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Chapter Text

“So... Why don't you tell me about you and Miss Cole?”

Not even bothering to comment on the flagrant change of subject, Trip simply raised his head and looked at his companion with a shrug.

“We're friends,” he said, only to watch the eyebrows on the Lieutenant's face climb ever higher in disbelief. “Is everyone on this ship watching us?”

“You're pretty hard to miss.”

Trip frowned at the words, a crease forming on his brow as he did so. “That's what T'Pol said.”

“Is it true she's giving Amanda neuro-pressure now?”

“So?”

“I heard it was damage control from your tender touch.”

There was something in the man's voice, a teasing lilt that bordered on smugness that immediately put Trip on the defensive. “T'Pol's just smoothing out some of the rough spots, that's all.”

“And why were you giving Amanda Cole neuro-pressure anyway?”

He just didn't want to let it go. “What's it to you?”

“Well, from what I'm told, it's a pretty intimate procedure... For just friends.” Malcolm didn't gesture quotes around the word, but they were implied anyway.

“I do it with T'Pol. Are you implying there's something going on there as well?”

His friend gave him a look. “That's the rumour.”

Trip had to bite back a sigh. He was well aware of the rumours. They had been around for quite some time after all, ever since he'd first started doing neuro-pressure with T'Pol, really. It was to be expected, in a way – spending an hour a night in a fellow officer's quarters thrice a week would go a far way in inciting the imaginations of understimulated crewmen – but he'd hoped that, as his friend, the Lieutenant wouldn't give merit to such idle gossip.

“Look, for the last time,” he started, “there's nothing going on with any of us, between any of us.”

“Right,” Malcolm responded, his glib tone doing nothing to disguise the heavy-handed sarcasm underlying his words. “You're all just friends.”

“That's right.”

Though this was technically true, Trip liked to think that whatever he didn't have with Amanda at the moment could, maybe, manifest into something real with time. He'd been surprised when she'd kissed him the other night after their session, though he probably shouldn't have been, in hindsight. After all, the two of them got on pretty well together, they had a lot in common, hell, they'd even grown up in the same general area.

He enjoyed her company as a friend, though – upon reflection after their kiss – he also couldn't deny that she was very attractive. It was a testament to his preoccupation with their mission that he hadn't picked up on it sooner. Amanda was one hell of a woman, and just his type too: Dark hair, green eyes, muscular. A combat-hardened demeanour with a sense of humour to boot.

Plus, she was a MACO and not Starfleet, so they could fraternize all they wanted. Good reasons to like her all around.

“Huh. I guess this Vulcan neuro-pressure isn't that intimate after all.”

“Exactly,” Trip said, bluffing incidentally as he continued eating.

There were a few moments of blissful silence as both men continued their respective meals, until...

“Well in that case, I've got a nasty little pain just-”

“Seriously?” Trip interrupted before the man could speak further.

He was really going to call him out on his bluff? Just like that? Right after giving him grief about the entire thing? The gall.

“Well, if you're not up to it...” the man trailed off. There was a smirk on his face. It was the smirk of a man who was winning an argument and who knew it.

But Trip was having none of it. “I didn't say that.”

Malcolm's fork paused mid-air, his eyes widening slightly in surprise at the objection.

“Really?” he questioned incredulously, having obviously not been expecting the engineer to agree. “You'll work the kink out of my back with your Vulcan neuro-pressure?”

“Sure. Fine,” Trip said with a shrug. “As long as you don't mind me screwing it up like I did with Corporal Cole.”

It would be fine though, he thought. He knew what to look out for and the likelihood of him causing nerve damage was low anyway.

“Alright then. My quarters tonight, around eight o'clock?”

He could tell Malcolm was waiting for him to back out, but Trip simply shrugged once more. “I'll be there.”

He'd have to postpone his session with T'Pol to another day, but it'd be worth it. His pride was on the line, after all.

“Right.” A cough. “Good.”

With that, both men turned back to their respective plates, exchanging no more words for the remainder of their meals.

