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browngirlTitle: Had To Perish Twice, Part 2 of 2
Fandom: Star Trek XI
Rating: NC-17 with warnings.
Pairing: James T. Kirk/Dr. Leah McCoy; Chekov/Sulu, Kyle/Riley and Spock/Uhura alluded to.
Summary: The story of the Situlan revolt, or, Jim sees murder in his Bones's pretty eyes.
Content Advisory: Violence, destruction, dubiously consensual sex, nonconsensual sex. Genderswap. Mirrorverse.
Acknowledgements:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
mardia and spikeface for asking the questions that led to this story; graceandfire for inspiration; tigerbright for ethical and plotting advice; and lomedet.
Disclaimer: Neither the canon characters nor their settings belong to me.
Title from "Fire and Ice" by Robert Frost.
Link to Part 1
When Transport Chief Kyle lurches to his feet, legs gangly below his rough gray smock, and shouts, "The Captain! The Captain's come for us!" Jim frankly does enjoy the cheering. He spreads his arms wide as ten of his crew rush up to the force fields walling them into their cells, as ten voices call out the praise he deserves.
Meanwhile, of course, he glances around for the booby traps, but the panels controlling the force fields really seem to be the cheap ready-made sort that shut off when damaged; Jim phasers the nearest one and the field simply dissipates without even zapping the ensign inside the cell. "Escort our shipmates to the atrium," he murmurs to Suhail and Giotto as he strides down the hall blasting panel after panel, and his crew jump out cheering, shivering a little in the damp winter air.
Bones, of course, isn't cheering. She's waiting at the end of the row, one eyebrow cocked above the hottest little grumpy look, her bare rounded arms folded and the smock hanging off her curves like Risan lingerie. Jim has to shove down a pulse of pure, strange gladness at the sight of her standing so calmly, holding a square white case in her left hand; he flicks his gaze over her and doesn't see a single bruise he didn't put there, and when he gets back up to her face her plump-lipped scowl makes his grin stretch his cheeks. First things first, though, and he goes over her panel with extra care. If he had only one rigged forcefield he'd use it on his enemy's favorite, but hers appears to be exactly the same as the others.
If it's not, he thinks as he aims, he has twenty-seven captive Situlans who will wish for death a long time before he lets them have it. The panel explodes in the same spray of yellow sparks as all the others; Bones takes a breath and steps out of her cell, gingerly on her bare feet, and turns dark eyes up to him. "Captain," is all she says, all Jim lets her say as he grabs her arms and kisses her so hard his mouth crackles against hers. She makes an annoyed little 'mmph' sound, but she parts her water-sweet lips and returns the kiss.
Eventually he feels the rounded edge of the case she holds, pressing into his chest. There's still a job to do, and he owes himself some revenge, so Jim pushes Bones back enough to see what she's got. "Doctor," he says, imitating her cool tone. "A stasis case?"
"They got eleven of us and three fingers." She glances at the case. "A woman's, I think, and by the skintone and that shiny polish job I'm betting Lt. Commander Uhura's."
Just a few moments longer and the Security officers will have herded the rest of the crew around the corner, so Jim keeps her talking. "Yeah, they're Uhura's. She and Spock'll be glad to see them. But you made the Situlans give you a stasis case? No extra clothes or anything? Not that I mind this outfit on you."
Bones just snorts. "I told our hosts here--" She rolls her eyes with her usual exasperated vigor, and Jim feels a laugh threatening to bubble up. "They were gonna give me something to keep these fingers in until you brought us back to the Enterprise. I told them you were coming, too, that if they knew what was good for them they'd return us unharmed before you got here." She shakes her head, hair tumbling around her shoulders. "Poor impractical fools. I --" She looks down, at Jim's chest as if she can see through to his heart. "However you're thinking of handling them, I would rather not watch."
The corridor's clear. "I won't kill anyone in front of you, Bones." Jim curls his fingers around her shoulder, pulling her warm against his side. "C'mon, I want to get my crew back to my ship."
Bones nods, slumped heavy with relief against him, and lets Jim lead her back through the concrete-grey corridor. It's not until they reach the atrium that she looks up, and Jim watches her eyes widen as she sees her fellow abductees lined up against the wall, three of the Security detail keeping them at careful phaserpoint.
Jim makes a note of his Quartermaster and a few others who stand at ease, postures relaxed, grateful for the chance to die as Imperial officers rather than live as captives. He gives them an approving smile as he slides his hand across Bones's back, planting it between her shoulderblades to give her a little push. "Go on, Dr. McCoy," he tells her softly. She flashes him a tight-lipped glance, her guileless eyes too wide with confusion to glare, but obediently heads over, her shoulders twitching as she walks into the field of potential fire.
She's either just as transparent as he's always known her to be, or for the last five years she's consistently been the best liar he's ever met. Either way, Jim has more to deal with right now than just his Bones. He tears his gaze from her rumpled hair and careful feet, and glances past the splintered polymer and twisted metal of the former transporter pad to the two cells facing the atrium where his troops have detained the captured rebels behind appropriately crackly force fields. "Good work reprogramming these panels," he tells Lieutenant Riley, who nods crisply, gaze flicking past Jim to Kyle against the wall. Jim lets him get away with it for now; there will be time later, after this situation's been dealt with.
"You see, my people, how the Empire treats theirs," declares the blue-haired woman who gave herself the ridiculous title of First Among Equals. She's been carrying on ever since they caught her, trying to rally her troops' with bombast, but Jim sees nothing for her to work with but hollow eyes in pinched faces, ragged uniforms and drooping shoulders. They look like people who've been stretched too thin for too long, and their defeat is almost too effortless to be fun.
Almost, but not really. "Come here," he tells Firstie, who lifts her blue head high as her people huddle around her. "Now," he adds, and she gently pushes them aside and strides up to the force field, not flinching as it hisses and zaps at her. Jim watches the pops and flashes reflect in her shining golden eyes and decides he likes her as he reaches through the tingles, grabs her arm and drags her into the force field. Firstie's rebels gasp louder than she does, and the ones in the next cell rush their field as she stiffens and convulses on her way through, a sizzling electrical nimbus framing her rigid body; her heels dragging across the floor, she topples jerkily forward until she's completely free of the field, then collapses into a shivering huddle at Jim's feet.
The charging rebels bounce back into their cell. Their force field's not letting them through, not without Jim personally providing a pass. Riley outdid himself this time.
Jim generously gives Firstie a half minute to catch her breath and look up at him with what she thinks is a searing glare. He gets fiercer looks from a sleepy Bones, and he just laughs and waits another few seconds for her to straighten her trembling shoulders and say, "We are all prepared to die for Situla. You can destroy us individually but you cannot destroy our planet's freedom."
"Oh, stand up already." Firstie does, wavering to her feet, and Jim thumbs his phaser as he tells her, "Did you know the Ruling Council asked me to turn over all rebel leaders alive, as unharmed as possible?" She holds her head high, but there's fear in the depths of her lantern eyes. "I think they want to talk to you."
With that he phasers her, and she drops like a sack of rocks. From the corner of his eye he sees his Bones press her fingers to her mouth, other fist clenched beneath her elbow, while the rebels start up again with their cursing and wailing. "Shut up, she's only stunned," he tells them, and watches his people boggle in their turn, then forget that confusion to worry about their own skins as he stalks over to them. "As for you, soldiers of the Empire, one of you is a spy." They immediately toss suspicious glances at each other, and Jim keeps the edge of his vision on Riley, just in case the Lieutenant gets any ideas about helping Kyle. "One of you gave these idiots," he continues, tipping his head towards the rebels, "the names and locations of who to take." They're all staring at him now, Bones appearing no more or less shocked than the rest. "One of you sold out your fellow crewmembers to be yanked off the ship and plopped down naked in this mudhole." Not to mention the trick with the shields' timing that let the Situlans snatch them in first place, though Chekov has sent the most amusing updates as he figures that one out. "One of you endangered my Enterprise."
Jim takes a breath and resets his phaser. "If you step forward now and identify yourself, I'll make you a deal. One clean shot and it's all over. No Agony Booth, no interrogation sessions, no treason sentence, no Imperial execution. Just the swiftness of a phaser blast. Come on, make it easy on yourself, step forward." He looks into each of their eyes in turn, pulling his gaze along Bones no faster and no slower than anyone else, though he can feel her shocked face tugging at his attention, see her chest rise and fall at the corner of his eye.
Transporter tech Ensign LeBlang is breathing fast, too, and he and Kyle are the only two from the same department. Everyone else is a singleton.
Jim waits. The forcefields buzz. No one moves. After a full ten-count, Jim snaps out his communicator, holding it in his palm so everyone can hear. "Kirk to Uhura. Lieutenant Commander, do you have my spy?"
"I do, Captain." She sounds gleeful, but then the spy also cost her three fingers and some considerable pain. "Ensign Petzen LeBlang." Who predictably makes a break for it, but Sulu's big guys, Giotto and Tehimura, grab his arms and force him to his knees. Uhura continues, smooth and implacable over LeBlang's sputtering, "He sent all his communications from others' accounts -- and blind-copied himself on the messages."
"Dumbass," Jim agrees aloud with her implicit contempt. "Uhura, Dr. McCoy has something for you when we return. Kirk out." Jim watches Riley's lip-chewing as motions the Security detail to holster their weapons; he waits a few beats longer until he glances at the Lieutenant, and as soon as he nods permission, Riley quick-marches over to Kyle, stopping nearly too close to have room to salute. Jim could almost grin at how sweet they are.
Instead he grins for another reason, slowly pulling his lips back from his teeth as he crosses to LeBlang, who gibbers, "Captain, please, I can give you my contacts in Neidarcivita, I can--"
"Break it," Jim tells Giotto, who snaps LeBlang's arm like a stick, ending his words on a howl. "Wrench it," he tells Tehimura, who twists the other shoulder from its socket as LeBlang chokes and sobs. "Now cuff him and leave him to me. Disable the shield emitter and prepare for return to the Enterprise."
