FIC: A Member of the Nightshade Family (Kirk/McCoy, Mirror!verse, R/NC-17)
Title: A Member of the Nightshade Family**
Author: savoytruffle
Rating: R/NC-17
Words: 4,500
Summary: Mirror!verse. Spock has a plan for dealing with the new captain. McCoy agrees to take one for the team. Kirk hasn’t quite learned the meaning of “too good to be true.”
Warnings: Hmm, did I just write the world's only mirror!verse fic that doesn't need any warnings? Possibly so.
Author’s Note : No sooner do I sign up for the issenterprise Mirrorverse Remix Challenge then I come up with a way to remix my own fic ( "The South Arkansas Vine Ripe Pink Tomato") mirror!verse-style, while also filling my own prompt at the issenterprise kink meme. So I did it. Because, apparently, that’s how I roll. Thanks to cordelianne, affectingly and graceandfire for their enthusiastic encouragement and gentle mocking as to whether I’d actually manage to keep this fic short. It’s, um, short-ish. Kinda unbeta’d, so feel free to point out typos in comments. I seriously welcome that.
“Now I know I didn’t hear you right, Mr. Spock.”
“Are you experiencing an impairment of your auditory function, Doctor? Perhaps you should allow Dr. M’Benga to examine your aural canals.”
Some people think that Spock is perfectly earnest at all times and a complete stranger to the fine art of sarcasm, but McCoy knows that’s bullshit.
He’s a supercilious, sardonic son of a bitch, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
Frankly, McCoy can respect that.
But he sure as hell doesn’t have to let it show.
“Or I could just let M’Benga shove a steel spike through your aural canals and see if it fixes whatever the hell’s gone wrong in your goddamn head.”
“I assure you, Doctor, my faculties of reason are in perfect working order.”
McCoy has serious doubts about that. “Sure they are. That’s why you just suggested that I bend over, grab my ankles and beg the new captain to fuck me up the ass. How about you get the hell out of my office and we’ll pretend this little meeting never happened.”
“In fact,” Spock corrects, “it is imperative that you not beg. The captain must believe you to be both completely resistant and essentially helpless. The combination of your professional competence and political artlessness will intrigue him.”
“I’m not politically artless, you green-blooded bastard.”
“I am well aware, Doctor. Yet I conjecture that the new captain could be led to believe it is so.”
McCoy knows he’s going to regret not kicking Spock out of his office right now, but… “So you’re saying the Admiralty’s decided to hand the Enterprise over to an idiot?”
“I’m saying that Mr. Kirk is quite young and exceptionally inexperienced. And that it was not the Admiralty’s decision.” Spock taps on his PADD a few times, then turns it around, laying it on McCoy’s desk. It displays James T. Kirk’s personnel file, complete with full-page photo. “The decision was Pike’s.”
McCoy studies the picture and nods. “Brilliant man, Pike,” he says, sighing, “aside from that unfortunate tendency to think with his cock.”
“Indeed,” Spock agrees. “Admiral Pike was personally responsible for recruiting Mr. Kirk into the Imperial Fleet and has, it seems, maintained an…active interest in his education and training.”
“You don’t say.”
Spock nods. “I am further given to understand that Mr. Kirk has attended the Admiral’s sickbed quite faithfully since the Admiral’s return to Terra.”
“I’ll bet he has…” McCoy skims through Kirk’s file, shaking his head as he goes. “So, this…kid fucks a paraplegic a few times and calls him ‘Daddy’ and he gets command of the flagship?”
“Positions in the Empire have been awarded on less logical bases.”
“Ain’t that the truth.”
“It would hardly be in my interest to construct a strategy based on falsehoods,” Spock notes. “And this conversation would proceed more quickly were you to curb your habitual use of redundant human idioms.”
McCoy rolls his eyes. “This conversation would proceed more quickly if you’d stop using three times as many words as you need to make your goddamn point, but you don’t see me holding my breath, now do you?”
Spock raises an eyebrow. “I will assume that question is rhetorical.”
McCoy raises his right back. “And I will assume, just for the hell of it, that convincing me to let the new captain make me his bitch isn’t just your idea of shipboard entertainment.” McCoy pulls a bottle of Kentucky’s finest from the bottom drawer of his desk and pours himself a healthy dose. “So what exactly do you think this’ll accomplish?”
“Certainly you are aware, Doctor, that insinuating oneself into a powerful person’s private space by means of seduction affords not only a certain degree of influence and protection, but also the means to discover hidden weakness and the access by which to exploit them.”
McCoy sighs and takes a fortifying sip of his bourbon. “Yes, Mr. Spock, I am aware. And so is everyone else in this goddamn universe. That’s why they call it ‘the oldest trick in the book.’ The kid fucked Pike into giving him the Enterprise. I’d wager he’s pretty familiar with the technique.”
“Which is why it is imperative that you not be perceived as attempting to seduce him. He will have to come to you and you will have to appear to put up significant resistance.”
“Well, shit,” McCoy drawls dryly, taking another sip, “that’s gonna be awful hard to fake.”
Spock nods. “Lieutenant Uhura and I have agreed that your personality is uniquely suited to the task.”
McCoy snorts. “It’s not like I’m the only stubborn and disagreeable bastard of a senior officer on this ship - you just happen to call it ‘being Vulcan’ - so how about you fuck him yourself? Or doesn’t Lieutenant Uhura like to share?”
“I believe she would prefer that I delegate the task…”
“Of course she would.”
“But her wishes in the matter are irrelevant,” Spock continues, like the cold son of a bitch he is. “I have, however, conducted a great deal of research on the subject of the new captain’s personal patterns and predilections.”
“I would expect no less.” McCoy may not be able to stand Spock most of the time, but he’s always held a grudging appreciation for him as a fellow man of science.
“I have concluded, based on our respective physical attributes, that you much more closely approximate what Lieutenant Uhura would call ‘his type.’”
McCoy angles a mild glare in Spock’s direction. “How convenient,” he says.
“Lieutenant Uhura and I have also determined that, between you and I, it would be strategically simpler to make you appear weak and non-threatening.”
McCoy has determined that he’s heard just about enough of Spock and Lieutenant Uhura’s pillow talk. “Fuck you both,” he growls.
“I intended no insult, Doctor.”
The hell he didn’t. But McCoy supposes that, at this point, he’s committed to seeing this conversation through to its conclusion. He takes another drink and waves a hand for Spock to continue.
