Stop Me If You've Heard This One Before
Title: Stop Me If You've Heard This One Before
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: 2669
Pairing/Character: gen, Uhura + Kirk
Summary: In No-Win Scenario, there's a line where Kirk recalls the last time he and Uhura were planetside together: "cramped and cold, him holding a hand against the hot pulse of her bloody leg and telling bawdy jokes to keep her awake and out of shock. " This is that mission. Set a couple months before No-Win Scenario, but can be read without having read the former.
Warnings: Inappropriate and very bad joke(s).
Notes: Been sitting on my HD for a while, so I thought I might as well post it. Now to finish on meme responses. \o/
Disclaimer: I do not own Star Trek, XI or otherwise.
-
"Kirk to Enterprise," he hisses to his communicator, "come in, Enterprise, goddammit--"
Sudden spike of pain twisting through his skull, blooming wide and flaming against his nerve endings out of nowhere--he's on the floor before he knows it, curled into himself and biting off a groan. Hands pressed against the pain, trying to keep down a wave of nausea and mentally calculating the strength of the blow, the possibility of concussion--a thousand points of light swimming before his eyes and fuck it, he can hear that they're still fucking coming forward, get a hand around your goddamn phaser, Jim, move move move, some part of his brain's screaming--
His fingers are digging into the snow below him before he remembers that the assholes confiscated it last night.
Fuck.
"Where is the Lyenhra?" demands one of his attackers, looming up so he's shadow-silhouetted against the bright blue-white of the ice cave walls. Some distant, aware part of Jim notes that he's got a crossbow slung over his chest, and that his friend's cradling a nasty-looking club that's probably responsible for the explosion in Jim's brain. Two against one and no weapon; odds are real low he'll make it out with all his limbs, his tactics training whispers.
But then Jim's never said no to a challenge.
A brief glance reveals a lip of wall he might be able to use about ten feet to his left; he shoves himself toward it, cold searing through his uniform. "I told you," he grits out, "we didn't steal your goddamn Lyenhra!" Dammit, Uhura and Josston are still back at the stupid base, and he's got no idea if the Nehan went psycho on them, too--he bangs his communicator on the ground; why won't the thing work already? Jesus, he's gotta get back to that base, 'cause he's not losing anybody, not this fucking time--
Two silent bolts of phaser-fire arc through the air, splashing angry light over the walls. The guards are on the ground before Jim's brain catches up with the sequence, and he blinks in confusion. He levers up off the ground to get a look at his savior, and the wash of relief that goes through his body makes his limbs loose and warm. It's Uhura--safe and whole, eyes fierce as an avenging angel's and mouth flattened in her I'll-kick-your-ass look. She ducks around the corner and over to him.
"Up, up," she orders in a whisper, snaking down an arm to help.
"Thank god," he says, stumbling a little against her. "Josston?"
"Beamed back up." She pulls him back to the lip of the hollow, and glances both ways before pulling his arm around her shoulders. "Someone had to stick around and save your sorry ass, Captain."
"Never been more grateful," he pants, coldness making his sharp breaths into clouds.
"Sing my praises later," she tells him. He catches a corner of her grin, and then she's dragging him gently forward down the hallway. "We should try and get to the cave mouth--"
"--more room for Scotty to grab us there," he finishes, nodding his throbbing head as they shuffle forward. "Jesus, Bones is gonna kill me if I have another concussion."
"Hush, keep moving," she tells him, and yeah, she's kinda right, so he shuts his mouth and does what he's told.
They make it maybe twenty feet before they hear the echo of Nehan feet running some ways behind them. Jim's stomach drops to his feet like a stone.
"Fuck," Uhura swears, twisting her mouth. "Shit."
Jim's already scanning their surroundings; nowhere close enough to hide them. "Gonna hafta run," he mutters. "Look for a place to hide."
She gives a jerk of a nod, and then they're running silently down the hall with their breath slicing through the frigid air. It makes Jim's head swirl in a nauseating way, but hey, he's lived through way worse, so he just keeps pushing himself onward, panting and trying to stay upright while the pale white of the ice blurs past. Thinking, kind of far away, about how much he's gonna sleep when they get off this stupid planet, how fucking useless this mission was; all the places he'd like to tell Komack to stick it for getting them stuck here.
"Stop!" Uhura barks, soft and sudden, and grabs his arm. She pulls him towards a shallow hollow in the ice--or what looks like a shallow hollow, but turns out to be much deeper than it seems, enough so they can duck around a corner and stay hidden. He nods his impressed approval and she smiles quickly back, but they don't have time for words; they shove themselves as far away from the hall as possible.
