The Boy and the Sea Dragon (8/?)

Date:

2

Title: The Boy and the Sea Dragon (8/?)
Author: klmeri
Fandom: Star Trek AOS
Characters: Kirk, Spock, McCoy
Summary: On an away mission, Captain Kirk encounters an old friend he hasn’t thought of in years. Unfortunately, their meeting is less than fortuitous and bodes ill for the rest of Jim’s crew.
Previous Part: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7


So sorry! I’ve been swamped with work lately (it’s the busy season) and have fiddled with this for the past three days.

Part Eight

Bones.

Bones!

“BONES!”

Leonard groans, opens his eyes once and immediately shuts them again. The face that he had seen in that brief moment had been Jim’s. McCoy manages to catch the whisper of the man’s name before he can voice it. His last memory is of the thing which looked like the Captain coming straight at him…

There is a light touch along the side of his face; it’s surprisingly comforting. Kirk is still talking. “Bones, hey. C’mon, can you focus for me?”

Urgh.” That means No, go away, you ass.

“Boooones.”

It’s the way that the word is drawn out, with just the right amount of teasing and pleading, that causes McCoy to obey. The first thing he sees is a wide smile which is nearly more blinding than the sun. It belongs, of course, to James Tiberius Kirk.

Jim turns down the wattage of his smile and helps the doctor sit up. Leonard rubs the side of his head as if doing so could possibly dispel his terrible headache. He mutters, “What the—”

“Boy are we glad to see you!” Jim crows as he presses in close to Leonard’s side.

“Captain,” a voice interrupts their reunion, “unfortunately I must disagree. Given current circumstances, Doctor McCoy’s presence likely entails a new, rather detrimental development to our situation.”

There is a sigh from Jim. “I know that, Spock.”

“Jim, is it really you?” Leonard is now clear-headed enough to hope. “Spock?” He cranes his neck around to see the silhouette of the Vulcan. “Well, I’ll be damned.”

“I imagine that we all are, Bones,” Kirk says dryly.

It’s then that McCoy makes sense of everything. He takes his first good look at his surroundings and proceeds to curse with an inventiveness that has Spock’s eyebrows flying to his hairline. “We’re on the Goddamn planet!” shouts the doctor.

Jim stretches first one leg and then his other leg out in front of him. McCoy notices that the Captain’s clothes are rumpled, stained, and filthy with dirt. The kid’s odor isn’t all that great either.

Kirk rolls his eyes when Leonard says as much. “What do you expect? I haven’t showered in a week.”

“But you—” Leonard bites off what he was going to say. Instead he quickly asks, “How long have you been here?”

“Since we beamed down.”

McCoy stares. “Shit. Seriously?”

Jim grimaces and nods. Then Leonard looks over his shoulder but before he can voice the same question to the First Officer, Spock responds, “Since our last meeting, Doctor.”

“You mean when you tried to stun me to death?”

“Spock,” Jim exclaims furiously, “you didn’t mention that!”

The Vulcan has circled around the pair of Humans on the ground to stand in front of them. Leonard sees the sharp V of Spock’s eyebrows. His mouth goes dry. “You, uh… that wasn’t you, was it?”

“No, Doctor” comes the grave reply. “I was referring to our brief discussion in Sickbay before the departure of myself and the Captain’s guest.”

The Captain makes a very displeased noise.

“Well, I’m gonna safely assume that we all agree that thing ain’t Jim’s friend.” Leonard had meant to break the tension, but Jim’s automatic slump means McCoy has, no doubt, stuck his foot in his mouth. Before he can address Kirk’s guilt—or why the kid shouldn’t feel guilty—there is a low rumble in the distance.

Jim and Spock are on instant alert and already facing in the opposite direction before McCoy can get to his feet or figure out what in God’s name is going on.

“This isn’t funny!” rages the Captain. “You can’t keep us stranded here!”

But it can, Leonard thinks as he comes to stand beside the two officers—and his friends. It most certainly can, especially if transporting them is as easy as McCoy suspects the creature finds the task to be. He’d been talking to the not-Jim one moment, wondering if he had just make the dumbest mistake of all, when it had looked at him, grinned, and slammed him into the wall of his office.

Then Leonard woke up to find himself on the fucking surface, apparently stranded with the real Jim and Spock.

