The Heavens Expand, The Stars Advance.
Right, so I feel the need to explain how this story came into being, but it's all really boring and you don't care anyway. Suffice it to say, a big part of it was inspired by these photos, which have destroyed my ability to ever think coherently again. Goddamn you, Chris Pine!
As usual, many references to TOS and the Trek books, most notably Uhura's Song and Prime Directive, because I have so much love for the original source material. I'm apologizing in advance for all the angst and drama that crept into this story without my permission.
This is for superjoydrop for being the most fantastic person ever, for editing the hell out of my three a.m. mistakes, and because her little "hee, Sulu!" and "omg Bones!" comments totally make my life. Chekov and his wee hat are for charliehey because she is writing me the most fabulous story ever written. The Johnny Cash song is for traveller because she makes me happy. Scotty is for everyone to share.
Just Another Place in the Stars
It's a well-known fact that once you make it past the vast emptiness of space, the deceptively dangerous planetary missions, persistent Federation enemies, diplomatic meetings that always tend to go wrong, and game night with a competitive Jim Kirk, there's not a whole lot to do in space. Sure you can do all the usual things, like read and gossip about who's hooking up with whom, and buy into Scotty's still and make bets on when it's going to explode, but that only takes a few months, and then boredom sets in soon after. The crew of the Enterprise has had to develop hobbying as self-defense against the long stretches between boredom and terror, and some of the hobbies are stranger than others.
Take Scotty, for example. Everyone on the ship thinks that he reads engineering manuals and runs his still as a way to relax, which is laughable. Starships are complicated, especially one as technologically advanced as the Enterprise, so reading manuals is not so much a hobby as an aggressive self-defense maneuver in keep this ship running, and his still is cobbled together from so many random bits and parts that it's practically a Rube Goldbergian feat of engineering marvel. Both things involve a lot of work and planning, and while they are enjoyable, they are by no means relaxing.
What Scotty does in his spare time is cook. After Delta Vega, good food becomes of paramount importance to his continued existence, and when he gets sick of replicated food, he bribes the kitchen staff into letting him take over and cook his own meals. He starts off with sandwiches and works his way up to Penne Alla Arrabbiata.
Wait, that's not quite how it starts.
It starts with Starfleet doing years of study on the effects of long-term space travel on human beings. One of the discoveries they'd made, supported by all Starfleet psychologists in a myriad of published studies and journal articles, is that real food, actual cooked food made from real ingredients and made by real people, contributes positively towards the emotional and physical health of a starship crew. Many mothers of Starfleet officers had made grumbling noises about how they could've told those psychologists that if someone had just asked them, and in the meantime, Starfleet arranged for starships to have real kitchens and freezers and chefs and food so that no one onboard goes nuts and phasers someone due to a lack of fresh grapes in their diet.
For Scotty, it begins with the ship's chef having a wee crush on Scotty and sneaking him some rye bread she's actually made for him so that he can make sandwiches. After an amazing ham on rye sandwich (honey-glazed ham, Dijon mustard, a slice of crisp, sharp cheddar, a bit of lettuce placed just so, and it's the best sandwich he's had in his life), he's hooked on cooking. And sandwiches aren't enough anymore. And he wants to cook for more people than just him.
So she teaches him what she knows about cooking (which is a lot since she is a Cordon Bleu chef and she takes it seriously) and he works his way up from sandwiches to soups to entrees. He even finds a Julia Childs cookbook in one of the archives and immediately downloads it onto a data PADD so he can try out new recipes on anyone who's willing to eat what he makes them. Some of them don't turn out well, like the coq au vin (although that might be because he used the wrong wine, and Christ, he hates replicated booze), but most of it turns out to be quite tasty, and Scotty learns that he's got a knack for cooking and a real love for it as well.
He's never going to be a culinary genius like his chef (she does things with rosemary and lamb that are almost enough to make Scotty want to propose to her), but he's good enough that he starts cooking for some of his crew whenever he thinks they need it. Like after a planetary mission or a diplomatic meeting or anything involving a visiting admiral, which is also when Scotty breaks out the booze.
He makes lasagnas for McCoy because it's one of the few things that doesn't make him rant about heart disease and blocked arteries, which everyone is grateful for. He makes chicken soup for Sulu when he gets the flu and McCoy's hypos don't cure it, despite it being the twenty-third century already, and when Sulu can stomach solid foods again, he makes him tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches. Sulu thanks him with a bottle of Scotty's favorite whiskey and Scotty shares a glass with him because he's that kind of guy.
He learns to make plomeek soup for Spock who seems to need it after Kirk beats him at chess; it doesn't happen very often, but often enough that Scotty has learned how to make it without the recipe book on hand. The first time Spock tastes it (gingerly, like he thinks he's going to be bitten by it, and Scotty would've been offended if Uhura hadn't told him that plomeek soup is Spock's favorite dish and he's never met a human or replicator yet that could make it as well as Amanda), he takes a moment to savor the taste, his eyes closed in contemplation as the flavor rolls around in his mouth.
Scotty waits on tenterhooks for the verdict and almost screams with tension when Spock politely asks if he had put the plomeek root in whole, as tradition stated, or simply shredded it in, as current recipes do. When Scotty tells him that he'd put it in whole (what he actually says is, "Well, I'm not usually one for tradition, but I figure Vulcans use logic in everything, even a recipe, so why mess with it?"), Spock nods approvingly and politely thanks him for an excellent meal.
Scotty almost collapses with relief and has a celebratory drink with Uhura. She's absurdly amused by his reaction. "For God's sake, man," she chides him, somehow not managing to hide the grin on her face despite her best efforts, "it's not like he'd phaser you if you'd gotten it wrong."
"You never know," he'd protested, pouring them both another drink. "He's a Vulcan. What if I'd offended him with my mediocre dish?"
She gives him an incredulous look. "More than a replicator?"
He makes a face. "Point."
Sometime later, Chekov has another bout of homesickness that just about breaks everyone's heart because he's still so young and fragile-looking, so Scotty posts a query to the Rec Room and gets about ten different borscht recipes. He makes the one that seems the most traditional and serves it to Chekov during his break on gamma shift. It's not going to be anything like what Chekov used to get at home -- Scotty's been homesick enough times that he knows nothing is ever going to compare to the food actually made by the people that love you -- but it's hearty and tasty and Chekov feels better after he eats it, so it's enough for Scotty.
He only cooks one time for Kirk. It had been a long exploring mission where everything had gone wrong and Jim had come to the cafeteria looking like the gym punching bag, despite McCoy's best efforts. Scotty had taken one look at his quiet, tired face and had made what McCoy had assured him was Jim's favorite dish: meatloaf. Scotty's a little confused by the concept of meatloaf (but as everyone tells him, he likes haggis, so he's not really allowed to have an opinion on the inherent strangeness of certain dishes), but it's easy enough to make and entirely worth the effort when Jim visibly brightens as Scotty brings the plate to him.
"Oh, man," he enthuses happily. "I love this stuff. My mom used to make it all the time when we were kids." He takes a forkful and makes pleased, ecstatic noises that have Scotty reaching over with his fork and stealing little bites.
"Not bad," he says after a moment of rolling the flavor around in his mouth. "I still think it's a bit of strange, but--"
"You eat haggis," Kirk points out between bites.
Scotty scowls at him. "Shut up and eat your meatloaf." He ignores a laughing Kirk in favor of stealing more food from Kirk's plate. Serves the bastard right.
It's not saving the world, Scotty thinks as Kirk tells him about the exploring mission and how he had visited that planet when he was a young cadet and his friend named Tyree, but it's making people feel better and feeding their souls as well as their bodies, and it's enough to keep Scotty busy when being an engineering marvel isn't enough.
***
Not many people know this about Uhura, but she loves music. She'd grown up in a house full of song and laughter, full of stories and music, and she's carried that over into the rest of her life. She sings songs that her mother sang, tells stories about the life she's led and the people she's loved, and makes up new songs and stories about her crew whenever they're relaxing in the rec room. Her voice is high and lovely, her words soft and full of love, and the crew applaud and cheer her on, begging for one more song, another verse, Uhura, please.
