This part requires a little suspension of belief for general wackiness. Oh, and yes, Malcolm hit his head. He's dazed and confused.
* * * * *
Part X: Malcolm
I hadn't weaved that much since I got completely smashed at a New Year's Eve party when I was twenty-one. At least my experience on the Enterprise was something I could remember. Hoshi was a steadying hand at my back, my shoulder, my head, my elbow...Actually, whenever I seemed to lean to one side she grabbed whichever part of me was handy and pulled me upright. Whenever I pitched forward she grabbed my waistband and hauled me back. This resulted in probably the most painful wedgie of all time.
And she smirked the entire time. Imagine! Smirking at my pain when she was the cause of it all. I'd have given her a wedgie in return but I would have either stumble into a wall or found she didn't have any underwear on for me to grab.
I grimaced as my mind took that idea and ran in circles with it. Wasn't I dizzy enough? Did I really need to go down this route?
Thank God no one had their cameras out for this. Stumbling through the corridors and blushing was not a Kodak moment I wanted captured for posterity.
After three near-collapses and a run in with a slow-moving turbolift door we finally made it to Sickbay.
"Phlox?" Hoshi called out.
A few moments later the smiling Denobulan walked out of his office and smiled. "Ahh. Hello, Hoshi! Lieutenant Reed. And how are we today?"
I chose that moment to fall to the floor. I guess my body decided that actions spoke louder than words.
Phlox was silent for a moment. "Not well, I see."
"Malcolm and a grease spot had a disagreement. The grease spot won and punished him by making him slip and hit his head on the floor." Hoshi stifled a snigger. "And you might want to check his throat."
I would have rolled my eyes but that would only have made me dizzier. It'll be okay, I thought. She'll leave, I'll lick my wounds in private, chock it all up to an insane hallucination and tomorrow we can just pretend it never happened.
It sounded like a plan.
I liked having a plan. It gave me the illusion of control before everything went to hell. Phlox was kind enough to help me up and over to a biobed. You know, they should clean the ceiling in here, too. Its got these swirls in it...Oh, it was spinning, that's why.
"Well then, let's see..." He started humming and looking at the readings on the board behind me. He picked up a hypospray and after adjusting the setting, gently pushed it into my arm.
I let out a sigh of relief as the spinning stopped and my stomach took back its place in the middle of my body again. Phlox leaned over and smiled at me. He smiles way too much. I'm sure he keeps a large bottle of happy pills somewhere.
And I think he shares them with Trip.
I heard another hypospray hiss but since I didn't feel anything against my skin and since Phlox was holding a padd with both hands I had to conclude that Hoshi was still in the room. Looking over, I saw her holding a hypo in one hand and looking at it curiously. She shook it and looked at me with a sheepish smile. "Oopsie." Before I could say anything, Phlox got my attention.
"There we go, lieutenant," he said with an even bigger smile than before. "No permanent damage but I want you to rest for the next day or so just in case." He looked at me as if I were going to protest.
After the day I'd had there was no way I was going to protest. Hiding in my quarters sounded like a marvelous idea.
"You must have hit your head harder than I thought. Lay here for awhile. I'll come check on you in an hour and if everything is all right I'll let you go back to your quarters."
"Great." I closed my eyes and relaxed, forgetting about Trip, Hoshi, bouncy things and the weirdness of today. I heard Phlox bustle out of the room and open a comm. channel to the captain telling him I was out for the rest of the day.
"Heeeey. You're pretty."
Huh?
I must have hit my head harder than I thought. I peered at Hoshi through my eyelashes as she came to stand next to the bed. She giggled. I didn't know what she was on, but I wanted some of it.
Then her eyes got wide, and she comically pursed her lips before whispering conspiratorially, "Are you ticklish?"
"What. . ." What kind of a question was that? Then it hit me. The hypospray. "Doctor! DOCTOR PHLOX! Hoshi, Hoshi, give me that. Did you inject that into yourself?!"
She giggled again and lunged for me as I rolled off the bed and onto the floor.
"Hosh--YIPE!" I ducked and ran as she scrambled over the biobed and managed to goose me before I could escape her hands. "PHLOX!!"
"What is--Oh dear." Phlox stood at the door to his office, dumbfounded as he watched Hoshi chase me around sickbay.
"What was in the hypo?!!"
