Title: Ignorance is Bliss
Characters: Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Amanda, unconscious!Sarek
Rating: K
Word Count: 1722
Spoilers/Warnings: Spoilers for Journey to Babel
Summary: Missing (crack) scene from the end of Journey to Babel. Spock and Kirk drive everyone around them nuts when they're trapped in the same Sickbay together.
A/N: In answer to multiple requests for exposition of a line in my last Insontis ficlet, regarding Vulcans and their meditative trances. I don't profess that this is anything other than cracky fluff, so be forewarned. Read at your own brain's risk. Written now because LiveJournal is down and I'm tired of fighting with computers. Also, ff dot net keeps eating my formatting, so if words are smushed together here and there that's not my fault; I'm trying to catch them. :(

First a dead Tellarite to autopsy. Then a stubborn Vulcan with heart problems, and another stubborn Vulcan volunteering for a dangerous blood-reproduction experiment. Add to that an Andorian knifing their captain, and then said captain overexerting himself leading the ship through a space battle, all while the doctor was performing heart surgery, thanks very much, and Leonard McCoy had not had the most pleasant of days.

Then it started.

Neither of his COs were model patients. Between Spock trying three times to get up from his bio-bed after disabling the alarm system (Lady Amanda was a tattle-tale, McCoy discovered with glee), and their fearless Captain trying to direct his crew's operations from a portable computer while barely able to breathe properly from a healing lung, the physician had his work cut out for him already.

And then it grew worse; when Kirk and Spock discovered with dismay that their CMO refused to budge on his enforced bed-rest policy, they turned their attentions to each other. Sickbay rang for over an hour with completely random and haphazard conversations held in voices raised to cover the distance across the recovery ward, until Nurse Chapel had had enough and commandeered three interns to move the First Officer's bed across the room beside his captain's, so that the rest of the Sickbay occupants could have some peace and quiet.

Three hours later, McCoy was trying to keep a straight face as he administered a heavy sedative to Ambassador Sarek; the elder Vulcan obviously thought he was being subtle but the someone-anyone-help-me-they-are-driving-me-out-of-my-Vulcan-mind was clear as crystal in the request for post-op sedation.

The duo in question were at the time engaged in a colorful discussion of the theories regarding the multiplicity of universes and divergence within those universes. Spock had a 3-D holo-padd on his knees and was sketching figures to illustrate whatever point he was trying to make (McCoy had lost interest after the third 'fascinating' in as many minutes), while the captain of the Enterprise was reclined on his pillows, squinting at the diagrams as he followed the swift fingers in their sketching and absently sipping on a cup of nutrient-laced orange juice.

Shaking his head, McCoy administered Kirk's next dose of pain medication and Spock's vitamin shot, and then left them to talking geeky. He had paperwork to do.

Another two hours later, even he had had enough; the intelligent conversation had degraded into a discussion of the virtues of coffee, adrenaline, and other natural stimulants versus proper rest and nutrition, and they were engaged in a virtual chess match on the 3-D holo-padd.

And when he was doped up on pain meds, Jim Kirk apparently was an oblivious and obvious cheater.

"I repeat, that is an illegal move, Jim."

"Is not."

"It is; a king cannot move in that formation."

"If a king's in charge, he can move annawhere he darn well pleases, though," Kirk returned thoughtfully.

"Not in a game of chess, Jim."

Hazel eyes blinked innocently, if a bit hazily, across the holographic board. "Why not?"

"Because it is against the rules," Spock replied with admirable patience, lips twitching suspiciously.

"Oh, tha's all right then," the captain slurred with a beatific smile, giving a regal wave of dismissal. "'Cause since when do I pay attention to the rules?"

"That point, I am unable to argue," was the dry reply.

"But it's more fun when you argue," Kirk said plaintively, "'specially when I'm all human and emotional and crap, and your eyebrows do that twitchy thing like my-brain-cells-your-illogic-is-killing-them."

The eyebrows in question hit the Vulcan's hairline. "Captain, I believe we should discontinue this conversation until the doctor's medication has had sufficient time to be filtered through your body's systems."

Kirk folded his arms grumpily and sat back with a huff, only wincing as his healing back protested. "Well fine then, if you don't wanna talk to me you only had to say so, Spock."

Vulcans do not whimper, though it looked like this half-Vulcan was pretty close. McCoy stifled a laugh and moved toward the door of the recovery ward.

"I never said I did not wish to speak with you, Jim. I merely suggested that you are, as they say, leaped up on pain medication?"

Kirk choked a giggle into the nearest pillow. It was an unfortunate habit for his command persona, but when he was truly tickled at something he really did giggle; not laugh, not chuckle - giggle. McCoy had the Shore Leave vids to prove it (and sell to the highest female crewman bidder). "Hopped up," the captain corrected, chortling.

"I beg your pardon?"

"Hopped up, Spock, not leaped."

"Ah."

The human sniffed injuriously. "I do believe, Commander, that you are implying I am functioning at sub-standard levels."