Mostly, she collects songs from different cultures, stories of people and their lives they've led that are passed down through the ages. She's learned the traditional songs of Vulcan and Earth, she's mastered the intricate melodies of the Edosians and translated the obscure, almost-forgotten songs of the J'naii, and she's even learned the songs of the Eeiauoans, taught to her by Sunfall to-Ennien, even though she has promised Sunfall to never sing them aloud except to another bard. She sings songs of joy and love and sadness, songs of war and death and disease, songs of celebration and the passing of time and people, and songs of comfort to the people that need them.
Sometimes, she writes songs for specific occasions. She's written a few songs of celebration for birthdays and births and promotions, and songs of mourning for some of the crewmembers who were lost during dangerous missions; those are the hardest for her to sing, standing at attention by Kirk's side, his normally joyful face full of regret and solemnity as he says a few words of remembrance for the fallen, and trying not to let her heart get caught in her throat as she sings their goodbyes.
She's even written a song of remembrance for Vulcan, although she's never told anyone about it or sung it aloud to anyone yet. She thinks about singing it for Spock, but isn't sure if he wants to hear it right now. He's still in mourning for his planet, as are all Vulcans, especially those who lost their pair-bonded mates, and she worries that her song might hurt him more than it would help. Nyota knows a lot about the healing power of music, but she doesn't know if anything would be able to heal the emotional rift that the loss of a home world and a mother would bring.
After a long day on the delta shift, she goes to his quarters to unwind and talk about his day, maybe see if she can't get him to play some three-dimensional chess with her and subtly complain about all the ways Jim Kirk is highly illogical and irritating. She knows that most of the crew thinks that Spock plays chess with Kirk to unwind, maybe as a hobby, which makes her laugh every time she hears it. No one knows just how much work is involved in playing chess with Kirk, although she does because she plays against him on occasion and has actually beaten him a few times, but Spock knows and is very vocal about it. Kirk's moves are, as he so eloquently puts it, illogically brilliant, zig-zagging all over the place, making moves out of desperation while still outmaneuvering Spock's pieces, and redefining all the old masters' rules, like the Siryk Maneuver, to the point where Spock has actually had to do research to find some maneuvers that Kirk knows nothing about just so he can win a few games.
Trying to beat Kirk in any sport, whether it's chess or fencing or space jumping, is not a relaxing pastime in any universe.
She's already through the door and into his room when she notices that he's sitting very quietly in his chair, a Vulcan lyre resting carefully on his lap as his fingers strum across the strings. Spock has always been very careful of his lyre because, as he tells Uhura when she first sees it, his father had it made especially for him after the destruction of Vulcan. There is a myriad of hidden emotions in that statement, most of which Uhura picks up on because she's learned to read him after all this time, and she feels the song she'd written come unbidden to her lips. The lyre is a memory of what once was, she thinks, a way to remember Vulcan and all that was gone, and maybe even a way to make some sort of peace with such an overwhelming loss.
She opens her mouth and lets the words flow out of her, letting them tangle with the notes of the lyre, letting them curl into the corners of the room and fill the empty space with sound and melody and music. She almost stops when Spock turns towards her, an indecipherable expression on his face, but he simply nods at her in acknowledgment and adjusts the key to suit her voice. She feels something inside her uncurl and spiral up through her, and she sings until her voice is hoarse with unshed tears and unnamed emotions, sings until Spock finally puts his lyre aside and goes to her, his hands gently cupped around her face and his forehead pressed against hers. He is breathing harshly as if he's been exerting himself, as if he is struggling to keep his emotions in check, and Uhura lets herself shed the tears she knows he cannot allow himself to shed; she cries for him, for her, for his people, and for the loss of a planet that had, until recently, been a major cornerstone of her life.
They stand together like that for a long while, her song still echoing throughout the room, and comfort each other with soft touches and the even softer murmur of Vulcan words.
***
Christine Chapel used to be a terror when she was younger. She ran wild and tried everything just to see what all the fuss was about and spoke her mind, even when it got her in trouble, and her mother just laughed whenever people complained that Christine was too smart for her own good. "Good," she'd tell them, a pleased smile on her face, "that's just the way I like her." Her father had simply shrugged and let her go her own way because he'd never been able to tell her what to do since she'd learned how to talk and he wasn't about to start trying now.
She'd fallen in love with medicine when she was fourteen and taking biology as an elective. She'd loved the mystery of it, the science of how the human body worked and the detective skills needed to figure out how to put it all back together in one piece. Once she'd started learning about alien biology, everything changed, she changed, and she ran wild through medicine, learning everything her mind could absorb and then learning everything it couldn't, until she was top of her class and fast-tracking her way to the Enterprise.
She'd survived the rough flight into space, she'd survived the destruction of Vulcan, she'd survived McCoy's terse, angry orders as they'd tried to keep people from dying, both of them terrified and knowing that they didn't have time to fall apart until everyone was safe, and she'd survived the entire Narada incident, even though she'd spent every evening shaking apart in the privacy of her quarters, crying for the lost and the scared and the dead she couldn't save. She'd survived all of that and gotten commendations for going above and beyond the call of duty, which didn't mean half as much as getting permanently assigned to the Enterprise did.
She'd thought that things would calm down after the Narada, after they'd picked up the pieces of their shattered lives and found ways to move on to the exploratory missions that Starfleet was known for. She'd expected to have moments of terror and action interspersed with long stretches of boredom and inactivity; she's been warned by all the higher-ups that this is what happens in space.
She's still waiting for the long stretches of boredom to kick in.
Between alien viruses that destroy peoples' inhibitions, phaser fire during away missions, constant Engineering mishaps that led to Scotty losing his eyebrows that one time, and anything in general that involves Jim Kirk, Christine's been so busy and frazzled that all it's going to take is one more of McCoy's frustrated "Dammit, Jim" comments and she's going to spectacularly lose it all over the medical bay. She understands the stresses of her job, understands the demands that her career makes of her, and she's more than up to the task, but Jesus, she just wants a moment to breathe and think without claxons going off every five minutes and another emergency on her hands.
She doesn't think it's too much to ask.
So she's decided that she needs a hobby in her life, something that will challenge her as well as relax her so that she doesn't give in to her ever-present urge to hypo the Captain into submission just so she and McCoy can get some rest for once. She dismisses most of the popular ship activities because they don't suit her tastes (and she's not allowed to play card games with Kirk because they both get too boisterous when they drink and team up to cheat madly and win everyone's money, which only she and Kirk enjoy), although she is intrigued enough by Uhura's suggestion of Karaoke Nights that she makes a note of it on her data PADD to register for it once it's up and running.
There is really only one possibility in terms of recreational activity that meets all of her needs, which is why she's at the gym right now facing a half-naked, sweaty Lieutenant Sulu who looks at her like he's torn between confusion, concern, and the desperate need to pretend that he wasn't checking out her legs beneath her gym shorts. Christine is amused and a little flattered, to say the least.
"You want to learn fencing?" Sulu repeats as if she hasn't said it clearly and distinctly enough the last two times.
"I would like to learn the art of fencing, yes," she responds politely, deciding to give Sulu the benefit of the doubt since she had sprung this on him right after his wrestling match with Kirk, and it's entirely possible that this whole conversation is the result of a blow to the head and not Sulu doubting her skills or commitment.
Sulu swipes a towel over his face as he thinks about her words. Finally, he says, "I run a class every third day and fencing drills once a week. You're a little behind the curve," and she grins as he surreptitiously glances down at her bare legs again, "since you missed the first few classes, but I can tutor you." He drapes the towel over his shoulders and looks intently at her. "If you have the time."
She cocks her head at him, feeling the thrill of a challenge shoot through her at the look in Sulu's eyes. "You doubt my commitment to Sparkle Motion?"
Sulu blinks for a moment. "That's... a really obscure reference."
"I specialize in obscure references," she says easily, and she does not move a little closer into Sulu's personal space, but it's enough that she wants to.
Sulu smiles at that, that bright, open smile that has half the ship in love with him and the other half just wanting to be near him so that his shine rubs off on them. "Now I'm interested in all of your obscure references." He stops as if he's just heard what he's said. "I mean--"
She laughs at the vaguely horrified look in his eyes at the possibility that he's transgressed and offended her. "It's fine," she manages to sputter out, feeling relaxed and at ease for the first time in days. "I can be available for my tutoring whenever you are."
