Ship Wars: Prompt 6 Entry: Team Crackship
Title: Murder, He Indicated
Ship: Team Crackship
Authors: lymanalpha, kallie_starmist, and imasupermuteant
Pairings: Kirk/Sarek, Bones/Spock's MomAmanda, Spock/Spock Prime, Scotty/Sandwiches, Cupcake/Cupcakes, Chekov/Enterprise, and Gaila/Uhura, Pike/Nero, Nero/Ayel, Nero/Spock
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Crack. Incredible amounts of it.
Disclaimer: They are still not the hell our whales.
Wordcount: 7,542
- Rose Franken'>
Prologue:
In Which the Night is Both Dark and Stormy
There's a storm tonight. From above, where it's calm, the clouds bunch and quiver like cerebral folds. Pike eases the controls and his ship slices the murk, from stars into thunder. He moans and rides the wind. Beneath the clouds, there's solid ground.
Once the ship is cloaked, he checks his arm, adjusts his tux, and steps out into the rain. He's a fine figure of a zombie against the storm. The lightning cracks, and he stands in its flash: upright and goddamn gorgeous, a glint in his eye and one arm dangling at the ready. "Welcome home, Chris," he whispers.
The lights of the Starfleet Yacht Club beckon him like eyeballs. In that building is the life he left behind, filtered through five years of a different captain's orders. The crew that was his for only hours -- he thinks he can feel their distant blood pulse, the way life does. In a lull of the storm winds he imagines that their voices are a roar at the edge of hearing.
He's damn proud of Kirk, really. He'd have to be, to risk Earth again. He'd have to be, to polish his arm and coerce -- cajole -- bite a tux off a hapless trader. He is.
The clouds coil above him. It's a beautiful storm -- like intestines, he thinks. Like warp mechanics or the hypothalamus or...
Or...or...
The rain lashes the bay. Pike groans, and moans, and mutters "brains" to himself. He's a slapstick badass, not a poet.
Anyway, it's a dark and stormy night.
---
Inside, the lights are bright until he finds the shadows. It's a skill he's honed, these few years. He can cloak himself as easily as he can his ship: now you see him, now you --
There they are, across the room, the crew he knew. The scraggly children he'd yanked from bars and schoolyards: grown, polished, gleaming. Heroes of the goddamn Federation. A champagne tray glides past and he grabs at a flute. From his pocket he pulls a flask of distilled brains -- can't unlive without 'em -- and upends it into his drink. Across the hall, Jim scintillates and sparkles. Across the hall, Spock is green-pink opalescent. Uhura glows. Life, Pike thinks, and wipes at an eye. "Nice work, kids," he says, raising his glass to the beautiful, pulsing live-wire crew, and drinks.
---
Brains taste like a storm at night. Pike sips cerebral fluid and tastes a surly Romulan's memory of guarding a seawall, alone, against the midnight spray of waves. Tastes sex and violence. Somebody else's memory of flowers.
Something hits him across the temple. "Ow," he mutters, out of habit.
He laughs, then, glad to be home again. It's good to see this crew, even from the shadows. It's good to stand and watch and toast them with champagne -- mostly champagne, sort of champagne -- toast them with bubbles and brain-juice. Zombie in a tux. He grins. The world's a whirl, Jim whooping across the room -- "go fuck yourself," he laughs at someone -- it's a mess of light and color and then he's dizzy. Tilting and not grinning anymore.
Pike stumbles and the wall swerves to meet him. He puts out a hand, grabs at a panel -- the wall swings away and it's a closet, dank with bleach and mops. He staggers forward. Something clouts him hard across the back of the head; something else whacks him on the shoulder and of course, of course his arm falls off. Something's wrong. Brains aren't supposed to do this. Brains are supposed to be the fierce rush of joy and desire in his throat and fingertips. He takes another clumsy sip -- must be the atmosphere, must be the light --
--Must be a sudden fierce blow to the skull--
And then the storm is dark and salt-sweet on his tongue and his eyes slip closed against the night. Pike sags. Fuck my undeath, he thinks, and dies, again.
From the deeper shadows, someone chuckles.
Chapter 1:
In Which Captain Kirk Attempts to Score Hot Chicks
Captain James Tiberius Kirk of the USS Enterprise could think of no better end to his first five-year mission than an entire gala dedicated to how incredibly awesome he was. Oh, sure, the crew had complained, and even he had to admit that there were better ways to spend an evening than sitting around with Star Fleet VIPs, but that didn't change the fact that the entire exercise was dedicated to the one and only Captain Kirk.
With the satisfied air of an egomaniac in his own wet-dream, Kirk surveyed the guests from his seat at the head table. The Enterprise's crew was looking nice and uncomfortable in their dress uniforms. Most had already begun to take advantage of the open bar.
They found these galas deadly dull, and they were, but Kirk had a ready-made diversion for himself. Once his old wingman Pike got here, he could go cruising for bored society ladies looking for a little action from the Man of the Hour. Just a few days ago Kirk had received an exciting coded message from his former commanding officer. Pike would be here, federation-wide bounty or no, and Kirk was beyond excited.
Kirk took a sip of wine and winked at a shapely young ambassador, then turned his attention to the guest who had just sat next to him.
Vulcan body language was an incredible thing, Kirk decided. That a man from a culture that scorned all forms of emotional expression could, with one look, clearly say My only son turned up a place in the Vulcan Science Academy so he could take orders from you for five years and I still don't know what the hell he was thinking, if he could, indeed, be said to have been thinking at all.
The Vulcan had taken another glass of wine from the waiter and was sipping it while glaring at the gala participants around them. Vulcan. Science. Academy. his body language repeated.
Kirk coughed delicately and went back to watching his crew.
Chekov was fidgeting; Scotty was surveying the room looking for an exit. Uhura had her hand under the table and Gaila, next to her, seemed unusually distracted... Kirk leaned forward to find out if these two observations were related, but the two women were seated too far away to tell. Sulu was sitting next the future version of Kirk’s very own first officer.
Spock Prime had just told a joke. Kirk could tell from Sulu's concerned expression- the expression of a man who wants to know 1) what horrible thing happened to Spock Prime that he developed a sense of humor and 2) when and why his future self had slept with Spock Prime.
Kirk's Spocky (as he liked to think of his First Officer) was sitting between Chekov and Nurse Chapel, and was monitoring the head nurse's alcohol intake with apprehension. She had already picked red wine as her beverage for the evening, and everyone on the Enterprise could tell you what that meant for Spock's personal space bubble. Yeoman Rand, on Chapel's other side, was grinning rather wickedly, and, as Kirk watched, ordered another glass of wine for the nurse.
Bones was next to Scotty, and appeared to be talking to himself, but this was nothing unusual: Kirk had caught Bones mumbling to himself on and off for the past five years and it no longer worried him.
None of his crew seemed willing to step in and help him on his mission to score hot chicks, and Pike was nowhere to be found. Resigned to his fate, Kirk turned back to Sarek, determined to make conversation.
"They sure know how to put on a spread at these galas, huh? These are the best canapés I've ever had."
Sarek raised an eyebrow that had all of his son's disdain and none of his humor, and took a long sip of his drink. "The food is, indeed, expensive. Thrift has never been one of Star Fleet's skills."
"Uh..." Kirk changed the subject quickly, "Spock's a fine officer. Best in the fleet. It's been an honor working with him."
"It's considered an honor to sit in this overheated room in a dress uniform eating dainty foods, making small talk, and listening to speeches about your contributions to Star Fleet, as well, but none of your crew seem pleased to be attending this event."
"We're holding up, though," Kirk said.
"Your doctor seems to be very jovial," Sarek noted. Indeed, Bones was giggling uncontrollably at some joke only he could hear. "Perhaps I should order..." Sarek counted the empty glasses around Bones, "five... no, six mint juleps as well."
Kirk decided the best way to win Spock's father's approval was to keep him from observing the crew's drinking. He changed the subject to something safer. "Have you read Su-Ima's latest treatise on grain distribution in the outer colonies? It raised several interesting points on the economic importance-,"
"Captain," Sarek interrupted him, "I am curious. Is this line often successful in convincing women that you are a socially-responsible and intelligent mating partner?"
Kirk could feel himself turning red, because Sarek had pegged the line's purpose exactly. "Usually, yes..."
"You have breached three topics generally used by Terran men when courting: food, family, and academics. Am I to assume that you are expressing a romantic interest in me?"
Fueled by too many glasses of wine, Kirk heard himself give the automatic response, "If you want me to be, babe."
"Good."
Leonard McCoy was not, in fact, talking to himself, but to the spirit of Spock's mother, whom he had inadvertently resurrected after he stole a cricket mallet from Spock's quarters as a prank. To make the story as simple as possible, the mallet had belonged to her, Bones was the first person to use it after her death, and she had been his constant companion ever since, invisible to everyone but him.
Bones had no problem with this; in fact, he could think of no fate better than being Amanda Grayson's one and only. (He had even taken the cricket mallet with him to the gala: it was tucked away in the coat room). It had been a good five years, that was for sure.
"Look at Cupcake, licking the frosting off that thing," she pointed to a crew member who had clearly lost himself in a baked good from the dessert table.
"These young folks, they think relationships are all about the tongue," Bones shook his head as he giggled.
"Bonsey, if I ask real nice, will you eat a cupcake like tha-," Amanda trailed off, her semi-transparent gaze turning to the high table. "Sarek and Jimmy are playing footsie!"
Bones had been avoiding looking at the table: he was acutely aware that he was the Other Man in Amanda Grayson's death and he wanted nothing to do with his rival. That, and Pike hadn't shown up yet, so Kirk would be trying to catch his eye and conscript him into Scoring Hot Chicks. He reluctantly turned to the two men he had been avoiding all evening. They looked ordinary: Kirk had a sleazy smile on his face and Sarek looked like every grumpy Vulcan Bones had ever met. "How can you tell?"
