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Something seemed off to Jim Kirk as he made his way to the bridge for the start of alpha shift, but he couldn't quite place it. Whatever it was seemed to be just at the edge of his awareness, too far in his peripheral to identify it. He thought about it until he stepped into the turbo-lift, then shook his head, pushing the feeling from his mind. It was probably nothing.
The strangeness was more apparent when he stepped off the turbo-lift onto the bridge. His senior staff were known to be very punctual, and in their entire five-year mission thus far, Kirk couldn't recall a time where any of them had ever been late. But now, walking onto the bridge, he found it emptier than it should have been.
"Captain on the bridge," Sulu announced from his seat at the helm, speaking loudly despite the fact that the only other person on the bridge to announce to was sitting right beside him in the navigator's chair.
"Where is everyone?" Kirk asked, crossing the bridge to take his place at the conn.
Sulu shrugged apologetically. "I'm sorry, Captain. I don't know where they are."
"That's odd," Kirk said, mostly to himself. But at the moment, he found himself distracted by Sulu's appearance. Since when had Sulu been this muscular? Kirk had seen him just the previous night, and Sulu was nowhere near this buff. "You're very ripped, Mr Sulu. Looking good," he said.
"Uh... Thank you, Captain," Sulu said, shrinking down in his seat a bit.
Kirk thought about about it more, and it seemed impossible that anyone could have gained that much muscle over night. He was about to ask Sulu about it, when the turbo-lift door hissed open.
"My apologies for my tardiness, Captain," Spock said, quickly crossing the room to his science station. "It will not happen again."
"Don't worry about it, Spock. It was only a couple of minutes," Kirk said, waving a hand dismissively. He frowned, squinting at Spock curiously. "What's with the sweater?"
At his observation, Sulu and Arex turned their attention to Spock, and a nearly imperceptible tinge of green touched the tips of Spock's ears. Over his uniform, he was wearing a grey, oversized knit sweater with a cowl-neck. Spock hesitated a moment. "I... am feeling chilled, today," he said, tensely.
Kirk considered for a beat, then snapped his fingers. "That's what it was. It's been a bit drafty this morning," he said in agreement. He didn't notice Spock relax when he didn't question him further, too pleased with figuring out what seemed off about his journey to the bridge.
The turbo-lift doors opened again, this time delivering Uhura to the bridge. "Sorry, Captain. I didn't mean to be late, it's just..." Like Spock, Uhura's outfit also deviated from the norm. Instead of her usual, well-kept red ops uniform, she was wearing a crumpled blue boiler suit. Jim raised an eyebrow at her, and she grimaced. "Well," she started to explain, clearly seeming embarrassed. "When I collected my clean uniforms from the service chute this morning, every single one of them was... defective."
This caught the attention of both Spock and Sulu, who both turned away from their stations, giving Uhura their full attention.
"Defective?" Kirk asked, confused. "Defective how?"
Uhura shifted awkwardly, dropping her gaze to a spot on the floor, unable to meet the eyes of any of her fellow crew members. "Well... they were all like this," she said, and unzipped her boiler suit for them to see. Under her boiler suit she wore her usual red uniform. Except there were two circular holes cut out of it at her chest, revealing her black under-layer.
"My god," Sulu said. "You've been Regina Georged."
Uhura let out a long sigh and nodded as she zipped her boiler suit back up to the collar. "Every single one of my uniforms..." She finally pulled her gaze from the floor to meet the gazes of her crew-mates, an expression of pure bafflement on her face. "I just don't know what happened!"
"Perhaps she's the victim of a practical joke?" Arex suggested.
Kirk frowned. "This is no joke, this is harassment! ... And the destruction of property," he added, as an afterthought. "Whoever is responsible for this will be caught and reprimanded. In the mean-time, go pay Quartermaster Rand a visit and requisition some new uniforms," he said, gesturing to the turbo-lift.
"Thank you, Captain," Uhura said with relief, bobbing her head. She left the communications console and stepped swiftly to the turbo-lift, and nearly collided with Doctor McCoy as he burst out onto the bridge in a rage.
"This isn't funny, Jim!" McCoy snapped, barely even registering Uhura as she dodged out of his way. He stalked up to Kirk and jabbed an accusatory finger into his chest.
