Moving Day (RP)

[sharpestscalpel]

It was easy enough to empty sickbay out. Most of the wounds coming in were superficial – the real power struggle would take a few more days while alliances and allegiances shook themselves out of the wash. Uhura looked good in the chair and she’d already held it – with a knife blade so lazy from Chekov that the whole defense would have been an insult to the assassin if he hadn’t gurgled out his last breaths onto the floor at Uhura’s booted heels.

McCoy motioned to the last of the nurses and they scattered to take their positions in the halls. It wasn’t that McCoy trusted them. It was that they damn well knew better than to try anything on him or he’d make them wish he’d killed them before he fucked them.

Now it was just a matter of getting Kirk out the door. He hadn’t given the man any warning – it was more fun to keep him guessing.

The probes opened the door to the iso room at McCoy’s approach.

He was smiling.

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[behnd-blueyes.livejournal.com]

The words took him by surprise, as many of McCoy's did. He couldn't parse them into something that had any contextual meaning. A drink? Out? Doubtless it was not what it sounded like, but neither was there any cue to tell him what the words hid. Not even McCoy's obvious delight at all of this, that ridiculous, boyish pleasure that would not allow him to remain still. What could McCoy want with him that couldn't be done here? Fucking, execution, none of it required a change in venue.

Exposure did. Would explain the clothes, too. But to what purpose? McCoy didn't seem the type to show his hand, not to Kirk, and not to the crew. He had nothing to gain by demonstrating Kirk's condition to the rest of the Enterprise. Though Pike did. And yet, Pike would have come himself. Would McCoy be this gleeful, anyway, just following orders?

If they were juicy enough, perhaps.

"Used to rate at least dinner," he said, with a flash of humor that had been slow to return to him. But there was no real defiance in the remark, even if there was no overt resignation, either. He didn't need to resign. He had no choice.

Kirk turned slightly away from McCoy and began undressing, still weak but improved. He could step out of his pants, rather than let them pool at his feet. He could draw the shirt over his head. He could, slowly, pull the other clothes (clean, at least, though they still didn't quite fit) on. He knew, however, that if they really were going somewhere, he'd be exhausted by the time they got there.

[sharpestscalpel.livejournal.com]

McCoy didn't even pretend not to watch.

"Dinner? They rush straight to dinner where you come from? Drinks is a nice, noncommittal tasting, Blue. It's only proper to sample before you commit to the whole hog. So to speak."

There was also something his granny had said about cows and free milk but he hadn't paid as much attention to that one.

"Hurry the fuck up. We got a window and I doubt you fucking want to make me miss it."

[behnd-blueyes.livejournal.com]

Kirk didn't give a fuck about McCoy's window, especially not knowing if it was the kind he was about to be thrown through headfirst without it being opened first. But he tugged the pants up, eyes carefully avoiding the urge to look directly down.

Past few days hadn't seemed all that noncommittal, frankly. McCoy had rushed straight to fucking incarceration. But Kirk was done moments later, turning back and noting McCoy's overt stare. It hadn't been worth belaboring some false modesty, but Kirk was thinking about milk and cows, too, a little.

"I'm ready," he said. "Where are we going?"

[sharpestscalpel.livejournal.com]

The grin spread wider and, except for the slightly manic gleam that only his wife might have noticed, it made him look young and vital and like the bringer of all good things.

"I have a fucking surprise for you. So you'll just have to be goddamn surprised."

McCoy motioned for Kirk to proceed him out the door.

[behnd-blueyes.livejournal.com]

Kirk warred against his reaction to that boyish, attractive enthusiasm. McCoy had a certain appeal when he had something, and Kirk's native fear and distrust was being confused by his increasing response to the delight McCoy seemed to take in life. He was not fully conscious of this, of course, but he was on guard.

Surprises, overall, were not good things on this ship. Or in his life. He could probably count the good ones on one hand. They hardly ever came by preceding anyone out or in a door. He had to suppress his natural disinclination to let McCoy behind him, steeling himself and stepping forward. He tried to keep his step steady and firm, his practice paying off. He was still a hideous parody of what he'd once been, but he was trying.

"Is it my birthday already?"

[sharpestscalpel.livejournal.com]

There was nothing awful on the other side of the door, just Rien at the main entrance to Sickbay signaling the all clear. Sickbay itself was empty, beds clean, lights bright, neat and tidy as a pin.

"Head out and turn left."

McCoy's mirthful voice was close behind Kirk's left shoulder. He slapped Rien's ass as he passed her; she jumped and squeaked but offered no protest.

The acrylics were gone; her fingernails were short and natural, clean of polish.

