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"Cry Havoc"
By MissAnnThropic
Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: None of its mine. I’m just a sad little fangirl that spends her days writing fanfic and watching taped episodes of my favorite shows. :(
Description: The evolution of Trip and T’Pol’s relationship following the events in ‘Harbinger’.
Chapter 1
"Doesn't mean we can't keep doing the neuropressure, though."
T'Pol did not flinch to an untrained eye, did not so much as pause to an outward observer, but the man sitting directly across from her was far from either. Commander Tucker's aptitude at reading the Vulcan science officer was uncanny, heightened, and she knew he perceived her infinitesimal flicker of being caught off-guard in the partially turned away, cant-head look he cast in her direction.
T'Pol soon had her cup of tea at her lips, a feeble but physical barrier against the chief engineer, and as she took a sip her eyes did a very human thing... they darted. She could hardly help the gesture... she was uncomfortable. There was something charged, intimate, in Trip's seemingly off-hand comment. She knew him well, could read his tones sometimes better than she comprehended his colorful speech, and she knew all he'd just said, all he'd insisted, was for nought. He would not forget their 'encounter' last night... at least not any time soon.
T'Pol swallowed with deliberation, lowered her cup, and met his gaze head-on. She would have to be the pillar of strength, the wellspring providing enforcement and reiteration that their 'experience' last night was not the prelude to something more. It could not be, at any cost.
Her manner was cool and collected as she said, "Until it has been established that you would no longer experience sleep disturbances without the neuropressure it is only logical our sessions continue. The Enterprise would suffer the inefficiency of a chronically exhausted chief engineer."
Trip watched her a moment, no more than three seconds, but in that time a stony resolution came over his face. As good as T'Pol was at reading his vocal intonations and nonverbal communication, he was just as good at reading her. He picked up on her demeanor, the chill dismissal of their previous closeness standing as stark reaffirmation of everything she'd said only moments ago, and quickly he adapted to match her.
Trip became distant, professional, without a centimeter of movement in his body posture or his facial expression.
T'Pol blinked calmly as she watched him transform. A small seed of relief budded within her to see him reverting to the colleague she'd befriended. This was the only way it could be. She would not allow this human to sway her, to affect her.
"Can't have the ship fallin' apart on account a me, can we?" Trip commented dryly, if not with a hint of sincerity, then he sighed, defeated. His voice lost the measure of acidity it had gained when he said, "I better get back ta engineerin', I have some things to do. See ya later, Sub-commander."
T'Pol nodded, "Commander," then watched impassively as he rose from his seat and made his way out of the mess hall. Her gaze lingered on the door in the wake of his departure only a fraction of a second before dropping back down to her cup of tea.
T'Pol saw from the corner of her eye the crewmen at the table near her. She knew they had not heard, human hearing was too poor to register the hushed conversation she and the commander had had, but still they were attentive to her solitary breakfast.
T'Pol refused to look at them, not because she was made uneasy by their covert scrutiny but because it would make them uncomfortable. T'Pol had grown accustomed to the reaction she still engendered from many among the crew. She had been accepted as a member of the Enterprise crew, respected for the skills she possessed, but on a personal level many of the humans still preferred to relate to her from a distance and through an intermediary such as Captain Archer.
T'Pol had confessed to herself some time ago that the awkwardness was not entirely one-sided. On the whole T'Pol was still poor at human relations. Theirs was a culture difficult for Vulcans to grasp, filled with emotional nuances and subtleties nonexistent in T'Pol's native society. It was a select handful of humans aboard Enterprise around whom T'Pol was not put at some appreciable measure of disquiet. Commander Tucker was one of those few.
T'Pol, unconcerned with the looks slanted toward her from the human diners, lifted her head and pensively considered the doorway to the mess hall. Truth be told, Trip was the human, against all logic, that she was now most comfortable around. For a long time T'Pol felt closest to Captain Archer, soothed by the layer of professionalism between them, a buffer zone with which she was familiar. She had been resistant to explore human companionship beyond that safety zone.
Then the neuropressure sessions with Commander Tucker began.