"Tomorrow at 1900 hours?" He adds with a rueful smile, "If there's no medical emergency?"
Christine smiles and nods graciously. "I'll see you then, Mr. Sulu."
"Hikaru," he says quietly, and Christine likes the way it sounds coming from him, all short, sharp constants and long, gently rounded vowels.
"Hikaru," she repeats softly, liking the way his face eases into a smile at the sound of his name on her lips. "I'll see you tomorrow."
"At 1600."
"1900," she corrects gently, unable to stop smiling at the heated way he looks at her.
"Right," he says with a wince, "I meant 1900 hours."
She tries not to tease, but Sulu is kind of adorable when he's flustered, and she's not made of stone. "Easy mistake to make, what with them only being three numbers apart."
Sulu sighs. "It's just. I was wrestling with the captain and--"
"Some kind of mild head injury," she finishes, giving him the out he seems to need. "I can look at it for you if it's really serious."
Sulu laughs awkwardly and waves her off. "I'm-- I'm fine. I'm just going to." He points towards the door. "My room, I'm going there. It's." He sighs and shakes his head. "I'll see you tomorrow, Nurse Chapel."
She raises an eyebrow in a fairly decent imitation of Spock. "You can call me Christine, you know."
He pauses in his step. "Christine?" He rolls her name around in his mouth like he's tasting it, seeing how it fits her and what he knows of her, and finally nods with satisfaction. "I like it. See you tomorrow, Christine." He leaves with a wave and a smile.
She watches him as he walks out of the gym, appreciating the elegance of his movements and economy of motion that is Sulu in action. "See you tomorrow, Hikaru," she says softly, a smile playing on her lips.
Things have just gotten more interesting, and she can't wait to see how it'll all play out tomorrow. And if Jim does anything to make her break this appointment, she's going to hold him down and let McCoy pump him full of barbiturates like he always threatens to, and she won't even feel a moment's guilt about it either.
***
McCoy doesn't have hobbies, he has interests. Hobbies are for people with too much damn time on their hands, and since Jim's decided that it's his God-given duty to make McCoy's life as interesting as possible every single second of the day, McCoy barely has enough time to get a good night's rest, let alone have the time to develop and nurture a hobby. The closest he's come is collecting antique medical equipment from various planets, but mostly Earth, that he then displays in his quarters, and even then, it's more of a reminder of why he became a doctor than a genuine hobby.
His job and his hobby are the same thing these days, really: taking care of Jim Kirk after another one of his damn fool ideas gets him shot. Maybe some day, when Jim is older and has slowed down a bit, McCoy might have the time to take up holo-golf or fishing or whatever the hell it is the doctors are supposed to do with this mythical 'free time' concept that gets bandied about.
Until then, the most McCoy can do is get Uhura to teach him the Vulcan language in whatever spare time he has that isn't sleeping or writing reports to Starfleet or keeping up with the latest medical news. It's a frustrating, difficult language to learn, McCoy's discovered, much like its people and the (former) planet, but he keeps at it, even when he spends half the lesson swearing (in English) because he can't get a grip on the guttural yet twisty words. Uhura is patient and kind, which is more than he feels he deserves for the way he's mangling her boyfriend's mother tongue, and the first time he manages to properly say "Hello, my name is Leonard McCoy" in Vulcan, she laughs with delight and kisses him on the cheek.
If you ask him why he's learning a language that infuriates him with its intricate sentence structure and impossible syntax, he'd say he was learning it so that he can argue with Spock in his own language and maybe win an argument for once. What he won't say out loud, and what Jim already knows because it's Jim and he knows McCoy like he knows the back of his hand, is that despite his antagonism towards Spock, and Vulcans in general, the loss of Vulcan has affected McCoy on a much deeper level than he can ever express.
Vulcan has just always been there, as a part of the universe, as a member of the Federation, as a set part of the fabric of McCoy's existence, and its current lack of being there when it should be there has unbalanced what McCoy knows of the world, of the universe, of reality. He feels this lack every time he looks at Spock and realizes that he's looking at a member of an endangered race, every time he looks at a map and sees a blank place where Vulcan should be, every time there is a news item on Vulcans and their place in the Federation and how everyone is talking about what happens now. It's like sitting on a chair where one of the legs is shorter than the rest: it still functions as a chair, but it wobbles enough that you notice what's wrong with it.
The loss of Vulcan is like that, but on a grander, more intimate scale for McCoy.
Learning Vulcan makes him feel like he's reclaiming a part of something he'd lost after Nero, something he didn't even know he was going to miss until it was turned into nothingness and a billion people were slaughtered while ten thousand more had their lives shattered beyond repair. It's a small way to get back some of that reality he'd lost, to fix up the small part of his universe that had been torn asunder by a madman's actions, and he learns to appreciate how complex and elegant the language and the culture truly are. Learning how to say "good morning" to Spock in his native language isn't much -- it won't bring Vulcan back, he knows, and it won't heal the immense emotional wound that has been ripped open in the Vulcan people -- but the measure of respect he sees in Spock's eyes when he greets him with a halfway pleasant "Moi loma" is worth all the evenings of teeth-gnashing and frustration with Uhura and his Vulcan dictionary.
Kirk, of course, has no hobbies. Or rather, he has a whole set of hobbies that usually involve running around looking dashing with some sort of weapon in his hand or winning credits off of people by doing something stupid that no sane, rational human being would do. Right now, his fencing kick has became the bane of McCoy's existence because Kirk is exactly the kind of idiot who wants to learn all the hard stuff right away without learning the basics first, and thus ends up with gashes in awkward places. McCoy's seriously considering having a strong word with Sulu about banning the captain from any activities with sharp objects if only because his dermal regenerators are burning out from patching up Kirk.
Kirk has always been the type to run before he'd learned how to walk. And it's worked out for the best, but sometimes, it terrifies McCoy to see the bumps and bruises Kirk takes as normal collateral damage in his quest to get out from under the shadow of his father's greatness. He just wants Kirk to have a safe hobby, he thinks despairingly while writing up another Starfleet report about a mission gone wrong that has ended with Jim in his Sickbay. Just a nice, safe hobby that won't get him stabbed or phasered or poisoned or sacrificed or killed in some awful way. It's really not too much to ask, is it?
He has no time to answer that, or even think on it further, because a few weeks later, there is a terrible mining accident on some distant M-class planet that ends up flooding Sickbay with hurt and dying people, and he and Chapel work tirelessly to keep them all alive and safe and comfortable. They lose some of the people, despite their best efforts, and some suffer with terrible pain, despite their medicines and technology and constant care, but the medical team does their best, and the majority of the miners are patched up and sent home before a new wave of survivors is brought in for McCoy and Chapel to perform miracles on.
It's his third day of no sleep and he's come in to check on his patients, the last wave of survivors, when he sees Jim sitting by one of the beds. He wants to yell at him to get away from this person, let them sleep, dammit, they need it, but he stops when he sees the little girl Jim's talking to. One of the ones caught in the mess of the mine when it had collapsed, he remembers, just a little girl in the wrong place at the wrong time because she'd gone to visit her daddy that day. The damage isn't as bad as some of the others, but a broken wrist is still painful and needs to be taken care of properly.
Jim's hand is very gentle on her small bandaged one and he's leaning in to whisper something to her, making her giggle and say "Jiiiiiiim" in that amused, exasperated way that little girls have when they think you're telling them untrue stories. He grins at her amusement, whispers something else that makes her laugh happily, and McCoy remembers that Jim has always been different around children; he's softer somehow, more careful and patient, like he's tamping down all that energy and anger and brashness until all that's left is this quiet, gentle man who sings them songs and tells them stories and makes them laugh, and does what he can to take their minds off their pain and fear.
Jim always breaks McCoy's heart without ever really trying.
