ship olympics: event 3: team jim and bones

[jem80]

Title:  Click Your Heels

Author: 
sullensiren

Team: teamjimandbones

Fandom:  Star Trek Reboot

Characters:  Bones, Kirk, Uhura, Scotty, Spock, Gaila, Chekov. Sort of.

Pairings: Bones/Kirk

Summary:  We're not in Kansas anymore!  Bones wakes up in Oz.

Word Count:  4800

Rating:  PG

Disclaimer:  I own nothing.

Feedback:  Makes my day!

Author's Notes:  Written for The Ship Olympics, for teamjimandbones.





Click Your Heels

“Of course, some people do go both ways."
-- The Scarecrow, "The Wizard of Oz"

Bones couldn't recall where the storm came from, or how he'd gotten here. The last thing he remembered was arguing with. . . someone and then the winds and the storm and he woke up. . . here.

He couldn't remember the whys or wherefores, but Bones was absolutely sure of two things. One, the house had dropped out of the damn sky (which mean he'd been IN THE SKY while he was in it, which he was damn sure he hadn't planned on), and two, he was naked.

He was also pretty sure he wasn't in Kansas, but since he hadn't started out there that he remembered, Bones wasn't positive. For all he knew, maybe Kansas had a lot of candy-colored signs, falling houses, and gold plated roads. If so, federation tax spending needed some serious rethinking.

Bones turned a slow circle, shielding his private parts with one hand, since there were a lot of curious, very short eyes watching from doorways. His stomach dropped disconcertingly when he saw a pair of feet in tacky, sparkling shoes protruding from under the house, hurrying over. He couldn't reach anything but the feet and ankles, and tried to find a pulse on the inside of one when they suddenly curled, vanishing beneath the house.

"Well, that saves me manslaughter charges anyway. How the hell anything survived a house dropping on them though, I have no idea," Bones said aloud.

"Shouldn't you be more upset? You thought you just killed someone, you'd think there would be more remorse," a clear, female voice said from just behind Bones. He spun and found himself faced with an improbably beautiful young woman in a voluminous pink dress that he was pretty sure weighed more than she did. Her nose wrinkled, one eyebrow lifting. "Haven't you heard of pants?"

Bones remembered to cover himself again. "I don't really think someone wearing a layer cake has room to give fashion advice, but yes.   woke up this way. Where the hell am I, anyway?"

The woman crossed her arms over her chest, and then waved the wand she held in one hand in a graceful, somehow condescending gesture. Bones felt the clothing against his skin before he saw it, looking down gratefully to find- "A dress?"

"Beggars can't be choosers. Next time, watch who you call a layer cake," she answered blithely.

Bones tugged on the hem. "You could at least have added a few inches," he grumbled. He squinted at her. "Don't I know you from somewhere?"

"You have nice legs, just go with it. And I doubt it. I'm Glinda, the good witch. Though I prefer 'benevolent practitioner.' You've dropped your house on the Wicked Witch of the West, who's been terrorizing these people for a while now. You can come out now, the witch is dead." She directed the last toward the watching eyes, and a parade of small men and women in bright colors emerged onto the streets, all gleeful smiles and comically large candy props in their small hands.

The largest of them climbed onto a raise platform, arms waving wildly as he began to- "Oh, god, is he singing?" Bones asked, aghast.

Glinda sighed. "They do that."  Between songs, she spoke in a quick, melodic language that Bones didn't recognize. "The Mayor says that they won't sue for houseicular manslaughter, since she may have been trying to eat their children."

"Fabulous. So that's an actual language? How can you understand that?" Bones asked, wincing as a trio of three small males with lollipops picked up a new chorus of some kind.

"I listen," she answered. "And I minored in language studies while I got my wand-waving degree. It's a complex language based mostly in sound replication, and math. I'm also probably a lot smarter than you are. Is that your dog?"

Bones looked down at the small, long-eared dog currently sniffing at his ankles. "Possibly?"  But he doubted it.

Glinda handed him a roll of clear baggies and a pastel-pink scoop. "Unless you can pilot that house back where you came from, you need to head to Oz to get back home."

"And where in the Sam Hilll is that?"

