Star Trek XI: Black City / White City
Title: Black City / White City
Pairing: Kirk/McCoy, past McCoy/Jocelyn & McCoy/Pike
Rating: R
Disclaimer: Not mine. :(
Warnings: Mangled attempts at historical fiction, some race fail vocabulary due to the time period
Summary: Two ways Kirk and McCoy might have met at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair
Notes: This is the twisted lovechild of two of my unhealthy fixations: the 1893 World Fair & Star Trek.
Historical points of note: 1. For its massive pollution, Chicago in the 1890s was known as the 'Black City'; the fair itself, on the other hand, earned the nickname 'White City.'
2. The Ferris Wheel made its debut at the fair.
~~*~~
There’s no denying the fair’s a league and a half ahead of any other work site he’s doctored over the years. Heated tents, regular hours, decent pay - odd to see STRIKE and LABOR UNREST splashed all over the Chicago headlines when all he sees is Jackson Park crammed head to toe with the happiest lot of working men he’s seen in a good while.
Doesn’t mean it isn’t damned dangerous, though.
First word he hears about the insane claptrap of a wheel going up by the Midway, he has a medic tent set up not two hops away. And soon’s he does, McCoy can see that the bitter cold, dynamite and tons upon tons of steel aren’t going to be the only medical terrors this winter. No sir, the men are doing a fine job of being a full menace to themselves.
Take the man currently swinging his legs over the side of one of McCoy’s cots like an overgrown schoolboy. Eyes blue as the winter sky, teeth crooked as his grin. Doing his best to look innocent when he’s clearly anything but, and likely in a good deal of pain to boot.
“Arms up, kid,” McCoy says, scowling and breathing in dried sweat, tobacco and winter air as he crosses into the man’s space. He gets a look that’s nothing but sass, and McCoy maybe yanks the work shirt a little harder than he might’ve needed. The kid grunts, quick spasm over his face, and McCoy frowns when he sees the pattern of bruises purpling his side. Careful probe with his fingers tells him what he needs to know - likely bruised, not broken.
When he looks up, the kid’s face has settled back into pure cheek. Only the tightness in his breath and jaw gives him away under that grin. “What’s the report, doc? Should I go ahead and get my affairs in order?”
“Well, since you clearly have a death wish, might as well go ahead an’ do that anyway.”
The kid’s eyebrows go up. “Where’s the accent from? Kentucky?”
McCoy glares. “Not that it’s relevant your medical care, Mr.-” he checks his chart- “Kirk, this accent and the man attached’re from Georgia. Now shut your trap and let me work.”
And of course, Kirk just laughs - then wheezes, doubles over in obvious pain. “That-” he rasps out, still forcing a watery grin, the stubborn mule -“your usual bedside manner, Doc?”
“Want me to chloroform you? ‘Cause that’s where we’re heading right now,” McCoy snaps even as he grasps Kirk’s shoulder and carefully guides him to lay back.
To his surprise, the kid - because that’s what he is, no more than a boy - quiets, heavy lids settling over a speculative slice of blue. Kirk watches closely as he cuts out the strips of adhesive plaster and dips them in water. He tenses when McCoy smooths them over the bruises, his ribs moving shallow and uneven in labored breaths. McCoy can’t help the urge to gentle, to soothe with his hands. For all the knotted calluses and scrapes on the kid’s red hands, the skin of Jim’s sides is surprisingly soft. It’s warmer in the tent than outside, but Kirk’s broken out in gooseflesh, shivering beneath the brush of McCoy’s fingers, and the sight sends an odd flush through Leonard’s blood.
“Wouldya quit squirming, kid?” McCoy growls as he wraps the last damp strip of plaster over his side. From the corner of his eye, Kirk’s smile takes a slow turn toward damned provocative. He stretches and his hips shift just the smallest bit, the heavy fabric of his overalls sliding one more fraction of an inch with a clink.
McCoy nearly trips over himself stumbling back, scrubbing plaster from his hands. Before Kirk can say another word he turns on his heel, barking through the adjoining tent flap for Chapel to keep the kid still while the plaster dries.
His pulse is thrumming and face warm as he steps out into the slap of cold winter air, the shock of it taking his breath away and clearing his mind. He turns a narrow eye over the mud-churned fairgrounds, bleak under the iron gray sky. The wheel is a spidery black skeleton sunk into the frozen earth, roped with dangling cables and frost-gilded steel beams piled at its dirty feet. The park outside his tent swarms with reckless, bright-eyed idiots, and Leonard McCoy scrubs a hand over his face with a weary, angry sigh.
When Kirk’d turned those knowing eyes on him and curved his lips like an invitation to sin, McCoy’s first thought was of Jocelyn, and panic. Had the news reached Chicago? Could she still be so furious, disgusted with her invert of a husband that she’d taken not only all of Atlanta but his new home as well? The journey by rail leaving the city still burns like a sore in his memory - how the weight of his flask anchored him in his haze of shame and fury, how his meager two suitcases rattled in their straps above his head. How with every passing rustle of a skirt or clip of shoes he ducked his head, in a terror of discovery, as if ‘sodomite’ was imprinted on his forehead like a brand.
He couldn’t bear it a second time, driven like a criminal from his practice, his home, for a longing he couldn’t quite understand or contain. It still strikes him as morbidly amusing, that the mysterious workings his body should finally betray him, one of the south’s premier surgeons.
The icy air cuts through him and McCoy vigorously scrubs his hands together, chafing in the cold. He breathes out a plume of white air and closes his eyes. No, it’s not possible that news of his proclivities have reached this far. But underneath the layer of grit and the obnoxious smile Kirk’s eyes are sharp and keen, and part of Leonard knows that in that half-hour long consultation, he gave away more of himself than he wanted.
Most terrible of all is the flicker of - something - light and cautious in his chest as he turns to face the rough fabric of the medical tents, the play of lamp light seeping through and licking at his boots. McCoy anchors his feet in the frozen mud and wipes his mind of bright, knowing smiles and work-broadened shoulders and, with a deep breath, marches in for his next in a long line of patients.
-----------------
The opening date of the fair draws ever closer as February thaws into a rain-drenched March, and the men are driven to ever more ridiculous stunts to finish that steel death-trap in the sky. Every morning he swears under his breath as he marches into the medical tent, eyes fixed on the wheel, a clammy panic breaking over his skin at the sight of these idiots clambering from beam to beam like a bunch of damned monkeys.
With this in mind, he’s almost surprised that his next appointment with Kirk isn’t the result of another death-defying stunt, but instead a checkup.
