Title: A Quarter South (2/3)
Author: klmeri
Fandom: Star Trek AOS
Pairing: pre-Kirk/Spock/McCoy
Summary: AU; there’s something strange about the prince’s new bodyguards.
Previous Part: 1

Leonard woke up to a pounding head and an awful stench. Someone, he quickly realized, had trussed him up and draped him over the rump of a horse.

That person was going to pay dearly for his crimes, just as soon as Leonard managed to free himself of his bindings. But squirming, it seemed, was a terrible idea in such a precarious position. The prince gave a yelp as he nearly slid off the wrong way.

Up ahead, there came a sharp whistle of command, and the party plodding along the dirt track halted obediently. Leonard’s horse stood still for a few seconds before it began to restlessly shift its hind legs, as if ready to be rid of the burden on its back.

Leonard slid a little closer to the ground and let out a string of curses. He was admittedly relieved when he felt a hand grip the back of his clothes and resettle him properly across the horse.

Then he was furious again.

“Knave!” the prince cried, kicking his legs. “What have you done!” The silence which followed and the fact that he was still upside-down only served to infuriate him more. “I demand to be released!”

“He’s definitely awake,” one of the captors remarked.

“Release me at once!”

“And angry.”

They thought this funny, did they? Leonard squeezed his eyes shut and fought to rein in his temper. “At the very least,” he said through clenched teeth, “take me off this blasted horse.”

“I might… If you promise not to run.”

“I swear it.”

He was pulled backwards and landed with a jarring thud on his feet. Almost immediately Leonard used this change in position to his advantage, cracking the back of his head into the man who was stupid enough to believe he would behave. Then he took off in the direction of the nearest copse of trees.

Leonard expected to get farther than he did, but the guard he knew by the name of Spock suddenly appeared beside him, somehow swifter of foot than Leonard imagined he could be. Then Spock knocked sideways into Leonard and sent the prince sprawling into the tall grass.

Leonard tried kicking him too.

“Desist,” the man ordered, his voice even-tempered. He dodged one of the prince’s badly aimed kicks, captured a boot, and flipped Leonard over.

“Get off me!”

“If I did not think you were so foolish as to attempt escape again, I would not be forced to sit on you, Prince McCoy.”

“Damn you,” Leonard said, spitting out grass to the side, “you will pay for this! How dare you treat me this way!”

“I would say I find this sight amusing,” Leonard heard a second voice join them, “but my nose hurts too much for me to care. I think you broke it.”

“Good,” insisted Leonard.

“Not good,” amended Jim, who dropped into a squat near the prince’s head. “You weren’t this mean before. What gives?”

For a moment Leonard could not speak, so flabbergasted was he. “You…” he finally found his voice, “you audacious… are you completely wrong in the head?”

“That is entirely possible.”

“Shut up, Spock.” Jim sat back in the grass, sounding too good-natured for a man who had just been insulted. “You can stop sitting on him now.”

Leonard rolled over as soon as the weight of the other man lifted off his back. He sat up, bits of dirt and grass and tiny wildflower petals falling out of his hair.

“See now, don’t you feel better? Spock is a lot heavier than he looks.”

Leonard grabbed the front of Jim’s shirt with his tied hands. “What game is this, you fen-sucked jackanapes?”

“Jackanapes?” Jim mouthed at Spock.

“A colloquial insult, referring to a mischievous, child-like, and often ape-ish individual. Also, fen-sucked implies you lack common sense.”

“Which you do,” Leonard replied, shaking the man in his grasp. “What business is this you’ve undertaken, the kidnapping of a crowned prince?! You will be beheaded!”

“First,” Jim said, lifting one finger, “I am in the business of kidnapping princes. Secondly, I can only be beheaded if I am caught.” His eyes twinkled.

This man obviously thought the world itself was a joke. “Which you will be, you little fool! I am the king’s heir. Even if I am returned unharmed, he will send out a hundred troops to track down blackguards such as you and your insolent dog. For this work, he will not stand you to live!”

It was the way in which Jim looked past him and met his accomplice’s gaze that sent a chill down Leonard’s spine. He released Jim, then, and clambered to his feet, looking about. “Where is this? How far have we come?”

Jim cleared his throat. “I should tell you—”

“I won’t hear it,” the prince cut in. “I know only this: you have taken me from my home and I must return there. Say no more and allow me to leave. I will forget what you’ve done.” He glanced sidelong at Spock. “Both of you.”