He goes to Jim's quarters after his shift ends and Chapel has taken over for him, because he needs to check up on the stubborn bastard who'd spent the last four days helping to clear up the mess in the mines as well as bullying Starfleet into sending supplies and help for the remaining people on the planet. He's probably as exhausted as McCoy, maybe even sick because Christ only knows what kind of virus he might have picked up while down there, so McCoy's got his tricorder up and running by the time he walks into Jim's room.
Jim is sitting on his bed, dressed in his Starfleet pants and black undershirt, with a guitar in his lap and a focused look on his face as he plucks at the strings. From the few notes he hears, McCoy thinks he's playing a song, but the notes are so spaced out that he isn't sure. Kirk's still trying to figure out the song, he reckons, still trying to remember what notes are played in which order. Kirk's been trying to play this damn instrument, on and off, for a few months now, reading music books and getting virtual guitar lessons from some program in the archives. McCoy had thought he'd given up on it, so he's surprised to see Jim still plucking away at it
There's a funny story behind the guitar. Kirk had found it in some antique guitar shop in Tucson while road-tripping with Sulu one summer. The place was old and small, he'd said, with a faded sign on the door that said 'Steve's Music: Come On In' and no air conditioning inside, just an ancient fan that had only pushed the heat around and done nothing to alleviate the feeling of breathing in thick soupy air. But the guitars, Bones, he'd said with awe in his voice, the guitars were so goddamn pristine and polished, they'd shone like diamonds. Kirk had picked up one and strummed tunelessly, gracelessly, trying to figure out which guitar was for him.
"You don't even know how to play the goddamn guitar," Bones had said gruffly, pointing out the obvious.
Kirk had grinned. "But I can learn."
He'd finally found the one he said suited him, had felt it vibrate in his hands and knew it was meant for him. He'd paid a ridiculous amount of credits for it, carried it carefully onto the ship like it was made of glass, and had spent the next couple of months learning how to play it.
McCoy's about to interrupt Jim's tuneless strumming to run the tricorder over him when the song seems to finally click together and Jim starts playing. And he's not bad, McCoy admits if only to himself. There are a few off-notes, but mostly, Jim plays with confidence, his fingers moving sure and true over the frets and the strings. McCoy thinks he recognizes the song, knows that he's heard the melody somewhere before, but it isn't until he hears Jim softly sing, "For you, I know I'd even try to turn the tide" that he realizes which song it is.
Well, shit. Jim's learned how to play McCoy's favorite Johnny Cash song. He doesn't even know how Jim's found out that this is his favorite Cash song, but somehow, Kirk has and he's learned to play it for McCoy.
"Goddammit, Jim," he mutters softly, desperately, as he puts the tricorder down on the nearest flat surface and goes to sit down beside Jim. He wraps his arm around Jim's shoulder and pulls him into a tight, one-armed hug, ignoring Jim's soft protest that he was playing his guitar, dammit, Bones. "What the hell am I going to do with you?" he asks quietly, wondering if his heart is actually going to burst if Jim keeps pulling stunts like this when he isn't expecting them.
"You tell me," Jim murmurs softly, pressing his forehead against McCoy's in a tender gesture. "You're the one who's going to have to live with me."
McCoy cups Jim's face in his hands and looks at him intently. "Is that a promise?"
"It can be." Jim has never been afraid of anything in his life, but he looks nervous now, and McCoy thinks that this complicated, unpredictable, infuriating man is going to shatter his heart to pieces, and McCoy's going to let him because he doesn't know how to live any other way.
"Then promise me," he asks, his voice barely a whisper.
Jim presses his mouth against McCoy's in a gentle, barely-there kiss. "I promise."
He laughs softly when McCoy pulls him close and kisses him hard, his hands clenched in Kirk's hair and the guitar pressing awkwardly between them, but McCoy doesn't care. It's perfect like this, they're perfect like this, and he's not letting go for a good long time.
***
Someday, Chekov thinks, he will stop looking like he's twelve and everyone will stop treating him like he's their kid brother, and it's gonna be great. He can't wait for that day to come. Until that day, though, he has to deal with everyone calling him 'kid' and petting his hair and telling him he can't do things because he's still too young. It's irritating, but it's life on the Enterprise, and he's grown resigned to it.
In the meantime, he's tried to develop a hobby to take his mind of the unfairness of his life, but it turns out that there's only so many mathematical equations you can solve before you get bored and want to move on to something else, and while he enjoys engineering problems, Scotty's tends to blow up in his face a lot, and Chekov doesn't want to spend the rest of his life with no eyebrows because he was bored one day. He's not really into botany either. That's Sulu's thing, and while Chekov doesn't mind helping him water and talk to his plants ("It helps them grow if I tell them encouraging things," he tells Chekov seriously, and while Chekov doesn't really believe it, he thinks Sulu's kind of cute when he gets all excited over his wild, crazy plants, so he sings them bawdy Russian songs because even plants need amusement in their lives), it's not something he's going to be doing on his own.
Kirk's the one who provides Chekov with the holo-recorder and instructions to just "film what you see, kid. You'll probably enjoy playing auteur." Chekov has only a vague understanding of what an auteur is, but he finds that he does enjoy filming the little slices of reality that make up life on the Enterprise. He films the daily arguments in Engineering (everything from quantum physics to why figgy pudding is a must at every Christmas meal to why Scottish cuisine doesn't actually count as food due to the existence of haggis, at which point Scotty jumps to his feet and launches into a long, impassioned speech about the history of the Scots, and everyone throws bits of paper at him and shouts him down), the chaos of the kitchen staff ("I said honey glaze, you idiot, not maple syrup, fuck, what did I do in this life to deserve you as a sous chef?!"), the hooting and hollering in the rec room during a footie game (Riley and Scotty almost always come to blows over their respective teams and everyone takes bets on who's going to win, which is usually Scotty because he fights dirty), and the calm, steady quiet of McCoy's office when he's doing reports ("Kid, if you don't get out of here right now, that camera's going someplace you don't want it to go, and I'm not taking it out after.").
Today he's wearing the little hat that his mother sent him in a care package a few weeks ago. He loves the hat; it's black and stylish and sits properly on his head, making him feel like a real director (he's determined that real directors wear stylish hats when they film things, and Kirk had agreed that the hat had looked very smart on him), and he wears it during his off-duty hours. He's now on his way to the gym to see if he can film Sulu teaching one of his fencing classes because he thinks it will make for a very dramatic scene. He's still not sure what to do with all this footage he's shot, but he thinks maybe he'll edit it all together and send it to his parents to show them what life on a starship is like.
He strolls into the gym, his holo-recorder in his hand and already filming, and calls out to Sulu. "Hikaru, I am here to film your-- oh." He stops suddenly as he sees Sulu being pressed up against a wall by Nurse Chapel, her mouth on his and his hands wrapped firmly around her waist as he kisses her back. They both freeze at the sound of Chekov's voice and Nurse Chapel turns around to look guiltily at Chekov. "Um," she starts, but doesn't seem to know what to say after that.
"Chekov," Sulu says hoarsely, "what are you doing here?"
Chekov flushes pink at the guilty yet aroused looks on their faces and quickly turns off the camera. "I. uh. I am sorry," he stutters apologetically, already backing away towards the exit. "I did not know you were busy. I will. I come back later, yes? To take film of your fencing class." He pivots on his heel and rushes out of the gym, not waiting around to hear Sulu and Nurse Chapel's explanations for what they were doing in there. He may be young, but he knows what he'd walked in on, and he doesn't need to see that. Ever. Not when it's his best friend and the nice nurse who always has a smile and a kind word for him. He has no idea how he's going to face them without going red in the face, but for now, the best he can do is erase the footage and try to put it out of his mind.
He's definitely giving up being a director, he thinks as he practically runs to his quarters. He doesn't have the constitution for it and the doors on the Enterprise don't have bells and he is going to have to hide in his quarters until he can look Sulu in the eye again, so directing is really not for him. He is going to have to come up with a new hobby now, one that won't have him walking in on Sulu kissing Nurse Chapel.
Maybe he can do that karaoke thing that Uhura's been talking about. Everyone knows that Russians invented karaoke anyway, so he'd be great at it. And best of all, he can still wear his little hat when he performs because everyone knows that all the great singers wear little black hats.