“You been resting on this?” McCoy asks shortly as the plaster adhesive comes apart beneath his fingers. The bruising has faded to a mottled yellow-green, trailing down to the slim line of Jim’s hips, and McCoy jerks his head up to Kirk’s face with a barely-controlled flush.
Jim smiles at him, less brash and more cautious this time around. “Doctor’s orders,” he says with a shrug.
McCoy can only grunt at that, bowing his head as he steps between Jim’s legs to settle his hands over his ribs. Jim sucks in a barely perceptible breath, tensing beneath McCoy’s fingers. Leonard steadfastly ignores the animal warmth of him, examining his bruising as brusquely and swiftly as possible. When he finally steps back, though, he feels warmed from head to toe and his fingers burn.
“No more stunts like the one before and you’ll be fine,” he says shortly, washing his hands in the bowl of warm water on the bedstand. “Try and keep the area cold for the bruising.”
Jim smiles wryly and his eyes flick to the tent opening. “Shouldn’t be a problem,” he says. They can both hear the thunder of rain outside, churning the mud into icy whorls. McCoy’s lamp-lit examining room suddenly seems all the more close, airless, with that wall of sound pressing around them. He feels color rise even higher on his cheeks as Jim holds his gaze. Kirk looks at him like he knows him.
“Shouldn’t be out working in this weather,” McCoy gruffs, turning to glare at the tent wall. “Could contract God-knows-what tromping about in the rain.”
“You recommending a day of sick leave, doctor?” Jim grins. His hair is still dark from the rain, slicked to his forehead. It makes him look rakish and wild, and God help him but McCoy wants to brush the damp strands back from his eyes. Everything about this man is appealing and it stokes a fire in his belly even as his nerves crawl with shame.
“Get your clothes on and get out,” McCoy says gruffly, jerking his head towards the entryway as he turns to the washing bowl. He scrubs furiously until he finally hears a rustle of fabric, the thud of boots on the ground, and heavy footsteps marking a path to the door.
“I’ll see you around, doc,” he says, and it almost sounds like a question. McCoy scrubs his hands raw, and doesn’t answer.
-----------------
“I know you’re like me,” the voice says from the darkness, and McCoy barely keeps himself from dropping his crate of topical ointments. Whenever he stays late like this to restock supplies for the next day, he always keeps a weather eye for thieves and vagrants, but Jim Kirk has somehow crept up on him. In the shadowy light from the open tent, Jim lifts a crate of cloth bandages and moves to his side, eyes bright and challenging, mouth set in a determined line. Could scarcely call him a kid when he’s standing tall and firm in the lamplight, braver than McCoy could even fathom himself being.
McCoy deflates on a shaky sigh, gesturing for Jim to follow with a quirk of his head, and marches into the supply room. He slides his armful of ointments into place and sits on a nearby barrel, watching as Jim heaves his crate atop a stack of wrappings.
“Looks like those ribs are healing nicely,” he says, but Jim just crosses his arms and leans against the stack of boxes, eyes intent in the dim light.
“I’ve asked around about you. Couldn’t get you out of my mind. Your hands alone, Christ,” Jim shakes his head with a rueful smile. McCoy stares, frozen, barely able to breathe. If anyone heard them, if anyone knew… and here was Jim, bold as brass, laying his heart on the floor for him to stomp on. For a brief, terrible moment, he hates Kirk for his bravery.
Jim takes a deep breath, meets his eyes. “Leonard Horatio McCoy. Twenty nine years old. Married for four years, divorced for one. You work yourself to the bone, care so much about your men that you’d risk your own life for them.” Jim pauses, draws another breath, but can’t seem to continue, eyes locked on Leonard’s face and mouth parted.
“Invert,” Leonard finishes for him, scarcely able to believe the word has passed his own lips until it charges the air between them, filling him with relief and dread both.
Jim visibly deflates, face awash with relief. “I knew it,” he says roughly, but the shake in his voice belays his smile.
“Why, I got a sign painted on my forehead?” McCoy asks. Jim laughs, and the tension leaves the room in a rush, leaving them both shaking with nervous laughter.
“You,” Jim says, stepping forward with a smile brighter than the moon itself, “I’ve never met anyone else. Like me.”
McCoy imagines Jim’s childhood, growing up corn-fed and sunbaked on some midwest farm, with barely a soul but his mammy and pappy and the cows for company. Then going from a lonely boy in the country to a lonely man in Chicago, with its hard-faced men and slaughterhouses on every corner, bricks mired in slime and manure and real companionship scarce as a breath of clean air.
“I have,” Leonard shrugs. “It ended... quickly.” His thumb makes a pass over his bare ring finger, and Jim’s eyes track the movement. He doesn’t press further, just nods, eases himself down onto the barrel next to McCoy. He’s fairly vibrating with energy, his eyes like a physical weight on the side of Leonard’s face.
“I,” he starts, voice dry. “You-”
Leonard feels himself flush all over at what Jim’s eyes are offering him. And hell, how is he supposed to say no? When Jim reaches out, slides dry palms over his jaw, he lets him, heart stuck high in his throat. Jim’s lashes are gilded gold in the dim light, and his chapped lips parted on a question. The air is close and thick between them, and McCoy brushes first his nose, then his lips, to Jim’s. He dusts Jim’s still mouth with slow, dragging kisses, like he never kissed Jocelyn, or even Christopher in their short time together.
It isn’t until Leonard dips his tongue to the divot of Jim’s lower lip that Jim makes a wounded noise against his mouth and grips at his arms hard enough to bruise. And suddenly Kirk is on him, his mouth harsh and demanding and his hands grasping everywhere they can reach. With a gasp and a surge of arousal, McCoy brackets his hands on Jim’s ribs, careful not to jostle him. Jim laughs against his mouth. “Always the doctor,” he murmurs between kisses, nudging his way forward til he’s straddling McCoy’s legs and sliding his arms fully around his neck. One hand anchors in Leonard’s hair and he can hardly move, hardly breathe as Jim sucks his way into McCoy’s mouth, laying him open beneath his restlessly shifting hips.
“I want-” he says hoarsely into Leonard’s lips, “I’ve been with women, but I want-” and he growls, frustrated, bites at McCoy’s mouth before stumbling back, leaving him grasping at air, but then Jim drops to his knees and tears at the clasps of his trousers, eyes seeking permission even as he wraps a warm dry palm around the length of McCoy and pulls him into cool open air. Jim’s hands are pale against his flushed length, callous-rough, and they stop his lungs, stop his heart, dizzy him with heat.
“Can I?” he asks, voice rough and inescapably male, and it strikes McCoy so forcefully he has to dig his fingers into the splintered side of the barrel to keep it from ending here. He can’t speak around his stopped throat, just nods jerkily, eyes fixed to that blonde head as it bows between his legs.