Spock’s eyes, almost as dark as his hair, contemplated this dispassionately.

Jim’s mouth quirked with a slight smile. “I am afraid, dear prince, your leave-taking is not an option we can consider at this time.” When Leonard began to protest, the man held up a hand which strangely enough quieted the prince. Then Jim stood up and brushed off the grass from his trousers. “However I can offer you a choice on how we proceed from here. Would you like to walk or to resume your position across the horse?”

Leonard clenched his hands into fists. “That isn’t a horse. It’s a mule.”

Jim did smile then, widely. “So it is. Just the same, I can’t let you ride it until I am certain you won’t try to take off on your own.”

“I see,” Leonard said, disgusted, “because whatever your odiferous plan, you cannot afford to lose your best hand.”

“You got it. That mule’s really important to me.”

Jim made a gesture at Spock, then turned away and started across the open field, leaving Leonard to sputter in his absence.

Spock took hold of the prince’s elbow. “Walk,” he said.

Leonard jerked his arm out of the man’s grasp. “Do not touch me, scullion!”

“Rest assured, I have no particular desire to lay hands upon your person other than when I must. Now: will you walk, or shall you be carried?”

Choices—these men kept offering him choices he did not like, nor choices that he should have to suffer; but, even as furious as he was, he knew the time to address them had passed for the moment.

Leonard settled for scowling, and he walked.

~~~

Even born into a royal family given to leisurely pursuits, Leonard was no stranger to hard work. He was however unaccustomed to traveling long distances on foot. After he could have sworn they had journeyed enough miles to carry them to the sea, he said to the mule, “You’re tired, aren’t you?” and gently coaxed it by the bit towards the shade of a tree.

Almost instantly Jim turned his horse around and followed them to the tree as well. It became an unanimous although unspoken agreement to take a break.

Leonard breathed a sigh of relief as he sat down between two roots and ran his fingers through his hair. He kept an eye on his kidnappers, but neither of them did much of anything of interest. Spock stayed some distance away, not quite presenting his back to them, assuming a position which was suspiciously guard-like in nature. Jim attended the horses, placing feed-bags over their noses and removing a brush from a saddlebag. Leonard watched the man groom the mare first before turning his attention to the mule. To that beast, he talked very sweetly.

“It’s likely more halfwit than you are,” the prince said. “I doubt it understands a word of your nonsense.”

Jim was silent for a moment. Then, “I suppose you would consider a creature such as this too base-court to deserve a little care.”

Leonard bristled. “What’s that mean?”

Jim patted the mule on the neck and pocketed the brush. “I think you know, Leonard.”

Leonard gripped his knees to remind himself not to act foolishly. “You dare to judge me when it is you who misuses a person? Do enlighten me as to the nature of my being here, against my will: am I a ransom? Something to be bartered with… or sold?” His gorge rose. “Perhaps you intend to hand me over to the traders in the West for a bit of coin.”

Jim paled and flushed in rapid succession. “No. I don’t trade in flesh.”

“You give me no reason to believe you.” Leonard purposefully looked away. “Furthermore I’ve done nothing to warrant my predicament, and you know it. So how can I not know what you imply? After all, in this scenario, I am the lowly mule.”

“There are things beyond your ken, sire.”

Leonard huffed softly. “Deference suits you ill, Jim—and at the moment it makes you a liar. I believe I have been deceived enough for one day, don’t you?”

He was heartsick now, and he feared he might show it so he said, “Leave me,” the command nearly unbidden and too much in keeping with the nature in which he had been raised.

It surprised the prince somewhat, though, that Jim obeyed him.

They set off again when the sun was three-quarters across the sky and a light breeze stirred the warm air.

~~~

“We’re almost there,” Jim called over his shoulder.

Leonard firmed his jaw and kept his eyes fixed ahead. If he but for a moment given thought to the pain he was feeling, he would never have made it this far. Jim had been eyeing him since he started limping but it would be ridiculously to ask for help. Or to beg to ride the mule. His pride will not allow it.

Perhaps it should have consoled him that he was not the only one who was walking. Although no order had been given, neither Jim nor Spock had mounted their horses since Jim declared the prince had no choice but to go on foot. That didn’t console him, however. It simply made him angrier.

What was it that they thought they could convince him of? Their innocence? Their goodness? He had a large lump on the back of his skull to attest to the opposite. It made no difference to him whether these fools thought themselves sly enough to earn a grudging respect or, alternatively, a prince’s pity. Leonard knew them for the scoundrels they were.

