5 + 1 Pet Story, Part 2
Title: Five Times Spock did not want a pet, and one that he did, Part 2 of 6
Author: goldvermilion87
Rating: PG
Fandom: Star Trek, TOS
Character(s): Spock, Kirk, Sulu, Scott, other Enterprise crewmembers
Summary: Fairly self-explanatory
Warnings: None
Word Count: 3,178
Two
"Fortunately, of course, I am…immune to its…effect…"
-Spock, "The Trouble with Tribbles"
He had given himself away, and he knew it. Spock rarely lost control of his human emotions, particularly when he was in a public setting, but feel of the soft fur under his sensitive fingers, added to the hypnotic sound of the tribbles' trilling made him forget where he was. He felt relaxed, the way he might at the end of a quiet evening playing chess in the captain's quarters.
Unfortunately, he was speaking with his captain in a rec room in front of twelve crewmen, one of whom was Doctor McCoy, (There were thirteen if one counted Mr. Scott, but Spock was quite certain that the lieutenant commander had not looked up from his journal since the captain had stopped speaking to him.) and he was petting one of the seventeen tribbles.
Since Doctor McCoy knew he had a weakness for the small animals, Spock felt the need to be uncharacteristically sharp with him in the labs. Captain Kirk had correctly noted on more than one occasion that modesty was not one of Spock's virtues-it would be illogical to deny it-but Spock did not usually try to act superior. Now he was trying to needle the doctor in any way possible, so he made an unnecessary literary allusion, sneered at the animals as McCoy smiled at them, and insulted the human race as a whole. When the doctor become frustrated, and declared that he preferred tribbles to Spock, Spock regretted that he could think of no more intelligent retort than "They do not talk too much." But his goal had been to preempt any teasing from the doctor about his display of weakness in the rec room, and if he did not shine in the encounter, it did not matter. He had achieved his purpose. He had frustrated McCoy past the point of pleasant banter and into the realm of true irritation.
Crisis averted. Spock put the whole incident out of his mind.
As the situation on the K7 deep space station developed, Spock became grateful for his moment of weakness in the rec room. It had caused him to be doubly vigilant of his emotions, and his captain's state required that he be as calm and collected as possible. Kirk was becoming more flustered by the minute, and Spock needed all of his Vulcan stoicism to balance out increasingly increasingly unbalanced superior.
Captain Kirk remained calm in crisis situations. Spock had sworn as much in court, and he would never deny it. But less critical situations-especially those involving diplomats-always left him…the way he was that evening. The captain was restless, almost manic, and he would not be calm until he either tired himself out in the gym, or (and Spock feared this would be the case when he considered Kirk's behavior at the space station) "let off steam," as the doctor had once described it, through obnoxious teasing and practical jokes. Spock was prepared for this eventuality. He had borne three tribbled days with stoic fortitude (though he had not come through unscathed…did he really just think a pun?); he could bear an evening in which the captain refused to answer any questions seriously, or "booby-trapped" his food, or his chair, or the shower in their shared bathroom. He might need to spend more time than usual in meditation before he slept, but the captain would be calmer the next morning, and all would be well.
Spock was very cautious, therefore, when he sat down with Dr. McCoy and the captain to dinner in the mess. The Captain had uncharacteristically insisted on getting food for all three of them, and Spock and McCoy allowed him to do so. (Spock suspected that McCoy, too, wanted to humor Kirk as far as possible.) Spock surreptitiously swished his spoon through his bowl of soup, looking for foreign objects, such as small plastic figurines. (Captain Kirk owned some antique green plastic soldiers, and Spock had encountered them in more unlikely places.) He took his first taste very, very cautiously. If the captain had meddled with his meal, Spock would not let his face show that he preferred his soup without copious additions of salt or sugar or…yes…juice from Kirk's personal supply of chili peppers. Dr. McCoy, Spock noted with satisfaction, was unable to control his features, and coughed loudly after his first sip of coffee.
"Jim! Salt in my coffee? How childish is that? Go get me another one, or so help me, I will make you regret your next physical."
"Hmm?" The captain was not adept at looking innocent. "What did you say, Bones?"
Spock deliberately swallowed another spoonful of soup, before joining into the discussion. "I am sure, doctor, that the captain will regret his next physical regardless of the flavor of your coffee."
"And really, Bones! After I got your meal for you! You should be nicer to me, since I'm such a gracious captain."
"Gracious, my eye! I knew you had an ulterior motive when you offered to get me my food. I was just expecting something a little more creative. And you!" he huffed, rounding on Spock. "You should be on my side, you pointy-eared computer! I'm sure it's a safe assumption that Jim did something to your food, too."
"Never assume things, doctor, particularly when your assumption is statistically improbable. The captain knows that I have very little interest in the flavor of my food as long as it provides adequate nutrition, so for him to 'do something' to my food would give him very little satisfaction. Therefore I calculate the probability that he would put any unusual seasoning into my food to be about 2.39%." He hoped that the captain noticed the brief glare he tried to shoot in his direction at this. Whether he noticed or not, Captain Kirk at least seemed to appreciate Spock's assistance in irritating Dr. McCoy, because he threw him a huge wink when the doctor got up, grumbling, to get himself a new cup of coffee.