"Ow!" Kirk hissed. "What's your problem, Bones?"
"This! This is my problem!" McCoy snapped, grabbing the front of his own uniform and flapping the fabric at Kirk, somewhat manically.
Kirk squinted. "It's red," he said.
"I know this is your doing," McCoy hissed, grabbing Kirk by the shoulders and shaking him in his seat. "Dammit Jim, I'm a doctor, not cannon fodder! How could you do this to me? Every single one of my uniforms! I'm marked for death!"
Kirk grabbed McCoy by the wrists and wrenched his arms away, putting a stop to the frantic shaking. "Bones, calm down! It wasn't me," he said sternly. "You aren't the only one, Uhura's uniforms are sabotaged too."
McCoy scowled and stepped out of Kirk's personal space, crossing his arms tight across his chest. "I'm a doctor, but when I find whoever did this..." He struck a fist into the palm of his open hand.
"I have a confession to make," Sulu announced suddenly, standing up to face the crew, showing off the body-builder physique that his uniform did nothing to disguise. "I'm not really this jacked. All of my uniforms came out of the service chute with giant muscles and and killer abs built in!"
"My god, it's an epidemic," McCoy exclaimed. "And not one I can do anything about."
Uhura, still lingering near the elevator, spoke up. "I think this might be affecting a lot of people. On my way to the bridge I saw a science officer wearing a plaid uniform! At first I thought it was just a bad choice for casual Friday, but now I'm starting to think it was something more sinister."
McCoy's eyebrows shot up as he remembered something. "And Nurse Chapel's uniform had a red arm. I almost didn't recognize her!"
"Oh my god!" Kirk exclaimed suddenly, pointing at Arex. "His uniform has three arms!"
"Captain," Arex said flatly, turning to look at Kirk. "I have three arms."
"Who knows how many of the crew have had their uniforms sabotaged?" Kirk lamented, ignoring Arex completely. Suddenly, he turned to Spock. "Spock! Is a defective uniform the real reason you're wearing a sweater today?"
Spock blinked dumbly for a moment. "No," he lied.
Everyone turned around suddenly as the turbo-lift doors opened once again. They stared at Scotty silently as he stepped onto the bridge wearing his ceremonial kilt. The bridge was dead silent for a moment, until Scotty threw his hands in the air, shouting, "I HAVE NO PANTS!" When there was no response but silence, Scotty lowered his arms in defeat. "The service chute stole all my pants," he said sadly. "I need those! I'm not just a floating torso, you know! If I didn't have my kilt, I'd be walking around with my unmentionables flopping about!"
"Don't you wear underwear?" Sulu asked.
Scotty gave him a confused look. "Under what?"
"Never mind," Sulu said quickly.
Kirk sighed, and stood up. "Alright, we need to get to the bottom of this," he said with determination. He walked to the front of the bridge, and turned to face the crew, standing in front of the helm. He noticed that Sulu, Arex, Scotty, McCoy, and Uhura were all looking at him with wide eyes.
"What?" Kirk asked them, confused. "What is it?"
Spock, who was at the science station and situated slightly behind the captain, took a sharp intake of air. "Captain, your ass!" Indeed, there was a butt window cut out of Jim's pants, and it was the problem of everyone on the bridge.
Kirk's knee-jerk reaction was to look over his shoulder, turning like a dog chasing his tail as he tried to contort himself enough to look at his own butt. Unfortunately, he was now mooning Sulu and Arex at close range.
Sulu and Arex each shut their eyes tight against the mooning, and each of them slung a forearm in front of their eyes when eyelids weren't sufficient to protect their retinas from the pasty white ass-cheeks in front of them.
"My eyes!" Sulu shouted, sounding like he was in pain.
"Oh fuck," said Arex, "I can't unsee that."
Kirk spun around again, slapping his hands to his butt in a sorry attempt to conceal them. Red in the face, he turned his head to look at Spock. "Uh... Hey Spock, do you mind if I borrow your sweater?" He asked, deeply embarrassed.
Spock's ears greened. "I do mind, as a matter of fact."