In other news, I am kind of even more in love with Chapel now and feel the urge to write endless stories where she and Kirk team up to play poker and fleece the entire crew with their mad skills. I just imagine that the dialogue would be hilarious beyond belief.
As usual, many references to TOS and the Trek books, most notably Uhura's Song and Prime Directive, because I have so much love for the original source material. I'm apologizing in advance for all the angst and drama that crept into this story without my permission.
This is for superjoydrop for being the most fantastic person ever, for editing the hell out of my three a.m. mistakes, and because her little "hee, Sulu!" and "omg Bones!" comments totally make my life. Chekov and his wee hat are for charliehey because she is writing me the most fabulous story ever written. The Johnny Cash song is for traveller because she makes me happy. Scotty is for everyone to share.
Just Another Place in the Stars
It's a well-known fact that once you make it past the vast emptiness of space, the deceptively dangerous planetary missions, persistent Federation enemies, diplomatic meetings that always tend to go wrong, and game night with a competitive Jim Kirk, there's not a whole lot to do in space. Sure you can do all the usual things, like read and gossip about who's hooking up with whom, and buy into Scotty's still and make bets on when it's going to explode, but that only takes a few months, and then boredom sets in soon after. The crew of the Enterprise has had to develop hobbying as self-defense against the long stretches between boredom and terror, and some of the hobbies are stranger than others.
Take Scotty, for example. Everyone on the ship thinks that he reads engineering manuals and runs his still as a way to relax, which is laughable. Starships are complicated, especially one as technologically advanced as the Enterprise, so reading manuals is not so much a hobby as an aggressive self-defense maneuver in keep this ship running, and his still is cobbled together from so many random bits and parts that it's practically a Rube Goldbergian feat of engineering marvel. Both things involve a lot of work and planning, and while they are enjoyable, they are by no means relaxing.
What Scotty does in his spare time is cook. After Delta Vega, good food becomes of paramount importance to his continued existence, and when he gets sick of replicated food, he bribes the kitchen staff into letting him take over and cook his own meals. He starts off with sandwiches and works his way up to Penne Alla Arrabbiata.
Wait, that's not quite how it starts.
It starts with Starfleet doing years of study on the effects of long-term space travel on human beings. One of the discoveries they'd made, supported by all Starfleet psychologists in a myriad of published studies and journal articles, is that real food, actual cooked food made from real ingredients and made by real people, contributes positively towards the emotional and physical health of a starship crew. Many mothers of Starfleet officers had made grumbling noises about how they could've told those psychologists that if someone had just asked them, and in the meantime, Starfleet arranged for starships to have real kitchens and freezers and chefs and food so that no one onboard goes nuts and phasers someone due to a lack of fresh grapes in their diet.
For Scotty, it begins with the ship's chef having a wee crush on Scotty and sneaking him some rye bread she's actually made for him so that he can make sandwiches. After an amazing ham on rye sandwich (honey-glazed ham, Dijon mustard, a slice of crisp, sharp cheddar, a bit of lettuce placed just so, and it's the best sandwich he's had in his life), he's hooked on cooking. And sandwiches aren't enough anymore. And he wants to cook for more people than just him.
So she teaches him what she knows about cooking (which is a lot since she is a Cordon Bleu chef and she takes it seriously) and he works his way up from sandwiches to soups to entrees. He even finds a Julia Childs cookbook in one of the archives and immediately downloads it onto a data PADD so he can try out new recipes on anyone who's willing to eat what he makes them. Some of them don't turn out well, like the coq au vin (although that might be because he used the wrong wine, and Christ, he hates replicated booze), but most of it turns out to be quite tasty, and Scotty learns that he's got a knack for cooking and a real love for it as well.
He's never going to be a culinary genius like his chef (she does things with rosemary and lamb that are almost enough to make Scotty want to propose to her), but he's good enough that he starts cooking for some of his crew whenever he thinks they need it. Like after a planetary mission or a diplomatic meeting or anything involving a visiting admiral, which is also when Scotty breaks out the booze.
He makes lasagnas for McCoy because it's one of the few things that doesn't make him rant about heart disease and blocked arteries, which everyone is grateful for. He makes chicken soup for Sulu when he gets the flu and McCoy's hypos don't cure it, despite it being the twenty-third century already, and when Sulu can stomach solid foods again, he makes him tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches. Sulu thanks him with a bottle of Scotty's favorite whiskey and Scotty shares a glass with him because he's that kind of guy.
He learns to make plomeek soup for Spock who seems to need it after Kirk beats him at chess; it doesn't happen very often, but often enough that Scotty has learned how to make it without the recipe book on hand. The first time Spock tastes it (gingerly, like he thinks he's going to be bitten by it, and Scotty would've been offended if Uhura hadn't told him that plomeek soup is Spock's favorite dish and he's never met a human or replicator yet that could make it as well as Amanda), he takes a moment to savor the taste, his eyes closed in contemplation as the flavor rolls around in his mouth.
Scotty waits on tenterhooks for the verdict and almost screams with tension when Spock politely asks if he had put the plomeek root in whole, as tradition stated, or simply shredded it in, as current recipes do. When Scotty tells him that he'd put it in whole (what he actually says is, "Well, I'm not usually one for tradition, but I figure Vulcans use logic in everything, even a recipe, so why mess with it?"), Spock nods approvingly and politely thanks him for an excellent meal.
Scotty almost collapses with relief and has a celebratory drink with Uhura. She's absurdly amused by his reaction. "For God's sake, man," she chides him, somehow not managing to hide the grin on her face despite her best efforts, "it's not like he'd phaser you if you'd gotten it wrong."
"You never know," he'd protested, pouring them both another drink. "He's a Vulcan. What if I'd offended him with my mediocre dish?"
She gives him an incredulous look. "More than a replicator?"
He makes a face. "Point."
Sometime later, Chekov has another bout of homesickness that just about breaks everyone's heart because he's still so young and fragile-looking, so Scotty posts a query to the Rec Room and gets about ten different borscht recipes. He makes the one that seems the most traditional and serves it to Chekov during his break on gamma shift. It's not going to be anything like what Chekov used to get at home -- Scotty's been homesick enough times that he knows nothing is ever going to compare to the food actually made by the people that love you -- but it's hearty and tasty and Chekov feels better after he eats it, so it's enough for Scotty.
He only cooks one time for Kirk. It had been a long exploring mission where everything had gone wrong and Jim had come to the cafeteria looking like the gym punching bag, despite McCoy's best efforts. Scotty had taken one look at his quiet, tired face and had made what McCoy had assured him was Jim's favorite dish: meatloaf. Scotty's a little confused by the concept of meatloaf (but as everyone tells him, he likes haggis, so he's not really allowed to have an opinion on the inherent strangeness of certain dishes), but it's easy enough to make and entirely worth the effort when Jim visibly brightens as Scotty brings the plate to him.
"Oh, man," he enthuses happily. "I love this stuff. My mom used to make it all the time when we were kids." He takes a forkful and makes pleased, ecstatic noises that have Scotty reaching over with his fork and stealing little bites.
"Not bad," he says after a moment of rolling the flavor around in his mouth. "I still think it's a bit of strange, but--"
"You eat haggis," Kirk points out between bites.
Scotty scowls at him. "Shut up and eat your meatloaf." He ignores a laughing Kirk in favor of stealing more food from Kirk's plate. Serves the bastard right.
It's not saving the world, Scotty thinks as Kirk tells him about the exploring mission and how he had visited that planet when he was a young cadet and his friend named Tyree, but it's making people feel better and feeding their souls as well as their bodies, and it's enough to keep Scotty busy when being an engineering marvel isn't enough.
***
Not many people know this about Uhura, but she loves music. She'd grown up in a house full of song and laughter, full of stories and music, and she's carried that over into the rest of her life. She sings songs that her mother sang, tells stories about the life she's led and the people she's loved, and makes up new songs and stories about her crew whenever they're relaxing in the rec room. Her voice is high and lovely, her words soft and full of love, and the crew applaud and cheer her on, begging for one more song, another verse, Uhura, please.