It was along this vein that he had developed a mantra in his head: he would not show fear; he would not concede dignity; he would not—under any circumstances—beg for reprieve. A McCoy was not a faint-hearted man!

Jim stilled the horses when Leonard stumbled.

“Just a rock,” he said through gritted teeth.

It wasn’t a rock. He was fairly certain his blisters had started to bleed inside his boots. If he’d known he would need to endure a long day’s travel, he would have worn more serviceable footwear.

But he couldn’t have predicted this, could he?

The prince straightened. “You said we’re almost there. Well,” he went on to say impatiently, “why have you stopped?”

The man in the lead only shook his head and tugged the mare into a steady walk again.

~~~

There was a short period of debate in which Leonard pictured tossing himself over the small bridge, but then he saw how shallow the river bed was below it and decided he wasn’t quite ready to take his life so soon after all.

“There’s been a drought out this way,” the annoyingly talkative man up ahead prattled on, “going on nearly a year. Desperate times make for desperate people, so keep an eye out.”

Leonard had several sarcastic comebacks for that. Then he caught Spock’s eye, who had turned around to level a hard stare at him, and bit his tongue.

Unfortunately, patience was not quite forthcoming. “Are we there yet?”

Jim pointed. “Nearly. Just ahead.”

If Leonard squinted, he could see the structure to which the man referred. Suddenly, a new hope began to take hold of him.

People. Distractions.

This boded well. They may have passed beyond the border of his kingdom, but no doubt it would be a great mistake for his captors to visibly flaunt him in public. He stood out. Of course he did—he was a prince!

Yet that seemed to be exactly what they had planned.

Maybe they were daft after all?

The thought crossed his mind just as they crossed the threshold of the ancient fieldstone inn at the crossroads. Leonard went in anyway, cultivating the pretense that he was much too exhausted to keep his wits about him.

Jim asked the innkeeper for a room. A scattering of faces, most of them solitary travelers, glanced up idly from their ale and beef to listen.

“I do have a room,” she said, looking past Jim to the other men. “I have two rooms available, in fact.”

But Jim shook his head and smiled slightly. “One will do.” He pressed a silver coin into her palm.

The woman pocketed it without checking it first. “It’s yours. Sit and have some supper. You look as though you could use it.”

“And wine,” Leonard added. “Do you have some wine?”

Jim laid a warning hand on Leonard’s shoulder. “Never mind the wine, milady. My friend here may have a taste for the finer things but sadly he has no purse for it.”

“That’s because you’ve got my purse,” the prince muttered.

Jim took his hand from Leonard’s shoulder and butted into him conspicuously. “Come along, let’s settle ourselves. Spock?”

“I will see to the horses.”

“There’s a stable in the back,” the innkeeper offered.

Spock bowed slightly to her in thanks and left.

Leonard stalled their progress through the main room by insisting on a detour through the kitchens.

Jim frowned at him. “We can have our supper later.”

“I don’t want food, you dolt, I want medicine. Unless of course you prefer having to cart a man dying of infection across the countryside.”

Jim still continued to frown at him.

Leonard gave up trying to explain the finer points of misery and death and headed to the kitchen on his own. It didn’t take his captor long to realize he shouldn’t let Leonard out of his sight. Much to Leonard’s dismay, however, Jim began to question each item the prince asked the innkeeper to supply. Apparently it was in Jim’s nature to be tight with the purse strings, no matter whose purse it was.

“What do you need a stone for?”

“To crush herbs for a poultice.”

“I thought dried planty bits were for cooking?”

“Not always.”

“Okay, but those are daisies.”

“This is a type of chamomilla. It’s an herb too,” Leonard amended at Jim’s blank look. Then he lied, “To prevent infection.”

“Oh. Wait, how do you know if you have one of these so-called infections?”

“The most common symptoms are fever and violent vomiting.”

“…But isn’t that the plague?”

“Yes, Jim, yes. The plague. We all are going to get the plague and die unless you stop pestering me long enough that I can cure us!”

