Title: Difficulty Engaged (4/?)
Author: klmeri
Fandom: Star Trek AOS
Pairing: Kirk/Spock/McCoy
Summary: During leave, trouble thwarts a good plan and causes Kirk and Spock to accelerate the timeline of their McCoy-centric agenda. But true to form, McCoy is already playing by a set of rules they don’t understand.
Previous Parts: 1 | 2| 3

Leonard steps from the path of a vendor’s cart whose owner seems more interested in running down shoppers rather than letting them peruse any wares, finally noticing that Ruti and Chee are several paces behind him. Neither one appears concerned about losing their charge in the crowd, however, or that said charge could use the opportunity to bolt.

He spins back to the pair. “Are you planning to loiter there all day, or can we get going?”

Chee eyes the human while scratching himself. “Food.”

McCoy’s eyes nearly bug out of his head. Surely he could not have heard correctly. They want to take the time to eat?

Ruti looks away from something in the nearest alleyway which had caught her attention to purse her mouth at Chee. “There will be food on the ship.”

Chee grunts. “Spacer food tastes bad.”

“God yes!” agrees Leonard emphatically without thinking, suddenly reminded of every bearly palatable replicated meal he has had to choke down over the last several years. Having time earlier to visit that cafe with Spock had felt like a godsend, if only because the fare there had been cooked in a pot instead by a mathematical formula.

He starts, then, realizing he cannot possibly be contemplating sitting down to dinner with a pair of kidnappers. What in hell is wrong with him?

Then again, any delay in being potentially forced onto a ship which isn’t the Enterprise would be worth it. Leonard still hasn’t figured out how he will convince Ruti to leave the space station without him. And while he doesn’t like the idea of his patient being without medical aid, he also doesn’t want to cause an intergalactic incident because his common sense went on vacation at the same time he did. He would be overly lucky if no one on the Enterprise has realized he is missing (and a hostage).

Not for the first time, he wonders how he will explain this predicament. It will certainly have to end in the admission that he walked into a trap Jim would have sniffed out in the first ten seconds of meeting Ruti and also made decisions along the way that Spock would have calculated as too risky from the start.

He isn’t Jim or Spock, that much is apparent. Generally, that isn’t a depressing thought but today it makes him feel like less. And the lecture he’s going to receive for his idiocy can only serve to strengthen his disappointment in himself.

He shakes himself of any moroseness, deciding, “I’m with your friend here. We could grab a bite. You said your ‘cargo’ won’t arrive at this mysterious ship ahead of us, so what’s the rush?”

Ruti counters, “Consider not the rush, Dr. McCoy, but the danger. If my cousin—”

Chee slams one fist into the palm of his other hand. “I will rend his limbs from his body if I see him!”

Ruti’s mouth flattens, yet she seems amused. “Chee’s hunger often fuels his imprudence. Very well. A bite, as you say, Doctor, though we must be quick about it.”

Leonard turns away, surveying the plaza for somewhere—anywhere—that might grant him an advantage. He doubts Ruti will allow them to dine in plain sight, but maybe he could covertly find a way to alert the authorities, something smarter than jumping onto a tabletop to scream bloody murder, only to be killed for the effort.

Just then, an odd thing happens, a sensation eerily like a touch. It rolls through Leonard, an invisible fingertip starting at the top of his spine and tracing its way down, lasting merely a heartbeat or two. He shudders upon exhaling, afterward strangely relaxed as though someone had calmed the instinct to be afraid through that simple caress. He also feels confused but is alert enough not to turn around. No one could be standing directly behind him, after all, and no one had physically touched him.

What just happened? Is he losing his mind?

And why does part of him want to feel that comforting caress again?

Chee shoulders Leonard aside, dispelling the vestiges of the sensation along with McCoy’s mental fog, pointing at a sign that reads “Voted Supermarket of the Year. If You Want It, It’s Here!” The interior of the market looks like a giant peddler’s wagon.

Chee doesn’t wait for a reaction, towing Leonard by the elbow to the entrance. With no choice except to go along, albeit sputtering, Leonard is shocked when Ruti catches up to them and doesn’t whack her companion upside the head.

Instead, the woman snorts delicately. “Let us hope it is sanitary,” she says before following Chee inside.

“Wait a minute!” Leonard protests, more unnerved by the suspicious stares of customers and sellers alike than the failing health grade posted next to the doorway. “Is this a good—” He bites off the last word with a yelp, being dumped in front of a food bar inlaid with containers where a customer might help himself to whichever delight he desires.