"When you've been married to someone for twenty-five years, you learn what their footsie face looks like. I'm glad it's Jimmy... he's got a good sense of humor and if there's one thing Sarek needs... Believe you me, these galas are hell without someone to giggle at the other guests with..." She fell silent, gazing at her husband, who appeared somewhat-amused by something Kirk had just said. Just as Bones was about to offer serious emotional support, however, she turned back to him, all smiles. "Do you want to play hide-and-seek in the coat room?"
Bones slipped discretely out of the main event room, his head light from mint juleps and happiness. Fuck sex, he decided, true love was playing kids' games at stuffy Star Fleet events.
Chapter 2:
In Which Scotty Goes Searching for Mayonnaise but Instead has an Adventure
What a real sandwich needs, Scotty thinks, is body: something to hold on to, something to love. He fingers a watery cucumber triangle with disdain. This? This is pathetic. This is less than a sandwich. This is a soggy handkerchief, this is an outrage. He would know.
He sighs and pulls at his collar. Poor old Scotty, he thinks morosely. Stuck at this ridiculous function instead of at home in the engine room, but, well, mandatory attendance for all officers. And of course he'd begged his best friend for company, but "No," Keenser had said.
"Come on, lad, think of the fun we could have. I'll save ye a dance." --which had just made the ornery bugger glare harder. "NO."
So here he is, alone and bowtied at the sandwich table, trying to avoid Jon Archer's glares from across the room. He's not sure whether they're meant to convey implacable fury or desperate lust and either way he doesn't fancy finding out here.
Mother of God, Scotty thinks. He needs a drink and then he needs a sandwich. A real sandwich, with thick slabs of bread and lettuce and mayo. Lots of mayo. Oh, they hadn't believed a man could love a sandwich with such passion, had they. They'd laughed, hadn't they, when he wanted sandwiches breakfast-lunch-tea-and-dinner. And then there was the day, wasn't there, when Kirk and Spock had walked in on him slathered in mayonnaise and writhing in a bed of lettuce.
They hadn't laughed then.
Well, okay, Kirk might have, and Spock never did anyway; he'd just said "Mr. Scott, you risk salmonella." But he'd shown them what was between him and sandwiches, and it was more than mayonnaise, it was love.
He sighs a little, happily. That had been quite the sandwich. Because it'd had body, yes it had. His.
Scotty suddenly finds his trousers a little tight. You know, he thinks, this is real food, not replicated. So there's got to be a kitchen in this establishment. There's got to be a nice quiet kitchen with a refrigerator full of mayonnaise and -- and cucumbers, at least, even if the bread's a total loss -- there's got to be a nice corner to have a bit of a moment. He can't take this crowd anymore.
He escapes into a corridor, and finally finds a door. It's a little inconspicuous, for a kitchen door, he thinks, but what does he know about Earth styles? He opens it, lost in happy reverie. What a real sandwich needs--
"Oh, excuse me" he yelps. "I was just looking for--" and the body of Christopher Pike, admiral, disappeared five years ago, oddly weathered, missing one arm -- the body of Christopher Pike falls at his feet.
"Just looking for the kitchen," Scotty whispers.
---
Dazed, he elbows through the starched-and-polished crowd. "Ow," people say, and "Mr. Scott! I've been wanting to--" and "Well there you are, Monty--" but he pays them no mind. There's a dead body in the closet. "Lock down the ballroom," he mutters to Cupcake, in passing.
Finally he finds Kirk. "Captain," he hisses, trying very hard to look casual and pleasant before Kirk's admiring fan club. He smiles. "Captain."
Kirk turns. "Scotty! What's wrong with your face?"
"Captain, could I have a word?"
---
"Oh, fuck," Kirk says, quietly. Across the room, the bridge crew's heads turn with the unerring instinct of five-year deep-space partners, and they converge.
"Pike's dead," Kirk tells them.
"I grieve with thee," Spock intones, eyebrowing.
"No, Spock, I mean, Pike's dead and he's here and his body is in the broom closet."
There's a beat filled with the silence of alarm. They've seen too much for uproar, but "I suppose the appropriate expression is, in fact, 'Oh, fuck,'" Spock says, finally.
Then there's a flash and a crack of thunder. A pop, and the lights go out.
Chapter 3:
In which there is a Logical Conundrum
To shriek when the lights go out is an ineffectual response, so Spock is gratified to note that only one person does; that the person is his captain is, he supposes, only to be expected. From most of the room, there are murmurs, whispers, the slightly-too-loud curses of a slightly-too-inebriated Admiralty. In such a situation, Spock thinks, the most reasonable course of action is--
"To wait," says a gravelly voice at his side.
Spock turns to greet his older self. "Ambassador," he says.
"Spock," says the Ambassador.
The Ambassador's presence is no surprise. Their contact these five years has been infrequent but regular. Spock had noted, on seeing him early this evening, that he appeared physically and emotionally healthy. It was only logical, of course, that he examine the older man, to gather data on his own future.
If it is perhaps less necessary that he note the strength in that upright posture, the beauty that remains--
Well, Kirk's curse of choice this evening has been "Go fuck yourself," and it has not escaped Spock's notice that he is uniquely able to do so. He wonders, briefly, whether the captain is intentionally teasing him. With every curse, his eyes slide to find the Ambassador's across the room. "Go fuck yourself," Kirk says, and Spock thinks, I could.
Now the Ambassador stands at his shoulder and Spock is too aware of his proximity. He swallows and determinedly does not sniff delicately to learn whether he, too, smells of cinnamon when aroused. Because neither of them is in the least aroused. Instead he asks, "Have you been apprised of the circumstances?"
"I have," says the Ambassador. There is a footstep-shuffle and Spock feels the Ambassador's warmth draw nearer. "I suggest we speak quietly, to avoid sowing panic." Spock ignores the relative warmth of Vulcan skin, as compared to human -- a warmth he has missed, these years. He lets out a shaky exhale. "I agree," he says, and turns to face the Ambassador, so that he may speak directly into the other's ear. He steadfastly fails to notice their cheeks nearly brushing.
"We have been presented with a logical conundrum," says the Ambassador, breathing slight chocolate against Spock's face, "which, of the assembled, we two are best equipped to solve."
Spock wonders whether he smells equally enticing. "I agree. Until such time as power is restored and the body may be properly examined, we must rely on -“ as a hand comes to rest gently on his elbow -- "reasoning alone."
Indeed. Spock wrenches his mind towards the more appropriate question. "Is it possible," Spock asks, "that Pike was killed prior to this evening?"
"Improbable," says the Ambassador. "The corpse was found in the janitorial closet, yet the ambient concentration of bleach molecules indicates that the floor was thoroughly mopped not more than two hours ago. However, perhaps he was killed elsewhere and then disposed of in the broom closet."
"Infeasible," says Spock, "as all guests and packages are searched upon arrival. He must have been killed here.
"Indubitably. But the killer may have already departed."
"Implausible. Starfleet mandates that all guests remain. Yet they are numerous."
"Indisputable. And we cannot deny the presence of the uninvited."
"Nevertheless," Spock sighs, finally. "The facts remain. The ball was mandatory. Departure is forbidden. The murderer must still be present."
"I agree," says the Ambassador.
"Further," Spock says, and his voice deepens, "When the lights went out, there was no one within two-point-three meters of me. Since that time the only set of footsteps I have heard approaching have been yours, which are recognizable as a variant on my own." He suppresses a moan. "I must therefore deduce that the hands currently within my Federation dress trousers are yours."
"Your logic is impeccable," the Ambassador whispers. "As I am similarly certain of your unique proximity, it is only logical to conclude that it is your tongue which is now licking my ear."
"This," Spock gasps, "is a certainty; however, in the interests of experimentation, perhaps we should each attempt empirical verification of the position of the other's tongue."
Somewhere far away, Kirk mutters, "Fuck this." -- which Spock is beginning to think an eminently advisable course of action -- and then the lights come on.
There is an art, Spock muses, to getting your hands out of somebody else's pants and folded nonchalantly behind your back with minimal fuss. The Ambassador has mastered this art; Spock has not. Faced with his crew's startled gazes, he wonders when in the course of the next century he will come to learn the technique. Eventually he gives up. There is no point in attracting undue attention, and the Ambassador's trousers are, after all, quite a pleasant location for hands.
Dr. McCoy looks at him -- at them -- at the pants -- screams, and falls over in a dead faint.
"Captain," Spock says, "I apologize for the condition of Dr. McCoy. However, the Ambassador and I have been engaged in debate over the probable culprit in the matter of the ex-Admiral, and--"
"Debate," Kirk says, slowly. "In his pants?"
Spock glances at his hands, which are still engaged. "...Yes, Jim. We have come to the conclusion--"
Kirk seems not to be listening. His cheeks are a little flushed. "Spock! I mean, Spocks!"
"Yes, Captain?"
"Yes, Jim?"
"Will you stop fondling...yourself! It is very distracting!"
"If you insist," Spock says, and manages to extricate his hands. "Captain, the Ambassador and I request permission to begin an investigation."
Kirk sighs. "Granted," he says. "But no funny stuff, okay? And somebody get Bones some smelling salts."
---
"Oh God," moans McCoy, as the Spocks set off. "I'm not opening my eyes. Are they still...are they here? I'm never opening my eyes again."
Chapter 4:
In which it is Bones in the Coat Room with a Cricket Bat
Nearly fifteen minutes later McCoy had managed to overcome his trauma enough to uncover a single eye and glare at the two Spocks, “What the hell is going on?”
“It appears that a corpse has been discovered somewhere on the premises.” The elder Spock informed him.
"Body? There's a body?" McCoy opened both eyes fully, focusing his gaze somewhere near Spocky’s left collar bone, "I wanna see."
"Nothing this fun ever happened at any of those summits Sarek and I had to go to," Amanda told him. She was literally glowing with excitement, looking more ghostly and more beautiful than Bones could have imagined, but throwing his medical expertise in the Spocks' faces took priority over revering Spock’s mom's supernatural loveliness any day.
"Ah, Dr. McCoy..." Spock Prime looked unenthused to see him. Spocky also looked unenthused to see him, but after five years of keeping Kirk alive, Bones and Spocky had reached an understanding.