Mostly, she collects songs from different cultures, stories of people and their lives they've led that are passed down through the ages. She's learned the traditional songs of Vulcan and Earth, she's mastered the intricate melodies of the Edosians and translated the obscure, almost-forgotten songs of the J'naii, and she's even learned the songs of the Eeiauoans, taught to her by Sunfall to-Ennien, even though she has promised Sunfall to never sing them aloud except to another bard. She sings songs of joy and love and sadness, songs of war and death and disease, songs of celebration and the passing of time and people, and songs of comfort to the people that need them.
Sometimes, she writes songs for specific occasions. She's written a few songs of celebration for birthdays and births and promotions, and songs of mourning for some of the crewmembers who were lost during dangerous missions; those are the hardest for her to sing, standing at attention by Kirk's side, his normally joyful face full of regret and solemnity as he says a few words of remembrance for the fallen, and trying not to let her heart get caught in her throat as she sings their goodbyes.
She's even written a song of remembrance for Vulcan, although she's never told anyone about it or sung it aloud to anyone yet. She thinks about singing it for Spock, but isn't sure if he wants to hear it right now. He's still in mourning for his planet, as are all Vulcans, especially those who lost their pair-bonded mates, and she worries that her song might hurt him more than it would help. Nyota knows a lot about the healing power of music, but she doesn't know if anything would be able to heal the emotional rift that the loss of a home world and a mother would bring.
After a long day on the delta shift, she goes to his quarters to unwind and talk about his day, maybe see if she can't get him to play some three-dimensional chess with her and subtly complain about all the ways Jim Kirk is highly illogical and irritating. She knows that most of the crew thinks that Spock plays chess with Kirk to unwind, maybe as a hobby, which makes her laugh every time she hears it. No one knows just how much work is involved in playing chess with Kirk, although she does because she plays against him on occasion and has actually beaten him a few times, but Spock knows and is very vocal about it. Kirk's moves are, as he so eloquently puts it, illogically brilliant, zig-zagging all over the place, making moves out of desperation while still outmaneuvering Spock's pieces, and redefining all the old masters' rules, like the Siryk Maneuver, to the point where Spock has actually had to do research to find some maneuvers that Kirk knows nothing about just so he can win a few games.
Trying to beat Kirk in any sport, whether it's chess or fencing or space jumping, is not a relaxing pastime in any universe.
She's already through the door and into his room when she notices that he's sitting very quietly in his chair, a Vulcan lyre resting carefully on his lap as his fingers strum across the strings. Spock has always been very careful of his lyre because, as he tells Uhura when she first sees it, his father had it made especially for him after the destruction of Vulcan. There is a myriad of hidden emotions in that statement, most of which Uhura picks up on because she's learned to read him after all this time, and she feels the song she'd written come unbidden to her lips. The lyre is a memory of what once was, she thinks, a way to remember Vulcan and all that was gone, and maybe even a way to make some sort of peace with such an overwhelming loss.
She opens her mouth and lets the words flow out of her, letting them tangle with the notes of the lyre, letting them curl into the corners of the room and fill the empty space with sound and melody and music. She almost stops when Spock turns towards her, an indecipherable expression on his face, but he simply nods at her in acknowledgment and adjusts the key to suit her voice. She feels something inside her uncurl and spiral up through her, and she sings until her voice is hoarse with unshed tears and unnamed emotions, sings until Spock finally puts his lyre aside and goes to her, his hands gently cupped around her face and his forehead pressed against hers. He is breathing harshly as if he's been exerting himself, as if he is struggling to keep his emotions in check, and Uhura lets herself shed the tears she knows he cannot allow himself to shed; she cries for him, for her, for his people, and for the loss of a planet that had, until recently, been a major cornerstone of her life.
They stand together like that for a long while, her song still echoing throughout the room, and comfort each other with soft touches and the even softer murmur of Vulcan words.
***
Christine Chapel used to be a terror when she was younger. She ran wild and tried everything just to see what all the fuss was about and spoke her mind, even when it got her in trouble, and her mother just laughed whenever people complained that Christine was too smart for her own good. "Good," she'd tell them, a pleased smile on her face, "that's just the way I like her." Her father had simply shrugged and let her go her own way because he'd never been able to tell her what to do since she'd learned how to talk and he wasn't about to start trying now.
She'd fallen in love with medicine when she was fourteen and taking biology as an elective. She'd loved the mystery of it, the science of how the human body worked and the detective skills needed to figure out how to put it all back together in one piece. Once she'd started learning about alien biology, everything changed, she changed, and she ran wild through medicine, learning everything her mind could absorb and then learning everything it couldn't, until she was top of her class and fast-tracking her way to the Enterprise.
She'd survived the rough flight into space, she'd survived the destruction of Vulcan, she'd survived McCoy's terse, angry orders as they'd tried to keep people from dying, both of them terrified and knowing that they didn't have time to fall apart until everyone was safe, and she'd survived the entire Narada incident, even though she'd spent every evening shaking apart in the privacy of her quarters, crying for the lost and the scared and the dead she couldn't save. She'd survived all of that and gotten commendations for going above and beyond the call of duty, which didn't mean half as much as getting permanently assigned to the Enterprise did.
She'd thought that things would calm down after the Narada, after they'd picked up the pieces of their shattered lives and found ways to move on to the exploratory missions that Starfleet was known for. She'd expected to have moments of terror and action interspersed with long stretches of boredom and inactivity; she's been warned by all the higher-ups that this is what happens in space.
She's still waiting for the long stretches of boredom to kick in.
Between alien viruses that destroy peoples' inhibitions, phaser fire during away missions, constant Engineering mishaps that led to Scotty losing his eyebrows that one time, and anything in general that involves Jim Kirk, Christine's been so busy and frazzled that all it's going to take is one more of McCoy's frustrated "Dammit, Jim" comments and she's going to spectacularly lose it all over the medical bay. She understands the stresses of her job, understands the demands that her career makes of her, and she's more than up to the task, but Jesus, she just wants a moment to breathe and think without claxons going off every five minutes and another emergency on her hands.
She doesn't think it's too much to ask.
So she's decided that she needs a hobby in her life, something that will challenge her as well as relax her so that she doesn't give in to her ever-present urge to hypo the Captain into submission just so she and McCoy can get some rest for once. She dismisses most of the popular ship activities because they don't suit her tastes (and she's not allowed to play card games with Kirk because they both get too boisterous when they drink and team up to cheat madly and win everyone's money, which only she and Kirk enjoy), although she is intrigued enough by Uhura's suggestion of Karaoke Nights that she makes a note of it on her data PADD to register for it once it's up and running.
There is really only one possibility in terms of recreational activity that meets all of her needs, which is why she's at the gym right now facing a half-naked, sweaty Lieutenant Sulu who looks at her like he's torn between confusion, concern, and the desperate need to pretend that he wasn't checking out her legs beneath her gym shorts. Christine is amused and a little flattered, to say the least.
"You want to learn fencing?" Sulu repeats as if she hasn't said it clearly and distinctly enough the last two times.
"I would like to learn the art of fencing, yes," she responds politely, deciding to give Sulu the benefit of the doubt since she had sprung this on him right after his wrestling match with Kirk, and it's entirely possible that this whole conversation is the result of a blow to the head and not Sulu doubting her skills or commitment.
Sulu swipes a towel over his face as he thinks about her words. Finally, he says, "I run a class every third day and fencing drills once a week. You're a little behind the curve," and she grins as he surreptitiously glances down at her bare legs again, "since you missed the first few classes, but I can tutor you." He drapes the towel over his shoulders and looks intently at her. "If you have the time."
She cocks her head at him, feeling the thrill of a challenge shoot through her at the look in Sulu's eyes. "You doubt my commitment to Sparkle Motion?"
Sulu blinks for a moment. "That's... a really obscure reference."
"I specialize in obscure references," she says easily, and she does not move a little closer into Sulu's personal space, but it's enough that she wants to.
Sulu smiles at that, that bright, open smile that has half the ship in love with him and the other half just wanting to be near him so that his shine rubs off on them. "Now I'm interested in all of your obscure references." He stops as if he's just heard what he's said. "I mean--"
She laughs at the vaguely horrified look in his eyes at the possibility that he's transgressed and offended her. "It's fine," she manages to sputter out, feeling relaxed and at ease for the first time in days. "I can be available for my tutoring whenever you are."
