Warnings: Is hamster, Mr Fawlty!

Spoilers: Minor for "Acquisition" and "Two Days and Two Nights".

Summary: Trip and Malcolm have a slight communication problem.

Comments: Blame Litsa for this one - it was inspired by one of her emails going missing....

"Now that's odd...."

"Yeah, I...."

"... because normally the clothes that disappear are the ones you're actually wearing at the time."

Trip gave his best friend a put-upon look.

"This is different Cap'n. I may have been tired, but I know where I put that shirt, and it's just vanished."

"Like an old oak table?"

"What?"

"Never mind. Anyway, I thought your favourite was that orange one. With the.....unusual parrots. Since when has it been the green one you wore last night?"

Since I wore it when I got drunk with Malcolm on shore leave and he fell asleep on my shoulder, Trip thought, before pushing that piece of information firmly back into the box marked Things Jon Doesn't Need To Know About and mumbling something vague in response.

"Anyway," he went on," playin' a prank is one thing, but stealin' a man's favourite shirt...."

"A heinous crime," Jon agreed soberly, but his eyes were laughing.

Neither could Trip, and by mid afternoon things were getting worse still, with equipment failures on several decks and many of his staff occupied just with keeping vital systems running. They were on top of that - for now - but it didn't leave many pairs of hands to track down the actual cause of the problem and it certainly didn't do anything for Trip's blood pressure. Nor did the discovery, when he tried to report his lack of progress to the bridge, that the audio comm was also down. He went to his desk computer and sent a brief message to update Jon on the situation and another to Malcolm to tell him to come down and lend a hand.

An hour later, there was still no sign of the armory officer. Trip poked dispiritedly at a malfunctioning control panel, which objected strongly by way of spraying sparks in his face. It was the last straw.

"Dammit!" he yelled. "Rostov! Get up to the armory and tell Lieutenant Reed to get his ass down here, if it won't inconvenience him too damned much." It was a measure of exactly how angry he was that even the thought of Malcolm's ass didn't improve his mood even a little.

"Yessir!" Rostov departed at something approaching Warp One, only too happy to get out of his incandescent superior officer's line of sight for a while.

A few minutes later, Malcolm finally appeared, looking concerned. As well he might, since Trip seemed likely to explode at any minute.

"Commander? Is there a problem?'

"Yeah, Lieutenant the problem is you not arriving here a damned hour ago!"

"I don't understand, Commander."

"It ain't rocket science Malcolm - I sent for you an hour ago to help me track these damn power glitches, and you ignored me. That ain't no way for a Starfleet officer to behave, now is it?" Trip's accent thickened as his anger and frustration spilled out. A small voice inside him was trying to point out that he was tired, stressed, and therefore overreacting, but he was too wound up to listen to it.

Malcolm's frown deepened. "The first I knew about being needed here was when Rostov came to fetch me just now, Commander," he replied stiffly, retreating into formality as the only possible defence.

"Oh? And what about my message? Get eaten by the comm hamsters, did it?"

"I can't speak as to hamsters, Commander, but I received no message from you... recently."

"Er, Commander...?" Rostov interjected cautiously.

"What?"

"I've had complaints from several departments about comm messages going astray, sir. It's possible Lieutenant Reed never got yours either."

"Why didn't you say something before?" Trip snapped, embarrassed now as well as angry.

"Er.....you were very busy, sir..."

Translation: "I was afraid to interrupt you in case you ripped my head off and used it for a bowling ball, sir." Trip realised. He took a deep breath.

"Sorry Rostov. Guess I've been a real pain in the ass today, huh? How 'bout you go check out the comm problem while Lieutenant Reed helps me track the power glitches, OK?"

"Of course, sir." Rostov sighed in relief as he walked over to check the first panel.

"Malcolm, I guess I owe you an apology too - It's been a bitch of a day, but I shouldn't've taken it out on you - unless you happen to know anything about my alarm call that is..."

"I don't see how it could be, Malcolm, unless it's an inside job - an' none of our people would do that, would they?"

"I'd hate to think so, Commander, but....