It was only about an hour later, right in the middle of his shift in engineering that Trip – hand enclosed around a micro-caliper and hovering over the damaged relay he was busy patching up – suddenly paused, recalling the earlier conversation.

Aw hell, he thought to himself then. What had he gotten himself into?

Chapter Text

That evening, Trip stood before Malcolm's door.

He wasn't nervous.

It was eight o'clock sharp – the Tuckers were nothing if not punctual – so he tapped the console, wiping his hands on the pants of his off-duty wear as he waited.

It wasn't that his hands were sweating, they were just... unusually moist.

The door swished open in front of him and so he entered. Casting his gaze around the small room that was all too similar to his own, Trip searched for its occupant, who appeared moments later from the direction of the en-suite bathroom.

“Commander.”

The man was obviously freshly showered, with his hair still damp and a small towel slung across his naked shoulders. Small droplets of condensation were running freely down his chest, drawing to a halt only as they reached the waistband of a pair of low-riding sweatpants, soaking into the fabric and staining it a darker shade of gray.

“Evenin',” Trip greeted in turn.

“I apologize for the attire, time seems to have got away from me a bit,” the Lieutenant explained. He pointed back towards the bathroom. “I'll be out in a minute, just need to get dressed.”

“There's no need.”

Malcolm, who had already started moving back in the other direction suddenly halted, turning on his heel. He looked at Trip, his face a mix of puzzlement and trepidation. “This isn't one of those things people do in the nip, is it?”

Trip couldn't help it, he laughed. It was a hot, bellowing laughter that kept on long enough for the apprehension in the man's face to give way to annoyance. So he tried to stop. Tried being the imperative word here.

“Malcolm, no, it's-” Trip explained between chortles, “it's just easier without a shirt. Ya don't need to look so alarmed.”

“I'm not alarmed,” the man grumbled, disgruntlement evident in his voice even as he moved back into the dim-lit room towards Trip. “But you never know with Vulcans.”

“Well, don't you worry.” Trip was still smiling. “There be no Vulcans here.”

With a roll of his eyes, Malcolm turned away again. He pulled the towel off his shoulders and ran it over his damp hair a few more times, the well-defined muscles of the man's upper back rippling with the motion before he discarded it, settling the cloth over the back of a nearby chair.

Trip coughed lightly and looked away.

“So...” he started after a another moment. “Floor or bed?”

There was a vague kind of sputtering sound from the man's direction, and then, “What kind of question is that?!”

Trip shrugged, bringing his gaze back up. “A pretty straightforward one.”

He suppressed a sigh at the look Malcolm gave him and decided to clarify. “Would you rather sit on the floor or on the bed while we go through the exercises?”

This time the man seemed to understand, but he still gave the engineer a dubious look as he silently moved past him and went to sit down on the bed.

Inwardly, Trip applauded the choice. While T'Pol preferred utilizing the floor for most of their postures, the Vulcan also had the tactical advantage of pillows.

Outwardly, Trip simply smiled thinly into a decidedly pillowless room and followed after him.

“Alright,” he said, once he'd settled onto the far side of the bed. “So, I've told you about neuro-pressure before, right?”

“You may have mentioned it once or twice.”

The teasing lilt of the man's tone curved around the words and it took Trip a substantial amount of effort not to grimace outright. So, yeah, he may have gone on about it a bit, maybe even a lot, especially in the beginning when he first started it with T'Pol. It was only natural; the procedure had quickly become a big part of his routine and he had a natural tendency to share his thoughts with his friends. That was until Malcolm had started making fun of him every time he brought it up and he decided to tone it down a bit.

Then again, if he did this right, Trip thought, the idea brightening his mood every so slightly, then Malcolm would be forced to eat his own words.

“Well, then you'll know that the whole idea is to activate pressure points on the body, which are kind of hard to reach on your own, hence the company,” he gestured at himself.

“Bit like a massage then?”

