star trex xi fic: name the stars (a prologue) [mccoy/chapel, r]
name the stars (a prologue). star trek xi, r, 1200 words (this section).
You already know what your answer will be, you already know you’d follow him and Jim Kirk to the furthest coldest corners of the universe.
{index.}
a prologue.
You’re in a car with a beautiful boy, and you’re trying not to tell him that you love him, and you’re trying to choke down the feeling, and you’re trembling, but he reaches over and he touches you, like a prayer for which no words exist, and you feel your heart taking root in your body, like you’ve discovered something you don’t even have a name for.
{you are jeff: richard siken.}
It feels indescribably strange to be back in your cadet reds.
You cross your legs and pull down your sleeves and shiver and shift a little on your bench on the boardwalk overlooking the ocean. The sun is going down quickly and without fanfare, and there’s already a fog rolling in off the water; it’s going to be a cool damp night. You wrap your arms around yourself, and you watch.
“Hey, Chapel,” you hear at your shoulder, and it’s Doctor McCoy; he’s dressed in civilian clothes, his hands shoved deep into his pockets, collar turned up against the cold. He sits down beside you on the bench, looking out at the water. His dark hair snags on the breeze, falling over his forehead, and your breath catches a little and you hold onto your elbows that much tighter to stop yourself from brushing it out of his eyes. He looks as tired as you feel - you know he’s been pulling as many double-shifts at the hospital as you have to make up for lost hands - and he’s just showered and shaved; you can smell the cologne and soap.
“Hey,” you say back easily, and you turn to him a little, cocking your head; you took a bad blow from flying equipment when the ship was cracking apart during that last mad dance of life and death around the black hole and your right ear still isn’t on its game, there’s still a tinny ringing in your skull that you know will clear up soon but it’s annoying as long as it lasts.
“Jim Kirk’s got the Enterprise, and I’m going with him,” he says without preamble, still looking out over the ocean. “Five year mission. Not a surprise, I guess, all things considered, but it’s going to be made official tomorrow morning.”
“Oh,” is all you say, flexing your booted foot up and down a little.
“I want you with me,” he says, turning to you now, leaning his arm over the back of the bench. In the fading light his eyes are dark and earnest. “With us. Head Nurse. You more than proved yourself during the whole clusterfuck with the Romulans, and I won’t feel good about taking CMO unless I know I’ve got you backing me up.”
“No pressure, or anything,” you murmur, and your gaze is drawn to his lips when they twist into a wry smile.
“I’m serious,” he says. “I get what kind of commitment it is, but you’re the best. I mean, I knew that before, but I sure as hell know that now. You deserve to be on the best ship in the fleet. I know you’ve got your research, and that boyfriend of yours - ”
You laugh at that, short and sharp, and the sound echoes out across the water. “Not anymore,” you say, feeling giddy and light. “I dumped his ass the day we got back. Something about trials by fire that makes a girl rethink her priorities, you know.”
“Yeah, I kind of know the feeling,” he says, and he shakes his head, brow furrowed, and adds more seriously, “I won’t try and dick you around about your career, but you know what an opportunity this is and med school’ll be waiting for you when we get back - God, I forget how young you are sometimes,” and you’re sure he doesn't mean it as an insult but it cuts all the same.
“It’s weird,” you say after a moment. “It doesn’t feel like living, being back here. Everyone else, the ones who weren’t there, they just don’t quite get it. At all.”
“No, I guess they don’t,” he agrees, and he pauses. “You’ll do it, won’t you?”
“I’ll think about it,” you say even though you already know what your answer will be, you already know you’d follow him and Jim Kirk to the furthest coldest corners of the universe. You didn’t join Starfleet to hang around on Earth, after all.
“Get back to me when the week’s over, I’m heading home to Georgia for a few days,” he says, standing, and you follow his lead and stand up too. “Thank you, Christine,” he says, and you want to return the favour in kind, want to toss off his name like you have that right but no one calls here him Leonard, just his last name or his title or his nickname and you can’t bring yourself to do it. The image rises up unbidden in your mind of laying back against a couch with laughter full in your throat and calling him by name with easy intimacy and long practise as he draws you in for a kiss and your cheeks flush and you remember his ex-wife and you wonder, did she call him Len?
The words lock behind your teeth and you stare at the ground, aching and young and impossibly raw. You bury your chin into the high collar of your uniform and you sigh or you gasp a little, face turned away where he will not hear you or see the brightness in your stinging eyes and he takes your hand and you start and you automatically jerk away from his grasp a little but he doesn't let go, he knots his fingers into yours strong and sure and his thumb brushes along your palm and you are certain that he can feel your terror (and another thing, sweet and thrumming, something you won’t put words to yet) through your white knuckles, through the stumbling pulse that throbs through your skin, but you hold on anyway.
The lights lining the boardwalk hum into full strength. You squint against them, looking away into the sky; you haven’t been paying attention to how quickly the dark’s been rising.
“Come on,” he tells you, and you look back at him. He holds your gaze and the lights hit his face just right and his eyes are lit brilliant for a brief moment, the clearest and warmest hazel-green you’ve ever seen; but he blinks away, his lashes lowered, and the moment is lost. He tugs lightly at your hand. “Let’s go.”
The wind picks up and it lifts your hair and tangles it into your mouth and eyes as you as you head together back through the deepening blue-grey night towards the bright lights of campus. You rake your hair back from your face with your free hand; he pulls you nearer and he swings your entwined arms a little as you walk in tandem and he doesn’t look at you or say anything else but he leans in close and grips your hand tighter, his shoulders bumping yours companionably, and you think, okay. This could work, we can make this work.
Whatever the hell this is.
{next.}