T'Pol took in a short breath as she remembered that initial impromptu session. When Trip had first administered neuropressure to her she'd been somewhat startled by his actions. With minimal direction he found the exact neural node and with little prompting exerted more or less the proper amount of stimulating pressure. T'Pol had been braced for pain from ineptitude, but Trip had surprised her.
'Because his are the hands of precision, trained for both demanding and delicate work,' T'Pol mused as she sipped again at her tea. It was one of many facts about Charles Tucker that she had gleaned through interactions with him. Trip was without question a man who knew his hands well, and was very in tune with their movements. T'Pol had never complimented Trip his dexterity, the human utterly unaware of how he'd impressed the unflappable science officer. Instead, she had settled far too easily and far too quickly into an unstrained comfort in his presence, engaging in close and frequent physical contact with him, that had ultimately led to this.
T'Pol could not allow this progression to escalate. What happened last night could not recur. Her companionship with Commander Tucker had become dangerous; her Vulcan veneer of detached control wavered around Trip. Neither he nor she was prepared for the consequences of any further emotional entanglement between them.
T'Pol made this decision for the both of them, vindicated in her certainty it was both logical and right, and finished her tea with outwardly untouched calm. It was a stubborn, buried part of her, a piece of herself she fought with all her Vulcan control, that mourned the loss of an interpersonal closeness that had been growing and spreading with illogical tendrils of comfort and peace even as it ignited confusion and fear.
It was fortunate that T'Pol was Vulcan and none of these emotions, these feelings, could alter her judgment. Such human failings that might have bested another would not challenge T'Pol's reigning logic... certainly not on this, so personal a matter.
*****
Wonderfully feminine form, more angular than a human woman's, sharper and more severe in body as well as visage. Her skin tone bronzed, tanned but tinted just enough, enough to distinguish the expanse of her tantalizing flesh as exotic to his senses.
Commander Charles Tucker's lips thinned and his gaze narrowed in intense concentration as he focused on the diagnostic read-outs displayed in front of him. Engineering was a quiet hum of efficiency surrounding him, Trip's team going about their work diligently, sparing now and then the usual small talk and idle conversation.
Commander Tucker had not partaken of any of the amiable chit-chat in the two hours he'd been on duty, since leaving T'Pol in the mess hall at breakfast, and his people had picked up soon enough that he wasn't in the mood to be approached for anything less than ship's business.
With his eyes soaking up the sight of her, feeding on the carnal presence she was creating. His gaze returning to hers after what seemed an era visually trekking her Sahara skin.
Trip glowered at the computer access panel before him as though it were to blame and mentally attacked the numbers and measures with a furious singularity of purpose. It wasn't that he was faced with anything particularly difficult, simple routine warp engine checks... he just kept getting distracted.
That was being kind, because 'distraction' was a mild word for what Trip was experiencing at that moment. He had learned to work through distraction in the academy, but he'd never quite been distracted like this. He couldn't get T'Pol out of his mind.
The tantalizing feel and the taste of her lips when they kissed. Soft and slightly wavering, pecans and cinnamon. The latter dancing at the tip of his tongue, a sun-kissed flavor fitting of a woman from a desert world.
The very real effect on him was marginally akin to being fourteen years old all over again. The chief engineer would have scoffed at the comparison to a love-sick teenager, because that damn well wasn't it. This was more like a brain infection, a festering idea of her in his thoughts that he could not shake.
He'd dismissed the vivid memories, sensory recall, as normal lingering impressions at first. Certainly, despite the line of bull he'd fed T'Pol, it was an incredibly memorable night. When an hour passed and he found himself failing to brush the incident to the back of his mind when work demanded his attention, when T'Pol clung to his thoughts like plasma particles, he started to suspect this wasn't just the work of memory... at least, not typical human memory. Sure as hell not the way Trip Tucker's mind usually functioned, because if nothing else he knew how to put work in its proper place when it came to a hierarchy of priorities.
Inside his head, T'Pol was grossly out of line.
Nutmeg and sun-bleached sand taunting his taste buds as he swept her mouth. Thoroughly fascinating, the flavor of T'Pol impressed upon his brain.
