A/N: K/S. Also K/S/B/U/S/S/C/C/R/M/T/I can't think of any more crewmembers. … basically this is an interesting story.

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Well I Didn't See That Coming

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Kirk said, "I think I'm in love with you," and then, "Oh, fuck."

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It all started perfectly innocently. Well, that wasn't true—nothing ever started perfectly innocently. (Uhura, in fact, snorted at the notion that Kirk could have ever been perfectly innocent.) But it was all pretty innocuous to begin with. Or something.

It all started when Spock said, "Captain, Yvar Croyft is here," and Kirk said, "I'll see her right now," and then he went to see her. They'd found a planet, made contact with its leader, and were now meeting her. See? Basic stuff.

The less basic stuff was that there was a Problem. And okay, it wasn't a Problem for Yvar, but it was a Problem for Kirk. And actually, it was a Problem for the Enterprise. Also Starfleet. Also the universe.

But mainly, Kirk.

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Yvar Croyft was twelve feet tall and boggled Kirk's mind. She had curly purple hair and legs like Kirk didn't even. She spoke eighty languages, had a sparkly green tail, and didn't understand gravity. She also wore, as clothes, what looked like a live tiger draped precariously over (what Kirk suspected were) her naughty bits. He wasn't sure, since she was a K'banthiz'azarian'kan ("How do you pronounce that, again?" said Kirk nervously. "Man, I don't even know," said Yvar), and their naughty bits were differently placed/shaped/functioned/thinged than a human's. The point was that at first glance she made him blink five times from sheer what.

"Hi," Yvar said pleasantly. She stuck out her hand. Her fingernails were four inches long and maroon. Kirk took her hand slowly. Yvar had evidently only ever heard about handshakes, not participated in them, so their hands went all over the place, and Yvar's grip was really weird. Kirk bit back the urge to laugh hysterically.

"Hi," said Kirk back, nonplussed for the first time in, quite possibly, his entire life, with the exception of that one time he met alternate-universe-old-not-crazy-Spock in a cave on Hoth, er, Delta Vega, after being chased by a Cloverleaf monster that wanted to suck the very marrow from his bones. He didn't think Yvar wanted to suck the very marrow from his bones, but her teeth were white enough that he wouldn't put it past her, and also, what kind of person wore what really did look like a living tiger as clothing?

"I'm glad you've dropped in to our galaxy," said Yvar, beaming. "We've been picking up Federation signals for a while now. I like Standard. Do you think I have a good grasp of it?"

"Yes," managed Kirk.

"Awesome. So, this is really just a formality," said Yvar, leaning forwards, "but we want you to know that we'd love to cooperate with you. And trust me, we won't hurt you. We don't like conflict. Or anything resembling conflict. We're pretty conflict-free down on K'banthiz'azarian'kana. Great place, you know? Good beaches. Very sandy. You should visit some time. This baglth bar on BlurBlurr serves a great lime/steak cocktail, and the sunsets are prettier than whortle-beasts at dawn. Anyway, if you attack us, we'll destroy everything you know and love." Yvar took a calm sip of her tea. "Nice ship you've got here. Want to see a picture of my wives?"

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"How is your meeting with Croyft progressing?" Spock asked solicitously (if Spock could even be solicitous, which, Kirk couldn't deal with thinking about Spock's emotions at the moment).

"Uh," said Kirk. "Very well. She's… nice." He took a long drink of ice cold water. It hurt his throat. "Yeah. Going great."

Spock eyed him for a moment, and then said, "Please do not accidentally give her the Enterprise." Kirk spluttered. Ignoring him, Spock added, "Or accidentally sleep with her." Kirk spluttered some more. Spock ignored him some more. This wasn't any different from the usual, really.

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"Your first officer is weird," said Yvar.

"He really is," said Kirk fondly. "Nice guy. Kinda repressed, I think. It's his species, though. Well, sort of—he's half human."

"So one of his parents wasn't?" said Yvar. "What were they?"

"His dad was a Vulcan. Is a Vulcan," Kirk corrected. "His mother's the one who died—just a year ago. The whole planet was destroyed, actually."

Yvar had, up until this point, been a cheerful, absentminded, and clever compatriot. But all of a sudden her magenta skin went an astoundingly pale shade of cream, and her big coal-dust eyes faded to a heather gray. Her neck bent and she crinkled her eyebrows until they reached sadly down to the corners of her lips.

"His whole planet?" she whispered, in a tone of the utmost despair. "His whole planet?"