“There was a time in your Terran history when physicians swore an oath to do no harm.”
McCoy rolls his eyes. “I don’t need a lecture on Hippocrates.”
“Nor did I intend to deliver one. I am simply suggesting that some Terrans used to believe there were such things as ‘natural born healers’ - humans who were somehow predestined to cure rather than kill. I propose that we convince Kirk that you are such a person.”
“You and I both know I’ve killed people. I’ve killed people on this ship.”
“And yet you have been careful to maintain plausible deniability. You have not been Chief Physician for long. It will not be difficult to shift the blame for past patterns.”
“You don’t think Pike’s gonna give his little whore a detailed rundown of all the Enterprise personnel?”
“What I do not believe, Doctor, is that Pike possesses any true awareness of that of which you are capable. He still supposes that Doctor Puri died from injuries sustained in the same attack in which he was crippled.”
McCoy considers this. Nods once.
He looks down. His glass of bourbon and the bottle it came from are both empty.
He looks back up at Spock. “Are we done here?”
“Not quite,” Spock says. “Nyota also wished for me to convey her firm belief that, despite your rather frequent protestations and displays to the contrary, and I quote, ‘his lips were made for sucking cock and he’s going to love taking it up the ass.’”
“Oh, she thinks so, does she? Well you can tell Nyota that-”
“Doctor,” Spock says, allowing his hands to drop from their clasped position behind his back and resettling his weight, “I would advise you to consider very carefully how - or indeed whether - you wish to finish that sentence.”
The thing is, McCoy knows better than to goad a Vulcan into a fistfight. He takes a deep breath and focuses on not gripping his tumbler tightly enough to shatter it. “Then I would advise you to get the hell out of my office.”
Spock nods. “Of course, Doctor. We are, as you say, done here.”
Sometimes McCoy thinks he should throw out all his medical torture devices and just start inviting Spock to come talk to his more difficult ‘patients.’
On the one hand, this would allow him to test his theory that speaking with Spock for more than twenty minutes at a time has at least an eighty percent chance of resulting in brain aneurism.
On the other hand, it would likely result in McCoy’s own slow and painful death by statistical syllogism.
Seven out of ten cocky young Fleet captains are pathologically unable to resist a challenge.
James T. Kirk is a cocky young Fleet captain.
Therefore:
There is a seven in ten chance that if Leonard McCoy presents his ass to James T. Kirk as a challenge, James T. Kirk won’t be able to resist it.
McCoy hates it when logic makes sense.
Still, if there’s one thing McCoy knows for certain, it’s this - no one on the Enterprise can be trusted.
For all their talk of logic and ‘types,’ strategy and plausible deniability, in the end, Spock and Uhura’s plan comes down to one thing: putting McCoy’s ass (and only McCoy’s ass) on the line.
Literally and figuratively.
If McCoy succeeds, they all rise. (A doctor can’t run a ship alone.)
If McCoy fails, McCoy takes the fall. (Spock will have contingency plans.)
And between now and then, McCoy’s humiliation will be public and it will be his alone.
McCoy’s mother did not raise a fool.
Even if McCoy were fool enough to trust Spock and Uhura not to betray him - and he’s not saying he is - he sure as hell ain’t fool enough to trust Spock’s ‘research.’
Spock’s grasp of human psychology is a quantitative one. He gathers statistics, discerns patterns, and proceeds to calculate the probabilities of human action with what can be frightening accuracy.
He’s a walking, talking computer. And that has its place.
But to grasp the inner workings of a human mind is as much an art as it is a science.
And induction is no substitute for intuition.
McCoy decides to look into Kirk on his own. Most of the kid’s records aren’t exactly open, but McCoy has his ways. He finds enough to confirm what Spock has told him...and to figure out what Spock hasn’t said.
It’s not that Spock lied to him, McCoy figures, so much as Spock knows that there’s nothing McCoy holds in deeper contempt than an idiot. Especially a successful one.
But the truth is, it’s not Kirk’s stupidity that concerns Spock - it only takes a minute or two to figure out the kid is far more than just a pretty face. No, McCoy can see it now. It’s Kirk’s recklessness, his spontaneity, his outside-the-box thinking that’s striking fear into Spock’s tiny Vulcan heart.
There’s nothing Spock hates more than unpredictability.
The thing is, even if the kid isn’t an idiot - though McCoy’s met his fair share of idiot geniuses in his time - that doesn’t mean Kirk shouldn’t, or couldn’t be controlled.
The real question - the one that won’t leave McCoy alone - is how exactly McCoy could pull this off. How to appear strong enough to merit taming yet weak enough not to merit suspicion. How to make himself the kind of mystery a genius like Kirk will be compelled to try to solve.
It’s a slow afternoon in sickbay. McCoy takes himself off shift, returns to his quarters, and pours himself three fingers of bourbon. He sets the decanter down beside him and picks up his PADD. He pulls up a few books he heard about once - books from the old days on what they used to call Earth, both fiction and non - and starts reading.
McCoy reads about compassion, conviction, conscience, sacrifice.
He stays up all night reading about love.
Love.
Somewhere around oh-three-hundred, when he’s more than three sheets to the wind, his thoughts turn to his daughter, back in Georgia. She must be nine now.
Some parents used to love their children unconditionally.
The concept strikes him as strange, foreign.
Anything, he supposes, is possible.
When the moment of truth arrives, McCoy’s fucking busy. The Enterprise is in spacedock for repair and upgrades, including a major refit of the sickbay, which has the place in shambles.
They’re also taking on new crew, which means McCoy is conducting physicals, shambles or no, because he didn’t get where he is today by letting anyone serve a single shift on his ship before McCoy knows his or her physical capacities (strengths and weaknesses) inside and out.
Of course, the most important addition to the crew is due in tomorrow with the Excelsior and you could cut the tension in the ship’s recycled air with a fucking knife. Everyone on board is on edge, from the lowest ranks right up to the esteemed First Officer, who seems to patrol the decks constantly, stick shoved even further up his ass than usual.
McCoy feels Spock’s eyes on him (Uhura’s, too) every time they cross paths, knows it’s coming down the wire, but it’s his fucking call and he’ll make it when he’s damn good and ready.
And then there’s the accident in engineering.
Eight crew members are beamed directly to sickbay, all seriously injured, three critically so. Worst off is the one who caused the whole thing - Ensign Keller - and while it may be his biggest fuck up to date, it’s certainly not his first. The boy’s a moron, a danger to himself and others, and everyone knows it. Including McCoy.
