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“Captain, are you aware of an unauthorized gathering taking place in the arboretum?”
McCoy harrumphed as Kirk answered, “Of course, Spock. The old Earth calendar would call this day Halloween. Surely you recall the Academy parties?
“I recall only that I was not invited.”
From anyone else, the statement would be a bitter one, but there was no discernible inflection of any emotion in the statement. It was only a fact.
The rest of the bridge crew seemed intent in their duties, but many ears tuned into the conversation, one of their daily reminders that their superiors were, after all, only human.
Mostly.
“Spock,” McCoy said with a grin, “I’m heading down later myself. Perhaps you’d care to join me?”
Spock looked to Kirk and quirked an expressive brow. Though it had been McCoy who spoke, it was Kirk who Spock addressed. “Would it be appropriate, do you think, for a senior officer to support such revels?”
Kirk looked up from his chair with half a charming smile. “Why not, Spock? We’re in transit, in the middle of a routine diplomatic run… and besides, the crew could do with a good scare.”
Muffled laughter scattered across the bridge followed by the clearing of throats and studious attention to the controls.
“A joke, Captain?” Spock asked. “I do not see the humor in it.”
McCoy laughed this time. “Of course you don’t,” he said. “Meet me at the arboretum at twenty-one-hundred.”
= = = = =
At twenty-one-hundred, Spock rounded the hallway leading to the arboretum and stopped short at the sight that greeted him.
McCoy leaned against the wall, his head bowed, arms crossed, one leg up with his foot braced on the wall behind him. From boots to hat, he was the spitting image of the classic American cowboy.
As Spock approached, McCoy looked up, an unlit cheroot dangling from his smiling lips. He flicked the brim of his hat. “Happy Halloween, Spock.”
Ignoring the greeting, Spock asked, “Doctor, why are you wearing animal skins?”
McCoy smirked. “It’s a hide jacket and chaps, Spock, traditional cowboy costume.”
“Costume?”
“Don’t worry, I didn’t expect you to follow suit.”
With that, McCoy offered a wink, and they turned together to enter the arboretum side by side. The door swished open, and McCoy shouted, “Trick or treat!”
The arboretum was packed with off-duty personnel in such a wide array of color and costume that the place seemed alive with aliens rather than humans.
Someone dressed and made up as a very convincing Klingon slapped McCoy on the shoulder and bid him welcome, but quickly withdrew at the sight of Spock amongst the crowd.
They greeted the crew while marveling at the transformation of the room. The regulation lighting had been dampened and glowed here and there in eerie colors of green and orange throughout the place, leaving the corners to their natural darkness.
Vivid jack-o’-lanterns made from pumpkins and other squash – grown in the very room they stood in – hung from the ceiling or lined the tables and bays. Their orange glow sneered and smiled and grimaced and laughed throughout the place. Garlands of scrap uniforms in red and black hung from the ceiling amongst strands of leaves dried and dyed to fanciful colors: crimson, gold, and auburn. A scarecrow done up like the Captain was propped comically amongst the bright foliage growing in the bays. Old decorations had been gathered from here and there, from one crewman or another, or made especially for the occasion. Skeletons and ghosts; cats, rats, and bats; all manner of ornament from the clumsy and garish to the elegant and frightful filled the room from ceiling to floor.
And the noise of the place! Some spooky jazz crooned from hidden speakers, pierced here and there by laughter and shouts as people conversed, told stories, and played games.
The loudest group surrounded a bucket propped on a low table. Costumed crewmen bobbed for apples, or a local approximation of the fruit from a friendly planet.
Uhura, draped in layers of bright scarves, read fortunes at a tiny table squeezed into a recess in the bulkhead. A pretty yeoman held out her hand and giggled as Uhura read the lines of her palm.
Platters of treats lined a central table; there were cupcake ghosts and crafty little chocolates made to look like cockroaches along with foreign candies of every description.
“Ah, the treats,” McCoy said with a familiar grin, “my favorite part of Halloween.” He popped a chocolate in his mouth and indicated that Spock should do likewise.
Instead, the Vulcan observed. “Maximum occupancy has exceeded this room by at least fifteen people, Doctor.”