They tuck themselves in low to the ground, then, and hold their breath, stretching to hear which direction the footsteps are coming in; they stay as silent as they can, breath tied up tight inside them, tension whirling in the air.
At first it feels like they made it, maybe--then the steps break the silence again, insidious and loud and matching Jim's heart for speed. Fuck, he thinks. Must not be his lucky fucking day. One phaser between them, and it sounds like at least two Nehan coming down the hallway . . . his brain starts constructing scenarios, ways to stretch their odds of survival, but he's interrupted by Uhura.
"Oh no you fucking don't," she breathes, glaring in the direction of the hallway. Before Jim can say a word, she's cupping her hands around her mouth, and then this sound is coming from down the hallway, a lyrical hiss he didn't think the human throat was capable of producing. The shadows on the wall shiver and stop. They're close enough that Jim can see the glimmer of their weapons reflected in the ice, and his heart's beating in his throat under the cool sheet of control he's laid over himself. Uhura quiets after a moment, and the Nehan start conferring in their high, sliding language, short syllables indicating fear and anger. Jim takes his cue from Uhura; they sit utterly motionless, waiting waiting waiting. His heart sounds too loud, like it always does at times like this, but he forces himself calm, and can see her doing the same.
Finally--an eternity later--they hear two pairs of feet start back down the hallway. Jim closes his eyes briefly in relief, but that's all the celebration he allows himself, because danger could still be around the corner. They stay tight and quiet and near invisible for long minutes afterwards, until finally she nods at him and he nods back, and they relax.
"What was that?" he asks, hushed.
She quirks her lips. "Sound of a Nehan ice snake, feared over the planet," she explains in a whisper. "Big superstition. Threw my voice so it sounded like it was the opposite direction--hopefully that buys Scotty enough time. I seem to've lost his signal."
"You're a goddamn genius, you know that?" he asks, shaking his head a little with awe.
She doesn't get a chance to reply.
Out of fucking nowhere there are two Nehan guards leaning around the edge of their hiding place, and then there's a volley of phaserfire blasting loud and bright in his eyes and ears before he even realizes; one guard on the floor and a choked-off scream from Uhura--he snatches the phaser from her limp hand and brings the other one down, one-two-three right on point. He shoots them both again for good measure, rage twisting in his stomach, as he turns to take in the damage, a litany of Jim you stupid fucking idiot you let your guard down you were too slow you asshole running sharply through his mind.
She's huddled over one leg, trying to hold in these breathy little noises of pain, face hidden from view. He goes hot and cold all at once: she's alive, thank god, but she's hurt, and that thought's like fire in his blood.
"Dammit," he growls, slapping the ice in frustration in a way that gets him nothing but a smarting hand. He ignores that, shifting closer. "Keep taking deep breaths," he urges, "I don't want you going into shock."
"--irk, this is Enterprise, please respond--" crackles his communicator.
"Scotty, where the fuck've you been?" he demands immediately.
"Interference, sir, the minerals in the cave--"
"Jesus," Uhura gasps, squeezing her leg. "Fuck--"
"Okay, fuck, forget it. Just get us off this damn planet, please," Jim growls, eyes fixed on the wet red of her fingers. "I've got the best linguist in Starfleet with a wounded leg and we need to get to Sickbay right fucking now."
"I'm doing the best I can, Captain!" Scotty slams back. "Ten minutes and I'll have it worked out!"
"You've got six," Jim says. "And get Bones in the transporter room. Kirk out."
He slides over against the frigid rocks until he's up against her side, curled over her. "Hey," he says gently. "Scotty says--"
"Six minutes, I heard," she says, squeezing her eyes shut. "I'm right over here."
"Right, right--sorry, Ms. Aural Sensitivity," he jokes absently, trying to get a look at the injury around her hand, feathering his fingers over her knuckles and tugging.
"Best linguist in Starfleet, you said it yourself," she pants, pressing her hand down harder. "No, no--stop that. I'm not taking my hand off, the pressure'll help keep the sides of the wound together."
"I know, but we can do better than that," he argues, shoving down the tight, panicky feeling in his chest and the statistics on blood-loss flicking automatically through his brain. He's her Captain and she's wounded; he's her friend and she's in pain. He's got a duty, no matter the world's still spinning from the earlier blow to his head and the way more Nehan could show up at any minute. "Just hold on a sec, okay?" he says. "Keep up the deep breaths and don't move."
"Like I'm goin' anywhere," she grunts. She's too pale, he thinks tightly, almost grey--but he can help. That thought focuses him like nothing else. He's gotta keep her out of shock--there's no dermal regenerator here, nothing, and Jesus is he ever kicking himself over listening to those rules at the beginning of this "treaty session"--so he'll need to distract her till Bones gets her.