McCoy also knows that if he doesn’t handle Keller’s care personally and quickly, the boy’s going to die.
And that any Chief Physician worth his title would just let him.
“Get Keller to the OR,” he snaps. He looks at the other two doctors in the room, blowing past their skeptical looks as he points to the other two critical patients. “M’benga, Parker, you take Kir and Telsten. If you can’t fix them, at least keep’em alive long enough for me to finish with Keller.” He scans the pool of nurses. “Moosa, Karrera, Balay, clear us some fucking space in here and make sure no one else goes from serious to critical. Chapel, you’re with me.”
He’s still working on Keller when Spock appears in the OR.
“Doctor…”
McCoy glances up. “Little busy here, Spock.”
He looks back down at Keller. Spock doesn’t move.
“Captain Kirk has arrived. Early.”
Unpredictable. McCoy can practically feel Spock seething. He looks up again.
“His wishes to see you,” Spock continues. “Now.”
“If I leave now,” McCoy says slowly, watching Chapel out of the corner of his eye, “this man will die.” It’s nothing more than the truth.
Spock spares a brief glance for Keller, then Chapel. “He is not an important man.”
When Spock looks back, McCoy holds his gaze, feels the foreign words on his tongue. “He’s still a man.”
Spock doesn’t answer.
McCoy draws a deep breath and takes the plunge. “Tell the captain I’m busy.”
“He will not be pleased,” Spock says.
“No, I don’t suppose he will be.”
Spock studies McCoy for the briefest of moments, then nods. “I will relay your message.”
McCoy nods back, then returns his attention to Keller.
Game on.
He half expects Kirk to come storming into his OR.
When that doesn’t happen, he finishes up and turns Keller (who’s gonna live after all) over to Chapel before returning to the sickbay’s main area. No one else from the accident has died or even gotten any worse. Most are on their way to recovery.
McCoy quickly quells the tiny feeling of satisfaction threatening to well up in his chest.
Still, he spends another hour looking over the work of the other doctors and nurses, making little fixes, adding instructions for their continued care. Only to keep up appearances, of course.
It must be close to three hours since Spock’s visit to the OR by the time McCoy keys his way into his own office. When he finds Kirk sitting in his chair, crossed ankles resting on his desktop, McCoy doesn’t have to fake his surprise...
Just a naïve inability to hide that surprise.
McCoy lets his eyes widen, shortens his breath, wills his heart to beat a little harder in his chest.
He’s pleased when he begins to feel a twinge of genuine anxiety. A good grasp of kinesics does wonders for method acting.
Kirk makes a show of taking his time with the PADD in his hand before looking up at the door. “Doctor. Leonard. Horatio. McCoy,” he says, letting each word roll slowly off his tongue. “Chief Physician.”
“I…” McCoy breaks off and takes a step forward, makes it hesitant, warns himself not to lay it on too thick. “What’re you-?”
“Thanks so much for letting me use your office,” Kirk says, smile wide and far too bright. McCoy can’t help but admire the effect - it’s creepy as hell. “Of course, I guess it’s the least you can do when you’re making a man wait.”
McCoy takes another step forward, clenches and unclenches his fists at his sides. “Look…sir, I’m sorry, but there was-”
“Where are my manners?” Kirk asks suddenly, kicking his feet off the desk and coming around to stand in front of McCoy, still smiling. “I haven’t even introduced myself.”
McCoy sighs. “I know who you-”
Kirk cuts him off by taking another step, right into McCoy’s personal space.
“Obviously, you don’t know who I am, McCoy, or we wouldn’t be standing here right now.” Kirk extends his hand and McCoy slowly lifts his own to meet it. “The name’s Jim Kirk, but you can call me ‘Captain.’”
The hand around McCoy’s tightens bit by bit until McCoy thinks his jaw might lock from the effort to keep from crying out.
“And if you ever keep me waiting again,” Kirk continues, “I’ll break every single bone in your hand. Waste of a doctor or not.”
Blood rushes back through McCoy’s fingertips as Kirk releases his grip.
“Captain,” McCoy says, tone perfectly pitched between pissed and placating, “I didn’t mean to be insubordinate…”
Kirk rolls his eyes. “Oh, well, as long as you had goodness in your heart…”
“Damn it,” McCoy growls, as if he can’t help himself, “a man was about to die.”
“You ever hear of Charles Darwin?” Kirk asks. “Some people deserve to die.”
“Not in my sickbay,” McCoy snaps.
Kirk’s face goes blank. He turns and walks out of McCoy’s office, a tilt of his head the only indication that he expects McCoy to follow.
McCoy does follow. He follows Kirk out into the main bay and over to the biobed where Chapel is just setting Keller up for post-op monitoring. She’s leaning over the bed slightly as Kirk steps up behind her, pressing his dick against the swell of her ass. Startled, she straightens up, allowing Kirk to wrap an arm around her bare midriff, bringing her back flush against his chest so she’s pinned between his body and the bed.
“Chapel, isn’t it?” he asks, low and sweet against her ear.
“Yes, sir.” She nods and holds her body still.
Kirk takes the hand not resting just below her belly button and trails the back of it down her arm. “Be a good girl and turn off his life support for me, will you? These machines can be so confusing.”
McCoy has no doubt that Kirk knows exactly which buttons to push.
But Chapel reaches out and does it for him.
She remains trapped between Kirk and Keller as Kirk reaches down and pinches Keller’s nostrils shut. The biobed buzzes and beeps in protest, but no one dares to lift a finger as Kirk brings a quick and clean end to Keller’s life.
Kirk releases Chapel and walks to the exit. The door slides open as Kirk turns to look back at McCoy. “It’s not your sickbay,” he says.
Three days pass before Kirk turns up again, and while McCoy had no doubt Kirk would be back, he’s grudgingly impressed by the show of restraint. Maybe the kid’s not all spontaneity and bravado, after all.
McCoy steps out of his office to find Kirk perched on a biobed, swinging his legs so his heels thump, one after another, against its base.
Thump-thump.
Thump-thump.
Thump-thump.
Kirk looks up and grins at McCoy’s entrance - a sudden, eerie callback to a five-year-old Joanna - and McCoy doesn’t even have to fake the scowl that spreads across his face.
“Good morning, Leonard,” Kirk chirps.
McCoy’s scowl deepens.
Kirk’s grin widens.
“You don’t mind if I call you ‘Leonard,’ do you?”