“Oh, you didn’t come here to ruin their sport,” he said, even as a pair of masked crusaders evaded the Commander. “Isn’t there anything that peaks your interest?”
“I never did comprehend the novelty of the holiday,” Spock confessed as they meandered the room.
“It’s come-as-you-aren’t night,” McCoy said, accepting a duraplast cup of mulled cider from an ensign. “The novelty lies in the opportunity to explore a persona other than oneself.”
“I do not comprehend why such a thing should be desirable. Earth’s greatest philosophers and poets emphasized the understanding of oneself to be the greatest goal, not the pretension of personal antithesis.”
McCoy swung around to face Spock, pulling a toy six-shooter from his holster. “Bang,” he said, pulling the trigger, which made a pitiful snapping noise. “Maybe I shoulda stuck to a simpler explanation.” Ignoring the Vulcan personal bubble, he leaned in close and said, “It’s fun, Spock.”
“Ah.”
“Mm. Wanna bob for apples?” The grin was charming and the blue eyes sparkled.
= = = = =
“By God, I miss the seasons,” McCoy muttered as they walked the halls together.
“Vulcan has no such seasons,” Spock offered.
“Too stagnant, just like a starship,” McCoy muttered. His hat was cocked at a jaunty angle and he nibbled here and there at a candied apple. “Seasons offer change… something other than dry monotony. Autumn was my favorite.”
“A season of decay?”
“You can apply whatever symbolism you like, but the smell of it, Spock! Crisp leaves and brisk wind… even Georgia had its share of autumn… but we had nothing on New England in October.”
“October?”
“One of the old Earth months.”
“You humans are a sentimental race.”
“Tell me something I don’t know,” McCoy said with a laugh, finding a trash receptacle for the core of his apple.
“You… are a particularly fascinating human.”
That stopped McCoy in his tracks. “Why Spock… coming from you, that’s quite the compliment!”
“Would you tell me about your choice of costume?”
McCoy looked down at himself. “Well… a cowboy, Spock; it’s a classic American icon! Cowboys are dangerous, rugged, aloof… romantic, even.”
Spock paused. Someone who knew him well, as McCoy did, could pick up on the Vulcan smile on alien features. “I thought you said the idea of Halloween is ‘come as you are not.’”
McCoy puzzled this out for a moment, then chuckled. “Well, sure. Don’t think I’m exactly dangerous…”
“Mm. You are when you have to be.”
“Huh. Rugged, then? Not with my southern charm.”
“On the contrary,” Spock argued, “Anyone who has seen you brave the trials of our away missions could not deny it.”
“Oh? Well, you couldn’t call me aloof,” the Doctor said with certainty.
“No one has ever accused you of that,” Spock agreed. “And yet, when the situation demands it, as it does in your profession, you can attain a distant remoteness during surgery that even I can respect.”
McCoy shook his head and turned away.
“And romantic,” Spock said. “That goes, as the terran expression says, ‘without saying.’”
“Oh?” McCoy spun toward him again and glanced up from under the brim of his hat. “How do you figure?”
“You can be as dashing as the Captain. I have seen it.”
“What are you implying, Spock?” There was no humor in his tone now.
“You have never lacked self-confidence,” Spock said. “Why do you seem so insecure now?”
Anger suffused McCoy’s wide face before he turned away, laughed it off, and said, “I feel ridiculous in this get-up.”
Spock stepped up behind him to remove the hat with a gentle hand. “You do not look ridiculous.”
His emotions turning every which way, McCoy grinned again. “I know what would look ridiculous,” he said, retrieving the hat. He set it atop Spock’s clean-cut head and smiled. “Now that looks…”
Spock raised a brow.
“…pretty ridiculous,” McCoy muttered. He reached up to tilt the hat back. “Does it bother your ears?”
“No…”
“You know my favorite part of Halloween?”
“The treats,” Spock recalled.
“Mm-hmm.”
And McCoy kissed him, just like that.
After a moment, Spock decided to kiss back.
McCoy placed a hand on the alien cheek, felt the flush of green blood under smooth skin. His other hand held Spock’s side, over the beating heart.
“I was thinking,” McCoy said as he withdrew only enough to speak, “might find some more treats in my quarters.”
“Indeed, Doctor? That sounds… fascinating.”
= = = = =
The End