"Yes," said Kirk, completely uncomfortable. "A Romulan from the future—listen, it's a long story, and if it's upsetting you—"

"Upsetting me," Yvar gasped, and to Kirk's horror, she began to sob. "His planet died and you're worried about upsetting me?"

Kirk wanted to say, "Well, yes, you're the one crying, not him," but instead he said, "It was a while ago, and while I'm not saying that he's no longer effected—"

Yvar stood up, all twelve feet of her, and stretched her wide mouth open to its fullest. She took in a gallon of air and as Kirk watched, her vocal cords spiked on her neck, and she let out the longest, highest, sweetest, most dreadful noise he had ever heard.

The last thing Kirk remembered before fainting was the circle of Yvar's arms, reaching out to catch him.

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"So, it all went wrong then?" said Uhura, at the briefing.

"It went wrong way before that," Kirk said. "What I'm trying to say is, this is not my fault."

Pike raised his eyebrow at Kirk. Bones leaned back in his chair and glared. Scotty twiddled his thumbs non-judgmentally. And Spock, rather surprisingly, blushed.

Bones stared at Spock. "Why are you blushing?" The Vulcan was a charming shade of green.

"I am not blushing," said Spock, and changed the subject. "And you are incorrect. The incident did not occur until you told Croyft that Vulcan had been destroyed."

"But it was clearly going to happen anyway," protested Kirk. "I mean, anything would have—"

Everybody else just rolled their eyes. Kirk, though, was remembering what happened next.

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When he woke up, he wasn't in Croyft's arms anymore. He was in sickbay, on a biobed. There was some beeping, some shuffling of feet, and also some sex noises.

The first thing Kirk saw when he sat up was Bones, Chapel, and M'Benga having a very well-coordinated threesome about four feet from his bed.

Kirk didn't scream very often. He was a manly man, and he generally made manly noises. But this called for drastic vocal action.

Chapel fell off M'Benga's ass when Kirk screamed, and Bones slipped on god-knew-what on the floor and nearly broke his jaw. "As your captain," Kirk shrieked, "what the fuck is going on?"

Bones, Chapel, and M'Benga stared at him blankly for a while. And then, as one, they all started laughing.

Kirk watched as they laughed so hard they had to hold on to each other and clutch at their sides. Eventually they subsided into a wheezing, naked heap. It was the strangest thing Kirk had ever seen.

He finally snapped, "Lieutenant Commander McCoy! Attention!" in his most drill-sergeant voice. Bones sat up and glared at him.

"What, Jim?" he demanded. "Can't you tell we're in the middle of somethin'?"

Kirk had no idea how to respond to that.

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"Wait a second," said Bones. "Wait just a goddamn second."

Kirk flinched. "Did nobody brief you on this?"

Bones flailed a bit. "No, nobody briefed me on this! What d'you mean, Jim, accusin' me of—of havin' sexual intercourse in sickbay? Isn't that more your type of thing?"

Kirk glanced over at Spock, who was staring intently at the wall above Pike's head. Everybody else was watching Bones, wide-eyed, except for Pike, who looked slightly murderous.

"Listen, Bones, from what we know of the K'banthiz'azarian'kan vocal tract, it is… very powerful. When Yvar screamed, she… well, she did something to us." Kirk tried to sound apologetic. Bones twitched at him.

"Jim, you realize this is an official briefin', right? You're gonna need to tell the truth."

"Yeah…" said Kirk slowly. "Bones, this is the truth."

Bones scoffed. "Come on! It can't be. I wouldn't do that, Christine wouldn't do that, and Jabilo wouldn't do that."

"The thing is," said Kirk, "you did."

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Kirk couldn't get anything more useful out of Bones, so he fled the infirmary. The ship's corridors were empty. He paced down a couple of halls and took the turbolift to the bridge, figuring he should find out what was going on.

The scene he met on the bridge shocked him even more than what he had witnessed in sickbay. Uhura, Sulu, Chekov, and the rest of the bridge crew were—

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Uhura stood up. "Excuse me," she said, in one of the most dangerous voices Kirk had ever heard, "captain, but are you sure you'd like to continue this?"

Kirk covered his face. "I am telling the truth! Starfleet has already verified the tapes. Right, Admiral?"

Pike's face was carefully blank. "Indeed, Lieutenant Uhura," said Pike. "The tapes have been verified. Captain Kirk's account of the situation is accurate."

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The weirdest thing was that nobody seemed the slightest bit self-conscious about what they were doing, and when Kirk made shocked noises at them, they looked at him like he was the crazy one.

"Lieutenant Uhura?" said Kirk carefully. "Would you mind… er, that is… excuse me, could you…"

Uhura pulled her head out of some crewmember's crotch. "Yes, captain?"