Trip paused and tilted his head. “Yes and no. It does require a similar amount of physical contact, but the pressure is applied less broadly, only enough to stimulate the neural nodes – stop smiling – and get you to relax, mentally as well as physically.”

The man nodded, lips pressed thinly together as to repress his formerly impish smile. Though this did nothing to stop his eyes from laughing at him.

Trip sighed. “Look, if you're not going to take this seriously, it's not gonna work and I may as well go to T'Pol-”

“No, no, sorry,” Malcolm interrupted him. The man wiped a hand across his face as to brush the humour away and coughed. “I'm fine. Not smiling or anything.”

There were definitely still some lingering traces of the erstwhile smile noticeable in the crow's feet bracketing the man's green eyes, but the effort was found commendable enough fro Trip to continue.

“Alright, now, before we get started on the actual postures, we gotta practice our breathing first.”

“I'm quite well-versed in breathing, actually.”

“Malcolm,” Trip warned and the man shut up.

“We're gonna take deep, long breaths.” He demonstrated. "Three breaths and then hold for five seconds. Then the same again. Now do it with me.”

They did.

“Yeah, just like that. Keep going.”

After about a minute, they stopped. “Good. Now remember to keep at it while we're doing the postures.”

“Are people liable to forget to breathe while doing neuro-pressure?” While it seemed to be a sincere question, there was definitely a hint of incredulity to the words and it had Trip chuckling good-naturedly.

“Trust me, it's easier to forget than you'd think.”

He blew out a breath. “Now to the fun part. We'll start simple. The Surah'than is the first posture T'Pol taught me and works in a sitting position, so this'll do great.” He shuffled closer to Malcolm's side and gestured with his head further down the narrow bunk. “Best way to do this is for you to sit on the edge.”

“With my back to you?”

“Yeah.”

Both men moved across the surface of the bed – the standard-issue gray sheets that had been done with nigh-on military precision wrinkling noticeably beneath their twisting bodies.

Trip went to sit behind Malcolm, eyeing the expanse of naked skin before him. He swallowed, wiping his hands once more on the legs of his pants before setting them down on the man's shoulders.

He needn't have bothered. The man's shower-warm skin was slick to the touch, enough so that beads of condensation caught on the tips of Trip's fingertips as he traced them across his shoulder, accumulating and growing in size until they could no longer withstand the inevitable pull of the ship's artificial gravity, running down the small of Malcolm's back in the tiniest of rivulets.

Trip cleared his throat and placed his hands on either side of the man's neck, feeling out the muscles of his shoulders. They were hard as stone beneath his fingers, tense and unmoving.

“Malcolm, relax.”

“I am relaxed,” the man retorted immediately. His tone was one of burgeoning frustration, but there was another layer to it that rang oddly in Trip's ears.

Trip frowned. There was no way the man could be this tense all the time. Despite his attitude sometimes, Malcolm was a healthy man in his prime, physically fit and mentally hardened by his years of service to Starfleet. So something had to account for the nervous energy currently coursing through his frame.

There was their mission, of course, and the corresponding responsibility riding on them to finish it successfully – the exact weight of which approximated that of the planet Earth – and which rested heavily on the collective shoulders of Enterprise's crew. But at least they weren't in any immediate danger. Not that they knew of at any rate.

Then take the fact that the man was supposed to be unwinding in the company of (what Trip could only hope Malcolm perceived as) a close friend and something was definitely not adding up.

Maybe the whole vendetta with Hayes was getting to him more than he let on... And he'd already let on a lot.

But anyway.

“As relaxed as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs maybe,” Trip gave back after a slightly awkward lull.

The man scoffed and mumbled something under his breath that Trip didn't catch, but he did relax, if only marginally, the tissue beneath Trip's hands losing some of its tension as the engineer gave it a reassuring squeeze.

“Don't worry, we'll go through this step by step. Now, deep breaths, just like we practiced.”