They learned before the end of the meal that Kirk had been creative-though perhaps not as creative as Dr. McCoy became when he started cursing after he tried to wipe the tears from his eyes with the same hand he had used to pull the other half of a habanera pepper out of his tuna sandwich.
Spock was no longer on personal red alert after his meal with the doctor and the captain. Captain Kirk seemed to get so much pleasure out of his prank that Spock calculated the likelihood of his playing another to be 13.478%. With that percentage in mind, he did scan the bathroom and all his toiletries before he used any of them. He did not want to have fluorescent orange teeth, as Dr. McCoy once did after the routine (and routinely exasperating) transport of an Earth ambassador to Tellurite. And he was absolutely determined that he would never again be forced to walk to the bridge with bright green hair, as he did the morning after they left Mudd's planet. (His mistake that day had been to think that the shenanigans on the planet were enough to siphon off his captain's irritation, but he learned the hard way, when he washed his hair directly before reporting for duty the next morning, that they were not.) Vulcans might not be perfect, but they did learn from their mistakes.
When Captain Kirk walked in to brush his teeth, Spock was still washing up, and as the captain acknowledged him he noted with relief that the manic glint was completely gone from his eyes.
Several hours later Spock was becoming very frustrated. He wanted to meditate, but for some reason he was unable to keep himself from dozing. He decided that the logical course would be to sleep for a few hours, and then attempt to meditate again. He pulled back his bedspread, and encountered the cause of his problem. One fat, fluffy tribble was lying near his pillow, trilling contentedly. As much as he hated to do so in the middle of the night, he had to contact the captain.
Spock did not want to burst into Captain Kirk's room while he was sleeping, so he decided to use the intercom system. "Spock to Captain Kirk. Spock to Captain Kirk."
He waited exactly 2.5 minutes before trying again.
"Spock to Captain Kirk."
"Kirk here." (Though judging from the sound of his voice, and from the fact that the only thing visible on the viewscreen was the hand that the captain must have used to hit the answering button, Spock guessed that Kirk was not entirely there at all.)
"Captain, I am afraid that we have a problem. I have found a tribble in my room. Apparently our scans did not pick all of them up. In light of this, I suggest that we run scans again and initiate a ship-wide manual search in case we have missed any others."
"Not a problem, Spock. I put it there. Go back to sleep." If he did not have Vulcan hearing, Spock did not think he would have understood the muffled words the captain was speaking into his pillow. As it was, he was not certain that he had heard correctly.
"Captain, am I to understand that you put a tribble in my room when you know how tribbles reproduce? In a few days' time we will be in the same situation we were in this afternoon."
He heard a sigh of exasperation, and a very tousled head came into view. Kirk squinted at the viewscreen. "How do you manage to look so neat even when you've been sleeping, Mr. Spock? Oh…don't answer that. That tribble won't reproduce. Bones says so. They don't reproduce if they don't eat anyway, but that one ate some of the poisoned wheat."
"Quadrotriticale, captain."
"Whatever, Spock. It wasn't enough to kill it, but Bones says it did some damage to its reproductive system."
That was logical. Spock had not thought that the captain was capable of putting his ship in so much danger just for a practical joke. But it did not explain everything. "Then, Captain, why is it in my bed?"
"Bones and I decided to give it to you. Putting it in your bed just seemed like a fun way to do that."
"I fail to see why you would give it to me, or why it would be 'fun' to put it in my bed." He did not fail to see that the mischievous gleam was back.
"Well, putting something weird in someone's bed is the kind of prank Earth kids play on each other. We knew you'd find it illogical and irritating. That was my idea."
"As I have told you before, Captain, irritation is a human trait."
"If you say so, Spock. As for giving you the tribble, that was Bones's idea. He reminded me how much you liked it before we realized the little furballs were bad news so we figured a sterile one would make a good pet for you."
Irritation was not an emotion Spock would admit to any of his human shipmates and most especially not to the captain or Dr. McCoy, but it was certainly one he had to suppress in circumstances like these. His brain was telling him that McCoy and Kirk had done this to annoy him. He should be fighting his human side's urge to groan, or roll his eyes right now. But instead, that human side was telling him to stop arguing with Kirk and go to sleep. It seemed like a good…
"Um…Spock?"
Spock's eyes snapped open, and he saw over the communication screen that Kirk's eyes, too, were wide, and he looked like he was suppressing a grin. "Were you even listening to me, Spock."
"Of course, Captain. However, we should continue this discussion in the morning. It is now 3:16:43, and as a human you must have your sleep if you are to function satisfactorily tomorrow."
"Yes, you're right. I'm the one who needs sleep, Spock. Thank you for your consideration. Goodnight."
"Goodnight, Captain. Spock out."