A purple slug inches over the top of one container and inspects Leonard’s hand with one of its antennae. Chee plucks it up and drops it into his mouth with a satisfied smack.

“Hey, you!” yells a nearby seller. “Pay before you eat!”

Ruti hands Chee a plate to fill. Leonard politely declines one.

She tilts her head, curious. “I thought you wished to be fed.”

Not if I have to kill my dinner first. “Not as hungry as I thought,” he mutters, stepping back from the food bar. “Go ahead. I’ll just… wait over there.” He points to an empty table barely more than five strides away.

Ruti studies him a moment longer, shrugs one shoulder and turns away to make her selections. But as he takes another step back, she warns him, “Don’t bother running away. You will not get far.”

He believes her, retreating to the table in silence.

It isn’t until Leonard is idly surveying the other stalls of the supermarket that he realizes pushing for this reprieve to eat is both a boon and a mistake. The boon is the familiar flash of gold he spies out of the corner of his eye. The mistake is that ready-for-trouble gleam in Jim Kirk’s bright gaze, which Leonard easily recognizes when he twists sideways to see if the gold shirt peeking out from behind a pillar could actually be a Starfleet uniform.

Stomach dropping, Leonard observes the partially visible crown of black hair to Kirk’s left.

Oh god, he thinks with certainty, Jim and Spock have found them, and they know.

The sound of utensils dropping to the table startles Leonard into nearly overturning his stool. Chee narrows his gaze at Leonard while the doctor rights himself. Then Chee thumps into the seat across from him and ignores everything except squirming mound of dinner on his plate. A slight breeze at McCoy’s back is Ruti circling around him to sit down on his right.

His heart jumps in his throat when she remarks too casually, “Has something caught your interest, Dr. McCoy?”

“No,” he lies. Pointing at Chee’s heaping plate, he emphasizes, “Especially not that.”

Ruti studies Chee’s enthusiasm for his food and then McCoy’s pallor. “Very well,” she says, “we will not linger longer than necessary.”

She makes no other comment afterward and seems intent on her own meal for the time being. That alone, odd as it may seem, makes him break into a sweat.

Now that he is aware of Jim and Spock’s presence, he suddenly wishes he hadn’t thought of escape at all. Whether Leonard and his captors linger or not, those two are certain to follow.

There should be no time for doubts once fully into Operation: Rescue My Doctor. Or so Kirk chastises himself.

But what could possibly push McCoy to sit down to a meal with two very obviously unfriendly wayfarers? The man isn’t that social—or crazy.

“Maybe he’s under a spell,” Jim murmurs, spurring the companion at his elbow to glance sharply in his direction. “Or has lost his memory. It’s happened before,” he points out when Spock’s unamused stare remains unchanged.

“Captain, developing a supposition without facts is futile.”

Jim grunts and goes back to studying the nervous tick to Leonard McCoy’s jaw. “He knows we’re here.”

Spock’s voice lowers slightly. “You may be correct.”

Jim flicks a surprised glance Spock’s way. “What happened to ‘I loathe baseless guessing’?”

“I never said that, Jim.”

“That’s what you meant.”

“This turn of conversation is irrelevant.”

Jim is momentarily tempted to keep arguing, but then if he truly pisses off his second-in-command (or vice versa) there will be no one to prod them toward reluctant apologies and the relief of reconciliation. The person with that self-imposed responsibility is across the room in some kind of trouble.

And Jim is determined to extricate Bones from it as quickly as possible.

“Recommendation, Mr. Spock,” he prompts, falling back upon the simplicity and structure of command to maintain the peace between them.

Spock shifts his attention to the scene before them. “Given the heavy traffic through this facility, our opponents could make use of a number of distractions.”

“And find an easy escape. How long until backup arrives?”

“At least twenty minutes. The port’s structure and size does make the navigation of it complex.”

Jim doesn’t like the thought of waiting. “We don’t confront them directly. And there’s no use in donning a disguise in front of a telepath. Shit. Our options are running out here, Spock.”

“Perhaps we could create an opportunity for Dr. McCoy to attempt to escape on his own.”

“But if any of us failed, he might be killed. No.” Jim drums his fingers against the pillar in front of him. An idea forms. “What if the confrontation is… indirect?” He looks to Spock.

