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McCoy was bent over his high powered microscope, as he had been for hours, engrossed in a slide of the newly dissected Sularian Land Serpent. The huge, scaled creature had slithered up and attacked the captain while down on Sulara II. Jim had had stunned it with his phaser but unfortunately the heavy stun wound up killing the poor thing. They'd beamed it up and the initial studies on its nervous system were proving…fascinating…to coin someone's catch phrase.
McCoy snickered as he shut off the machine. He stretched, yawning loudly in the quiet. "Dammit, I must be getting tired, if I'm borrowing words from our pointy eared first officer. Next think you know, I'll be talking to myself."
Just then the door to McCoy's lab swooshed open. McCoy looked up. "Oh, now. Speak of the devil."
"Devil?" Spock raised an eyebrow.
"Absolutely," McCoy replied, smirking and cocking back his own eyebrow.
"I brought you the data you requested." Spock handed over the PADD.
"Thank you." McCoy perused the info but the figures swam. "This is gonna have to wait till tomorrow, I'm beat."
"`Tomorrah'?" Spock parroted back in a slight mockery of McCoy. That type of teasing he only did when they were in private. "You must be exhausted, your accent is rather pronounced."
"Oh, I suppose you don't speak with an accent." McCoy said absently, setting the PADD down on a free area of the lab table.
"I do not."
"Uh huh. What about when you say the word: `rather'?"
"I do not say the word `rather' any differently to the captain."
"You just said it weird, again. Jim's from Iowa, they talk funny too." Spock sighed and folded his arms. McCoy chuckled and asked: "Want a cookie?"
Apparently that question was so random as to catch the vulcan off guard. McCoy was rewarded with a smirk ghosting across the first officer's face. "Pardon?"
"Cookie." McCoy held up a plate. It was filled with various sugar cookies, frosted with images of green Christmas trees and red Santas and blue presents and purple ornaments. "Mr. Chekov's been by."
"Ah," Spock replied. And that said it all. It was well known aboard ship,Ensign Chekov's absolute giddy glee during the Christmas season. It was nearly legendary. Starting right after Thanksgiving, Ensign Chekov, in his off duty hours was to be found decorating, baking, organizing the christmas party—because nobody else wanted to do it, forming Victorian style caroling SATB groups, wrapping gifts for the Secret Santa exchange, dressing up as Santa himself, you name it. The kid loved Christmas and nobody did Christmas better than the Russians, according to Chekov.
Spock hesitated a moment then shrugged in a perfectly human imitation. "Thank you." He picked out one featuring a Christmas tree.
McCoy couldn't help but grin, he wasn't actually expecting Spock to help himself. There was something adorable about watching Spock delicately nibble on a Christmas tree cookie. He must be tired. He picked out the Santa cookie. "Good aren't they?" he asked around a cookie.
Spock nodded and popped the remainder into his mouth. McCoy had to keep himself from laughing.
The doctor finished his own and chased it down with a sip of his water. "I need a real drink. You stayin' in the lab here?"
"I shall accompany you to the turbolift."
"Spock, I'm not a grannie who needs help crossing the street. Ship's: mother hen is my job," McCoy complained mildly, but nodded and headed through the alcove separating his lab from the laboratory foyer. He almost plowed right into Spock who was frozen under the archway, looking straight up. "S'matter?"
"Fascinating."
"What?" McCoy looked up to see what the hobgoblin was staring at. "Oh." It was a huge sprig of mistletoe, hanging right above them on the archway. "Great. Placed by Ensign Chekov, no doubt."
"Viscum album," Spock noted.
"I bet you don't know the subspecies."
"Abietis."
"You do. Joy." McCoy chewed on the inside of his cheek. "Goddamned parasite anyhow. I don't know why Jim lets Chekov bring this crap aboard. A different species of mistletoe took down a whole bunch of peach trees on my property back in Georgia."
"What species?"
"Phoradendron serotinum."
"Ah."
They continued to stare up at it.
"After you, Mr. Spock," McCoy said, giving the first officer a slight push to get out of the alcove.
Spock did not budge. "Doctor, do you not wish to indulge in the custom?"
McCoy coughed into his fist. "I must be tired. I thought I heard you just ask me if I wanted to kiss you under the mistletoe."
"Well?"
McCoy blinked for a second or two. "Well what?"
"Should we?"