Kirk sagged in his stance. "Please, Spock! My butt's hanging out!"
Spock hesitated. He did not want to give up his sweater, but Kirk was so embarrassed about his wardrobe malfunction and so desperate to literally cover his ass, that Spock let out a sigh of reluctance and wriggled out of his sweater, handing it over to Kirk. There were a few gasps from the room, but Kirk didn't notice, quickly accepting the sweater and tying the sleeves around his waist, the sweater's torso hanging down behind him to cover his butt.
"Thank you, Spock," Kirk sighed with relief, but his breath caught in his throat as he caught sight of what had elicited the gasps of the crew. Under his sweater, Spock had been wearing his usual science blues, but with one glaring and notable difference. Across his chest in giant letters shouted I LOVE JIM KIRK.
Spock crossed his arms over his chest in an effort to hide the text and shrunk back under the stares of everyone on the bridge, absolutely mortified. He had an illogical desire for Klingons to beam him onto their ship and fly off with him at warp ten.
Kirk's eyes lit up. "Why, Mr Spock," he said. "I had no idea."
"I am... ashamed," Spock said stiltedly. It was all he could say. He looked down at his feet, avoiding eye contact, trying to manifest those Klingon kidnappers.
"No, Spock, it's okay!" Kirk said. "See?" Not caring that Quartermaster Rand would have his hide for ripping yet another shirt, Kirk ripped the front of his shirt open, superman-style. Underneath was his standard issue black shirt, but it was bedazzled. And unlike all the sabotaged uniforms, the bedazzling was clearly the work of Jim Kirk. Written crookedly in rhinestones and surrounded by hearts was I LOVE SPOCK.
Spock flushed greener than anyone had ever seen him flush, and Kirk's face cracked into a wide grin. "Yeah, so... wanna go out?" Kirk asked, his tone joking, but the sentiment sincere.
Still in shock, Spock squinted at him. "Out... of the ship?" He asked, confused. There wasn't breathable air out there, or a survivable temperature, and the pressure would make short work of them.
Jim snorted. "What? No, like, on a date."
"Oh," Spock said, shaking his head at himself. "Yes, I would be amenable."
"Aww," Uhura said, unable to keep the grin off her face.
Sulu leaned in close to Arex holding a hand up to prevent eavesdropping as he whispered to Arex. "I thought they were married?"
Arex whispered back out of the corner of his mouth. "I guess not!"
"What about catching whoever fucked with our uniforms?" McCoy asked loudly. He winced as Uhura elbowed him in the ribs, hard.
Kirk sighed. "Right, right. Does anybody have any ideas about who might have done this?"
As if on cue, a familiar female voice erupted into laughter over the intercom. "Get pranked, losers!" The voice said, still cackling, before it cut off abruptly, having hung up on them.
"That voice," Kirk said, thoughtfully.
McCoy grunted. "Well. We all know who that was. Mystery solved. Let's get her!"
"Smash cut!" Kirk shouted, and the bridge crew smash-cutted to the brig, where Sulu and McCoy were dragging Nurse Chapel by the arms, throwing her into a cell.
"It wasn't me!" Nurse Chapel protested, spinning around and pounding on the force-field that sprung up, keeping her in the cell. "The perpetrator wouldn't sabotage their own clothes, just look at my sleeve!" She shouted, holding up the arm that was sleeved in red fabric instead of the blue of the rest of her uniform.
"Your disguise won't fool me this time!" McCoy said. "It was your voice we heard on that intercom, we have all the evidence against you!"
"Maybe it was just someone who sounded like me!" Nurse Chapel argued. "That can't be out of the realm of possibility, I mean, ninety-percent of the people on this ship sound kind of like Scotty."
"Brig for one hundred hours!" Kirk declared.
"What about a trial?" Nurse Chapel demanded. "Don't I get to defend myself?"
"No time," Kirk said. "I have a date with destiny!"
Spock raised an eyebrow at him. "Destiny, Captain?"
"That's you, Spock."
"Ah."
Everyone filed out of the brig, leaving Nurse Chapel alone in her cell, grumbling to herself. A voice, sounding much like herself, spoke to her over the comm.
"Haha! Get wrecked, loser! Enterprise for the win!"