Detente

[sharpestscalpel]

It had chaffed at first. Jocelyn had left him to rot, pissed as hell about the kid. He’d mulled over vivid revenge fantasies until, the first time he saw her afterwards, he’d had to clench his fists in his pockets so they wouldn’t reach out of their own accord and settle over her fine collarbones and reel her in for a taste old-fashioned McCoy justice like spit in her eye.

But in the end, he hadn’t blamed her. She was a conniver and he hadn’t ever been as willing a participant in her scheme as she’d have liked. Jocelyn had deserved a shot a making it on her own terms. She’d taken that chance.

She hadn’t done half-bad for herself, McCoy had to admit. But then, neither had he. Especially considering where Pike had found him. Every day spent in solitary – it had worn on him, made him tired and angry and hungry for hurting things in ways he’d never been on the outside.

Pike had come, waving a shiny new medical license and a Fleet uniform, an offer too good to pass up. CMO of the Fleet’s fancy new darling of a flagship or shitting his bed out of boredom inside four walls with no windows? At least in space he’d see the stars.

The stars and pretty little officers all dressed up like they were real shitting captains. Uhura strode over to his table, tiny body full of energy and violence in a way that made her extra appealing to look at, and took the other seat without asking.

“McCoy, what the hell?” Uhura hadn’t really counted on Kirk coming back. She surveyed the emaciated man – she’d teased him about his slim hips but this was ridiculous – sitting slightly behind the doctor, watching everything from those haunted blue eyes.

Uhura was the one chaffing now, all the power she’d thought she had coming with a ride-along, circumscribed from being absolute. She had the ship. But McCoy had his sickbay. And she’d eventually need it, need him. Pike had given McCoy more than he’d expected – but he’d still fucked them both because they were stuck with each other.

“You want to make this an official conversation, we can take it back to your office… Captain.” The pause was significant, not quite insulting but certainly not currying favor.

Her headshake was minimal but definite. Their dependence on one another wasn’t known – and she’d prefer to keep it that way. McCoy had never made a play for power that Uhura knew of but he’d have all of her enemies rallying behind him if the stalemate became common knowledge.

“Kirk.” Uhura acknowledged him at least. He had his rank, she’d checked the computer records. He’d need McCoy to clear him for duty before he could set foot on the bridge and even then Uhura wasn’t about to trust the blond man. But it wasn’t entirely unpleasant to see him alive, especially if being in the good doctor’s care mean McCoy had something invested in him. There was some sort of opportunity here, she just had to sniff it out.

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[sharpestscalpel.livejournal.com]

He hadn't put in all that goddamn effort with the refeeding just so short-skirts here could piss on his fucking parade. McCoy grunted and leaned back in his chair, confident and casual.

"Once he's cleared for duty, he'll be underfoot on your bridge. What then?"

Kirk wasn't nearly fit for duty but, hell, Uhura didn't have to goddamn know that little fucking fact.

[spkng-in-tngues.livejournal.com]

"What makes you think he'll be welcome on my bridge, even with his rank intact?"

Kirk's smirk was irritating her. Uhura tucked it down to the bottom of her lungs, smothered the feeling of it. She could rage later, take out her frustration in the gym. Rand needed a lesson or two in proper deference to her new captain. And the women wielded a mean right hook; she would be an adequate partner.

Uhura consciously relaxed her shoulders and evaluated her position. It was always better to know where her boundaries were before negotiating.

She'd rather keep Kirk off the bridge, out of work. But a bored James T. was a troublesome James T. - the man defined trouble when he didn't have enough to do. If she gave him tactical again, it would have to be alpha shift. He'd be wasted anywhere else.

And if he was on her bridge every day, serving under her boot heel, he might come around to her way of thinking. He might become something she could hold over McCoy, a pawn with which to control the wily doctor.

So, an ideal outcome would be to keep Kirk busy in some meaningless way that wasn't on her bridge. Acceptable was Kirk on the bridge and busy with tactical without giving her anything to hold against McCoy. Ideal on the other end of the spectrum would be something akin to a hostage fostering - she would steal Kirk's loyalty away one hair at a time. Once he'd put back on a little weight, she might even fuck him again.