He is eager, if unskilled, the soft, warm wetness of his mouth a contrast to the bruising grip around his thighs. Jim is clumsy, his spit trailing down McCoy’s length and the occasional edge of a tooth sharp like fire through his nerves. Leonard has to close his eyes, dizzily tries to imagine longer hair and smaller hands in his mind, but Jim is moaning deep and low in his throat and it shakes McCoy to his core.
He releases with a shout, loud in the close air, and sudden terror grips him at the noise even as Jim’s sinful, warm mouth sucks every last ounce of pleasure from him. McCoy reels, stumbling back from the barrel and jarring his shoulder against a nearby stack of crates.
“Damnit!” he hisses, pulse racing in his forehead as his fear struggles around the edges of a heavy, bone-melting lethargy. Before him, Jim is the picture of a man debauched - cheeks flushed, trousers unfastened and seed spilt over his shirt and fist. Kirk watches with wide eyes as McCoy struggles to his feet, stumbles to the entryway as he fastens his buttons with shaking fingers. He is greeted by the dark winter night, a still panorama under the hazy light of the moon. Still, the walls of the tent are thin enough, and McCoy suddenly feels filthy, perverse. He thinks of the last time like this, Christopher’s murmured words of reassurance, the hands in his hair, Jocelyn’s stricken silence when she found them, the horror of her eyes raking over every inch of them like they were the foulest sight in the world.
“McCoy,” Jim says softly at his back, and it’s the hope in his tone that decides him. Because there is no hope in this world for two godless sodomites like them.
“No, Jim,” McCoy says gently, and doesn’t look back when he walks out into the night.
It’s not until the wheel goes up that he really thinks about going to the World's Fair.
It's a spindly thing - an insane claptrap of a wheel - lit by yellow electric lights against the murky Chicago sky. The first time he sees it turn, he's locking up his practice on West Marquette and there it is, gleaming like a new constellation. Sends a chill up his spine just looking at it, a creaking hunk of tin cans and steel gliding silently through the smoggy air. Can't even see the spokes from this far off, but he sure can see the cars, hanging in midair like lead weights and packed to the brim with fools. Sheer madness.
Almost as mad as gaping like a fish in the middle of a street corner on a black Chicago night. The gas lamps gutter overhead and a carriage rattles around the corner, snapping McCoy back into the sticky-hot July night. Collar wilting against his neck, he shrugs uncomfortably and checks the locks one last time before stalking down the street.
He thumbs the coins jammed in the bottom of his pockets and frowns. Miss Chapel has gently hinted he join her at the fair - but McCoy doesn't half believe the stories about the magic city blossoming in Jackson Park, a bright utopia growing out of the clanging, blood-and-gristle, smoke-blackened waste of Chicago.
McCoy restlessly glances at the wheel of light, runs a thumb round the edge of a penny,
counts his footsteps sharp on the cobblestones.
Maybe tomorrow.
-----------
Tomorrow brings rose light through the curtains like warm fingers on his cheek. McCoy drifts from a dream of marshy woods and magnolias, and turns his face into the starchy coolness of his pillow. He looks at his shoes kicked into the corner, the dull silver ring abandoned on his dresser, and he is out of his sheets and into his best shirtsleeves before he can think twice.
On the street, sunlight flashes over top hats, blue ribbons, gold pins, white smiles. The color and noise wash through him like a fever, and he steps from his door like a man into the tide, letting the winding crowds lead him through cobblestone, gravel, and grass, to a mud- and ship-spotted shore.
Men with rolled shirtsleeves and gleaming bald heads conduct the clatter of gold and copper coins in the toll booths. McCoy drops his fifty cents in the till and rocks up on his toes as he waits. He breathes in the heavy-warm lake air, lets the grime and exhaustion of Chicago lift from his brow, takes the odd elbow in his side with more good-nature than he's felt in a dog’s age. He’s almost smiling as full skirts and small hands press him forward til he’s crammed in a little electric boat, humming in the clear water like a tree-dappled bird.
The boat shakes as the children shriek and squall, and it’s nearly an effort to scowl at them. It’s still effective, though, and they cast him frightened looks as the boat rumbles out from under the wild overgrown brush along the shore.
Before his eyes can truly adjust to the light, the first spires begin to peek into sight. The White City slowly rises around a bank of trees, toweringly grand and scraping the lake-blue sky. McCoy squints as he clutches his seat, the columns and arches and glass domes slicing his vision and his breath until gooseflesh prickles his arms.
Miss Chapel is waiting on the pier, blue muslin flapping in the wind.
“It’s breathtaking, isn’t it,” she calls over the hustle and noise as the boat noses the wooden planks. Her beau hurries up behind, holding her parasol and dodging the children piling like Labrador puppies from the little boat. “Well worth the fifty cents, I should think.”
McCoy smiles wryly, climbs from the boat at a rather more sedate pace. “Only time will tell, Miss Chapel.”
Christine just laughs and pinches his elbow. “Monty, you see how he tries to scowl even as he’s smiling ear to ear. I don’t know how he does it.”
“Aye, the doctor is man of great resolve,” says Scott with mock solemnity, before breaking into an earsplitting laugh. “Come, laddie, we’ll see if we can’t have you dancin’ the reel come nightfall.”
Leonard huffs, but lets them draw him forward through soaring white arches topped by gilded statues that glint in the sunlight. “The Court of Honor,” Christine murmurs at his elbow.
The reflecting pool spreads out at their feet, a wind-ruffled acre of blue set in the white pavilion. There’s a sense of suspended breath in the magnitude of the square; women and men drift like painted birds past the fountains, the bridges, the soaring, glass-plated buildings. A nearby archway opens to a towering world of strange machinery, and white statues preside over the quiet crowds.
As the hours pass, Leonard feels the dream draw him in. They see statues built of Florida oranges, Pennsylvania chocolates wrapped in delicate gold foil, carvings made of Idaho potatoes. Scott buys cold scoops of ice cream piled messily atop doughy cones. The grainy crackle of a man’s voice comes through a metal tube from far away, and oriental carpets fill one domed glass hall with bright and fluttering color. It is unlike anything Leonard could have imagined, and he feels enchanted as he hasn’t since childhood.
By luncheon, Scott is eager to head to the Midway. “My Captive Balloon is there,” he says cryptically, with a typically roughish smile. Miss Chapel rolls her eyes and slips her arm in her beau’s elbow.
“Monty’s pet project,” she explains. “He’s invested in a hot-air balloon.”
“And you told me t’was a foolish venture,” Scott says smugly.
