Chocolate on the Bridge

Title: Chocolate on the Bridge
Fandom: ST (TOS-era)
Characters: Starek, D'nila, Merendeth, Stavret
Rating: T
Warnings: Intoxicants, jokes about Orions
Notes: I'm in the middle of an RP, in which this story might becomre relevant. Figured I should write it before I go say something self-contradictory. Also, Stavret and Starek are not brothers — they're best friends — but they're the only two Romulans on the ship.

His Orion chief engineer was beside his chair, on her knees again, hands upraised in supplication. Without taking his eyes from the viewscreen, he picked up what she was offering, parsed that it was food, and tossed it into his mouth.

"What did you break, this time, D'nila?" Starek asked, before the fact that he was eating chocolate fully percolated through his brain. His ears flattened and his face froze, eyes turning to the kneeling Orion girl. "It was important, wasn't it."

She smiled, teasingly up at him. "Not that important. Not really. Okay, I was trying to adjust the efficiency of water output in the crew showers — volume versus pressure, you know? And yours was the one I was testing the math on. And, well, yeah. I'll have it fixed by tomorrow, right?"

Starek's eyebrow lifted in amazement. "What, precisely, have you done to my quarters, Bosun?"

"They're a smidgen wet. Just a bit. It doesn't need a bucket?" D'nila is making bright eyes at him, and he can hear Merendeth trying to pretend she isn't snickering, behind him.

"Fix it," he sighs, picking the chocolate out of his teeth with his tongue. "Now. And the next time you decide to destroy my quarters, can you avoid getting me drunk, on the bridge, immediately afterward? It isn't going to make me like you any better, when I can't go lay down in my own bed, to sleep it off."

D'nila stands, winking at Merendeth over the commander's head. "Yes, sir. Romulan ale, next time, sir."

"I'd rather there not be a next time, D'nila!" Starek wailed as his chief engineer left the bridge. He could hear his helmsman snickering. "Stavret, it's not that funny."

"Yes it is, brother. Yes, it really is. What did I tell you about Orions?" The other Romulan looks back over his shoulder.

"I don't know! Weren't you listening to yourself, at the time?"

"Stars know I should; it's not like you ever do," Stavret shot back, with a smirk.