The BLTS Archive - The Gum Saga: Psycho-Dynamics of Chewing by Bridget Cochran (bjcochran@aol.com) --- This is for Marianne Luber-what's-it. She always makes me feel like I am the smartest, funniest and most erudite of writers. Which makes her worth her weight in gold or Molson's Golden (whichever she prefers). This story is the sequel to Unknown Substance. Disclaimer: I own the ideas, Paramount owns the rest. Archive at will, including ASC/EML, BLTs, and Particle 7even. --- Tom looked at the small brick that was thwacked on the table in front of him. It appeared to measure four by ten centimeters and was pink. Bright, shiny pink. Uh-oh, Tom thought as he looked up into the serious face of Seven of Nine. She was looming again and her mouth was pursed. "What's this?" Tom asked because he had to say something. "I am ready to learn bubble gum." Tom heaved a great sigh. He wasn't sure he wanted to teach Seven to blow bubbles. Certainly not here in the crowded Mess Hall. Harry lowered his eyes to his plate, but Tom didn't miss the smirk the younger man couldn't hide. Wiping off a knife, Tom shot daggers at Harry, but his friend failed to stop laughing. "Okay," Tom said, slicing a pink chunk of the brick, "have a seat." "I wish to stand." Do you? "Okay." He stood, too, and placed the slice into Seven's hand. "Pop it into your mouth." "This is larger than chewing gum." "And different than chewing gum." Tom popped his own chunk into his mouth, working it to softness with his teeth. "But we are chewing gum." "We're chewing bubble gum," he clarified around his piece. He shook his head at her. "There are nuances to chewing gum," he explained as teacher to pupil, sighing in long suffering frustration when she swallowed it. "Seven, you are not supposed to swallow gum." He sliced another hunk off the bar and slapped in her palm. "It is unnatural to put something in your mouth and not swallow it." Tom could not look at Harry. If he looked at Harry, he wouldn't be able to continue. "Some things come with practice," Tom grimaced as he said it. Now he could look at no one with all this innuendo flying. So, he focused on Seven as she chewed the bubble gum to softness. He blew big, pink clouds with his gum, pulling the bubbles back in with nimble lips. "When may I blow?" Tom sighed. This was turning into a double entendre festival. He could not make eye contact with anyon in the avid audience around him. "Not yet, have to soften it up a little more." They stood chewing, practically nose-to-nose until Tom felt her gum had been sufficiently prepared. "Okay," he said, "you have to thin the gum out with your tongue." He pushed the gum between exposed teeth to demonstrate. "Don't push your tongue through the gum." "You require a membrane thin enough to facilitate expansion when air is administered." "Yeah," Tom said, through a bubble, "something like that." He watched closely as Seven's lips separated and the gum emerged. Thinning it with her tongue, a brow raised for further instruction. "Now blow." Tom knew in a second he should have given better instructions, like "blow gently" or "anchor the gum against your teeth." As it was, he only had time to dodge the pink projectile as it whizzed past his ear. The collective gasp of the room's occupants brought a groan from Tom. The wind went out of his sails at the look of terror on Seven's face. He tried to remember who had been behind him. Slowly, he turned, dread crawling up his spine. Years of habit kept him from swallowing his gum as he swallowed his chagrin. "Chakotay. NO," Tom shouted, but it was too late. His heart sank. Through the many years since bubble gum ceased to be manufactured in factories from raw ingredients and its production was taken over by replicators that formed it from molecules, something of the process was lost. The pink gop of gum adhered to the back of the commander's dark head. It was stuck fast. When the blunt fingers moved to remove the mass, they became entangled in the stuff, which seemed to multiply as it was manipulated. Tom was and wasn't aware of the droves of onlookers who suddenly remembered somewhere else they had to be. "Neelix, I need ice. Seven replicate me some peanut butter, ASAP," Tom called, organizing a triage. He grabbed the hand Chakotay was using to pick at his head because he commander was impacting a wider area at the back of his head with the adherent goop. Darn it. Neelix appeared at his side, a bowl heaped with ice cubes in his hand. "Will you need drinks to go with the ice, Tom?" "Maybe a shot of whiskey would be a good idea," he muttered as he picked up an ice cube and stuck in into Chakotay's gunk covered hand. "Whiskey coming right up," Neelix said, and turned away. "Uh, Neelix, I think we better have a fine toothed comb and a pair of scissors instead of the whiskey." "Scissors?" Admittedly, Chakotay had been a pretty good sport up until then. The gum in his hair surprised him, but he knew when Tom was involved, something was bound to go wrong. He was not worried about something as harmless as gum when Tom called for ice, peanut butter and a comb. The scissors, however, caused fear to streak through him. He turned, still applying ice to the back of his head to look up into the concerned face of Tom Paris. The very concerned face of Tom Paris. His stomach sank. --- Tom was at the helm, Janeway in the command chair when Chakotay walked onto the bridge the next morning. The captain craned around, to rib the commander for being late, but that thought died before it was voiced. She watched him moved around the top and down the stairs to take his seat beside her. She leaned across their shared console to whisper, "I always did like the crew cut." --- The End