1. So it begins

_Hi there!_

_This is a Christmas present for the lovely Lauren of the USS Awesome (uss-awesome dot tumblr dot com), who infected me with the love of Kirk/Spock/McCoy. I hope you enjoy it, hon. :-)_

_It's rated T for mild swearing, but there are no explicit descriptions of sex. Obviously I don't own these marvellous characters.  
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_So, I hope you all have as much fun reading as I had writing and if there are any mistakes please let me know as I'm no native English speaker. Thanks!_

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><p>Spock was staring at the ceiling of the captain's quarters, his hand drawing nonsense patterns on Jim's back, who was laying comfortably close beside him on his side, one arm placed possessively around Spock's waist.<p>

"Jim?"

"Mhm?"

"May I ask a personal query?"

Jim smiled and opened his eyes again. "Go ahead."

"Could you think of a cause why Doctor McCoy can't stand me?"

Jim propped himself up on his elbow and looked at Spock in astonishment.

"What are you talking about? Why would you think that?"

Spock calmly listed the reasons for his belief: McCoy's surly attitude around him, how he constantly called Spock 'green blooded hobgoblin' or worse and how he seemed to contradict him at every possible chance.

After hearing that, Jim drew his head back and laughed heartily, which caused Spock to scowl at him.

"I cannot comprehend what about this matter would give you reason to make fun of me. I'm quite serious."

"Of course you are, love," Jim smiled and placed a chaste kiss on his lips. "I'm sorry for laughing at you, but it's really rather hilarious. Bones does like you, very much so. This is his way of showing affection."

Spock could only look at him blankly for a few moments. "But... that's... completely illogical," he got out at last.

Jim only shrugged and settled back down with his head nuzzled against Spock's shoulder.

"I told you we humans are a bunch of walking talking contradictions. And them southerners are all bat-shit crazy on top of that."

Spock only raised an eyebrow. He was used to the captain's crass exaggerations by now. He concluded to have a closer look on the good doctor in the future.

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><p>A few days later the evening found Leonard McCoy (once again) consulting his faithful friend Mr Bourbon. The reasons to do so were manifold, but in the last time he found there was one particular reason that kept occurring. Or rather two.<p>

He didn't know when it had happened or the specific details, but at some time the first officer had apparently changed his relationship status from "with Lt Uhura" to "single" and some indefinite time later to "with Captain Kirk". And that was all peachy as far as he was concerned and congrats to Jim and all, but...

Well. It would have been perhaps a bit easier if Jim didn't undress his first officer with his eyes at every possible time (thankfully Spock was a lot subtler). Leonard's natural response would be to scowl and tell them to cut it out or even to threaten them with a bucket of ice water. But in this case he couldn't quite bring himself to do it, because...

Because it was incredibly hot and if he was very honest with himself he didn't really want them to stop. There, problem identified, problem solved.

Only it wasn't. And as nice a companion Mr Bourbon was (didn't talk back, always available, very tasty), Leonard started to miss his best friend (whom he had been avoiding lately to preserve at least some level of mental stability) rather badly.

He could, of course, try to talk to Jim about this all and see how that worked out. Hmmm...

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><p>Kirk and Spock were in the middle of feverishly making out when the door chimed.<p>

With a sigh, Jim withdrew from Spock and straightened his uniform before he went to answer the door.

Spock took this time to sit down at the little table in the recreation area of the captain's quarters where the 3D chess stood abandoned. He took a deep breath and tried to calm his mind. It wasn't easy.

Meanwhile Jim's face lightened up when he saw the visitor.

"Bones! Come in, man! What's up?" he greeted him happily.

The doctor seemed extremely worried and Jim sobered up a little when he saw his expression, laying a comforting hand on his friend's shoulders. Had it been a matter of ship's business Bones would have called him via the intercom, so he suspected it was something personal.

"Um. I need to talk to you," Bones answered, not really able to look Kirk in the eye. His gaze landed on Spock and to Jim's utter surprise he suddenly blushed deeply.

"Okay? Talk to me, man," he said, shooting an apologetic glance over to Spock. The first officer gracefully excused himself and retreated to his quarters.

