Work Text:
Bones scowled. “I am not putting this on my body.”
“You have to, Bones,” said Jim, beaming. He handed Bones the clothes. “We have to look like the natives or we’ll break the Prime Directive.”
“Stop smiling!” Bones grumped. “And don’t get on me about the Prime Directive. How many times have you broken it, again?”
“Six point five to be exact, Captain,” said Spock, entering the transporter room. He was in full costume--tights, poofy pants, ruffles, doublet, ear-covering hat and all. Jim resisted the urge to laugh. He looked adorable.
“How do you break the Prime Directive half a time?” Jim asked instead.
Spock turned to Bones, not answering the question. “The disguise is mandatory to all parties beaming down.”
“Fine,” grumbled Bones. “I’ll play dress-up with you guys. But only so I can keep you from exploding.”
Spock raised an eyebrow. “Exploding?”
“Don’t try to tell me that won’t happen. It’s happened before.”
Spock didn’t respond. “That’s what I thought,” Bones sniffed.
Jim adjusted his codpiece. “Tada!” he announced. “I’m dressed and ready.”
Bones stared in horror.
-----
Bones had hoped things would get better once they beamed down.
They did not.
The first alien the saw had a codpiece and an aggressive peascod belly. Bones wanted to scream and laugh and cry at the same time.
At least the ladies were pretty. Men's fashion in the Elizabethan era may have been horrendous and ridiculous (there was a reason it had been left behind), but woman’s fashion has its moments.
Jim made eye contact with one of them. She gasped. “Mine breast dost now release its pumping red, / and let my rosy cheeks become forgot, / For now I have seen thy face, I am dead, / all other suitors left behind to rot.”
Jim gasped. “Did you just speak in iambic pentameter?”
Before the lady could respond, Spock pulled him away. “Captain,” he hissed, “We are on a mission.”
“But that lady just gave me the start of a sonnet!!” Jim said, fanboying. “We were about to have a Romeo and Juliet act one scene five moment!”
“May I remind you of how that play ends?” Spock said, raising an eyebrow.
“Yeah I know Spock. Don’t Vulcan-splain Shakespeare to me. I’ve read Romeo and Juliet like fifteen times,” Jim said, unimpressed.
They walked away, grabbing Bones on the way.
None of them heard the lady say, “If he from me away decides to walk, / Choose I to die without him or his love? / Nay, say I, if me he attempts to mock, / he’ll regret it when he’s dead as a dove.”
-----
Jim was kind of a Shakespeare fanboy. He’d read all of his plays multiple times, and could quote many of them by memory. So what did he do when on a Shakespeare themed planet? Try to piss off as many people as possible, of course!
Spock gave Jim a disapproving Vulcan side-eye. “Captain, please stop biting your thumb.”
“No,” said Jim, not removing his thumb from between his teeth.
“Do you bite your thumb as us, sir?”
Jim tried to tramp down the smile on his face as he giddily turned to the person who had spoken. “I do bite my thumb, sir.”
“Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?” repeated the man.
Jim turned to Spock. “Is the law on our side if I say ‘aye’?”
Spock rolled his eyes Vulcanly. “Wilt thou avast if I concede?”
“Aye.”
“No,” Spock quoted reluctantly.
“No, sir, I do not bite my thumb at you sir, but I do bite my thumb, sir,” said Jim. He waited a second before elbowing Spock. “Say ‘do you quarrel, sir?’, Spock!”
“No,” he said again, except this time it wasn’t the line. The man walked away, and Jim pouted.
“Spock! Why didn’t you say the line?”
“You said before that you remember the events of Romeo and Juliet, yet you attempt to reenact a fight scene?” Spock scolded. “We are here to observe, not to get ourselves banished from Verona.”
“That doesn’t even happen in this scene,” Jim grumbled. “But fine, you’re right. I’ll stop.”
Spock nodded once. “I must find the doctor.”
“Bye,” said Jim. “I promise I’ll behave.”
Spock walked away from Jim to go find Bones.
Meanwhile, someone else walked towards him.
-----
“There you are,” said Bones, spotting Spock’s approach. “I was just wondering where you and Dumbass Two, Electric Boogaloo went.”
Spock raised an eyebrow instead of responding. Bones scowled. “Shut up. Anyway, I’ve been discreetly scanning the natives and gathering data like I’m s’posed to, so you don’t have to babysit me.”
“I am not ‘babysitting’ you.”
“Damn right! I’m babysitting you. Now where the hell is Jim?”
Spock glanced over behind him where he had just been. “Over--” Wait. Spock scanned the area, searching for Jim’s eye-catching yellow jerkin in the crowd, but he found nothing.
“The Captain is gone,” he said.
“What?!” Bones yelped.
Spock led Bones to a secluded corner. “I can attempt to locate him with my tricorder,” he said, discreetly swishing it around. Something caught his eye to his left.
“This way,” he said, walking swiftly through the crowd, taking Bones with him.
-----
The blindfold tied over Jim’s eyes was made of linen. It was a very ineffective blindfold; he could see right through it. More efficient, though, were the ropes that bound him to a chair.
Through the blindfold (more like sighted-fold! yeah.) he could the lady from earlier, distorted by the sighted-fold, pacing in front of him. “I have him here in front of me this hour,” she said in iambic pentameter. “But now with his bound self what do I do? / If my lord cannot move will he turn sour? / O sky, I turn to ask guidance from you.”
“The sky I’m not, but bound I am, madam,” Jim began, carefully in iambic pentameter. She’d given him a quatrain again, so he figured might as well have his act one scene five moment. If he wanted to get out of there, he needed to flatter this woman. “So I beseech you now, untie me here. / For your face I’ve not seen, therefore I am / Deprived of love I wish I had, my dear.”
He heard her move behind him. “I hear your voice, my sky, but not your heart.”
“If I you love why do you trust me not?” Jim continued, holding his breath as he felt the ropes lessen slightly.
“I want not but to never be apart,” said the lady. “Just you and I, my sky, no other lot.”
“Then like a cloud allow me then to fly,” said Jim, starting the couplet.
“And make me with a kiss to soar, my sky,” said she, and the ropes came completely undone. Before he could do anything, though, she removed his sighted-fold and kissed him.
And of course, it was in that exact moment that Spock and Bones walked in.
“Release the Captain,” Spock commanded.
“Of course before we e’en finish the kiss,” she lamented, “Barbarians doth come take you away.”
Bones pushed past her and pulled Jim up from the chair. “Good god, Jim, what is this Elizabethan yandere shit?”
“I honestly have no idea,” Jim said, wiping his mouth.
“Farewell, my sky, I hope see you next day,” she called sadly as Spock and Bones grabbed Jim, one on each arm, and walked away.
“We have collected all the data we need, Captain,” said Spock, walking briskly. “We are ready to beam up.” Spock flipped open his communicator and before Jim could even say anything, they were already back on the ship.
“Thanks, guys,” Jim said, laughing a little. “That lady was crazy.”
“Indeed,” said Spock. He looked disgruntled.
“Fuckin’ bitch,” Bones growled.
Jim smiled. “Don’t worry, I still love you guys.”