They break from the shade of a long lane of trees to find themselves in a broad avenue of dust, cooking smells, music and movement, crowds packing into the expanse of the Midway. Over the chaos bobs a brightly colored silk balloon, diminishing slowly as its tethered girth rises into the air. Leonard feels his stomach roll.
“No way in hell,” he says bluntly, and Christine claps a hand over her mouth to stifle a smile.
“Laughing at me won’t change a thing, Miss Chapel,” he says, crossing his arms. “The president himself couldn’t coax me into that deathtrap.”
“Well I dinnae about you, doctor, but I’m taking my lassie up for a ride on the magic balloon,” Scott grins. “Shouldnae take more than a half hour.”
They disappear into the throng in a whirl of bright cloth and good spirits, and McCoy can’t stop himself smiling affectionately at their receding forms. Meanwhile, whirling clouds of dust coat his shoes and the hot sun beats mercilessly upon his shoulders. He skirts off the main path to the trampled grass, only breathing easy when he finds himself free of the crowds.
“Hello,” a voice says at his elbow. He turns and finds himself face to face with a set of bright blue eyes and a wide-open smile. The man’s shirtsleeves are rumpled and sweat-stained, but he still manages to look cool and relaxed beneath it all. He puts a familiar hand on Leonard’s elbow, and McCoy is so surprised he forgets to pull back.
“Who’re you?” he demands.
“I’m the man who wants to sell you a ride on my marvelous machine,” the kid laughs, gesturing behind him. McCoy turns, and suddenly realizes the source of the shifting shadows at his feet - the wheel, gliding huge and near-silent through the summer air. It takes his breath away, the towering height of it, and his stomach lurches in sympathetic reaction.
“No,” he says flatly, and turns away.
“A man who knows what he wants,” the kid smiles, “I can respect that.”
“Then respect my space and get the hell away from me,” McCoy grouches, not bothering to face him again. Instead, the kid pops up in front of him, like an annoying pet who still hasn’t learned the meaning of ‘no.’
“I’m Kirk,” he says with a grin. “Jim Kirk.”
“In what language does ‘go away’ translate into ‘introduce yourself?’ I don’t care if you’re God Almighty himself, I’m not getting on that wheel.”
“That’s too bad,” Jim says, squinting up at the wheel spinning overhead. “It’s a complete novelty, you know. The world’s first Ferris Wheel.”
“I’m afraid of heights, not newspapers. I know what the damn thing is.”
Most people would give up at this point, but perversely, Kirk just looks all the more enchanted. He gives McCoy a long, considering look, finally breaking it to dig in his wooden vendor’s box and pull out a ticket.
“It’s on me,” he says before McCoy can open his mouth to protest. “Keep it. If you change your mind, you know where to find me.”
And with a wink and one last flash of that bright smile, he’s gone, easing back into the crowd. Like a djinn back into his bottle.
McCoy shakes his head at his own whimsy, arches his neck once more to squint up at the wheel. Even this close, the spokes seem impossibly slender against the bright summer sky, and McCoy can no longer be sure if that prickling in his gut is sickness or fascination.
“Fancy a ride on the wheel, then?” Scott says, appearing at his elbow. Christine is at his side, cheeks flushed pink from the wind.
“Maybe later,” she says with a wobbling laugh, “Let’s not terrorize the good doctor too much with talk of heights.”
They wind their way down the Midway, submerged at every turn in exotic sights and spices, Christine particularly enthralled by a group of sleek, coffee-skinned belly dancers. But despite the flurry of colors and drums and warbled song, McCoy finds himself distracted, peering through the sun-soaked crowds and crinolines for a sight of those rolled up shirtsleeves, that star-bright smile. His ticket goes dog-eared in his pocket under his restless thumb, but Jim Kirk remains elusive.
When the sky turns purple-gold, they wander back to the moats and eddies of the Court of Honor, now softened with shadows in the dusk. The fountains burble, cough, then slowly trickle to a stop, and night comes to the fairgrounds on silent footsteps. Scott buys a last ice cream for them each as the food stands shut their doors, and they eat in silence as electric lights flicker on overhead. Their reflections swim in the pool like glowing moons, the water’s surface an inky black.
“Beautiful,” murmurs Christine, and McCoy silently agrees.
When at last they turn to leave, McCoy finds his throat opening of its own accord, speaking, “I think I’ll stay a bit,” and Miss Chapel touches his arm with a smile before they glide into the dark.
His footsteps lead him back to the wheel just as the day’s last crowds stream from its cars, his ticket now wilted in his pocket. The wheel gleams overhead, impossibly tall and speckled with light, and the sight of it steals his breath.
“You came,” Jim’s voice says from his side, and his smile is a gentle thing, the lights reflecting gold in his eyes.
“Too late, though, I suppose,” McCoy says, surprised with his own regret.
At that, Jim’s smile turns to mischief and he calls, “Sulu!” over the sea of passing bonnets and stovepipe hats. An oriental man looks up from the heart of the wheel, his hands pausing over the tangle of levers and wires. Jim calls, “One more, will you?”
McCoy can’t help the disbelieving laugh that escapes his lips, but to his astonishment the man just grins rakishly and says, “Why not?”
“Who are you people?” McCoy asks incredulously as Jim notches a hand at the small of his back. Jim just laughs, guiding McCoy gently but firmly into the vacant car. Leonard doesn’t have the presence of mind to shake him away. He’s too busy staring at the glow of the lights casting shadows through their metal cage, at the silvered web of beams and cables standing between them and the night sky. The car is about as large as a small parlor and sways as gears lock into place.
“Mother of mercy,” McCoy grits, gripping white-knuckled at the railing. “How did you talk me into this?”
Jim just grins, as delighted and serene as ever. Instead of replying, he places a hand over Leonard’s and looks out over the fairgrounds as they slowly begin to rise.
The dry warmth of Jim’s hand somehow anchors him as the earth slowly falls away, tipping them into the night sky. The grounds shrink to a web of fairy lights and reflected stars, Chicago crouched low and brooding in the distance. The wind blows more freely as they rise, gently rattling the glass behind the bars, and McCoy’s fear is a strange, buzzing thing in his chest, in his shaking limbs. The higher they glide, the lighter he feels, untethered above the sweeping flat stretch of the land, and he is near dizzy with it as they reach the peak.
When Jim turns to him with star-bright eyes and smiling, parted lips, he seems part of a spell woven from the fabric of the summer night. The sight of him steals Leonard’s breath, and he doesn’t even think to object when Kirk leans forward to steal a firm, warm kiss. Leonard simply leans his forehead to his warmth, shares his quiet breath. They stand alone, hands entwined, at the top of the world.