As Malcolm did just that, Trip let his fingers glide down the man's back, counting the knobby protrusions of vertebrae as he went. When he'd reached the fifth one down, he fanned his fingers out, measuring three centimetres on each side, just as T'Pol had taught him, and pressed down.

Malcolm promptly choked on a gasp.

“Breathe.”

The man did as instructed and Trip took it as his cue to continue, deftly moving through the by now well-established routine and noting with a vague air of self-satisfaction every oh-so-small noise that was punched out of the man's chest in response. Even as unintentional as the praise was, it was hard not to let it go to his head. After all, neither T'Pol nor Corporal Cole had never been this reactive to his touch.

“Oh, that's actually quite good,” the man croaked out after a particularly hard push.

Trip couldn't help but chuckle at the response. Oh ye of little faith.

“Well, I guess you didn't call them my “magic fingers” for nothing,” he added, recalling the time the man had done so some months ago when they had been working together on something or other; one of the injector assemblies if he remembered correctly. It had been early on into their latest mission, soon after he'd first taken up the Vulcan neuro-pressure sessions. Malcolm had been poking fun at him at the time and had asked why he didn't just take his “magic fingers” and massage the equipment's issues away. The remark had been fairly innocuous, but had stuck in Trip's mind all the same.

“Ah.” The man's response – when offered semi-belatedly – was threaded with an undercurrent of guilt. “I did say that, didn't I?”

Although Trip couldn't see Malcolm's expression from where he was sitting, he could easily picture the grimace set upon his lips to match the strain of his tone.

Too bad Trip had no intention of granting him quarter. “Uh-huh.”

Malcolm breathed an uneasy laugh. “Well...” he started, but wherever his train of thought was bound for, it never arrived, derailed by the engineer's efforts as his fingers aligned on the pressure point and he pressed down once more, and whatever words the man had been going to say morphed into a bitten-off moan instead.

Trip smirked to himself triumphantly. He could live with that apology.

For a long minute he continued working, silently kneading his fingers into the muscles of the man's back, which – though not completely loose – were not nearly as rigid as they had been before.

“You starting to feel tired yet?” he asked eventually, his voice low as to not disturb the languid calm that had settled around them.

“Was this supposed to make me feel tired?”

Although the man spoke in a voice as quiet as Trip's own had been, his words managed to break the spell of serenity. If nothing else, the utter sincerity of the question would have been hard to ignore.

At once, Trip let his hands drop from the man's back, giving no credence to the small noise of disappointment that escaped his companion's chest at the sudden absence.

“Maybe we should try something different.”

Because, apparently, his efforts were not working as well as he thought they were.

The man gave him a questioning look over his shoulder, but did not disagree.

“Khavorta next, I think.”

The posture was slightly more advanced than the first one, sure, but he'd gone through the exercise with T'Pol not two days ago. There was no way it wouldn't work.

Gesturing for Malcolm to face him again, Trip scooted back on the bunk and away from the edge, clearing enough space for the man to turn around without the risk of toppling over the side. No matter how humorous it would be, he didn't believe it would be advantageous to their situation if that happened.

Moments later, the two men were sitting across each other on the bed. Trip raised his hands slowly, acutely aware of the set of weary green eyes tracking his every movement with hawk-like precision. His hands stopped short just of the man's face.

“You gotta relax your jaw for this part. It's also best if you don't speak.”

A single dark eyebrow rose in defiance. “You're not just saying that to stop me from talking, are you?”

Trip felt the corner of his lip curl unwittingly. “Of course not,” he gave back in the same teasing lilt the man had availed himself to, his words just breezy enough not to be taken at face value.

Malcolm let out a good-natured harrumph, but complied with the instructions all the same, and with only a very slight roll of his eyes to boot.

Trip himself blew out a breath as well and got back to work. Sitting forward, he placed his fingers on Malcolm's face, noting intimately how his friend stilled, his facial muscles tensing involuntarily beneath his touch.

“Long, deep breaths.”

The man breathed as told, though it did little for his overall state of tension. Trip tried not to be discouraged.

