Title: The White Horse (6/?)
Author: klmeri
Fandom: Star Trek AOS
Characters: Kirk, Spock, McCoy
Summary: Jim Kirk was a strange man. A silent man. No one knew much about him or, if they did, were not willing to say what they did know, especially to the town’s newest magical occupant. Not that Leonard McCoy cared. He had an old curse to track down and unravel by the year’s end. Meanwhile a killer was tracking him. AU.
Previous Parts: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5
or at AO3

Part of him drifted down the city sidewalk looking for something unfamiliar, something amiss. The rest of him, in the eyes of passers-by, trudged with the usual unfriendly gait, his mouth a flat line and eyes fixed firmly ahead. His entire aura was a clear warning to all to mind their own business before they even considered approaching him. Not that anyone had minded his business for a long time, except a select few—and in most cases, those few had not done so out of kindness.

James Tiberius Kirk didn’t care. He was following an itch between his shoulder blades that worsened with each step he took. It led him unerringly to a small shop he only frequented when necessary, when restless sleep dwindled to no sleep at all and, despite the number of times he blinked or shook his head, his nightmare stood placidly in the corner of his bedroom, watching him.

“You’re back,” the owner said as a bell above the shop door announced his entrance. Her tone of voice was neutral. Him being there meant profit for her.

Jim grunted.

The woman understood his grunt was more of demand for where is it? than hello. “I ought to have known,” she muttered, but left her station at a long wooden counter and slipped around one of the cluttered towers of junk taking up space in her store. After a moment she came back with a figurine that fit snugly in the palm of her hand. She set it down in front of him without any care for how delicate it might be. “Guy who brought it in said it’s an antique.” Her look grew shrewd. “Fifty.”

He knew the moment he picked up the tiny horse the woman was cheating him because it wasn’t heavy enough to be anything but plastic. Closer inspection revealed the paint job was chipped badly around the hooves.

Still, he held the child’s toy, a thing hardly worth shit, and the feeling between his shoulder blades subsided. Jim couldn’t leave it behind, had to have it regardless of cost, and she had already known that about him.

He didn’t give her a kind look when he dug two twenties and a ten-dollar bill out of his wallet and laid them on the counter, and he didn’t stay to take his receipt. The owner might have been laughing as the door swung shut behind him.

Clutching his latest purchase, Jim didn’t look right or left as he strode back the way he’d come. He could feel eyes following him, curious glances and long, speculative stares. He was used to ignoring the attention he garnered, even as his ears caught some of the whispers which resulted from it.

“Who’s that man, mommy?” a young voice chirped nearby.

“Shhh. No one, sweetheart. No, don’t look at him. Just keep going.“

Invariably, the mother would cross the street to put him as far out of range of her child as possible, like they could be contaminated by proximity. Superstition always superseded reason, and nobody had ever judged him reasonably.

Strange man, the townspeople of Riverside thought when they saw him. Eccentric.

Jim was no fool. Eccentric was the polite version of crazy.

But these normal people, these ordinary men and women who had never had anything extraordinary happen to them, didn’t know Jim well enough. They did not know the things about him which really mattered.

His fingers tightened around the miniature horse, its sharp edges cutting deeper into his flesh.

What mattered was what he held, he reminded himself. Everything—and everyone—else could go to hell.

Leonard McCoy drove into the outskirts of Riverside, Iowa under the stony eye of a full moon with the expectation he was skirting a lot of trouble. Subsequently, he was run off the road.

The sudden appearance of something indistinct but large and unnaturally luminescent gave him hardly any time to react. He swerved sideways toward a ditch, almost went over it, and afterward was left stunned and shaking inside his idling vehicle. Once he had enough presence of mind to pry his stiff fingers off the steering wheel and open his eyes, he found himself suspended by his seatbelt, the nose of his car firmly pointed at the ground. Climbing out proved to be awkward.

Although he was unhurt (his gift told him that much), Leonard rotated his limbs with careful motions and tested them with body weight. His muscles refused to stop trembling but he figured that was par for the course after being in an accident. It would take a while for the shock to subside. Overall, that seemed a small price to pay to still have his life.

Leonard left the ditch and stood silently by the road. The refracted light from his car’s headlamps was too entangled with the weeds to reveal much of the landscape. Not that there was much to see, he thought to himself as his eyes adjusted. Trees crowded on either side of the highway, bringing a darkness even moonlight could not ease.