[behnd-blueyes.livejournal.com]

Kirk noted that, as a matter of habit, even if he could not determine why or what the importance of it was. His attention was quickly refocused on whatever was about to happen, that sense of dread only sharpening his senses. What he could with what they told him he was not certain, but it was better to be prepared. He'd recovered that much, anyway.

Warily, but without loss of momentum, he proceeded. The door slid open and he glanced out before committing. He didn't understand, but he couldn't turn back, not with McCoy practically breathing down his neck. His steps felt as painfully slow as they were difficult.

[sharpestscalpel.livejournal.com]

M'Benga waited at the juncture of the halls, watching for any stray crewmembers who were not distracted by the shift in the balance of power. McCoy had time things carefully - the majority of crew were on shift and those who weren't would be deep in their sleep cycles.

The male nurse gave the all clear.

"Turn right and stop by the third door on the left."

McCoy did not slap M'Benga's ass - not that it wasn't a fine ass but the man had some groveling - and the nursing staff agreed right down to Chapel - to do before McCoy would reinstate his actual position and deign to notice it.

[behnd-blueyes.livejournal.com]

Kirk didn't know, or care, who M'Benga was. He merely watched him carefully, without appearing to pay too much attention, as he passed. So far, no one but sickbay personnel. No one actually in sickbay but that cocksucking nurse. So wherever they were going--and this was a section reserved for officers' quarters--no one else was meant to know.

That was something, anyway. Kirk thought quickly as he followed instructions. It meant he probably wasn't going to die--not yet, anyway. It meant, further, that this was probably not Pike's doing. Which meant either McCoy was acting on his own, that Pike wasn't a factor, or both. Kirk would keep all options on the table until something happened to confirm or deny anything.

Stopping before the door, he glanced over his shoulder at McCoy.

[sharpestscalpel.livejournal.com]

Pike had been in a hurry. That's the only reason McCoy could think of that the man wouldn't predict McCoy would take Pike's example as his lead when it came to the probes. Uhura had the rest of the ship - but it had been a small thing, once he'd figured out how to do it, to carry some of the sickbay probes to his own quarters.

The door... rippled with them, and then opened.

The hand at the small of Kirk's back was gentlemanly, if insistent and completely ungiving.

"That drink ain't going to drink itself, amusing quirks of nouns and verbs aside, Jimmy-boy."

[behnd-blueyes.livejournal.com]

Kirk didn't give a fuck about parts of speech, but he stepped into the room and managed to keep himself upright. He was breathing a little too heavily, his balance a little too put off by the relatively light pressure at his back. It was the first time he could remember McCoy touching him in a non-medical capacity, and there was a strange electricity to it, like a promise or a threat.

McCoy's quarters.

They could have been anyone's, he supposed, though it would have made little sense. And anyway, he knew. So. A secret, mid-shift transfer to McCoy's quarters. Not just a drink. Not just anything, since he had yet to figure what couldn't be done to him in sickbay. Still, there was the gleam in McCoy's eye when he looked at him, the interest he'd suddenly presented and which Kirk had decided to use as much as possible. His eyes scanned the room, finally resting on McCoy.

"Nice place."

[sharpestscalpel.livejournal.com]

The door shut silently, locked without sound but with a sense of finality.

McCoy's personal quarters were mostly tidy. There was a sense of clutter - many small objects that the room was not really designed to hold: books and papers in addition to stacks of PADDS, souvenirs from conquered peoples - though nothing overtly gruesome, artful photos displaying places though never any people.

Except for one, on the night stand. McCoy and a woman of striking features, between them a very small child.

The room was unassuming with its unmade bed - its lived-in comfortableness.

The man himself waved at Kirk to sit on the small couch of dubious comfort. He retrieved two glasses, real lead crystal brought from Earth, and poured them both a generous three fingers of bourbon from the stock of bottles in the tiny corner bar.

"You'd best pace yourself to avoid unpleasant drug interactions."

And he sprawled in an overstuffed armchair that was absolutely not standard issue even in the officers quarters to watch Kirk take it all in.

[behnd-blueyes.livejournal.com]

Take it in Kirk did, even if he did not, at first, touch the drink except to hold it like it was a foreign artifact. The couch was hard but not so hard as the biobed--and it didn't fucking beep at him. The room was homier than his own had been--he could hardly expect any of this things still remained in it--somehow both tidier and more personal.

He wanted to examine the photos, the knick knacks, for clues about McCoy or why he was here. Wanted to find at theme in the decor, a pattern in the clutter. But it was difficult to do so with McCoy watching him, knowing what he was doing, taking his measure of Kirk's measure of him.

