6street

Title:  The Kissing Planet
Rating: PG
Characters/Pairings: Kirk/McCoy, Sulu/Chekov

In response to this prompt from nu!Trek kinkmeme:
Any pairing, would prefer slash: the crew comes to a world where people are greeted, deals are signed, and thanks are said with a kiss. Refusing a kiss is seen as extremely rude, and it seems to make the people of that planet uncomfortable when the crew doesn't employ the kissing rule between themselves.

It doesn't have to be full-on tongue-down-the-throat kissing; just mouth-to-mouth contact. Also, awkwardness is my kink so more of that is good.

Spock insisted on referring to it properly as SL-013, the official Starfleet designation, or Bosa, the natives' own name for their world, but when they everyone else on the crew talked about it, for years to come, they called it "the kissing planet."

"We're here for a week to learn about their culture," Captain Kirk explained cheerfully.  "The Federation's limited data on the Bosans suggests that they are peaceful and technologically advanced.  Our report will determine whether or not the Federation considers them as a potential member species, so make sure to observe everything."

They beamed down in style for the Bosans, the bridge officers and several ensigns all in their dress uniforms.  They arrived in a wide hall built out of a smooth stone that looked something like Earth marble.  There were shallow fountains burbling in the corners, and the room was suffused with tranquil artificial light.  They had made first contact before, sometimes in fine throne rooms, sometimes in filthy caves, but nearly everyone agreed afterwards that they had never come upon a species whose aesthetics were so serene and refined (Kirk himself was the only one who disagreed, but no one really listened to him on matters of taste, as he had none).

What happened next would live forever in Enterprise legend.  The most stately and dignified-looking alien, leader of the Bosans, glided forward to greet Kirk.  She did not shake hands, bow, or even incline her head.  Instead, she leaned down (the Bosans were all, male or female, over six feet tall, and towered over the Enterprise crew) and kissed Kirk matter-of-factly on the mouth.

"Welcome to our homeworld," she intoned solemnly.

"I think I'm going to like it here," Kirk answered, incredulously touching his fingers to his own lips.

They discovered soon after, in a hurried discussion about cultural matters, that to the Bosans, the kiss was a handshake, a hug, a laugh, a Vulcan salute, and a signature all wrapped up in one simple gesture.  Bosans kissed upon greetings and farewells, the expression of even the slightest gratitude or amusement, and any and all official business.  Deals were sealed with kisses, and every important government ceremony concluded with kisses all around.

"In our world," Kirk explained hesitantly, "the kiss has a different significance."  He cleared his throat.  "It is most often romantic, even sexual, and it's a deeply intimate gesture..."  Somewhere behind him, McCoy snorted in quiet derision.

The team of Bosan anthropologists had to confer amongst themselves before they reached a consensus.  "I believe I understand," answered the head anthropologist, Josst, a nearly seven-foot-tall man with a flowing golden beard.  "For you, a kiss is connected to mating?"

"Exactly!" Kirk said, relieved.  "Kissing is very private for humans."  (McCoy rolled his eyes.)  "Surely we can find an alternate way of communicating with you, one that doesn't make my crew so uncomfortable."

"We apologize for the inconvenience, but we must ask you to tolerate this small awkwardness," Josst replied primly.  "If you wish to learn about our society, you must participate in it.  We simply cannot see a place on our world for people who cannot make such a small concession to the fundamental necessities of communication."

Kirk glanced guiltily back at his crew before apologizing: "Of course, Josst, we will do what is necessary to smooth relations between our two peoples.  Let's--uh--let's kiss on that agreement."

Josst looked pleased in his supercilious way, and he bent down and formally pecked Kirk on the lips.  "You are welcome here, Captain Kirk."

The rest of the crew stared as the team of Bosan anthropologists said their goodbyes to Kirk, kissing him one by one.  "Their beards tickled," Kirk whispered to McCoy, looking rather shocked.

"I'll say, Jim, this is going to make a hell of a report to Starfleet Command," McCoy replied, staring directly at his captain's mouth.

"I think you made the right decision, Captain," Uhura said decisively.  "We're Starfleet officers, and we're capable of behaving appropriately in alien cultures."

"Aye, lass!  We'll kiss with the best of 'em, Captain!" Scotty said cheerfully.

Unnoticed by the others, Chekov and Sulu exchanged anxious glances.

As their stay on Bosa continued, the crew came to understand the subtle nuances of Bosan kissing.  First of all, Bosan kisses were utterly chaste.  Their lips were cool, dry, and without any particular scent.  Every Bosan, even small children or wizened elders, kissed, without regard to age or gender.  It was entirely sexless--for them, at least.