"I don't believe your double vision will lead to any revelations," Spocky told him.
"Hey! I'm the doctor."
"Doctor who?" Amanda quipped beside him, and Bones dissolved into drunken laughter. The Spocks exchanged a Look.
"The Admiral was clearly bludgeoned," Spock Prime informed him. "The cause of death was determined while you were attempting to remove your visual organs with your fingers."
Bones blinked his sore eyes, "Wait... bludgeoned? As in... With a blunt object? Like... a cricket mallet?"
"Actually..." Spock and Spock Prime exchanged another of their Looks. "Yes, that would be an ideal..."
"Why the hell would anyone have a cricket mallet in a fancy gala?" snapped Chapel as the doctor's face went chalk white.
"The coat room!" he cried out, rushing past the red shirts guarding the doors before anyone could stop him.
"Doctor McCoy has been acting strangely for some time now," Spocky noted calmly. "Perhaps he has developed a dangerous mental disorder-"
"Spock!" Kirk choked out. "How can you? Bones would never kill Pike!"
"Everyone present in at this gala is a suspect, and I believe he has been missing for an indecipherable amount of time prior to the body's discovery..."
"Spock," Sarek interrupted, looking at the pallid Kirk rather than his son, "There is not enough evidence to place Dr McCoy as a prime suspect. Captain, you've had a very large shock..." The Ambassador patted Kirk's shoulder with one hand and handed him a cupcake with the other. "Eat this. The chocolate will release endorphins."
Bones burst back into the room as Kirk was peeling the paper from his dessert. The doctor strode across the ballroom, past the crew, and placed a bloody cricket mallet gently on the table in front of the Spocks.
"Oh, dear..." Amanda murmured. "I suppose we shouldn't have brought it," she sighed, "But it seemed so appropriate to have it at the end of our first mission together..."
"This..." Spock picked up the mallet and examined it closely. "... belonged to my mother. It's been missing for five years."
"Ah, well..." Bones grinned nervously. "You don't play cricket, so I figured I would borrow it for a game or two and forgot to return it..."
"You broke into my quarters and stole one of the few remaining possessions of my dead mother," Spock announced calmly. "Then brought it to this gala for unknown reasons, where it was used to murder Admiral Pike."
Bones gulped. He was a doctor, not a mathematician, but he could still calculate the seconds left until Spock decided to up the night's body count by one.
"Captain? Your throat looks swollen..." Sarek had been watching Kirk rather than paying attention, fortunately for Bones, as he most certainly would have taken Spock's side. "Are you allergic to something in the food?"
“I'm good with cupcakes," Kirk struggled to say through a swollen tongue. Sweat was beading on his forehead. He paused, swaying on his feet. "No... no, I am definitely allergic to these," he gasped out before collapsing.
"Dammit Jim!" Bones growled to himself as the assembled guests gasped.
Bones, Sarek, and (the unseen) Amanda clustered around Kirk anxiously as he regained consciousness, while Cupcake scooped up the remains of the captain's cupcake.
"This cupcake has nutmeg sprinkled on it," he declared, sniffing it suspiciously. "That's odd... None of the other cupcakes did."
"That's because Jim is very allergic to nutmeg," Bones explained.
"I told Star Fleet," Uhura said anxiously, "when I sent in our RSVP. They said they could arrange a nutmeg-free dinner, just in case..."
Spock and Spock Prime nodded to one another.
"This must be a plant by the murderer," Spock Prime announced. "Someone who knows Kirk's severe allergy..."
“Ack!” Kirk cried as his airway constricted.
"That could be anyone on the crew..." Chapel said anxiously.
"Curiouser and curiouser," Amanda muttered, heard only by Bones.
“Gggh!” said Kirk.
“Logic indicates that the Doctor is the culprit.” Spocky insisted, eyebrowing like no Vulcan had ever eyebrowed before.
“I am not!” Bones growled, He pulled out his Emergency Jim's an Idiot Hypospray and jabbed it into his friend's neck. “And why would I poison Jim? If I haven’t killed him already, I don’t see why I would decide to do it now.”
“Why would you be in possession of my mother’s cricket bat?” Spocky demanded with just a hint of the beginnings of a violent captain-choking rage.
“I…” How to explain that he was being willfully haunted by the ghost of Spock’s dead mother. And that they had sex.
Spock Prime saved the day by turning to his other self and saying in his sultriest voice, “Doctor McCoy may indeed be the murderer, perhaps we should restrict him elsewhere in the room until we have explored all other possibilities.”
“Indeed.” Spocky responded.
“No!” Bones growled, “I need to scan that body!”
“As our prime suspect you will not be allowed near the victim until our investigation is complete.”
“But!”
“Shut up and do what they say.” Jim growled past the phlegm in his throat.
“Fine!” Bones shouted, throwing up his arms and stomping off to the other side of the room.
“Oh dear.” Amanda sighed.
Chapter Five:
In Which Chekov is in the Doghouse Again
Pavel Chekov was not a nervous man. He'd faced off angry Romulans and space-viruses and one time at a party he threw up on Urhura's shoes, and he'd lived to tell the tales. Chekov had seen the most frightening things that the universe has to offer. And yet tonight, with the corpse of the corpse of former Captain Pike having been discovered and the doors locked to all comers and go-ers, Pavel Chekov was getting a little bit antsy.
He had promised Ennie that he'd be home by eleven.
For the last three months she had been sending him message after message to remind him of the impending end of their mission, fearful that once he was back on earth he would suddenly discover a love of human women (or, she had mentioned with anxious horror, men!), or be abducted and killed by the Russian mafia, or get assigned to another ship. Chekov has never encountered another being (be they sentient spacecraft or no) with such a paranoid imagination.
He thought it was cute.
In order to assuage his girlfriend's fears, Chekov had petitioned the admiralty to stay aboard the Enterprise for the duration of their leave. It had been a hard pitch, most admirals would not take "the ship needs me there" as a reason for staying in space dock when there's six months of shore leave available.
Chekov had managed to get a free pass to stay with Ennie for the remainder of leave, along with Scotty and the maintenance crew. Chekov could not express how vexed he was that Scotty didn't even have to ask to stay on during shore leave, but neither of them had been able to finagle his way out of attending the stupid celebratory gala in the end.
He had gone to the gala with a fond farewell to the ship and a promise to be home by eleven (even if he had to crawl out a bathroom window to do it). Chekov's chronometer had just informed him that is was exactly 10:54 pm, and there was no chance he will be leaving the room any time soon.
Chekov resigned himself to his fate and lifted up his communicator, logging on to the Starfleet messaging system.
SweetSewenteen (10:54:24): Ennieska? Baby?
There was a long pause where Chekov was sure that the Enterprise would not reply. Maybe she was sleeping, going through her hibernation while she waited for his return, or maybe she was assisting with some sort of computer maintenance. Chekov prayed she was asleep.
NCC-1701 (10:56:12): Pavel? Are you coming back yet? You haven't caught syphilis have you?
Chekov sighed. Ennie always got a little possessive when he was off ship for any amount of time. It would only get worse from here.
SweetSewenteen (10:56:38): What? Why would I have syphilis?
NCC-1701 (10:57:01): It's a common Earth disease.
SweetSewenteen (10:57:45): In the twentieth century, maybe.
NCC-1707 (10:58:10): Well don't give it to me. Scotty was revamping my virus detection software yesterday and I just know that my whole immune system will be wreck for days. I could catch anything. I miss you. Are you on the transport yet?
Chekov had tried, numerous times, to tell Enterprise that she could not be infected by human STDs but she remained stubbornly paranoid about it. She always insisted on condoms.
SweetSewenteen (10:59:01): About that...
NCC-1701 (10:59:48): I KNEW IT! Who is it? It's Uhura isn't it? Damn her firm, well-toned thighs!
SweetSewenteen (11:00:32): How many times do I have to tell you that I'm not sleeping with Uhura. I'M NOT SLEEPING WITH UHURA! In fact I am almost completely convinced that she is with Lieutenant Gaila. I just can't leave the party quite yet.
NCC-1701 (11:01:03): You can't leave the party because you are too busy stroking Uhura's sculpted rear. I wasn't constructed yesterday!
Chekov was beginning to think that Ennie had a thing for Uhura (and her sculpted rear). He couldn't exactly blame her. In the words of Chekov's esteemed keptin, Nyota Uhura had a backside that would stop traffic. Not that Chekov was looking or anything.
SweetSewenteen (11:01:45): I can't leave because they found Pike's corpse in the closet! The entire building is locked down!
NCC-1701 (11:02:20): I'm arming photon torpedoes.
Fuck. Chekov could hear her panicking from 35,786 kilometers away. This was going to wreck the warp core function for weeks, and Chekov would never get out of the doghouse for as long as he lived.
SweetSewenteen (11:02:40): It's all going to be fine baby. Just calm down. I should be out of here as soon as the investigation is done.
NCC-1701(11:03:06): I will not be calm. I refuse to be calm!
Chekov felt himself break out in a sweat.
-----------------
Just a few meters away, Lieutenant Mark "Cupcake" Gateau watched everything with a sharp eye and hand where his phaser should have been. He glossed over Spock and Spock Prime, who were deep in conversation over the corpse, which had been dragged into the room and placed on a table.
Their heads were craned together as they surveyed the corpse and the gathered guests, although Cupcake couldn't have been sure whether they were actually trying to figure out who the murder was or whether they were just whispering sweet logical nothings into each other's ear. Deviants.
Cupcake gently placed the dessert he had been courting back onto its plate and turned his attention to the rest of the trapped guests.
Kirk was sliding his hands along Ambassador Sarek's thigh in a way that Cupcake thought was just this side of profane. He was sure the captain would be pretending that his actions were necessary for his "recovery," the letch. Gaila and Uhura were once again lost in each other's eyes and breasts. Cupcake could see Sulu's shoe poking out from behind a tablecloth, and from what Cupcake could see the pilot was definitely not alone.