"What hypo?"
"THAT HYPO!!!" I screamed, passing by him and pointing back at the one she'd left on the biobed.
"I don't know...Unless I didn't give my bat his medicine as I thought I had. Let me think."
"Phlox!"
"Yes?"
"THINK FASTER!!"
"Malcolm! I'm just trying to get to know you better!" Hoshi called out as she put on a burst of speed and grabbed my rear before I leapt over another biobed.
"No offense, Hoshi, but I don't think we should do that in your present state of mind."
I was on my second lap around Sickbay when Phlox suddenly brightened. "I remember. Liz came in with a twisted ankle and I put the hypo down and tended to her. I forgot all about it!" He laughed.
He laughed! I was being chased around Sickbay and he was laughing! I skidded around a biobed and dived between his legs. Unfortunately, Hoshi was right behind me and as I got up she turned me over--man she's strong!--and got me on the lips before I could slide away.
"Gee, Malcolm, thought you liked me," she said, licking her lips and getting up.
Is this what prey feels like?
"Phlox, what does that bat medicine do to humans?" I asked, backing up and around a bed, watching her carefully.
"Well," Phlox began, tilting his head to the left, "it will work its way out of her system in a few hours. Nothing truly harmful." He slid to his left. "Only..."
"Only?" She lunged to left and I flung myself to the right, tucking and rolling, barely able to stop myself before running into a medicine cabinet. I crawled under another bed.
"It acts rather like an aphrodisiac in humans." He looked at Hoshi and when he knew she wasn't looking, he motioned to his left and took another step in that direction.
I was too stunned to understand what he wanted. An aphrodisiac? Then I peeked up over the bed at Hoshi. There she was, like a cat waiting to pounce.
"Come on, Malcolm. I know you want to."
Okay, yes, I wanted to. I'm a red-blooded man. Put a beautiful woman in front of me and what do you expect? But this was Hoshi. I respected her. I liked her. I'd never take advantage of her.
Besides, she'd kill me.
Slowly.
Painfully.
That would be a bad thing.
I ducked down and looked back at Phlox who was standing next to the decon room. Oh...OH! I got it! Hey, I had a head injury. Can you blame me for being a little slow on the uptake? I took a deep breath and peered over the edge of the bed. "Hey, Hoshi," I said, smiling and standing.
"Yes?"
"Bet you can't catch me!" I took off for the decon room. Her footsteps pounded after me and dashed into the decon room. It would have been perfect except I slipped and skidded across the floor, Hoshi flying in after me. I scrambled to my feet and ran for the door. Phlox urged me on, his hand on the door controls but as I stepped out I felt a hand in my collar and a hard yank and suddenly I was on the floor and the door was closing.
Crap.
"PPPPHHHHLLLLLOOOOO--OOF!" Hoshi sat on my stomach and pinned my wrists over my head.
"Alone at last," she said with a smile and planted her lips on mine.
"I'm sorry, lieutenant!" Phlox said through the slot in the wall. "The door is jammed."
I turned my head away. "That's not good."
Hoshi smirked and nipped my earlobe. "You're right. It's perfect."
"I'm going to get Trip," Phlox said, moving away.
"NO!" Hoshi and I both yelled and then looked at each other in surprise.
"Not Trip!" I yelled. "Anyone but Trip." Hell, I'd take the captain over Trip at this point.
Except Phlox was already gone and I was trapped with a beautiful woman whose libido was out of control.
What a day.
"Hoshi," I said, hoping to reason with her. I manage to free one of my hands. "You really don't want to--HEY!" I looked at her in indignation and removed her hand from below my waist. "We're not that well acquainted yet."
"Mmmmm...but don't you want to be?" she whispered next to my ear.
"Yes, no! Argh!" I managed to roll her over and back off, scuttling for the opposite side of the room. "STOP! Stay. Right. There." I warned her, getting as far away from her and that body as I could get.
Her eyes glittered in the blue light and she took a step forward, an extreme amount of leg showing. Was it hot in here? I pulled at my collar nervously. "What happens if I don't?"
"I don't know, but you need to stay over there!" Where the hell was everyone? Shouldn't they be here by now?
Her smile became seductive and the temperature in the room shot up ten degrees. "I know you want me," she said, toying with the strap on her tank top and taking a few steps towards me.