"It's a he, not a that. He's in the Emerald City." Glinda pointed an elegant hand toward the stone beneath his feet, and then westward. "Follow the yellow brick road." She paused and then added. "And the street signs. Green means Emerald."

"You know, I think I would have worked that out myself, Princess." Bones squinted as he followed the winding path with his eyes until it vanished into the too-blue horizon. "Huh." He looked down at bare feet, wiggling his toes. "Shoes would be nice."  The dog, whose jingling tag read "T.O.T.O." yelped as Glinda's wand wiggled, and a pair of familiar, garishly glittering slippers appeared on Bones feet, where he'd just been sniffing. Bones stared, nonplussed.  "You gave me a dead woman's shoes.  That's morbid."

Glinda gave him a brilliant smile that left him a little speechless. "Beggars can't be choosers. Trust me, you'll want them. Don't forget the baggies, we have littering laws, and watch out for the Witch of the East."

She vanished in a puff of smoke that smelled vaguely of citrus, and Bones turned to set off down the path, wincing at the chorus of song that sent him off, T.O.T.O. trotting at his heels.

The song came to an abrupt stop as another puff of smoke, spicier and stranger than Glinda's, appeared. A green-skinned, red-headed woman stood there, arms crossed over what looked to be an impressive chest, and fingers tapping impatiently against her own arm. "Did you kill my sister?" she asked. "And those shoes are not a good look for you."

"These shoes are not a good look for anyone. Or the dress," Bones answered. He looked from her back to the house, remembering the green skin of the ankles protruding from beneath the house. "Uh, allegedly? But I didn't intend to." McCoy thought that he probably should feel worse about that, but things were so bizarre that he was fairly sure he was in some kind of shock. Possibly from psychedelic drugs of some kind, which he was sure hadn't been his idea in the first place. "I'm sorry for your loss?"

She didn't really seem upset by the death, which wasn't helping his natural empathy to kick in. Plus hadn't Glinda said something about eating babies? She pursed her lips and then confessed. "We hadn't actually talked in a while. There was this THING, with her boyfriend in school, and he was a loser so really she should have thanked me, but what are you going to do, you know?"

Bones had no idea, but he nodded anyway. "Right."

She eyed him and then smiled. "You know, you're kind of cute. Those were my slippers. So what do you say you hand them over, and then I'll model them for you?" She suggested coyly.

Bones eyed her. "No offense, but if you eat babies, I'd be a little worried wondering what else you'd eat."

She sniffed. "Wouldn't you like to know. Fine, but I'm getting my shoes back! Watch your back." T.O.T.O. yipped, and the witch scowled at him, stomping a delicate foot and tossing long red curls over her shoulder. "And your little dog, too!"

She vanished, and Bones looked down at the dog, who whined uneasily. "My thoughts exactly. Come on, then."

**

"What the hell is WRONG with you?" McCoy stared aghast at the figure, who was currently strewn in pieces across the bright yellow bricks.

The scarecrow's reached to scratch his head, which was lying next to his torso atop a small pile of loose straw. "Well. . . I got bored. And the crows weren't really intimidated."

"So you tried to blow them up? Where did a scarecrow even GET explosives?"

"I made them out of corn," the scarecrow said with a broad grin, improbably blue eyes half obscured by rough straw-hair. "Could you hand  me my other arm?"

"Do you not have a brain in that straw head at all?" Bones asked, kicking the arm closer and watching the scarecrow reattach it, and then drag himself over to his legs.

"Actually, it took precise calculations, painstaking attention to detail, and excellent timing. So I think I probably have a brain," the scarecrow answered.

"No. Trust me. You don't have one." T.O.T.O. growled playfully around a mouthful of dead crow, and Bones grimaced. "This is all your fault," he informed the scarecrow as he bent, trying to wrestle the bird away from the dog.

"Well, I might not have blown the birds up if I knew I'd have company. I'd have tried to put my best foot forward." The scarecrow looked down at his leg, which currently ended in protruding straw, and then over to where T.O.T.O. had abandoned the bird and instead seized a straw foot, clad in an old leather shoe, and was sprinting down the golden road with it. "So to speak," the scarecrow added mournfully. "Where are you going, anyway?"