Cupcake felt a surge of shame for the perverted bunch that was his crew. How could he have gone five years with this group of over-sexed misfits? He stroked a finger across the succulent icing of a miniature cake and brought the finger to his mouth, enjoying the taste. Lemon. Sexy.
Turning his head to the left Cupcake was distracted from his pastry appreciation by the sight of young Ensign Chekov, desperately imputing something into his personal communicator.
What?
Cupcake's eyes narrowed as he watched Chekov become increasingly distressed, pressing frantically at the communicator as if it held some important secret.
Curiouser and curiouser.
"What is he doing?" Cupcake asked himself out loud.
"Who?"
Cupcake turned to see the face of his good friend Lieutenant Kevin Riley. "Chekov," he said. "Looks like he's texting someone."
"He can't do that!" Riley said indignantly, "There's a murder investigation going on!"
"So?" Cupcake found this whole thing a little... ridiculous. What harm could a few subspace messages cause?
"Don't you know how these things work?" Riley asked, "You're not supposed to contact any outside people when there's murder afoot! He could be contacting his accomplices now!"
"I'm pretty sure Chekov doesn't have accomplices." Cupcake insisted.
"Oh yeah?" Riley demanded. Cupcake was suddenly reminded that Kevin Riley was the president and sole member of the Enterprise Society for Conspiracy Prevention. "Don't you remember when he tried to kill the captain and take over the ship? Don't you?!"
"That was Chekov from an alternate reality." Cupcake reminded him. People around them were beginning to take notice, and Cupcake shifted nervously as they leaned in to hear their discussion.
"Bah! I still think he just pasted on that mustache. Ensign Chekov could have murdered Pike and poisoned Kirk. I wouldn't put it past him."
"Come on now..." Cupcake began.
"Ensign Chekov?" asked a normally silent operations officer just a few feet away, "What about him?"
"He's communicating with someone," Riley said before Cupcake could open his mouth, "Probably his fellow murderers!"
"Really that's..." Cupcake tried to interrupt.
"I always knew he was a nefarious plotter." A communications officer said from the other side.
Murmurs spread throughout the crowd of officers around them, Cupcake watched as the crowd focused in on Chekov and his desperate messaging.
"He's too cute to not be a killer."
"Take that away from him!"
"I brought my phaser!"
"Mr. Spock, I believe some of the guests are becoming agitated."
"Vhy are you looking at me like that Mr. Riley?"
"Someone arrest him!"
"What is going on?"
Cupcake watched in horror as Riley and a few of his most aggressive friends moved towards Chekov with mass-panic in their eyes. He opened his mouth to protest and...
...Ensign George, from engineering, dropped down with a scream on the other side of the room.
All eyes snapped in the direction of the fallen officer, and a single redshirt ran for the door.
Chapter Six:
In which There is a Dramatic Conclusion
The room exploded into action, the man in the bright red dress uniform sprinted for the door as various guests attempted to dive for him.
“He’s getting away!” Riley shouted, abandoning his attack on Ensign Chekov, who was texting even faster than before. The redshirt slid past the grasping hands of Riley and Mr. Scott (freshly arrived from a trip to the kitchen and holding a thickly stacked sandwich), he jumped over one of Sulu’s extended legs (poking out from under a different table), and headed for the door…
…Where his head connected soundly with a bloody cricket bat which had once belonged to the late Amanda Grayson.
“I’m not drunk anymore.” Bones growled, brandishing the bat and scowling at the now unconscious redshirt. “This is unacceptable. I told you I didn’t do it!”
The Spocks spared a moment to look vaguely apologetic before they moved to apprehend the unconscious man, holding him up by the shoulders and dragging him into a chair. The redshirt’s head tipped back as they dragged him upward, revealing a set of complex and familiar facial tattoos.
Everyone gasped. Even Scotty.
“It’s Nero!” Kirk didn’t squeak.
“Mmrrgh?” Nero responded, blinking away the blunt force trauma of the cricket bat.
“What the fuck is going on, you creepy reality-attacking rat-bastard?!” Kirk demanded as Nero roused himself from unconsciousness. Fury in every line of his body.
“What?”
“You killed the admiral.” Spock (the younger) stated in a calm and rational voice, “Explain.”
“What?” Nero asked again, trying to blink away his concussion, “Chris? He’s not dead.”
“He is most certainly diseased.” Spock (the elder) informed him.
“He’s a zombie.” Nero muttered.
“A dead one!” Kirk growled, “You brained him with a cricket bat. Why?”
“I didn’t!” Nero told him, slowly gaining more coherence, “I would never do anything to hurt Chris.”
“Right.” Bones muttered from his corner, “It’s not like you beat him or tortured him for information or infected him with zombie juice or anything.”
“I didn’t!” Nero cried, “I’m not your Nero. I came through my own singularity a few years ago and I’ve been messaging with Chris ever since. I just wanted to see him today.”
The Romulan looked increasingly upset as the gathered Starfleet officers looked on in confusion. “I never even touched the Christopher Pike in my universe. He was too cute. I just knocked him and out beamed him back onto his ship.”
“That’s…” Kirk said with an incredulous look, “Absolutely ridiculous.”
“Says the man with his hand on the ass of a one-hundred year old Vulcan.” Nero growled at him. Kirk, looking guilty, casually moved both hands behind his back.
“If you are not the man who killed Admiral Pike.” Ambassador Spock interjected, “Than who did?”
“And who killed my redshirt?” Kirk demanded,”We pay to train those guys, you know.”
“It was me. I did it!” Said a deep booming voice, guests parted and eyes turned to respond to the form of another familiar Romulan moving towards the group. Ayel had dressed himself in an operation uniform and was holding a phaser, pointed directly at Captain Kirk’s head.
“Ayel?” Nero asked, “I thought you were moving to Risa and starting a brothel. What are you doing here?”
“Taking my revenge!” Ayel cried, “On you and Pike and the whole damn Federation!”
“What?” said Bones.
“What?” said Kirk.
“I don’t get it,” said Nero.
“Ever since we came through the singularity, you’ve been focused on sending stupid love notes to Christopher Pike and trying to get us all real jobs.” Ayel told him, keeping his phaser aimed at Kirk, “You dumped me for a reanimated corpse! “
“Let me get this straight.” Kirk said, in his steadiest ‘Let’s Calm the Fucker with the Gun’ voice, “Your entire planet was destroyed and you were thrown into the future, where your plot to get revenge was foiled by an upstart young captain and his inexperienced crew and you were thrown into another alternate reality…”
“That’s right.” Ayel told him.
“…At which point you decided to take your complicated and cold-blooded revenge on your captain for dumping you?”
“We were never in a relationship!” Nero pointed out.
“This is ridiculous.” Bones muttered.
“I concur.” The Spocks agreed in unison.
“I’m going to take my revenge on you so hard they’ll never get your brains out of the carpet.” Ayel growled, swinging his phaser from Nero, to Kirk, to the Spocks, and then back to Nero as if he couldn’t settle on who to kill first.
There was a long pause. The sort of pause that the crew of the Enterprise had experienced time and time again. Where events could go for the better or the worse of the earth-endingly terrible. Where men (and women) became men (and women). This was the sort of pause where Kirk would be forced to invent gunpowder. It was that sort of pause.
“Brains?” said a rasping voice from a table not-to-far-away.
“What?” Said Bones.
“What?” Said Kirk.”
“Chris!” Nero gasped.
“Brains?” Said the re-re-animated corpse of Admiral Christopher Pike, “Br-Nero?”
“Chris!” Nero cried, “You’re alright!”
“Sure.” Pike said, pushing himself up with his one remaining arm, “Although I appear to have lost a limb.”
“You can’t be alive!” Ayel screamed, brandishing his phaser, “I killed you, you manstealing bitch! I…” Ayel, having taken his eyes off of his hostages for a critical moment, fell to the Vulcan nerve pinch with barely a sound.
“We should take him to the authorities.” Spock Prime told his younger self.
“A shame.” Spock replied, “He is, in fact, rather attractive for a Romulan. Perhaps he could benefit from some sort of alternative discipline?”
Bones made gagging noises behind his hand as the two Spock’s debated the likelihood of Ayel being effectively rehabilitated.
Following Ayel’s apprehension, the Starfleet guests began to calm, once again spreading out and attempting to escape the ballroom. Christopher Pike once again looked over the collected group of his young protégés, feeling pride well in the place where his heart no longer beat. He could feel Nero’s hand sliding across his ass. All was well with the world.
Pavel Chekov looked around at his fellow officers, all paired off or happily engaged with the food object of their choice. They had survived yet another harrowing event, yet another adventure, and they were again moving back into the comfortable lives they had formed for themselves.
Kirk had given up all pretense of being respectable and was gamely attempting to reach Sarek's tonsil's with his tongue. Sarek himself was participating enthusiastically despite not having tonsils in the first place.
Spock and Spock were not making out, exactly, but the way they held hands was nearly pornographic in Vulcan society and Spock Prime was smiling in a frankly terrifying way. Smiling. Chekov dragged his eyes away. They were actually kind of romantic together, if you didn't think about it too hard.
Two new sets of legs (rather feminine legs, Chekov noticed, and that was either Gaila or someone with horrible taste in pantyhose) which had joined Sulu under the table. Bones was giggling and whispering to thin air. Nero and Pike had left and Chekov would not have gone to find them for all the dilithium in the world.
Cupcake was eyeballing the danishes.
They were all insane, Chekov decided.
"I am getting the fuck out of here." Chekov informed the room at large, no one seemed care all that much.
With a few decisive taps of his communicator Chekov sent out a final message and Ennie beamed him home.
"Welcome back, my love." Said the holographic projection of his one true love, glaring at him over the top of her glasses as she brandished a stiff leather riding crop.
"You're late."
Chekov swallowed, hard.
"I'm sorry, Ennieska." He told her softly.
"I'm sorry what?" she demanded.
"So sorry," He gasped, "Mistress."
"That's right." The Enterprise told him, "You never should have gone to that party in the first place."
Chekov felt himself being pushed towards his bed, could feel the electric-like tingle of Ennie's holographic skin.