They drop LeBlang at Jim's feet and move off, and Jim balances the temptation to stomp the traitor's head until it caves satisfyingly under his boots with the need to catch up on today's wrecked schedule. Besides, he did promise Bones. "Sir, please," LeBlang whimpers thickly. "Don't you even want to know--"
"No," Jim says and steps past him, leaving LeBlang to blubber as he heads to where Bones stands by the wall. Her shoulder's rigid to the touch, but she doesn't shy away as Jim curves his hand around her arm and announces, "Enterprise, twenty-three to beam up." The shield goes down again, and they leave behind twenty-six Situlan idiots, an unconscious rebel leader and one whimpering spy.
After that it's just mop-up. As he follows her off the transporter pad, Jim slaps Bones's ass and tells her, "My quarters, 1900." She rolls her eyes at him, face forward and head high, and strides off to Medbay with the stasis case in hand. Rand meets him on the Bridge with coffee and an apple pastry, and as she turns to go he appreciatively squeezes her hip, nods to Spock and settles into his chair.
Chekov's back in his Navigator's seat, jittering hilariously, Sulu's doing pretty badly at hiding either her smirk or the fondness in it, and Jim chews on a sweet mouthful to keep from laughing. Between bites he says, "I know you want to blow shit up, Mr. Chekov, but just let me finish my snack here," and watches Sulu rub her nose to hide a grin as Chekov's ears turn pink.
"I await your orders, Captain," Chekov says stiffly, and Jim downs the rest of his coffee in a loud leisurely slurp, stands and strolls up to the helm.
"Well done, Lieutenant," he says, smacking Chekov's shoulder. "And now your patience will be rewarded. I want you to destroy every island in that archipelago except Aneida." Chekov glances up at that, his smoke-green eyes gleaming, and beyond him Sulu cocks a sleek eyebrow. "Work west to east, and take your time. I want everything incinerated down to the waterline.
"Sulu," Jim adds to his pilot, "use the high-res sensors to keep an eye out for any refugees for me, will you? I want to know where they run to." Jim steps back a pace so he won't drop crumbs in Chekov's freshly neatened curls, and finishes his pastry as Chekov gleefully burns the islands off Situla's surface, their coastlines crumbling on the map.
"Several watercraft just left the islands around Aneida, heading eastward towards the coast," Sulu reports as Jim chews the last bite. "Their trajectories suggest the northern port."
"Evethicivita," Jim reads off the map. "Let me know the second the first boat hits port. Chekov, lock onto Evethicivita's center. Ready..." As they watch the islands crumble further, superheated water and firestorms starting to add their measure of destruction, Jim imagines little flecks skimming across the map, fleeing the devastation with their cargoes of freaked-out refugees, running for the safety of the northern territory's big coastal port.
"First boat," Sulu announces.
"Fire, Mr. Chekov." Jim pictures all those shocked faces on all those overcrowded little vessels as they watch Evethicivita explode, crumbling into the ocean before them, and nearly laughs.
"Captain," T'Amair says with careful tonelessness, "We are being hailed by the Situlan Governing Council--"
"Tell them to sit and spin." Jim keeps looking up at the map. "All right. Computer, expand map to show all rebellious territories. Indicate in yellow, with the largest city of each in red. Also highlight Neidarcivita."
The belt of rebel territories stretches across three landmasses, most of the thirty or so clustered around a temperate ocean. Neidarcivita glows from an outwardly loyal, gray territory, but one directly to the southeast of a rebellious one.
"How much more shit would you like to blow up, Mr. Chekov?" Jim asks, and Sulu coughs a laugh at Chekov's delightedly shocked inhale. Ordinarily, having glassed a bunch of islands and reduced a city to smoking ruins, Jim would've considered his point made by now.
"As much as you will allow, Captain," Chekov says, voice almost calm despite the fact that he's nearly bouncing in his seat. Ordinarily, no one dares touch what belongs to Jim. Such as Bones.
"All right, then. Destroy Neidarcivita, then pick any six of those lit-up cities and destroy them too, one at a time." Chekov snickers as his fingers fly over his console, and Neidarcivita starts to disappear from the city limits inwards.
Jim returns to his chair, crossing his legs as he watches his Navigator have a great day at work. Sulu's watching too, from the corner of her eye, as she asks, "Captain, shall I monitor refugees from these cities as well?"
"Nah, let them run." He glances over at T'Amair, who sits ramrod straight in her chair, her face porcelain pale. Oh. "Ensign T'Amair? Speak freely."
"I have nothing to report, Captain," she says crisply, hands folded in her lap, shoulders squared, Bridge lights gleaming off her inky hair.
Skimming his eyes over her poised form, Jim makes a mental note. "When Lieutenant Chekov is finished, hail the Situlan Council." By now the rebels and LeBlang should've noticed the islands crumbling around them, so he adds, "Oh, and Chekov?" Who nods attentively as the third city implodes on the map, "after you're done with these, go back for Aneida Island and scour it down to the bedrock." Meanwhile, Jim flicks through the to-do list Rand put together while he was on-planet, smiling whenever Chekov whoops softly.
It looks like a fairly busy day, but the aftermaths of conquest usually are. When Chekov's done laying waste and T'Amair announces the Situlan Council, Jim sees fifteen of them this time, the woman with shiny red hair conspicuously absent, and the rest sallow or purplish. The saggy-faced oldest wobbles forward, his hands out in that universal gesture of pleading, and wavers, "Captain Kirk, we beg of you --"
"I'm sure you do," Jim says, "but I don't really have time for it, after I had to rescue my abducted crew and deal with a suborned spy among my people, all before breakfast. So let me just say, you have three standard months to eradicate any remaining rebellion and bring your entire world back into line as loyal Imperial subjects. To that end, I will remit fifteen percent of your tribute during this time." Some of the anger-purple ones are turning pale. "If you fail in any particular of this we will disband your august council, and install an Imperial governorship in its place. Any resistance whatsoever to Imperial action will be met with the destruction of eighty cities as a first measure, not a last."
By now they're all pale, and one in the back is crying so hard her green chignon's shaking. "We accept the Empire's benevolence," says the oldest Councilmember, word by word as if each tastes bad to spit out.
Jim grins. "Good, because we won't be nearly so benevolent next time. Enterprise out." He turns enough to ask, "Spock, are the surveillance buoys in place?"
"Indeed they are, Captain," Spock answers.
Warm with satisfaction, Jim relaxes into his chair for a moment before he says, "Then let's be on our way. Warp Five, Mr. Sulu," and gets to work on his upcoming busy day.
*@*@*@*
It's a long full day, but not a bad one. Some exhilarating action in the morning, reports full of success submitted in the afternoon, and the whole time his crew eye him with as much admiration as they do fear. All that and Bones to look forward to that night, grumbly and lovely and probably resentfully grateful beneath. At dinner she's not in the mess, but Jim doesn't think anything of it: without Joanna's socialization to consider Bones often eats alone or with her medical staff. He basks in the thanks of the rescued crew and their allies, including a delightfully blatant come-on from Lieutenant Vahey, and eventually disentangles himself to stroll into his quarters at 1900 on the dot.
They're dark and empty. "Computer, lights one hundred percent, and the location of my CMO."
"Chief Medical Officer Leah H. McCoy is currently in her quarters," the computer returns in its sweet synthetic voice, and just like that Jim's ebullient mood drains away as he punches the wall panel. "Kirk to McCoy," he snaps, and gets of all things, static. Someone's blocked his communications to her.
His first thought is pulsating rage; his second is to hack the comm system himself, but this is why he assembled his crew of experts. "Kirk to Uhura," he calls next.
He gets a much more appropriate and aggrieved sounding "Yes, Captain?" before the visual switches on. Uhura looks like he woke her up, the room dark behind her, her hair wrapped up in bright cloth and her pretty eyes bleary, but then she had a busy day of spy-catching and surgery and all.
"McCoy's line is blocking my communications," he says. "Who set her account to do this?"
Uhura's mouth twists, but she has the sense not to comment. She divides the screen, narrowing his sight of her as she intently types one-handed into her console, occasionally humming. "Ensign T'Amair," she answers at length. Of fucking course. "She tried to cover her tracks but... yes, T'Amair. She also tried to make it appear to be my doing."
"And it wasn't," Jim says flatly. "Since McCoy gave you back your fingers and all." Not that he really expects she'd be that stupid, or Security would've delivered this call for him.
"I don't do comm-blocks, but I've undone this one for you, Captain." Uhura looks up at him, her smile gleaming and professional. He doesn't need telepathy to hear her speculations.
He bares his teeth. "Thank you, Lieutenant Commander. I'll handle your discipline problem for you, since you're still convalescing. Besides, you already have plenty of opportunity to wrangle a Vulcan." Her smirk congeals. "Kirk out." He smacks the panel off and stalks back and forth across his quarters a few times before he can even call Security, awash in the same dark anger as when the Situlan rebels thought to deny him his Bones. No one gets to do that. Including her. Especially her.
Eventually Tehimura comms for his orders regarding T'Amair and Jim can't even think of anything to do with the girl. For the moment he tells them to lock T'Amair up until he says otherwise, then heads out to Bones's quarters, so blinded by pulse-pounding fury that he almost doesn't remember that she gave up her double quarters now that Joanna's no longer with her. When he reaches the correct room his first try at entry is refused, and thinking he mistyped the code he punches it in again.
Refused again, and this time he looks at the error message more carefully. "INVALID COMMAND CODE 869," it says, and he recognizes one of the standard override blockers. Any redshirt could have taught her how, or set it up for her.
Jim has to laugh at that. "Oh, Bones," he mutters to himself, rubs his palms together, and bleeds off a bit of steam breaking in. It only takes him a few minutes, and there aren't even any electric shocks or booby traps, but he's feeling a bit less keyed up by the time the door slides open for him.
Her quarters are dark, too. "Computer, lights fifty percent," Jim orders, and she groans as he sees her, curled up with a pillow over her head, a bottle of something amberly alcoholic and a tumbler on the floor by the bed.
Both are upright, the bottle mostly full. Bones mumbles something that sounds like "I should've fucking gotten drunk after all," before she tenses and sits up, slamming the pillow down. She's wearing some long white thing with a seam closure up her chest and buttons at her throat and wrists, her hair is a disheveled dark cloud around her head, her eyes are red, her face is red, she's furious and gorgeous and he can feel the blood shunting from his brain to his dick even before she snarls, "Get out."