Some crew members adjusted to the new custom more readily than others.  Spock, for example, accepted the kisses as simple greetings and was apparently unperturbed by them.  Likewise, Uhura took the whole thing as an interesting cultural experience.  While Kirk had clearly not fully understood that Bosan kisses were unromantic, he didn't seem to be having any trouble kissing nearly every Bosan he came across, usually several times.  Scotty's cheeks were perpetually pink, but he gamely kept on trying to keep a straight face.

The other officers were having more trouble.  Sulu was skulking around trying to avoid all contact with Bosans, and looking horribly guilty every time he had to kiss one.  McCoy lectured everyone who would listen about how unsanitary the habit was, and how the mouth was a breeding ground for germs, and how the whole thing was a disgusting disease vector (mortally offending most Bosans he met).  Chekov was having the worst time of it all.

"Your youngest officer, is he ill?" Josst asked Kirk.

"What do you mean?"

"His lips tremble when he kisses.  Among our people, the inability to give a proper, firm kiss is a sign of grave illness."

Kirk laughed aloud.  "No, no--in our world, the children don't kiss.  Ensign Chekov is still half a child, so he's still learning how to do it right."  Josst seemed to accept this explanation, and fortunately, Chekov wasn't around to hear it, so he couldn't object.

"It's fascinating," Uhura remarked over dinner that night.  (Bosan cooking mostly consisted of what seemed to be bland boiled roots; Spock expressed his admiration for this subtle cuisine, but Kirk had taken to asking the Enterprise to surreptitiously beam down human food.)  "Have you noticed how all their kisses differ?  The pressure, length, and position of the kiss changes depending on the status of the kissers, the occasion, their mood... it's like an elaborate gestural language."

"Human kisses are language, too," McCoy argued.  "That's why they're so important.  The human brain devotes inordinate amounts of space to the hands and the mouth, and we get lots of information from kisses.  We just have more fun with them than the Bosans do," he concluded smugly.

"The Bosans are a little stuffy, aren't they?" Kirk mused.  "They don't seem to do much of anything for pleasure or passion."

"A thoroughly sensible people," Spock concluded.

They had only been on the planet two days before Josst delivered more bad news.  "I recognize that you will not welcome this request, but I ask you to indulge us once more," he said politely.  "While my people are pleased that you have agreed to adopt our ways while you are on our planet, some have noticed that among yourselves, you never kiss.  We find it quite unsettling."

"Surely you don't mean--you want us to kiss each other when we greet?"

"And when you part, when you convey gratitude, when you convey sympathy, when you make agreements, et cetera," Josst added stiffly.

"But that's--"  Kirk took a steadying breath.  "Yes, I apologize for my rudeness.  I'll inform my crew immediately."

For a moment that evening, Kirk was frightened of mutiny.  He had explained it all very fairly, he thought, emphasizing the importance of good diplomatic relations with the Bosans and the inoffensiveness of the kiss as a gesture.  Sulu had been the last person Kirk expected to defy a direct order, but he was on his feet, pink-cheeked, protesting, "You can't ask us to do that, Captain!"

"I think I agree, Jim."  McCoy's arms were crossed tightly over his chest.  "We're humans, not Bosans, and going around kissing each other all willy-nilly is going to have some consequences I'd rather not think about."

"Your emotional overreaction is unfortunate but not unexpected, doctor," Spock said evenly.  "It is our duty as Starfleet officers to behave according to the cultural mores of our host planets, so long as it does not conflict with Starfleet regulation or Federation values."

"Well said, Spock.  Thank you," Kirk said, and he leaned forward and planted his lips firmly on Spock's.  There was an awe-struck hush among the officers, and the more observant among them noticed a faint green flush at the tip of Spock's ears.

"Hell," McCoy whispered.

Things got considerably more complicated after that.  Sulu mumbled his excuses and disappeared into the Bosan botanical gardens on his own, not even returning for meals with the others, so he escaped the awkwardness of the first round of kisses.  Kirk wasn't even trying to conceal his pleasure in the situation; he'd greet his officers jovially from across the room, bound over, kiss them, and immediately say goodbye just for an excuse to kiss them again.  Spock attempted to maintain his composure under this onslaught, but he wore a perpetually stunned expression.

"Bones, what a pleasure to see you!"

"Keep those lips to yourself, Jim, I know where they've been."

"Don't be so culturally insensitive, Bones," Kirk murmured seductively, stealing a warm kiss.

"Dammit, Jim, do you realize how much this is going to undermine my--our professionalism?"

"Are you worried for your virtue, Bones?"  Another swift kiss, and another.

"You are using this as a pretext for working your way through your officers, Jim, and I don't think it's a good idea."

"You're just jealous that I got to kiss Spock."

"Not in the slightest."

"You're just jealous that Spock got to kiss me."  McCoy lapsed into sullen silence with a scowl that even Kirk understood.  "Bones--" and then they were kissing urgently, with teeth and tongue and all sorts of techniques that would have had scandalized Josst had he been there to see them.

