Star Trek and its characters are the property of Paramount. This not-for-profit piece of fan fiction is not intended to infringe on that ownership. The author's copyright applies only to the creative content and her original characters.
This is a sequel to TMI (Too Much Information).
WARNING! Continued squickiness, clearing throughout the weekend.
For inspiration, I'd like to thank Wildcat, RabbleRouser, Trixie, Animasola & friend. Bet this gets them banned from Santa's Nice List. No one beta'd this. Can ya blame them?
Sitting at his desk, McCoy slumped in his chair and muttered, "Goddamit! Why do they do this to me? How the hell am I supposed to get this into the medical log without making them look like the biggest pair of damn fools this side of Orion's Belt?"
He reached into the desk drawer and retrieved a pad and pen. In times of stress, McCoy found that doodling helped him to organize his thoughts. Moments later, he found himself tracing the word 'tribble' over and over with increasingly hard strokes as he remembered Spock's futile attempt at a logical explanation of how he and the captain had been injured.
McCoy followed Spock's gaze to where the sedated Kirk slept on the nearby diagnostic couch. McCoy's breath caught in his throat, stunned once again by the captain's beauty. Kirk's golden forelock drooped becomingly over his forehead, but the golden eyes with their lively flecks of green were hidden behind soft eyelids adorned with dark eyelashes, the golden tips of which could only be seen if one looked very closely. In short, he was indescribable.
McCoy turned to Spock and demanded an explanation for the injuries he had just treated on the captain and was about to attend to on Spock. To his astonishment, the Vulcan blushed greener than a grinch. But he pulled himself up straight and spoke to McCoy as he always did--as if the entire knowledge of the universe resided between his elegantly pointed ears.
"Sorry, Spock, say again." McCoy leaned in and listened carefully.
"I was attempting to retrieve T'Pop," Spock rasped slowly, his voice rough with pain, his usual crisp enunciation struggling with lips that had nearly been burned off.
McCoy turned away from the spicy scent of Spock's breath. Old Spice. When they'd first met, McCoy had thought Spock gargled with the stuff. He'd learned differently on an away mission. That was just the way Vulcan breath smelled. Strange body chemistry. He remembered gagging at the smell of burning tires when Spock had been in plak tow.
"What's T'Pop?" the doctor asked as he played the beam of the dermal regenerator over Spock's face. The Vulcan's eyes were nearly swollen shut and his nose was hideously misshapen, but first things first.
"My pet tribble," Spock explained.
"Wait a minute! You shoved your pet tribble up Jim's ass?"
"She required no coercion. She was bred and trained for such activity."
"It is quite true. I inserted a plasti-steel tube into the captain's rectum. I then inserted T'Pop into the tube and she was most cooperative."
"God, I wish I didn't have to hear this."
"T'hy'la," Kirk sighed. "Mmmmm... No, lover, don't call me lashaaaa..."
"Jim found it quite pleasurable," Spock said, "but eventually he shouted 'Cleveland' so I--"
"Cleveland? Why in the Great Bird's Galaxy did Jim shout Cleveland?" McCoy put away the regenerator and began gently pressing a nose splint onto Spock's face.
"It is the signal that he wishes to cease a particular activity."
"A safe word? You use Cleveland as a safe word?"
"It was his choice. I would have preferred Schenectady but he is the captain."
"Well, rank has its privileges," McCoy replied, thinking fondly of Tuscaloosa.
"I attempted to coax T'Pop out but she refused."
"I thought you said she was trained."
"She is, but under certain circumstances..."
"Apparently, T'Pop refused to vacate the captain's body because she was in the process of giving birth."
"WHAT? You put a pregnant tribble up Jim's butt? How could you be so stupid?"
"Doctor, I accept your outrage since I know that a criticism of my action is not a criticism of me."
"Yes, it is! I know Jim can forgive you anything but I wouldn't be in your shoes when he wakes up for all the ale on Romulus."
"Do not concern yourself, Doctor. It will all be forgotten." Spock pressed his fingertips together, an enigmatic expression on his face.
"You still haven't answered my question. How could you be so stupid as to put a pregnant tribble--"
"Doctor, please calm yourself and I will explain. As you may know, those of us who keep tribbles aboard this ship only feed them when we know we will soon be able to offload the offspring. T'Pop has not been fed since we left Starbase 12. But in order to prepare Jim for the insertion, I had to set T'Pop down. I thought nothing of it at the time but shortly before you arrived, I noticed that the edible plomeek-flavored jock strap that had been on the bedside stand was gone."
"So the tribble ate the jock strap and then you conveniently gave her access to a dark, warm place."
"The newborn tribbles began tumbling out."
"Is that when Jim started screaming? It was heard three decks away, you know."
"No. As a matter of fact, he retracted his cry of Cleveland. He found the experience of birth to be quite moving."
"You two are more twisted than a pair of slinkies, you know that?"
"Oh, come on, Spock," Kirk cooed dreamily, moving restlessly under the sheet. "You know you can't refuse me..."
"So how did the fire start?" asked McCoy.
"Eventually no new tribbles were forthcoming," Spock replied, "but T'Pop continued to ignore my calls."
"Yes. I looked into the tube and I could see T'Pop. I thought perhaps she would be attracted to the light so I lit a match. Unfortunately, that ignited a pocket of intestinal gas and a flame shot out of the tube, igniting my hair. It also set fire to T'Pop, which caused the ignition of another internal pocket of gas. That propelled T'Pop and the two remaining tribbles out as small, squealing cannonballs of fire that hit me in the face and chest and then ran away."
McCoy sighed. That explained why Spock's usually lightly furred chest looked as if a maniac had done a little brush-clearing. And although the scorched tufts of hair scattered about his skull didn't exactly enhance the Vulcan's appearance, they were a definite improvement over the now-incinerated braid.
"Cleveland," the captain cried out in his sleep. " Cleveland !"
McCoy put the finishing touches on Spock's nose splint and said, "So now the captain has first degree burns in his anus and lower intestinal tract and you have second degree burns on your face and neck and a broken nose."
When Spock made no response, he snapped, "Well? Don't you have anything to say about that?"
Spock thought for a moment and then said, "In retrospect, I believe it was a mistake to light the match."
McCoy looked down and saw that at some point, he had stopped writing 'tribble' and gone on to inscribing 'idiots' in sharp, angry letters.
"Idiots," he muttered. "God damn idiots!"
He got up and went into the ward to gaze at the two sleeping figures.
"I'd lie for you two if I could figure out any other way in which those particular injuries could have occurred. But I'm stumped this time. So it's going in the record just as Spock described it. I'll muddy it up with as much medical jargon as I can, but..."
Shaking his head, he returned to his desk where he flipped the comm control and paged the Chief Zoologist, only to be informed that the entire department was engaged in the search for three singed, hysterical tribbles. McCoy pulled himself to his feet and left sickbay to join the search. They'd probably have better luck finding the unfortunate animals if they knew that one answered to the name T'Pop.
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