"Wow, that's insubordinate. Even for you." Jim strolls over, pulling off his vest along the way. "It's probably my fault, though, everyone knows I spoil you rotten." He's never had her in these quarters before, because her efforts to shelter Joanna were just so terribly cute and then he'd settled into the habit of making her come to him. Still, there's a first time for everything.
Bones sidles out of her bed, revealing a long white fluffy nightgown like something from five hundred years ago, all shapeless modesty trailing around her ankles. "I mean it, Kirk. Get out of my quarters." Her left wrist's unbuttoned, and Jim guesses there's a hypo hiding in the sleeve. "I'm not -- I'm not dealing with you, not tonight. Not -- no."
There are times when Jim would be amused by this level of defiance in his fucktoy, the chance for an invigorating game of cat and mouse, but today was really too long for this shit, and he wants her now. "Bones, come here. That's an order."
She keeps the bed between them, and the damn nightgown hides her legs, he can barely tell her stance by the placement of her toes. "No," she answers, head held high, squaring her shoulders just like Firstie did, her back as straight as T'Amair's.
This is getting irritating. "Over a dozen of the crew thanked me today, you know. Vahey offered to suck my dick. I would've expected a little more gratitude from you."
Her eyes flare furiously wide, that inhale is epic enough to show her breasts heaving even through the Nightie of Chastity. "Grateful?" Bones shrieks, and she hasn't lost it at him in... awhile. "You want me to be fucking grateful, Kirk?" Her anger buffets him like a physical force, warmth tingling along his skin, and maybe he's up for the cat and mouse after all.
"That's Captain, and considering I personally conducted your rescue, yeah, I kinda do." He lunges across the bed, but that stupid gown doesn't quite billow like he thought it would, flicking teasingly against his fingertips as she skips back.
On the other hand, the view's magnificent, her blazing eyes and flailing hands as the rant finally comes in full force, and Jim lies on his belly on Bones's warm sheets and lets her yell. "Considering! Did you even consider the noncombatants, the children, all those people who had nothing to do with that stupid rebellion?" As he waits for her to possibly make some sense, Jim kicks off his boots. "Just stop it! Stop it! Do you really think you can destroy eight cities full of innocent people and just come wandering in here for a kiss and a squeeze?"
Oh, so that's what she's so mad about. "I subdued the Situlans, Bones. I did what it took." Not that he needs to justify himself to her, but... "I got you back."
"Me? Me? Oh don't you goddamn tell me you did this for me!" There's her hypo, a bright patch of silver in her waving hand. "Who the Hell do you think I am, Helen of Troy? Am I supposed to thank you for destroying half a goddamn planet? Is that supposed to be some kind of fucked up compliment?" He sits up, and she flinches back another step, bumping into her desk. "Don't -- don't lay all those people you killed on me." Her voice cracks again, deflating, her arms sink to her sides. "Just don't. Just leave me the hell alone."
"No." Jim pushes himself off the soft bed. "No, really, this ship you're on is mine, and so are you." She ducks away from his hands, dodging towards the door, and as amusing as the thought is of her running down the corridor like an antique ghost, it's time to underscore words with action. He lines up his aim and catches her forearm; she brings the hypo in underhanded, making it harder to deflect without making contact, a good move, but he successfully smacks it away and pins her wrists to the wall beside her hips. She curses and thrashes and twists but doesn't even kick him, because she's his Bones, and he pulls her in and winds his arms around her, pressing his mouth to her hot ear as he murmurs, "You go ahead and fight me, Bones. I'm not letting go."
"Let go, you murderous bastard," she chants, writhing in his arms, "leggo, leggo, leggo." She kicks the air as he hoists her, struggling to break his grip instead of trying to hurt him, not that she'd get far if she tried. He tosses her onto the bed in a splash of white frills and lunges before she can roll further than her belly, pinning her with his weight.
Finally she elbows him in the ribs, a bright jab of sweet pain, and he grunts and laughs, cherishing the ache as he stretches to pin her hands, to catch her tender earlobe between his teeth. "So you want it rough tonight?" gets him a satisfyingly furious little scream, her visible eye wide and rolling as he presses her soft twisting body down into the mattress.
"I want you off me," she gasps, accent thickening, "get off me, get out." He lets go her hands to slide the miles of fluffy fabric out from between them and she starts pushing again, bucking against him as she tries to get enough leverage to tip him off her back, as if that's going to happen.
"Did you get this thing from a museum?" Jim wads the Chastity Nightie up around her shoulders, kneeling on her calves to hold her. "Take it off or I will."
"No," is the only answer he gets, apparently Bones's word for tonight. "No, no, stop it, no," as he grabs the collar and rips down the back, as he hauls it over her thrashing head and yanks it up to one buttoned wrist. He has to grip with both hands to rip it free, planting an elbow between her shoulderblades because she won't hold still and she won't stop saying "no."
Finally he can toss the stupid nightgown over the side and feel all her cushiony skin slide against his as she squirms, still fighting. He's actually a little breathless, his blood rushing with exhilaration; she hasn't fought him like this in a long time, and every twist rubs her panty-clad ass over his aching dick. "C'mon, Bones," Jim whispers as he rips his trousers open and shimmies them down, "I'll never leave you, you know that."
She shudders hard, her next breath a sob, and tries to squirm up from beneath him, keeps on fighting. He grabs her panties and peels them down as she twists away before he gives chase up the bed, catching her on her knees against the wall as tears start streaming down her face. "No," she gulps wetly, "No, no, get off me, no," each repetition a flare of heat beneath his skin, a throb in his chest.
"C'mon," Jim finds himself muttering back, his forehead pressed to her temple as he knees her thighs apart, as she keeps shaking and struggling even though all she manages is sliding that gorgeously rounded ass against him. "C'mon," he grits through clenched teeth as he grips her waist and lines himself up, and she's not wet for him but he's never minded a little burn. Her voice hitches, high and pained, she tries to dig her knees into the mattress for leverage as if she could ever get away from him. As if he'll ever let her go. "C'mere," he growls, tightening his hold, pinning her wrist against the wall as he jerks her hips back and gets inside her.
"No!" Bones screams, barely a word before it shatters into sobs, as she flutters tight around him, her ribcage shuddering under his. He gasps into her hair, sweet and savory with her sweat, and shudders in return, pleasure already pooling at the base of his spine. It takes him a long moment to get his breath back enough to start moving, his abdomen clenching with every frictiony stroke, to get his eyes open and see her bloodless-knuckled grip on the pillow, the shiny tracks of tears down her face and her parted lips red as a bruise. "No," she whimpers, tense and trembling even though she's stopped trying to get away from him.
"Bones." The warmth blooming in Jim's chest pushes her name out of him. "Bones, say yes." He lets go her shifting-boned wrist to tuck his fingers under her chin, tugging her mouth towards his. "Say yes," he breathes as he rocks his hips into hers, her lips full and quivering against his. "Say yes."
She trembles when he kisses her, her mouth, her skin, all around him. She shakes as he moves his lips as gently as he can, thrusts as evenly as he can despite the fire racing down his nerves. Then she gasps through her nose and viciously bites his lip, shredding it between her teeth.
Jim doesn't rear away from the pain, just another electric rush down his nerves. He chuckles into Leah's mouth, reaching up to hold her head steady as he pushes into the kiss, reaches down to grip her curved thigh as he lets his hips piston, driving into her, chafing up pleasure. She cries out sharply into his mouth, sliding high as he shoves harder, and he growls as he comes with their lips sealed together, sunk as deeply into his Bones as he can get.
Every pulse ripples all the way through his body, sparks flying behind his eyelids, crackling over his skin in crazed fragmented electricity, engulfing him in searing bliss. He shudders and collapses across her back like he's been stunned, like he's dying, and the tremors loosen his fingers enough to let her wrench her head away, coughing the way she did this morning. Her face is probably red again, but it's too much bother to lift his leaden eyelids and see; he smooths a hand across her wet cheek, pushing her hair back behind her ear, and she makes an unsteady little noise in her throat that he feels as vibration more than he hears.
For awhile Jim lies there downright limply, Bones breathing beneath him. She didn't come, or even get close, and usually he's more unselfish than this but tonight maybe he'll leave it alone. Eventually she snuffles an annoyed little Bones-ish noise, and he smiles into her hair as he scoots off her. "God damn," Jim mutters, scrubbing his cheek against her pillow for the faint rasp of his stubble and the scent of her hair, "if it makes you this lively I'll have to conquer a planet every day."
For a second he doesn't hear anything but his heartbeat thumping in his ears. Then Bones gasps, he opens his eyes, and her eyebrows look ready to fly off her face. Grinning, Jim decides to let her get a slap in, or even punch him as he watches her fist wad up tightly, but her face crumples and, shit, she starts crying again, covering her eyes with her hands as she curls up. "Fuckit, come here," Jim sighs, pulling her against him, and she stays folded up tight for three whooping sobs before she sags into his hold, pressing her face into his chest, hot tears and hysterical weeping against his heart.
She feels infinitely fragile when she cries like this, but she never breaks. Jim tangles their legs together and Bones lets him, he strokes her hair as she shakes in his arms. Eventually she mutters something against his chest that he expects to be some version of how much she hates him, and he almost answers, 'No you don't,' before he realizes the syllables don't match up. He thinks about it, and what she mumbled is, "You didn't have to."
Jim groans. "Shut up, Bones," he says patiently, almost too tired to go another round with her. She looks up at him, her eyes huge, her face blotchy and smeared wet, and he thinks about telling her she's beautiful just to see her gather herself into sarcasm, wonders why he's explaining even as he adds, "I had to."
She just persists, because she's her stubborn self, "Not the cities. They were beaten, you didn't have to."
"Bones," he sighs, tipping her onto her back, stroking her messy hair off her hot forehead. His chest is wet with her tears, his lip throbs from her bite, her wide dark eyes pull too much honesty out of him. "They took you. I would destroy planets for you."
She shuts those eyes, her forehead creasing as if he's Agonizing her. "Please, goddammit, no," she whispers. "I don't want that. I would never want that."
