AN: Okay, this one is for chaoticmom, since blowtoad might be one of those obscure colloquialisms. My Mom taught it to me though. XD

I don't own this stuff okay? Really. I promise. I only own Admiral Gensloid.

He or she is a real blowtoad: To brag unnecessarily about oneself in an obnoxious manner.

Many of the admirals were intelligent men and women. They kept the galaxy safe by prudently using ships such as the Enterprise correctly, sending the flagship to honor certain agreements or pick up men and women who needed the Federation's help.

This admiral was not one of them. Admiral Gensloid, a balding man of, as Spock would guess late fifties (57 to be exact), was extolling the virtues of his tour of command. Unfortunately the half-vulcan could not ignore the man, since the Admiral was standing on the bridge. Vulcans were always polite, if distant, to authority, even if said authority had been speaking for the last thirty minutes and fifteen seconds on himself.

"You should have seen how my crew reacted! By Gol, they are the best in the fleet! I commanded them to take us to warp speed six, and they just jumped to it. A credit to their captain they are! Even if they didn't agree with me, they knew who was right!"

The rest of the bridge crew went about their business or stared at the man with glazed expressions. Spock could tell by the look of concentration on Mr. Chekov's face, that the young man was contemplating a rather difficult Sudoku problem from Engineering's weekly batch, instead of listening to the admiral blathering on three feet from him. Sulu was focusing on flying the Enterprise, while Mr. Scott, who had been called up from Engineering to greet the man, stared off into space, no doubt wondering how long he would be forced to stay away from his Silver Lady's engines.

Lieutenant Uhura was the only one giving the Admiral any real attention, and that was because of the man's accent. She enjoyed the melody of voices, even if what was being said was less than intelligent. The Admiral's English accent was thick enough to warrant her attention. Captain Kirk, who was undoubtedly bored out of his mind, nodded at the appropriate moments and had given up on stopping the tirade of self glorifying precisely one hour fifteen minutes and ten seconds ago.

Only one member of the bridge crew stood there fidgeting, and that was normal with Dr. McCoy. He seemed ill at ease in the formal uniform required of the crew when an admiral was onboard, and one look at his face told all who knew him that he was a hair away from just leaving and ignoring the consequences. Spock found himself almost wishing a crisis would occur so that he had an excuse to leave, as the minutes droned on.

It was only when the admiral made a disparaging remark about Vulcan officers under him being less useful than his human officers that the bored feeling in the room evaporated. Two things happened in fast succession.

One: The admiral earned himself the undying disgust of the entire bridge crew.

Two: Dr. McCoy snapped.

He stomped across the bridge and straight up to the surprised admiral. "Look you damn blowtoad, he may not be the nicest guy to have a conversation with, he may be a fricken calculator, but he's worth a hell of a lot more than you and your old crew! So shut the hell up!" He grabbed the Admiral by the front of his shirt. The admiral's eyes narrowed to slits, and Bones knew he was in trouble. But he appeared not to care, as the bridge crew sat silently, shocked but not unappreciative of the outburst.

"You just insulted the wrong admiral, doctor." The man said calmly, as Dr. McCoy let go of his uniform. "I can promise you, a reprimand is in order. Captain?" he nodded to Jim who just shrugged like I'm-not-gonna-reprimand-a-guy-who-just-said-what-we-were-all-thinking. Fury flushed Admiral Gensloid's face, and the man turned and strode of the bridge, ready to stay in his cabin for the remainder of his trip.

Spock felt that he needed to defuse the tension in the room. Everyone was staring at Dr. McCoy in various degrees of admiration and shock. He had never defended Spock before, never shown any indication that he even liked the first mate.

"Thank you doctor for your support, however it was unnecessary. I can withstand the insults of what you term, a blowtoad."

Bones shook his head in annoyance and rubbed a hand across his face. "Look Spock , I just meant that the boasting idiot was frickin obnoxious. There's no excuse for insulting you just because the man's xenophobic. Especially since you've saved this idiot," here he nodded to Jim, " more often than I can count." Spock could only offer one response.

"Fascinating."

AN: Oh, and a blowtoad is a puffer fish! XD