An unnerving thought slips in. It says what if this is trick and that blasted monster is laughing up his sleeve at my gullibility?

Leonard shoves that away as quickly as it forms. He doesn’t have time to wonder; he doesn’t have the heart, either, not now that the days seem suddenly too short. Dying makes a world of difference—prompts a man see his life in a whole new perspective.

Fuck, he doesn’t want to die yet.

Spock and Jim aren’t paying attention to him at the moment. They are concentrating on yelling—or rather, Captain Kirk is—at a horizon of red and gold. McCoy prods Spock in the side with his elbow.

“Has Jim lost his mind?”

The Vulcan answers without looking at the doctor. “Negative. This particular phenomenon proceeds what Jim refers to as—” There is a short pause. “—feeding time.

McCoy lifts an eyebrow. “What are we, pigs being fattened up for the slaughter house?”

“Ah, an excellent example of the barbaric nature of Terrans. The treatment of porcine in Earth history—”

McCoy interrupts before Spock can warm to the subject. “Normally I’d say to each his own, but after meeting those pig-people last year…” His smile is rueful. “Can’t say I’ve been able to view pork chops in quite the same way.”

Jim stops ranting in order to figure out why neither Spock nor McCoy has joined him. He looks between them. “What are we discussing?”

For the first time in a long week, McCoy finds himself bouncing slightly on the balls of his feet. “Superior Vulcan eating habits,” he quips.

“Doctor.” That one word is Spock’s tactful way of emphasizing how illogical McCoy’s answer is.

Leonard ignores the Vulcan. “I was asking Spock why y’all were making such a fuss.”

Jim’s eyes flash at the reminder. “When this bastard finally shows up, I plan to plead insanity for why I had to rip him to shreds.” Spock makes no comment, probably because he has had to listen to his Captain think on the subject of revenge for days. There are times when it’s better to step out of Jim Kirk’s way. This would be one of them.

McCoy absentmindedly drags a hand through his hair. “Jim,” he says, deciding it’s better to be forthright while they are still together, “I gotta be honest. I’m not sure you or Spock are, you know, you.” Leonard is blunt. “We’ve had dealings with the creature on the ship—and it’s been a dead ringer for both of you. Obviously—” he adds, rubbing at his arm, “—its mama didn’t teach it any manners.”

“I initially suspected that the Captain was not himself after a conversation with him in the Ready Room,” Spock tells them both.

“When he ordered to you to get his friend outta my medical bay?”

“Affirmative. I then attempted to ascertain more data—” Leonard imagines that means Spock tried to connect with the thing’s mind (he shudders). “—and the creature acted in defense. I was… relayed to the planet.”

So Spock doesn’t know, and hasn’t guessed, how the creature dragged them here. Damn. He could use a scientific Vulcan analysis right now because all his brain can come up with are impossible—and freaking scary—scenarios.

“There has to be two of them; otherwise, none of this makes sense,” McCoy reasons. “We beamed aboard Jim and the creature yet Jim says he never made it to the ship. So who has been playing Captain Kirk all this time?”

“The creature is an unknown, Doctor. We must not discount that it may have the ability to maintain multiple forms at once.”

His gut says otherwise. “I think it told me in a roundabout way that it wasn’t alone, but I didn’t recognize it at the time. Hell, I thought it was you, Spock!”

Jim crosses his arms. “I only met one when I was a kid—and it did say we’d meet again. So where could the other have come from?”

“The real questions are: where did they both come from? What are they?”

“And what do they want?”

Leonard winces and then wishes that he hadn’t. Spock fixes a sharp Vulcan eye on him and says, “Doctor, you must explain the details of each encounter.”

It is a lot easier to say no to Sulu than Spock. “Is it possible to feed off of destiny?” he asks.

A Vulcan eyebrow indicates Spock’s interest in Leonard’s question. “Destiny is an intangible concept. I… have difficulty understanding how such a feat might be accomplished.”

“The creature says it thinks you and Jimmy have got some tasty destinies.”

Jim barks out a laugh which fairly surprises McCoy. “Say that again,” Kirk orders.

Leonard rolls his eyes. “You heard me. Best I can guess, this thing has been tracking you for years waiting until your destiny was ripe for the picking.”

Kirk seems to consider this possibility and discard it as ridiculous. “That’s crazy!”

“We’ve been in crazier situations, Jim.”

