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Your Vulcan Friend

Summary:

You're an Ensign in Security, and your best friend and roommate is a Vulcan.

Notes:

I've never written an AO3 story by myself, really, and I don't experiment with second person too much other than in short-story ways like this (like in Federation Gothica), but I can see the appeal.

Chapter 1: One Of These Days, You're Going To Hug Me Back

Chapter Text

Your best friend is a Vulcan. You’re always giving them hugs, which they begrudgingly accept. They always give you sound, logical advice, and you entertain them with your illogical idiosyncrasies. You’re also quite the duo in Security. “One of these days,” you tell them, “you’re going to hug me back.”
“That would be illogical.” they say. They almost look like they’re smiling. “I might as well say I could get you to conform to Vulcan logic. They will be equally futile.” You smile back. You’re best friends for a reason.

Your Vulcan friend is an encyclopedia of information. They’ve helped you win an argument once or twice with their incredible memory “The Andorian army on Psh’Tallk lost every battle until they were rescued by the Enterprise NX-01, so it is unlikely an Andorian ship of that era could deafeat an army of such magnitude...”. You were both Ensigns at that point, and you’ll never forget the look on that Lieutenant’s face when you friend recited the trivia and tipped the argument in your favor.

You’re an excitable person with a 100mph train of thought. More than once, you’ve gone for a high-five with your Vulcan friend, and they were (logically and calmly) mortified at first, but remembered it was common among humans. You’ve really tried to stop, though. Your Vulcan friend will easily listen to you ramble on for hours after lights-out in your shared quarters, about how you’d be a geologist on Trenzalore, what an incredible planet with fossil history.

Your Vulcan friend (quite logically) takes meditation very seriously. You join them once a week for meditation. They use candles you picked out as having liked the smell of that time on Bajor. You haven’t said anything. If you did, they’d probably ask if you were accusing them of having illogical and emotional preferences. Nevertheless, when you download new books on PADDs, you find your friend reading them, too. You’re working up the confidence to invite them to a holo-novel where the two of you would be the two main characters.
As much as insufferable Vulcan logic can be exhausting, your Vulcan friend has been- well, an amazing friend, a voice of reason, and someone to confide in. You’re not sure if they feel the same way about you (certainly not a voice of reason), but you’re quite happy to have an emotional attachment to them.

Since you’re both in Security, you’re sometimes sent down on away missions. Some of them haven’t been pretty, and you’ve seen people die that you’ve talked to and gotten to know. On your first mission together on a starship as lowly Ensigns, you saw some good people die on the surface. When you beamed back up, your Vulcan friend told you about the Vulcan god of death, Shariel. You’d wandered around the halls of the ship, and your conversation had wandered to some other topic. You weren’t even on the same deck you started on. You were just happy to have a friend who * understood * you- all your pointless ramblings understood by Vulcan patience. You appreciate that. And you’ve mentioned it to them. They said having patience was logical. You made a toast to lost friends, and logical decisions that first night.

You’ve learned about Vulcan arts and culture, you’ve made an effort to learn about Vulcan culture, since you very often just word-vomit Human culture on your friend. You respect their dedication to logic, and give them the benefit of the doubt when you disagree about things. They’ve been right about more things than you’d care to admit. They have, in return, also trusted you to make illogical decisions that wind up being beneficial- you’ve taught them a lot about risk and taking chances. You’ve played Kal-toh together, and you usually lose, but you’re happy to have played. You’re a night owl, they’re an early bird, but you’ve realized over time that you try to wake up earlier, and they go to bed later, so you can talk about your day and what you do when you’re not both doing Security duties.

And, as much as you joke about how nice it would be if they could just be emotional- you have seen them emotional, and it’s scary. Your friend was once possessed by a parasitic alien that controlled their actions, and was stealing the nutrients from their body. They’d turned deathly pale, and you could almost smell their body rotting alive. Your friend, possessed, had said some of the meanest things ever directed to you, because the alien had your friend’s memories and knew what to say to get you to leave them alone. You’d been upset, and wondered about why they’d suddenly hate you. Their cold fury had been terrifying. You found out about the alien parasite attacking them, and eventually gotten their body to Sick Bay, where they were quickly helped and the alien parasite removed. You’d started crying when they sat up calmly and monotonely apologized how they may have hurt you when they were possessed. They accepted your hug, and let you cry on their shoulder.

On an away mission gone awry, 20 security officers had been sent down, and were now frantically beaming back up to avoid the rain of bombs in a war zone. You see your Vulcan friend with their broken combadge across a clearing. You could give the transporter Chief the word right now and be beamed up by yourself, but they’d find it difficult to find your Vulcan friend on the map. Making an illogical decision, you barrel down the clearing as explosions go off, and dust powders the air, and sprint for what you would want to say was a quarter kilometer- (your Vulcan friend will claim it’s more of an eighth) to your Vulcan friend, and give the transporter Chief the “two to beam up, energize!”. There’s no need to ask why you did it. They know why you did it. You value their companionship. And humans are sentimental morons. Your Vulcan friend tells you off that it was an illogical decision. It’s their way of saying thanks. You can tell they’re grateful. You ask if they want to play Kal-toh together tonight. They say yes. By some miracle that night, you win by a landslide. You know why. You don’t say anything. You’re just happy they’re still here.

During seasonal crew reports, there’s rumor of a promotion for Ensigns in Security. You get back to your quarters one day, and your Vulcan friend makes a comment about how they expected you to be up and arms about the promotion, or be sucking up to the Commanders to heighten your chance of getting a promotion. You tell them you figure that they’ve been rubbing off on you. You’ve been making-gasp-logical decisions. You think about them a lot, and you try to be a person they’d be proud of when they’re not there.

Your Vulcan friend's logic gets on your nerves sometimes. They complain about the logic in keeping messy quarters. Shouldn't they realize constantly complaining about something and expecting different results each time is illogical? Somebody famous said something like that. Whatever. You sulk for a day, whatever, you were on duty for most of it, and you realize it's dumb. Cleaning your quarters can seem a challenge at times. Well, that's why you have a roommate, don't you? You head back to your quarters that night, and apologize. They logically accept your apology. At the end of the day, you can expect your Vulcan friend to make a logical decision and accept your apology. The planets still spin, the sun still rises, things break in Engineering and Vulcans make logical decisions. All is right with the world.