"Sirs!" Rostov's exclamation interrupted them. "I think you should see this."

They crossed the room and peered into the open panel he indicated. Inside was a tangle of intersecting wires and components, mostly, but not all, relating to the comm system. Many of them were looking decidedly the worse for wear. The reason for that was plainly apparent. In the centre of a junction of several wires was a nest containing half a dozen small rodentlike creatures with bright yellow eyes and greenish fur. The largest of them, presumably the mother, reared up to her full height, which was all of three inches, and chittered angrily at them.

"Well done Rostov," Malcolm said. "It would seem you've found the source of the problem." His mouth quirked uncontrollably. " I suppose these would be your 'comm hamsters' Commander..."

"Well you did say you smelt a rat, Malcolm - and this is sure as heck an inside job..." And that was it. Trip and Malcolm collapsed into helpless laughter, while Rostov stared at them as if they'd both gone raving mad.

It wasn't, Trip thought, as he convulsed with silly giggles, even that funny, not really. But something inside him had been wound up like a tightly coiled spring and this had been the trigger that released it. Nothing was going to stop it now, until it was completely unwound. And of course watching Malcolm laugh only made Trip laugh harder and vice versa.

Finally, just as Rostov was beginning to wonder if it would be safe to leave the two officers for long enough to fetch the doctor, Trip managed to get himself under control. He carefully didn't look at Malcolm, for fear of being set off again.

"OK, Rostov, go ask Doctor Phlox to come down here, and bring a spare cage and a net or whatever else he needs to catch these critters with. And then get some tricorders calibrated to detect their lifesigns and get as many of the crew as possible to start a full scan of the ship in case these guys brought their uncles and cousins along for the ride."

Suddenly, something struck him as oddly familiar about the creatures' nesting material.

"Dammit!" he yelled. "Those little varmints stole my shirt!"

"They must've got aboard the shuttlepod on that planet we explored a coupla' weeks back," Trip said as he collapsed into a chair in Jon's ready room and gratefully inhaled the steam from a badly-needed cup of coffee.

"Phlox thinks it may have been just one pregnant female at that stage," Jon told him. "Hence the small scale of the damage to begin with, and the rapid escalation once the young ones started exploring independently. He'd better be careful not to let them escape - I think we'd have to adopt a shoot-to-kill policy in self-defense. Otherwise they'd eat the ship in a week or so. Still, at least the worst of the damage is fixed now."

Trip gave a ghost of a smile at the thought of how much Malcolm would probably enjoy hunting rogue comm hamsters through the corridors, phase pistol at the ready.

"What I don't understand is how we missed the little varmints in the first place."

"I think at the time we were all more concerned with making sure that the gunk that dissolved your clothes wasn't going to dissolve you as well Trip." Jon smiled, but his face echoed the concern he'd felt when Trip's uniform had just started melting away in the shuttlepod.

Trip flushed. "Damn. My fault again. I dunno Cap'n, maybe you should just cut your losses and send me back to Earth..."

Jon's smile widened. "Actually, Phlox tells me the whole incident has improved crew morale no end. Novakovitch is still grinning, apparently."

The gunk, on investigation, had been the secretions of an antlike insect, which they used to dissolve the seed case of a native fruit to allow the insects to eat the flesh inside. Trip had fallen into what turned out to be the alien equivalent of a termite mound. The bad news was that the seed cases were made of something closely resembling Starfleet uniform cloth. The good news was that it had no effect on the person inside the uniform except to leave him smelling vaguely of honey. But it was damn difficult to wash off. Trip had been halfway back to his quarters when he realised the clean uniform he'd put on after decon was gently disappearing, just as the first one had. He groaned at the memory of the giggles and stares - not to mention a number of frankly admiring looks - that had followed him on his way back to the decon chamber.

"It's a pity though," Jon said reflectively. "If I'd known what was going to happen I could have ordered you to wear one of those ghastly shirts of yours and saved a perfectly good uniform..."

"Malcolm? What brings you here? I'd've thought you'd had about enough of me for one day..."

