You could travel the world, but nothing comes close to the Golden Coast... [Bones, Spock, Jim]
The previous day had been long and emotional - a wedding, a party, then getting taken rough against a wall by Jim before collapsing into a deep, coma like sleep. Bones hadn't felt anything change, didn't notice when the ship passed though some temporal disturbanceThe next morning Bones began sliding out of his slumber, reaching out to spoon himself
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Bones was lost, fuck it all, and at this point he wasn't sure he'd be able to find his hotel room again even if he could manage to shake Jake, who had a much stronger grip than Bones would have guessed.
"Good luck, sir," Bones heard the young man say, then opened a door for him. Bones felt himself being pushed through it, and all of a sudden a voice over loud speakers filled his ears. "We can't say yet who the villain is going to be because we haven't' fully decided yet." The man speaking looked at another man sitting over next to him and laughed - Bones would have bet that whatever they were talking about, they were lying - then the man answering the question looked over in his direction. "Well, here's our missing speaker. Fellow trekkies, I give you Karl Urban!"
Shit. Shit, shit, shit. Being led to a seat Bones found himself staring at an audience of about 150 people, all clapping wildly, with another crowd standing in the back. The lights were on him, hurting his eyes, and someone snuck up behind him, tucking some sort of speaker/microphone on his body.
Then the clapping stopped, and people were staring at him. The entire first row (and others in the crowd) were wearing Starfleet uniforms, except for the Klingon on the end. Fuck. "Um, hi." Then more applause.
******
"The next movie?" Bones took a deep breath, feeling a little better at having answered a couple questions without fucking up too badly. He looked at the other men on the panel, all looking back at him like they knew him, so he assumed they were all involved in the film. "Yeah, we're all excited about it."
Another question from someone standing at a microphone, this one from someone wearing goddamn Spock ears. He tried not to laugh, but this situation was beyond anything he'd ever known, and sometimes you just had to laugh a little. "Yes, Commander?" he asked the man, who blushed furiously (and the wrong color, but...)
"Um, Mr Urban, are you hoping for a bigger role in the next movie?"
Bones laughed a little. "Well, like a good friend told me, a bigger role would probably mean that something bad happens to me, so..." Not that bad things hadn't happened to them, but fuck, even these people wouldn't want to see Jim and George kidnapped and tortured.
Maybe the people coming back from the dead? Or turning into children? Or the ice planet?
"One more quick question," the Vulcan was just too bouncy, "are you so excited about the new story, that's why you're talking with a little Southern accent?"
Accent, fuck. He'd forgotten that. "Yeah, getting into the role," he told them, folding his arms,much to the delight of the audience, who for some reason thought that was funny.
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He ignored Britney. He stepped forward quickly, out of her reach, and pulled on the door (unlocked), and slipped in. The room was dark save for the stage, and there was Leonard with some other people he didn’t recognize. Unfortunately, the light in from the hallway illuminated him, and the people near the back of the room, who then turned to see who it was.
Along with everybody else in the room.
The shrieks were immediate, piercing and loud and almost making him wince (though Quinto was sufficiently deaf for this situation), along with nearby yells of “oh my god!” and “it’s Zachary Quinto!” and “why is he here?” and extended yells of “SPOOOOOCK!” that reminded him too much of another, equally crazed man.
Then he felt a hot spotlight pick him out from the crowd, and the moderator saying something along the lines of, “Well, ladies and gentleman, say hello to Zachary Quinto.”
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He heard the people behind him shuffling around, someone called out for another chair, and it looked like Spock was being led towards the front panel of speakers.
The atmosphere of the room was electric. It had been excitable before, but now, with the entrance of Spock, or Quinto, or whoever the fuck he was, everyone was talking, unable to keep their enthusiasm down.
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They didn't ask him questions right away, and Spock watched with interest as the unknown people on the table, and then another one to Leonard, before finally they zoned in on some hyper-excited girl wearing a mockery of his blue command shirt, clutching at the microphone for dear life.
"So, uh, Mr. Quinto, how much do you, uh, know about the mating ritual of, um, Pon Farr?"
He blinked, and it took a great deal more control not to quirk an eyebrow at it. Yet, how to answer, how to not actually be himself but this Quinto individual -- contractions. Casual speak. "I'm familiar with it."
"How comfortable would you be, if, like, it were, um, a part of the next movie?"
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His reaction, though, was noted by the moderator, who chimed in with a "You look like you have something you'd like to add, Mr Urban."
Bones bit his lip and shook his head, trying not to let the tittering chuckles of the crowd get into his head. Don't get pissed off. "No, I'm just as interested as y'all in hearing Mr Quinto's response over there," he said, turning in his chair to face Spock.
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"I don't believe they would have to cover it explicitly," he explained, drawing his hands apart from each other. "And it depends when it happens. Seven years is a large...window." He hated this. "But if I have to, I'll do it." Speaking like some solai-zupsu. At least he wouldn't have to do this again.
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Jesus. Bones lifted his hands and just put his face in them.
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And then he looked to the moderator, next question, please. He prodded sympathetically at Leonard's bond.
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Everyone was looking at Bones to answer first, which he thought was HIGHLY UNFAIR. "Um," he began once more, hoping like hell that he wasn't fucking up Karl' career forever with this charade, "I guess it depends on what the writers want to do."
The man asking the questions didn't seem too put out by his ambiguity. "No pressure, but I think I speak for a lot of people when I say that it would be epic to see a modern day Khan attack, and watch Mr Quinto over there sacrifice himself for the rest of you guys."