Leonard took a deep breath and willed himself to speak. It took some time, but thankfully Jim showed an uncharacteristic level of patience.

"I have a crush on you," he sputtered out at last.

"On me?" Jim asked astonished. Leonard shook his head, his expression becoming more pained with every second. Jim looked at him even more bewildered than he had been before.

"So... not on me?"

"No - I mean - dammit, Jim, this is really hard." Leonard closed his eyes for a moment and took another deep breath. Jim was his best friend and a very open minded man, if he couldn't tell him he couldn't tell anyone.

"Not only on you. On both you and Spock. Together."

There. He'd said it. Now he could go and die of shame, although he knew one technically couldn't do that, thank you very much.

He wished he could.

Instead his eyes snapped open as Jim squeezed his shoulder. The seductive look Jim shot at him from beneath his eyelashes did not help with his composure. Neither did Jim's low and almost purring voice.

"You weren't able to resist our combined hotness, were you?" Jim asked, sounding both extremely alluring and extremely pleased with himself.

Leonard once again closed his eyes. "God, you're killing me here!"

"Good. And just so you know, I'm game."

Leonard squinted at him. "You are?"

Jim shrugged. "You're hot, Spock's hot, threesomes are awesome. I should know, I've had my fair share back in the day."

"You know, sometimes I wonder how you ever found the time to actually get any studying done."

Jim grinned mischievously. "You'd be surprised. So, shall I fetch Spock?"

Leonard looked at him astonished. "You don't think he'd mind?"

"Nope. Tell you the truth, we may have had a theoretical conversation about this topic before already."

"Threesomes in general?"

"Smoking hot doctors in particular." The grin on Jim's face could only be described as sinful and Leonard wanted nothing more than to kiss the offending lips. Instead he only nodded and watched one very eager captain hurry away to fetch Spock.

Apparently they had already reached an agreement on the topic at hand when they came back, because Jim looked extremely satisfied and Spock didn't show any signs of hostility.

Still Leonard couldn't help feeling a little nervous when he asked "So... Jim told you, then? And you don't mind?"

"I believe the correct response would be 'The more the merrier', if I'm not much mistaken," Spock deadpanned.

Leonard felt an relieved smile form on his lips. "Alright then."

Spock nodded and Jim could spot a clear hint of amusement in his eyes.

"Under one condition."

Leonard eyed him nervously. "What condition?"

"If you promise to refrain from referring to me as an evil spirited fairy creature in the future."

Jim snorted and Leonard could only gape at Spock. He'd never imagined Vulcans could look so incredibly smug.

Jim slapped him sympathetically on the back. "Never mind Spock, he's always a smart ass when no one's around. You just have to shut him up when he get's too annoying." And with that he took Spock's face into his hands and kissed him thoroughly. And _o dear Lord_ that had to be the hottest thing Leonard had ever seen.

When they finally broke apart, Spock's cheeks had gained a most fetching light green blush, although his voice was as calm as ever when he informed them that the concept of being a 'smart ass' didn't apply to Vulcans.

Jim rolled his eyes. "Yeah, whatever." Then he waved Leonard over and gestured at Spock. "Your turn."

Not willing to appear chicken-hearted, Leonard stepped into Spock's personal space and shot him an expectant look. Spock gently drew him close with a hand on his neck and then Leonard discovered that the first officer apparently put the same amount of vigor into kissing as he did into his work, which turned out to be very satisfying for the participant.

"Spock and Bo~ones sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G!" Jim cheered merrily when they parted. Leonard exchanged a look with Spock and paraphrased Jim's earlier words.

"Never mind Jim, he's a brat no matter if anyone's around or not. You just have to shut him up when he get's to cheeky." Then he silenced Jim with a smack upside the head.

Jim rubbed the back of his head and pouted, but was indeed effectively shut up. Spock seemed intrigued. "Doctor, how would you estimate the success rate of this treatment?"

Leonard smiled at him and gave the scowling Jim a smirk. "Works every single time."