"I never should have gone to that party." He agreed wholeheartedly.
Ship: Team Crackship
Authors: lymanalpha, kallie_starmist, and imasupermuteant
Pairings: Kirk/Sarek, Bones/Spock's MomAmanda, Spock/Spock Prime, Scotty/Sandwiches, Cupcake/Cupcakes, Chekov/Enterprise, and Gaila/Uhura, Pike/Nero, Nero/Ayel, Nero/Spock
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Crack. Incredible amounts of it.
Disclaimer: They are still not the hell our whales.
Wordcount: 7,542
- Rose Franken'>
Prologue:
In Which the Night is Both Dark and Stormy
There's a storm tonight. From above, where it's calm, the clouds bunch and quiver like cerebral folds. Pike eases the controls and his ship slices the murk, from stars into thunder. He moans and rides the wind. Beneath the clouds, there's solid ground.
Once the ship is cloaked, he checks his arm, adjusts his tux, and steps out into the rain. He's a fine figure of a zombie against the storm. The lightning cracks, and he stands in its flash: upright and goddamn gorgeous, a glint in his eye and one arm dangling at the ready. "Welcome home, Chris," he whispers.
The lights of the Starfleet Yacht Club beckon him like eyeballs. In that building is the life he left behind, filtered through five years of a different captain's orders. The crew that was his for only hours -- he thinks he can feel their distant blood pulse, the way life does. In a lull of the storm winds he imagines that their voices are a roar at the edge of hearing.
He's damn proud of Kirk, really. He'd have to be, to risk Earth again. He'd have to be, to polish his arm and coerce -- cajole -- bite a tux off a hapless trader. He is.
The clouds coil above him. It's a beautiful storm -- like intestines, he thinks. Like warp mechanics or the hypothalamus or...
Or...or...
The rain lashes the bay. Pike groans, and moans, and mutters "brains" to himself. He's a slapstick badass, not a poet.
Anyway, it's a dark and stormy night.
---
Inside, the lights are bright until he finds the shadows. It's a skill he's honed, these few years. He can cloak himself as easily as he can his ship: now you see him, now you --
There they are, across the room, the crew he knew. The scraggly children he'd yanked from bars and schoolyards: grown, polished, gleaming. Heroes of the goddamn Federation. A champagne tray glides past and he grabs at a flute. From his pocket he pulls a flask of distilled brains -- can't unlive without 'em -- and upends it into his drink. Across the hall, Jim scintillates and sparkles. Across the hall, Spock is green-pink opalescent. Uhura glows. Life, Pike thinks, and wipes at an eye. "Nice work, kids," he says, raising his glass to the beautiful, pulsing live-wire crew, and drinks.
---
Brains taste like a storm at night. Pike sips cerebral fluid and tastes a surly Romulan's memory of guarding a seawall, alone, against the midnight spray of waves. Tastes sex and violence. Somebody else's memory of flowers.
Something hits him across the temple. "Ow," he mutters, out of habit.
He laughs, then, glad to be home again. It's good to see this crew, even from the shadows. It's good to stand and watch and toast them with champagne -- mostly champagne, sort of champagne -- toast them with bubbles and brain-juice. Zombie in a tux. He grins. The world's a whirl, Jim whooping across the room -- "go fuck yourself," he laughs at someone -- it's a mess of light and color and then he's dizzy. Tilting and not grinning anymore.
Pike stumbles and the wall swerves to meet him. He puts out a hand, grabs at a panel -- the wall swings away and it's a closet, dank with bleach and mops. He staggers forward. Something clouts him hard across the back of the head; something else whacks him on the shoulder and of course, of course his arm falls off. Something's wrong. Brains aren't supposed to do this. Brains are supposed to be the fierce rush of joy and desire in his throat and fingertips. He takes another clumsy sip -- must be the atmosphere, must be the light --
--Must be a sudden fierce blow to the skull--
And then the storm is dark and salt-sweet on his tongue and his eyes slip closed against the night. Pike sags. Fuck my undeath, he thinks, and dies, again.
From the deeper shadows, someone chuckles.
Chapter 1:
In Which Captain Kirk Attempts to Score Hot Chicks
Captain James Tiberius Kirk of the USS Enterprise could think of no better end to his first five-year mission than an entire gala dedicated to how incredibly awesome he was. Oh, sure, the crew had complained, and even he had to admit that there were better ways to spend an evening than sitting around with Star Fleet VIPs, but that didn't change the fact that the entire exercise was dedicated to the one and only Captain Kirk.
With the satisfied air of an egomaniac in his own wet-dream, Kirk surveyed the guests from his seat at the head table. The Enterprise's crew was looking nice and uncomfortable in their dress uniforms. Most had already begun to take advantage of the open bar.
They found these galas deadly dull, and they were, but Kirk had a ready-made diversion for himself. Once his old wingman Pike got here, he could go cruising for bored society ladies looking for a little action from the Man of the Hour. Just a few days ago Kirk had received an exciting coded message from his former commanding officer. Pike would be here, federation-wide bounty or no, and Kirk was beyond excited.
Kirk took a sip of wine and winked at a shapely young ambassador, then turned his attention to the guest who had just sat next to him.
Vulcan body language was an incredible thing, Kirk decided. That a man from a culture that scorned all forms of emotional expression could, with one look, clearly say My only son turned up a place in the Vulcan Science Academy so he could take orders from you for five years and I still don't know what the hell he was thinking, if he could, indeed, be said to have been thinking at all.
The Vulcan had taken another glass of wine from the waiter and was sipping it while glaring at the gala participants around them. Vulcan. Science. Academy. his body language repeated.
Kirk coughed delicately and went back to watching his crew.
Chekov was fidgeting; Scotty was surveying the room looking for an exit. Uhura had her hand under the table and Gaila, next to her, seemed unusually distracted... Kirk leaned forward to find out if these two observations were related, but the two women were seated too far away to tell. Sulu was sitting next the future version of Kirk’s very own first officer.
Spock Prime had just told a joke. Kirk could tell from Sulu's concerned expression- the expression of a man who wants to know 1) what horrible thing happened to Spock Prime that he developed a sense of humor and 2) when and why his future self had slept with Spock Prime.
Kirk's Spocky (as he liked to think of his First Officer) was sitting between Chekov and Nurse Chapel, and was monitoring the head nurse's alcohol intake with apprehension. She had already picked red wine as her beverage for the evening, and everyone on the Enterprise could tell you what that meant for Spock's personal space bubble. Yeoman Rand, on Chapel's other side, was grinning rather wickedly, and, as Kirk watched, ordered another glass of wine for the nurse.
Bones was next to Scotty, and appeared to be talking to himself, but this was nothing unusual: Kirk had caught Bones mumbling to himself on and off for the past five years and it no longer worried him.
None of his crew seemed willing to step in and help him on his mission to score hot chicks, and Pike was nowhere to be found. Resigned to his fate, Kirk turned back to Sarek, determined to make conversation.
"They sure know how to put on a spread at these galas, huh? These are the best canapés I've ever had."
Sarek raised an eyebrow that had all of his son's disdain and none of his humor, and took a long sip of his drink. "The food is, indeed, expensive. Thrift has never been one of Star Fleet's skills."
"Uh..." Kirk changed the subject quickly, "Spock's a fine officer. Best in the fleet. It's been an honor working with him."
"It's considered an honor to sit in this overheated room in a dress uniform eating dainty foods, making small talk, and listening to speeches about your contributions to Star Fleet, as well, but none of your crew seem pleased to be attending this event."
"We're holding up, though," Kirk said.
"Your doctor seems to be very jovial," Sarek noted. Indeed, Bones was giggling uncontrollably at some joke only he could hear. "Perhaps I should order..." Sarek counted the empty glasses around Bones, "five... no, six mint juleps as well."
Kirk decided the best way to win Spock's father's approval was to keep him from observing the crew's drinking. He changed the subject to something safer. "Have you read Su-Ima's latest treatise on grain distribution in the outer colonies? It raised several interesting points on the economic importance-,"
"Captain," Sarek interrupted him, "I am curious. Is this line often successful in convincing women that you are a socially-responsible and intelligent mating partner?"
Kirk could feel himself turning red, because Sarek had pegged the line's purpose exactly. "Usually, yes..."
"You have breached three topics generally used by Terran men when courting: food, family, and academics. Am I to assume that you are expressing a romantic interest in me?"
Fueled by too many glasses of wine, Kirk heard himself give the automatic response, "If you want me to be, babe."
"Good."
Leonard McCoy was not, in fact, talking to himself, but to the spirit of Spock's mother, whom he had inadvertently resurrected after he stole a cricket mallet from Spock's quarters as a prank. To make the story as simple as possible, the mallet had belonged to her, Bones was the first person to use it after her death, and she had been his constant companion ever since, invisible to everyone but him.
Bones had no problem with this; in fact, he could think of no fate better than being Amanda Grayson's one and only. (He had even taken the cricket mallet with him to the gala: it was tucked away in the coat room). It had been a good five years, that was for sure.
"Look at Cupcake, licking the frosting off that thing," she pointed to a crew member who had clearly lost himself in a baked good from the dessert table.
"These young folks, they think relationships are all about the tongue," Bones shook his head as he giggled.
"Bonsey, if I ask real nice, will you eat a cupcake like tha-," Amanda trailed off, her semi-transparent gaze turning to the high table. "Sarek and Jimmy are playing footsie!"
Bones had been avoiding looking at the table: he was acutely aware that he was the Other Man in Amanda Grayson's death and he wanted nothing to do with his rival. That, and Pike hadn't shown up yet, so Kirk would be trying to catch his eye and conscript him into Scoring Hot Chicks. He reluctantly turned to the two men he had been avoiding all evening. They looked ordinary: Kirk had a sleazy smile on his face and Sarek looked like every grumpy Vulcan Bones had ever met. "How can you tell?"