"Tomorrow at 1900 hours?" He adds with a rueful smile, "If there's no medical emergency?"
Christine smiles and nods graciously. "I'll see you then, Mr. Sulu."
"Hikaru," he says quietly, and Christine likes the way it sounds coming from him, all short, sharp constants and long, gently rounded vowels.
"Hikaru," she repeats softly, liking the way his face eases into a smile at the sound of his name on her lips. "I'll see you tomorrow."
"At 1600."
"1900," she corrects gently, unable to stop smiling at the heated way he looks at her.
"Right," he says with a wince, "I meant 1900 hours."
She tries not to tease, but Sulu is kind of adorable when he's flustered, and she's not made of stone. "Easy mistake to make, what with them only being three numbers apart."
Sulu sighs. "It's just. I was wrestling with the captain and--"
"Some kind of mild head injury," she finishes, giving him the out he seems to need. "I can look at it for you if it's really serious."
Sulu laughs awkwardly and waves her off. "I'm-- I'm fine. I'm just going to." He points towards the door. "My room, I'm going there. It's." He sighs and shakes his head. "I'll see you tomorrow, Nurse Chapel."
She raises an eyebrow in a fairly decent imitation of Spock. "You can call me Christine, you know."
He pauses in his step. "Christine?" He rolls her name around in his mouth like he's tasting it, seeing how it fits her and what he knows of her, and finally nods with satisfaction. "I like it. See you tomorrow, Christine." He leaves with a wave and a smile.
She watches him as he walks out of the gym, appreciating the elegance of his movements and economy of motion that is Sulu in action. "See you tomorrow, Hikaru," she says softly, a smile playing on her lips.
Things have just gotten more interesting, and she can't wait to see how it'll all play out tomorrow. And if Jim does anything to make her break this appointment, she's going to hold him down and let McCoy pump him full of barbiturates like he always threatens to, and she won't even feel a moment's guilt about it either.
***
McCoy doesn't have hobbies, he has interests. Hobbies are for people with too much damn time on their hands, and since Jim's decided that it's his God-given duty to make McCoy's life as interesting as possible every single second of the day, McCoy barely has enough time to get a good night's rest, let alone have the time to develop and nurture a hobby. The closest he's come is collecting antique medical equipment from various planets, but mostly Earth, that he then displays in his quarters, and even then, it's more of a reminder of why he became a doctor than a genuine hobby.
His job and his hobby are the same thing these days, really: taking care of Jim Kirk after another one of his damn fool ideas gets him shot. Maybe some day, when Jim is older and has slowed down a bit, McCoy might have the time to take up holo-golf or fishing or whatever the hell it is the doctors are supposed to do with this mythical 'free time' concept that gets bandied about.
Until then, the most McCoy can do is get Uhura to teach him the Vulcan language in whatever spare time he has that isn't sleeping or writing reports to Starfleet or keeping up with the latest medical news. It's a frustrating, difficult language to learn, McCoy's discovered, much like its people and the (former) planet, but he keeps at it, even when he spends half the lesson swearing (in English) because he can't get a grip on the guttural yet twisty words. Uhura is patient and kind, which is more than he feels he deserves for the way he's mangling her boyfriend's mother tongue, and the first time he manages to properly say "Hello, my name is Leonard McCoy" in Vulcan, she laughs with delight and kisses him on the cheek.
If you ask him why he's learning a language that infuriates him with its intricate sentence structure and impossible syntax, he'd say he was learning it so that he can argue with Spock in his own language and maybe win an argument for once. What he won't say out loud, and what Jim already knows because it's Jim and he knows McCoy like he knows the back of his hand, is that despite his antagonism towards Spock, and Vulcans in general, the loss of Vulcan has affected McCoy on a much deeper level than he can ever express.
Vulcan has just always been there, as a part of the universe, as a member of the Federation, as a set part of the fabric of McCoy's existence, and its current lack of being there when it should be there has unbalanced what McCoy knows of the world, of the universe, of reality. He feels this lack every time he looks at Spock and realizes that he's looking at a member of an endangered race, every time he looks at a map and sees a blank place where Vulcan should be, every time there is a news item on Vulcans and their place in the Federation and how everyone is talking about what happens now. It's like sitting on a chair where one of the legs is shorter than the rest: it still functions as a chair, but it wobbles enough that you notice what's wrong with it.
The loss of Vulcan is like that, but on a grander, more intimate scale for McCoy.
Learning Vulcan makes him feel like he's reclaiming a part of something he'd lost after Nero, something he didn't even know he was going to miss until it was turned into nothingness and a billion people were slaughtered while ten thousand more had their lives shattered beyond repair. It's a small way to get back some of that reality he'd lost, to fix up the small part of his universe that had been torn asunder by a madman's actions, and he learns to appreciate how complex and elegant the language and the culture truly are. Learning how to say "good morning" to Spock in his native language isn't much -- it won't bring Vulcan back, he knows, and it won't heal the immense emotional wound that has been ripped open in the Vulcan people -- but the measure of respect he sees in Spock's eyes when he greets him with a halfway pleasant "Moi loma" is worth all the evenings of teeth-gnashing and frustration with Uhura and his Vulcan dictionary.
Kirk, of course, has no hobbies. Or rather, he has a whole set of hobbies that usually involve running around looking dashing with some sort of weapon in his hand or winning credits off of people by doing something stupid that no sane, rational human being would do. Right now, his fencing kick has became the bane of McCoy's existence because Kirk is exactly the kind of idiot who wants to learn all the hard stuff right away without learning the basics first, and thus ends up with gashes in awkward places. McCoy's seriously considering having a strong word with Sulu about banning the captain from any activities with sharp objects if only because his dermal regenerators are burning out from patching up Kirk.
Kirk has always been the type to run before he'd learned how to walk. And it's worked out for the best, but sometimes, it terrifies McCoy to see the bumps and bruises Kirk takes as normal collateral damage in his quest to get out from under the shadow of his father's greatness. He just wants Kirk to have a safe hobby, he thinks despairingly while writing up another Starfleet report about a mission gone wrong that has ended with Jim in his Sickbay. Just a nice, safe hobby that won't get him stabbed or phasered or poisoned or sacrificed or killed in some awful way. It's really not too much to ask, is it?
He has no time to answer that, or even think on it further, because a few weeks later, there is a terrible mining accident on some distant M-class planet that ends up flooding Sickbay with hurt and dying people, and he and Chapel work tirelessly to keep them all alive and safe and comfortable. They lose some of the people, despite their best efforts, and some suffer with terrible pain, despite their medicines and technology and constant care, but the medical team does their best, and the majority of the miners are patched up and sent home before a new wave of survivors is brought in for McCoy and Chapel to perform miracles on.
It's his third day of no sleep and he's come in to check on his patients, the last wave of survivors, when he sees Jim sitting by one of the beds. He wants to yell at him to get away from this person, let them sleep, dammit, they need it, but he stops when he sees the little girl Jim's talking to. One of the ones caught in the mess of the mine when it had collapsed, he remembers, just a little girl in the wrong place at the wrong time because she'd gone to visit her daddy that day. The damage isn't as bad as some of the others, but a broken wrist is still painful and needs to be taken care of properly.
Jim's hand is very gentle on her small bandaged one and he's leaning in to whisper something to her, making her giggle and say "Jiiiiiiim" in that amused, exasperated way that little girls have when they think you're telling them untrue stories. He grins at her amusement, whispers something else that makes her laugh happily, and McCoy remembers that Jim has always been different around children; he's softer somehow, more careful and patient, like he's tamping down all that energy and anger and brashness until all that's left is this quiet, gentle man who sings them songs and tells them stories and makes them laugh, and does what he can to take their minds off their pain and fear.
Jim always breaks McCoy's heart without ever really trying.
He goes to Jim's quarters after his shift ends and Chapel has taken over for him, because he needs to check up on the stubborn bastard who'd spent the last four days helping to clear up the mess in the mines as well as bullying Starfleet into sending supplies and help for the remaining people on the planet. He's probably as exhausted as McCoy, maybe even sick because Christ only knows what kind of virus he might have picked up while down there, so McCoy's got his tricorder up and running by the time he walks into Jim's room.