It was possible, he thought, that McCoy really had a reason for this, that they had something to talk about. McCoy had those probes. He had sickbay. He apparently had this room. Was he planning a coup?

Or was Kirk another relic, like the suspicious-looking mass on a side table?

He took a sip, absently, and then not-so-absently looked down at the glass in surprise.

"It's good," he said. Good, and strong, and he wondered without really wanting to know how much he weighed now, and whether whatever McCoy wanted from him really required inebriation, at this point.

[sharpestscalpel.livejournal.com]

He sipped his own drink, sighing his appreciation.

"I don't serve shit. Life's too short for shitty booze."

McCoy stretched his legs out in front of him and looked at Kirk over the rim of his glass.

"What do you want out of life, Blue?"

[behnd-blueyes.livejournal.com]

Kirk took another sip, because anything, these days, was a delicacy. And he still had little to lose. He watched McCoy as he did so, trying to read the answer he was supposed to give in the man's posture. Which gave nothing away.

"Guess I thought that was obvious, considering what I tried. I want the Enterprise." Power. He'd gotten his first taste on Tarsus, another in an alley behind a bar in Iowa, but that had been the power of others.

He wanted it for himself.

[sharpestscalpel.livejournal.com]

"Why not more?"

[behnd-blueyes.livejournal.com]

"What?"

The word was involuntary, choked out of him in his surprise. He'd already been regretting his honesty, terse as it was, obvious as it had to be. You didn't just spill your plans unless you had some call to believe the hearer could help you. And you held back, knowing they would, as well. He'd recovered enough of himself to start yearning for life again, for something, to start regretting not just his dire circumstances but what his folly had cost him. What the future did not hold. He'd yet to make himself believe he had more to offer anyone than his bones, and McCoy seemed like the only person who could possibly have use for them.

Maybe not.

"You have to start somewhere," he said slowly. What did McCoy have on the back burner? What did it have to do with him? "And that's further back than ever."

[sharpestscalpel.livejournal.com]

McCoy smirked.

Jos had always told him his eyes weren't big enough to fill his stomach. But he had some ideas for this one....

"Here's the thing, Blue. The lay of the land has... changed quite a bit in the last few days."

[behnd-blueyes.livejournal.com]

He didn't know if was the amber liquid or McCoy's apparent confidence that started the glow inside, but Kirk leaned forward, waiting. This was what he wanted to know. Needed to know. He was starting to think, more than ever, he needed a direction. He'd lost something, something symbolic, even.

He needed to replace it. He'd barely begun to consider making another play, once McCoy was eating out of his hand. And this... He didn't know what to make of it yet.

"Pike," he said.

[sharpestscalpel.livejournal.com]

"Gone."

[behnd-blueyes.livejournal.com]

The surge of adrenaline surprised him, and he covered it with another sip.

Gone.

Just like that. And McCoy staring at him intensely, his eyes never relaxed though his posture often was. He thought furiously. McCoy could only be telling him this because he thought something could be done.

"Uhura?"

[sharpestscalpel.livejournal.com]

"The Enterprise will never be yours, boy."

Uhura had taken to the probes like some people took to fucking right out in the open spaces of nature: like it was the most natural thing in the world to command the very fabric of the ship.

"But there's an entire goddamn Empire on the other side of it."

[behnd-blueyes.livejournal.com]

McCoy was too quick. But he had more or less confirmed that Uhura was in charge. Fucking bitch. Left him high and dry.

"You don't strike me," he said carefully, "as the imperial type." McCoy liked his haven, his cozy den that he controlled entirely. He was a big fish in a big enough pond. Or so Kirk had pegged him.

[sharpestscalpel.livejournal.com]

"I don't strike a lot of people as a lot of things, that is entirely fucking true."

He tipped his head back against the headrest of the chair, boneless and relaxed.

"Tell me, James Tiberius goddamn Kirk, what did Uhura see in you? Did you fuck her?"

[behnd-blueyes.livejournal.com]

Kirk's mouth twitched, almost a frown. The warm glow was still there, radiating outward, but it hadn't pulled a veil over the wasteland his life had become.

"It's not my only quality, but it's not the least of them," he said. "We had plans." Plans she was moving on without him. With whom? he wondered. Sulu? Chekov? "You need a mover," he guessed. Stupid. Idiotic. Beyond the Enterprise... McCoy had to be insane. "Maybe something else besides."

He took a large swallow and rose, the bourbon lending him a kind of steadiness for now as he crossed to McCoy, eyes that never left his bright in his gaunt face.