Finally that shut the idiot up. Leonard finished making the arrangements with the innkeeper and sought out the privacy of their room.

Later, Jim made a face as Leonard went through the agonizing motions of peeling off his boots.

“I guess I see why you want a poultice.”

Leonard muttered something uncomplimentary under his breath.

Jim tried again. “You could have told me you wanted to ride.”

“You said that wasn’t an option,” Leonard countered.

The other man grimaced.

“It doesn’t matter,” the prince sighed, critically eyeing the raw skin and blisters on his feet. “If I’m careful, it’ll heal without making me sick. See how I’m not letting the open sores touch the ground? The last thing you want to do is expose broken skin to dirt or feces.”

“Because then you get an infection?”

Leonard caught his smile before it showed. “I guess your skull isn’t as thick as I thought.”

“Thank you,” Jim retorted dryly.

Someone knocked on the door. Jim didn’t open it right away, instead waited for a series of knocks which followed.

“The horses?” Jim asked Spock as the man stepped inside the room.

“Bring that,” Leonard called when he realized Spock was carrying the bowl of water he had requested from the innkeeper.

Spock handed it off to Jim, who set it down on the floor and frowned once again.

“I still don’t understand why the water has to be boiling.”

“To prevent infection,” both Leonard and Spock emphasized at the same time.

Leonard gaped at the tall, dark-haired man until he heard Jim laugh. Then the prince snapped his mouth closed and glared.

Spock, who gave the impression of someone that suddenly felt uncomfortable, inclined his head slightly in Jim’s direction and withdrew to the doorway.

“Take first supper!” Jim called to the man.

It dawned on Leonard what he meant. “Just where do you think I can go in this condition?”

Jim shrugged one shoulder. “Don’t know… but I wouldn’t put it past you to try.”

Leonard sighed through his nose and ducked his head, pulling the bowl towards him carefully. “I’m too tired to argue the point with you. Can you at least find me a cup?”

“You’re going to drink hot water?”

“I plan to make a tea with some of the herbs.”

Jim stared at him for a long moment before asking bluntly, “Are you planning to poison us?”

Leonard rolled in his eyes in an un-prince-like manner. “Did I say anything about anyone other than myself drinking it?”

“No…”

“Then quit inventing trouble.” He gestured at his feet, which did ache fiercely. “It’s to help with the pain as well as the healing.”

“Oh.”

Jim said nothing more as Leonard worked in silence, first wetting a strip of cloth from his torn doublet which seemed the least dirt-smudged to clean with, then grinding some of his bundled herbs to make a poultice for each foot. He then bound his feet in cloth (which for some reason caused Jim to chuckle) and spent the rest of his time making the tea. He used more of the chamomilla plant than was the designated dose and, when Jim turned away to answer another series of knocks on the door, shoved another kind of herb between his upper gum and teeth, hoping it worked well enough to counteract the drought he was brewing.

Spock spoke in a low tone to Jim but, to Leonard’s surprise, Jim did not leave the room immediately. Instead they turned as one to watch Leonard lift the drinking cup to his mouth.

Leonard raised his eyebrows at them and sipped at his homemade tea. “Mmm,” he said a moment later. “Not too bad. I generally like it with a little honey, though.”

Jim’s gaze briefly turned down to his own feet before he approached Leonard. “Is there enough to share?”

Leonard cradled the cup to his chest. “Why would I?”

“Because according to you I’m going to get the plague through my feet and die.”

“It could definitely happen,” the prince agreed.

“Jim,” Spock murmured.

Jim held out his hand.

Leonard let him have it, remarking, “Don’t say I never did anything nice for you.” He watched, heart dancing a little in his chest, as Jim raised the cup to his mouth.

But Spock intervened, taking it away. “Jim,” he said again, a clear chastisement.

“It’s to prevent death,” Jim argued.

The two men stared at each other for too long. Then Spock drank from the cup and returned it to his partner.

Jim watched him for some seconds, seemed satisfied when Spock did not immediately expire, and drank as well.

Good, Leonard thought. Very good.

