No Endearments on the Bridge!

Chapter 1

Trip Tucker wasn't a morning person, this was true and most of the ship knew it, but usually he made due with coffee and waking up early enough to let himself adjust to being awake before he had to do anything that required him to use his brain for anything other than engineering, he could do that in his sleep and has done so a few times.

It was 3am when the call came to his quarters, demanding him on the bridge. "Commander Tucker to the Bridge.!" He shot up in bed, looking around, searching for the disembodied voice. It was Mayweather, he decided. Urgent, the voice was urgent. This thought got Trip into gear, he was on his feet within seconds.

After a bit of struggling he had tugged on his Starfleet regulation uniform, he'd saved the ship in his underwear once and was not about to attempt it again, whatever evil they were dealing with at this ungodly hour could wait a few seconds for him to dress this time.

Trip made it to the bridge in record time, but people were missing, scratch that, all senior officers were missing. The Captain was gone, he spun and Sub commander T'pol was nowhere to be seen either. He was getting a little antsy, he turned again, eyes searching for Malcolm, 'Lieutenant Reed', his mind corrected. He wasn't in sight either. No Hoshi either, what was happening here? "Status Report!" He barked at Travis.

"I don't know exactly, sir." He began, obviously busy navigating them through...something. Trip moved forward, hand on Travis' shoulder watching. "Are those asteroids?" He asked to which Travis just nodded. "We were going through an asteroid field when they just disappeared!" He said, slight panic in his voice but trying to keep it under control and focus on his job at hand.

Trip frowned "Disappeared?" he asked, incredulously. "Travis, we're on a star ship in the middle of space" He felt the need to point out. "Where did they go?" he finally asked. Travis sighed "I don't know." he said, trying to concentrate. "One second they were here, the next they were gone. Captain Archer, T'pol, and Hoshi." He explained. Trip paused in the pacing motion he'd started, it helped him think okay, Archer, T'pol and Hoshi, Reed wasn't named off. "Where is Lieutenant Reed?" he blurted out without thinking.

Travis frowned, "I haven't called him, there wasn't a security risk, no one is on the ship, there aren't any ships around us where they could have gone. They disappeared and I called you, sir." He explained. "I wasn't sure what else to do."

Trip sighed. "Good job, Travis." He said. " Go to tactical alert." He commanded, nodding when the red lights came on around the room, signaling it had been done. Next he said, "Scan for nearby ships, planets ANY place they could have gone." He said to the crewmen that he didn't know the name of that was now sitting in Hosi's normal seat. "And for the love of god, someone get me Lieutenant Malcolm Reed to the bridge, now!" He said, all but collapsing into the Captain's chair with a sigh, running a hand down his face, his heart hammering in his chest, Malcolm was still safely on the ship by some miracle.

By the time Malcolm made it to the bridge, which honestly didn't take the man longer than ten minutes, saying that Trip was stressed would be an understatement. He had them search as far as their scanners could, trying to find signs of human or Vulcan life forms. They didn't have any luck finding their missing crewmates but they did however have luck finding a Klingon bird of prey they most certainly were not looking for.

Trip was standing now, in the middle of the bridge, watching the screens in front of him. "Get us to warp, Travis." he said, accent already thick with stress, he usually hit it pretty well while he was doing the commanding but he was tired alright, very tired and he didn't have the energy for that too, thank you very much. "Where the HELL is my security officer?" He barked at no one in particular, though a few flinched as they carried on working.

About the time the words left Trip's mouth, said science officer was getting out of the lift. "I'm right heeee-ree" Malcolm managed as he walked down the steps towards the acting captain at the exact moment they took fire from the bird of prey on their heels. Now, Malcolm was usually graceful, but he was still in his pajama pants he'd found on the floor and a training Starfleet t-shirt that he wasn't even sure where exactly he'd found that. His uniform was being washed and he'd gotten grease on his back up one while he was helping said acting captain with the intake manifolds last night.

The pants were hanging low on his hips, the shirt, well the shirt hadn't exactly made it completely on his body yet, he had his head and one arm through, struggling with the second arm. This didn't help his balance. He tripped, stumbling off the last step, towards Trip. The commander caught him easily, hands ending up on some exposed flesh, unable to avoid it.

Trip's brain still wasn't online from lack of sleep. "Nice of you to join us, darlin." He drawled the last word, unaware of what he said before it got out of his mouth, far too late to phrase that differently. Well, shit. He will just go with it now, no use in letting up. "Care to get to your station?" He asked. "Blast them damn birds out of the sky, honey." Trip added,

Malcolm had moved to slip his arm in the other side of his shirt so he could pull it down, covering where Trip's hands haven't moved from, this caused the Commander to remove his hands. The lieutenant's face morphed into confusion, then once Trip kept talking, it morphed into annoyance. "Yes, Commander." he huffed, brushing past Trip to go over to his controls.

It didn't take long once Malcolm got his controls back for him to critically hit the bird of prey's engines, taking their weapons offline but leaving life support intact, they weren't heartless. "Get us out of here, Travis." He commanded "Keep searching for the Captain, T'pol and Hoshi" he added as he walked towards Malcolm.

"Good job, Malcolm." He said. "Thank you, Commander" he said, using his title coldly. Oh he was in trouble, he and Malcolm were friends now, they didn't really use titles much anymore outside of away missions. Malcolm only called him Commander when it wasn't necessary when he was mad.

"Commander," Malcolm said again, "Can I talk to you in the ready room?" he asked through gritted teeth, his accent coming out more, oh shit. "Sure thing, lieutenant" he said, adding his own use of rank out of spite. He motioned for Malcolm to lead the way. Malcolm gave a curt nod and walked towards the ready room.

Trip shut the doors behind him. "Look I'm sorry, Mal..." He began but was cut off with a finger being poked into his chest. "Do NOT call me those or any endearments while we are on the bridge. For god's sakes, Trip. We are at work." he hissed, face flushed.

Trip held his hands up in surrender. "I know I know, I'm sorry." he said. "It won't happen again." he promised. "But does that mean that I can call you those outside of the bridge?" he pushed to which Malcolm rolled his eyes. "Please, that's enough of your silly games, we have teammates to find." he huffed, pushing past Trip to leave the room, leaving Trip standing there.

Bad part is, Trip wasn't playing around, he'd called Malcolm those endearments more than he'd care to admit, only in his head. They were bound to come out sooner or later, it seems like it's sooner rather than later, triggered by being woken up early and no coffee on top of that. It was a disaster. He sighed, following Malcolm out, he'd do damage control once they found the rest of the crew.