Trip felt like a part of him was perpetually trapped, ensnared in last night, enmeshed in the memory of T'Pol's embrace as tangibly as he had held her only hours ago.
Trip struggled in what seemed an endless war with himself until finally, like a slow-warming warp engine, he hit a stride. He wasn't entirely sure if he'd truly managed to suppress the stark images in his mind or if he'd merely figured out how to disassociate that part of his mind that was hung up on his encounter with the Vulcan science officer from the rest of his mental processes. Either way, Trip discovered how to work with the preoccupying event in his mind.
It became persistent background noise, an unrelenting pest in the back of his mind.
Heat from her, rising around him and with it bringing a heady scent of sun-dried earth.
Through sheer force of will alone Trip began to adapt his work in engineering into a distraction from the repeating recollections. The harder he focused on his work, the more intense and single-minded his attention was on his duties, the more the memories of T'Pol became muted.
Trip settled into dogged execution of his tasks, sinking into the soothing hum of Enterprise's engines to drown out the remembered sound of T'Pol's reined sighs.
Her skin feverish under his touch; he could feel her body temperature soar beneath his hand and against his chest, an enchanting summer on every inch of his skin where his flesh met hers.
"Commander?"
Trip was jarred at the intrusion into his private little war. He took a moment to collect himself as he turned to one of the ensigns assigned to the engineering staff. She was standing patiently after calling his title as she waited for his attention.
"Yes?" he asked the young woman.
The crewman, her expression dour and weary, handed a PADD to Trip as she said, "Sir, power relays went down again on Deck C, sections four through six."
"Damn," Trip cursed as he scanned the maintenance report now in his hands. That particular section of the ship had experienced power failure twice in the last two weeks, traced each time back to a set of faulty power couplings. They needed to be replaced, but material aboard Enterprise was scarce and there were no available spare power relays to fix the power fluctuations for good.
Trip frowned. "Well, guess we'll have ta see what we can do about jury-riggin' them back together enough to hold a current." Even as he said it he grimaced, fully cognizant of how unprofessional and 'sloppy' such a quick-fix solution was... sadly, such backward repairs were becoming his only recourse in far too many situations. Just when he thought the day couldn't get worse he was proven gloriously wrong.
The ensign inquired reluctantly, "Would you like me to see to it, Commander?"
Trip considered her request and the work-load the repair job entailed. It was a tedious, fine-tuned job that the ensign obviously did not relish the idea of undertaking. Normally, Trip wouldn't blame her. It was a boring job that necessitated patience and diligence, because cobbling together a working power transfer circuit from a faulty relay was not an easy task.
Today, it sounded like just the thing Trip needed to keep himself busy.
"I'll handle it, Ensign, just keep me informed if anything happens down here."
With obvious relief the woman nodded. "Yes, sir. I'll put together a relay repair kit for you right away."
Trip nodded and called after her, "Make sure ya put in plenty a copper casin' strips, got a feelin' I'll be needin' all the balin' wire I can get."
*****
Captain Jonathan Archer, for lack of any other pressing business to attend to, paced the bridge. His command crew was used to such behavior at quiet hours. Jonathan Archer was a man not apt to stay still for long, and the expanses of space that held no wonders or excitement, instead a stretch only of uneventful, peaceful travel through the darkness, could task the captain. His habit of pacing was a small gesture that stemmed the restlessness he could sometimes suffer. When he became captain of the Enterprise, Earth's first long-range vessel of scientific exploration, he never foresaw these pockets of inaction.
Archer made circuits of the different stations and after so many months in service together each person manning each station knew without prompting that a certain look from their captain called for a report.
Archer stepped closer to Malcolm Reed and turned a curious gaze up toward the tactical officer.
Malcolm was ready with a quick report. "Deck C is still reporting isolated power failure, Captain."
Archer frowned unhappily. "That's the third time that section's gone down in the past month..." The captain ceased musing aloud then asked his waiting officer, "Trip still on it?" The question was more perfunctory than genuinely questioning.
Malcolm nodded. "Yes, sir, he's been down there since 0930 trying to effect repairs."