“Yes.”
Kirk chuckles. “Huh. Sucks to be you, then.”
McCoy makes a show of gritting his teeth. It comes naturally. “Did you have a medical concern you wanted me to address, Captain?”
“Well,” Kirk says, still swinging his damn legs, “there is something that’s been bothering me…”
“Yes…?” McCoy prompts.
“See, I’m sitting here, listening to your flagrant disrespect, thinking back on your laughably inefficient approach to triage, and I’m wondering to myself - how does this guy end up here, on my ship? Care to enlighten me, Leonard?”
Punching Kirk would be going too far. McCoy knows that. He does.
Really.
He pushes words past his tight lips. “I’m a good doctor.”
“Hmm.” Kirk considers this. “Maybe,” he concludes - and yeah, that rankles, “but you’re a crap Chief Physician.”
McCoy glances around the room. It’s not exactly busy, but it isn’t deserted either. Damn Spock for coming up with such a public plan. He takes a deep breath, letting it out through his nostrils in a frustrated huff. “Captain, can we discuss this in my office?”
Kirk smirks as he hops down from the bed, shooting a knowing look all the way around the room. “So that’s how,” he says. “Should’ve realized the minute I saw those lips. Lead the way, Doctor.”
McCoy all but stomps into the office, turns when he hears the door hiss shut behind Kirk.
“Alright, you can suck me off and we’ll see what that does for your performance evaluation,” Kirk says, managing to sound obnoxiously benevolent, “but you’re gonna have to be quick about it. I’ve got a meeting in ten minutes.”
“I’m not going to suck you off,” McCoy says. At least not while you still think it’s my idea.
Kirk sighs. “Look, I appreciate that you want to give me the full experience - and it must be fucking spectacular if it got you this far - but the clock is ticking, so for now, let’s just-”
“You know,” McCoy snaps, “just because you can make me sew it back on, doesn’t mean it’s not gonna hurt like hell when I bite it off.”
This gets Kirk’s attention. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me,” McCoy says, summoning every ounce of indignation he’s felt since Spock showed up in his fucking office two weeks earlier. “I didn’t trade my goddamn body for my rank, you asshole. I earned it. I’m here because I’m a damn good doctor. A fucking brilliant one, if you must know. I’ve been trained to save lives and I happen to like doing it and, hell, I’d be fucking overjoyed if someone actually let me once in a while. Is that so goddamned hard to understand?”
Out of breath, McCoy pauses and dares to look up.
The man he just threatened, yelled at, and called an asshole looks surprisingly unperturbed.
“Well, it is kinda weird,” Kirk says with a shrug. “But okay.”
McCoy blinks at him. “Okay?”
“Yeah,” Kirk says. “Why not? Go ahead. Heal people. Save lives. I mean, I can see how that’d be useful. And it’s not like I can’t just kill them myself later.”
“Um, thanks?”
“Right,” Kirk says, “so I’ve got to get to my meeting…”
“Right,” McCoy echoes.
He watches as Kirk turns and heads toward the door, and for the longest moment he wonders how he so totally misplayed his hand, but then…
“Oh, and one more thing…” Kirk turns back to face McCoy again. “I’m gonna need you to report to my quarters tonight at 1900.”
Bingo.
McCoy feigns shock. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me,” Kirk mocks. He waggles an eyebrow. “And I know you know what I mean.”
“But we just…” McCoy shakes his head. “Forget it - there’s no way I’m gonna...”
“Seriously?” Kirk asks, angling a pointed glance at the chronometer. “Do I look like I have time to threaten you?”
McCoy also thinks things could be moving along right about now, but anything worth doing is worth the time to do it right. He takes a single staggering step backwards and then stops, going for ‘determined,’ with just a dash of ‘desperate.’ “Kirk, I…”
Kirk sighs. “Fine,” he says. “So, throwing you in the agony booth is gonna get in the way of this whole ‘healing’ thing we’re trying…” He tilts his head for a second, considering. “What about Chapel, then? You seem pretty fond of her. I could give her, what? An hour? She was an accomplice to the whole Keller thing.”
Pretending to care, McCoy decides, is actually the hardest thing he’s done all morning. He staggers forward this time - three steps - drops the ‘determined’ in favor of full on ‘desperate.’
“Kirk,” he says, “please. She hasn’t done anything. She’s the best nurse I’ve got.”
Kirk rolls his eyes. “Cut the drama. It’s not transwarp theory, McCoy. The answer’s simple. My quarters. 1900.”
McCoy’s feelings of reluctance are, in fact, genuine. He telegraphs them for a moment before lowering his eyes to the floor and whispering, “Okay.”
It could be worse, McCoy decides around about 19:45. At least the kid’s got some skill.
And what’s looking to be a fair amount of stamina.
It’s bound to make things more fun at some point. You know, that point when McCoy stops resenting the hell out of the kid for making it impossible to just zone out during the whole process.
McCoy grips the chair legs tighter and remembers the obnoxious non-smirk on Spock’s face as McCoy passed him in the hall. The low, mocking words.
“I believe the customary suggestion at this juncture is that you ‘lie back and think of England.’”
Fuck England, McCoy thinks, as he manages to shift his hips to a less favorable angle, only to have Kirk’s dick zero back in on his prostate a few seconds later like it’s armed with a goddamn homing device. And fuck Spock, too.
He’s bent far enough over that he could easily reach into his boot for the hypo he keeps hidden there. His arm is long enough to get to the femoral artery.
But he doesn’t.
And he’s not going to.
He can do this.
He will do this.
He didn’t go to all the trouble of paralyzing Pike for nothing.
Fin.
** Solanaceae is a family of flowering plants that contains a number of important agricultural plants as well as many toxic plants. The name of the family comes from the Latin Solanum "the nightshade plant," but the further etymology of that word is unclear. It has been suggested the name originates from the Latin verb solari, meaning "to soothe". This presumably refers to alleged soothing pharmacological properties of some of the psychoactive species of the family. The family is also informally known as the nightshade family. The family includes Datura (Jimson weed), Mandragora (mandrake), belladonna (deadly nightshade), Capsicum (paprika, chili pepper), Solanum (potato, tomato, aubergine or eggplant), Nicotiana (tobacco), and Petunia (petunia). The Solanaceae family is characteristically ethnobotanical, that is, extensively utilized by humans. It is an important source of food, spice and medicine. However, Solanaceae species are often rich in alkaloids whose toxicity to humans and animals ranges from mildly irritating to fatal in small quantities. (Thank you, Wikipedia!)