His fingers immediately started seeking out the pressure point, just below the junction where his throat and jaw met, but he was momentarily distracted from his task by just how different the sensations were, doing this with Malcolm instead of T'Pol or Corporal Cole.

The line of the man's jaw was more pronounced, for one, the sharp definition of bone structure leaving no room for softness as he traced its angular slope to the back. His skin was rougher to the touch as well, despite being freshly shaven – the subtle, yet familiar notes of his friend's aftershave easily discernable as it lingered in the small patch of air that separated their faces.

In his distraction – while his fingers were paying more attention to the feel of skin rather than their own relative position – Trip unintentionally let his thumbs drift, the left grazing the high rise of a cheekbone, while the right brushed up against the man's lower lip.

He must have caught it with the sharp edge of his nail, he reasoned, because the man jolted at the touch.

“Sorry,” the engineer muttered as he quickly realigned his fingers.

He was seriously off his game tonight.

Refocussing his mind on the task at hand, Trip promptly located the correct spot below the man's jaw and applied pressure to it.

“How's that?” he asked, his voice little more than a whisper in the face of their proximity, and received a single nod in response.

Ordinarily, he wouldn't have minded – the instruction to keep quiet hadn't been just for show, after all – if not for the terseness of the gesture, the clipped way it was delivered before the man reverted back to his stiff and motionless silence.

Why did he get the feeling he wasn't doing any good here?

Trip suppressed a sigh and kept going.

Personally, he always enjoyed the Khavorta posture, but maybe he'd succumbed to the temptation of generalization to assume that Malcolm would enjoy it as well. It was certainly one of the more intimate postures (for all that he would have preferred a different term), one that required you to get up close and personal with your neuro-pressure partner.

He hadn't really thought it'd be an issue between them, but then, compared to Amanda or T'Pol, he reckoned he didn't make for quite as nice a view. Especially not in another man's book.

“You can close your eyes if it helps.”

Even though the offer was only half-serious, the other man took him up on it and did exactly that. But only for a few seconds until he opened them again, almost as if he didn't trust Trip this close up.

The implication was humbling.

All at once, Trip felt pretty stupid for agreeing to this whole thing.

“You know, I shouldn't actually be doing this,” he said, letting his hands drop down onto the bed with a dull thud that echoed with finality.

He'd already gotten a lecture from T'Pol and Phlox on the subject, and yet here he was again, explicitly going against their logical and medical objections respectively. And for what? To prove a point? He would have thought he was more mature than-

Trip's musing were abruptly interrupted when a hand suddenly fisted in his shirt and pulled. Tipped off balance, the pull sent him careening forwards, headed directly for the other man, face-first.

Fortunately, Malcolm was there to catch him.

Yet even in the moment that their mouths crashed together, Trip found himself thinking that is was a bit of a strange way to go about catching someone from falling. And – much as he would be embarrassed about it in hindsight – it took him another long moment of their lips moving against each other to catch on to the fact out that that might not actually be what the other man was trying to do at all.

But before he was able to come up with any such epiphany, the hand still balled up in the fabric of his shirt, just as suddenly as before, pushed him back up.

For several heartbeats, Trip simply sat on the bed, blinking into the room as he tried to make sense of the world.

“What just happened?” he heard himself wonder out loud. “Did you just...?” With an uncertain hand he gestured first at the other man, then back at himself. “Did we...?”

Malcolm, for his part, seemed equally bewildered.

“I'm sorry, Commander,” the man was saying as he scrambled up from the bed. “I don't know what came over me.”

“Malcolm?”

The man coughed as he cast a glance around the room, looking anywhere and everywhere that wasn't Trip. “Well, this has certainly been... interesting.” Which was definitely a word for it. “Can't say Vulcan neuro-pressure is for me, and we should probably never do this again.”

Trip scooted closer to the edge of the bed and swung his legs over the side, watching as the other man folded his arms tightly across his chest, one hand drifting up to rub at his bare arm in what seemed to be some sort of nervous tic.