[sharpestscalpel.livejournal.com]

"You think I don't know just how much a survivor of Pike's tender mercies could stir up shit on this ship if he ain't seen to be affiliated with you? Easy as peach pie to imagine a couple crewmen getting together to think that, hell, if Kirk survived Pike then he'd be a damn sight better captain than that uppity bitch Uhura - I ain't bothered by women in power but you know we've got some old-fashioned officers in this place."

They did. It wasn't that women weren't competent - it was that they were usually so much easier to kill. Uhura, McCoy had to hand it to her, was a tenacious little fucker and doing a good job of staying alive and marginally unabused in the sexual arena.

He wasn't interested in her pussy but he'd have to take both his own eyes out before he could miss noticing how Sulu or a variety of others looked at her.

McCoy sent Kirk an appraising glance. The kid was still grinning like a fool and it suited him. Slightly manic, confident, a little bit knowing. Long as he kept his fucking mouth shut, they ought to do well by this meeting. And if he didn't, McCoy might have to shut Kirk's mouth for him, stuff it full of some one else's cock or some such shit.

[spkng-in-tngues.livejournal.com]

The look McCoy shot Kirk's was was significant, but it was also difficult to interpret. The doctor was hard to read, too casual, not tense enough given their situation. What was he up to?

"Are you threatening me, Doctor?"

She didn't think he was - but he was also right. Dammit.

[sharpestscalpel.livejournal.com]

Bitch knew he wasn't. His threats tended to come in the form of unlabeled medications, when they came at all. Better not to waste fucking time with threats when actions were goddamn more efficient.

"Not my way to threaten a fucking lady."

He wasn't going to give her any damn thing else.

"Shit or get off the pot, Uhura. You make me a promise you can keep or we'll have ourselves a tidy little standoff and we'll both be fucked seven ways from Sunday when we're out of lube."

[behnd-blueyes.livejournal.com]

He could see he was annoying Uhura, and that only made it more likely he could keep up the self-satisfied air. Thing was, he did know something. He knew McCoy was making a play. He knew he was involved. He knew Uhura's boot heel wasn't going to leave a hole in his back, and that in McCoy he'd found someone far fucking craftier than she. Far more dangerous, too; Uhura was no slouch but with her it was all ambition and that big damn chip on her shoulder. McCoy... Kirk didn't know what the fuck was wrong with the man, but whatever it was trumped simple hunger for power.

So he could afford to smile, to make Uhura wonder, to place himself, for now, under McCoy's protection. McCoy who looked at him in a way he couldn't understand, who threatened things that made Kirk's skin crawl without really knowing what they were, but who, so far, had only brought him back to life.

Though the smile his something else, too--how it rankled to be trotted out like this, on display, McCoy's pet. But he could hold his tongue. He told himself.

[spkng-in-tngues.livejournal.com]

If she thought she could manage it, Uhura would have had McCoy dragged to the agonizer booth, stripped naked, and put on display for the whole ship. Even that was better than he deserved, playing this game with her as though he held no fear of her at all.

Uhura suspected that, in truth, McCoy was not very much afraid of anyone. Did he lack self-preservation? Did he simply think that much of himself?

And somehow it was rubbing off on Kirk. She'd witnesses that smirk turned toward Pike and then Pike had disappeared into the black. She'd been as surprised as everything else when he'd returned, sans Spock, and then left her with the Enterprise. She and Chekov had been subtle in their takeover, just in case - Spock had set everything up for their return and she had no desire to lose her skin to the agonizer holding the captain's chair hostage - but that it had actually happened... It was still unbelievable. Even more so that Pike had turned around and left again, given it all up. She'd suspected that he would tire of captain games one day - but that he would take the admiralty as his ticket out.

If Kirk thought he could turn that look on her and that she would move out of his way, he was dead wrong, even with his pet doctor serving as a mouth piece.