She'd been sitting on me. How could she not know? "That's not the point, Hoshi." I swallowed hard, inching my way along the wall to the door as that strap slid down her arm. "If we do this, later when you come to your senses, you'll kill me!"
"Malcolm!" No, nononononoonono. I closed my eyes. Not Trip. Not Trip. Please! Anyone but Trip. Let me catch one break today.
She moved fast. When I opened my eyes again she was there, her body pressed up against mine and the other strap off her shoulder. "Be a hell of a way to die wouldn't it?" she asked, before kissing me again.
"Should I leave you two lovebirds alone?" Trip asked slyly.
I broke the kiss, gasping for air, every cell in my body telling me not to. "NO! Open the damn door, Trip!"
"Are you sure?"
"Do you really want to piss off the one guy who can put explosives under your bed, Trip?!"
"Come on, Malcolm. We could be stuck here for hours," Hoshi smiled, nibbling on my neck. Oh God, that felt good. She pulled the zipper on my uniform down and slid a hand inside.
"You know I could redecorate this for you guys. Put in some mood lighting, a bed..."
"TRIP!!!"
"All right. All right. Hang on!" Trip was laughing too hard to pick up his tools, I could tell.
She was sucking on my lower lip! Hurry up!! My hands were pressed flat against the wall because I knew if I touched her it'd be all over. "Hoshi, please. Think about this."
"I am. Do you think if I asked nicely, Phlox could bring us some melted chocolate?"
I couldn't help it. I groaned at the images that brought up. Think cold showers. Think military drills. Think phase pistols...
"HURRY, TRIP!"
"Keep your britches on--oops, sorry!"
What kind of explosive do you give to the man who has a big mouth?
I looked down. How in the world did she get that zipper down so fast? Suddenly, the door wooshed open. I pulled Hoshi's hands out of my uniform and ran for it, slamming my hand on the door control. The door slid shut on Hoshi's scream of frustration and I slid down the wall, breathing heavily.
Trip and Phlox looked down at me. With as much dignity as I could muster, I stood and zipped my uniform up. Trip opened his mouth.
"Oh. Shut up." I stalked out of the Sickbay.
I needed to take a cold shower. Several cold showers.
* * * * *
* * * * *
Part X: Malcolm
I hadn't weaved that much since I got completely smashed at a New Year's Eve party when I was twenty-one. At least my experience on the Enterprise was something I could remember. Hoshi was a steadying hand at my back, my shoulder, my head, my elbow...Actually, whenever I seemed to lean to one side she grabbed whichever part of me was handy and pulled me upright. Whenever I pitched forward she grabbed my waistband and hauled me back. This resulted in probably the most painful wedgie of all time.
And she smirked the entire time. Imagine! Smirking at my pain when she was the cause of it all. I'd have given her a wedgie in return but I would have either stumble into a wall or found she didn't have any underwear on for me to grab.
I grimaced as my mind took that idea and ran in circles with it. Wasn't I dizzy enough? Did I really need to go down this route?
Thank God no one had their cameras out for this. Stumbling through the corridors and blushing was not a Kodak moment I wanted captured for posterity.
After three near-collapses and a run in with a slow-moving turbolift door we finally made it to Sickbay.
"Phlox?" Hoshi called out.
A few moments later the smiling Denobulan walked out of his office and smiled. "Ahh. Hello, Hoshi! Lieutenant Reed. And how are we today?"
I chose that moment to fall to the floor. I guess my body decided that actions spoke louder than words.
Phlox was silent for a moment. "Not well, I see."
"Malcolm and a grease spot had a disagreement. The grease spot won and punished him by making him slip and hit his head on the floor." Hoshi stifled a snigger. "And you might want to check his throat."
I would have rolled my eyes but that would only have made me dizzier. It'll be okay, I thought. She'll leave, I'll lick my wounds in private, chock it all up to an insane hallucination and tomorrow we can just pretend it never happened.
It sounded like a plan.
I liked having a plan. It gave me the illusion of control before everything went to hell. Phlox was kind enough to help me up and over to a biobed. You know, they should clean the ceiling in here, too. Its got these swirls in it...Oh, it was spinning, that's why.
"Well then, let's see..." He started humming and looking at the readings on the board behind me. He picked up a hypospray and after adjusting the setting, gently pushed it into my arm.