Author: savoytruffle
Rating: R/NC-17
Words: 4,500
Summary: Mirror!verse. Spock has a plan for dealing with the new captain. McCoy agrees to take one for the team. Kirk hasn’t quite learned the meaning of “too good to be true.”
Warnings: Hmm, did I just write the world's only mirror!verse fic that doesn't need any warnings? Possibly so.
Author’s Note : No sooner do I sign up for the issenterprise Mirrorverse Remix Challenge then I come up with a way to remix my own fic ( "The South Arkansas Vine Ripe Pink Tomato") mirror!verse-style, while also filling my own prompt at the issenterprise kink meme. So I did it. Because, apparently, that’s how I roll. Thanks to cordelianne, affectingly and graceandfire for their enthusiastic encouragement and gentle mocking as to whether I’d actually manage to keep this fic short. It’s, um, short-ish. Kinda unbeta’d, so feel free to point out typos in comments. I seriously welcome that.
“Now I know I didn’t hear you right, Mr. Spock.”
“Are you experiencing an impairment of your auditory function, Doctor? Perhaps you should allow Dr. M’Benga to examine your aural canals.”
Some people think that Spock is perfectly earnest at all times and a complete stranger to the fine art of sarcasm, but McCoy knows that’s bullshit.
He’s a supercilious, sardonic son of a bitch, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
Frankly, McCoy can respect that.
But he sure as hell doesn’t have to let it show.
“Or I could just let M’Benga shove a steel spike through your aural canals and see if it fixes whatever the hell’s gone wrong in your goddamn head.”
“I assure you, Doctor, my faculties of reason are in perfect working order.”
McCoy has serious doubts about that. “Sure they are. That’s why you just suggested that I bend over, grab my ankles and beg the new captain to fuck me up the ass. How about you get the hell out of my office and we’ll pretend this little meeting never happened.”
“In fact,” Spock corrects, “it is imperative that you not beg. The captain must believe you to be both completely resistant and essentially helpless. The combination of your professional competence and political artlessness will intrigue him.”
“I’m not politically artless, you green-blooded bastard.”
“I am well aware, Doctor. Yet I conjecture that the new captain could be led to believe it is so.”
McCoy knows he’s going to regret not kicking Spock out of his office right now, but… “So you’re saying the Admiralty’s decided to hand the Enterprise over to an idiot?”
“I’m saying that Mr. Kirk is quite young and exceptionally inexperienced. And that it was not the Admiralty’s decision.” Spock taps on his PADD a few times, then turns it around, laying it on McCoy’s desk. It displays James T. Kirk’s personnel file, complete with full-page photo. “The decision was Pike’s.”
McCoy studies the picture and nods. “Brilliant man, Pike,” he says, sighing, “aside from that unfortunate tendency to think with his cock.”
“Indeed,” Spock agrees. “Admiral Pike was personally responsible for recruiting Mr. Kirk into the Imperial Fleet and has, it seems, maintained an…active interest in his education and training.”
“You don’t say.”
Spock nods. “I am further given to understand that Mr. Kirk has attended the Admiral’s sickbed quite faithfully since the Admiral’s return to Terra.”
“I’ll bet he has…” McCoy skims through Kirk’s file, shaking his head as he goes. “So, this…kid fucks a paraplegic a few times and calls him ‘Daddy’ and he gets command of the flagship?”
“Positions in the Empire have been awarded on less logical bases.”
“Ain’t that the truth.”
“It would hardly be in my interest to construct a strategy based on falsehoods,” Spock notes. “And this conversation would proceed more quickly were you to curb your habitual use of redundant human idioms.”
McCoy rolls his eyes. “This conversation would proceed more quickly if you’d stop using three times as many words as you need to make your goddamn point, but you don’t see me holding my breath, now do you?”
Spock raises an eyebrow. “I will assume that question is rhetorical.”
McCoy raises his right back. “And I will assume, just for the hell of it, that convincing me to let the new captain make me his bitch isn’t just your idea of shipboard entertainment.” McCoy pulls a bottle of Kentucky’s finest from the bottom drawer of his desk and pours himself a healthy dose. “So what exactly do you think this’ll accomplish?”
“Certainly you are aware, Doctor, that insinuating oneself into a powerful person’s private space by means of seduction affords not only a certain degree of influence and protection, but also the means to discover hidden weakness and the access by which to exploit them.”
McCoy sighs and takes a fortifying sip of his bourbon. “Yes, Mr. Spock, I am aware. And so is everyone else in this goddamn universe. That’s why they call it ‘the oldest trick in the book.’ The kid fucked Pike into giving him the Enterprise. I’d wager he’s pretty familiar with the technique.”
“Which is why it is imperative that you not be perceived as attempting to seduce him. He will have to come to you and you will have to appear to put up significant resistance.”
“Well, shit,” McCoy drawls dryly, taking another sip, “that’s gonna be awful hard to fake.”
Spock nods. “Lieutenant Uhura and I have agreed that your personality is uniquely suited to the task.”
McCoy snorts. “It’s not like I’m the only stubborn and disagreeable bastard of a senior officer on this ship - you just happen to call it ‘being Vulcan’ - so how about you fuck him yourself? Or doesn’t Lieutenant Uhura like to share?”
“I believe she would prefer that I delegate the task…”
“Of course she would.”
“But her wishes in the matter are irrelevant,” Spock continues, like the cold son of a bitch he is. “I have, however, conducted a great deal of research on the subject of the new captain’s personal patterns and predilections.”
“I would expect no less.” McCoy may not be able to stand Spock most of the time, but he’s always held a grudging appreciation for him as a fellow man of science.
“I have concluded, based on our respective physical attributes, that you much more closely approximate what Lieutenant Uhura would call ‘his type.’”
McCoy angles a mild glare in Spock’s direction. “How convenient,” he says.
“Lieutenant Uhura and I have also determined that, between you and I, it would be strategically simpler to make you appear weak and non-threatening.”
McCoy has determined that he’s heard just about enough of Spock and Lieutenant Uhura’s pillow talk. “Fuck you both,” he growls.
“I intended no insult, Doctor.”
The hell he didn’t. But McCoy supposes that, at this point, he’s committed to seeing this conversation through to its conclusion. He takes another drink and waves a hand for Spock to continue.
“There was a time in your Terran history when physicians swore an oath to do no harm.”