It had to be that way - there was no way McCoy could have coerced Kirk into silence, into sitting there and letting McCoy negotiate for his life; Kirk was playing a new game now, putting others in front of him to take fire. He'd have done the same with her, she knew it. She had kept her part of the bargain until Spock had started killing people for looking at him too directly and then she had known that somewhere, somehow, Kirk had made a very large mistake.

"When he comes back, he'll be on Alpha shift. I'll send Leslie back to scrubbing toilets. But Kirk," and now she shifted to face the blond man directly, to let him know she knew he was playing McCoy somehow even if she couldn't figure it out, "if you know what's good for you, you'll stay out of my way unless I call for you."

She'd call for him. She would call for him and fuck him and make him hers, body and soul. A shiny new Captain's Man, stolen from her supposed ally in command, McCoy. And then McCoy would see who was really in charge, for all he made noises about his sickbay.

[sharpestscalpel.livejournal.com]

"He'll be the ideal fucking officer."

And then he'd report it all back to McCoy if he goddamn well knew what was shitting good for him. McCoy offered his hand across the table, an old-fashioned gesture meant to prove his intentions were sincere and that he was unarmed.

No wonder the gesture had fallen out of favor.

[behnd-blueyes.livejournal.com]

Kirk watched it all carefully. Ambitious and foolhardy he might be, but he wasn't exactly stupid. And he knew that they had Uhura off-balance. That was enough to keep him silent, for now--the novelty of Uhura's struggle to understand. She was struggling enough, he bet, trying to maintain command. She was fully competent but it was going to be a struggle for anyone, at the point. And if they could continue to catch her off guard without challenging her openly, they were at least one step ahead.

So. He had his job back. He had something like protection--grating, but necessary in his current state and the political climate. And he had Uhura looking at him like a present she wanted to unwrap, mostly to see if it was ticking. He raised an eyebrow, and nodded deferentially.

[spkng-in-tngues.livejournal.com]

To ignore his hand would be an insult and there was no telling what this man would do if he felt insulted. But Uhura waited for Kirk's nod before she stood, almost tentative, and shook McCoy's hand.

Her grip was firm, though, and she held as she leaned over the table between them.

"I don't like you. I don't trust you. I don't know what you think you're up to, McCoy. But I will find out."

She felt his laughing eyes on her when she turned and walked the distance to the door. She didn't breathe until the door closed behind her.

[sharpestscalpel.livejournal.com]

McCoy did laugh then, a mean chuckle under his own breath. Then his eyes turned to Kirk.

"You think you're in the fucking clover now?"

[behnd-blueyes.livejournal.com]

Kirk drew his eyes away from Uhura's retreating form to look calmly at McCoy. It certainly was not true that he had no fear of the man. He was not complacent.

"I think it's fucking useful to make her think I think so," he replied quietly.

[sharpestscalpel.livejournal.com]

McCoy grunted his approval, raised his glass in a brief salute.

"I knew you weren't fucking stupid."

It was as close to praise as he'd come with Kirk. But he was still watching him. This was their first outing, after all. If Kirk was going to do something stupid...

[behnd-blueyes.livejournal.com]

Kirk tamped down the dull glow in his gut at the near-praise. It was ridiculous, useless. Dangerous, even.

"And neither are you. She won't let this lie." And maybe, neither would Kirk, but there was no reason he couldn't discuss Uhura's plans with McCoy.

[sharpestscalpel.livejournal.com]

"You reckon I figure to let it lie?"

McCoy tossed the rest of his drink back and rose.

"Come the fuck on. We got a few more rounds to make."

[behnd-blueyes.livejournal.com]

Kirk took a last sip--juice, actually, he didn't want to risk any fuzzy thinking, his first day out--and stood up. They hadn't discussed the other destinations, and he wondered if McCoy was deliberately trying to keep him off balance. No, that wasn't even a question. Of course he was.

"Where we going?"

[sharpestscalpel.livejournal.com]

"We need to pay a fucking visit to Engineering. Scotty and me got a little business to tend to."

Kirk was along for the goddamn ride one way or another - meant he didn't need to fucking know ahead of time if there was a change in their agenda. Not yet. Not until he earned it.