“Are... you okay?”

The man shot a quick glance in his direction at the question – possibly by accident – and it might just have been a trick of the light, but for a moment there Trip thought to notice a touch of pink across the man's cheeks.

“I'm fine, perfectly fine,” Malcolm insisted, though the thin edge of panic in his voice was anything but reassuring. “But I think we should call it a night all the same.”

“Wait.” Trip got to his feet, shaking his head with the faint hope that the cobwebs clouding his mind would shake free as well. “I don't- I mean, I'm not sure-”

“Yes, well, I do appreciate you taking the time to come see me, Commander,” the man was saying and suddenly there was a hand at his elbow and it was guiding him past an open doorway and out into the connected hallway beyond. “Thank you again and good night.”

The grip on his elbow disappeared as suddenly as it had come and Trip barely had the time to turn around, back towards the other man, when the door hissed to a close in front of him.

“What?”

Had he just been thrown out of the room? That was a first.

Confused and maybe more than just a little bit put out by the abrupt and unceremonious dismissal, Trip brushed his fingers over his lips, which were still tingling with the phantom sensation of their kiss.

Because that's what that had been.

He huffed a dry breath, somewhere between disbelief and amusement.

First Amanda. Now Malcolm. Next thing he knew, T'Pol would be throwing herself at him.

Chuckling to himself at the absurdity of the situation he found himself in, Trip gave the door one final look before he turned and set off in the direction of his quarters.

So much for getting any sleep tonight, he thought to himself as he ran a hand through his hair. Might as well don a uniform and head back down to engineering.

Chapter Text

When Trip set foot in the mess hall the next morning, he couldn't help but notice the familiar frame of Enterprise's resident armoury officer seated alone at a table near the back.

He turned to the drink dispenser and helped himself to a cup of strong, emotional-support coffee, already mentally preparing himself for the conversation ahead. He'd have to tread carefully – gently – as not to scare the other man away again.

The light-footed approach, he told himself, just like walking on eggshells.

With a genial smile fixed in place, he turned and moved to join Malcolm at the table, where he was busy digging into a hearty breakfast.

“Good morn-” he started casually until he saw the state of the man's face and abruptly switched gears. “What the hell happened to you?”

Malcolm looked up from his breakfast, appearing unperturbed. “Good morning, Commander. You doing alright?”

“I feel like I should be the one asking that. That alien get to you too?” he asked and sat down.

Trip himself had been knocked unconscious within seconds of the alien showing up in engineering. He'd been plenty embarrassed about it when he'd woken up in sickbay afterwards, even thought Phlox had reassured him that there was nothing he could have done and that the very same thing had happen to him as well. Fortunately, the wound to his pride was the only serious injury he had sustained.

“Ah.” There was an awkward beat of silence as the armoury officer faltered in his response. “No, actually.”

For a moment, Trip said nothing and simply kept staring, hoping the question would be written in his face. But if it was, then Malcolm wasn't reading it.

“Did Phlox look you over?”

At this, the man nodded and turned back to his meal. “It's nothing, really,” he said between bites. “Mostly just bruising. A detached retina is the worst of it.”

Right.

“Did you at least get the registration of the truck that ran you over?”

“Not to worry.” The man looked up and Trip saw an honest-to-God smirk playing along his split lip. “From what I've heard the Major looks even worse than I do this morning.”

An incredulous laugh tore itself out of Trip's throat at the implication.

“You got into a fight with Hayes?” he asked and – oh boy – was the Captain not going to like that.

“We were sparring, actually.”

“Sparring,” Trip repeated, not convinced in the slightest. He snorted into his coffee. He should have known it was only be a matter of time with those two.

“Did it help?”

Luckily for him, Malcolm didn't even pretend not to understand. “It did actually,” he said, his smirk easing into a small, but sincere-seeming smile as he continued his meal.

And, well – good for him, Trip supposed.

“Everything alright down in engineering?” the man asked after a short lull of companionable silence.