Spock raises an eyebrow. “Possible. Provided the circumstances are convincing.”

A twinkle comes into Kirk’s eyes. “I’ve been told I can be very charming.”

Spock seems like he has doubts concerning Jim’s acting skills. “As you stated, attempting to con a telepath would be futile. She will know your intentions are insincere.”

Jim returns to staring at McCoy’s profile. “It won’t be the lady I’m flirting with.”

“Ah,” Spock says after a moment. “In that case, you may be successful.”

Jim is already ironing out the details of the plan. “For this to work, we can’t approach them together.”

“I am aware of that.”

Jim straightens slightly and sighs through his nose. “All right, then.” He knows he can trust Spock to stay behind. “Hold the men back for now. Wait for my signal.”

“Acknowledged.”

Jim meets Spock’s gaze, and what he sees there steadies him. He offers his second-in-command a faint smile. “But first there is a small task where your input would be most helpful.” Having successfully piqued Spock’s curiosity, Jim winks and places a guiding hand on the Vulcan’s shoulder. “What do you know about fashion, Spock?”

Leonard has an itching ear that his granny used to say is indicative of someone talking about him. He would bet a year’s salary Jim has just convinced Spock of some hare-brained scheme that will inevitably land the three of them into worse trouble than Leonard is already in. Maybe moving Ruti and Chee along to that ship is the smartest thing to do. Leonard hates the thought of Jim and Spock winding up in harm’s way because of him. The least he can do is protect them from themselves.

“So,” he says, leaning on his elbows to survey the wreckage of Chee’s meal, “are you finished?”

Chee chomps down on the last bite of something unappetizingly gooey. “Dessert.”

Even Ruti turns to stare at Chee in displeasure. “No. Dr. McCoy is correct. We must leave now.”

Her companion wipes his mouth with the back of his arm. “The ship is not far. We have time.”

“That ship’s master cares not if we aboard!” Ruti fires back. “It could leave without us, and then who will guard the Lady?”

“Little chit!” Chee thumps his fist on the table, his entire countenance stiffening in anger. “You do not care for the Lady more than me!”

This is devolving into the kind of fight Leonard doesn’t want to be in the middle of. “Okay, calm down, both of you! People are staring.”

Ruti visibly settles herself, closing her eyes briefly. When she opens them again, the occupants of the surrounding tables blink in a dazed fashion before slowly resuming feeding themselves.

Leonard suppresses a shiver. Ruti decidedly is the victor, in his opinion. Chee appears to think so as well because he pushes his plate aside as if no longer having an appetite. Leonard doesn’t blame him.

“If that is the end to any dissension,” Ruti remarks in a tightly controlled tone, rising to her feet, “we have somewhere we should be. Now—”

“Leonard!”

Leonard’s head whips around at that very familiar—and far too jolly—cry. The blood drains out of his head.

James T. Kirk pops into existence, upsetting several people as he dives straight through the middle of the line of hungry customers now winding around the border of the eating area. With arms thrown wide in greeting and bearing a megawatt grin, the man gives the impression of someone having just arrived at the galaxy’s coolest amusement park.

Oh hell. Leonard stutters, “W-We gotta go,” but it’s already too late to take action. Not only is Jim bulldozing toward them with definite intent, but Ruti and Chee have turned to meet—or brawl with—this newcomer.

At the last second possible, Jim veers aside of Ruti and Chee, coming to a bouncing halt within an arm’s length of McCoy, who reluctantly stands up.

Still grinning, Jim sets his hands on his hips. “Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes?” he says to McCoy.

Leonard almost chokes. That’s usually his line. “Hey, Jim,” he returns a bit weakly.

“C’mere, you!” gushes Kirk, practically tackling Leonard into a rib-crushing hug.

Leonard ends up half-sitting, half-leaning against the table, smashed to Jim. His fear turns to annoyance. “Stop that,” he bites near Kirk’s ear. “I can’t breathe!”

Jim loosens his grip just slightly. He pulls back far enough to lay a smacking kiss upon Leonard’s cheek.

Leonard considers planting his knee in a very sensitive place but in the end squirms fiercely enough that Jim has let him go or be toppled over.

Kirk finally faces the onlookers, draping an arm casually across McCoy’s shoulders. “Hello,” the man greets them pleasantly. “Are you friends of Leonard’s?”

Chee eyes Kirk in the same way a madman looks for an easily accessible patch of skin to stab.