End
Pairing: Kirk/McCoy, past McCoy/Jocelyn & McCoy/Pike
Rating: R
Disclaimer: Not mine. :(
Warnings: Mangled attempts at historical fiction, some race fail vocabulary due to the time period
Summary: Two ways Kirk and McCoy might have met at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair
Notes: This is the twisted lovechild of two of my unhealthy fixations: the 1893 World Fair & Star Trek.
Historical points of note: 1. For its massive pollution, Chicago in the 1890s was known as the 'Black City'; the fair itself, on the other hand, earned the nickname 'White City.'
2. The Ferris Wheel made its debut at the fair.
~~*~~
There’s no denying the fair’s a league and a half ahead of any other work site he’s doctored over the years. Heated tents, regular hours, decent pay - odd to see STRIKE and LABOR UNREST splashed all over the Chicago headlines when all he sees is Jackson Park crammed head to toe with the happiest lot of working men he’s seen in a good while.
Doesn’t mean it isn’t damned dangerous, though.
First word he hears about the insane claptrap of a wheel going up by the Midway, he has a medic tent set up not two hops away. And soon’s he does, McCoy can see that the bitter cold, dynamite and tons upon tons of steel aren’t going to be the only medical terrors this winter. No sir, the men are doing a fine job of being a full menace to themselves.
Take the man currently swinging his legs over the side of one of McCoy’s cots like an overgrown schoolboy. Eyes blue as the winter sky, teeth crooked as his grin. Doing his best to look innocent when he’s clearly anything but, and likely in a good deal of pain to boot.
“Arms up, kid,” McCoy says, scowling and breathing in dried sweat, tobacco and winter air as he crosses into the man’s space. He gets a look that’s nothing but sass, and McCoy maybe yanks the work shirt a little harder than he might’ve needed. The kid grunts, quick spasm over his face, and McCoy frowns when he sees the pattern of bruises purpling his side. Careful probe with his fingers tells him what he needs to know - likely bruised, not broken.
When he looks up, the kid’s face has settled back into pure cheek. Only the tightness in his breath and jaw gives him away under that grin. “What’s the report, doc? Should I go ahead and get my affairs in order?”
“Well, since you clearly have a death wish, might as well go ahead an’ do that anyway.”
The kid’s eyebrows go up. “Where’s the accent from? Kentucky?”
McCoy glares. “Not that it’s relevant your medical care, Mr.-” he checks his chart- “Kirk, this accent and the man attached’re from Georgia. Now shut your trap and let me work.”
And of course, Kirk just laughs - then wheezes, doubles over in obvious pain. “That-” he rasps out, still forcing a watery grin, the stubborn mule -“your usual bedside manner, Doc?”
“Want me to chloroform you? ‘Cause that’s where we’re heading right now,” McCoy snaps even as he grasps Kirk’s shoulder and carefully guides him to lay back.
To his surprise, the kid - because that’s what he is, no more than a boy - quiets, heavy lids settling over a speculative slice of blue. Kirk watches closely as he cuts out the strips of adhesive plaster and dips them in water. He tenses when McCoy smooths them over the bruises, his ribs moving shallow and uneven in labored breaths. McCoy can’t help the urge to gentle, to soothe with his hands. For all the knotted calluses and scrapes on the kid’s red hands, the skin of Jim’s sides is surprisingly soft. It’s warmer in the tent than outside, but Kirk’s broken out in gooseflesh, shivering beneath the brush of McCoy’s fingers, and the sight sends an odd flush through Leonard’s blood.
“Wouldya quit squirming, kid?” McCoy growls as he wraps the last damp strip of plaster over his side. From the corner of his eye, Kirk’s smile takes a slow turn toward damned provocative. He stretches and his hips shift just the smallest bit, the heavy fabric of his overalls sliding one more fraction of an inch with a clink.
McCoy nearly trips over himself stumbling back, scrubbing plaster from his hands. Before Kirk can say another word he turns on his heel, barking through the adjoining tent flap for Chapel to keep the kid still while the plaster dries.
His pulse is thrumming and face warm as he steps out into the slap of cold winter air, the shock of it taking his breath away and clearing his mind. He turns a narrow eye over the mud-churned fairgrounds, bleak under the iron gray sky. The wheel is a spidery black skeleton sunk into the frozen earth, roped with dangling cables and frost-gilded steel beams piled at its dirty feet. The park outside his tent swarms with reckless, bright-eyed idiots, and Leonard McCoy scrubs a hand over his face with a weary, angry sigh.
When Kirk’d turned those knowing eyes on him and curved his lips like an invitation to sin, McCoy’s first thought was of Jocelyn, and panic. Had the news reached Chicago? Could she still be so furious, disgusted with her invert of a husband that she’d taken not only all of Atlanta but his new home as well? The journey by rail leaving the city still burns like a sore in his memory - how the weight of his flask anchored him in his haze of shame and fury, how his meager two suitcases rattled in their straps above his head. How with every passing rustle of a skirt or clip of shoes he ducked his head, in a terror of discovery, as if ‘sodomite’ was imprinted on his forehead like a brand.
He couldn’t bear it a second time, driven like a criminal from his practice, his home, for a longing he couldn’t quite understand or contain. It still strikes him as morbidly amusing, that the mysterious workings his body should finally betray him, one of the south’s premier surgeons.
The icy air cuts through him and McCoy vigorously scrubs his hands together, chafing in the cold. He breathes out a plume of white air and closes his eyes. No, it’s not possible that news of his proclivities have reached this far. But underneath the layer of grit and the obnoxious smile Kirk’s eyes are sharp and keen, and part of Leonard knows that in that half-hour long consultation, he gave away more of himself than he wanted.
Most terrible of all is the flicker of - something - light and cautious in his chest as he turns to face the rough fabric of the medical tents, the play of lamp light seeping through and licking at his boots. McCoy anchors his feet in the frozen mud and wipes his mind of bright, knowing smiles and work-broadened shoulders and, with a deep breath, marches in for his next in a long line of patients.
-----------------
The opening date of the fair draws ever closer as February thaws into a rain-drenched March, and the men are driven to ever more ridiculous stunts to finish that steel death-trap in the sky. Every morning he swears under his breath as he marches into the medical tent, eyes fixed on the wheel, a clammy panic breaking over his skin at the sight of these idiots clambering from beam to beam like a bunch of damned monkeys.
With this in mind, he’s almost surprised that his next appointment with Kirk isn’t the result of another death-defying stunt, but instead a checkup.
