of health is quite logical."
"Thank you, Captain."
I was, personally, quite proud of the fact that I made it through the entirety of the repairs on the Bridge and back into the lift before finally losing it in a fit of giggles that our fearsome KirkenSpock would never have forgiven had they known. Unfortunately, some less intelligent life form on the Bridge evidently had had a holocamera, and I was then forced to aid Scotty later that week in tracking down and erasing holopics of Spock's dress code violation that began cropping up all over the ship's intranet system.
And if I conveniently didn't notice that one of the pictures had been downloaded onto a portable hard drive in Dr. McCoy's office, well. In Starfleet, we all have our little secrets.