McCoy rolls his eyes. “I don’t need a lecture on Hippocrates.”
“Nor did I intend to deliver one. I am simply suggesting that some Terrans used to believe there were such things as ‘natural born healers’ - humans who were somehow predestined to cure rather than kill. I propose that we convince Kirk that you are such a person.”
“You and I both know I’ve killed people. I’ve killed people on this ship.”
“And yet you have been careful to maintain plausible deniability. You have not been Chief Physician for long. It will not be difficult to shift the blame for past patterns.”
“You don’t think Pike’s gonna give his little whore a detailed rundown of all the Enterprise personnel?”
“What I do not believe, Doctor, is that Pike possesses any true awareness of that of which you are capable. He still supposes that Doctor Puri died from injuries sustained in the same attack in which he was crippled.”
McCoy considers this. Nods once.
He looks down. His glass of bourbon and the bottle it came from are both empty.
He looks back up at Spock. “Are we done here?”
“Not quite,” Spock says. “Nyota also wished for me to convey her firm belief that, despite your rather frequent protestations and displays to the contrary, and I quote, ‘his lips were made for sucking cock and he’s going to love taking it up the ass.’”
“Oh, she thinks so, does she? Well you can tell Nyota that-”
“Doctor,” Spock says, allowing his hands to drop from their clasped position behind his back and resettling his weight, “I would advise you to consider very carefully how - or indeed whether - you wish to finish that sentence.”
The thing is, McCoy knows better than to goad a Vulcan into a fistfight. He takes a deep breath and focuses on not gripping his tumbler tightly enough to shatter it. “Then I would advise you to get the hell out of my office.”
Spock nods. “Of course, Doctor. We are, as you say, done here.”
Sometimes McCoy thinks he should throw out all his medical torture devices and just start inviting Spock to come talk to his more difficult ‘patients.’
On the one hand, this would allow him to test his theory that speaking with Spock for more than twenty minutes at a time has at least an eighty percent chance of resulting in brain aneurism.
On the other hand, it would likely result in McCoy’s own slow and painful death by statistical syllogism.
Seven out of ten cocky young Fleet captains are pathologically unable to resist a challenge.
James T. Kirk is a cocky young Fleet captain.
Therefore:
There is a seven in ten chance that if Leonard McCoy presents his ass to James T. Kirk as a challenge, James T. Kirk won’t be able to resist it.
McCoy hates it when logic makes sense.
Still, if there’s one thing McCoy knows for certain, it’s this - no one on the Enterprise can be trusted.
For all their talk of logic and ‘types,’ strategy and plausible deniability, in the end, Spock and Uhura’s plan comes down to one thing: putting McCoy’s ass (and only McCoy’s ass) on the line.
Literally and figuratively.
If McCoy succeeds, they all rise. (A doctor can’t run a ship alone.)
If McCoy fails, McCoy takes the fall. (Spock will have contingency plans.)
And between now and then, McCoy’s humiliation will be public and it will be his alone.
McCoy’s mother did not raise a fool.
Even if McCoy were fool enough to trust Spock and Uhura not to betray him - and he’s not saying he is - he sure as hell ain’t fool enough to trust Spock’s ‘research.’
Spock’s grasp of human psychology is a quantitative one. He gathers statistics, discerns patterns, and proceeds to calculate the probabilities of human action with what can be frightening accuracy.
He’s a walking, talking computer. And that has its place.
But to grasp the inner workings of a human mind is as much an art as it is a science.
And induction is no substitute for intuition.
McCoy decides to look into Kirk on his own. Most of the kid’s records aren’t exactly open, but McCoy has his ways. He finds enough to confirm what Spock has told him...and to figure out what Spock hasn’t said.
It’s not that Spock lied to him, McCoy figures, so much as Spock knows that there’s nothing McCoy holds in deeper contempt than an idiot. Especially a successful one.
But the truth is, it’s not Kirk’s stupidity that concerns Spock - it only takes a minute or two to figure out the kid is far more than just a pretty face. No, McCoy can see it now. It’s Kirk’s recklessness, his spontaneity, his outside-the-box thinking that’s striking fear into Spock’s tiny Vulcan heart.
There’s nothing Spock hates more than unpredictability.
The thing is, even if the kid isn’t an idiot - though McCoy’s met his fair share of idiot geniuses in his time - that doesn’t mean Kirk shouldn’t, or couldn’t be controlled.
The real question - the one that won’t leave McCoy alone - is how exactly McCoy could pull this off. How to appear strong enough to merit taming yet weak enough not to merit suspicion. How to make himself the kind of mystery a genius like Kirk will be compelled to try to solve.
It’s a slow afternoon in sickbay. McCoy takes himself off shift, returns to his quarters, and pours himself three fingers of bourbon. He sets the decanter down beside him and picks up his PADD. He pulls up a few books he heard about once - books from the old days on what they used to call Earth, both fiction and non - and starts reading.
McCoy reads about compassion, conviction, conscience, sacrifice.
He stays up all night reading about love.
Love.
Somewhere around oh-three-hundred, when he’s more than three sheets to the wind, his thoughts turn to his daughter, back in Georgia. She must be nine now.
Some parents used to love their children unconditionally.
The concept strikes him as strange, foreign.
Anything, he supposes, is possible.
When the moment of truth arrives, McCoy’s fucking busy. The Enterprise is in spacedock for repair and upgrades, including a major refit of the sickbay, which has the place in shambles.
They’re also taking on new crew, which means McCoy is conducting physicals, shambles or no, because he didn’t get where he is today by letting anyone serve a single shift on his ship before McCoy knows his or her physical capacities (strengths and weaknesses) inside and out.
Of course, the most important addition to the crew is due in tomorrow with the Excelsior and you could cut the tension in the ship’s recycled air with a fucking knife. Everyone on board is on edge, from the lowest ranks right up to the esteemed First Officer, who seems to patrol the decks constantly, stick shoved even further up his ass than usual.
McCoy feels Spock’s eyes on him (Uhura’s, too) every time they cross paths, knows it’s coming down the wire, but it’s his fucking call and he’ll make it when he’s damn good and ready.
And then there’s the accident in engineering.
Eight crew members are beamed directly to sickbay, all seriously injured, three critically so. Worst off is the one who caused the whole thing - Ensign Keller - and while it may be his biggest fuck up to date, it’s certainly not his first. The boy’s a moron, a danger to himself and others, and everyone knows it. Including McCoy.