"Home, via some wizard in a green city," Bones answered, grumbling under his breath as the scarecrow hobbled alongside him, T.O.T.O.'s waving tail just over the rise.

"I've always wanted to go to the Emerald City. I hear they have horses of all colors, if you know what I mean." The scarecrow waggled his eyebrows.

Bones stared, trying to figure how a face made of packed straw even had eyebrows. "I have no idea what you mean."

"I could explain."

"I could set you on fire." Bones frowned again. "How did you not set yourself on fire with that stunt anyway; you're made of straw."

"Luck. And style." The scarecrow made a triumphant sound and swooped down to pick up his foot, T.O.T.O. having abandoned it to christen a nearby tree. Bones didn't much like the look of that tree. He thought it had a face, and that the face was not thrilled. He hopped along a few steps, jamming the foot back on and then falling into step beside Bones. "Could I come with you?"

"No."

"You don't mean that, do you?"

"Yes."

The scarecrow pouted somehow, and then grinned. "Or I could follow along behind and admire the view for a while."

Bones considered that for a long moment. "Fine. You can come. Just don't talk."

"Quiet as a mouse!" The scarecrow promised with a charming grin and another waggle of disturbing, improbable eyebrows. "By the way - I like your dress."



"Your methods are suspect," the statue said. Its jaw creaked as it talked.

Bones jumped a foot in the air, and clutched at the scarecrow to keep himself upright. The scarecrow, damn him, probably enjoyed it. "Does EVERYTHING here talk?"

"Only animate creatures and objects capable of rational thought can speak," the metal statue answered, the squeak somehow only made him sound more condescending.

"Wonderful. So we're trapped in a forest full of angry, talking trees with a scarecrow and a talking sculpture. We're going to die," Bones said flatly.

"I don't die. I scatter. It's disconcerting," the scarecrow answered.

The statue paused. Nothing moved save its mouth, but Bones thought it was staring disapprovingly at the scarecrow. "I may have miscalculated when I assumed rational thought was a qualifier for speech."

"You think?" Bones answered. "Look, not that I don't like spending my time chatting up aluminum foil, but I'm about to be assaulted by a pine tree, so I need to move it along."

"Pine trees are members of the Pinaceae, and of narrow relation to the trees in this forest, which are derivatives of the Quercus family of Oak," the tin man told Bones. "And you are negotiating with them in an inherently illogical and thus unproductive manner."

"I said I was sorry for letting the dog piss on their roots, what else could I do?" Bones asked.

"Apologies lack weight when unpaired with offers of restitution," the tinman said. "You could offer them something in exchange for their leniency."

Bones considered. "Don't suppose they'd want a scarecrow?"

"I see no reason why they would," the tinman answered. He managed to turn his head a bit, the movement making a pointed, metal ,ear twitch and a hideous grinding-metal sound grate against McCoy's eardrums.

"Me neither."

"You just haven't seen any of my many talents at work yet," the scarecrow answered airily.

Bones ignored him. "You have a better idea, metalman?"

"I could attempt to negotiate on your behalf, in exchange for your assistance. There is an oil can adjacent to me. If you use it to loosen my joins, I will serve as your representative in tree negotiations."

Bones didn't have a better idea, and he shrugged, toeing T.O.T.O. carefully out the way and picking up the oil can, ignoring the scarecrow's pointed comments about loosening up the tin man.

A few squirts of viscous liquid later, the tinman was twisting himself into some semblance of free movement, and then striding purposefully back toward the trees Bones and his unwanted companion had just been running from. "Tell me you've got a plan, metalman?"

"I do," the tin man answered, stepping into a dense bush and reaching for a heavy, sharp blade. "I also have an ax. In the absence of appropriate negotiation leverage, intimidation is often a valid technique."

"You're going to chop down the living trees?" The scarecrow asked.

"Only if they make it necessary," the tin man answered.

"You're a heartless metal bastard, aren't ya?" Bones eyed the size of the ax, and then fell back another step, putting the scarecrow between him and the blade. "Good plan."