"When you've been married to someone for twenty-five years, you learn what their footsie face looks like. I'm glad it's Jimmy... he's got a good sense of humor and if there's one thing Sarek needs... Believe you me, these galas are hell without someone to giggle at the other guests with..." She fell silent, gazing at her husband, who appeared somewhat-amused by something Kirk had just said. Just as Bones was about to offer serious emotional support, however, she turned back to him, all smiles. "Do you want to play hide-and-seek in the coat room?"
Bones slipped discretely out of the main event room, his head light from mint juleps and happiness. Fuck sex, he decided, true love was playing kids' games at stuffy Star Fleet events.
Chapter 2:
In Which Scotty Goes Searching for Mayonnaise but Instead has an Adventure
What a real sandwich needs, Scotty thinks, is body: something to hold on to, something to love. He fingers a watery cucumber triangle with disdain. This? This is pathetic. This is less than a sandwich. This is a soggy handkerchief, this is an outrage. He would know.
He sighs and pulls at his collar. Poor old Scotty, he thinks morosely. Stuck at this ridiculous function instead of at home in the engine room, but, well, mandatory attendance for all officers. And of course he'd begged his best friend for company, but "No," Keenser had said.
"Come on, lad, think of the fun we could have. I'll save ye a dance." --which had just made the ornery bugger glare harder. "NO."
So here he is, alone and bowtied at the sandwich table, trying to avoid Jon Archer's glares from across the room. He's not sure whether they're meant to convey implacable fury or desperate lust and either way he doesn't fancy finding out here.
Mother of God, Scotty thinks. He needs a drink and then he needs a sandwich. A real sandwich, with thick slabs of bread and lettuce and mayo. Lots of mayo. Oh, they hadn't believed a man could love a sandwich with such passion, had they. They'd laughed, hadn't they, when he wanted sandwiches breakfast-lunch-tea-and-dinner. And then there was the day, wasn't there, when Kirk and Spock had walked in on him slathered in mayonnaise and writhing in a bed of lettuce.
They hadn't laughed then.
Well, okay, Kirk might have, and Spock never did anyway; he'd just said "Mr. Scott, you risk salmonella." But he'd shown them what was between him and sandwiches, and it was more than mayonnaise, it was love.
He sighs a little, happily. That had been quite the sandwich. Because it'd had body, yes it had. His.
Scotty suddenly finds his trousers a little tight. You know, he thinks, this is real food, not replicated. So there's got to be a kitchen in this establishment. There's got to be a nice quiet kitchen with a refrigerator full of mayonnaise and -- and cucumbers, at least, even if the bread's a total loss -- there's got to be a nice corner to have a bit of a moment. He can't take this crowd anymore.
He escapes into a corridor, and finally finds a door. It's a little inconspicuous, for a kitchen door, he thinks, but what does he know about Earth styles? He opens it, lost in happy reverie. What a real sandwich needs--
"Oh, excuse me" he yelps. "I was just looking for--" and the body of Christopher Pike, admiral, disappeared five years ago, oddly weathered, missing one arm -- the body of Christopher Pike falls at his feet.
"Just looking for the kitchen," Scotty whispers.
---
Dazed, he elbows through the starched-and-polished crowd. "Ow," people say, and "Mr. Scott! I've been wanting to--" and "Well there you are, Monty--" but he pays them no mind. There's a dead body in the closet. "Lock down the ballroom," he mutters to Cupcake, in passing.
Finally he finds Kirk. "Captain," he hisses, trying very hard to look casual and pleasant before Kirk's admiring fan club. He smiles. "Captain."
Kirk turns. "Scotty! What's wrong with your face?"
"Captain, could I have a word?"
---
"Oh, fuck," Kirk says, quietly. Across the room, the bridge crew's heads turn with the unerring instinct of five-year deep-space partners, and they converge.
"Pike's dead," Kirk tells them.
"I grieve with thee," Spock intones, eyebrowing.
"No, Spock, I mean, Pike's dead and he's here and his body is in the broom closet."
There's a beat filled with the silence of alarm. They've seen too much for uproar, but "I suppose the appropriate expression is, in fact, 'Oh, fuck,'" Spock says, finally.
Then there's a flash and a crack of thunder. A pop, and the lights go out.
Chapter 3:
In which there is a Logical Conundrum
To shriek when the lights go out is an ineffectual response, so Spock is gratified to note that only one person does; that the person is his captain is, he supposes, only to be expected. From most of the room, there are murmurs, whispers, the slightly-too-loud curses of a slightly-too-inebriated Admiralty. In such a situation, Spock thinks, the most reasonable course of action is--
"To wait," says a gravelly voice at his side.
Spock turns to greet his older self. "Ambassador," he says.
"Spock," says the Ambassador.
The Ambassador's presence is no surprise. Their contact these five years has been infrequent but regular. Spock had noted, on seeing him early this evening, that he appeared physically and emotionally healthy. It was only logical, of course, that he examine the older man, to gather data on his own future.
If it is perhaps less necessary that he note the strength in that upright posture, the beauty that remains--
Well, Kirk's curse of choice this evening has been "Go fuck yourself," and it has not escaped Spock's notice that he is uniquely able to do so. He wonders, briefly, whether the captain is intentionally teasing him. With every curse, his eyes slide to find the Ambassador's across the room. "Go fuck yourself," Kirk says, and Spock thinks, I could.
Now the Ambassador stands at his shoulder and Spock is too aware of his proximity. He swallows and determinedly does not sniff delicately to learn whether he, too, smells of cinnamon when aroused. Because neither of them is in the least aroused. Instead he asks, "Have you been apprised of the circumstances?"
"I have," says the Ambassador. There is a footstep-shuffle and Spock feels the Ambassador's warmth draw nearer. "I suggest we speak quietly, to avoid sowing panic." Spock ignores the relative warmth of Vulcan skin, as compared to human -- a warmth he has missed, these years. He lets out a shaky exhale. "I agree," he says, and turns to face the Ambassador, so that he may speak directly into the other's ear. He steadfastly fails to notice their cheeks nearly brushing.
"We have been presented with a logical conundrum," says the Ambassador, breathing slight chocolate against Spock's face, "which, of the assembled, we two are best equipped to solve."
Spock wonders whether he smells equally enticing. "I agree. Until such time as power is restored and the body may be properly examined, we must rely on -“ as a hand comes to rest gently on his elbow -- "reasoning alone."
Indeed. Spock wrenches his mind towards the more appropriate question. "Is it possible," Spock asks, "that Pike was killed prior to this evening?"
"Improbable," says the Ambassador. "The corpse was found in the janitorial closet, yet the ambient concentration of bleach molecules indicates that the floor was thoroughly mopped not more than two hours ago. However, perhaps he was killed elsewhere and then disposed of in the broom closet."
"Infeasible," says Spock, "as all guests and packages are searched upon arrival. He must have been killed here.
"Indubitably. But the killer may have already departed."
"Implausible. Starfleet mandates that all guests remain. Yet they are numerous."
"Indisputable. And we cannot deny the presence of the uninvited."
"Nevertheless," Spock sighs, finally. "The facts remain. The ball was mandatory. Departure is forbidden. The murderer must still be present."
"I agree," says the Ambassador.
"Further," Spock says, and his voice deepens, "When the lights went out, there was no one within two-point-three meters of me. Since that time the only set of footsteps I have heard approaching have been yours, which are recognizable as a variant on my own." He suppresses a moan. "I must therefore deduce that the hands currently within my Federation dress trousers are yours."
"Your logic is impeccable," the Ambassador whispers. "As I am similarly certain of your unique proximity, it is only logical to conclude that it is your tongue which is now licking my ear."
"This," Spock gasps, "is a certainty; however, in the interests of experimentation, perhaps we should each attempt empirical verification of the position of the other's tongue."
Somewhere far away, Kirk mutters, "Fuck this." -- which Spock is beginning to think an eminently advisable course of action -- and then the lights come on.
There is an art, Spock muses, to getting your hands out of somebody else's pants and folded nonchalantly behind your back with minimal fuss. The Ambassador has mastered this art; Spock has not. Faced with his crew's startled gazes, he wonders when in the course of the next century he will come to learn the technique. Eventually he gives up. There is no point in attracting undue attention, and the Ambassador's trousers are, after all, quite a pleasant location for hands.
Dr. McCoy looks at him -- at them -- at the pants -- screams, and falls over in a dead faint.
"Captain," Spock says, "I apologize for the condition of Dr. McCoy. However, the Ambassador and I have been engaged in debate over the probable culprit in the matter of the ex-Admiral, and--"
"Debate," Kirk says, slowly. "In his pants?"
Spock glances at his hands, which are still engaged. "...Yes, Jim. We have come to the conclusion--"
Kirk seems not to be listening. His cheeks are a little flushed. "Spock! I mean, Spocks!"
"Yes, Captain?"
"Yes, Jim?"
"Will you stop fondling...yourself! It is very distracting!"
"If you insist," Spock says, and manages to extricate his hands. "Captain, the Ambassador and I request permission to begin an investigation."
Kirk sighs. "Granted," he says. "But no funny stuff, okay? And somebody get Bones some smelling salts."
---
"Oh God," moans McCoy, as the Spocks set off. "I'm not opening my eyes. Are they still...are they here? I'm never opening my eyes again."
Chapter 4:
In which it is Bones in the Coat Room with a Cricket Bat
Nearly fifteen minutes later McCoy had managed to overcome his trauma enough to uncover a single eye and glare at the two Spocks, “What the hell is going on?”
“It appears that a corpse has been discovered somewhere on the premises.” The elder Spock informed him.
"Body? There's a body?" McCoy opened both eyes fully, focusing his gaze somewhere near Spocky’s left collar bone, "I wanna see."
"Nothing this fun ever happened at any of those summits Sarek and I had to go to," Amanda told him. She was literally glowing with excitement, looking more ghostly and more beautiful than Bones could have imagined, but throwing his medical expertise in the Spocks' faces took priority over revering Spock’s mom's supernatural loveliness any day.
"Ah, Dr. McCoy..." Spock Prime looked unenthused to see him. Spocky also looked unenthused to see him, but after five years of keeping Kirk alive, Bones and Spocky had reached an understanding.