"Do you know where Spock is?"

"I do not, sir, but I can check." Uhura pecked the crewmember on the cheek and walked over to the communications console. Kirk stepped very, very gingerly over Chekov and some science officers, following Uhura.

Uhura leaned against the console instead of sitting in her chair. "It'd be cold," she said to Kirk, grinning. "Leather on bare skin? Whenever I'm wearing shorts in a car, I get stuck to it. Especially during the summer." She slipped her earpiece in and broadcasted a call for Spock, smiling at Kirk the whole time. Kirk had no idea where to look. He couldn't look at Uhura, even though she was being weirdly nice. But he couldn't look anywhere else, because there were naked people in varying sex positions spread basically everywhere. Actually, some of their techniques were pretty impressive, but this was seriously not the time.

Uhura frowned at her instruments. "Commander Spock is not replying, sir," she said. "He was in sickbay, with you, but Doctor McCoy says that he hasn't been there for a while. I would advise checking the science labs, the recreation room, and of course, Mr. Spock's personal quarters." She smiled brilliantly. "Will there be anything else, Captain?"

"Er," said Kirk. "No. Thank you, Lieutenant. At ease."

"Mm, quite," murmured Uhura, and slithered off to do dirty deeds.

Kirk blinked a few times and fled.

As soon as he started looking into rooms, he found people, always in scandalous states of undress and arousal. Nurses bending engineers over conference tables. Chemists and botanists amongst the plants. Security men comparing their guns. Navigators charting their bodies. Scientists experimenting on electricians. It was all cool and calm for them. A smile and a nod to Kirk, or a wave, then a continuation of their previous activities, with happy enthusiasm, and utterly without shame.

After a while he became inured to their activites. He started joking with some of the more enthusiastic couplings. He worked his way through the ship, searching for Spock, feeling curiously unworried. Uhura contacted him on the intercom once, to tell him about some small Starfleet business he had to deal with, and he was comforted that Uhura was still doing her job. In fact, he interrupted a number of personnel doing double-duty (often times in more ways than one).

Finally, he reached Spock's quarters. He tried the door and found it sealed.

He knocked. "Spock? It's me. It's Jim. Are you in there?"

There was silence.

Kirk frowned at the door. He hadn't seen Spock anywhere else. And somehow, even though they had Vulcan crewmembers who he had seen indulging in the pleasures of the flesh, he thought that even Spock wouldn't do that, no matter what was going on (which, he really needed to get to the bottom of this). So he knocked again.

No response.

Kirk bit his lip, sent up an apologetic prayer, and used his captain's override to break the seal on Spock's door.

x

"Jim," said Spock quietly, drawing Kirk aside before the briefing. "How much do you plan on revealing?"

Kirk looked at him. "I have to tell the truth, Spock."

"Yes, but—" Spock looked pained. "There are no cameras in private quarters. That information could not be verified."

Kirk considered this. "Good point." He smiled. "Well then. I'll keep it to the bare essentials."

Spock was relieved.

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Kirk had been partially mistaken. The first thing he saw when he looked inside Spock's room was a large dead tiger, lying on the floor. Before he could process what that meant, he had looked up, and saw Yvar Croyft, all twelve feet of her, her magenta skin pressed close against greenish flesh—

For the twentieth time that day, Kirk shrieked and threw up his arms. The figures pulled apart with a gasp and a thump as one of them fell onto the floor. Kirk took hasty steps backwards and turned around.

"Captain!" panted Spock. "You—you should have—"

"I knocked!" shouted Kirk. "I knocked and you didn't say anything, and—listen, I am not sure what is going on here, but everybody—oh God! Why am I talking to you? You're under the influence of whatever-this-is too—"

There was a hasty shuffling, and the rustle of fabric. Kirk felt a tap on his shoulder and turned around cautiously. Spock had pulled on his pants and was standing nervously a few feet from him, the green flush on his chest virulent, and his hair in disarray.

Kirk bit his lip. That was profound.

"I have witnessed the… state of the crewmembers," said Spock hesitantly. "Do you remember what occurred? I was unable to attain useful information from any of them. I simply remember waking up, without recall of falling asleep, or fainting. I searched for you but could not locate you, and then…" Spock wavered. "Yvar found me, and…"

"I see," said Kirk stiffly. "Well. Good to know you weren't affected. I'll just—let you two get back to that, and try to figure this out. Okay? Okay."