McCoy also knows that if he doesn’t handle Keller’s care personally and quickly, the boy’s going to die.
And that any Chief Physician worth his title would just let him.
“Get Keller to the OR,” he snaps. He looks at the other two doctors in the room, blowing past their skeptical looks as he points to the other two critical patients. “M’benga, Parker, you take Kir and Telsten. If you can’t fix them, at least keep’em alive long enough for me to finish with Keller.” He scans the pool of nurses. “Moosa, Karrera, Balay, clear us some fucking space in here and make sure no one else goes from serious to critical. Chapel, you’re with me.”
He’s still working on Keller when Spock appears in the OR.
“Doctor…”
McCoy glances up. “Little busy here, Spock.”
He looks back down at Keller. Spock doesn’t move.
“Captain Kirk has arrived. Early.”
Unpredictable. McCoy can practically feel Spock seething. He looks up again.
“His wishes to see you,” Spock continues. “Now.”
“If I leave now,” McCoy says slowly, watching Chapel out of the corner of his eye, “this man will die.” It’s nothing more than the truth.
Spock spares a brief glance for Keller, then Chapel. “He is not an important man.”
When Spock looks back, McCoy holds his gaze, feels the foreign words on his tongue. “He’s still a man.”
Spock doesn’t answer.
McCoy draws a deep breath and takes the plunge. “Tell the captain I’m busy.”
“He will not be pleased,” Spock says.
“No, I don’t suppose he will be.”
Spock studies McCoy for the briefest of moments, then nods. “I will relay your message.”
McCoy nods back, then returns his attention to Keller.
Game on.
He half expects Kirk to come storming into his OR.
When that doesn’t happen, he finishes up and turns Keller (who’s gonna live after all) over to Chapel before returning to the sickbay’s main area. No one else from the accident has died or even gotten any worse. Most are on their way to recovery.
McCoy quickly quells the tiny feeling of satisfaction threatening to well up in his chest.
Still, he spends another hour looking over the work of the other doctors and nurses, making little fixes, adding instructions for their continued care. Only to keep up appearances, of course.
It must be close to three hours since Spock’s visit to the OR by the time McCoy keys his way into his own office. When he finds Kirk sitting in his chair, crossed ankles resting on his desktop, McCoy doesn’t have to fake his surprise...
Just a naïve inability to hide that surprise.
McCoy lets his eyes widen, shortens his breath, wills his heart to beat a little harder in his chest.
He’s pleased when he begins to feel a twinge of genuine anxiety. A good grasp of kinesics does wonders for method acting.
Kirk makes a show of taking his time with the PADD in his hand before looking up at the door. “Doctor. Leonard. Horatio. McCoy,” he says, letting each word roll slowly off his tongue. “Chief Physician.”
“I…” McCoy breaks off and takes a step forward, makes it hesitant, warns himself not to lay it on too thick. “What’re you-?”
“Thanks so much for letting me use your office,” Kirk says, smile wide and far too bright. McCoy can’t help but admire the effect - it’s creepy as hell. “Of course, I guess it’s the least you can do when you’re making a man wait.”
McCoy takes another step forward, clenches and unclenches his fists at his sides. “Look…sir, I’m sorry, but there was-”
“Where are my manners?” Kirk asks suddenly, kicking his feet off the desk and coming around to stand in front of McCoy, still smiling. “I haven’t even introduced myself.”
McCoy sighs. “I know who you-”
Kirk cuts him off by taking another step, right into McCoy’s personal space.
“Obviously, you don’t know who I am, McCoy, or we wouldn’t be standing here right now.” Kirk extends his hand and McCoy slowly lifts his own to meet it. “The name’s Jim Kirk, but you can call me ‘Captain.’”
The hand around McCoy’s tightens bit by bit until McCoy thinks his jaw might lock from the effort to keep from crying out.
“And if you ever keep me waiting again,” Kirk continues, “I’ll break every single bone in your hand. Waste of a doctor or not.”
Blood rushes back through McCoy’s fingertips as Kirk releases his grip.
“Captain,” McCoy says, tone perfectly pitched between pissed and placating, “I didn’t mean to be insubordinate…”
Kirk rolls his eyes. “Oh, well, as long as you had goodness in your heart…”
“Damn it,” McCoy growls, as if he can’t help himself, “a man was about to die.”
“You ever hear of Charles Darwin?” Kirk asks. “Some people deserve to die.”
“Not in my sickbay,” McCoy snaps.
Kirk’s face goes blank. He turns and walks out of McCoy’s office, a tilt of his head the only indication that he expects McCoy to follow.
McCoy does follow. He follows Kirk out into the main bay and over to the biobed where Chapel is just setting Keller up for post-op monitoring. She’s leaning over the bed slightly as Kirk steps up behind her, pressing his dick against the swell of her ass. Startled, she straightens up, allowing Kirk to wrap an arm around her bare midriff, bringing her back flush against his chest so she’s pinned between his body and the bed.
“Chapel, isn’t it?” he asks, low and sweet against her ear.
“Yes, sir.” She nods and holds her body still.
Kirk takes the hand not resting just below her belly button and trails the back of it down her arm. “Be a good girl and turn off his life support for me, will you? These machines can be so confusing.”
McCoy has no doubt that Kirk knows exactly which buttons to push.
But Chapel reaches out and does it for him.
She remains trapped between Kirk and Keller as Kirk reaches down and pinches Keller’s nostrils shut. The biobed buzzes and beeps in protest, but no one dares to lift a finger as Kirk brings a quick and clean end to Keller’s life.
Kirk releases Chapel and walks to the exit. The door slides open as Kirk turns to look back at McCoy. “It’s not your sickbay,” he says.
Three days pass before Kirk turns up again, and while McCoy had no doubt Kirk would be back, he’s grudgingly impressed by the show of restraint. Maybe the kid’s not all spontaneity and bravado, after all.
McCoy steps out of his office to find Kirk perched on a biobed, swinging his legs so his heels thump, one after another, against its base.
Thump-thump.
Thump-thump.
Thump-thump.
Kirk looks up and grins at McCoy’s entrance - a sudden, eerie callback to a five-year-old Joanna - and McCoy doesn’t even have to fake the scowl that spreads across his face.
“Good morning, Leonard,” Kirk chirps.
McCoy’s scowl deepens.
Kirk’s grin widens.
“You don’t mind if I call you ‘Leonard,’ do you?”
“Yes.”
Kirk chuckles. “Huh. Sucks to be you, then.”