He was rewarded with an awed "fascinating" from Spock and a sulky "Hey!" from Jim. This time he chose Jim's own method of shutting people up and found out it worked just as well.

And so it began.

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><p>"... Doctor? Doctor, are you listening?"<p>

"Huh?" McCoy blinked a few times. Right, breakfast. Other people around. Probably not the best time to repeat the experiences from last night, however tempting that thought was. Especially with the infernal duo right in front of him at the other side of the table. Thankfully only Jim looked smug, while Spock had a definite air of concern about him.

Leonard gave Nurse Chapel, who apparently had been talking to him, an apologetic smile. "Sorry, Christine, last night was a bit" _breathtaking, exhausting, mindblowing_ "late. Shall we discuss this further on our way?"

He needed to get to a nice and quiet place far away from these distracting blokes as soon as possible and heading to work seemed an excellent excuse.

With a friendly nod across the table he took off and hoped to gather some peace in his beloved medical bay.

Unfortunately he found that his mind had quite some difficulties to concentrate on the job at hand because it was too preoccupied with all the new discoveries and experiences from last night.

Things Leonard wouldn't have believed even when he had traveled back in time and told the yesterday Leonard himself (and you wouldn't want to get him started on _that_ topic, time travel was a bitch as far as he was concerned and that was without any madmen flying around and imploding planets).

- That it had actually worked and he'd ended up having a truly mindbogglingly good time last night instead of, oh, let's think, being laughed at or kicked out of the captain's quarters or ending up insulting touchy Vulcan feelings without meaning to, or any other of the many worst case scenarios he had imagined.

- How easily his mental image of Jim Kirk, best mate had shifted to Jim Kirk, lover.

- How passionate certain Vulcans could get, when at any other time they gave you the impression of holding hardly more feelings than the average android.

- How delightfully vocal aforementioned Vulcans turned out to be.

- What an incredible level of stamina same Vulcans seemed to possess (and wouldn't that make an excellent and undoubtedly highly regarded article in _Xenobiology monthly_? But as Leonard had no intention of dying a slow and painful death he discarded the idea quickly).

- How flexible one certain captain was and how good use he made of his talents in that department.

- How hot it was to hear dirty talk in Vulcan, even if he didn't understand a single word.

- How unbe_fucking_lievable a Vulcan mindmeld felt during sex. Especially with three people involved.

- And so forth.

… Yeah. It was going to be a long day.

Sometimes later he needed the Captain's signature on some form and decided that this was as good an excuse as any to visit the bridge.

He nearly did a double take when he caught sight of one certain Vulcan bent over the scanner of the science station. Bloody hell, who designed things like that? How Jim ever got any work done in here with a view like that, was entirely beyond him.

Thankfully his natural snarkiness was working on autopilot so he made it back to the medical bay without completely embarrassing himself.

At the end of alpha shift Leonard looked up when he heard a soft knock at the open door frame of his office, only to see his captain standing there and grinning like the Cheshire Cat.

"Hello, Jim," he said cautiously. "How can I help you?"

"You, handsome, can lay down the pen and come with me."

Leonard frowned and protested. "But I've got paperwork to do!"

Jim waved impatiently and stepped forward to grab Leonard's wrist. "Yeah, yeah, there's always paperwork. It won't run away. Come one, Bones, we're determined to wine and dine you tonight."

Leonard was too flabbergasted to put up much of a struggle when Jim dragged him along but at least he managed to get out a (admittedly not very witty) "Wine and dine? What do you mean, wine and dine?" about halfway trough medical bay. He also managed to struggle his wrist free, that had to count for something.

Jim only shrugged. "You know, candlelight, soft music, nice food, expensive wine. You are familiar with the concept, aren't you?"

"But... how?" (And there went his ability to form polysyllabic words. Marvelous.)

"Well, turns out Spock is a fucking genius when it comes to programming the replicator and I happened to have a very nice Chardonnay stashed away. So we thought we'd treat you."

Leonard only shook his head, but followed his captain anyway. "You two will be the death of me."

Jim shot him an amused look across his shoulder. "But it will be a very beautiful death."

