Author's Note: I wrote this back late June/early July. I hadn't yet seen all of season three and was on the boat for about a month with no reliable internet access. Thus I wrote this to comfort my TOS longings. This was the first fic I had worked on in a very long time and I was in a sense practicing writing the characters. As such, I purposely picked a silly plot. Please don't take this too seriously, it's all just for sh*ts and giggles :)
Warnings: very mild slash.
The Search for a Cure!
"Captain's log: our journey to planet Malo--hic--six has been uneventful as of--hic--damn--" and then the log was cut off.
Captain Kirk scowled, I'll have to re-record that after I finish hiccuping, he thought. Unfortunately his hiccups suddenly increased in intensity and he decided it was best to leave the bridge. It was highly inconvenient to get hiccups in the middle of a log, but Kirk hoped a glass of water would soon remedy the situation.
***
Kirk sat by the com in his quarters, carefully timing his next move, he quickly depressed the call button, "Kirk to bridge."
"Spock here, what is it Captain?"
"How are things?" Kirk said this exceedingly fast, but fortunately Spock was an adept listener.
"All's well, Captain, are you alright?"
"I'm fine, Spock--hic--don't worry."
"I do not worry, but perhaps if you still have hiccups you should visit the doctor, though I doubt there is much he can do."
"Yes--hic--I think I will."
Kirk sighed, he'd hoped there might be something interesting happening on the bridge to distract him, but it was a small hope as he knew very well they would call him first if anything were to go wrong.
He'd hoped the hiccups would go away on their own, but it had already been an hour and, apparently, they were unusually stubborn. Although Kirk had never heard of hiccups being fatal, it couldn't hurt to drop by and ask Bone's opinion.
***
"Well Jim, there isn't much I can do. Hiccups usually go away on their own, and an hour isn't long enough for it to be too out of the ordinary. There are pharmaceutical treatments for very severe cases—ones that last for weeks or even years, but they are very powerful. You'll be out like a light for day at least. Wouldn't be any use to anybody, not if there was an emergency. Though, an emergency would probably cure them. I'd recommend waiting before taking such drastic measures."
"Thanks--hic-- Bones, I thought you'd say that."
"If you still have them in a few hours, you can come back and we'll discuss the options in more detail."
***
As with any ship since the day humankind first sailed the seas, rumor traveled fast, and soon the entire crew knew of the Captain's plight. He'd hoped the knowledge would have stayed known only to those on the bridge and Dr. McCoy, but the hiccups was a somewhat obvious affliction.
He'd made the mistake of going to one of the break rooms once and was met with a host of ridiculous, though well meant suggestions. They ranged from drinking milk upside-down to consuming strange and often repulsive kinds and combinations of food. Chekov even offered him a sum of rubels if he hiccuped again, except that Kirk didn't catch on to his meaning right away and it was ineffective. He was given a rather long explanation on how it was an old Russian remedy for the hiccups, and if a person actually knew the considerable worth of the currency, they would want it but be suddenly unable to hiccup. "It's de most effective remedy."
Kirk doubted this, but agreed aloud in hopes of ending Chekov's rambling monologue. After he finally escaped, the captain left to hide in sickbay.
"I've never heard so many--hic--ridiculous suggestions in--hic--my life," he confessed to the doctor.
"Perhaps you should try some. Most of their effectiveness is psychological."
"I--hic--don't know, Bones..."
"The other option is drugs. You'll be out for a good 24 hours and they'll leave you groggy."
"I guess--hic--we could give--hic--the home remedies a try."
A quarter of an hour later on the bridge Uhura tried to surprise him by saying she was pregnant, Sulu had jumped out from behind a doorway and yelled in an attempt to scare him, Nurse Chapel prepared him some sort of homemade soup-like concoction, and Scotty had suggested some Scotch whisky--which Dr. McCoy shot down with the well established fact that alcohol was often the cause of hiccups. None of them helped in the slightest.
"Any suggestions, Mr.--hic--Spock?"
"It is held hat the most common cure for hiccups is some type of distraction, correct?"
"Yes."
"Then I would like to point out that your current attempts merely remind you of their existence because you anticipate these actions and are even particularly seeking a cure, which would only serve to reinforce your awareness of the hiccups.
"Yes, but--hic-- what would help?"
"I would suggest going about your duties as normal."
"--hic--Except I've already tried--hic--that."
"Not exactly, Captain. However, I believe they would go away if you attempted to perform a very absorbing task."
"Like--hic--red alert. We've--hic-- already--"
"Or a simple game of chess."
Kirk paused, "Are you offering?"
"I have, in fact, been off duty for the past fifteen minutes."
With a smile and a nod Jim said, "Let's give it a try."
***
"So, how's the game coming along?"
"Not too well, Bones--hic--and still not helping."
"You are simply not concentrating enough, Captain, your game has been decidedly off," said Spock with only the most subtle tone of well meaning reproach.
"I can't--hic--be expected to concentrate if--hic--I keep being interrupted--hic--Oh, da--hic--it all!"
McCoy raised an eyebrow and looked at Spock, but the Vulcan's facial features revealed nothing. "Well, I'll leave you two to your game," he said and slid out of the room as unobtrusively as possible.