I let out a sigh of relief as the spinning stopped and my stomach took back its place in the middle of my body again. Phlox leaned over and smiled at me. He smiles way too much. I'm sure he keeps a large bottle of happy pills somewhere.
And I think he shares them with Trip.
I heard another hypospray hiss but since I didn't feel anything against my skin and since Phlox was holding a padd with both hands I had to conclude that Hoshi was still in the room. Looking over, I saw her holding a hypo in one hand and looking at it curiously. She shook it and looked at me with a sheepish smile. "Oopsie." Before I could say anything, Phlox got my attention.
"There we go, lieutenant," he said with an even bigger smile than before. "No permanent damage but I want you to rest for the next day or so just in case." He looked at me as if I were going to protest.
After the day I'd had there was no way I was going to protest. Hiding in my quarters sounded like a marvelous idea.
"You must have hit your head harder than I thought. Lay here for awhile. I'll come check on you in an hour and if everything is all right I'll let you go back to your quarters."
"Great." I closed my eyes and relaxed, forgetting about Trip, Hoshi, bouncy things and the weirdness of today. I heard Phlox bustle out of the room and open a comm. channel to the captain telling him I was out for the rest of the day.
"Heeeey. You're pretty."
Huh?
I must have hit my head harder than I thought. I peered at Hoshi through my eyelashes as she came to stand next to the bed. She giggled. I didn't know what she was on, but I wanted some of it.
Then her eyes got wide, and she comically pursed her lips before whispering conspiratorially, "Are you ticklish?"
"What. . ." What kind of a question was that? Then it hit me. The hypospray. "Doctor! DOCTOR PHLOX! Hoshi, Hoshi, give me that. Did you inject that into yourself?!"
She giggled again and lunged for me as I rolled off the bed and onto the floor.
"Hosh--YIPE!" I ducked and ran as she scrambled over the biobed and managed to goose me before I could escape her hands. "PHLOX!!"
"What is--Oh dear." Phlox stood at the door to his office, dumbfounded as he watched Hoshi chase me around sickbay.
"What was in the hypo?!!"
"What hypo?"
"THAT HYPO!!!" I screamed, passing by him and pointing back at the one she'd left on the biobed.
"I don't know...Unless I didn't give my bat his medicine as I thought I had. Let me think."
"Phlox!"
"Yes?"
"THINK FASTER!!"
"Malcolm! I'm just trying to get to know you better!" Hoshi called out as she put on a burst of speed and grabbed my rear before I leapt over another biobed.
"No offense, Hoshi, but I don't think we should do that in your present state of mind."
I was on my second lap around Sickbay when Phlox suddenly brightened. "I remember. Liz came in with a twisted ankle and I put the hypo down and tended to her. I forgot all about it!" He laughed.
He laughed! I was being chased around Sickbay and he was laughing! I skidded around a biobed and dived between his legs. Unfortunately, Hoshi was right behind me and as I got up she turned me over--man she's strong!--and got me on the lips before I could slide away.
"Gee, Malcolm, thought you liked me," she said, licking her lips and getting up.
Is this what prey feels like?
"Phlox, what does that bat medicine do to humans?" I asked, backing up and around a bed, watching her carefully.
"Well," Phlox began, tilting his head to the left, "it will work its way out of her system in a few hours. Nothing truly harmful." He slid to his left. "Only..."
"Only?" She lunged to left and I flung myself to the right, tucking and rolling, barely able to stop myself before running into a medicine cabinet. I crawled under another bed.
"It acts rather like an aphrodisiac in humans." He looked at Hoshi and when he knew she wasn't looking, he motioned to his left and took another step in that direction.
I was too stunned to understand what he wanted. An aphrodisiac? Then I peeked up over the bed at Hoshi. There she was, like a cat waiting to pounce.
"Come on, Malcolm. I know you want to."
Okay, yes, I wanted to. I'm a red-blooded man. Put a beautiful woman in front of me and what do you expect? But this was Hoshi. I respected her. I liked her. I'd never take advantage of her.
Besides, she'd kill me.
Slowly.
Painfully.
That would be a bad thing.
I ducked down and looked back at Phlox who was standing next to the decon room. Oh...OH! I got it! Hey, I had a head injury. Can you blame me for being a little slow on the uptake? I took a deep breath and peered over the edge of the bed. "Hey, Hoshi," I said, smiling and standing.