Dinner in the very tastefully decorated captain's quarters was rather spectacular, truth be told. Although Leonard still found it a bit unnerving to see warmth and fondness in Spock's eyes instead of the usual efficiency and professionalism. Not that he was going to argue, mind.

After dinner Spock asked with a completely straight face (playing poker against him would probably be ruinous, Leonard thought) "Doctor, would you mind assisting me in an experiment?"

"Not at all, Mr Spock. What kind of experiment did you have in mind?"

"It explores the effect that being repeatedly exposed to high levels of endorphins has on the human male."

"A most promising object of research."

Jim laid one arm across Spock's and Leonard's shoulders respectively while he led them over to the bed and drawled in his best impression of Humphrey Bogart: "Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."

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><p><em>And that's all, folks. At least so far... hehe. <em>

_So, happy holidays to everyone and especially you, dear Lauren!_


	2. And so it goes on

_Hello lovely readers!_

_As you can see easily when you look at the differences between the dates of the initial publishing and the updating of this little story, I'm a rather slow writer sometimes._

_But! I've written a few more fluffy vignettes for our favourite triad and will post them in the next weeks surrounding the holidays as a present, once again, for the lovely Lauren from ussawesome on tumblr._

_I hope you enjoy, darling! I hope everyone else enjoys, too! :D_

_Happy holidays to all of you if you celebrate any of them, and happy early winter days for everyone else. :)_

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><p>Leonard had been fairly positive that he could handle this new and slightly crazy relationship with both Jim and Spock he had gotten himself into. Up until fifteen minutes ago.<p>

Oh, the nights were delightful, and having a nice private dinner with them whenever their schedules allowed it didn't hurt either.

But this just now...

He found himself still staring blankly at the door of his office when Jim came by to collect him for dinner a few minutes later.

The cheerful greeting died on the captain's lips when he saw the state of his best friend (and recently also lover) and he rushed to his side at once.

"Bones! Bones, what is wrong, talk to me, mate!"

Leonard shook himself and then he gripped the front of Jim's shirt.

"Have you encountered any weird aliens today? Or were there any strange energy readings?" he demanded to know. Jim looked at him completely confused.

"What? No, we didn't meet anyone at all. And the readings were all normal."

"Are you sure?"

"Of course I'm sure! Why, what's wrong?"

Leonard shook his head in disbelief. "Spock is not himself! I thought he might be brainwashed by aliens or something..."

Jim snorted. "You are aware that not all foreign species we encounter are hostile towards us, right?"

Leonard frowned. "Yeah, but a great deal of them are. Honestly Jim, if it's not a nasty new disease one day it's some kind of evil scheme the other."

"Okay, back to the topic at hand: What was wrong with Spock?"

Leonard visibly shook with the memory. "He came in here some time ago, where I was innocently doing paperwork, thinking of no harm, walked right up to me, grabbed my face and _snogged me_! In plain sight! Where any of the nurses could walk in at any moment! _Spock_! And then he just smirked and left, the bastard!"

After hearing this Jim dissolved into laughter and had to brace himself against Leonard's desk not to topple over. The doctor was not amused.

"This is not funny, Jim! Spock doesn't do such things! He's always modest and discrete and so goddamn _Vulcan_ about everything!"

"Yeah, except when he gets all feral and passionate in the bedroom, you mean?"

Leonard blushed lightly, but didn't let this deter him. "That's _in the bedroom_! As in private!" A thought hit him suddenly and he narrowed his eyes at Jim. "Don't tell me he did this before. Have you two been making out on the bridge?"

A faint pink crept up the captain's cheeks and his laughing turned to coughing.

"Oh my god, you really did. What did you think! Poor Checkov must be scarred for life!"

Jim looked scandalized. "You don't actually think we'd make out in front of the crew, did you? Of course we chose a quieter time than the middle of Alpha shift!"

Leonard was intrigued now. "I want details."

Jim grinned and apparently seemed to go over which stories to share.

"Well... contrary to what one might think, the Captain's chair can get quite uncomfortable after some time. Especially when you try out the more... _acrobatic_ poses. Hmm... These railings are sturdier than they look, the glass walls, however... are not."