***
"Bridge to Captain Kirk."
It was a voice Kirk didn't recognize, but he punched back in immediately, "Kirk here, what's the situation?"
"A ship has been spotted, possibly Romulan."
"I'll be up right away," and with that he dashed away closely followed by Spock, their chess game abandoned.
However, when he reached the bridge, all hands simply looked at him as if he had grown horns or a second head. He finally broke the silence, "Where's the ship?"
"There is no ship, Captain," replied Sulu, "There hasn't been a single one since we left on this mission," the words here hesitant, weary of the captain's mood.
"I just received--" but from the blank, even stoic looks of the crew of the bridge, Captain Kirk realized the truth. "Which--hic--one of you called me to the bridge?"
He was met with a wall of silence , no one was going to say anything. Kirk then launched into a long tirade about how the act was a subversion of discipline, a punishable offense, hadn't they ever heard the fairy tale about the boy who cried wolf? To the disappointment of the crew this speech was also pockmarked by hiccups, and the captain stormed off in a rage.
***
Jim was sulking alone in sickbay when McCoy walked in. "I take responsibility for what happened," he said with a grave expression.
For a moment Kirk looked as if he were going to yell, but he spoke quietly and with great restraint, "I've decided to overlook the incident.--hic--No real harm was intended--hic--or done. I'm not even going to--hic--mention it in any log."
"I'm sorry Jim. If you want I can have a dose prepared for you."
"No," he sighed, "I'll just--hic--suffer."
A short while after McCoy left for his office, Spock came in.
"Captain, I have something to give you," he said in his most formal tone, back as straight and rigid as steel.
"What is it--hic--Spock," Jim asked, stepping closer to his fist officer, mildly concerned. Spock hadn't been this formal in ages, and when he reverted to that tone it usually preceded something unpleasant.
Without warning Spock leaned in and planted a kiss directly on Jim's lips. The captain was too surprised to do anything but stare at the closed eyes, so suddenly near his own. The kiss its self wasn't passionate or anything particularly romantic—It was more like an experiment, almost clinical.
Before Jim had any time to make up his mind about it Spock had pulled away and stared back as if he had done nothing at all.
It was a few seconds before Jim could speak. "What was that for?" he demanded, too confused to put what hat just happened together.
"Forgive me, Captain. However, are your hiccups gone?"
"Of course no--" he began to shoot back immediately, but the he paused, listening for a good fifteen seconds, "Why... why yes, they are gone!"
"Then I have accomplished my objective."
"And what exactly was your objective," asked Jim skeptically.
"The most typical way of ridding one's self of the hiccups is to be so thoroughly surprised or distracted as to halt the reflex."
"Yes, I know that Spock."
"Please do not interrupt me, Captain. Over the course of this twenty-four hour period you have attempted almost all but the most ridiculous techniques for curing hiccups, to little or no effect. Not even a call to the bridge for an emergency was effective, nor your anger at the staged nature of the situation. I therefore ran through all of the possibilities one more time. It would seem you are particularly inured to surprise and distraction because your duties call for a great deal of control in often surprising situations. I concluded that the only way to cure your hiccups naturally was to subject you to something so incredibly out of the ordinary as to be completely unexpected. I decided a radical display of physical affection on my part was the most surprising action within my power to perform."
"A radical display?"
"Relatively speaking."
Jim considered Spock's words for a long moment. "So, are you telling me that the most unexpected thing you could think of doing was... kissing me?"
"Yes. It was the most logical option," Spock said this with a stiffness that belied his inner state of turmoil.
But turmoil over what? wondered Jim, "What I want to know is why you thought I would be so surprised if you--"
At that exact moment McCoy chose to walk back in and Kirk quickly stopped speaking mid sentence and took a large step back, "Well, hello Bones!" he said with somewhat false cheer.
McCoy took in the general awkwardness of the atmosphere, noting how Spock and Jim stood just slightly farther apart than normal, "What's going on here?" he demanded.
"I just came to attempt to cure the Captain's hiccups," said Spock with a straight face.
"And it worked," finished Jim.
"Oh, and how, may I ask, did he do it?" queried McCoy.
"Secret Vulcan technique,"said Kirk quickly, before there could be any argument.
"Oh, really?" drawled the doctor, expression doubtful, "And is this one of those techniques too sophisticated and logical for we mere humans to understand?"
The sarcasm was obvious as always, and Jim could tell Spock was itching to respond to the remark, but he cut Spock off again, "Er, well, it's not so much the technique as the logic used to arrive at it that is uniquely Vulcan."
"Is that so."
"Yes."
McCoy looked as if he wanted to demand a better answer, but instead he said, "And you're cured? No complaints at all? Fit as a fiddle?"
"Yep."
McCoy looked between the two of them for a moment, then said, suspicion still in his voice, "Well, are you two perfectly healthy individuals going to continue to stay in sickbay, or do you have places to be?"
"Oh, yes, we had better get back to the bridge!" said Jim, relieved at the chance to escape.
However, as McCoy watched them leave, he had the sudden suspicion the doctor could make a very good guess about what had just happened.