“You been resting on this?” McCoy asks shortly as the plaster adhesive comes apart beneath his fingers. The bruising has faded to a mottled yellow-green, trailing down to the slim line of Jim’s hips, and McCoy jerks his head up to Kirk’s face with a barely-controlled flush.
Jim smiles at him, less brash and more cautious this time around. “Doctor’s orders,” he says with a shrug.
McCoy can only grunt at that, bowing his head as he steps between Jim’s legs to settle his hands over his ribs. Jim sucks in a barely perceptible breath, tensing beneath McCoy’s fingers. Leonard steadfastly ignores the animal warmth of him, examining his bruising as brusquely and swiftly as possible. When he finally steps back, though, he feels warmed from head to toe and his fingers burn.
“No more stunts like the one before and you’ll be fine,” he says shortly, washing his hands in the bowl of warm water on the bedstand. “Try and keep the area cold for the bruising.”
Jim smiles wryly and his eyes flick to the tent opening. “Shouldn’t be a problem,” he says. They can both hear the thunder of rain outside, churning the mud into icy whorls. McCoy’s lamp-lit examining room suddenly seems all the more close, airless, with that wall of sound pressing around them. He feels color rise even higher on his cheeks as Jim holds his gaze. Kirk looks at him like he knows him.
“Shouldn’t be out working in this weather,” McCoy gruffs, turning to glare at the tent wall. “Could contract God-knows-what tromping about in the rain.”
“You recommending a day of sick leave, doctor?” Jim grins. His hair is still dark from the rain, slicked to his forehead. It makes him look rakish and wild, and God help him but McCoy wants to brush the damp strands back from his eyes. Everything about this man is appealing and it stokes a fire in his belly even as his nerves crawl with shame.
“Get your clothes on and get out,” McCoy says gruffly, jerking his head towards the entryway as he turns to the washing bowl. He scrubs furiously until he finally hears a rustle of fabric, the thud of boots on the ground, and heavy footsteps marking a path to the door.
“I’ll see you around, doc,” he says, and it almost sounds like a question. McCoy scrubs his hands raw, and doesn’t answer.
-----------------
“I know you’re like me,” the voice says from the darkness, and McCoy barely keeps himself from dropping his crate of topical ointments. Whenever he stays late like this to restock supplies for the next day, he always keeps a weather eye for thieves and vagrants, but Jim Kirk has somehow crept up on him. In the shadowy light from the open tent, Jim lifts a crate of cloth bandages and moves to his side, eyes bright and challenging, mouth set in a determined line. Could scarcely call him a kid when he’s standing tall and firm in the lamplight, braver than McCoy could even fathom himself being.
McCoy deflates on a shaky sigh, gesturing for Jim to follow with a quirk of his head, and marches into the supply room. He slides his armful of ointments into place and sits on a nearby barrel, watching as Jim heaves his crate atop a stack of wrappings.
“Looks like those ribs are healing nicely,” he says, but Jim just crosses his arms and leans against the stack of boxes, eyes intent in the dim light.
“I’ve asked around about you. Couldn’t get you out of my mind. Your hands alone, Christ,” Jim shakes his head with a rueful smile. McCoy stares, frozen, barely able to breathe. If anyone heard them, if anyone knew… and here was Jim, bold as brass, laying his heart on the floor for him to stomp on. For a brief, terrible moment, he hates Kirk for his bravery.
Jim takes a deep breath, meets his eyes. “Leonard Horatio McCoy. Twenty nine years old. Married for four years, divorced for one. You work yourself to the bone, care so much about your men that you’d risk your own life for them.” Jim pauses, draws another breath, but can’t seem to continue, eyes locked on Leonard’s face and mouth parted.
“Invert,” Leonard finishes for him, scarcely able to believe the word has passed his own lips until it charges the air between them, filling him with relief and dread both.
Jim visibly deflates, face awash with relief. “I knew it,” he says roughly, but the shake in his voice belays his smile.
“Why, I got a sign painted on my forehead?” McCoy asks. Jim laughs, and the tension leaves the room in a rush, leaving them both shaking with nervous laughter.
“You,” Jim says, stepping forward with a smile brighter than the moon itself, “I’ve never met anyone else. Like me.”
McCoy imagines Jim’s childhood, growing up corn-fed and sunbaked on some midwest farm, with barely a soul but his mammy and pappy and the cows for company. Then going from a lonely boy in the country to a lonely man in Chicago, with its hard-faced men and slaughterhouses on every corner, bricks mired in slime and manure and real companionship scarce as a breath of clean air.
“I have,” Leonard shrugs. “It ended... quickly.” His thumb makes a pass over his bare ring finger, and Jim’s eyes track the movement. He doesn’t press further, just nods, eases himself down onto the barrel next to McCoy. He’s fairly vibrating with energy, his eyes like a physical weight on the side of Leonard’s face.
“I,” he starts, voice dry. “You-”
Leonard feels himself flush all over at what Jim’s eyes are offering him. And hell, how is he supposed to say no? When Jim reaches out, slides dry palms over his jaw, he lets him, heart stuck high in his throat. Jim’s lashes are gilded gold in the dim light, and his chapped lips parted on a question. The air is close and thick between them, and McCoy brushes first his nose, then his lips, to Jim’s. He dusts Jim’s still mouth with slow, dragging kisses, like he never kissed Jocelyn, or even Christopher in their short time together.
It isn’t until Leonard dips his tongue to the divot of Jim’s lower lip that Jim makes a wounded noise against his mouth and grips at his arms hard enough to bruise. And suddenly Kirk is on him, his mouth harsh and demanding and his hands grasping everywhere they can reach. With a gasp and a surge of arousal, McCoy brackets his hands on Jim’s ribs, careful not to jostle him. Jim laughs against his mouth. “Always the doctor,” he murmurs between kisses, nudging his way forward til he’s straddling McCoy’s legs and sliding his arms fully around his neck. One hand anchors in Leonard’s hair and he can hardly move, hardly breathe as Jim sucks his way into McCoy’s mouth, laying him open beneath his restlessly shifting hips.
“I want-” he says hoarsely into Leonard’s lips, “I’ve been with women, but I want-” and he growls, frustrated, bites at McCoy’s mouth before stumbling back, leaving him grasping at air, but then Jim drops to his knees and tears at the clasps of his trousers, eyes seeking permission even as he wraps a warm dry palm around the length of McCoy and pulls him into cool open air. Jim’s hands are pale against his flushed length, callous-rough, and they stop his lungs, stop his heart, dizzy him with heat.
“Can I?” he asks, voice rough and inescapably male, and it strikes McCoy so forcefully he has to dig his fingers into the splintered side of the barrel to keep it from ending here. He can’t speak around his stopped throat, just nods jerkily, eyes fixed to that blonde head as it bows between his legs.