An incredulous eyebrow. "And yet you can formulate a sentence like the previous without effort?"

"Wasn't it great? I sounded like you!"

"Annnnd that's my cue," McCoy muttered, striding through the door. That would be all he needed, a sarcastic conscious Vulcan and a drugged half-conscious Vulcan-wannabe.

Lady Amanda Grayson, quietly pretending to read a book next to her blissfully unconscious husband and in actuality listening with amusement, grinned up at him as he entered, hopefully in time to stave off any more embarrassing conversation.

"Right then, that's enough for now from you two," he said sternly, pointing a finger at hisCOs. Both quailed slightly. "You," he ordered Spock, "sleep, or meditate, or whatever voodoo it is that you use to keep firing on all cylinders. And you, captain sir," he turned a suitably frightening glare on the wide-eyed captain, "are going to lie there and take a nap or at least rest, or you're not gettin' out of here in the next three days. Y'all hear me?"

"Quite loudly, Doctor," was the dry reply from the Vulcan quarter, as Spock lay back, hands folded loosely over his torso in a meditative position.

Kirk scowled like a child who has been told to go to bed while the party is still in full swing. "You pumped me fulla something, didn't you?" he accused, waving an uncoordinated hand in the doctor's general direction.

"Yes, and I'll knock you out if I have to, to get some peace and quiet around here for an hour at least," he retorted, hands on hips. "Now shush!"

Spock gave him a long-suffering look and slowly began to relax, his eyes losing focus as they were covered by the secondary eyelid. Soon he was looking blankly at the ceiling, as he entered a meditative trance.

McCoy shook his head, moving over to the other bio-bed and checking the readings for Ambassador Sarek. "They're a handful, aren't they?" he asked, chuckling as he saw the fond looks the Lady Amanda was shooting the two across the room. "They'd have talked all afternoon and all night, too, and probably will – 's why I told 'em to rest now. They don't get much time to just sit and yammer about stuff that's not ship-related."

"I gathered," the woman said with a musical laugh. "I was unaware that my son could so animatedly discuss ancient Terran music genres, or that he even had an opinion regarding the merits of orange sherbet versus vanilla as the mainstay neutral flavor in the ship's replicated ice cream."

The doctor grinned, glancing over his shoulder before scribbling readings on Sarek's records padd. "Jim will thank me later for forcing him to rest while those meds take effect; you'd have enjoyed the free show but I think Spock would have ended by pulling out his hair."

The ambassador's wife giggled suddenly. "Speaking of," she murmured, gesturing behind him.

McCoy turned, and resisted the urge to plant his face in his hands.

Vulcans, when deep in meditative trances, were unaware of their environment and usually could not be brought out of them by any means short of telepathic summons. They remained entirely oblivious of their surroundings for that space of time, and due to their secondary eyelids kept their eyes open, for all appearances, a somewhat eerie habit to those unaccustomed to seeing the open-eyed stare.

And apparently, to a doped-up Jim Kirk's intricately-twisted mind, this was highly intriguing.

McCoy watched as he curiously leaned over, waving a cautious hand in front of the Vulcan's face. Receiving not a blink of response, he frowned, and waggled his fingers, craning his neck to check for any sign that Spock could see or hear him. Receiving nothing, the man grinned dopily and, reaching out, dared to flick a bit of hair out of the perfect symmetry, leaning back and snickering like a three-year-old once he'd accomplished it.

"All he needs is a permanent marker, and he can draw a mustache and glasses on the poor devil," McCoy muttered, sending the stately ambassador's wife into another fit of giggles.

Drugged eyes glinting with sharp intent, Kirk picked up the wrapper from his juice straw and, balling it tightly, bounced it off his First Officer's nose.

Spock never moved, never even twitched.

The captain cocked his head to one side, as if pondering something in his medication-addled brain. "If you're descended from a felinoid race," he mused aloud, obviously having forgotten the other people in the room, "then will your ear flick like a cat's does when you blow on it?"

McCoy's head impacted the wall with a dull thonk. "Oh for the love of all that's good and sensible..."

"Doctor, I might like to requisition the pain medication you used for Captain Kirk; I believe administering it to my husband could produce quite…fascinating results," the Lady Amanda said, eyes twinkling.

The Enterprise's intrepid, impressive leader was now busily engaged in poking the unaware Vulcan, multiple times, eventually tapping out on the blue-clad arm a rhythm to a song only he could hear.

"Spooooooock," Kirk sing-songed softly, poking the Vulcan again. "You in there somewhere?"

Then McCoy caught it, a split-second before it happened; the minutest twitch, the tiniest indication.

When Kirk leaned over the next time, to wave his fingers within inches of the blankly-staring eyes, a thin hand shot up without warning, fast as lightning, and grasped his wrist.

McCoy now had brand-spanking-new footage to add to his blackmail collection.

Evidently, when he's doped up on pain medication and subsequently startled, Jim Kirk shrieks like a girl.