He looked at the little purring animal, then removed several odd items from a wicker basket with a lid that sat on the ledge near his bed, and placed the tribble into it. He should have anticipated a joke like this when the captain waved several tribbles in his face and "I didn't know you had it in you, Mr. Spock." But he was not inclined towards self-recrimination now. In fact, he was almost ready to keep the tribble as the gift it purportedly was.
When he woke up the next morning feeling strangely refreshed, Spock decided he would keep this very odd pet, and he refused to acknowledge any of the would-be subtle hints that the doctor kept making about it through breakfast.
A few weeks later, Spock was very grateful for the soothing little pet. His time in sickbay after McCoy had managed to kill the parasite that had attacked him on Deneva was…not optimal. The pain was gone, but the memory remained, and he woke, almost hyperventilating, several times during the two nights he remained in sickbay, before he remembered that the creature was dead. After the doctor released him from sickbay, the trilling of the tribble in his quarters soothed him, and he woke from a dreamless sleep the next morning, refreshed.
Captain Kirk, on the other hand, looked far from refreshed.
"Are you well, Captain?" Spock asked as he set his food down at the table across from him.
"Oh, I'm fine, Spock, just tired. Peter has been having nightmares, and he called for me a few times last night. I was going to just sleep in sickbay, but Bones said maybe he should sleep in my room. Anyway, Peter's asleep now, and Bones sent one of his nurses to keep an eye on him. I'll be okay. If he has any nightmares tomorrow, at least I won't have to leave my quarters."
"Has this been occurring ever since Peter recovered?"
"Yes. I guess you didn't notice, since Bones had you in another room. But like I said, I'll be fine. I have to talk to Bones before I go up to the bridge, so can you take the con when you report for shift? I might be a few minutes late."
"Certainly, captain."
Spock realized that he was almost worried when he saw his captain stumble on his way out of the mess hall.
Spock stood back from the Captain's door after he buzzed, and waited for 15.3 seconds as bare feet padded towards the door. It opened to reveal a boy about twelve years of age.
"May I come in, Peter?"
"Yes, Mr. Spock." The boy looked a little apprehensive, and Spock knew that if he allowed emotion to show on his own face, he would appear no less so. Children-particularly human children-were not in his area of expertise.
"Doctor McCoy told me that you would be here."
"Yes." Peter looked back at the book he had been reading, and Spock could tell that he would rather be reading than talking to a tall, stern alien.
"I came to ascertain your condition and to bring you this." He brought the tribble and the small cage he had constructed for it from behind his back. The boy looked at it curiously. "It is called a tribble. It was given to me by your uncle, but I do not have the time to care for it anymore. Would you like to keep it?"
"Yeah! Sure! What does it do?"
"It does very little. It only needs to be fed once every day, and it sits in its cage. I do not fully comprehend the human notion of 'pets,' but from my research, it seems that you derive emotional satisfaction from keeping animals that do very little, such as hamsters or snakes. Doctor McCoy says that the tribble's softness and the noise it makes are qualities that make it attractive to humans."
The boy did not seem to be listening. A Vulcan child would have asked how it was that Spock had no time to care for the tribble if it did nothing and required next to nothing, but he had taken a calculated risk that a human child, particularly a relative of Captain Kirk, would be too excited to notice. Peter had already picked up the tribble and started petting it. "It's cool. I'm going to name it 'Rocky.'"
Rather than ask why one would choose a name like "Rocky" for something so un-rock-like, Spock left the boy with his new plaything.
The next morning as he walked in to breakfast, Captain Kirk smiled at him.
"Hey Spock! I'm almost done here, and I'm going to see Bones. I might be late again. Don't look so concerned! I just want to see if he will let Peter hang out with him for a while this morning. He slept like a baby last night. At least, I did, and he says he didn't wake up during the night, and he looks great. He even said he was bored, so I figured he might be able to make himself useful to Bones, if Bones doesn't mind getting Peter and a tribble. Speaking of which, thanks for giving that to him. He's been carrying it around in his pocket, and he insisted that I put it right near his bed when he was sleeping."
"It was no sacrifice. Vulcans do not keep pets."
"No? What about those sehlat things your mother was talking about?"
"Adult Vulcans do not keep pets."
"I see. Well, it was just a prank gift, anyway. I was surprised you didn't get rid of it right away."
"I could see no logical alternative to keeping it, since Doctor McCoy had finished examining it."
"You could have given it to another crewmember. Anyway, that's beside the point. I just wanted to make sure someone said 'thank you.' I asked Peter if he did, and he says he can't remember. If I remember anything from that age, that means he didn't, but he is foggy enough on the details to feel he can say he doesn't remember, but not necessarily be lying. Pre-teen boys on Earth have never been known for their good manners."
"It is of no consequence, captain. It was the logical decision."
"Naturally. Say, Vulcan children are always polite, right? Would you have forgotten to say 'Thank you'?"
"One does not thank logic, Captain, so my opportunities to do so were few and far between."
The Captain laughed. "I don't know, Spock. I can't imagine your mother letting you off the hook with that excuse. But, I've got to go. And just in case there was any illogical emotion in your decision to give Peter that tribble: Thank you, from him and from me."
"You are very welcome, Jim."