Despite her lingering stubbornness she's winding down, so Jim just lays his head beside hers, tucking his hand around her soft breast, gently thumbing her nipple. "This is how it is," he whispers into the curve of her ear, as his mother once told him when he was a child begging not to be returned to the Imperial Academy, a very long time ago.
She shudders once, all over, and whispers back, "Then I wish I were dead," but she still falls asleep in his arms.
*@*@*@*
Five days later, Jim sits in his chair, chin propped on his knuckles as he watches stars rush across the viewscreen, and thinks about Bones. Careful not to daydream too intently, he's arranged himself in a formidable brooding pose. Anyone watching him would think he's contemplating the upcoming mission, but he's already planned as much as possible for the Jemnipi revolt; now they just have to arrive and see the sitch on the ground, and everyone on the Bridge knows what they need to do to prepare. Jim leaves his crew to it, listening the soft susurrus of breathing under the harder clicks and woops of the electronics, and thinks about Dr. McCoy in her Medbay, presiding over her own bright lights and beeping machines.
The last time he saw her in person was in her office there, the day after their disagreement over the Situlans. When he woke up she was still out cold, her cheeks chapped from all that crying, and he left her a message to drink some water and not to step into Medbay until 1200. When he strolled down there at 1530, everyone gave him the Level 2 worried glances from the corners of their eyes, which usually happens when Bones is so magnificently pissed off she's shouting and waving her arms at everything in reach, but he didn't hear even an echo of her anywhere. Finally Nurse Temelae broke the usual Medbay policy of not meeting his eyes and directed him with one cool gray glance to the CMO's office, and when he stepped in Bones stared up at him from under bruised eyelids. "I owe you," he told her with his best cocky smile, but she just nodded, full mouth a soft line, her body almost limp in his hands as he pushed her up onto her desk, as he peeled her uniform trousers down her legs and knelt between her thighs.
He would've let her repair it if she'd wanted, but she left herself bruised, a little swollen under his tongue, and his bitten lip throbbed as he got down to business; she made him work harder than usual for it, but soon he had her keening and clutching at his hair like always, had her plush thighs tight around his ears as she came against his mouth. He stood up licking her off his lips, with a bellyful of satisfaction and a vague hot thought of wrapping her legs around his waist, but she'd folded her arms around herself and stared blankly down at her bare wet thighs. He had to say, "McCoy," to get her to look at him, and her gaze was hollow, distant, focused on something beyond the hull.
She goes quiet like that sometimes, but she's always back to normal after a few days. Jim kissed her quickly and ordered her on half duty, and her eyebrows didn't even crinkle, she just nodded. He left, grinning at her skittish staff, making a mental note to leave her alone for a few nights.
It wasn't like he wasn't getting laid, after all. He took Vahey up on the blowjob, shared a glass of distilled degreaser with Scotty as they chatted about the freshest young Engineers, and cornered Ensign Crepheli in the rec room because the kid's blue eyes and dark curls remind him of something he once found while hacking his way through the Academy records, a holo of one Cadet Christopher Pike. However, he's pretty sure he knows all of that bastard's bastards and Crepheli's not one of them; at any rate, once Jim got the ensign pinned and taking it beneath him, the kid hollered and swore and spurted like no one but himself.
Now, Jim considers his options, Maybe he'll go find Crepheli again tonight. Maybe he should stop daydreaming, when movement at the edge of his vision actually startles him and it's more effort than usual to keep from jumping. It's only shift change, although Jim's senior staff all know to be back on duty in seven hours; Jim's already sent Spock off for his beauty fumigation, and might as well grab a nap himself. "Mr. Sulu, you have the conn," he says, pushing himself up against gravity gone a touch strong. "And stay out of my chair." Sulu barks a laugh, narrowing her eyes.
As Jim steps into the corridor he spots T'Amair heading towards him, her head bowed, and he smiles at the shiver that ripples through her as she sees him. Vulcans do their best by Surak not to have tells, but after watching her shudder for two hours in the Agony Booth he's pretty sure he's learned a couple of hers, such as the stiffness in her neck when she lifts her head and salutes with a soft dry, "Captain."
"Looking good, Ensign," he says jovially as he passes her. If he'd let the Security officers on duty conduct her discipline and made Bones leave the bruises alone per standard, there would still be fading yellow and brown smudges across T'Amair's jade-porcelain skin. He gave her the choice, just for fun as his Security slavered in silent hope; when she chose the Booth he was just about to say 'Security it is!' when a memory hit him of Bones's big dark eyes and stubborn bruised mouth, without even the nice warm surge of desire that usually accompanies mental images of his naked CMO.
So he leniently Boothed T'Amair, and now as he watches her step onto the Bridge he realizes he could've touched her as she passed him, her bare shoulder or flexing waist, but he didn't lay a finger on any of that unmarked skin.
Jim considers his own whimsy. Bones called him 'notional' the last time he got her really drunk. He could have Vahey again, or Crepheli, or T'Amair or Rand, nearly anyone on his ship to relax him before his nap, but he isn't even in the turbolift before he decides he'd rather sweeten it instead.
This time his Captain's code lets him right in. Bones is in her bed again, facing away from him, atop rather than under the pillow this time, the fifteen percent lights just enough to show that tonight's ridiculous Chastity Nightie is pink. "You gonna tear this one off me too?" she mumbles without otherwise moving.
"Not if you take it off yourself," Jim retorts, peeling out of his own clothes. Bones unbuttons her wrists and shucks off the armful of nightgown, dropping it over the side, and he slides in with her and throws an arm over her waist, tucking himself to her back.
She lies there as rigidly as a block of wood, but her hair smells too good for him to do anything but breathe and relax. This is her room and she could have anything hidden in it, any weapon she wants within reach, but that thought just laces Jim's blood with a dose of excitement to make up for the sex they're not currently having. He spreads his hand out over her belly, feeling the tender curve, and settles in. They can fuck when he wakes up, he thinks, get his blood moving before he has to go quash this latest rebellion.
"What're you waiting for?" Bones eventually asks in a sluggish drawl.
"Go to sleep," Jim mutters, his face sunk in her silky hair, and she does.
When Jim wakes up he doesn't want to move, he's so warm. Bones is curled up into him, her cheek against his shoulder and her arm tucked under his, her legs tangled with his beneath her light sheets, and he lets himself drift for a moment before he even remembers to wonder if he's been drugged.
But his vision's clear, he doesn't feel sluggish or heavy, just warm in her arms. He inhales and grins, glancing at the chrono beyond her head, and it's a little too late for even a quickie before he goes. They can save it for the victory celebration afterwards, he thinks as he nuzzles into her tumbled hair and kisses her temple, easing his arms away from her.
She sighs, waking up a little, exhaling softly over his chest. Then she flinches all over, the lines creasing back in across her forehead as her eyes snap wide open, and she pulls her arms in and wiggles back like she woke up hugging a snake.
"Oh, for fuck's sake," Jim snaps, grabbing her bicep to hold her, pressing his fingers in so she'll notice. "Stop sulking already."
Bones winces again and stops squirming, vibrating and still. "Well, excuse me for--" Her teeth click, she shuts them so hard, bright spots of red rising on her cheeks under her glinting, furious eyes.
"For what, Bones?" Jim asks, letting his voice settle low and dangerous as he drags her back to himself and wraps his arm around her. "What?" She shuts her eyes and presses her lips together like that'll close off her face; he lets go her arm to brush his fingertips over her temple, as feather-light as he can so she'll shiver harder, stroking her hair back from her ear and cheek as he studies her anger. "Are you still mad over Situla Secunda? Really?" She jerks her head sideways as if she could lie to him. "Wasn't that last week's planet? A proactive CMO should plan for today's, don't you think?"
"An effective captain should arrive on time for his invasion, shouldn't he?" she retorts, like she's trying to make him hurt her. He just laughs and pinches her cheek hard enough to leave a red mark, and when she gasps he kisses her, sweeping his tongue into her sleep-tart mouth, and lets go to get up.
He considers but discards the thought of locking her quarters as he steps into her shower to grab a quick sonic, and sure enough, he doesn't hear any tiptoeing around, no woosh of the door opening and closing. When he steps out his Bones is right where he left her, curled up in her sheets in the middle of her bed, arms crossed across her chest and knees drawn up. She watches him get dressed, her eyes bright as polished stones and her mouth still set in that plush frown, and he watches her watch him as he straps on his dagger and knots his sash; she looks so irresistibly tender and surly, livid fingermarks rising on the otherwise unblemished skin of her arm, that it's all he can do to step back instead of forward. "You should wish me luck, you know," he says as he leans against the wall by her door. "If the Jemnipi behave I won't have to destroy any of their cities."
"Good luck," Bones says, her voice flat. Jim grins and goes over, grabs a fistful of hair and pulls her up for one last kiss, and when he turns away he can feel her gaze scalpel-bright on his back as he leaves.
*@*@*@*
Jim staggers off the transporter pad under the last fumes of his own power, blood surging through his fingers and the air searing the ragged-edged slash across his chest, but there his Bones is, waiting for him. She's snapping out orders like usual, but he looks into her cool eyes under uncrinkled eyebrows and feels the warning prickle that woke him a week ago, and this final adrenaline surge is all wild exhilaration. It hurts like grandmother-buggering Hell to laugh but Jim absolutely must, when after all that Jemnipi assassin's efforts he finally sees his death shimmering in his Bones's pretty eyes.
Her eyebrows crinkle down as her orderlies catch him and lift him to a gurney, as her mouth shapes familiar words he can't hear through the roaring tide in his ears, as she moves and works like she's going to put him back together one more time. But if she really wants to kill him this is her chance, and he can see her seeing it as she leans over him, a hypo in her hand, the other perfectly warm on his cheek.
There's no sting when she applies the hypo to his neck, and that gentleness can't mean anything but trouble. The roar recedes long enough for him to hear her, " -- take care of you, Sir, just lie still..." before the blackness rises, constricting his vision to an oval frame around her pale face and plotting hazel eyes.
All Jim can do with his last burning breath is laugh as the blackness closes over his sight. His Bones'll take care of him, one way or another, and he sinks into unconsciousness wondering with disintegrating curiosity if he'll ever wake up again, laughing all the way down.