He is eager, if unskilled, the soft, warm wetness of his mouth a contrast to the bruising grip around his thighs. Jim is clumsy, his spit trailing down McCoy’s length and the occasional edge of a tooth sharp like fire through his nerves. Leonard has to close his eyes, dizzily tries to imagine longer hair and smaller hands in his mind, but Jim is moaning deep and low in his throat and it shakes McCoy to his core.
He releases with a shout, loud in the close air, and sudden terror grips him at the noise even as Jim’s sinful, warm mouth sucks every last ounce of pleasure from him. McCoy reels, stumbling back from the barrel and jarring his shoulder against a nearby stack of crates.
“Damnit!” he hisses, pulse racing in his forehead as his fear struggles around the edges of a heavy, bone-melting lethargy. Before him, Jim is the picture of a man debauched - cheeks flushed, trousers unfastened and seed spilt over his shirt and fist. Kirk watches with wide eyes as McCoy struggles to his feet, stumbles to the entryway as he fastens his buttons with shaking fingers. He is greeted by the dark winter night, a still panorama under the hazy light of the moon. Still, the walls of the tent are thin enough, and McCoy suddenly feels filthy, perverse. He thinks of the last time like this, Christopher’s murmured words of reassurance, the hands in his hair, Jocelyn’s stricken silence when she found them, the horror of her eyes raking over every inch of them like they were the foulest sight in the world.
“McCoy,” Jim says softly at his back, and it’s the hope in his tone that decides him. Because there is no hope in this world for two godless sodomites like them.
“No, Jim,” McCoy says gently, and doesn’t look back when he walks out into the night.
It’s not until the wheel goes up that he really thinks about going to the World's Fair.
It's a spindly thing - an insane claptrap of a wheel - lit by yellow electric lights against the murky Chicago sky. The first time he sees it turn, he's locking up his practice on West Marquette and there it is, gleaming like a new constellation. Sends a chill up his spine just looking at it, a creaking hunk of tin cans and steel gliding silently through the smoggy air. Can't even see the spokes from this far off, but he sure can see the cars, hanging in midair like lead weights and packed to the brim with fools. Sheer madness.
Almost as mad as gaping like a fish in the middle of a street corner on a black Chicago night. The gas lamps gutter overhead and a carriage rattles around the corner, snapping McCoy back into the sticky-hot July night. Collar wilting against his neck, he shrugs uncomfortably and checks the locks one last time before stalking down the street.
He thumbs the coins jammed in the bottom of his pockets and frowns. Miss Chapel has gently hinted he join her at the fair - but McCoy doesn't half believe the stories about the magic city blossoming in Jackson Park, a bright utopia growing out of the clanging, blood-and-gristle, smoke-blackened waste of Chicago.
McCoy restlessly glances at the wheel of light, runs a thumb round the edge of a penny,
counts his footsteps sharp on the cobblestones.
Maybe tomorrow.
-----------
Tomorrow brings rose light through the curtains like warm fingers on his cheek. McCoy drifts from a dream of marshy woods and magnolias, and turns his face into the starchy coolness of his pillow. He looks at his shoes kicked into the corner, the dull silver ring abandoned on his dresser, and he is out of his sheets and into his best shirtsleeves before he can think twice.
On the street, sunlight flashes over top hats, blue ribbons, gold pins, white smiles. The color and noise wash through him like a fever, and he steps from his door like a man into the tide, letting the winding crowds lead him through cobblestone, gravel, and grass, to a mud- and ship-spotted shore.
Men with rolled shirtsleeves and gleaming bald heads conduct the clatter of gold and copper coins in the toll booths. McCoy drops his fifty cents in the till and rocks up on his toes as he waits. He breathes in the heavy-warm lake air, lets the grime and exhaustion of Chicago lift from his brow, takes the odd elbow in his side with more good-nature than he's felt in a dog’s age. He’s almost smiling as full skirts and small hands press him forward til he’s crammed in a little electric boat, humming in the clear water like a tree-dappled bird.
The boat shakes as the children shriek and squall, and it’s nearly an effort to scowl at them. It’s still effective, though, and they cast him frightened looks as the boat rumbles out from under the wild overgrown brush along the shore.
Before his eyes can truly adjust to the light, the first spires begin to peek into sight. The White City slowly rises around a bank of trees, toweringly grand and scraping the lake-blue sky. McCoy squints as he clutches his seat, the columns and arches and glass domes slicing his vision and his breath until gooseflesh prickles his arms.
Miss Chapel is waiting on the pier, blue muslin flapping in the wind.
“It’s breathtaking, isn’t it,” she calls over the hustle and noise as the boat noses the wooden planks. Her beau hurries up behind, holding her parasol and dodging the children piling like Labrador puppies from the little boat. “Well worth the fifty cents, I should think.”
McCoy smiles wryly, climbs from the boat at a rather more sedate pace. “Only time will tell, Miss Chapel.”
Christine just laughs and pinches his elbow. “Monty, you see how he tries to scowl even as he’s smiling ear to ear. I don’t know how he does it.”
“Aye, the doctor is man of great resolve,” says Scott with mock solemnity, before breaking into an earsplitting laugh. “Come, laddie, we’ll see if we can’t have you dancin’ the reel come nightfall.”
Leonard huffs, but lets them draw him forward through soaring white arches topped by gilded statues that glint in the sunlight. “The Court of Honor,” Christine murmurs at his elbow.
The reflecting pool spreads out at their feet, a wind-ruffled acre of blue set in the white pavilion. There’s a sense of suspended breath in the magnitude of the square; women and men drift like painted birds past the fountains, the bridges, the soaring, glass-plated buildings. A nearby archway opens to a towering world of strange machinery, and white statues preside over the quiet crowds.
As the hours pass, Leonard feels the dream draw him in. They see statues built of Florida oranges, Pennsylvania chocolates wrapped in delicate gold foil, carvings made of Idaho potatoes. Scott buys cold scoops of ice cream piled messily atop doughy cones. The grainy crackle of a man’s voice comes through a metal tube from far away, and oriental carpets fill one domed glass hall with bright and fluttering color. It is unlike anything Leonard could have imagined, and he feels enchanted as he hasn’t since childhood.
By luncheon, Scott is eager to head to the Midway. “My Captive Balloon is there,” he says cryptically, with a typically roughish smile. Miss Chapel rolls her eyes and slips her arm in her beau’s elbow.
“Monty’s pet project,” she explains. “He’s invested in a hot-air balloon.”
“And you told me t’was a foolish venture,” Scott says smugly.