"I don't believe your double vision will lead to any revelations," Spocky told him.
"Hey! I'm the doctor."
"Doctor who?" Amanda quipped beside him, and Bones dissolved into drunken laughter. The Spocks exchanged a Look.
"The Admiral was clearly bludgeoned," Spock Prime informed him. "The cause of death was determined while you were attempting to remove your visual organs with your fingers."
Bones blinked his sore eyes, "Wait... bludgeoned? As in... With a blunt object? Like... a cricket mallet?"
"Actually..." Spock and Spock Prime exchanged another of their Looks. "Yes, that would be an ideal..."
"Why the hell would anyone have a cricket mallet in a fancy gala?" snapped Chapel as the doctor's face went chalk white.
"The coat room!" he cried out, rushing past the red shirts guarding the doors before anyone could stop him.
"Doctor McCoy has been acting strangely for some time now," Spocky noted calmly. "Perhaps he has developed a dangerous mental disorder-"
"Spock!" Kirk choked out. "How can you? Bones would never kill Pike!"
"Everyone present in at this gala is a suspect, and I believe he has been missing for an indecipherable amount of time prior to the body's discovery..."
"Spock," Sarek interrupted, looking at the pallid Kirk rather than his son, "There is not enough evidence to place Dr McCoy as a prime suspect. Captain, you've had a very large shock..." The Ambassador patted Kirk's shoulder with one hand and handed him a cupcake with the other. "Eat this. The chocolate will release endorphins."
Bones burst back into the room as Kirk was peeling the paper from his dessert. The doctor strode across the ballroom, past the crew, and placed a bloody cricket mallet gently on the table in front of the Spocks.
"Oh, dear..." Amanda murmured. "I suppose we shouldn't have brought it," she sighed, "But it seemed so appropriate to have it at the end of our first mission together..."
"This..." Spock picked up the mallet and examined it closely. "... belonged to my mother. It's been missing for five years."
"Ah, well..." Bones grinned nervously. "You don't play cricket, so I figured I would borrow it for a game or two and forgot to return it..."
"You broke into my quarters and stole one of the few remaining possessions of my dead mother," Spock announced calmly. "Then brought it to this gala for unknown reasons, where it was used to murder Admiral Pike."
Bones gulped. He was a doctor, not a mathematician, but he could still calculate the seconds left until Spock decided to up the night's body count by one.
"Captain? Your throat looks swollen..." Sarek had been watching Kirk rather than paying attention, fortunately for Bones, as he most certainly would have taken Spock's side. "Are you allergic to something in the food?"
“I'm good with cupcakes," Kirk struggled to say through a swollen tongue. Sweat was beading on his forehead. He paused, swaying on his feet. "No... no, I am definitely allergic to these," he gasped out before collapsing.
"Dammit Jim!" Bones growled to himself as the assembled guests gasped.
Bones, Sarek, and (the unseen) Amanda clustered around Kirk anxiously as he regained consciousness, while Cupcake scooped up the remains of the captain's cupcake.
"This cupcake has nutmeg sprinkled on it," he declared, sniffing it suspiciously. "That's odd... None of the other cupcakes did."
"That's because Jim is very allergic to nutmeg," Bones explained.
"I told Star Fleet," Uhura said anxiously, "when I sent in our RSVP. They said they could arrange a nutmeg-free dinner, just in case..."
Spock and Spock Prime nodded to one another.
"This must be a plant by the murderer," Spock Prime announced. "Someone who knows Kirk's severe allergy..."
“Ack!” Kirk cried as his airway constricted.
"That could be anyone on the crew..." Chapel said anxiously.
"Curiouser and curiouser," Amanda muttered, heard only by Bones.
“Gggh!” said Kirk.
“Logic indicates that the Doctor is the culprit.” Spocky insisted, eyebrowing like no Vulcan had ever eyebrowed before.
“I am not!” Bones growled, He pulled out his Emergency Jim's an Idiot Hypospray and jabbed it into his friend's neck. “And why would I poison Jim? If I haven’t killed him already, I don’t see why I would decide to do it now.”
“Why would you be in possession of my mother’s cricket bat?” Spocky demanded with just a hint of the beginnings of a violent captain-choking rage.
“I…” How to explain that he was being willfully haunted by the ghost of Spock’s dead mother. And that they had sex.
Spock Prime saved the day by turning to his other self and saying in his sultriest voice, “Doctor McCoy may indeed be the murderer, perhaps we should restrict him elsewhere in the room until we have explored all other possibilities.”
“Indeed.” Spocky responded.
“No!” Bones growled, “I need to scan that body!”
“As our prime suspect you will not be allowed near the victim until our investigation is complete.”
“But!”
“Shut up and do what they say.” Jim growled past the phlegm in his throat.
“Fine!” Bones shouted, throwing up his arms and stomping off to the other side of the room.
“Oh dear.” Amanda sighed.
Chapter Five:
In Which Chekov is in the Doghouse Again
Pavel Chekov was not a nervous man. He'd faced off angry Romulans and space-viruses and one time at a party he threw up on Urhura's shoes, and he'd lived to tell the tales. Chekov had seen the most frightening things that the universe has to offer. And yet tonight, with the corpse of the corpse of former Captain Pike having been discovered and the doors locked to all comers and go-ers, Pavel Chekov was getting a little bit antsy.
He had promised Ennie that he'd be home by eleven.
For the last three months she had been sending him message after message to remind him of the impending end of their mission, fearful that once he was back on earth he would suddenly discover a love of human women (or, she had mentioned with anxious horror, men!), or be abducted and killed by the Russian mafia, or get assigned to another ship. Chekov has never encountered another being (be they sentient spacecraft or no) with such a paranoid imagination.
He thought it was cute.
In order to assuage his girlfriend's fears, Chekov had petitioned the admiralty to stay aboard the Enterprise for the duration of their leave. It had been a hard pitch, most admirals would not take "the ship needs me there" as a reason for staying in space dock when there's six months of shore leave available.
Chekov had managed to get a free pass to stay with Ennie for the remainder of leave, along with Scotty and the maintenance crew. Chekov could not express how vexed he was that Scotty didn't even have to ask to stay on during shore leave, but neither of them had been able to finagle his way out of attending the stupid celebratory gala in the end.
He had gone to the gala with a fond farewell to the ship and a promise to be home by eleven (even if he had to crawl out a bathroom window to do it). Chekov's chronometer had just informed him that is was exactly 10:54 pm, and there was no chance he will be leaving the room any time soon.
Chekov resigned himself to his fate and lifted up his communicator, logging on to the Starfleet messaging system.
SweetSewenteen (10:54:24): Ennieska? Baby?
There was a long pause where Chekov was sure that the Enterprise would not reply. Maybe she was sleeping, going through her hibernation while she waited for his return, or maybe she was assisting with some sort of computer maintenance. Chekov prayed she was asleep.
NCC-1701 (10:56:12): Pavel? Are you coming back yet? You haven't caught syphilis have you?
Chekov sighed. Ennie always got a little possessive when he was off ship for any amount of time. It would only get worse from here.
SweetSewenteen (10:56:38): What? Why would I have syphilis?
NCC-1701 (10:57:01): It's a common Earth disease.
SweetSewenteen (10:57:45): In the twentieth century, maybe.
NCC-1707 (10:58:10): Well don't give it to me. Scotty was revamping my virus detection software yesterday and I just know that my whole immune system will be wreck for days. I could catch anything. I miss you. Are you on the transport yet?
Chekov had tried, numerous times, to tell Enterprise that she could not be infected by human STDs but she remained stubbornly paranoid about it. She always insisted on condoms.
SweetSewenteen (10:59:01): About that...
NCC-1701 (10:59:48): I KNEW IT! Who is it? It's Uhura isn't it? Damn her firm, well-toned thighs!
SweetSewenteen (11:00:32): How many times do I have to tell you that I'm not sleeping with Uhura. I'M NOT SLEEPING WITH UHURA! In fact I am almost completely convinced that she is with Lieutenant Gaila. I just can't leave the party quite yet.
NCC-1701 (11:01:03): You can't leave the party because you are too busy stroking Uhura's sculpted rear. I wasn't constructed yesterday!
Chekov was beginning to think that Ennie had a thing for Uhura (and her sculpted rear). He couldn't exactly blame her. In the words of Chekov's esteemed keptin, Nyota Uhura had a backside that would stop traffic. Not that Chekov was looking or anything.
SweetSewenteen (11:01:45): I can't leave because they found Pike's corpse in the closet! The entire building is locked down!
NCC-1701 (11:02:20): I'm arming photon torpedoes.
Fuck. Chekov could hear her panicking from 35,786 kilometers away. This was going to wreck the warp core function for weeks, and Chekov would never get out of the doghouse for as long as he lived.
SweetSewenteen (11:02:40): It's all going to be fine baby. Just calm down. I should be out of here as soon as the investigation is done.
NCC-1701(11:03:06): I will not be calm. I refuse to be calm!
Chekov felt himself break out in a sweat.
-----------------
Just a few meters away, Lieutenant Mark "Cupcake" Gateau watched everything with a sharp eye and hand where his phaser should have been. He glossed over Spock and Spock Prime, who were deep in conversation over the corpse, which had been dragged into the room and placed on a table.
Their heads were craned together as they surveyed the corpse and the gathered guests, although Cupcake couldn't have been sure whether they were actually trying to figure out who the murder was or whether they were just whispering sweet logical nothings into each other's ear. Deviants.
Cupcake gently placed the dessert he had been courting back onto its plate and turned his attention to the rest of the trapped guests.
Kirk was sliding his hands along Ambassador Sarek's thigh in a way that Cupcake thought was just this side of profane. He was sure the captain would be pretending that his actions were necessary for his "recovery," the letch. Gaila and Uhura were once again lost in each other's eyes and breasts. Cupcake could see Sulu's shoe poking out from behind a tablecloth, and from what Cupcake could see the pilot was definitely not alone.
Cupcake felt a surge of shame for the perverted bunch that was his crew. How could he have gone five years with this group of over-sexed misfits? He stroked a finger across the succulent icing of a miniature cake and brought the finger to his mouth, enjoying the taste. Lemon. Sexy.