Fandom: Star Trek XI
Rating: NC-17 with warnings.
Pairing: James T. Kirk/Dr. Leah McCoy; Chekov/Sulu, Kyle/Riley and Spock/Uhura alluded to.
Summary: The story of the Situlan revolt, or, Jim sees murder in his Bones's pretty eyes.
Content Advisory: Violence, destruction, dubiously consensual sex, nonconsensual sex. Genderswap. Mirrorverse.
Acknowledgements:
mardia and spikeface for asking the questions that led to this story; graceandfire for inspiration; tigerbright for ethical and plotting advice; and lomedet.Disclaimer: Neither the canon characters nor their settings belong to me.
Title from "Fire and Ice" by Robert Frost.
When Transport Chief Kyle lurches to his feet, legs gangly below his rough gray smock, and shouts, "The Captain! The Captain's come for us!" Jim frankly does enjoy the cheering. He spreads his arms wide as ten of his crew rush up to the force fields walling them into their cells, as ten voices call out the praise he deserves.
Meanwhile, of course, he glances around for the booby traps, but the panels controlling the force fields really seem to be the cheap ready-made sort that shut off when damaged; Jim phasers the nearest one and the field simply dissipates without even zapping the ensign inside the cell. "Escort our shipmates to the atrium," he murmurs to Suhail and Giotto as he strides down the hall blasting panel after panel, and his crew jump out cheering, shivering a little in the damp winter air.
Bones, of course, isn't cheering. She's waiting at the end of the row, one eyebrow cocked above the hottest little grumpy look, her bare rounded arms folded and the smock hanging off her curves like Risan lingerie. Jim has to shove down a pulse of pure, strange gladness at the sight of her standing so calmly, holding a square white case in her left hand; he flicks his gaze over her and doesn't see a single bruise he didn't put there, and when he gets back up to her face her plump-lipped scowl makes his grin stretch his cheeks. First things first, though, and he goes over her panel with extra care. If he had only one rigged forcefield he'd use it on his enemy's favorite, but hers appears to be exactly the same as the others.
If it's not, he thinks as he aims, he has twenty-seven captive Situlans who will wish for death a long time before he lets them have it. The panel explodes in the same spray of yellow sparks as all the others; Bones takes a breath and steps out of her cell, gingerly on her bare feet, and turns dark eyes up to him. "Captain," is all she says, all Jim lets her say as he grabs her arms and kisses her so hard his mouth crackles against hers. She makes an annoyed little 'mmph' sound, but she parts her water-sweet lips and returns the kiss.
Eventually he feels the rounded edge of the case she holds, pressing into his chest. There's still a job to do, and he owes himself some revenge, so Jim pushes Bones back enough to see what she's got. "Doctor," he says, imitating her cool tone. "A stasis case?"
"They got eleven of us and three fingers." She glances at the case. "A woman's, I think, and by the skintone and that shiny polish job I'm betting Lt. Commander Uhura's."
Just a few moments longer and the Security officers will have herded the rest of the crew around the corner, so Jim keeps her talking. "Yeah, they're Uhura's. She and Spock'll be glad to see them. But you made the Situlans give you a stasis case? No extra clothes or anything? Not that I mind this outfit on you."
Bones just snorts. "I told our hosts here--" She rolls her eyes with her usual exasperated vigor, and Jim feels a laugh threatening to bubble up. "They were gonna give me something to keep these fingers in until you brought us back to the Enterprise. I told them you were coming, too, that if they knew what was good for them they'd return us unharmed before you got here." She shakes her head, hair tumbling around her shoulders. "Poor impractical fools. I --" She looks down, at Jim's chest as if she can see through to his heart. "However you're thinking of handling them, I would rather not watch."
The corridor's clear. "I won't kill anyone in front of you, Bones." Jim curls his fingers around her shoulder, pulling her warm against his side. "C'mon, I want to get my crew back to my ship."
Bones nods, slumped heavy with relief against him, and lets Jim lead her back through the concrete-grey corridor. It's not until they reach the atrium that she looks up, and Jim watches her eyes widen as she sees her fellow abductees lined up against the wall, three of the Security detail keeping them at careful phaserpoint.
Jim makes a note of his Quartermaster and a few others who stand at ease, postures relaxed, grateful for the chance to die as Imperial officers rather than live as captives. He gives them an approving smile as he slides his hand across Bones's back, planting it between her shoulderblades to give her a little push. "Go on, Dr. McCoy," he tells her softly. She flashes him a tight-lipped glance, her guileless eyes too wide with confusion to glare, but obediently heads over, her shoulders twitching as she walks into the field of potential fire.
She's either just as transparent as he's always known her to be, or for the last five years she's consistently been the best liar he's ever met. Either way, Jim has more to deal with right now than just his Bones. He tears his gaze from her rumpled hair and careful feet, and glances past the splintered polymer and twisted metal of the former transporter pad to the two cells facing the atrium where his troops have detained the captured rebels behind appropriately crackly force fields. "Good work reprogramming these panels," he tells Lieutenant Riley, who nods crisply, gaze flicking past Jim to Kyle against the wall. Jim lets him get away with it for now; there will be time later, after this situation's been dealt with.
"You see, my people, how the Empire treats theirs," declares the blue-haired woman who gave herself the ridiculous title of First Among Equals. She's been carrying on ever since they caught her, trying to rally her troops' with bombast, but Jim sees nothing for her to work with but hollow eyes in pinched faces, ragged uniforms and drooping shoulders. They look like people who've been stretched too thin for too long, and their defeat is almost too effortless to be fun.
Almost, but not really. "Come here," he tells Firstie, who lifts her blue head high as her people huddle around her. "Now," he adds, and she gently pushes them aside and strides up to the force field, not flinching as it hisses and zaps at her. Jim watches the pops and flashes reflect in her shining golden eyes and decides he likes her as he reaches through the tingles, grabs her arm and drags her into the force field. Firstie's rebels gasp louder than she does, and the ones in the next cell rush their field as she stiffens and convulses on her way through, a sizzling electrical nimbus framing her rigid body; her heels dragging across the floor, she topples jerkily forward until she's completely free of the field, then collapses into a shivering huddle at Jim's feet.
The charging rebels bounce back into their cell. Their force field's not letting them through, not without Jim personally providing a pass. Riley outdid himself this time.
Jim generously gives Firstie a half minute to catch her breath and look up at him with what she thinks is a searing glare. He gets fiercer looks from a sleepy Bones, and he just laughs and waits another few seconds for her to straighten her trembling shoulders and say, "We are all prepared to die for Situla. You can destroy us individually but you cannot destroy our planet's freedom."
"Oh, stand up already." Firstie does, wavering to her feet, and Jim thumbs his phaser as he tells her, "Did you know the Ruling Council asked me to turn over all rebel leaders alive, as unharmed as possible?" She holds her head high, but there's fear in the depths of her lantern eyes. "I think they want to talk to you."
With that he phasers her, and she drops like a sack of rocks. From the corner of his eye he sees his Bones press her fingers to her mouth, other fist clenched beneath her elbow, while the rebels start up again with their cursing and wailing. "Shut up, she's only stunned," he tells them, and watches his people boggle in their turn, then forget that confusion to worry about their own skins as he stalks over to them. "As for you, soldiers of the Empire, one of you is a spy." They immediately toss suspicious glances at each other, and Jim keeps the edge of his vision on Riley, just in case the Lieutenant gets any ideas about helping Kyle. "One of you gave these idiots," he continues, tipping his head towards the rebels, "the names and locations of who to take." They're all staring at him now, Bones appearing no more or less shocked than the rest. "One of you sold out your fellow crewmembers to be yanked off the ship and plopped down naked in this mudhole." Not to mention the trick with the shields' timing that let the Situlans snatch them in first place, though Chekov has sent the most amusing updates as he figures that one out. "One of you endangered my Enterprise."
Jim takes a breath and resets his phaser. "If you step forward now and identify yourself, I'll make you a deal. One clean shot and it's all over. No Agony Booth, no interrogation sessions, no treason sentence, no Imperial execution. Just the swiftness of a phaser blast. Come on, make it easy on yourself, step forward." He looks into each of their eyes in turn, pulling his gaze along Bones no faster and no slower than anyone else, though he can feel her shocked face tugging at his attention, see her chest rise and fall at the corner of his eye.
Transporter tech Ensign LeBlang is breathing fast, too, and he and Kyle are the only two from the same department. Everyone else is a singleton.
Jim waits. The forcefields buzz. No one moves. After a full ten-count, Jim snaps out his communicator, holding it in his palm so everyone can hear. "Kirk to Uhura. Lieutenant Commander, do you have my spy?"
"I do, Captain." She sounds gleeful, but then the spy also cost her three fingers and some considerable pain. "Ensign Petzen LeBlang." Who predictably makes a break for it, but Sulu's big guys, Giotto and Tehimura, grab his arms and force him to his knees. Uhura continues, smooth and implacable over LeBlang's sputtering, "He sent all his communications from others' accounts -- and blind-copied himself on the messages."
"Dumbass," Jim agrees aloud with her implicit contempt. "Uhura, Dr. McCoy has something for you when we return. Kirk out." Jim watches Riley's lip-chewing as motions the Security detail to holster their weapons; he waits a few beats longer until he glances at the Lieutenant, and as soon as he nods permission, Riley quick-marches over to Kyle, stopping nearly too close to have room to salute. Jim could almost grin at how sweet they are.
Instead he grins for another reason, slowly pulling his lips back from his teeth as he crosses to LeBlang, who gibbers, "Captain, please, I can give you my contacts in Neidarcivita, I can--"
"Break it," Jim tells Giotto, who snaps LeBlang's arm like a stick, ending his words on a howl. "Wrench it," he tells Tehimura, who twists the other shoulder from its socket as LeBlang chokes and sobs. "Now cuff him and leave him to me. Disable the shield emitter and prepare for return to the Enterprise."
