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Oh, this was just so goddamn typical.
Hadn’t they been through enough? Hadn’t losing almost half the crew and being captured by a lunatic ex-Starfleet Captain been enough? Jim couldn’t just have a nice birthday with his friends and crew and let the evil of the day be sufficient?
Apparently not.
More than half the people in the room ate those cupcakes. At least, Jim thought they were cupcakes; they certainly looked like cupcakes, Gaila had brought loads of them and said they were made “the Orion way” and he had no idea what that meant, but once he’d stopped bowing to the porcelain God, he fully intended to find out.
At first, he thought it was just him. Maybe he was just stressed from the last two days. Stress-nausea, you know; comes with the territory of crashing ships and speeding motorcycles. Chekov had suffered from a bit of it when they’d been wandering on Altamid’s surface after ditching Kalara and her goons.
When other people had started looking a little green in the gills, he’d started to suspect that it was more than just stress.
And when he’d been on the verge of throwing up and received part of a mass-text from Bones that more or less amounted to “EVERYBODY STOP TEXTING ME & THE OTHER MEDBAY STAFF WE’RE SICK TOO JUST GO TO YORKTOWN MEDICAL”, Jim knew that he and many other people were just screwed.
Lodging had been made available in Yorktown for the Enterprise crew, given that their stay would be considerably extended without an Enterprise to fly off with. Jim had barely managed to stumble back to his room before he was gagging, and made it to the bathroom in photo-finish time before anything actually came up.
It didn’t take long to realize that there was only one thing he’d eaten at that party whose ingredients he was not 100% sure of, and that was his ex-lover’s freaking cupcakes. What could Jim say? He had a sweet-tooth, and Gaila was every bit as good of a baker as she was in bed. And that was saying something, because boy was Gaila good in bed.
Jim threw up again.
Alright, so reminiscing about some very fun, sweaty, athletic, bed-related activities with a past lover was not the way to calm one’s stomach.
He leaned his head against the tile and tried to catch his breath. Unfortunately, from the distress and pain in his stomach, it was starting to become obvious that this was going to be a night-long adventure with the Porcelain Princess.
Jim had been hoping to spend his night with some very different women, but apparently this was how his night, week, year was gonna go.
Nearly half an hour of retching later, there was a knock at the door that Jim barely heard. “Hello? Captain Kirk?”
Chekov. Okay.
That was terribly interesting, but Jim really wasn’t in a position to be going anywhere right now. He retched again.
“Captain?” Chekov sounded closer. He must have come into the apartment. A normal person might have been embarrassed about a member of their crew watching them puke their guts out, but really, after the incident with the Platonians Jim couldn’t be bothered to feel embarrassed about anything short of being forced to act out a psychic madman’s pseudo-classic play and being forced to make-out with his Communications Officer, who also happened to be dating his First Officer.
Jim and Nyota had come to an immediate, mutual agreement to never discuss the subject ever again.
The tentative knock on the bathroom door startled him. So he threw up again.
“Captain?”
“Chekov,” Jim choked. “What’s up?”
The door opened a crack, and two large, blue eyes peeked cautiously through the crack. “I am sorry, sir, I did not mean to barge in. I didn’t hear you answer, and I wanted to make sure you hadn’t passed out.”
“‘s fine,” Jim coughed. “Did you need something? Is anything wrong? It’s fine, you can open the door.”
Chekov tentatively opened the door and took a tiny, tiny step into the bathroom. Even with Jim gagging into a toilet, the kid had a strong sense of hierarchy and propriety. “Well, sir, I am supposed to be checking on-”
Jim really didn’t want to interrupt, but frankly, he didn’t want to be bent over a toilet right now, either. He vomited again, and grimly realized that the feeling of his stomach more or less turning itself completely inside-out was becoming really, really familiar as the night went on.
“-you,” Chekov finished, and though Jim wasn’t looking at him, he could hear the wince in his voice. He picked up the pace, apparently wanting to get it all out before Jim puked again. “I was with Hikaru, and he got sick, and Ben didn’t so he’s looking after Hikaru and he suggested I check in with everyone and make sure they were okay, and eventually Doctor McCoy suggested I check on you.”
“Wanted to make sure I hadn’t choked on my own vomit yet?”
“His words exactly, sir.”
Jim chuckled a little, and stopped immediately when he felt his stomach churn warningly. “Thanks,” He managed when it had settled somewhat. “How are you feeling? You didn’t eat any of Gaila’s death-cupcakes?”
“Some of the cupcakes looked like they had almonds on them. I am terribly allergic, and so I did not eat any of the cupcakes, just to be safe,” Chekov explained with far too much cheer in his voice to be legal, honestly. “I am wery sorry that this had to be the way your birthday ended, sir,” he added, after seeing the withering look Jim gave him.
“Yeah, well,” Jim coughed a little. “It wasn’t all bad. Nice bright spot after a couple days of hell.”
“Yes, yes it was.” Chekov slid to the floor, leaning against the doorframe.
Expressive as Chekov could be, the kid was more than capable of making an enigma of himself at any given moment. Right now he could be meditating on the destruction of the Enterprise and the loss of about half their crew, people they’d served with constantly for the last three years… or he could be playing connect-the-dots with the dotted pattern on the bathroom’s wallpaper. There was really no way of knowing without asking, and Jim wasn’t interested in asking right now.
“We were planning it, actually. Before everything with, ah, Altamid. Doctor McCoy had a party planned for you, and we were going to do it somewhere else where they could… fit… More, uh, people.”
Chekov seemed to sense that he’d gone into dangerously grim territory and clamped his mouth shut.
But Jim nodded gently. “Yeah, that bit, uh… Not one of my better birthday-weeks. Only thing that’s ever topped this one was the day I was born. Actually, since I can actually remember this one, it might even be worse.”
Thinking about his dad’s death made Jim’s stomach twist, and oh look, he did have more bile to hack up.
“Well, sir, if it makes you feel any better, there would have been far fewer survivors if you had not been the Captain.” Chekov said it with such a shy sincerity that Jim knew he was telling the God’s-honest truth.
“Thank- you-” He puked again. “I’ll, I’ll give you a more eloquent thank you later, Chekov.” And then came forth another offering to the Porcelain God.
This was a particularly long bout of retching, and at some point during his misery Jim heard the sound of Chekov’s phone chiming, and the Russian quietly mumbling the words of whatever text he’d received to himself.
“…Zat was Gaila, sir,” He offered once Jim was quiet and still for a few minutes, “Apparently one of the ingredients she used in the cupcakes is unique to Orion and must be kept housed at a particular temperature.”
“And it wasn’t?”
“It was not.”
“Color me shocked.” Jim retched.
“Evidently shock is green, Captain,” Chekov said, way too damn cheery again.
“Ensign?”
“Yes, Captain?”
“Shush. And if I choke on my own vomit and die, please be the one to eulogize me, because I have nightmares thinking about what Bones and Spock would say.”
“Of course, Captain. Whatever you say.”
-End