Trip's response came in the form of a pointed glare.

“I'm not sure who did more damage to the engine, the alien or you.”

“Nothing that can't be fixed, I'm sure,” the man continued blithely.

The glare intensified momentarily, but seeing as it was having no effect on his companion, Trip let it go in favour of swallowing a mouthful of much-needed coffee.

“How long before we can get underway?”

“Another day, at least.”

He set his cup on the table and rubbed his hand across his weary face, debating how he was going to broach the next topic.

“Some night, huh?”

“Certainly eventful.”

“I, uh... I guess we should talk about what happened. Between us. In your quarters,” he clarified, though for whose benefit he wasn't sure.

The man shot him a brief, guilty glance, before returning his attention to his breakfast. “I wouldn't know what else there is to say.”

“Malcolm-”

“I already apologized.”

“I don't want you to apologize,” Trip explained, gesturing vaguely with one hand, “I just want to know why.”

He'd had plenty of time to think about the incident last night, lying awake in bed after being released from sickbay. Unable to sleep, he had stared up at the ceiling, searching for answers he knew he would not find. All he'd been able to come up with on his own were speculations and half-formed thoughts.

“I misread the situation. It won't happen again, Commander, I assure you,” the man said and because he had once again shifted his focus to his meal, he didn't catch the flash of vexation that crossed the other man's face at the mention of his rank.

“You know,” Trip started, shifting uncomfortably in his seat. “Maybe I should be the one to apologize.”

The soft-spoken words had the man finally looking up, his brow creased in a silent question.

“You surprised me, I admit that, but I could have handled the situation better.”

“You could have also hit me across the face.”

“Yeah, well, seems like someone else got to you first,” he said, stopped and then immediately backtracked.

Eggshells, he reminded himself.

“Not that I would have-” He shook his head. “You know what, let me start over,” he said, taking a breath. “What I mean to say is, that I didn't... mind what happened.”

It was one of those half-formed thoughts he'd come up with, lying in his bed, his mind replaying those few confounding moments of unexpected intimacy over and over in a loop in his head.

Malcolm gave him a look, an eyebrow raised in unmistakable scepticism. “You don't mind that I kissed you, panicked and then all but threw you out my quarters?”

Trip shrugged, a small smile tugging at his lips. “Can't say I was a fan of that last part.”

But his smile faded as soon as he noticed the other man's pinched expression.

“Commander-” he started, then shook his head and corrected himself. “Trip... I realize that my actions last night were inappropriate and uncalled for, both as a subordinate officer and a friend,” he said in a tone that made Trip wonder if he had been the only one lying awake that night thinking about what happened. “And I think it'd be in both our best interest to just forget it ever happened.”

Trip was silent for a moment, earnestly considering whether or not to take the man up on his generous offer to simply erase the incident from their collective memories, and promptly came to a conclusion.

“No.”

The man's head shot up, clearly not expecting such a blunt refusal.

“Malcolm, look.” Trip ran a hand across his mouth and sat forward. “If last night was just some spur of the moment thing, then I get it, okay? These things happen.” Especially during Vulcan neuro-pressure sessions, apparently, though he felt he was making a wise decision not say that part out loud. “We'll keep it between us, no hard feelings, end of story.”

He paused and deliberately caught the man's gaze. “But if there's more to it...” Even if there was only the slightest chance, “Then I feel like I'll regret not trying to find out what that is.”

Before yesterday, Trip had never given the idea of the two of them any serious thought. It had crossed his mind a few times during idle moments – deep space was a lonely place and he was simply a man – but he never imagined it to be an actual possibility. And how should he have? It's been made abundantly clear over the course of the past day, that – unless it involved fluctuations in the gravimetric field displacement of Enterprise's warp core – Trip wasn't the most perceptive when it came to picking up on subtle cues.

First Amanda, then Malcolm.

He hadn't expected either to make a move on him, let alone both on the same day... Though, in his defence, no one could have expected him to be prepared for that.