Ruti has no expression at all. “We are,” she states blandly. “Leonard,” she stresses, “who is this?”

Leonard takes that to mean get rid of him quickly or there will be consequences. He’s surprised she doesn’t already know Jim is Starfleet by his—wait a second.

Leonard realizes then that Jim definitely thought of a plan. Gone is the captain’s gold tunic and standard-issue blank pants. Somehow Jim has acquired another outfit, likely from the only clothes aisle of the superstore. He is the picture of a tourist trying to go native: a half-tucked-in vibrant print shirt covered by a light pink jacket too short in the arms, lime-green shorts clearly two sizes too big held up by a rope belt, a sun visor hanging from a cord around the neck, bangles on both wrists that flash in the overhead lighting and, finally, sandals more suited to a tropical getaway than a space station.

Under any other circumstances, Leonard would be embarrassed to be seen with him.

Jim’s arm across his shoulders tightens briefly. “A very good friend.”

“I barely know him,” Leonard says.

“I’m his ex,” Jim replies, still smiling. Over Leonard’s shocked silence, he adds, “He doesn’t like to talk about me.”

Ruti says very carefully to Leonard, “I did not realize you were mated.”

Leonard interprets that as I will murder you and this fool.

“Married, mated, same thing,” Jim says breezily. He strokes Leonard’s back. “I haven’t heard from you in a while, dear heart. Why didn’t you tell me you were passing through this sector?”

“Maybe because I didn’t want to see you?” Leonard says through gritted teeth. He shakes off Jim’s touch and turns on the man. “Jim, spouse from whom I’m happily divorced, why don’t we chat later? I’m busy.”

Jim says, pleasant as ever, “I missed you.”

“I said I’m busy. I have a career, remember?”

Jim tries to catch one of Leonard’s hands, only to be rebuked. “You’re not on your ship, so you must not be working today.”

“I will be back there shortly, once I finish—” He waves a hand at Ruti and Chee. “—visiting with friends.”

Kirk turns back to Ruti. “Have you tried a Moonrock Twist yet?” he asks impishly.

Chee crosses his arms over his chest but demands, “What is that?”

“A drink the locals prefer. Very fruity. My favorite!” Jim pats the air near McCoy, who swats at him again.

Leonard scoffs. “You hate fruit with your liquor.”

Kirk ignores that. “My treat for everyone if,” he says coaxingly, “you would grant me a small portion of time with this handsome guy.”

Leonard is going to punch him. He really is.

Ruti remains silent for a long minute. “You are determined.”

Much of Jim’s jovialness fades. “Of course,” he tells Ruti. “Second chances are hard to come by—and I couldn’t live with myself if I wasted this one.”

Leonard is frankly astonished that Ruti seems to believe everything Kirk is saying. By god, doesn’t she read minds?

“I must agree concerning second chances.” Ruti glances once at Chee. “It appears our plans have changed.”

Chee grunts and averts his gaze.

Ruti moves around the table to come closer to Kirk and McCoy. Leonard has to give Jim credit where it’s due: Jim does not tense in the slightest at the approach. But to anyone who knows the man well, Jim’s self-restraint is complimented by his ability to react on a moment’s notice.

Yes, trouble’s brewing, senses Leonard. Kirk is primed for whatever comes next, and no doubt Spock is lurking nearby, ready to assist.

“You have intrigued me,” she says politely to their new acquaintance. “Where can we try this beverage you speak so highly of?”

Jim beams. “I know just the place. Follow me.”

And with that remark lingering on the air, somehow prompting McCoy’s apprehension to return full-force, Kirk slips his arm through Leonard’s and takes point of their four-person party.

“So, Leonard,” Jim asks of his companion as they march back to the plaza, “tell me what you’ve been up to.”

He drawls flatly, “Thinking of quitting Starfleet.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. Because every time I see my captain’s face, I want to strangle him.”

Jim makes a choked sound and lowers his voice. “Violence is not the answer, Bones.”

“With some idiots,” mutters McCoy darkly in response, “it’s the only answer.”

Related Posts:

• Difficulty Engaged (11/11) – from June 29, 2020
• Difficulty Engaged (10/11) – from June 28, 2020
• Difficulty Engaged (9/10) – from June 21, 2020
• Difficulty Engaged (8/10) – from June 12, 2020
• Difficulty Engaged (7/10) – from November 29, 2019