They break from the shade of a long lane of trees to find themselves in a broad avenue of dust, cooking smells, music and movement, crowds packing into the expanse of the Midway. Over the chaos bobs a brightly colored silk balloon, diminishing slowly as its tethered girth rises into the air. Leonard feels his stomach roll.
“No way in hell,” he says bluntly, and Christine claps a hand over her mouth to stifle a smile.
“Laughing at me won’t change a thing, Miss Chapel,” he says, crossing his arms. “The president himself couldn’t coax me into that deathtrap.”
“Well I dinnae about you, doctor, but I’m taking my lassie up for a ride on the magic balloon,” Scott grins. “Shouldnae take more than a half hour.”
They disappear into the throng in a whirl of bright cloth and good spirits, and McCoy can’t stop himself smiling affectionately at their receding forms. Meanwhile, whirling clouds of dust coat his shoes and the hot sun beats mercilessly upon his shoulders. He skirts off the main path to the trampled grass, only breathing easy when he finds himself free of the crowds.
“Hello,” a voice says at his elbow. He turns and finds himself face to face with a set of bright blue eyes and a wide-open smile. The man’s shirtsleeves are rumpled and sweat-stained, but he still manages to look cool and relaxed beneath it all. He puts a familiar hand on Leonard’s elbow, and McCoy is so surprised he forgets to pull back.
“Who’re you?” he demands.
“I’m the man who wants to sell you a ride on my marvelous machine,” the kid laughs, gesturing behind him. McCoy turns, and suddenly realizes the source of the shifting shadows at his feet - the wheel, gliding huge and near-silent through the summer air. It takes his breath away, the towering height of it, and his stomach lurches in sympathetic reaction.
“No,” he says flatly, and turns away.
“A man who knows what he wants,” the kid smiles, “I can respect that.”
“Then respect my space and get the hell away from me,” McCoy grouches, not bothering to face him again. Instead, the kid pops up in front of him, like an annoying pet who still hasn’t learned the meaning of ‘no.’
“I’m Kirk,” he says with a grin. “Jim Kirk.”
“In what language does ‘go away’ translate into ‘introduce yourself?’ I don’t care if you’re God Almighty himself, I’m not getting on that wheel.”
“That’s too bad,” Jim says, squinting up at the wheel spinning overhead. “It’s a complete novelty, you know. The world’s first Ferris Wheel.”
“I’m afraid of heights, not newspapers. I know what the damn thing is.”
Most people would give up at this point, but perversely, Kirk just looks all the more enchanted. He gives McCoy a long, considering look, finally breaking it to dig in his wooden vendor’s box and pull out a ticket.
“It’s on me,” he says before McCoy can open his mouth to protest. “Keep it. If you change your mind, you know where to find me.”
And with a wink and one last flash of that bright smile, he’s gone, easing back into the crowd. Like a djinn back into his bottle.
McCoy shakes his head at his own whimsy, arches his neck once more to squint up at the wheel. Even this close, the spokes seem impossibly slender against the bright summer sky, and McCoy can no longer be sure if that prickling in his gut is sickness or fascination.
“Fancy a ride on the wheel, then?” Scott says, appearing at his elbow. Christine is at his side, cheeks flushed pink from the wind.
“Maybe later,” she says with a wobbling laugh, “Let’s not terrorize the good doctor too much with talk of heights.”
They wind their way down the Midway, submerged at every turn in exotic sights and spices, Christine particularly enthralled by a group of sleek, coffee-skinned belly dancers. But despite the flurry of colors and drums and warbled song, McCoy finds himself distracted, peering through the sun-soaked crowds and crinolines for a sight of those rolled up shirtsleeves, that star-bright smile. His ticket goes dog-eared in his pocket under his restless thumb, but Jim Kirk remains elusive.
When the sky turns purple-gold, they wander back to the moats and eddies of the Court of Honor, now softened with shadows in the dusk. The fountains burble, cough, then slowly trickle to a stop, and night comes to the fairgrounds on silent footsteps. Scott buys a last ice cream for them each as the food stands shut their doors, and they eat in silence as electric lights flicker on overhead. Their reflections swim in the pool like glowing moons, the water’s surface an inky black.
“Beautiful,” murmurs Christine, and McCoy silently agrees.
When at last they turn to leave, McCoy finds his throat opening of its own accord, speaking, “I think I’ll stay a bit,” and Miss Chapel touches his arm with a smile before they glide into the dark.
His footsteps lead him back to the wheel just as the day’s last crowds stream from its cars, his ticket now wilted in his pocket. The wheel gleams overhead, impossibly tall and speckled with light, and the sight of it steals his breath.
“You came,” Jim’s voice says from his side, and his smile is a gentle thing, the lights reflecting gold in his eyes.
“Too late, though, I suppose,” McCoy says, surprised with his own regret.
At that, Jim’s smile turns to mischief and he calls, “Sulu!” over the sea of passing bonnets and stovepipe hats. An oriental man looks up from the heart of the wheel, his hands pausing over the tangle of levers and wires. Jim calls, “One more, will you?”
McCoy can’t help the disbelieving laugh that escapes his lips, but to his astonishment the man just grins rakishly and says, “Why not?”
“Who are you people?” McCoy asks incredulously as Jim notches a hand at the small of his back. Jim just laughs, guiding McCoy gently but firmly into the vacant car. Leonard doesn’t have the presence of mind to shake him away. He’s too busy staring at the glow of the lights casting shadows through their metal cage, at the silvered web of beams and cables standing between them and the night sky. The car is about as large as a small parlor and sways as gears lock into place.
“Mother of mercy,” McCoy grits, gripping white-knuckled at the railing. “How did you talk me into this?”
Jim just grins, as delighted and serene as ever. Instead of replying, he places a hand over Leonard’s and looks out over the fairgrounds as they slowly begin to rise.
The dry warmth of Jim’s hand somehow anchors him as the earth slowly falls away, tipping them into the night sky. The grounds shrink to a web of fairy lights and reflected stars, Chicago crouched low and brooding in the distance. The wind blows more freely as they rise, gently rattling the glass behind the bars, and McCoy’s fear is a strange, buzzing thing in his chest, in his shaking limbs. The higher they glide, the lighter he feels, untethered above the sweeping flat stretch of the land, and he is near dizzy with it as they reach the peak.
When Jim turns to him with star-bright eyes and smiling, parted lips, he seems part of a spell woven from the fabric of the summer night. The sight of him steals Leonard’s breath, and he doesn’t even think to object when Kirk leans forward to steal a firm, warm kiss. Leonard simply leans his forehead to his warmth, shares his quiet breath. They stand alone, hands entwined, at the top of the world.
End