He turned on his heel, suddenly angrier than he had ever been. How could Spock do this to him? This was betrayal. While the ship was in danger, Spock—Spock just went with that woman, and—how could he do this to—

"Captain," said Spock, his voice close to Kirk's ear. Kirk paused. Spock had followed him down the hall, padding on bare feet. "Please."

Kirk closed his eyes. The image of Yvar leaning over Spock flattened itself under his eyelids. He shook his head and opened his eyes and turned around.

He wanted to say, "Spock, I am very disappointed in you. I wish you would have searched for me longer. And I can't believe you didn't try to figure out what was going on. Please, put some clothes on, and you and Yvar and I will go fix this situation, and we'll make everything work out."

What he actually said was, "I think I'm in love with you," and then, "Oh, fuck."

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Uhura cocked her head. "I don't get it. Spock had holed himself up in his room?"

"Yes," said Spock, a little too quickly. "I was… alarmed by what was happening, and was attempting to do some research on the matter."

"Yeah," Kirk agreed. "Exactly."

There was a bit of a silence. Finally, Bones said, "Bullshit. What really happened?"

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Yvar stuck her head out of Spock's door. "Good for you!" she said to Kirk. "You tell him. That's what I was aiming for, you know, with my lahf'khurdivakadr'maha-lubikstuv."

Kirk tore his eyes away from Spock's. "Your… what?" Spock had frozen completely as soon as Kirk had spoken. He had yet to even breathe, Kirk thought.

"My…" Yvar scowled as she searched for the Standard translation. "My mating-voice-call-love-need-healing-cry. I think it backfired, um, slightly, because it wasn't really supposed to go beyond you two, but I've never been good at the lahf'khurdivakadr'maha-lubikstuv. So it actually missed you two entirely, and turned into a mating-great-orgy-calm-cry. Anyway." She smiled brilliantly. "I wanted to make Spock happy, since his planet died. So that's why I was seducing him. Not his fault! I used my voice, and made sure I had his consent, but I really wanted for you to… well, to do what you just did. And now he is happy!"

Kirk wasn't so sure about that. Spock still hadn't moved. Finally he shifted a bit, the tendons in his neck tightening. Kirk felt like he should be stepping gingerly around the Vulcan. Also, possibly, killing himself for being so goddamn stupid.

"Yvar," said Spock, in an only slightly strangled voice. "Can you implement the reverse mating cry? I think that both the captain and I would appreciate if our crew were returned to normal."

"Oh, yeah, absolutely," said Yvar brightly. "I didn't think about that. Sure, here—" She stepped fully into the hallway (Kirk couldn't help but notice that she hadn't put the tiger back on, and was… rather intrigued, actually), drew in a long, full breath, and let out a shriek-laugh-sob that somersaulted down the corridors, echoing and reverberating throughout the entire ship.

After a full minute, she closed her lips, biting off the sound. "That should do it," she said, satisfied. "Now, want to resume negotiations, captain?"

"Um, yes," said Kirk, still watching Spock. "Shall we to the conference room?"

"Totally," said Yvar. "Let me grab my tiger." She disappeared into Spock's quarters.

Leaving Kirk and Spock alone in the hallway.

x

All across the ship, people were waking up with no memory of what had just happened. They yelled and screamed when they realized their states of undress, and there was an immediate commotion. As the captain and first officer could not be immediately located, the second officer, Scotty, hastened to the bridge (buckling his belt and kissing a hasty goodbye to the warp drive) to deal with things—and make a report to Starfleet.

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"Captain," said Spock. He cleared his throat. "Jim," he said, in a lower tone.

"Yes?" said Kirk, in a small voice.

"You love me?"

Kirk looked at Spock. For a moment, he wanted to say, "No, what? Of course not. I don't know what that was." But he never could.

"Yeah," said Kirk softly. "I do, Spock. I love you."

Spock raised an eyebrow. "How fortunate, Jim." He smiled. "Because I love you."

Well, I didn't see that coming, thought Kirk. But this is the best kind of surprise.

x

Pike got to write up the incident report. It was toasted, for the next few decades, as a masterpiece of its category.

Starfleet put a billion red flags on the planet K'banthiz'azarian'kana and did their best to maintain stable relations with their eccentric leader. (It was not difficult; all Yvar demanded was a year's supply of chocolate oranges and for the occasional ship to pass by for a chat.)

The crew of the Enterprise got to know each other a little better. Really, it was inevitable.

And Kirk told the truth. He blushed, but he said it.

It was worth it, to walk down the corridors holding Spock's hand.

(Also, for all of the fucking that went on at night. And during the day, actually. They pretty much had sex all the time.)

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