Still, it was hard – if not impossible – not to get a little ego boost out of it. And that's really all Corporal Cole's attention was to him. Flattering. It was nice to feel wanted. And he liked her, but that's as far as it went. With Malcolm, it was different.

Once he'd indulged the possibility, once he'd allowed it to settle and take hold, he had realized that he was not just going to stand idly by and potentially miss a shot at something good, Starfleet regs on fraternization be damned.

When Malcolm spoke next, his expression was still one of trepidation, but his voice carried a small note of relief. “You're telling me I haven't made a complete mess of things, then?”

“Not by a long shot.”

“I'm... glad to hear that,” Malcolm said, eyes twinkling. Or, well, the one that wasn't almost completely swollen shut, at least.

The man coughed and then ducked his head – a shy mannerism that Trip, in positive moment of surprise, found he was now allowed to find kind of adorable.

He tucked the thought away for later, but kept regarding the man as he turned back to his meal, which – after being prodded with fidgety fork-jabs throughout the conversation – now resembled a crime scene more than it did breakfast.

“You were right about one thing though,” he added after a few moments. “We probably shouldn't do neuro-pressure again.”

“Oh.” Malcolm's face fell. “Is this because of what I said yesterday? Because I didn't mean to-”

“No, no,” Trip interrupted, waving his hands into the space between them like he could swat the words away. “It was nothing you said, or did,” he was quick to assure him, and then suddenly found himself floundering. “No, it's, uh... It's on me, actually.” He made another vague gesture. “After what happened with Corporal Cole, I, uh, I'm not supposed to continue the sessions with her, let alone anyone else.” He thought back to the conversation he had with T'Pol about it the day before and gave a one-shouldered shrug. “At least not without supervision. T'Pol's supervision, that is, and, I mean, I guess it's technically possible to do that, but...” he trailed off, grimacing to himself as he imagined such a scenario.

“...You'd rather spend our time together unchaperoned?” Malcolm finished for him, his voice dropped down to a suggestively low murmur and an eyebrow arched in playful emphasis. Even the twinkle was back.

Trip sputtered out a laugh, hoping the heat he felt creeping up his neck at the implication wasn't showing on his face. “Yeah... Though, maybe we could start slow.”

The man nodded once, the faint smile tugging at his bruised lips making him seem awfully pleased with himself. “Slow is good too.”

“Then, how about dinner tonight?” The mess hall didn't make for the most romantic of settings, but it'd have to do. It was just one of those sacrifices one had to make for travelling to the stars.

“I'd like that.”

“Then it's a date.” An impish thought suddenly occurred to Trip and he gave it voice with a poorly disguised grin. “I mean, unless of course you'd prefer to spend the night with Major Hayes again, sparring.”

The look Malcolm gave him in return made it perfectly clear exactly which dark corner of his colon Trip could shove whatever he was trying to imply. And then he smiled – a predatory thing, all teeth and wickedness, but with just enough humour lurking beneath for Trip to know that he wasn't actually on the menu.

“It's a date... Unless you'd rather spend your night with Miss Cole's hands working you over. With neuro-pressure, naturally.”

Trip wet his lips with a quick flick of his tongue. “Not at all.”

Their playful banter was brought to an abrupt halt when the mess hall's com system suddenly crackled to life.

“Lieutenant Reed and Major Hayes please report to my ready room,” came the Captain's voice through the speakers, tinny and even more clipped than usual.

With a grimace, Malcolm looked down at the meal he had massacred. Opting to cut his losses and simply discard the entire abomination, he stood, picking up his plate as he went.

“Talk to you later?”

“Sure,” Trip said, leaning back in his chair with his cup in hand. “Oh, and good luck.”

The words gave the man pause, and he glanced back, confusion written across his bruised and battered face.

With a nod of his head, Trip gestured to the com and to the metaphorical presence of the Captain behind it.

“You're gonna to need it,” he said and hid his smirk in his coffee when the man left looking just that bit paler.