Archer sighed in helplessness. He knew Trip was doing all in his power to keep the Enterprise at peak efficiency, but the exploration vessel had been asked to give more than she was designed to offer in their unexpected mission to track down and stop the Xindi. She'd gone from ship of science to ship of war without changing any of the basic functions of which she was capable. Such a shift in mission parameters would normally require an overhaul of the entire vessel to properly adapt to the new functionary title... Enterprise had received no such luxury. Trip was a brilliant engineer, but he could only do so much with what he had with which to work.
Archer mulled a few loose thoughts over then said, "I'd like to see Trip in my ready room when he goes off duty." Maybe they could brainstorm a new method by which to hold the stressed ship together, although already the Enterprise was bound together by means no one would have imagined a short few months ago, some that positively set Trip's hairs on end.
"Aye, sir," Malcolm answered and his hands moved over the controls before him, no doubt encoding a message to Trip's quarters relaying the captain's request.
T'Pol's calm, even voice intoned from the other end of the bridge as though she'd intuited the captain's recent train of thought, "The Enterprise suffers from a lack of adequate material for the engineers to properly maintain the ship."
Archer often wondered if there was any limit to the amount of obvious statements a Vulcan could provide. His handful of years of service with T'Pol as his first officer had yet to show the bottom of that particular Vulcan cavern. "I know that, but unfortunately a quick stop over at Jupiter Station for a refit is not an option. We'll have to make due until the threat of the Xindi has been destroyed or we've literally come apart at the seams."
T'Pol did not answer, instead lifted one eyebrow in acknowledgment (or perhaps a subtle commentary on the language he'd chosen) and returned to attending to her sensors.
Archer returned to his captain's seat and sat down, suddenly tired. He felt like his ship, over-worked and over-extended. Sadly, he knew he was not unique among his crew; everyone was feeling the strain of their mission.
*****
Trip, splayed out on his back with his torso shoved into an open wall panel on Deck C, was relegated to working in the dark corridor by the light of flashlights and emergency illumination. Sweat was coloring his blue uniform navy blue in patches on his chest and back, the sputtering, coughing wheeze of the decoupled relays a sick symphony that had begun to grate on Trip's nerves after the first three hours.
Trip strung copper conduction strips from one portion of the fluttering power relay to another, intent upon finding the fine balance that would cooperate with the stored power almost desperate to flow to its proper destination.
It was demanding work, and the recurring mental images plaguing him really were not helping.
Her slim Vulcan body pressed readily into his bare human frame, a hot aphrodisiac that smelled like the sun.
Trip's hand inadvertently brushed an active power coil surface. Only barely, but enough to burn.
Trip sharply jerked his hand back, "Son of a...!" he flexed his fingers to insure he was not seriously hurt, then gave his wounded hand a moment to recuperate before sending it back into the fray but already he'd booked himself a visit to the doctor after he'd finished his work for an analgesic cream.
With every taste, every touch, he wanted her more.
Trip's irritation was building into anger. He couldn't afford the distraction, not when he had work to do. To his chagrin, T'Pol's presence in his mind refused to abide by those stipulations. The smallest slip in his concentration opened the way for memories to flood him, nearly overwhelm him, and it had to stop.
Happily nipping and suckling on her alien skin.
Trip carefully returned to his work two-handed, more cautious of the live power sources he was working with and around. Maybe T'Pol had the right idea calling a halt to their... whatever they might have had. If a closer relationship meant he could look forward to T'Pol on his brain on a continuous loop ad infinitum then it was just as well he back off.
Best to leave it alone, and maybe stay clear of T'Pol for a little while for good measure, because the mission to find the Xindi and stop them was paramount. Trip refused to be taken from that for anything... it was too damn important.
Resolution battled with nettling doubt that it would not be so easy for Trip to dismiss the idea of T'Pol and what they'd shared from his mind.
Her touch, so familiar with his body from so many intimate neuropressure sessions, skirting places with specific knowledge coupled anew with physical hunger. Trip, taken with her wisdom, the knowing way she touched him even when she faltered in uncertainty. Trip, completely taken with her.
"Ensign Harris told me I'd find you here."