He rubbed the back of his hand across his mouth.

Whatever had dashed in front of his car was long gone. Had it leapt into the woods? But there was no sound from the tree line, no rustling leaves or snapping branches animals caused as they passed through the underbrush.

Leonard realized then he had no idea what he had come close to hitting. There was not an impression left upon the back of his eyelids beyond a strange, empty brightness. He didn’t know what that meant, but also conceded he wasn’t in the frame of mind to contemplate the different possibilities. He turned his attention to his car stuck halfway in the ditch.

“How the fuck am I going to get you out of there?”

The answer was obvious: he couldn’t by himself. Nor could he or should he hitchhike in the middle of the night in an unpopulated area to find help. That was asking for trouble, or more of it, as was dialing the highway patrol.

Dropping to the edge of the ditch, Leonard braced his head in his hands. It would be several hours until dawn, and the last of his gas station coffee was leaking into the car stereo. Really, this wasn’t the best moment in the most important mission of his life. He supposed he would have to see what else came his way.

In the end, he donned his jacket for warmth (it was unseasonably cold to him but maybe not for Iowa; Leonard didn’t know their weather patterns) and propped himself against the side of his car to wait. The crickets and bullfrogs kept him company. Once in a while, there was an ululation from the woods. A bobcat, he convinced himself, but shivered each time he heard it.

Man was everywhere. He was a stain on the earth, and the reason the air reeked of iron and copper. But he fed the magic, and the magic wanted feeding, badly.

So long, so long—the waiting could not go on.

Magic lifted its head and cried out, having seen a Man through its mismatched eyes, first through the blue, then through the green.

Leonard was startled to consciousness when the ground began to tremble beneath him. Though his brain was tired, it made the immediate connection. Jumping to his feet, he stood by the road and waved his arms to hail the eighteen-wheeler.

It didn’t slow down, spewing gravel and dirt in its wake. Leonard dragged an arm across his eyes and cursed.

Sunrise was less than three hours away. He had hoped he would be in a motel bed by then but apparently no one in this region looked kindly upon a stranger lurking by a ditch and a wrecked car. If anything, it seemed his luck had gotten worse since he crashed.

He lifted his gaze up to the night sky and eyed the heavy clouds crawling across the moon. The air smelled metallic as usually did before a thunderstorm.

Rain. Wasn’t that going to be fucking lovely?

At least he hadn’t locked himself out of his only shelter. He jerked open the door to the car’s backseat and crawled inside. He had to brace his shins against the back of the driver’s seat to keep from sliding into the floorboard. Drawing a cigarette and his lighter out of his pocket, he smoked with the door wide open. It kept him occupied for all of five minutes before he crushed the leftover butt between the calluses of his forefinger and thumb and tossed it outside. Leonard half-hoped somebody would show up to arrest him for littering.

An agonizing twenty minutes later, the skyline lit up again, headlights approaching from a distance. Leonard sat in his car, watching the light grow closer, listening to the whine of an engine. He thought about moving, but raindrops had just started to hit the windows. Likely, it was just another asshole who would keep going, he thought. Now that there would be mud puddles from the rain, the least he could do was save his clothes and himself the humiliation of getting splashed.

The car stopped.

Or rather, it was more accurate to say the car choked and gurgled and came to an abrupt halt as if it had died. The man who poked his head out of a rolled-down window had a wild beard hiding half a tanned face and a dark green ball cap tugged low over his eyes.

“What’s this, then?” he called Leonard’s way. “Had a bit of car trouble?”

“Accident,” Leonard said, sliding out of the car to get a better look at the potential ride. “Deer.”

The man nodded like that was all he really needed to hear. “They’re plentiful this time of year, and you never see ’em coming until they’re right in your way.”

“Ain’t that the truth,” he drawled back, relieved but also oddly unsettled by the easy conversation. “I’m just glad I didn’t actually hit it.” He gestured at himself. “Otherwise I’d be in worse shape, I’m sure.”

“Where’re you coming from?”

Leonard had expected to be asked where he was headed. He didn’t change his stance so as to remain non-threatening and shrugged carelessly. “From Illinois, actually.”

“Well, welcome to Iowa.”