Leonard burst out laughing. "Did you break one of them? How did you explain that on the repair form?"

Jim shrugged. "That one of us fell, I think. You coming to dinner?"

Leonard spared one last glance towards his paperwork, then shrugged, too. "Sure. I'll never get anything done with the pictures of you two doing acrobatics on the bridge stuck in my head."

Jim waggled his eyebrows at him while he fell into step beside his CMO. "I think we can replace these figments of your imagination with something more … _solid_."

Leonard huffed an incredulous laugh and gave his captain a little shove. "Oh my god, stop it with the terrible lines! You're lucky you're hot, I don't know how you'd ever get any action otherwise."

Jim shrugged, completely unrepentant. "Scored me the two most handsome members of the senior crew, didn't I?" He sounded absolutely serious about that, too.

Leonard would probably take a long time to react with anything other than incredulity to such a statement about himself.

That didn't mean Jim wouldn't take any opportunity he found to hand out compliments to his lover and best friend.

As well as roping one very amenable Vulcan into helping him showing their affection for the good doctor in many delightfully physical ways later that night.

It was fortunate Jim and Spock had already moved into joint quarters with a decent sized bed, this allowed Leonard to just pass out where he was instead of trying to stumble back to his quarters afterwards. He fell asleep with gentle and skilled Vulcans hands cleaning him up expertly, Jim already softly snoring in his arms. The last thing he was aware of were soft lips pressing a kiss to his temple.

All in all, a quite successful evening.

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><p><em>Thank you all for reading, comments and thoughts are always welcome!<em>

_Please feel free to point out anything sounding funny, English is only my second language and I'm not always sure when it comes to the intricacies. Thank you!_


	3. A bump in the road

_Hello dear readers!_

_New year, new chapter for you. :) Thank you everyone who read, commented, followed, liked... You guys are awesome!  
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_Enjoy!_

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><p>Leonard could not believe this. Jim had gone and placed himself in harms way <em>again<em>! Honestly, did that man ever learn?

What did he think the security personnel was paid for, standing around and looking pretty?

Leonard had had the foresight to get Jim into a private room in the med bay. He was going to have a word with his captain and he did not want the rest of the medical staff or the patients to overhear, they were all horrible gossips.

After checking Jim over and injecting him with the necessary hypos, Leonard began lecturing his captain.

"I've told you a million times, Jim, Space is -"

"Can we please not have the Space is disease and danger wrapped up in darkness and silence speech right now, Bones?" Jim asked weakly. "I heard you the first twenty thousand times you gave me that."

"Well, you sure well ain't acting like you did!" Leonard replied hotly. "And _don't you dare get up_, you're on bed rest!"

He tucked the top sheet back into the sides of Jim's bed and leveled a stern look at his captain.

"Bones! I'm fine, I need to see the rest of the away team!" Jim protested.

Leonard gritted his teeth. "The others are in the expert hands of my staff. And you're _not_ fine, you can barely stand, let alone walk straight! If you won't stay in bed on your own I'm gonna get out the medical restraints, do you hear me?"

Jim crossed his arms and scowled but didn't make any more moves to get down from the bed, which was good enough for Leonard.

The doctor turned towards the other member of their triad. "I'm trusting you to keep an eye on Jim for me, Spock."

Spock nodded solemnly. "I'll make sure he rests, Doctor."

Jim turned his scowl towards his first officer. "I think I liked it better when you two would snipe at each other all day. At least you didn't gang up on me then."

Spock leveled a calm look at him. "I believe the appropriate response for this is 'Tough', captain."

Leonard couldn't repress a smile at that. He gave each of his lovers a kiss before departing to check up on his other patients, calling back "Behave yourself, captain!" over his shoulder.

Jim huffed and leaned back into his pillow. "No wonder the crew doesn't respect me any more when even my senior staff won't adhere to proper decorum."

A glance towards his first officer confirmed that Spock, while maintaining an appropriately solemn countenance, couldn't quite keep the laughter from his eyes.

Spock, after making sure his captain was comfortable, requisitioned a chair and settled down with a PADD.