Trip startled at the voice, having missed the sound of any approaching footsteps, and craning around in his confines he finally cleared the access panel enough to look up at Corporal Cole. She was standing beside his prone body in her gray MACO uniform, head cant and a teasing smile on her lips as she looked down at him. The angular light from emergency strips and strategically placed flashlights cast her face in intriguing contours and shadows.
Amanda's eyebrows twitched when Trip did not say anything right away. "Heard you've been at this five hours straight."
Trip scooted out of the panel, glad for the new distraction, and as he sat up and laid aside his tool returned, "Don't know, what time is it?"
Amanda smirked and squatted down beside him. "I'll assume it's accurate since you've got that 'lost track of time' look about you. Anything I can help you with?"
Trip stopped himself, measured his initially intended words for how they may have accidentally sounded, then said, "It's... kinda a fine art gettin' these damn things to work, and not that I don't appreciate the offer, but if ya don't have the trainin'..."
Amanda waved a hand, clearly not wounded by the slight. "I get it, no sweat. I kind of suspected I wouldn't know enough to be of any help."
Trip glanced down at his recently assaulted hand, examining the red patch of burned skin as he asked, "Then why'd ya track me down?"
Amanda smiled. "To get you to break for chow; I'm also assuming you missed lunch."
"Uh... yeah, guess I did." Rather than make any attempts to rise and accompany the MACO to the mess hall Trip basked in the breather Amanda's arrival had forced him to take. Air dried and simultaneously cooled the sweat on his face and dampening his clothes. He relished that cool breeze far more than he noticed any pressing hunger gnawing at his stomach.
"I went to T'Pol's quarters yesterday for a neuropressure treatment as per the doctor's request," Amanda suddenly said in considered, measured words, a blatant effort exerted to come off as sounding conversational.
Of all the people they had to discuss, it seemed Trip's fate today that it would turn out to be T'Pol. Trip cocked one eyebrow at the MACO. "Oh yeah?"
Amanda nodded. "She was... well, that Vulcan knows neuropressure." The last was said with obvious admiration for a well-honed skill.
Trip found himself chuckling. "That she does. Still seems like magic to me sometimes the way T'Pol can..." the engineer trailed and switched trains of thought, "Amanda, why didn't ya tell me that I was hurtin' ya when I was doin' it to ya?"
Amanda shrugged in unconcern. "A lot of the stuff you were doing DID feel good, just a few things that hit a bad spot. I didn't think it was a big deal."
Trip frowned. "Neuropressure's not something to fool around with, I could'a really hurt ya, T'Pol says maybe even cause permanent nerve damage."
"Well, you didn't."
Trip, not assuaged by the disaster averted by dumb luck, nodded absently. "Just the same, think it goes without sayin' I shouldn't do it to ya anymore."
Amanda seemed displeased with the idea but didn't outright object.
Trip found himself offering, "If ya wanted ya might be able to get T'Pol to work with ya on a regular basis the way she does with me." It was reasonable enough, but there was a gut response in Trip that didn't particularly like the course of action he'd just recommended Amanda take.
Amanda made a face at the suggestion. "Nothing against the sub-commander, but I don't think I'll be pursuing a regular client-based association with her. She can be... rough."
Trip's eyebrows drew together in confusion.
"Besides," Amanda continued, "she's not as good company as you are."
Trip stared at Amanda a moment, his physical senses locked on her but his thoughts simultaneously assaulting him again, without warning.
The shiver of barely contained ecstasy when his fingers teased her sensitive Vulcan ears, the pointed appendages' flush of green with rushing blood.
"She's nice when ya get to know her, it just takes a while to get past that Vulcan shield she puts on," Trip defended before he could stop himself.
Amanda's brow furrowed slightly. "All due respect again, but she strikes me as more or less like every other Vulcan I've met. Don't get me wrong, I respect her expertise and I know she's done as good a job as anyone can really expect from a Vulcan living among humans, but... I don't know, it's hard when the Vulcans are so vocal against us being out here."
Trip sighed in understanding. He knew exactly what Amanda was talking about... not so long ago it was his opinion as well when it came to the Vulcans. On the whole it still was how he felt, now with one exception... Sub-commander T'Pol.