“Yeah.” Leonard allowed for a pause. “I saw a sign a ways back that said Riverside was a couple of miles ahead. I thought about walking but…” He shrugged again. “It’s dark, and you know…” He trailed off.

The man in the ball cap grinned. His teeth were shockingly bright behind the beard. “Yeah. Predators.”

The crickets and bullfrogs went silent. Leonard did the same.

The older style car which had been sitting in a low idle suddenly gave a low roar as if its driver had stepped on the gas pedal. The man who was at the wheel said to Leonard, in a rather good-natured tone, “Here’re your options, kid. I can keep going and when I hit the next town, I’ll give a call to the police and let ’em know where to find you—”

Leonard didn’t move because there was something in the man’s face that dared him to do exactly that.

“—or you can ride with me into town yourself, and your business stays your business.”

“Is that a threat?”

“In this day and age, most people don’t get stranded unless they’re out of options to help themselves. You’ve got a cell phone, don’t you?”

He didn’t answer that.

“See,” the man said, “knew I was right.”

Leonard laid one of his hands against the cool metal of his car, feeling his heart rate increase and not liking it. “Listen, mister, while I appreciate you stopping… I think you should move on.”

“Have I scared you?” The man barked out a laugh. “My apologies. I didn’t mean to.” When the chuckle died, he added, “But you ought to take me up on my offer.”

Leonard replied tightly, “No, thanks.”

Why did he have to attract the county psycho? And why was the tire iron locked in the damn trunk? Stupid, Leonard, stupid!

Just as he’d feared, said psycho hummed under his breath and opened his car door.

Shit, shit, shit!

Leonard clutched hard at the lighter in his right hand, prepared to fight or run or do both. The woods were looking more appealing by the second. He could get lost in there but at the same time lose his pursuer.

Psycho’s hands went up in a gesture of oh look, prey’s already shitting itself, let’s not frighten it further. “You all right there? You look a little green.”

“Get back in the car. I’m carryin’,” Leonard warned him.

“So am I.”

Oh fuck.

Leonard swallowed, set his feet shoulder-width apart, and felt a spark that might be an oncoming adrenaline rush. Run or fight?

The decision was made for him in the form of another pair of headlights. They lit up the far curve of the road from the opposite direction. Leonard saw his chance in that spilt second, didn’t think too hard about it, and took off running headlong toward the newcomer.

“Hey!” came the unhappy cry from behind him. “Get back here!”

He heard a second pair of boots hit the asphalt, pound after him. Leonard found an extra burst of speed from the pure adrenaline now pumping full-force through his veins and let his long legs eat up the distance. The second car came into full view; it was dark enough in color to blend in with the nighttime except for the way the moon was reflected on its hood. Whoever was driving saw Leonard, or saw something human-shaped running at the car. It slowed down, braking to a stop some yards away.

Leonard pushed himself to cover that last bit of distance as quickly as he could. He would make it, he would make it, he would—

The driver got out.

Leonard noticed the trench coat first, a plain tie peeking underneath. Then he saw the dark hair and the face made of unforgiving angles. He pulled up short in horror.

Spock stared back, saying nothing, giving nothing away in his expression or his eyes. His fingers, however, clenched around the frame of the car door. Since Leonard couldn’t make sense of much in the dark, he imagined the knuckles had turned white with suppressed rage.

It was only when Spock’s gaze shifted past Leonard that the spell broke between them. Leonard remembered he was supposed to breathe. Ironically, he couldn’t take in enough air.

Spock spoke with a deadly calm as he pushed aside the flap of his coat to reveal a holster strap. “Drop the weapon.”

Leonard almost laughed, knowing it must be panic that was causing his hands to shake. Gun, what fucking gun? Like Spock needed that excuse…

Then he heard the gun being cocked behind him and the words that followed it: “No can do… Fed.”

Spock took aim with his own handgun from behind the car door.

Leonard immediately skittered to the side, because he had no idea what was happening (except for the fact he was fairly certain Spock wanted to murder him), but the muzzle of Spock’s weapon didn’t follow him. As he turned, he caught a glimpse of his crazy would-be assailant in the ball cap. The man was grinning behind his bushy beard and bearing a shotgun across the crook of his arm.

Where the hell had he pulled that from?

Spock’s eyes narrowed. “Drop the weapon, sir.”