When Jim complained about boredom the heartless Vulcan offered him another PADD to start on the paperwork for their latest mission. Jim passed.

But he was a little mollified when Spock reached out and tangled their hands, even when his eyes never left his work.

The last thought to cross Jim's mind before slipping into an exhausted sleep was how graceful Spock looked, his long eyelashes brushing his cheeks, the faint glow of the PADD illuminating the otherwise dimmed room.

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><p>He woke up some time later feeling disoriented, but a lot more rested.<p>

There were soft voices coming from just outside the doorway which he discerned to belong to Spock and Leonard, but he couldn't quite make out what they said.

Apparently at least Spock must have heard the faint whispering sound the sheets on the bed made when he moved, because he came in shortly after and stood beside his bed, laying a hand on Jim's forehead. The familiar coolness helped to calm the captain and he settled back down into his pillow.

"How's Bones?" He mumbled, already halfway on his way to sleep again.

"You gave him quite a scare, Jim." Spock's voice was quiet and without accusation, simply stating a fact.

Still it served to rouse the captain considerably and he sat up, worried. "Where is he? Is he all right?"

"He's fine, he's just having a look at the other patients and then he will be joining us. Would you like some water?"

Jim accepted the glass of water Spock handed him gratefully, he hadn't realized how parched his mouth felt.

It wasn't long until the good doctor joined them, his face lighting up to see Jim awake.

"Hey. How're you feeling?" Leonard came to stand at the other side of his bed and began checking the monitors.

Jim smiled at him. "Better, but still a bit tired." Then he reached out and took Leonard's hand, causing the doctor to concentrate on him rather than the monitors.

"I wanted to apologize for making you worry."

Leonard's smile was wry but he still gave Jim a kiss. "Yeah, well. I'd prefer it if you left the dangerous parts of first contact missions to the security personnel who are actually trained for it, but as that's not likely to happen anytime in the near future I'm just grateful when you come out with all limbs attached."

Jim ducked his head, feeling more chastised than he would have if Leonard had yelled at him.

"Sorry."

The doctor squeezed his shoulder. "It's fine. No one was seriously hurt. Just, if you could be a little more careful next time I'd appreciate it very much."

"I concur, captain. It interferes with the running of the ship when you're out of commission."

"Besides," Leonard added with a small smile, "we both have selfish reasons to want to keep you safe and healthy. Who knows if your replacement would be such a looker as you are?"

"As that'd be Spock, I believe the answer is yes, he would."

"We'd still be one man short."

"I believe Scottie would be the temporary replacement as first officer."

"Although I will admit he's quite dashing in a kilt, I've been told he's already in a quite fulfilling relationship with a very classy lady."

Jim had to snort at that, which quickly turned into a yawn.

"You should rest, captain," Spock said and went to straighten out the sheets over him.

Jim sighed, but obligingly lay back against the pillow. "The worst part of being in med bay is the fact that the beds are so small."

"Well, you're supposed to rest in them, not fool around," Leonard said firmly. But his stern look melted a little bit when he saw how morose his captain looked at the prospect of spending the night alone.

In the past weeks they had spend every night together when all three of them were free, and when only one of them was on duty late the other two would still welcome him into their shared bed later that night.

Leonard looked across to Spock and nodded towards the door. "If you'll excuse us for a minute, Jim." The doctor kissed his captain on the forehead before stepping out of the room, Spock following closely behind.

Jim was a little curious what they were discussing, but he was absolutely surprised when they came back a minute later, each carrying a cot they then set up on both sides of his bed.

"You guys..."

"We'll probably get more sleep in here where we can have an eye on you than back in your quarters," Leonard told him a little gruffly.

Spock went to fetch sheets and blankets for them while Leonard sat down on Jim's bedside, filling him in on how the rest of the away team was doing. They were all better off than their captain, so there was no reason to worry at all.

It didn't take long for them all to settle down, content to be as near to each other as they could, knowing everyone was safe.

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><p><em>As always, thanks for stopping by. Comments and suggestions are always welcome. See you next time!<br>_


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