**

"I zink dat dis field is not healthy," the lion had invited himself along after the tree's forest, and Bones couldn't understand a word he said so far. Despite that, he'd proven himself damned useful. The witch, it turned out, had a vindictive side and had taken out the golden road, which meant they had to find a detour. He was a jumpy damned thing, but the cat had a decent sense of direction, Bones would give him that. He was, at least, more helpful than the scarecrow, who had suggested blowing up the fallen trees and debris blocking the road, and then tried to flirt with the witch when she'd put in an appearance (which she hadn't seemed to mind, judging from the giggle, right up until the scarecrow started asking about if she had any other sisters, and whether they were the adventurous type.).

"I'm not arguing that," Bone answered, staring at the serene sea of pretty flowers that separated them from the end of the yellow brick road, and the gleaming Emerald City beyond it.

The tinman tapped his ax thoughtfully against his calf with a metallic twinging sound. "I find it statistically improbable that poppies would flourish in this number in this climate without assistance."

"No where to go but forward though. It will be fine," The scarecrow decided, stuffing a stray bit of straw back into his chest and starting forward. "What could go wrong?"

Bones groaned. "Well, now every damn thing. Didn't anyone tell you what happens when you ask what could go wrong? EVERYTHING goes wrong."

"The utterance of a phrase has no verifiable effect on the outcome of events," the tinman argued, following after T.O.T.O. And the scarecrow, Bones trailing him reluctantly, the lion behind him. He looked up at a sudden creak, watching as the tinman's jaw cracked wide open in a yawn.

Oh, this wasn't good.

Bones forged forward, hearing the lion drop behind him and watching the tinman slow to a gradual stop. "This effect is. . . Unlikely. . . I don't have. . . Olfactory senses to process. . . Toxins. . . " the tinman muttered.

For someone without any actual organs, he had a mighty fierce snore, Bones noted as he went down.

He managed to make it to the scarecrow before he ended up on the ground, yawning and fighting the drowsiness that wanted to send him down into sleep. His head ended up pillowed on the scarecrows leg, and he scowled as the scratchy, straw-scented hand patted his cheek lazily. "Your skirt's slipped up. . . Nice legs," the scarecrow slurred. Behind him, T.O.T.O. was breathing in little rhythmic, whining snores, short legs moving as he ran in his sleep.

The last thing Bones saw as he drifted off was the scarecrow's tattered thigh. He couldn't bring himself to move enough to look at his face, so it was the thigh he spoke to. "This is your fault, somehow." The scarecrow didn't answer, and a moment later Bones drifted off with the others.

**

A ragged awakening, two horse-drawn-carriage rides, seven baffling conversations and a wardrobe change later, Bones found himself somehow STILL in a dress and sparkling, too-small slippers, listening to the ominous voice of Oz, who seemed to really like listening to himself talk.

Bones tuned out halfway through in favor of looking around the room, eyebrows climbing when he spotted an open doorway. From the room behind it, there came a distinctive sound of grinding metal and reluctant gears - neither of which were coming from his pointy-eared, metal companion.  The booming voice, now somewhat less booming, drifted through the open doorway.  "Pay no attention the man behind the curtain!"

Bones stopped, surveying the unnervingly round room they now occupied to double check.  "There is no curtain."

The pregnant pause that followed was accompanied by a worrying sort of banging noise.  "Well there was MEANT to be a curtain there, all right?  Keensner, can't you get those munchkins to do anything?"  Bones noted with no small amount of irritation that the formerly booming voice seemed to be paying less than strict attention to them.  The conversation seemed to actually be directed at some equally faceless Keensner fellow who Bones couldn't see through the open, curtainless doorway.  "Who says munchkins is a demeaning term?  have you been talking to Glinda again?  Nothing good ever- oh hang on there.  Is that a beagle with you?"  The voice was, it seemed, addressing them again.

Bones glanced down at T.O.T.O., who was licking areas that weren't meant to be licked in public.  "Apparently."

A reddish, very round head abruptly stuck itself through the doorway as the Wizard revealed himself, peering at T.O.T.O.  "Huh.  So that's where it went."

Bones didn't even want to know what that meant, though T.O.T.O looked up from his crotch to growl in the Wizard's general direction.  "Look, we've been walking for days, these slippers pinch my toes, and I've had to spend all day taking orders from an idiot, a robot, and a teenager, and then having a ten minute conversation with a floating head that turned out to be you.  So for a steak dinner and a train ticket home, you can have the dog, the shoes, and anything else you want."