~~~

Spock had taken up guard duty in Jim’s absence. He was a lot less garrulous, which Leonard appreciated. Leonard arranged himself on the pallet of straw (trying hard not to think about the tiny things that probably lived in the straw) which served as a bed and waited for the effects of the tea and its counteragent to war with one another. He knew it wouldn’t make him feel the best, but just then that didn’t matter. He had to free himself of this ridiculous situation.

He had somehow managed to doze lightly when Jim came back, apparently having had his fill of the inn’s tavern. He swayed a little on his feet as if tired, patted Spock’s shoulder blindly, saying something like “it’s okay to rest”. As far as Leonard could tell, Spock made himself vanish from the room as quietly as a ghost.

Then Jim clomped across the thresh-strewn floor and slipped into bed with Leonard.

That shocked Leonard to wakefulness. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“Making myself comfortable? Yeah, that sounds right,” Jim yawned. “I ate, I drank, I pissed, and now I’m going to sleep.”

“Not with me, you aren’t!”

Jim’s mouth developed that almost-smile of his Leonard was becoming accustomed to. He lowered his eyelashes. “You needn’t worry, your Majesty. Your virtue shall remain intact.” The grin was evident in Jim’s voice. “I swear it.”

“Your fleas are more concerning to me than the threat you think you pose to my virtue.” Leonard wrinkled his nose. “Also your body odor. That greatly concerns me.”

Jim scratched at the underside of his chin, as if to say fleas? body odor? whatever do you mean?

Leonard made a very displeased noise.

“Maybe you could imagine I smell like roses.”

“Clearly you’ve never smelled roses.”

“You are very sarcastic for a comely prince.”

“And you’re very annoying. Are you from a family of gnats?”

Jim laughed. “Would that I could trade barbs as sharp as yours, McCoy!”

Hearing his family name had the effect of souring the mood for Leonard. He chastised himself for failing to remember just who this bricon was with whom he conversed on an almost friendly level. He smoothed his expression and decided to say nothing, relegating Jim to the edge of the narrow bed with his elbow. Then he fidgeted with the moth-eaten coverlet and made as if to lay himself down.

Jim seemed to see through his pretense but made no comment on it. The man removed his boots before adjusting the slope of the wide belt about his waist. He laid a hand over the dagger there, idly dragging his thumb back and forth across its carved hilt.

Leonard felt chilled at the sight of it. “Is that necessary?”

“This thing?” Jim sounded surprised at the question. “Who would be dim-witted enough to sleep without one?”

“I would,” Leonard said, glad the dim flicker of the candle across the room probably hid the flush to his face. “It’s better than waking up to find you’ve knifed yourself in the middle of the night.”

“I see,” Jim said, amused. “Are you planning to knife me in the middle of the night?”

Leonard raised his eyebrows. “Shouldn’t you at least suspect me of it?”

“I sleep lightly. You would never take it off me in time before I turned it on you.”

“How comforting. Am I also to assume if I somehow managed to make it past you, I would then have to contend with Spock?”

Jim lost his amusement. “You should never test him that way. He is not as forgiving as I am.”

“You mean he would kill me in an instant.”

“Yes.”

“Then he is as heathen as he looks.”

“He’s loyal,” Jim snapped suddenly.

Leonard lowered his voice. “In other words he never questions your schemes, as culvert as they may be. Don’t delude yourself for a moment that I pity either of you. You made the decision to do this to me. You acted heinously. If it is forgiveness you are seeking, I tell you now I shan’t grant it!”

As Jim’s face grew white—not with fear but with restrained anger—Leonard knew he had pushed too far. It surprised the prince not at all when Jim pulled the dagger free of its sheath and laid the flat of the blade to his throat.

“Do you think yourself a righteous man, whereas I am not?” Jim demanded. “That you are destined to have a kingdom and I, to have shame? How little you know about this world!” he laughed, the sound ugly. “You look at me and see a lowborn man. A disgrace and a cheat. Of course you do. But let me tell you what I see when I look at you, Leonard McCoy: I see a man too cloistered and too blind in his arrogance to acknowledge the truth of his very dire situation.”

Leonard heard the thunder of his own heart in his ears. He had the sudden desperate urge to ask the man to stop speaking.

But Jim did not relent. He pressed on the skin of Leonard’s throat until the blade made a white line. “Your truth is much worse than mine, because this knife is my work, and this was my order.”

It was difficult to find the breath to speak. “…You’re a mercenary?”

Jim gave him a mirthless smile. “The worst kind. I was paid handsomely to end you. Except, I didn’t.”

The prince’s throat worked for a moment. “Why?”

The pressure of the dagger eased up somewhat. “Because of the woman and the child,” Jim replied, his expression for once unreadable. “You surprised me, so I changed my mind. I saved you.”

Leonard’s fear was pushed aside by a flare of white-hot anger. “And now I should be grateful? All because you appreciated that I wasn’t the conceited, backwards ass I was supposed to be? Pig shit! No one judges a man that quickly.”

Jim’s blue eyes flashed. “Oh, really? How quickly did you judge me?”

Leonard lifted a hand and curled it around the hand holding the dagger. “I don’t want to play your games, Jim.” He shifted the angle of the blade. “It’d be most effective if you cut just under the left ear.”

