A/N: The file for this got replaced with the file for "The Golden Boy and the good Doctor". Believe me, I'm all for there being more cowboy stories out there, but I'm pretty sure since loofahs weren't around in the wild wild west, it'd be in my best interests just to replace the file.

NINS OUT!

James Tiberius Kirk had never seen the point of loofahs. Sure, he'd seen them lying around amongst toiletries in girls' washrooms and in the dingy motels he'd taken them earlier, but he could never figure out quite what they were. He'd figured it was one of those things girls would keep around because they were fluffy and feminine looking and made them seem hygienic, not because they actually knew what the damned things were for. So when one turned up in his pack of regulation Star Fleet toiletries, he paid little attention to it.

But there it was, whenever he came in to shower or brush his teeth or whatever: an obnoxious orange ball of netting that seared his retinas, planting the image of the hideous loofah behind his eyelids. The thing was like a damned curse! Jim sometimes brought it up with Bones, but the doctor would give him that look and mutter something about Jim being "off his rocker".

Whatever that's supposed to mean. Jim doesn't even own a "rocker".

So one day, Jim gives in. He goes to his bathroom and shuts the door, staring down the loofah. He's determined to figure out what the accursed thing does, and nothing, nothing, gets in the way of James Tiberius Mother Fucking Kirk.

Especially ridiculous bath products.

So Jim strides over to the counter like he's squaring up some asshole in a bar, and picks up the loofah. Beside it he finds a small bottle of equally obnoxious orange liquid and a small instruction booklet.

Instructions? How stupid does Star Fleet think he is? He's saved worlds single-handedly, "diving in with no planning and no bloody common sense", as Bones puts it (Not that he's been diving anywhere. He doesn't even own a scuba kit, for christ's sake!) , and they give him instructions to figure out a loofah?

He still can't figure out how to use it.

Swallowing that Kirk pride of his, he picks up the instructions and begins to read.

…..

Jim is pretty sure exfoliating is a gateway drug or something, because once he starts using the loofah he just can't stop. Whenever it's shower time, Jim is pretty much "bouncing off the walls", as Bones says.

Whatever that means. You can't bounce off walls. Bones must be the one who is "off his rocker".

But there is one thing about the loofah that bothers him. It's not something big or important, but it's something he feels stand in the way of him and his goal of discovering the secrets behind his (very nicely coloured) loofah. Jim can't reach that spot just between his shoulder blades. He can't use the "up and over the shoulder" approach, and the "bend the elbow back and under" approach is just as ineffective. Jim is stumped, but like hell if that'll stop him!

…

Mccoy walks in on Jim sliding up and down the shower wall, loofah lodged firmly between his shoulders and the tiles. Bones may have been to the edges of the universe and back with James Tiberius Kirk, but he still ranks this as one of the fucking strangest things he has walked in on Jim doing.

And Mccoy has walked in on Jim doing approximately three quarters of Federation humanoid species.

…

"Dammit, Jim! I'm a doctor, not some kind of masseuse." Mccoy grumbles, but Jim is practically purring, and Mccoy figures just this once.

The kid is acting like he hasn't seem a damn loofah his whole life.