They drop LeBlang at Jim's feet and move off, and Jim balances the temptation to stomp the traitor's head until it caves satisfyingly under his boots with the need to catch up on today's wrecked schedule. Besides, he did promise Bones. "Sir, please," LeBlang whimpers thickly. "Don't you even want to know--"
"No," Jim says and steps past him, leaving LeBlang to blubber as he heads to where Bones stands by the wall. Her shoulder's rigid to the touch, but she doesn't shy away as Jim curves his hand around her arm and announces, "Enterprise, twenty-three to beam up." The shield goes down again, and they leave behind twenty-six Situlan idiots, an unconscious rebel leader and one whimpering spy.
After that it's just mop-up. As he follows her off the transporter pad, Jim slaps Bones's ass and tells her, "My quarters, 1900." She rolls her eyes at him, face forward and head high, and strides off to Medbay with the stasis case in hand. Rand meets him on the Bridge with coffee and an apple pastry, and as she turns to go he appreciatively squeezes her hip, nods to Spock and settles into his chair.
Chekov's back in his Navigator's seat, jittering hilariously, Sulu's doing pretty badly at hiding either her smirk or the fondness in it, and Jim chews on a sweet mouthful to keep from laughing. Between bites he says, "I know you want to blow shit up, Mr. Chekov, but just let me finish my snack here," and watches Sulu rub her nose to hide a grin as Chekov's ears turn pink.
"I await your orders, Captain," Chekov says stiffly, and Jim downs the rest of his coffee in a loud leisurely slurp, stands and strolls up to the helm.
"Well done, Lieutenant," he says, smacking Chekov's shoulder. "And now your patience will be rewarded. I want you to destroy every island in that archipelago except Aneida." Chekov glances up at that, his smoke-green eyes gleaming, and beyond him Sulu cocks a sleek eyebrow. "Work west to east, and take your time. I want everything incinerated down to the waterline.
"Sulu," Jim adds to his pilot, "use the high-res sensors to keep an eye out for any refugees for me, will you? I want to know where they run to." Jim steps back a pace so he won't drop crumbs in Chekov's freshly neatened curls, and finishes his pastry as Chekov gleefully burns the islands off Situla's surface, their coastlines crumbling on the map.
"Several watercraft just left the islands around Aneida, heading eastward towards the coast," Sulu reports as Jim chews the last bite. "Their trajectories suggest the northern port."
"Evethicivita," Jim reads off the map. "Let me know the second the first boat hits port. Chekov, lock onto Evethicivita's center. Ready..." As they watch the islands crumble further, superheated water and firestorms starting to add their measure of destruction, Jim imagines little flecks skimming across the map, fleeing the devastation with their cargoes of freaked-out refugees, running for the safety of the northern territory's big coastal port.
"First boat," Sulu announces.
"Fire, Mr. Chekov." Jim pictures all those shocked faces on all those overcrowded little vessels as they watch Evethicivita explode, crumbling into the ocean before them, and nearly laughs.
"Captain," T'Amair says with careful tonelessness, "We are being hailed by the Situlan Governing Council--"
"Tell them to sit and spin." Jim keeps looking up at the map. "All right. Computer, expand map to show all rebellious territories. Indicate in yellow, with the largest city of each in red. Also highlight Neidarcivita."
The belt of rebel territories stretches across three landmasses, most of the thirty or so clustered around a temperate ocean. Neidarcivita glows from an outwardly loyal, gray territory, but one directly to the southeast of a rebellious one.
"How much more shit would you like to blow up, Mr. Chekov?" Jim asks, and Sulu coughs a laugh at Chekov's delightedly shocked inhale. Ordinarily, having glassed a bunch of islands and reduced a city to smoking ruins, Jim would've considered his point made by now.
"As much as you will allow, Captain," Chekov says, voice almost calm despite the fact that he's nearly bouncing in his seat. Ordinarily, no one dares touch what belongs to Jim. Such as Bones.
"All right, then. Destroy Neidarcivita, then pick any six of those lit-up cities and destroy them too, one at a time." Chekov snickers as his fingers fly over his console, and Neidarcivita starts to disappear from the city limits inwards.
Jim returns to his chair, crossing his legs as he watches his Navigator have a great day at work. Sulu's watching too, from the corner of her eye, as she asks, "Captain, shall I monitor refugees from these cities as well?"
"Nah, let them run." He glances over at T'Amair, who sits ramrod straight in her chair, her face porcelain pale. Oh. "Ensign T'Amair? Speak freely."
"I have nothing to report, Captain," she says crisply, hands folded in her lap, shoulders squared, Bridge lights gleaming off her inky hair.
Skimming his eyes over her poised form, Jim makes a mental note. "When Lieutenant Chekov is finished, hail the Situlan Council." By now the rebels and LeBlang should've noticed the islands crumbling around them, so he adds, "Oh, and Chekov?" Who nods attentively as the third city implodes on the map, "after you're done with these, go back for Aneida Island and scour it down to the bedrock." Meanwhile, Jim flicks through the to-do list Rand put together while he was on-planet, smiling whenever Chekov whoops softly.
It looks like a fairly busy day, but the aftermaths of conquest usually are. When Chekov's done laying waste and T'Amair announces the Situlan Council, Jim sees fifteen of them this time, the woman with shiny red hair conspicuously absent, and the rest sallow or purplish. The saggy-faced oldest wobbles forward, his hands out in that universal gesture of pleading, and wavers, "Captain Kirk, we beg of you --"
"I'm sure you do," Jim says, "but I don't really have time for it, after I had to rescue my abducted crew and deal with a suborned spy among my people, all before breakfast. So let me just say, you have three standard months to eradicate any remaining rebellion and bring your entire world back into line as loyal Imperial subjects. To that end, I will remit fifteen percent of your tribute during this time." Some of the anger-purple ones are turning pale. "If you fail in any particular of this we will disband your august council, and install an Imperial governorship in its place. Any resistance whatsoever to Imperial action will be met with the destruction of eighty cities as a first measure, not a last."
By now they're all pale, and one in the back is crying so hard her green chignon's shaking. "We accept the Empire's benevolence," says the oldest Councilmember, word by word as if each tastes bad to spit out.
Jim grins. "Good, because we won't be nearly so benevolent next time. Enterprise out." He turns enough to ask, "Spock, are the surveillance buoys in place?"
"Indeed they are, Captain," Spock answers.
Warm with satisfaction, Jim relaxes into his chair for a moment before he says, "Then let's be on our way. Warp Five, Mr. Sulu," and gets to work on his upcoming busy day.
It's a long full day, but not a bad one. Some exhilarating action in the morning, reports full of success submitted in the afternoon, and the whole time his crew eye him with as much admiration as they do fear. All that and Bones to look forward to that night, grumbly and lovely and probably resentfully grateful beneath. At dinner she's not in the mess, but Jim doesn't think anything of it: without Joanna's socialization to consider Bones often eats alone or with her medical staff. He basks in the thanks of the rescued crew and their allies, including a delightfully blatant come-on from Lieutenant Vahey, and eventually disentangles himself to stroll into his quarters at 1900 on the dot.
They're dark and empty. "Computer, lights one hundred percent, and the location of my CMO."
"Chief Medical Officer Leah H. McCoy is currently in her quarters," the computer returns in its sweet synthetic voice, and just like that Jim's ebullient mood drains away as he punches the wall panel. "Kirk to McCoy," he snaps, and gets of all things, static. Someone's blocked his communications to her.
His first thought is pulsating rage; his second is to hack the comm system himself, but this is why he assembled his crew of experts. "Kirk to Uhura," he calls next.
He gets a much more appropriate and aggrieved sounding "Yes, Captain?" before the visual switches on. Uhura looks like he woke her up, the room dark behind her, her hair wrapped up in bright cloth and her pretty eyes bleary, but then she had a busy day of spy-catching and surgery and all.
"McCoy's line is blocking my communications," he says. "Who set her account to do this?"
Uhura's mouth twists, but she has the sense not to comment. She divides the screen, narrowing his sight of her as she intently types one-handed into her console, occasionally humming. "Ensign T'Amair," she answers at length. Of fucking course. "She tried to cover her tracks but... yes, T'Amair. She also tried to make it appear to be my doing."
"And it wasn't," Jim says flatly. "Since McCoy gave you back your fingers and all." Not that he really expects she'd be that stupid, or Security would've delivered this call for him.
"I don't do comm-blocks, but I've undone this one for you, Captain." Uhura looks up at him, her smile gleaming and professional. He doesn't need telepathy to hear her speculations.
He bares his teeth. "Thank you, Lieutenant Commander. I'll handle your discipline problem for you, since you're still convalescing. Besides, you already have plenty of opportunity to wrangle a Vulcan." Her smirk congeals. "Kirk out." He smacks the panel off and stalks back and forth across his quarters a few times before he can even call Security, awash in the same dark anger as when the Situlan rebels thought to deny him his Bones. No one gets to do that. Including her. Especially her.
Eventually Tehimura comms for his orders regarding T'Amair and Jim can't even think of anything to do with the girl. For the moment he tells them to lock T'Amair up until he says otherwise, then heads out to Bones's quarters, so blinded by pulse-pounding fury that he almost doesn't remember that she gave up her double quarters now that Joanna's no longer with her. When he reaches the correct room his first try at entry is refused, and thinking he mistyped the code he punches it in again.
Refused again, and this time he looks at the error message more carefully. "INVALID COMMAND CODE 869," it says, and he recognizes one of the standard override blockers. Any redshirt could have taught her how, or set it up for her.
Jim has to laugh at that. "Oh, Bones," he mutters to himself, rubs his palms together, and bleeds off a bit of steam breaking in. It only takes him a few minutes, and there aren't even any electric shocks or booby traps, but he's feeling a bit less keyed up by the time the door slides open for him.
Her quarters are dark, too. "Computer, lights fifty percent," Jim orders, and she groans as he sees her, curled up with a pillow over her head, a bottle of something amberly alcoholic and a tumbler on the floor by the bed.
Both are upright, the bottle mostly full. Bones mumbles something that sounds like "I should've fucking gotten drunk after all," before she tenses and sits up, slamming the pillow down. She's wearing some long white thing with a seam closure up her chest and buttons at her throat and wrists, her hair is a disheveled dark cloud around her head, her eyes are red, her face is red, she's furious and gorgeous and he can feel the blood shunting from his brain to his dick even before she snarls, "Get out."