The scarecrow reached up, ruffling his straw-hair and grinning in a way that Bones was sure was meant to be charming.  "I thought we were starting to get along, after the poppies."

The Wizard walked over, crouching to poke at T.O.T.O., who growled again and hid behind the tinman. "Look, here's the thing, I can't get you home without a bit of help, yah? Scratch my back, I'll scratch yours. There's this witch, and I've been after her number for ages, but she won't give me the time of day. So you all run by her castle, give the flying monkeys the slip, and get her to let me give her a ring, and I'll send you home."

Bones couldn't believe this. "You want us to fix you up with the Witch?"

The scarecrow grinned. "She has EXCELLENT broomsticks."

Bones hated this entire day more than he'd hated anything, including his divorce lawyer.

The lion shook his man. "I do not like monkeys. They. . . Throw things. Unpleasant things."

"I find the concept of flying monkeys aerodynamically impossible," the tinman said.

"You're a walking tin can that talks and carries an ax. Your concept of 'possible' should probably broaden," the scarecrow pointed out.

Bones hated it when the scarecrow made a good point.

**

"SERIOUSLY?" The witch put her hands to her hips, glaring at The Wizard. "You break into my castle, attack my monkeys-"

"We just gave them a bottle of whiskey and a basket of ping-pong balls," the scarecrow protested.

She glared at him, and the scarecrow went silent. Bones wondered if she would teach that technique.

"Well it isn't as if I didn't try to ask you, but you shot me down!" the Wizard protested.

"You CONJURED a toad and told me I had skin the same shade!" The Witch pointed a manicured finger at him. "And ate half the chocolates you sent me!"

"TELEPORTED the toad, love, there's a difference! Much more impressive, yah?" Scott asked earnestly. "It was a pretty sort of toad, and I was hungry on the way over is all."

The witch scowled more deeply. "Men are impossible."

"But we make up for it, if you give us a chance," the scarecrow offered with a bashful smile, batting blue eyes.

"You're not a man," Bones muttered.

They all ignored him, and the scarecrow gestured toward Scotty. "He's a smart, established man who can treat a lady like you how she deserves, he just needs a little help from you, and I can tell you're the gracious sort who'll give it to him."

The witch wavered, and Bones silently wondered if the scarecrow had charmed the crows like that before he blew them up. "Well. . ."

"Well what?" the Wizard asked. The tin man coughed, and the Wizard made a high pitched, yelping sound as the tin man trod on his foot. Bones had to give the metal man credit for timing. The cough was pushing it though, since he didn't even have lungs.

"You asked Glinda out. The munchkins told the monkeys, and they told me-"

"Oh of all the, GLINDA," The Wizard bellowed and Bones winced, tugging fruitlessly on his hemline as the scarecrow edged closer to him.

In a puff of citrus smoke, Glinda appeared, dark hair piled in an elaborate twist on her head. "I told you to STOP CALLING for me. Just because I-" Glinda broke off, frowning as she saw the Witch and crossing her arms over her chest, pose identical to the Witch's. "If you think you're going to make me talk to her, you're insane," she told them.

The Witch stomped her foot. "You're in my castle! Bad enough you have to have all the attention around your precious munchkins, but now you come here too and-"

"MY munchkins? You're the one who eats them!"

"I do NOT, that's just Wicked Witch stereotyping at work and you KNOW it, Galinda Glinda-"

"Galinda Glinda? Your first name is Galinda?" the scarecrow asked curiously. Bones reached around him and covered his mouth with one hand.

"My name is none of your business! And I don't know what you're talking about! I don't STEAL anything. You were the one bringing everyone back to the dorm! When I had a Wand exam in the morning."

"That was ONE time, and it wasn't like you didn't have-"

"What I had was none of your-"

"I had to LIVE with you, and put up with your NAGGING about-"

"Fascinating," the tin man murmured, watching the pair argue.