"So, Commander Tucker, can I escort you to the mess or do I need to call in for reinforcements?" Amanda pressed with a feral grin.
Trip answered regretfully, "I'm sorry, Amanda, but ya better go on without me. If I don't get these damn things workin' again by ship night there's gonna be a whole section of off-duty crewmen stumblin' around their quarters in the dark."
Amanda opened her mouth to argue.
"Really, I have to finish this. Thanks for the invite, though."
Amanda shrugged and moved to leave him to his work but before she'd managed to stand she threw in, "We're scheduled for another hand-to-hand combat training session tonight."
Trip groaned and had to let his eyelids flutter shut in order to forestall the desire to roll his eyes. With all the other things on his mind he had completely forgotten about the combat training exercises in which the MACOs and Enterprise officers had been conjointly participating. He couldn't bow out of it, either, because while Malcolm might be willing to let it slide a few times Major Hayes would undoubtedly report his absence, and Captain Archer was the one who had pressed the Enterprise crew training with the MACOs to improve everyone's battle efficiency.
"I bring it up because Major Hayes and I spoke this morning and he'd prefer if MACOs sparred with MACOs, at least until the Enterprise crew members are a little more... proficient." Amanda said the last in a rising voice, obviously attempting to sound diplomatic and delicate.
Trip gave a wry grin. "Ya mean when we're not easy targets."
Amanda returned the smile. "If you want to get technical," then she cocked her head at the dirty engineer, "which I imagine you do. Major Hayes feels that a MACO is not getting a full work-out as per his physical regiment requirements when paired with an Enterprise crewman."
Trip, thinking back to their first joint session and seeing the MACOs fairly wiping the deck with Enterprise officers, conceded gracefully. "Well, he's probably right, but in our defense the rest of us have day jobs; we can't spend all day playin' soldier."
Amanda shook her head but her lips were curved in a smile. "Just wanted to tell you that it's nothing personal that I have to find a new partner."
"Probably for my own good anyway, I've got too much work to do to be stove up in sickbay because my sparrin' partner got overzealous."
"I'm wounded, Trip, to think you'd think I'd injure you."
"Well, not intentionally."
Amanda finally rose to a standing position and added in a soft voice, "I was hoping the cessation of our neuropressure sessions wouldn't mean we stopped spending time together." Her tone was openly inviting even if Trip had managed to miss the unspoken language in her unassuming stance as she watched him process her words... which he hadn't.
Trip honestly didn't know what to say because he didn't know how he felt about the veiled proposition. Today was the last day he should be expected to make any decisions surrounding his fractured personal life, especially a decision that included any woman. He liked Amanda, he genuinely enjoyed her company and they had a lot in common, but after spending the entire day with T'Pol a constant cerebral companion of sorts he felt he would be unfair to Amanda to accept any gesture of potential intimacy. He had some things to work out before he could weigh the consequences of becoming involved with someone, to say nothing about whether or not he could, in good conscience, spare the time in light of the Xindi.
"I'm sure we could find somethin' else to do other than neuropressure," Trip finally answered. He thought it was open-ended enough, however Amanda had noted the pause between her words and his. She took it for what it was. Counted among her numerous qualities was intelligence. To her credit, she seemed unfazed by the brush-off, because Trip did know how to let a girl down gently... or at least make it clear that he was trying to let a girl down gently. That coupled with the fact Amanda Cole was a woman built of sterner stuff than most women. She could not have become a MACO otherwise.
"I'm sure we can. I'll let you get back to your work."
"See ya later, Amanda," Trip bade her farewell then watched her walk down the corridor. He remained unmoved, thoughtful, until Amanda's figure rounded the hallway corner and disappeared from view.
The swirl, the fog encasing his thoughts, when she turned to tasting him. Her mouth a hot brand on his skin, trails of Vulcan fire across his chest and along his neck.
Trip gave a mental sigh of exasperation and crawled once more into the open access panel. He picked back up the gauntlet in the war pitting concentration on his work against the fermenting essence of last night with T'Pol branded on his brain.
It was turning out to be a very, very long day.
Continue to Chapter 2
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