"Wow, that's insubordinate. Even for you." Jim strolls over, pulling off his vest along the way. "It's probably my fault, though, everyone knows I spoil you rotten." He's never had her in these quarters before, because her efforts to shelter Joanna were just so terribly cute and then he'd settled into the habit of making her come to him. Still, there's a first time for everything.
Bones sidles out of her bed, revealing a long white fluffy nightgown like something from five hundred years ago, all shapeless modesty trailing around her ankles. "I mean it, Kirk. Get out of my quarters." Her left wrist's unbuttoned, and Jim guesses there's a hypo hiding in the sleeve. "I'm not -- I'm not dealing with you, not tonight. Not -- no."
There are times when Jim would be amused by this level of defiance in his fucktoy, the chance for an invigorating game of cat and mouse, but today was really too long for this shit, and he wants her now. "Bones, come here. That's an order."
She keeps the bed between them, and the damn nightgown hides her legs, he can barely tell her stance by the placement of her toes. "No," she answers, head held high, squaring her shoulders just like Firstie did, her back as straight as T'Amair's.
This is getting irritating. "Over a dozen of the crew thanked me today, you know. Vahey offered to suck my dick. I would've expected a little more gratitude from you."
Her eyes flare furiously wide, that inhale is epic enough to show her breasts heaving even through the Nightie of Chastity. "Grateful?" Bones shrieks, and she hasn't lost it at him in... awhile. "You want me to be fucking grateful, Kirk?" Her anger buffets him like a physical force, warmth tingling along his skin, and maybe he's up for the cat and mouse after all.
"That's Captain, and considering I personally conducted your rescue, yeah, I kinda do." He lunges across the bed, but that stupid gown doesn't quite billow like he thought it would, flicking teasingly against his fingertips as she skips back.
On the other hand, the view's magnificent, her blazing eyes and flailing hands as the rant finally comes in full force, and Jim lies on his belly on Bones's warm sheets and lets her yell. "Considering! Did you even consider the noncombatants, the children, all those people who had nothing to do with that stupid rebellion?" As he waits for her to possibly make some sense, Jim kicks off his boots. "Just stop it! Stop it! Do you really think you can destroy eight cities full of innocent people and just come wandering in here for a kiss and a squeeze?"
Oh, so that's what she's so mad about. "I subdued the Situlans, Bones. I did what it took." Not that he needs to justify himself to her, but... "I got you back."
"Me? Me? Oh don't you goddamn tell me you did this for me!" There's her hypo, a bright patch of silver in her waving hand. "Who the Hell do you think I am, Helen of Troy? Am I supposed to thank you for destroying half a goddamn planet? Is that supposed to be some kind of fucked up compliment?" He sits up, and she flinches back another step, bumping into her desk. "Don't -- don't lay all those people you killed on me." Her voice cracks again, deflating, her arms sink to her sides. "Just don't. Just leave me the hell alone."
"No." Jim pushes himself off the soft bed. "No, really, this ship you're on is mine, and so are you." She ducks away from his hands, dodging towards the door, and as amusing as the thought is of her running down the corridor like an antique ghost, it's time to underscore words with action. He lines up his aim and catches her forearm; she brings the hypo in underhanded, making it harder to deflect without making contact, a good move, but he successfully smacks it away and pins her wrists to the wall beside her hips. She curses and thrashes and twists but doesn't even kick him, because she's his Bones, and he pulls her in and winds his arms around her, pressing his mouth to her hot ear as he murmurs, "You go ahead and fight me, Bones. I'm not letting go."
"Let go, you murderous bastard," she chants, writhing in his arms, "leggo, leggo, leggo." She kicks the air as he hoists her, struggling to break his grip instead of trying to hurt him, not that she'd get far if she tried. He tosses her onto the bed in a splash of white frills and lunges before she can roll further than her belly, pinning her with his weight.
Finally she elbows him in the ribs, a bright jab of sweet pain, and he grunts and laughs, cherishing the ache as he stretches to pin her hands, to catch her tender earlobe between his teeth. "So you want it rough tonight?" gets him a satisfyingly furious little scream, her visible eye wide and rolling as he presses her soft twisting body down into the mattress.
"I want you off me," she gasps, accent thickening, "get off me, get out." He lets go her hands to slide the miles of fluffy fabric out from between them and she starts pushing again, bucking against him as she tries to get enough leverage to tip him off her back, as if that's going to happen.
"Did you get this thing from a museum?" Jim wads the Chastity Nightie up around her shoulders, kneeling on her calves to hold her. "Take it off or I will."
"No," is the only answer he gets, apparently Bones's word for tonight. "No, no, stop it, no," as he grabs the collar and rips down the back, as he hauls it over her thrashing head and yanks it up to one buttoned wrist. He has to grip with both hands to rip it free, planting an elbow between her shoulderblades because she won't hold still and she won't stop saying "no."
Finally he can toss the stupid nightgown over the side and feel all her cushiony skin slide against his as she squirms, still fighting. He's actually a little breathless, his blood rushing with exhilaration; she hasn't fought him like this in a long time, and every twist rubs her panty-clad ass over his aching dick. "C'mon, Bones," Jim whispers as he rips his trousers open and shimmies them down, "I'll never leave you, you know that."
She shudders hard, her next breath a sob, and tries to squirm up from beneath him, keeps on fighting. He grabs her panties and peels them down as she twists away before he gives chase up the bed, catching her on her knees against the wall as tears start streaming down her face. "No," she gulps wetly, "No, no, get off me, no," each repetition a flare of heat beneath his skin, a throb in his chest.
"C'mon," Jim finds himself muttering back, his forehead pressed to her temple as he knees her thighs apart, as she keeps shaking and struggling even though all she manages is sliding that gorgeously rounded ass against him. "C'mon," he grits through clenched teeth as he grips her waist and lines himself up, and she's not wet for him but he's never minded a little burn. Her voice hitches, high and pained, she tries to dig her knees into the mattress for leverage as if she could ever get away from him. As if he'll ever let her go. "C'mere," he growls, tightening his hold, pinning her wrist against the wall as he jerks her hips back and gets inside her.
"No!" Bones screams, barely a word before it shatters into sobs, as she flutters tight around him, her ribcage shuddering under his. He gasps into her hair, sweet and savory with her sweat, and shudders in return, pleasure already pooling at the base of his spine. It takes him a long moment to get his breath back enough to start moving, his abdomen clenching with every frictiony stroke, to get his eyes open and see her bloodless-knuckled grip on the pillow, the shiny tracks of tears down her face and her parted lips red as a bruise. "No," she whimpers, tense and trembling even though she's stopped trying to get away from him.
"Bones." The warmth blooming in Jim's chest pushes her name out of him. "Bones, say yes." He lets go her shifting-boned wrist to tuck his fingers under her chin, tugging her mouth towards his. "Say yes," he breathes as he rocks his hips into hers, her lips full and quivering against his. "Say yes."
She trembles when he kisses her, her mouth, her skin, all around him. She shakes as he moves his lips as gently as he can, thrusts as evenly as he can despite the fire racing down his nerves. Then she gasps through her nose and viciously bites his lip, shredding it between her teeth.
Jim doesn't rear away from the pain, just another electric rush down his nerves. He chuckles into Leah's mouth, reaching up to hold her head steady as he pushes into the kiss, reaches down to grip her curved thigh as he lets his hips piston, driving into her, chafing up pleasure. She cries out sharply into his mouth, sliding high as he shoves harder, and he growls as he comes with their lips sealed together, sunk as deeply into his Bones as he can get.
Every pulse ripples all the way through his body, sparks flying behind his eyelids, crackling over his skin in crazed fragmented electricity, engulfing him in searing bliss. He shudders and collapses across her back like he's been stunned, like he's dying, and the tremors loosen his fingers enough to let her wrench her head away, coughing the way she did this morning. Her face is probably red again, but it's too much bother to lift his leaden eyelids and see; he smooths a hand across her wet cheek, pushing her hair back behind her ear, and she makes an unsteady little noise in her throat that he feels as vibration more than he hears.
For awhile Jim lies there downright limply, Bones breathing beneath him. She didn't come, or even get close, and usually he's more unselfish than this but tonight maybe he'll leave it alone. Eventually she snuffles an annoyed little Bones-ish noise, and he smiles into her hair as he scoots off her. "God damn," Jim mutters, scrubbing his cheek against her pillow for the faint rasp of his stubble and the scent of her hair, "if it makes you this lively I'll have to conquer a planet every day."
For a second he doesn't hear anything but his heartbeat thumping in his ears. Then Bones gasps, he opens his eyes, and her eyebrows look ready to fly off her face. Grinning, Jim decides to let her get a slap in, or even punch him as he watches her fist wad up tightly, but her face crumples and, shit, she starts crying again, covering her eyes with her hands as she curls up. "Fuckit, come here," Jim sighs, pulling her against him, and she stays folded up tight for three whooping sobs before she sags into his hold, pressing her face into his chest, hot tears and hysterical weeping against his heart.
She feels infinitely fragile when she cries like this, but she never breaks. Jim tangles their legs together and Bones lets him, he strokes her hair as she shakes in his arms. Eventually she mutters something against his chest that he expects to be some version of how much she hates him, and he almost answers, 'No you don't,' before he realizes the syllables don't match up. He thinks about it, and what she mumbled is, "You didn't have to."
Jim groans. "Shut up, Bones," he says patiently, almost too tired to go another round with her. She looks up at him, her eyes huge, her face blotchy and smeared wet, and he thinks about telling her she's beautiful just to see her gather herself into sarcasm, wonders why he's explaining even as he adds, "I had to."
She just persists, because she's her stubborn self, "Not the cities. They were beaten, you didn't have to."
"Bones," he sighs, tipping her onto her back, stroking her messy hair off her hot forehead. His chest is wet with her tears, his lip throbs from her bite, her wide dark eyes pull too much honesty out of him. "They took you. I would destroy planets for you."
She shuts those eyes, her forehead creasing as if he's Agonizing her. "Please, goddammit, no," she whispers. "I don't want that. I would never want that."