"I took the liberty of letting myself in. I, ah, thought perhaps we should talk about the comm message you sent me this morning."

Was there actually any blood anywhere in Malcolm's body other than his face?, Trip wondered, and immediately quashed that line of thought before it got him in trouble.

"It's OK - the comm hamsters ate it, right? " Trip grinned.

"Not that one. The one you sent earlier this morning. Before breakfast."

Trip had a sudden, horrifying, flashback to the previous night. He'd had a beer or two at Kelly's party - and one or two more to keep those company if he was honest - and had toddled back to his quarters and rambled on into his personal log for what seemed like hours. His recollection of what he'd actually said was hazy, but he had a sneaking suspicion that Malcolm's name had cropped up more than once, very likely in connection with terms like "gorgeous", "edible" and "through the mattress." And, now he thought about it, he seemed to remember a fit of drunken bravado during which he'd resolved to actually say some of those things to the man he was head over heels in love with. Fortunately for his spleen, which he liked where it was, thank you, he'd fallen asleep before he could act on it. Except, apparently, he hadn't. He must have cued up the log entry as a comm message to Malcolm, and then in his confusion this morning he'd actually sent it without realising what he was doing. Oh well, Malcolm was his friend, so he'd probably kill him quickly, at least.

Or perhaps another session of damage control was in order.

"Oh hell." Yeah, that'd help a bunch. Especially judging by the way Malcolm's face was starting to take on that kicked puppy look, the one that always made Trip want to punch out whoever caused it. But punching himself in the face wasn't really an option, particularly if he wanted to pass his next psychiatric evaluation, so he plunged on.

"I never meant to send that - it was an accident, honestly. I know it was a damn stupid thing to do, and I don't blame you if you're upset, but your friendship means a lot to me Malcolm and I don't wanna lose it over this. Or my spleen either, but if there's a choice, I think I'd pick the spleen option, 'cause it'd hurt less. Maybe we could just forget this ever happened? Please?"

He thought he'd done pretty well - at least the hurt look left Malcolm's face, to be replaced with one that said something like "you're an idiot, but for some inexplicable reason, I like you."

"Trip," he said, kindly, "You're babbling. And what on earth has your spleen got to do with it?"

"Well, I kinda figured that if I ever told you how I felt about you, you'd probably rip it out."

"I suppose it might make an interesting conversation piece - but on the whole I think it ought to stay where it is, don't you?"

"So we can forget about that stupid comm message?" Trip hoped he didn't look as pathetic as he sounded to himself.

"Actually, I'm fairly sure I couldn't forget what you said you wanted to do with the pineapple slices and the chocolate sauce. Not that I'd want to forget it. I wonder if I could persuade Chef to let us have some? "

Trip wondered if there'd been a hull breach and no-one had told him, because there was definitely a shortage of oxygen in the room. Which would also explain the auditory hallucinations he appeared to be having, because Malcolm couldn't actually have said that....could he?

"Whuh?" Starfleet's finest engineer eventually managed to enunciate.

And then his remaining brain cells died happily as Malcolm stepped forward and kissed him.

When they finally came up for air, Trip knew there was an utterly stupid grin plastered across his face, but he was long past caring.

"Trip?"

"Yeah?" Considering that his higher brain functions had apparently gone on holiday to Risa without him, Trip considered that producing a whole word was a notable achievement.

"You know that trick of yours where your clothes disappear?'

"Um, yeah?" Hey, two words this time. Well nearly. Anyhow, who could produce more than one syllable at a time when Malcolm's fingers were doing that to the back of their neck?

"Do you think, perhaps, you could teach me how it's done?" Malcolm hesitated slightly. "Preferably without the shapechanging aliens this time though."

"Reckon so - but you'll probably need lots of practice." Wow! A whole sentence! Maybe there was a rogue braincell still lurking in there somewhere after all. Never mind. Trip figured it wouldn't last long, the way things were going.

"Best get started now then."

This time when Malcolm kissed him, Trip briefly wondered if he'd ever be able to produce a coherent word again, before deciding that he didn't really care. After all, some things you don't need words for anyway.

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