Mathematically, I'm Having It
by Jillian for Mer
...
The planet Mathkandu welcomed the Enterprise landing party with a small group of arm waving dancers. Kirk had seen better. The smaller girl on the far left could have used more sleep, more practice or more alcohol. Fortunately, he could gage the exact wattage of his smile. From the tension of his cheeks, Kirk estimated he was allowing for pleasantly intrigued at half power.
The girl faltered, but his expression did not.
"Captain." Spock broke Kirk's attentive appraisal. The Vulcan lifted his brow then took a long breath from the next breeze.
Kirk instinctively mimicked the rise of the shoulders and found himself taking in a scent that triggered his mouth to water. He pictured a charred steak, but the table spread out a few feet away under the tarp had a centerpiece resembling a large swordfish. Kirk rubbed his hands together. "That'll do."
As they sat down to the meal and the rather pleasant social atmosphere of the culture's method of debriefing over wine, Kirk leaned from one arm to the other. Casually swatting away at the native insects.
...
At first, they'd all ignored the symptoms until McCoy set his tray down on the mess hall table with Richter scale tipping force. "I reckon this is just the start to another fabulous day."
"Not enough noodles for you Bones?" Kirk remained mostly in the personal space of the ensign he'd found for a lunch partner during McCoy's delay.
He couldn't have been more than three minutes late. Instinctively, McCoy checked his wrist for his grandfather's watch. Then he shook out his sleeve to hide the motion. Forgetting Kirk's birthday two years in a row would have been unforgivable. So the watch was sacrificed and now the Captain collected old Earth artifacts. He glanced at the soup again. "A fly. Doing the back stroke." He pointed.
Kirk made a rumbling noise in his chest, that was partially a promise to the blushing ensign and partially acknowledgment of McCoy's complaint.
"A fly, Jim." Exacerbation at his best friend happened often enough during meals that McCoy had a favorite spot on the ceiling. He searched for it.
"In your soup." Leaning across the table, Kirk nodded his head vigorously enough to catch McCoy's attention again. "I'll have to get Scotty on that. Right away." He added the last with a cheek splitting grin.
"You think it's the replicators?" McCoy asked. "Or do you think that the Enterprise has an actual infestation?"
Kirk grimaced at the last word.
"Maybe it's a new form of alien infiltration and this isn't a fly at all. Bugging." McCoy sat. "So explain why you called me? Aren't you on duty?"
"Possibly, but I had this idea..."
...
"Sulu called off his shift." Uhura turned in her seat to await Spock's response.
"Did he say why he was not going to perform his duties?" Spock settled both of his arms so that his fingers could curl around the edges of the metal. He seemed half to lift from his seat before settling into the dark fabric again.
"He didn't give specifics. I could speculate," Uhura offered. She watched his face considering every tick of his eye until her vision was snatched away by a dark spot that seemed to fly from the clear data panel.
"One wonders." He did stand then surveying the otherwise empty bridge.
"On Earth," Uhura ventured. "This is the weekend."
...
Chekov tested the material of his shirt, but it definitely was not going to stretch down to the top of the Xoolandrian pants that he'd acquired at their last Shore Leave. His pulling and tugging ended when the turbolift door opened and his ears were assaulted by the sound of loud voices and a pulsing bass.
"Hi, hi, hi." He waved at a small group of engineers that had given up on the glasses littering the ground for bottles of some clear orange liquid. One was offered to him. Chekov took the chilly beverage so he would have something to hold. He'd spent longer than he expected trying to finish drafting the last logic puzzle for the collection he owed the New Moscow Publishers. They'd been generous with the extension given the whole whirlwind that was his premature assignment to the Enterprise and then the accelerated launch with all the new cadets and saving the world, but not quite Vulcan. Chekov paused.
He heard the buzzing again. The same noise that had kept him from finishing the proof. He did a quick surveillance of his surroundings, but the music really kicked in so that all reasonable sounds were lost.
"Chekov! You came." Sulu grinned pulling the younger boy by the elbow. From the disarray of his clothing, it appeared that Sulu had trouble matching the buttons to holes on his shirt and given up after one failed attempt.
"Sickbay, I thought..." Chekov, while confused, smiled back easily. The entire section from front door to Doctor McCoy's office was lined with streamers and balloons. Someone had programmed the lights to flicker in a rapid sequence through curtains of decorative gels casting colors around the grey base of the room. Uhura stood at the foot of one of the beds, her arms lifted as she mimicked something the Captain was teaching her.
"Next is this," Kirk demonstrated, wiggling his arm forward again while bending his legs. Uhura mirrored the movement with considerably more grace then smoothly added the step to the rest of her performance.
Chekov barely could find the one word to frame his thoughts. "How?"
...
"Lissten," McCoy slurred. He found space to sit balanced on the armrest of his own office chair and leaned his arm around Spock who sat in it properly. "If I didn't know better, I'd say that's a surly expression on your Vulcan face. Which I know it can't be, since you're..." McCoy chuckled at whatever he meant to say next. Whenever he moved his lips to say it, the laughter threatened to burst out instead.
"Doctor, your breath is foul." Spock's arms remained crossed.
"I'm just saying." The next exhale was successful. "While the rest of us are all acting, well, peculiar... you seem to be unaffected. No reaction." McCoy mentally tripped into the dark cavern that had been waiting at the base of his thoughts. Spilling the remains of his drink into the Vulcan's lap, McCoy fell full and unconscious across the Commander's lap.
"I assure you, Doctor, mathematically I'm having it." Spock tapped his finger against his temple in time to the music before dumping McCoy onto the floor. Stepping over the limp figure of their CMO, Spock crossed the central area where Uhura's dark skin sparkled with a mixture of glitter and sweat. Kirk had surrendered the dance to their communications officer while he sat propped up against the near wall appreciating the show.
"Captain?" Spock twisted to sit next to Kirk shoulder to shoulder. Kirk put a finger to his lips.
...
Some time later, mesmerized by the lights and Uhura's considerable talent where the Mathkandu had been lacking, Spock realized that the Captain was no longer watching the dance but staring at him instead.
"Jim?"
"Yes!" Kirk exclaimed. Then grinning brightly, "About time, too. Ask me anything, I promise to tell you."
Spock furrowed his brow. "You'll tell me the truth?"
"Most definitely. Probably." Kirk nodded his eyes half lidded and unfocused.
"Did anyone follow up on Doctor McCoy's complaint about the..." Spock pulled back as Kirk leaned closer.
"Can't quite read your lips," Kirk said innocently.
...
"So the Mathkandu bugs made us stupid?" Kirk requested the debriefing occur in the meeting room just next to the Captain's office. That way he didn't have far to walk before he could sit down again.
"They feed on intelligence. A harmonious process with the Mathkandu themselves, but off planet these creatures absorb higher functions leaving the victims to numb instinct." Spock clarified again, trying a different approach. At first, he'd concluded that the insects had followed his Vulcan sensibilities through the transporter and back onto the Enterprise. Later, documentation supported a path matching the same route as the Captain.
"How do they do that?" Kirk winced, a whining tone in his voice. His face still burned a visible red from where he'd fallen, cheek against the Sickbay carpet. "How long until we recover?"
McCoy twirled a hypospray between his fingers. "We're not sure. But these gadgets sure do the trick once I pump that serum into ya."
Spock exhaled, thinking of the pattern of green bruises along his neck. "A serum that was more successful after you read the directions correctly."
The hypospray clattered against the table top. McCoy shrugged.