Turning his head to the left Cupcake was distracted from his pastry appreciation by the sight of young Ensign Chekov, desperately imputing something into his personal communicator.
What?
Cupcake's eyes narrowed as he watched Chekov become increasingly distressed, pressing frantically at the communicator as if it held some important secret.
Curiouser and curiouser.
"What is he doing?" Cupcake asked himself out loud.
"Who?"
Cupcake turned to see the face of his good friend Lieutenant Kevin Riley. "Chekov," he said. "Looks like he's texting someone."
"He can't do that!" Riley said indignantly, "There's a murder investigation going on!"
"So?" Cupcake found this whole thing a little... ridiculous. What harm could a few subspace messages cause?
"Don't you know how these things work?" Riley asked, "You're not supposed to contact any outside people when there's murder afoot! He could be contacting his accomplices now!"
"I'm pretty sure Chekov doesn't have accomplices." Cupcake insisted.
"Oh yeah?" Riley demanded. Cupcake was suddenly reminded that Kevin Riley was the president and sole member of the Enterprise Society for Conspiracy Prevention. "Don't you remember when he tried to kill the captain and take over the ship? Don't you?!"
"That was Chekov from an alternate reality." Cupcake reminded him. People around them were beginning to take notice, and Cupcake shifted nervously as they leaned in to hear their discussion.
"Bah! I still think he just pasted on that mustache. Ensign Chekov could have murdered Pike and poisoned Kirk. I wouldn't put it past him."
"Come on now..." Cupcake began.
"Ensign Chekov?" asked a normally silent operations officer just a few feet away, "What about him?"
"He's communicating with someone," Riley said before Cupcake could open his mouth, "Probably his fellow murderers!"
"Really that's..." Cupcake tried to interrupt.
"I always knew he was a nefarious plotter." A communications officer said from the other side.
Murmurs spread throughout the crowd of officers around them, Cupcake watched as the crowd focused in on Chekov and his desperate messaging.
"He's too cute to not be a killer."
"Take that away from him!"
"I brought my phaser!"
"Mr. Spock, I believe some of the guests are becoming agitated."
"Vhy are you looking at me like that Mr. Riley?"
"Someone arrest him!"
"What is going on?"
Cupcake watched in horror as Riley and a few of his most aggressive friends moved towards Chekov with mass-panic in their eyes. He opened his mouth to protest and...
...Ensign George, from engineering, dropped down with a scream on the other side of the room.
All eyes snapped in the direction of the fallen officer, and a single redshirt ran for the door.
Chapter Six:
In which There is a Dramatic Conclusion
The room exploded into action, the man in the bright red dress uniform sprinted for the door as various guests attempted to dive for him.
“He’s getting away!” Riley shouted, abandoning his attack on Ensign Chekov, who was texting even faster than before. The redshirt slid past the grasping hands of Riley and Mr. Scott (freshly arrived from a trip to the kitchen and holding a thickly stacked sandwich), he jumped over one of Sulu’s extended legs (poking out from under a different table), and headed for the door…
…Where his head connected soundly with a bloody cricket bat which had once belonged to the late Amanda Grayson.
“I’m not drunk anymore.” Bones growled, brandishing the bat and scowling at the now unconscious redshirt. “This is unacceptable. I told you I didn’t do it!”
The Spocks spared a moment to look vaguely apologetic before they moved to apprehend the unconscious man, holding him up by the shoulders and dragging him into a chair. The redshirt’s head tipped back as they dragged him upward, revealing a set of complex and familiar facial tattoos.
Everyone gasped. Even Scotty.
“It’s Nero!” Kirk didn’t squeak.
“Mmrrgh?” Nero responded, blinking away the blunt force trauma of the cricket bat.
“What the fuck is going on, you creepy reality-attacking rat-bastard?!” Kirk demanded as Nero roused himself from unconsciousness. Fury in every line of his body.
“What?”
“You killed the admiral.” Spock (the younger) stated in a calm and rational voice, “Explain.”
“What?” Nero asked again, trying to blink away his concussion, “Chris? He’s not dead.”
“He is most certainly diseased.” Spock (the elder) informed him.
“He’s a zombie.” Nero muttered.
“A dead one!” Kirk growled, “You brained him with a cricket bat. Why?”
“I didn’t!” Nero told him, slowly gaining more coherence, “I would never do anything to hurt Chris.”
“Right.” Bones muttered from his corner, “It’s not like you beat him or tortured him for information or infected him with zombie juice or anything.”
“I didn’t!” Nero cried, “I’m not your Nero. I came through my own singularity a few years ago and I’ve been messaging with Chris ever since. I just wanted to see him today.”
The Romulan looked increasingly upset as the gathered Starfleet officers looked on in confusion. “I never even touched the Christopher Pike in my universe. He was too cute. I just knocked him and out beamed him back onto his ship.”
“That’s…” Kirk said with an incredulous look, “Absolutely ridiculous.”
“Says the man with his hand on the ass of a one-hundred year old Vulcan.” Nero growled at him. Kirk, looking guilty, casually moved both hands behind his back.
“If you are not the man who killed Admiral Pike.” Ambassador Spock interjected, “Than who did?”
“And who killed my redshirt?” Kirk demanded,”We pay to train those guys, you know.”
“It was me. I did it!” Said a deep booming voice, guests parted and eyes turned to respond to the form of another familiar Romulan moving towards the group. Ayel had dressed himself in an operation uniform and was holding a phaser, pointed directly at Captain Kirk’s head.
“Ayel?” Nero asked, “I thought you were moving to Risa and starting a brothel. What are you doing here?”
“Taking my revenge!” Ayel cried, “On you and Pike and the whole damn Federation!”
“What?” said Bones.
“What?” said Kirk.
“I don’t get it,” said Nero.
“Ever since we came through the singularity, you’ve been focused on sending stupid love notes to Christopher Pike and trying to get us all real jobs.” Ayel told him, keeping his phaser aimed at Kirk, “You dumped me for a reanimated corpse! “
“Let me get this straight.” Kirk said, in his steadiest ‘Let’s Calm the Fucker with the Gun’ voice, “Your entire planet was destroyed and you were thrown into the future, where your plot to get revenge was foiled by an upstart young captain and his inexperienced crew and you were thrown into another alternate reality…”
“That’s right.” Ayel told him.
“…At which point you decided to take your complicated and cold-blooded revenge on your captain for dumping you?”
“We were never in a relationship!” Nero pointed out.
“This is ridiculous.” Bones muttered.
“I concur.” The Spocks agreed in unison.
“I’m going to take my revenge on you so hard they’ll never get your brains out of the carpet.” Ayel growled, swinging his phaser from Nero, to Kirk, to the Spocks, and then back to Nero as if he couldn’t settle on who to kill first.
There was a long pause. The sort of pause that the crew of the Enterprise had experienced time and time again. Where events could go for the better or the worse of the earth-endingly terrible. Where men (and women) became men (and women). This was the sort of pause where Kirk would be forced to invent gunpowder. It was that sort of pause.
“Brains?” said a rasping voice from a table not-to-far-away.
“What?” Said Bones.
“What?” Said Kirk.”
“Chris!” Nero gasped.
“Brains?” Said the re-re-animated corpse of Admiral Christopher Pike, “Br-Nero?”
“Chris!” Nero cried, “You’re alright!”
“Sure.” Pike said, pushing himself up with his one remaining arm, “Although I appear to have lost a limb.”
“You can’t be alive!” Ayel screamed, brandishing his phaser, “I killed you, you manstealing bitch! I…” Ayel, having taken his eyes off of his hostages for a critical moment, fell to the Vulcan nerve pinch with barely a sound.
“We should take him to the authorities.” Spock Prime told his younger self.
“A shame.” Spock replied, “He is, in fact, rather attractive for a Romulan. Perhaps he could benefit from some sort of alternative discipline?”
Bones made gagging noises behind his hand as the two Spock’s debated the likelihood of Ayel being effectively rehabilitated.
Following Ayel’s apprehension, the Starfleet guests began to calm, once again spreading out and attempting to escape the ballroom. Christopher Pike once again looked over the collected group of his young protégés, feeling pride well in the place where his heart no longer beat. He could feel Nero’s hand sliding across his ass. All was well with the world.
Pavel Chekov looked around at his fellow officers, all paired off or happily engaged with the food object of their choice. They had survived yet another harrowing event, yet another adventure, and they were again moving back into the comfortable lives they had formed for themselves.
Kirk had given up all pretense of being respectable and was gamely attempting to reach Sarek's tonsil's with his tongue. Sarek himself was participating enthusiastically despite not having tonsils in the first place.
Spock and Spock were not making out, exactly, but the way they held hands was nearly pornographic in Vulcan society and Spock Prime was smiling in a frankly terrifying way. Smiling. Chekov dragged his eyes away. They were actually kind of romantic together, if you didn't think about it too hard.
Two new sets of legs (rather feminine legs, Chekov noticed, and that was either Gaila or someone with horrible taste in pantyhose) which had joined Sulu under the table. Bones was giggling and whispering to thin air. Nero and Pike had left and Chekov would not have gone to find them for all the dilithium in the world.
Cupcake was eyeballing the danishes.
They were all insane, Chekov decided.
"I am getting the fuck out of here." Chekov informed the room at large, no one seemed care all that much.
With a few decisive taps of his communicator Chekov sent out a final message and Ennie beamed him home.
"Welcome back, my love." Said the holographic projection of his one true love, glaring at him over the top of her glasses as she brandished a stiff leather riding crop.
"You're late."
Chekov swallowed, hard.
"I'm sorry, Ennieska." He told her softly.
"I'm sorry what?" she demanded.
"So sorry," He gasped, "Mistress."
"That's right." The Enterprise told him, "You never should have gone to that party in the first place."
Chekov felt himself being pushed towards his bed, could feel the electric-like tingle of Ennie's holographic skin.
"I never should have gone to that party." He agreed wholeheartedly.