“But it—” Kirk pulls irritably at his hair. “—shit, I barely remember. It looked like a… dragon,” the young man says, blushing.

“It looks like a lizard to me. Like one of those big ol’ things that suns on rocks.”

Spock interrupts with “Perhaps you refer to the Terran species of reptile known for its unusually large size; the lizards, discovered in the early 19th century, garnered the name Kodomo Dragon when—”

“Spock, you’re full of such useful information,” McCoy says dryly. “I never cease to be amazed.”

“Sarcasm is unnecessary, Doctor McCoy.”

“Okay, that’s enough,” Jim tells the pair. “Bones, why are you here? Did you piss it, uh, them off?”

Leonard makes the mistake of looking away.

Jim jumps on his response. “Bones,” comes the clipped reply, “just what did you do?”

Damn. This conversation is not as easy as he imagined in his head. Hell, he’d rather been hoping that they would already be privy to the situation and would not require an explanation. But Leonard has officially been led off track by the creature (creatures?) and not only are Jim and Spock not prisoners in their own minds, they are clueless as to the going-on‘s on the ship, being marooned on the surface of the planet.

He pulls at his bottom lip with his teeth. Maybe he should just blurt it out?

Before McCoy can do so, Jim has the doctor’s arm in a tight grip. “Bones?” The nickname is full of worry and no little amount of fear. Captain Kirk, afraid—it’s almost a ridiculous concept.

“I didn’t have a choice, Jim.” He sighs, ignoring that the voice in the back of his head saying yes, you did—and you made your choice.

“Explain” is the short, quiet order.

He tries to without looking at either person.

“It’s pretty much planning to take over the ship. But doesn’t every fool thing we encounter want that? Hell, I don’t know.” Leonard is babbling and cannot stop himself. “Maybe it really can take your destiny by impersonation or something. I’m not an expert on these things. I only know that I don’t have all the time in the world to fight it. I’m so sorry. I couldn’t see any other way—and, I thought, if I could at least talk to you both, we might…” His words die off.

Jim turns the doctor face-to-face with them. “Bones, please, what are you saying?”

“Jim.” It’s a plea and a regret all rolled into one. Leonard swallows hard, steeling himself. “Did you know that our destinies are linked?” He looks over at Spock who silently watches both Kirk and McCoy. “Imagine—all three of us part of one big cosmic plan.” His short laugh is full of tears. “How damned ironic, to find out you fucking finally belong, have found the right place, and then—”

At his sudden silence and palpable heartbreak, Spock gently urges, “You must finish, Leonard.”

McCoy meets those soulful eyes. (How could he have ever thought that Spock didn’t feel? They’re right there—the Vulcan’s emotions—in his eyes.) He breathes deeply and supplies them with the rest. “Then you learn that whatever is meant to be will end all too soon.”

“We’ll make it, Bones.” Jim speaks with a certainty that Leonard has come to trust.

His smile is sorrowful. “I know you will.”

Leonard won’t, however. The doctor discovers that he doesn’t have the heart to say goodbye just then (not as he’d imagined he would). He’ll do his darnedest to save Jim and Spock. And even if he loses his battle, Leonard knows that these two strong men will continue to fight on, to fight until they are freed.

He reaches out and lays a hand on Jim Kirk’s shoulder. “Thank you,” says Leonard H. McCoy. “You give me hope.”

The Captain turns to his First Officer. “What do you suggest as a course of action, Mr. Spock?”

Spock steps forward. “I propose an appeal to the enemy, Sir.”

“A gesture of defeat?”

“By no means, Captain.” The Vulcan gains a look to his eyes that can only be described as resolute. “We must… pursue a confrontation.”

Leonard’s eye catches a glint to their right. He informs his plotting friends, “I’d say that won’t be necessary. It looks like we’re about to be paid a visit.”

They crowd together, the three, shoulder-to-shoulder. The enemy—it/they/the unknown—comes.

Next Part

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About KLMeri

Owner of SpaceTrio. Co-mod of McSpirk Holiday Fest. Fanfiction author of stories about Kirk, Spock, and McCoy.

2 Comments

  1. weepingnaiad

    Poor Leonard! And he didn’t even actually tell them! *sigh* It’s a burden he shouldn’t have to shoulder alone. But now that the three of them are together, I know they’ll figure out a way. They always do.

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