Uhura thought she'd undermine him, that much was crystal goddamn clear. He needed to step up the work on Blue.

He turned left out the door to lead them into the bowels of the engineering department through a series of ladders and tubes. One of the first things Scotty had done was disable the turbolift access to his lair.

[behnd-blueyes.livejournal.com]

Kirk quickly erased the frown as he followed. Fuck if he knew what McCoy wanted with that lush, but Kirk figured it was a demonstration for him, too, as much as anything. He just needed to figure out what it was McCoy seemed to want him to learn.

But soon he was having to concentrate on something other than McCoy's hidden motives. He wasn't in shape--there was no way he could be, really--and the ladders and tubes were a strain. His muscles were trembling by the time they reached the bottom, and he was working to hide the extent of his fatigue. He had stamina, however, and the ability to push past his own limits.

[sharpestscalpel.livejournal.com]

Kirk looked a little goddamn pale under the collar by the time they made it to Scotty's door. McCoy stopped him, well back from the fucking cameras, checked his pulse the old-fashioned way with two fingers at Kirk's wrist.

"Don't drink anything that asshole offers you, even if you have to throw it in his fucking face."

[behnd-blueyes.livejournal.com]

Kirk stared at him. He knew that. He was still alive, wasn't he?

But "got it" was all he said, getting his breathing under control and nodding to McCoy. He'd take things as they came--so far, every step had brought him to a place better than the one before.

[sharpestscalpel.livejournal.com]

McCoy banged on Scotty's door for the satisfaction of it. The drunk bastard hadn't left Engineering since Pike had left.

Scotty's call to admit them was incoherent, indecipherable.

"You dumb fuck."

The Scotsman had fallen halfway between the door and his bed - the stinking pile of mattress and bedding looked like he'd been nesting in it - and now he was sprawled, legs at uncomfortable angles and his bottle of homebrew spilled on the already slick floor.

"You fucking dumb fuck."

McCoy hoisted him up enough to toss him back onto the bed.

[behnd-blueyes.livejournal.com]

Kirk hovered, wrinkling his nose at the stink and wondering how the ship was still running at all, if this douchebag was in charge of her inner workings. Did Uhura know it was this bad? Had Pike?

What use he could be to McCoy would be interesting to find out. Kirk had, at least, progressed enough in his recovery to find other people useless.

[sharpestscalpel.livejournal.com]

He'd never seen the Scotsman totally sober - hell, maybe his genius depended on his drunkeness. But McCoy had never seen him this bad.

Scotty fucking stank.

"She's nae my beauty naemore."

He belched and McCoy reared back to avoid the foul breath. So that was the shitting problem. The ship, Scotty's only love, was responding to Uhura now.

"What's the fucking matter, Scott? She ain't singing to you anymore?" He hit the man in the neck with a detox hypo.

"She doesn't need me." It was almost a wail. "I cannea even access the warp core."

Uhura again. Watching her own back, stirring up the status quo.

[behnd-blueyes.livejournal.com]

Kirk had always thought the man had an unhealthy relationship with the ship. Then again, that was sort of a redundant observation around here. He'd always found Scotty vaguely creepy, obsessive, and pointless.

Then again, if Uhura had literal control of the ship, maybe Scotty's years of pining or whatever would manifest in some stroke of genius. If he was sober enough to recognize it.

"Can she literally do this on her own?" he wondered aloud. Not even Uhura had ever talked about anything that ambitious. What was the point, if she didn't need her crew?

[sharpestscalpel.livejournal.com]

"Shut the fuck up, Kirk." McCoy's voice was a sudden hiss of anger directed back over his shoulder at Kirk. The last thing they needed was Scotty with information or ideas.

On the plus side, Kirk had just given McCoy his excuse. He tucked away his satisfaction for a moment.

"Scotty, shut up, man." The detox hypo could only do so much and the chief engineer was moaning low. "Shut up and mind your fucking ship. She's been seduced away but I'll bet you a quart of your finest that you can win her back."

Nothing like sowing a little discord in the morning.