"Yes?"
"Bet you can't catch me!" I took off for the decon room. Her footsteps pounded after me and dashed into the decon room. It would have been perfect except I slipped and skidded across the floor, Hoshi flying in after me. I scrambled to my feet and ran for the door. Phlox urged me on, his hand on the door controls but as I stepped out I felt a hand in my collar and a hard yank and suddenly I was on the floor and the door was closing.
Crap.
"PPPPHHHHLLLLLOOOOO--OOF!" Hoshi sat on my stomach and pinned my wrists over my head.
"Alone at last," she said with a smile and planted her lips on mine.
"I'm sorry, lieutenant!" Phlox said through the slot in the wall. "The door is jammed."
I turned my head away. "That's not good."
Hoshi smirked and nipped my earlobe. "You're right. It's perfect."
"I'm going to get Trip," Phlox said, moving away.
"NO!" Hoshi and I both yelled and then looked at each other in surprise.
"Not Trip!" I yelled. "Anyone but Trip." Hell, I'd take the captain over Trip at this point.
Except Phlox was already gone and I was trapped with a beautiful woman whose libido was out of control.
What a day.
"Hoshi," I said, hoping to reason with her. I manage to free one of my hands. "You really don't want to--HEY!" I looked at her in indignation and removed her hand from below my waist. "We're not that well acquainted yet."
"Mmmmm...but don't you want to be?" she whispered next to my ear.
"Yes, no! Argh!" I managed to roll her over and back off, scuttling for the opposite side of the room. "STOP! Stay. Right. There." I warned her, getting as far away from her and that body as I could get.
Her eyes glittered in the blue light and she took a step forward, an extreme amount of leg showing. Was it hot in here? I pulled at my collar nervously. "What happens if I don't?"
"I don't know, but you need to stay over there!" Where the hell was everyone? Shouldn't they be here by now?
Her smile became seductive and the temperature in the room shot up ten degrees. "I know you want me," she said, toying with the strap on her tank top and taking a few steps towards me.
She'd been sitting on me. How could she not know? "That's not the point, Hoshi." I swallowed hard, inching my way along the wall to the door as that strap slid down her arm. "If we do this, later when you come to your senses, you'll kill me!"
"Malcolm!" No, nononononoonono. I closed my eyes. Not Trip. Not Trip. Please! Anyone but Trip. Let me catch one break today.
She moved fast. When I opened my eyes again she was there, her body pressed up against mine and the other strap off her shoulder. "Be a hell of a way to die wouldn't it?" she asked, before kissing me again.
"Should I leave you two lovebirds alone?" Trip asked slyly.
I broke the kiss, gasping for air, every cell in my body telling me not to. "NO! Open the damn door, Trip!"
"Are you sure?"
"Do you really want to piss off the one guy who can put explosives under your bed, Trip?!"
"Come on, Malcolm. We could be stuck here for hours," Hoshi smiled, nibbling on my neck. Oh God, that felt good. She pulled the zipper on my uniform down and slid a hand inside.
"You know I could redecorate this for you guys. Put in some mood lighting, a bed..."
"TRIP!!!"
"All right. All right. Hang on!" Trip was laughing too hard to pick up his tools, I could tell.
She was sucking on my lower lip! Hurry up!! My hands were pressed flat against the wall because I knew if I touched her it'd be all over. "Hoshi, please. Think about this."
"I am. Do you think if I asked nicely, Phlox could bring us some melted chocolate?"
I couldn't help it. I groaned at the images that brought up. Think cold showers. Think military drills. Think phase pistols...
"HURRY, TRIP!"
"Keep your britches on--oops, sorry!"
What kind of explosive do you give to the man who has a big mouth?
I looked down. How in the world did she get that zipper down so fast? Suddenly, the door wooshed open. I pulled Hoshi's hands out of my uniform and ran for it, slamming my hand on the door control. The door slid shut on Hoshi's scream of frustration and I slid down the wall, breathing heavily.
Trip and Phlox looked down at me. With as much dignity as I could muster, I stood and zipped my uniform up. Trip opened his mouth.
"Oh. Shut up." I stalked out of the Sickbay.
I needed to take a cold shower. Several cold showers.
* * * * *