For a long moment, their eyes held.

Then Jim grinned and lowered his weapon. “You’re still surprising me. Good for you.”

Nerves still afire, Leonard scooted closer to the wall next to the tiny straw bed and laid down with his back to his bed companion, signaling an end to their conversation. His voice and face didn’t show it, but hearing the confession that he was supposed to die had upset him. He’d done nothing to deserve that fate. Nothing.

“Hey?”

“Shut up. Go to sleep,” the prince groused too roughly.

Jim didn’t say anything else for a long while, long enough that Leonard thought he might have actually have fallen asleep. The quiet around them lulled Leonard into believing he was finally alone with his tumultuous thoughts—finally alone enough to grieve for what was happening to him.

Then Jim’s voice came out of the dark, so much softer than Leonard had ever heard it. “I shouldn’t have lost my temper, I’m sorry. I… I know what it’s like.”

Do you? Leonard thought, then opened his eyes, surprised at his own bitterness.

The prince’s bedmate sighed and seemed to sink into the mattress all-at-once, his voice trailing off. “…like to be betrayed by someone you believed in.”

Leonard closed his eyes again and pressed his mouth flat. Just go to sleep, he wanted to say.

“That’s why I really saved you,” Jim concluded, then paused. “Good night, Prince.”

Leonard wanted to hate Jim in that moment. It was disappointing to him that he could not.

~~~

As usual during the day, he sat in his chambers, surrounded by books and papers, accounts, requests, letters from distant lands, sealed notes from the king. He had been schooled most of his life in matters of state and diplomacy. At first he was eager to learn these things; but that seemed long, long ago now. He could scarcely remember the young, eager face he had worn during his lessons. Something had changed in him the older he grew. His interest in his birthright became less and less. It was not that the kingdom itself held little importance, only that he had begun to realize he did not have the temperament or the desire to rule it.

He confessed to his mother, the queen, of this once in confidence. She sympathized with him, saying that he was young yet but if indeed his heart did not belong in one place, he had to seek it in another. So he tried exactly that for a while, believing her to be wise in her advice.

Then she died, and all of the power of the kingdom fell into his stepfather’s hands. It seemed like a boon at the time, a great relief to the prince, that he was not required to take up his duty just yet. Maybe there was still time to regain something of his old enthusiasm in honor of his mother and the family legacy, he finally convinced himself.

Worry not, his stepfather assured him, speaking just as his mother would have. I will rule until you are ready for the throne.

A lie, Leonard thought now, clutching his head in his hands. All of it—a terrible lie!

A wind swept in from the balcony and scattered his work at his feet. It carried the sound of his mother crying his name.

He woke with a start.

It took the prince a moment to remember why his surroundings held nothing of the familiarity of the castle—and why his legs were stiff and cramped. He began to stretch them out, then stopped abruptly, recalling Jim.

The man next to him did not stir.

Leonard lifted a hand and lowered it over Jim’s face. Moist air hit his palm.

So, the man hadn’t died then.

He had the sudden giddy sensation of hope.

“Jim?” he whispered in the dark. “Jim?”

No answer.

Drawing a hushed breath, Leonard shifted on the prickly mattress, observing the sleeping man for a moment, and reached for the knife tucked away in Jim’s belt.

His hope turned to elation when Jim did not react as he promised he would. Leonard removed the knife and crawled over the man.

The tea had worked. It had worked!

He winced when he placed his weight on his sore feet but refused to let the pain deter him. He had to unbind some of the wrappings in order to put back on his boots but it was good that the swelling was down and none of the blisters wept. Ignoring his pain, he crept to the other side of the room.

Don’t let that mongrel be awake, Leonard prayed. Please don’t.

He cracked open the door, ready with an excuse to have need of the privy if Spock jumped out of the shadows at him.

But once again, nothing happened. Leonard discovered his second captor propped up next to the door. The man hardly made a sound as he slept—even standing up—eyes closed, mouth slightly ajar.

Leonard had the childish urge to tip Spock over. He managed to curtail it and did the more sensible thing: he ran.

You realize I’m just making this up in the most ridiculous fashion as I go along, right?

Next Part

Related Posts:

• A Quarter South (7/7) – from July 5, 2014
• A Quarter South (6/7) – from July 4, 2014
• A Quarter South (5/7) – from July 4, 2014
• A Quarter South (4/5) – from June 23, 2014
• A Quarter South (3/5) – from June 17, 2014

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