Leonard shuffled back a little farther from the stand-off, swallowing his next curse, and took a moment to delineate his odds. When he focused on Spock, he observed with some surprise that the frenetic, dark energy was missing. Spock was ordinary—or as ordinary as federal agents generally were.

But the other guy was not ordinary. Leonard was pretty sure the eyes of a normal man didn’t glow that vividly in the dark.

Leonard’s scrutiny did not go unnoticed. “So what’s it gonna be now?”

It took Leonard a second to realize he was being asked that question. “What?”

The man had a toothy grin. He didn’t once take his eyes off Spock, even when speaking to somebody else. “Do you want a ride or not, kid?”

If this was a dream, it was the worst dream ever. But Leonard knew there wasn’t any point in pinching himself. He had never felt wider awake.

A sense of expectation filled the air. Leonard had to give an answer—so he gave the only one that made sense when Spock was a permanent fixture in the corner of his eye. “Yeah,” he agreed, if cautiously, “I want the ride.”

Beard Guy stopped smiling then. Spock hadn’t been smiling to begin with. Leonard wondered of the two who was going to die first. He figured it was a given he would be the second person to die, at any rate.

“Good choice.”

The man must have moved, then, but Leonard didn’t see it happen. In the next second Leonard was looking down the barrel of the shotgun.

For some reason, the line of Spock’s mouth pressed flatter.

“Here’s how this’ll go, Fed,” Spock’s target announced. “You can kill me, but I’ll kill him too and then you’ll be out all the fun of making this bastard beg for his life—unless, of course, you don’t care how he dies. Then be my guest and shoot him first. I won’t even take advantage of the moment.”

Spock said nothing. For his part, Leonard couldn’t think of anything to say. He doubted he was capable of it anyway. His mouth was desert-dry.

“Okay then. You made your choice. Smart. Kid, scoot this way.” It took longer than it normally would for Leonard’s legs to obey. Leonard was urged, “A little faster now, if you please.”

When Leonard was within an arm’s length, he was positioned in front of the man as a human shield. This was how it worked in hostage situations, his mind readily supplied. Sweat slid down the side of Leonard’s face; more of it made its way down between his shoulder blades and stained the shirt under his arms.

It seemed important to say, “This is great, really fuckin’ great.”

Only with his luck would he end up with a gun digging in his side and the son of the man he supposedly killed watching his every move with the intensity of a hawk tracking a field mouse. And for reasons unknown, Spock hadn’t shot him yet, which in and of itself was insane.

Leonard didn’t think things could get any worse—until, that is, his captor started to lead him backwards.

“Don’t drag your feet,” he ordered Leonard.

Leonard did his best to comply, though he did stumble once or twice. Spock, for some reason, left the protection of his car door to follow their progress down the road. In the interim, the agent had lowered and re-holstered his gun. His stoic expression was the one thing which remained unchanged. It made him that much eerier where the light touched his face.

Finally, they reached the car Leonard had had reservations about getting into in the first place. By that point, he had tried to convince himself this was rather a smart plan to get away from Spock, except that it hinged on Spock not wanting somebody to shoot Leonard besides himself. Leonard decided not to focus on that part too much or for too long because the more he thought about it, the more confused he became.

He got into the car without being told. Seconds later, the driver-side door swung open and his partner-in-crime climbed in.

“Well, that was fun.” The man smirked, then unexpectedly leaned back out of the open door, leveled the shotgun and took aim.

Leonard shouted, “No!” without thinking and leapt over the gear stick. But he was too late. The gun went off with a loud crack, followed by a softer pop.

“Fuck!” Leonard twisted around to see out the rear window, almost afraid of what he would find.

Miraculously Spock was still on his feet, a monolith in the dark. Leonard’s gaze discovered the real victim: a tire of Spock’s car. He stared at it, disbelieving.

The driver-side door was pulled shut and the shotgun tucked away by the man’s feet. “Time to roll!” the tire-killer announced, then threw the car out of park. They shot forward down the highway, Spock quickly becoming a figure in the distance.

For a long time, Leonard didn’t know what to say and so let silence do the speaking for him. The engine gunned, then after a mile took to rattling and wheezing before it leveled out again. After Leonard guessed they had traveled at least five miles, his probable axe-murderer—and ironically his savior—reached out to flip on a black radio fixated atop the dashboard. Its speaker spat out static and the occasional voice, which relayed orders in code.