McCoy makes a show of gritting his teeth. It comes naturally. “Did you have a medical concern you wanted me to address, Captain?”
“Well,” Kirk says, still swinging his damn legs, “there is something that’s been bothering me…”
“Yes…?” McCoy prompts.
“See, I’m sitting here, listening to your flagrant disrespect, thinking back on your laughably inefficient approach to triage, and I’m wondering to myself - how does this guy end up here, on my ship? Care to enlighten me, Leonard?”
Punching Kirk would be going too far. McCoy knows that. He does.
Really.
He pushes words past his tight lips. “I’m a good doctor.”
“Hmm.” Kirk considers this. “Maybe,” he concludes - and yeah, that rankles, “but you’re a crap Chief Physician.”
McCoy glances around the room. It’s not exactly busy, but it isn’t deserted either. Damn Spock for coming up with such a public plan. He takes a deep breath, letting it out through his nostrils in a frustrated huff. “Captain, can we discuss this in my office?”
Kirk smirks as he hops down from the bed, shooting a knowing look all the way around the room. “So that’s how,” he says. “Should’ve realized the minute I saw those lips. Lead the way, Doctor.”
McCoy all but stomps into the office, turns when he hears the door hiss shut behind Kirk.
“Alright, you can suck me off and we’ll see what that does for your performance evaluation,” Kirk says, managing to sound obnoxiously benevolent, “but you’re gonna have to be quick about it. I’ve got a meeting in ten minutes.”
“I’m not going to suck you off,” McCoy says. At least not while you still think it’s my idea.
Kirk sighs. “Look, I appreciate that you want to give me the full experience - and it must be fucking spectacular if it got you this far - but the clock is ticking, so for now, let’s just-”
“You know,” McCoy snaps, “just because you can make me sew it back on, doesn’t mean it’s not gonna hurt like hell when I bite it off.”
This gets Kirk’s attention. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me,” McCoy says, summoning every ounce of indignation he’s felt since Spock showed up in his fucking office two weeks earlier. “I didn’t trade my goddamn body for my rank, you asshole. I earned it. I’m here because I’m a damn good doctor. A fucking brilliant one, if you must know. I’ve been trained to save lives and I happen to like doing it and, hell, I’d be fucking overjoyed if someone actually let me once in a while. Is that so goddamned hard to understand?”
Out of breath, McCoy pauses and dares to look up.
The man he just threatened, yelled at, and called an asshole looks surprisingly unperturbed.
“Well, it is kinda weird,” Kirk says with a shrug. “But okay.”
McCoy blinks at him. “Okay?”
“Yeah,” Kirk says. “Why not? Go ahead. Heal people. Save lives. I mean, I can see how that’d be useful. And it’s not like I can’t just kill them myself later.”
“Um, thanks?”
“Right,” Kirk says, “so I’ve got to get to my meeting…”
“Right,” McCoy echoes.
He watches as Kirk turns and heads toward the door, and for the longest moment he wonders how he so totally misplayed his hand, but then…
“Oh, and one more thing…” Kirk turns back to face McCoy again. “I’m gonna need you to report to my quarters tonight at 1900.”
Bingo.
McCoy feigns shock. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me,” Kirk mocks. He waggles an eyebrow. “And I know you know what I mean.”
“But we just…” McCoy shakes his head. “Forget it - there’s no way I’m gonna...”
“Seriously?” Kirk asks, angling a pointed glance at the chronometer. “Do I look like I have time to threaten you?”
McCoy also thinks things could be moving along right about now, but anything worth doing is worth the time to do it right. He takes a single staggering step backwards and then stops, going for ‘determined,’ with just a dash of ‘desperate.’ “Kirk, I…”
Kirk sighs. “Fine,” he says. “So, throwing you in the agony booth is gonna get in the way of this whole ‘healing’ thing we’re trying…” He tilts his head for a second, considering. “What about Chapel, then? You seem pretty fond of her. I could give her, what? An hour? She was an accomplice to the whole Keller thing.”
Pretending to care, McCoy decides, is actually the hardest thing he’s done all morning. He staggers forward this time - three steps - drops the ‘determined’ in favor of full on ‘desperate.’
“Kirk,” he says, “please. She hasn’t done anything. She’s the best nurse I’ve got.”
Kirk rolls his eyes. “Cut the drama. It’s not transwarp theory, McCoy. The answer’s simple. My quarters. 1900.”
McCoy’s feelings of reluctance are, in fact, genuine. He telegraphs them for a moment before lowering his eyes to the floor and whispering, “Okay.”
It could be worse, McCoy decides around about 19:45. At least the kid’s got some skill.
And what’s looking to be a fair amount of stamina.
It’s bound to make things more fun at some point. You know, that point when McCoy stops resenting the hell out of the kid for making it impossible to just zone out during the whole process.
McCoy grips the chair legs tighter and remembers the obnoxious non-smirk on Spock’s face as McCoy passed him in the hall. The low, mocking words.
“I believe the customary suggestion at this juncture is that you ‘lie back and think of England.’”
Fuck England, McCoy thinks, as he manages to shift his hips to a less favorable angle, only to have Kirk’s dick zero back in on his prostate a few seconds later like it’s armed with a goddamn homing device. And fuck Spock, too.
He’s bent far enough over that he could easily reach into his boot for the hypo he keeps hidden there. His arm is long enough to get to the femoral artery.
But he doesn’t.
And he’s not going to.
He can do this.
He will do this.
He didn’t go to all the trouble of paralyzing Pike for nothing.
Fin.
** Solanaceae is a family of flowering plants that contains a number of important agricultural plants as well as many toxic plants. The name of the family comes from the Latin Solanum "the nightshade plant," but the further etymology of that word is unclear. It has been suggested the name originates from the Latin verb solari, meaning "to soothe". This presumably refers to alleged soothing pharmacological properties of some of the psychoactive species of the family. The family is also informally known as the nightshade family. The family includes Datura (Jimson weed), Mandragora (mandrake), belladonna (deadly nightshade), Capsicum (paprika, chili pepper), Solanum (potato, tomato, aubergine or eggplant), Nicotiana (tobacco), and Petunia (petunia). The Solanaceae family is characteristically ethnobotanical, that is, extensively utilized by humans. It is an important source of food, spice and medicine. However, Solanaceae species are often rich in alkaloids whose toxicity to humans and animals ranges from mildly irritating to fatal in small quantities. (Thank you, Wikipedia!)