"What? Kiss under the mistletoe?" McCoy frantically waved his hand between them, blushing. "You? And Me? Uh…" He cleared his throat. "Listen, we don't have to. Nobody saw us standing under it, ergo we never saw it hanging overhead. Or…you didn't know of the tradition. Argumentum ad ignorantiam." He knew he was grasping.
Spock nodded. "It is quite possible that one might be able to ignore the tradition, claiming ignorance. However, since I am fully aware of the connotations, it would be illogical to disregard it. The offending object hanging over our heads is rather large, rendering it quite difficult to overlook."
"Really?" McCoy said with dripping sarcasm.
"Undoubtably."
"The tradition itself is highly illogical and emotional," McCoy pointed out.
"It is. However, I know of no reasonable way to avoid it."
McCoy folded his arms. "We could easily avoid this. We never saw it," he said, gritting his teeth. "You and I were engaged in heavy scientific conversation, oblivious to anything trivial."
"No. A lie is unacceptable."
McCoy licked his lips, nervously eyeing Spock's face creeping just a bit closer. "You're a Vulcan," he suddenly protested. "And…and… and…your mother is Jewish. Which makes you a Vulcan Jew. I know for a fact that Vulcan Jews are exempt from the silly mistletoe tradition."
"Indeed?"
"Yeah."
Spock seemed to have moved even closer. "Perhaps that is so, but you are not."
"Oh. Right."
"Doctor."
"Yes?"
"It appears to me, based on your stalling, that you do not wish to kiss me. Perhaps you are afraid." Spock was whispering, barely audible, but to McCoy it was as loud as can be, which meant the first officer was way too damned close.
"Afraid?!" McCoy sputtered. "I'm not afraid, you goddamned pointy eared, hobgobl—umph." Suddenly Spock's mouth was on his, delivering a firm, warm, unmistakable kiss on the lips then breaking apart with an audible smack.
McCoy stood there like an idiot, his mouth gaping and his mind reeling. He didn't think Vulcan's could actually… kiss. Well, they must, but he'd never witnessed it. Spock's lips were softer than he thought they'd be. He continued to blink at Spock who raised his eyebrow in response for what felt like an eternity.
"Fascinating." Spock said, breaking the silence. He gave a kurt nod, turned on his heel and walked away.
"Wait!" McCoy called out after him. Spock halted and turned around. "I can do better than that. My performance was... uh…a little off."
"There is room for a great deal of improvement," Spock noted truthfully.
"It wasn't that bad."
"I do not wish to insult you, Dr. McCoy, but I have had better."
McCoy fumed and darted from the alcove over to the doors, getting right up into Spock's face. "You want better? I'll show you better." McCoy pulled the science officer to him by the scruff of the neck, meeting his mouth much with much more determined passion and open mouthed this time. After a few moments he broke the kiss. It was a little sloppy when he'd pulled away and McCoy saw Spock actually lick his lips—tasting him. "What do you think of that?"
Spock shrugged. "Adequate."
"Adequate?! That's not what everyone else says."
"How many people have you kissed, Dr. McCoy?"
"None of your business. A lot."
"Hmm. I would think, since you are so well practiced as you claim, you would be considerably more accomplished at the task."
McCoy scowled. "Dammit! I want another attempt." He moved to kiss Spock again.
Spock halted McCoy with two fingers against his mouth. "What about the captain?"
"What about him? You'd rather kiss him?"
"Negative. Will he not arrive here soon, curious of our combined lengthy absence?"
McCoy chucked. "No way." During the dissection much earlier, Jim had entered the lab, came upon Spock and McCoy both elbow deep in serpent guts, turned around and walked straight out. "He'll avoid this area for a long, long while."
McCoy pulled Spock to him again, relaxing into the deep kiss. He felt himself being flipped around and shoved against the bulkhead but he wasn't stopping, not for anything. It deepened, their tongues meeting, dopamine flooding his system. He found himself engaged in the best kiss he'd had in years. Who was it that said that man craved a kiss as his noblest reward? That angels rejoiced at the first kiss exchanged by lovers?
McCoy made a mental note to thank Ensign Chekov for the goddamned hanging festive parasite. Later.
Spock felt the doctor growing hard against his thigh and also made a mental note that his surreptitious placement of the said mistletoe object was having the exact results as desired.
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fin