“Police scanner,” Leonard named the device, startled to hear himself.

“Yup,” agreed his companion. “Some trucker called in your locale about thirty minutes ago. Since I was in the area, I figured I ought to check it out.” He glanced sidelong at Leonard as he drove. “Breathe easy, McCoy. Open the glove box. Have a drink. You look like shit.”

Leonard tugged at the glove box without thinking and removed a flask. He uncapped it and took a healthy swallow of its contents. The liquor was fouler than what he was used to.

It was only after he savored the burn of alcohol in his gut that Leonard turned cold. The flask fell out of numb fingers to the seat beside him. “My name—how did you know my name?”

“There’re things I just know,” the man remarked. “More importantly, be glad it’s me who saw you first. You were shining like a damn beacon out there. Something a lot less friendly could have found you before the sun came up.” There was a short pause. “You’re shaking, kid. Because of the Fed—or me?”

“Both,” Leonard admitted.

“Then you can stop on my account—scout’s honor.” Even in the dim lighting of the car, Leonard could see the amusement on the guy’s face. “It’s true I was out hunting, but not for the likes of you.”

Leonard felt clammy, stretched-thin. His stomach didn’t seem to like the liquor after all. Spock, the name came to him mindlessly. He saw again the gun in Spock’s hands, not pointed at him. Those hands had been remarkably steady.

Vaguely Leonard wondered why his voice sounded so far away when he spoke. “Who were you hunting for?”

“Not who. What.” A low chuckle. “Instead there was you, sitting smack-dab in the middle of prime territory.”

“I’m not sure I understand.” Leonard blinked; his vision had doubled.

“You will eventually. Hey, it’s all right.” A hand crossed the distance between them and pressed on Leonard’s forehead until the back of his head connected with the seat. “You just take a little nap.”

Leonard struggled to find words. “Y-You…” He recalled the bitter taste on his tongue. “…drugged…?”

“Sorry,” apologized the man, who hadn’t even offered a name and who didn’t sound sorry at all. “Don’t worry, though. If I wanted you dead, I would have left you with your Fed friend.” Then he laughed and kept on laughing like he had told the world’s funniest joke.

Leonard’s hearing began to fade in and out. His head was too heavy to hold up; he let it slump to the side. Something buzzed nearby, like a gnat.

But it wasn’t a gnat, not at all. A phone, he recognized through a haze. The call was answered by the guy at the wheel, who somehow could talk and laugh in the same breath.

“Decker here. Chris! About damn time you called!“

No, no. Chris? It couldn’t be. Christine was with Joanna, and Joanna—dear god, Joanna—

What was Leonard doing, drugged up to the gills in a psychopath’s car while his daughter’s time was running out? But his body wouldn’t move. His fingers barely even twitched.

“…won’t believe what I found.” Another staccato burst of laughter. “…might get us what we need after all…that son of a bitch…get it next time…“

Leonard moaned.

“…who? Oh, him. No, kid’s fine…small dose…aye-aye, captain…in an hour, ’til then.”

Leonard didn’t want to hear anymore, didn’t want to think, so he gave up. He was as good as dead anyway, like his girl. He should have told Spock to go ahead and shoot him.

Thankfully, at that point, the world went away completely.

In his dream, wind rushed through trees. The wood was red, the leaves black, and something pale flowed down—

Water.

It was the color of clover that grew wild by the roadside. Where it puddled, tendrils of smoke rose. If he stayed asleep, that smoke would take a shape, eyes and ears and a long snout. It would breathe a coldness that smelled like death.

Far, far away, on the other side of the trees, someone screamed. Metal crashed. He tasted gunpowder.

Jim snapped awake.

At first he was certain the creature had already escaped, was in fact looking down at him, but the misty white vision of its face dispelled. He sat up.

He was unclothed. His feet and lower legs were dirty as if he’d been running through mud. He didn’t turn his hands over to inspect them. He knew what they would look like. Silently, he slipped from his bed and padded to the bathroom.

There, he washed off the blood.

Next Part

Related Posts:

• The White Horse (18/18) – from May 12, 2014
• The White Horse (17/18) – from May 10, 2014
• The White Horse (16/18) – from May 10, 2014
• The White Horse (15/16) – from April 4, 2014
• The White Horse (14/16) – from March 7, 2014