Bones let go of the scarecrows mouth - he wasn't sure, but he thought that rasp against his palm might have been the scarecrow trying to lick him, which was just disturbing. The girls were working up into a genuine fight, and Bones looked around for something to break it up with, ignoring the Lion, who was still hiding behind the tinman, attempting to keep out of the notice of either witch.

T.O.T.O. ambled over toward a large bucked in the corner, and then looked back expectantly. Bones looked at the girls, who seemed to have moved on to arguing about who ate the last of the hard boiled eggs once, in their junior year, and then back at the bucket.

It couldn't make anything worse.

He hefted the bucket and flung it toward the witches, liberally soaking both of them, which had the temporary effect of silencing them. He took advantage of it. "All right, so I don't have a damn clue what you're actually fighting about, but we're going to settle this right now. I don't care if you're a baby-eating, green-skinned witch with bad taste, you're going to go out with Shorty the Wizard here, and-"

Glinda frowned and cut in. "Wait, who do you think you are, talking to her like that?"

"I don't eat babies! And what makes you think you can just tell me what to do?" the Witch demanded. "MEN," she added with a huff of disgust.

"They think they know everything," Glinda answered. "You should just go. And be glad I don't turn you into a pile of straw."

Bones blinked, looking over at the scarecrow, who rubbed at the back of his neck, shedding a few straws. "Yeah. . . It's not a good idea to cross her."

Wonderful. "I was just trying to help settle-"

"Who asked for your help?" The Witch sniffed. She looked over at Glinda, giving her a watery smile. "You know. . . I really am sorry I made you flunk that exam."

"It's all right. I took a make up test and graduated at the head of the class." Glinda smiled back tentatively. "I know you would never eat babies. I mean your sister. . ."

"God, her. Five years I told her that munchkins went straight to the thighs anyway, but no, she had to do things her own way." The Witch rolled her eyes. "Have you had lunch? I found this amazing little bistro."

"I'm starving!" Glinda beamed her dazzling smile and hooked her arm through the Witch's.

"I find this trend of events unlikely," the tin man said, though Bones noticed he seemed to be looking at the now-wet and somewhat clingy pink dress Glinda wore with a marked interest.

"So now I'm stuck here?" Bones demanded. Hell if he was going to stay in crazy town when he could be back. . . where ever he'd been. It had to be a damn sight better than this.

The Witch waved a dismissive hand. "Keep the shoes, they're last season anyway. Just be gone before I get back and reset the alarm."

"Click your heels, the shoes will take you back home," Glinda added.

The pair vanished in their melodramatic smoke clouds, leaving Bones glaring at the space where they were a moment before, demanding of the empty air, "YOU COULDN'T HAVE TOLD ME THAT EARLIER?"

The Wizard kicked at the empty bucket forlornly. "And I still didn't get her number," he lamented.

The scarecrow grinned, holding out a little scrap of paper. "Just don't tell her where you got it." He looked back at Bones in time to catch the glare Bones sent his way. "What?"

"When did you get that?" Bones asked, and then shook his head. "Never mind, I don't want to know. I'm getting out of here."

The scarecrow grinned. "You're going to miss me most of all." Bones clicked his heels together, and the world spun and slid away, the scarecrow's face the last thing he saw.

**

Bones opened his eyes, a heavy weight on his chest pushing him awake. He found himself staring into a pair of familiar blue eyes. Jim was grinning, wide and obnoxious, hair pillow-rumpled and eyebrows lifted. "You were talking. Something about a witch. I almost got a PADD to record it."

"I was dreaming. And you were there," Bones answered groggily.

Jim's eyebrows wriggled in a way Bones found obnoxious, even when they weren't made of straw. "Yeah? What exactly was I doing?"

"Being an ass," Bones answered, and shoved at him. "Would you get off?"

"We did that earlier, but I'm game if you are," Kirk answered, deadpan.

McCoy rolled his eyes. "I hate you."

"I know." Jim's mouth pressed warm and familiar against his. For a moment, the prickle of his stubbled cheek felt like straw, and Bones had to swallow a laugh. "What?" Jim asked.

"No place like home," Bones answered, pulling Jim closer by his messy hair.

Jim grinned. "You know," he murmured, face close beside Bones's. "You also said something about a dress."

Bones groaned and kissed him again to shut him up.