Jim is sitting on his bed, dressed in his Starfleet pants and black undershirt, with a guitar in his lap and a focused look on his face as he plucks at the strings. From the few notes he hears, McCoy thinks he's playing a song, but the notes are so spaced out that he isn't sure. Kirk's still trying to figure out the song, he reckons, still trying to remember what notes are played in which order. Kirk's been trying to play this damn instrument, on and off, for a few months now, reading music books and getting virtual guitar lessons from some program in the archives. McCoy had thought he'd given up on it, so he's surprised to see Jim still plucking away at it
There's a funny story behind the guitar. Kirk had found it in some antique guitar shop in Tucson while road-tripping with Sulu one summer. The place was old and small, he'd said, with a faded sign on the door that said 'Steve's Music: Come On In' and no air conditioning inside, just an ancient fan that had only pushed the heat around and done nothing to alleviate the feeling of breathing in thick soupy air. But the guitars, Bones, he'd said with awe in his voice, the guitars were so goddamn pristine and polished, they'd shone like diamonds. Kirk had picked up one and strummed tunelessly, gracelessly, trying to figure out which guitar was for him.
"You don't even know how to play the goddamn guitar," Bones had said gruffly, pointing out the obvious.
Kirk had grinned. "But I can learn."
He'd finally found the one he said suited him, had felt it vibrate in his hands and knew it was meant for him. He'd paid a ridiculous amount of credits for it, carried it carefully onto the ship like it was made of glass, and had spent the next couple of months learning how to play it.
McCoy's about to interrupt Jim's tuneless strumming to run the tricorder over him when the song seems to finally click together and Jim starts playing. And he's not bad, McCoy admits if only to himself. There are a few off-notes, but mostly, Jim plays with confidence, his fingers moving sure and true over the frets and the strings. McCoy thinks he recognizes the song, knows that he's heard the melody somewhere before, but it isn't until he hears Jim softly sing, "For you, I know I'd even try to turn the tide" that he realizes which song it is.
Well, shit. Jim's learned how to play McCoy's favorite Johnny Cash song. He doesn't even know how Jim's found out that this is his favorite Cash song, but somehow, Kirk has and he's learned to play it for McCoy.
"Goddammit, Jim," he mutters softly, desperately, as he puts the tricorder down on the nearest flat surface and goes to sit down beside Jim. He wraps his arm around Jim's shoulder and pulls him into a tight, one-armed hug, ignoring Jim's soft protest that he was playing his guitar, dammit, Bones. "What the hell am I going to do with you?" he asks quietly, wondering if his heart is actually going to burst if Jim keeps pulling stunts like this when he isn't expecting them.
"You tell me," Jim murmurs softly, pressing his forehead against McCoy's in a tender gesture. "You're the one who's going to have to live with me."
McCoy cups Jim's face in his hands and looks at him intently. "Is that a promise?"
"It can be." Jim has never been afraid of anything in his life, but he looks nervous now, and McCoy thinks that this complicated, unpredictable, infuriating man is going to shatter his heart to pieces, and McCoy's going to let him because he doesn't know how to live any other way.
"Then promise me," he asks, his voice barely a whisper.
Jim presses his mouth against McCoy's in a gentle, barely-there kiss. "I promise."
He laughs softly when McCoy pulls him close and kisses him hard, his hands clenched in Kirk's hair and the guitar pressing awkwardly between them, but McCoy doesn't care. It's perfect like this, they're perfect like this, and he's not letting go for a good long time.
***
Someday, Chekov thinks, he will stop looking like he's twelve and everyone will stop treating him like he's their kid brother, and it's gonna be great. He can't wait for that day to come. Until that day, though, he has to deal with everyone calling him 'kid' and petting his hair and telling him he can't do things because he's still too young. It's irritating, but it's life on the Enterprise, and he's grown resigned to it.
In the meantime, he's tried to develop a hobby to take his mind of the unfairness of his life, but it turns out that there's only so many mathematical equations you can solve before you get bored and want to move on to something else, and while he enjoys engineering problems, Scotty's tends to blow up in his face a lot, and Chekov doesn't want to spend the rest of his life with no eyebrows because he was bored one day. He's not really into botany either. That's Sulu's thing, and while Chekov doesn't mind helping him water and talk to his plants ("It helps them grow if I tell them encouraging things," he tells Chekov seriously, and while Chekov doesn't really believe it, he thinks Sulu's kind of cute when he gets all excited over his wild, crazy plants, so he sings them bawdy Russian songs because even plants need amusement in their lives), it's not something he's going to be doing on his own.
Kirk's the one who provides Chekov with the holo-recorder and instructions to just "film what you see, kid. You'll probably enjoy playing auteur." Chekov has only a vague understanding of what an auteur is, but he finds that he does enjoy filming the little slices of reality that make up life on the Enterprise. He films the daily arguments in Engineering (everything from quantum physics to why figgy pudding is a must at every Christmas meal to why Scottish cuisine doesn't actually count as food due to the existence of haggis, at which point Scotty jumps to his feet and launches into a long, impassioned speech about the history of the Scots, and everyone throws bits of paper at him and shouts him down), the chaos of the kitchen staff ("I said honey glaze, you idiot, not maple syrup, fuck, what did I do in this life to deserve you as a sous chef?!"), the hooting and hollering in the rec room during a footie game (Riley and Scotty almost always come to blows over their respective teams and everyone takes bets on who's going to win, which is usually Scotty because he fights dirty), and the calm, steady quiet of McCoy's office when he's doing reports ("Kid, if you don't get out of here right now, that camera's going someplace you don't want it to go, and I'm not taking it out after.").
Today he's wearing the little hat that his mother sent him in a care package a few weeks ago. He loves the hat; it's black and stylish and sits properly on his head, making him feel like a real director (he's determined that real directors wear stylish hats when they film things, and Kirk had agreed that the hat had looked very smart on him), and he wears it during his off-duty hours. He's now on his way to the gym to see if he can film Sulu teaching one of his fencing classes because he thinks it will make for a very dramatic scene. He's still not sure what to do with all this footage he's shot, but he thinks maybe he'll edit it all together and send it to his parents to show them what life on a starship is like.
He strolls into the gym, his holo-recorder in his hand and already filming, and calls out to Sulu. "Hikaru, I am here to film your-- oh." He stops suddenly as he sees Sulu being pressed up against a wall by Nurse Chapel, her mouth on his and his hands wrapped firmly around her waist as he kisses her back. They both freeze at the sound of Chekov's voice and Nurse Chapel turns around to look guiltily at Chekov. "Um," she starts, but doesn't seem to know what to say after that.
"Chekov," Sulu says hoarsely, "what are you doing here?"
Chekov flushes pink at the guilty yet aroused looks on their faces and quickly turns off the camera. "I. uh. I am sorry," he stutters apologetically, already backing away towards the exit. "I did not know you were busy. I will. I come back later, yes? To take film of your fencing class." He pivots on his heel and rushes out of the gym, not waiting around to hear Sulu and Nurse Chapel's explanations for what they were doing in there. He may be young, but he knows what he'd walked in on, and he doesn't need to see that. Ever. Not when it's his best friend and the nice nurse who always has a smile and a kind word for him. He has no idea how he's going to face them without going red in the face, but for now, the best he can do is erase the footage and try to put it out of his mind.
He's definitely giving up being a director, he thinks as he practically runs to his quarters. He doesn't have the constitution for it and the doors on the Enterprise don't have bells and he is going to have to hide in his quarters until he can look Sulu in the eye again, so directing is really not for him. He is going to have to come up with a new hobby now, one that won't have him walking in on Sulu kissing Nurse Chapel.
Maybe he can do that karaoke thing that Uhura's been talking about. Everyone knows that Russians invented karaoke anyway, so he'd be great at it. And best of all, he can still wear his little hat when he performs because everyone knows that all the great singers wear little black hats.
In other news, I am kind of even more in love with Chapel now and feel the urge to write endless stories where she and Kirk team up to play poker and fleece the entire crew with their mad skills. I just imagine that the dialogue would be hilarious beyond belief.