Despite her lingering stubbornness she's winding down, so Jim just lays his head beside hers, tucking his hand around her soft breast, gently thumbing her nipple. "This is how it is," he whispers into the curve of her ear, as his mother once told him when he was a child begging not to be returned to the Imperial Academy, a very long time ago.
She shudders once, all over, and whispers back, "Then I wish I were dead," but she still falls asleep in his arms.
Five days later, Jim sits in his chair, chin propped on his knuckles as he watches stars rush across the viewscreen, and thinks about Bones. Careful not to daydream too intently, he's arranged himself in a formidable brooding pose. Anyone watching him would think he's contemplating the upcoming mission, but he's already planned as much as possible for the Jemnipi revolt; now they just have to arrive and see the sitch on the ground, and everyone on the Bridge knows what they need to do to prepare. Jim leaves his crew to it, listening the soft susurrus of breathing under the harder clicks and woops of the electronics, and thinks about Dr. McCoy in her Medbay, presiding over her own bright lights and beeping machines.
The last time he saw her in person was in her office there, the day after their disagreement over the Situlans. When he woke up she was still out cold, her cheeks chapped from all that crying, and he left her a message to drink some water and not to step into Medbay until 1200. When he strolled down there at 1530, everyone gave him the Level 2 worried glances from the corners of their eyes, which usually happens when Bones is so magnificently pissed off she's shouting and waving her arms at everything in reach, but he didn't hear even an echo of her anywhere. Finally Nurse Temelae broke the usual Medbay policy of not meeting his eyes and directed him with one cool gray glance to the CMO's office, and when he stepped in Bones stared up at him from under bruised eyelids. "I owe you," he told her with his best cocky smile, but she just nodded, full mouth a soft line, her body almost limp in his hands as he pushed her up onto her desk, as he peeled her uniform trousers down her legs and knelt between her thighs.
He would've let her repair it if she'd wanted, but she left herself bruised, a little swollen under his tongue, and his bitten lip throbbed as he got down to business; she made him work harder than usual for it, but soon he had her keening and clutching at his hair like always, had her plush thighs tight around his ears as she came against his mouth. He stood up licking her off his lips, with a bellyful of satisfaction and a vague hot thought of wrapping her legs around his waist, but she'd folded her arms around herself and stared blankly down at her bare wet thighs. He had to say, "McCoy," to get her to look at him, and her gaze was hollow, distant, focused on something beyond the hull.
She goes quiet like that sometimes, but she's always back to normal after a few days. Jim kissed her quickly and ordered her on half duty, and her eyebrows didn't even crinkle, she just nodded. He left, grinning at her skittish staff, making a mental note to leave her alone for a few nights.
It wasn't like he wasn't getting laid, after all. He took Vahey up on the blowjob, shared a glass of distilled degreaser with Scotty as they chatted about the freshest young Engineers, and cornered Ensign Crepheli in the rec room because the kid's blue eyes and dark curls remind him of something he once found while hacking his way through the Academy records, a holo of one Cadet Christopher Pike. However, he's pretty sure he knows all of that bastard's bastards and Crepheli's not one of them; at any rate, once Jim got the ensign pinned and taking it beneath him, the kid hollered and swore and spurted like no one but himself.
Now, Jim considers his options, Maybe he'll go find Crepheli again tonight. Maybe he should stop daydreaming, when movement at the edge of his vision actually startles him and it's more effort than usual to keep from jumping. It's only shift change, although Jim's senior staff all know to be back on duty in seven hours; Jim's already sent Spock off for his beauty fumigation, and might as well grab a nap himself. "Mr. Sulu, you have the conn," he says, pushing himself up against gravity gone a touch strong. "And stay out of my chair." Sulu barks a laugh, narrowing her eyes.
As Jim steps into the corridor he spots T'Amair heading towards him, her head bowed, and he smiles at the shiver that ripples through her as she sees him. Vulcans do their best by Surak not to have tells, but after watching her shudder for two hours in the Agony Booth he's pretty sure he's learned a couple of hers, such as the stiffness in her neck when she lifts her head and salutes with a soft dry, "Captain."
"Looking good, Ensign," he says jovially as he passes her. If he'd let the Security officers on duty conduct her discipline and made Bones leave the bruises alone per standard, there would still be fading yellow and brown smudges across T'Amair's jade-porcelain skin. He gave her the choice, just for fun as his Security slavered in silent hope; when she chose the Booth he was just about to say 'Security it is!' when a memory hit him of Bones's big dark eyes and stubborn bruised mouth, without even the nice warm surge of desire that usually accompanies mental images of his naked CMO.
So he leniently Boothed T'Amair, and now as he watches her step onto the Bridge he realizes he could've touched her as she passed him, her bare shoulder or flexing waist, but he didn't lay a finger on any of that unmarked skin.
Jim considers his own whimsy. Bones called him 'notional' the last time he got her really drunk. He could have Vahey again, or Crepheli, or T'Amair or Rand, nearly anyone on his ship to relax him before his nap, but he isn't even in the turbolift before he decides he'd rather sweeten it instead.
This time his Captain's code lets him right in. Bones is in her bed again, facing away from him, atop rather than under the pillow this time, the fifteen percent lights just enough to show that tonight's ridiculous Chastity Nightie is pink. "You gonna tear this one off me too?" she mumbles without otherwise moving.
"Not if you take it off yourself," Jim retorts, peeling out of his own clothes. Bones unbuttons her wrists and shucks off the armful of nightgown, dropping it over the side, and he slides in with her and throws an arm over her waist, tucking himself to her back.
She lies there as rigidly as a block of wood, but her hair smells too good for him to do anything but breathe and relax. This is her room and she could have anything hidden in it, any weapon she wants within reach, but that thought just laces Jim's blood with a dose of excitement to make up for the sex they're not currently having. He spreads his hand out over her belly, feeling the tender curve, and settles in. They can fuck when he wakes up, he thinks, get his blood moving before he has to go quash this latest rebellion.
"What're you waiting for?" Bones eventually asks in a sluggish drawl.
"Go to sleep," Jim mutters, his face sunk in her silky hair, and she does.
When Jim wakes up he doesn't want to move, he's so warm. Bones is curled up into him, her cheek against his shoulder and her arm tucked under his, her legs tangled with his beneath her light sheets, and he lets himself drift for a moment before he even remembers to wonder if he's been drugged.
But his vision's clear, he doesn't feel sluggish or heavy, just warm in her arms. He inhales and grins, glancing at the chrono beyond her head, and it's a little too late for even a quickie before he goes. They can save it for the victory celebration afterwards, he thinks as he nuzzles into her tumbled hair and kisses her temple, easing his arms away from her.
She sighs, waking up a little, exhaling softly over his chest. Then she flinches all over, the lines creasing back in across her forehead as her eyes snap wide open, and she pulls her arms in and wiggles back like she woke up hugging a snake.
"Oh, for fuck's sake," Jim snaps, grabbing her bicep to hold her, pressing his fingers in so she'll notice. "Stop sulking already."
Bones winces again and stops squirming, vibrating and still. "Well, excuse me for--" Her teeth click, she shuts them so hard, bright spots of red rising on her cheeks under her glinting, furious eyes.
"For what, Bones?" Jim asks, letting his voice settle low and dangerous as he drags her back to himself and wraps his arm around her. "What?" She shuts her eyes and presses her lips together like that'll close off her face; he lets go her arm to brush his fingertips over her temple, as feather-light as he can so she'll shiver harder, stroking her hair back from her ear and cheek as he studies her anger. "Are you still mad over Situla Secunda? Really?" She jerks her head sideways as if she could lie to him. "Wasn't that last week's planet? A proactive CMO should plan for today's, don't you think?"
"An effective captain should arrive on time for his invasion, shouldn't he?" she retorts, like she's trying to make him hurt her. He just laughs and pinches her cheek hard enough to leave a red mark, and when she gasps he kisses her, sweeping his tongue into her sleep-tart mouth, and lets go to get up.
He considers but discards the thought of locking her quarters as he steps into her shower to grab a quick sonic, and sure enough, he doesn't hear any tiptoeing around, no woosh of the door opening and closing. When he steps out his Bones is right where he left her, curled up in her sheets in the middle of her bed, arms crossed across her chest and knees drawn up. She watches him get dressed, her eyes bright as polished stones and her mouth still set in that plush frown, and he watches her watch him as he straps on his dagger and knots his sash; she looks so irresistibly tender and surly, livid fingermarks rising on the otherwise unblemished skin of her arm, that it's all he can do to step back instead of forward. "You should wish me luck, you know," he says as he leans against the wall by her door. "If the Jemnipi behave I won't have to destroy any of their cities."
"Good luck," Bones says, her voice flat. Jim grins and goes over, grabs a fistful of hair and pulls her up for one last kiss, and when he turns away he can feel her gaze scalpel-bright on his back as he leaves.
Jim staggers off the transporter pad under the last fumes of his own power, blood surging through his fingers and the air searing the ragged-edged slash across his chest, but there his Bones is, waiting for him. She's snapping out orders like usual, but he looks into her cool eyes under uncrinkled eyebrows and feels the warning prickle that woke him a week ago, and this final adrenaline surge is all wild exhilaration. It hurts like grandmother-buggering Hell to laugh but Jim absolutely must, when after all that Jemnipi assassin's efforts he finally sees his death shimmering in his Bones's pretty eyes.
Her eyebrows crinkle down as her orderlies catch him and lift him to a gurney, as her mouth shapes familiar words he can't hear through the roaring tide in his ears, as she moves and works like she's going to put him back together one more time. But if she really wants to kill him this is her chance, and he can see her seeing it as she leans over him, a hypo in her hand, the other perfectly warm on his cheek.
There's no sting when she applies the hypo to his neck, and that gentleness can't mean anything but trouble. The roar recedes long enough for him to hear her, " -- take care of you, Sir, just lie still..." before the blackness rises, constricting his vision to an oval frame around her pale face and plotting hazel eyes.
All Jim can do with his last burning breath is laugh as the blackness closes over his sight. His Bones'll take care of him, one way or another, and he sinks into unconsciousness wondering with disintegrating curiosity if he'll ever wake up again, laughing all the way down.
