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By Any Other Name

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They were perched on the roof-beams of a pitch-dark warehouse at fifteen minutes to midnight, prefacing what was supposed to be a drug raid, and Jim was regretting the lack of moonlight to illumine Spock's incredibly flattering latex outfit. Or rather, the sleek muscles beneath said outfit. Too bad he didn't have X-ray vision, like Bones, the lucky son of a bitch.

"You know, it kind of sucks that I'm the only one of us without a supersense."

"Your unpredictable and highly illogical feats of deduction are in themselves 'supersenses'," said Spock, which, okay, Jim hadn't exactly been fishing for compliments, but wasn't that a bit too harsh?

"You're being sarcastic," Jim accused, and Spock's eye-mask twitched in the very particular way it did whenever a raised eyebrow was behind it.

"That would be an expression of emotion, and - "

"You don't do those, yeah, I get it." Jim could totally call Spock on that lie, because his species wasn't supposed to lie, but. Heh. "So you're not being sarcastic, which means you actually think I'm really awesome and kind of a genius?"

Spock's mouth twitched - didn't do expressions of emotions, Jim's ass - but then the activity sensors beeped, and Jim groaned. Obviously, the universe was conspiring against one James Tiberius Kirk.

"The targets are approaching the warehouse," Spock announced, unnecessarily.

"Yeah. Bummer. Just when I was getting you to admit your undying love for m - hey, wait!"

But Spock was gone, cutting through the air like a sickle, and Jim heard the first smuggler collapse in a nerve-pinched gurgle.

"Leave some for me," Jim called out, and swung in to join the fray.



"You still don't have a name," Uhura pointed out, and before Spock could protest, added, "a public name. An identity."

Spock looked put-upon, in that expressionless way of his. Jim knew better, but Sulu, the idiot, spoke up in misplaced sympathy.

"Isn't it standard protocol to just let the people come up with one? You know, a couple news reports, a couple snapshots, and they just make something up. Tends to be pretty reliable."

"Shut up, Ronin. Just 'cause they gave you a good one." McCoy sloshed his beer in indignation; he was halfway through his nth can. "Me? They call me Bones, for Pete's sake. Got stuck with that, didn't I?"

"It is not that bad," interjected Chekov, earnestly devoted and blue-eyed as usual, and McCoy scowled.

"And you shut up, too, Jailbait Wonder."

Chekov actually looked hurt, which prompted Jim to step in before the poor kid got his adolescent crush stepped all over. Bones really was a bastard, sometimes. "It's Archangel, actually. Call him by his name, Bones."

McCoy grunted. "Too much of a damn mouthful, anyway..." But then Jim glared, and McCoy sighed. "Fine, fine. How about Arc?" he asked Chekov, at least having the decency to sound conciliatory. "Arc's okay, right?"

"Arc is... Arc is good." And Chekov was blushing, now. Heck, he was more of a cherub than an archangel, wasn't he? "Anyzing you like."

Jim wanted to roll his eyes, but then he saw Spock looking on with another one of those non-expressions of his, and he'd had it with those.

"I say we call a vote," Jim announced, and was rewarded by a Spockian twitch which, in any normal person, would've been a shudder of alarm. Score.

"That's a great idea," Uhura agreed, and she was totally a fellow member of the secret Shock Our Spock society, wasn't she? The fanboys who blushed over newspaper clippings of 'Nightingale' probably had no idea she was a sadist. Not that it'd discourage them, exactly... Hm. "Brainstorms are always lucrative."

"That's right!" Jim hoped his grin wasn't too evil. "Seven heads are better than one."

"Your command of rudimentary arithmetic astounds me," drawled Spock, doing his definitely-not-sarcasm thing.

"Yeah, so Sco - uh, Phaser's not here. Six brains, for now. But we'll ask him for his input later, right?"

"We certainly will," smiled Uhura, and yeah, definitely part of the secret society. Even Chekov knew that Scotty's naming skills were less than enviable, given the fact that he'd almost named himself Moonbeam before the press had thought it was a joke and called him Phaser, instead. But I beam stuff up, I don't phase stuff up, he'd said; thankfully, they'd ignored him.

"So. Suggestions?" Jim tried not to bounce on his feet; oh, this was going to be good.

"Allow me to begin," Spock said in uncharacteristically preemptive haste. "I believe that the Logician would be most apt."

Jim's jaw dropped. "That's the most boring name ever. Scrapped!"

"I believe it suits my approach to - "

"To what? Mind-numbing boredom? Even Captain Logic would be better, but I'm the only captain around here."

"You just keep telling people to call you that," Sulu smirked.

"Yeah," McCoy chortled, because he was a jealous, pathetic fool who was pathetically jealous of other people's brilliant names. "You're just Valiant."

"I'm Captain Valiant, damn it! I must be the captain of something!"

Spock stared at him like Jim was an unexpectedly entertaining, if rather dim-witted, child. "I maintain that 'Logician' is the best choice."

"It is too plain," Chekov observed. Good kid. "And Captain Valiant - " great kid " - has already taken the title that might have added a little, as they say, pizzazz, so I vud suggest somezing else. Like maybe. The Mentalist?"

"Wasn't that a really corny TV show?" Sulu asked.

"It was not corny," said Uhura, and hey, unexpected geek-girl chic.

"Better than the Logician," McCoy conceded, and Chekov beamed. "We could just go with Logic, but that's kind of..."

"It is an excellent suggestion," Spock seized, and just how far did his fetish for logic go, anyway? Maybe Jim should start wearing a calculator costume. Or an abacus one.

"We're forgetting your primary superpower," Uhura pointed out, "which is generally more important than... personality traits."

Spock just looked at her; it wasn't a scowl, but if he were a human, it might have been. "There is nothing remarkable among my people about my abilities."

Or the logic fetish, Jim didn't point out.

"It's remarkable here," Uhura insisted. "I suggest something along the lines of Archangel's idea, something that implies telepathy."

"The Telepath?" Sulu offered, inanely.

Jim scoffed. "That's way too unimaginative. Mind Reader is, too."

"It is not reading," Spock corrected him. "It is seeing."

"Seeing!" Uhura's eyes shone. "I've got it!"

Jim had learned to fear that expression. Even Spock looked intimidated, which meant to say that he was still completely expressionless, but somehow gave the impression of having physically shrunk by at least 5%.

"Seer," Uhura said. "You know, or maybe. Farseer?"

That wasn't half-bad, actually. "Doesn't that have prophetic connotations, though?"

"Not always." Uhura looked triumphant. "What do you think, Spock?"

Spock looked considering. "The prefix 'far' is inaccurate, as distance actually weakens my powers, but... 'Seer' is simple and not inaccurate. It is." He paused, looking constipated. "Acceptable."

"Done!" Jim crowed. "All in favor?"

Spock doggedly continued: "However, I would still prefer - "

But then everyone else called out: "Aye!"

And that was that. They'd ask Scotty for his vote later, but it wasn't like he'd side with 'Logician', anyway, and they all knew it.



fin.
(Well, there'll be other stories in this universe, though. If people like it.)
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