The rest of McCoy's kisses weren't quite as successful.  He and Scotty kissed, and the engineer immediately dissolved into helpless, embarrassed laughter.  "Hell of a story ta tell the boys back in engineering," Scotty admitted, scratching the back of his head.  "I think I'll tell them about kissing Uhura and the Captain, but I might leave out the part about you.  You know, gentlemen never kiss and tell!"  (McCoy was inexplicably insulted by this reaction.)  Kissing Spock was worse.  Kissing Spock was the worst.  Spock's unperturbed face drew close and their lips touched lightly, briefly.  Not briefly enough--McCoy felt the even, persistent heat of his skin and the strange, alien scent of him.  He knew about Vulcan physiology and their average body temperature, so it shouldn't have surprised him, but he spent longer than he would like to admit brooding on that searing kiss.  (He was going to have to put in for medical leave to recover from emotional trauma when he got back on the ship.)

Uhura kissed Chekov lightly when they happened to meet in the Bosan library, and he actually whimpered.  She felt like a sex offender.  "Can I ask you something personal, Chekov?"

"Go ahead," he muttered, rubbing his mouth self-consciously.

"You haven't been kissed before, have you?"

"Of course I have!" he protested.  "Just--just not on the mouth."  He stared down at his feet with a stubborn scowl.

"That's okay, Chekov.  I was the same way when I was seventeen."

"I wish my first kiss had not been with an alien.  And Sulu has run away and left me to handle this alone.  He has never done that before."

"It's not like him, is it?  I'm sure he has his own reasons, Chekov.  Come on, let me show you how the Bosans organize their archives."

Sulu finally emerged from isolation two days later when the Bosan diet of tasteless, woody starch wore on his nerves, but Kirk couldn't help but notice that Sulu would literally sprint in the opposite direction whenever he saw Chekov coming.  He would have scolded him, but he had his hands full sitting through dry lectures on Bosan history by day and attending endless formal dinners by night.

That evening, when the Bosan anthropologists invited the Enterprise crew to a banquet and a performance of their traditional opera (a sort of storytelling accompanied by a droning monotone narrative and chimes; Uhura was enchanted, but no one else seemed to be impressed), Sulu's luck finally ran out.  He and Chekov ran into each other in the banquet hall, right in front of Captain Kirk and half a dozen curious Bosan women.  He steeled his shoulders, clenched both hands into tight fists, and marched over.

"Ensign Chekov."  And Sulu boldly leaned in and pressed their lips together, briefly and firmly.  When they parted, cheeks flushed and eyes shining with defiance, Kirk finally realized why Sulu had been acting so strange, desperately trying to avoid this one event.  He gave a knowing smile and resumed his conversation with the Bosan traditional poet, watching Sulu and Chekov sit next to each other out of the corner of his eye.

Scotty, who was sitting in the back of the hall sketching out comparative engine designs with a Bosan warp engineer instead of listening to the opera, was the only one who noticed the two of them leaving at intermission.

"I see that your young officer has been working hard on learning how to kiss," Josst remarked the next day.

"Oh?  Has his technique approved?" Kirk chuckled.

"Not noticeably, but I have seen him practicing his kissing with an officer of yours in our meditation gardens.  Our children rarely require any conscious practice, but of course, he is learning later in life.  I applaud his diligence," Josst said, without a trace of irony.

Kirk went to investigate (out of captainly concern, not prurient interest, naturally).  Sure enough, on a stone bench in the shadow of a tall chime tree, Sulu and Chekov were practicing the kind of kissing that would appall any proper Bosan.  Chekov was squirming halfway onto Sulu's lap, and Sulu was grabbing handfuls of his shirt and clutching him close.  Chekov's lips were swollen and wet, and he was panting and babbling breathily in Russian between Sulu's deep, possessive kisses.  Josst might not have been impressed, but It seemed to Kirk that the two of them were doing a perfectly good job.

By the end of the week, everyone had kissed everyone else several times over, and the awkwardness was beginning to dissipate.  It even got so Kirk could kiss Uhura without her sharply pinching him as a warning.  Chekov, perhaps because of all of that diligent practice, hadn't blushed at all in days.

"I'm going to miss this planet," Kirk joked, as they prepared to leave.

"I am certain you mean because of its highly sophisticated art and philosophy, and not because of the rampant osculation," Spock said drily.

Before they beamed up, they met for one last time the anthropologists who had been such helpful guides and companions for their week on Bosa.

"We appreciate your crew's willingness to adjust to our cultural norms," Josst said, pressing his lips against Kirk's in a lingering gesture that, Uhura had been careful to explain beforehand, signified a final farewell.  "I have enjoyed your visit, and look forward to future relations with the Federation."

"It has been an honor learning about your culture and your people," Kirk responded, unflappable.  "Let's say goodbye in the manner of my people, as well, and shake hands."  He extended his hand with a warm smile.

"Right here?  In public?" Josst gasped, appalled.