The audience laughed at this, as did the other men on the panel. Bones gave a half-hearted grin, but didn't really understand. Khan? Was someone called Khan going to attack them in the future?
And Spock... sacrificing himself?
"Oh, you guys just want to see Mr Spock transfer his katra into old Bones over here, I know how you people think." Bones turned to see the man sitting next to him (one of the writers, he suspected) speaking. Katra? Bones arched an eyebrow at the man, then at the person asking the question, bringing down more applause from the panel and the audience. Dammit.
Bones glanced quickly over to Spock, looking confused and irritated at the same time.
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In his own time, among the people who actually knew what was being talked about, such a topic wouldn't be tossed around so lightly. Dying, katra transference, sacrifice...he didn't even talk about it with Jim, back when they had been discussing their plans with the Narada and the Ambassador's ship, how he was two seconds away from obliterating himself and wouldn't have cared either way.
He still would have done the same thing.
"I think we can explore new story-lines," Spock attempted to direct the conversation, but his thoughts were still caught on that katra subject, "but I think Spock and Bones--" Oh, that felt so strange. "--could arrive at a point where Spock could trust him with his katra, in that event." He tried to mimic the way they butchered the word. It felt even stranger. "Don't you agree, L--Karl?" The potential mix up was just a breath not even truly voiced before it was quickly smoothed over.
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Bones thought he knew what a katra was, but- that didn't make any sense. There were a handful of people on board that Spock would trust more with this than him. There were glasses of water in front of the speakers, so he picked his up, took a big drink. How much longer were they going to be here?
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The microphone passed to another person, a woman in her thirties and less hyperactive than some of the other guests. Spock didn't dismiss the possibility that this thing might be reasonable.
"In the original series," she began, reading off of a small little card, "the connections between Kirk and Spock were one of the focal points of the show. In the new series, there seems to be a bigger connection between Jim and McCoy. How do you think that will affect the future?" She looked back up at them, practically beaming.
Spock tried to be objective. He had, of course, heard about this other universe, saw it, even. Envied it at times.
"There will be some...difficulties at first, of course, since Kirk and Spock have started out with negative first impressions. It could lead to misunderstandings, so their first misson won't unfold as--well," Objective. "But their relationship could benefit with time.
"There's a possibility that it ultimately won't work in the future, if Kirk keeps Bones as his sole confidante," Spock leaned back in his chair, hands braced against the edge of the table. "Then there's always kolinahr."
The audience laughed. While the corner of Spock's mouth quirked to keep up with the facade, he didn't see what was so funny.
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"A lot of things here are different from that 'original' universe," Bones began slowly, not liking at all this idea that the other guys were the 'real ones' while he and his friends and family were some sort of 'new guys'. "But from what I know about the other Jim and McCoy and Spock, it took time for them to get to that point where they were a team. They worked together for a while, years even, trust coming slowly between them all, us in particular," he glanced over at Spock, a small smile on his face. "I don't see that happening different, but... I do see it happening. Just... give us some time."
Another sip of water, fuck, what he wouldn't give for this to be something stronger. "It didn't happen overnight for them, and it won't happen overnight for us... but it will happen."
She seemed satisfied by this, thanked them both, and sat down, only to be replaced by a more enthusiastic fan, dressed in command gold. "Boxers or briefs, gentlemen?" she asked, a wide smile on her face as the audience chuckled.
"You're shitting me," Bones muttered to himself, turning to Spock. Lifting a hand toward the Vulcan Spock, he indicated that Spock should answer first, while he regained what little composure he had left.
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He didn't see how this question was relevant to the purpose of the panel, and Spock would have told her so if it was his own identity he was using. Fortunately for Quinto, he accepted it in stride. Humans.
"It depends on the outfit," he explained simply, and for now that was actually the truth from him, as Spock. He had no idea what Quinto did. "I own a mixture of both."
Then he looked to Leonard.
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"Boxers," Bones answered, feeling his face flush up, then he tilted his head. "You meant Karl, right? Or do you mean m-Leonard?"
She laughed. "I did mean you, Mr Urban, but if you want to share Doctor McCoy's preference..." she trailed off.
"Um, yeah, boxers, both of us." He hadn't expected the hoots and cheers and wolf whistles. "And Jim doesn't wear any," he threw out there, like the old gossip he was, and the crowd exploded with applause and screams and for a second he could see why Karl might enjoy this torture.
The moderator stood. "One more question," she said, nodding at the groans and boos from the audience. "I'm afraid we were lucky to get this precious time together at all, with these gentlemen's busy schedule. You," she said, pointing at a serious looking man in the back. "Last question, please."
"Thank you," he began. "From an older fan's perspective, it's been amazing watching people get excited about the series again, so for that, thank you guys, all of you." A smattering of applause, getting louder until the moderator raised her hand. "The concept of the three of you guys, Spock and Jim and McCoy has been the cornerstone of the entire series. Spock's logical, Bones provides the humanity, and Jim Kirk just gets in there and gets it done, and together they save the day. Having said that, at this early juncture, do you see the characters having one of those moments in the next movie, like the camping scene in the Final Frontier, where they would come together as just friends? Or is it too soon for that? Or maybe by the third movie?" he chuckled.
Bones tilted his head at that question, thinking about all that the man asked. "Might not be too soon," he began slowly. "We - I mean, they're people, just like you and they live their lives the best way they can. I dunno..." He looked over at Spock, and began to laugh. "Maybe they'll have dinner one night, the three of them, and they can talk about their future. That could happen, I mean." The audience collectively nodded and 'awwww'ed, and so Bones added, "and Leonard can make his grandma's cornbread. Spock loves it, you know."
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