Okay, he thinks, I can do that. Jim Kirk is the king of stupid distraction, after all.
"So, this guy," he starts, wriggling backwards in the little hollow. "This guy has a 25-inch dick."
Uhura groans. "Tell me this--isn't gonna be one of your awful jokes," she moans, breath hitching.
"Sorry, no-can-do," he says, aiming for cheerful. He manages to get his arms up and pull himself out of his over-shirt. He gasps as his head clears the neck and the freezing air hits his bare arms. "As I was saying, this guy has a 25-inch dick. This is obviously a huge problem."
"Oh, obviously," she bites out.
"Well, he can't have sex," Jim quips, panting, "which he's pretty unhappy about." He grips two edges of the shirt and yanks, smiling grimly when it tears apart like paper. First time he's been grateful for their damn flimsiness. "So he goes to his doctor, right?" he says, ripping it into even strips. "And he's like, 'Doctor, please, can you do something?' And the doctor says, 'dude, I can't--it's against the Hippocratic Oath--'"
"Have you ever read the Hippocratic Oath?" she rasps in her how-stupid-are-you-exactly? voice, turning her head to hide the shaky attempt at a smile on her face. "There's nothing about dicks in the Hippocratic Oath, I promise you."
"Yeah, well, he was a really shitty doctor, okay?" Jim says, snarky and bright in an attempt to make them both feel like this is no big deal. "He never actually read it. Hold still a sec?" He pries her hand off the wound; can't hold back a wince at the snarling gape of it.
"Is it bad?" she asks, the trace of humor gone. And like always with bad news, her voice is just--perfect steel. She's so, so good at lying with it; it's gotten their asses saved so many times he's lost count, her ability to keep her cool and just grit down and get through things.
But Jim would be a goddamn awful Captain if he didn't know his comm officer down to her very atoms, and a goddamn awful friend if he couldn't see right through her.
"Looks pretty bad," he admits softly. "I'm gonna wrap it up, though, so that'll be something till Bones gets his hands on you."
He starts by making a tourniquet above the injury, wincing at her hiss of pain. "Keep going," she orders stiffly when she catches him glancing at her, so he starts bandaging with the rest with the remaining strips, pressing his lips together tightly.
"Okay, so, back to the guy," he murmurs, wrapping carefully over the wound. "His doctor says, 'dude, I can't help you--but there's this magic frog in the woods. If you go to her and ask her to marry you, she'll say no, and your dick will get five inches smaller. So you could try that.' So the guy's like, 'okay,' and he goes off to the woods."
She snorts, and he brushes a hand over the snow to wipe off some blood, swallowing a sigh of relief that it's working. He goes for a second layer of bandages. "After a long search, he finds the frog," he continues. "'Will you marry me?' he asks. 'No,' she says, and his dick loses five inches. 'Will you marry me?' he says again. 'I said NO,' she says, and his dick loses five inches. He looks down at his fifteen-inch dick and thinks, 'nah, still too big,' so he asks one more time: 'Will you marry me?'"
He pauses for impact, winding a little tighter. "And the frog goes: 'For the last time: no, no, and NO!'"
He hears a hoarse chuckle, and glances up, grinning. "Was that," she asks, eyes sparkling, "supposed to be funny?"
"Made you laugh, didn't it?" he tosses back. He ties a final knot and smooths his hand over the bandage, sending up a little prayer to whoever's listening that he's done okay.
"Oversexed asshole," she whispers, wincing a smile and gripping his arm where it rests on her leg.
He looks at her searchingly, and his heart calms a little at what he sees. She's hurt, yes, but she looks lucid, not fucked up beyond what Bones can fix. She's going to be fine, he realizes with a rush of relief. Good, he thinks. Awesome.
He squeezes her hand and checks his chronometer. "Two minutes," he offers. "Be up again in no time."
"Yeah," she sighs. "Leg's going numb already, just so you know. Feels a little better."
"You're welcome."
"Thank you," she says, all solemn and quiet sincerity.
"You're welcome," he says again. He clears his throat before softly adding, "Hey, Nyota."
There's a beat of mildly surprised silence after, and he knows why.
He doesn't use her first name much. First 'cause he didn't know it, then 'cause he didn't want her to think it was something he'd just take and use. He wanted to know it, yeah, but he didn't wanna use it until she gave it to him freely. It's precious to him, the trust it implies. He can count on his hands the number of times he's used it in the last sixteen months that've been their crazy-ass mission, and first names have sort of become their thing, their little way of saying hey, I'm here.
"Yeah, Jim?" she asks. I hear you, he thinks she's saying back.
He clears his throat carefully. "So these two Andorians walk into a bar . . . "
Her dry laugh fills the cavern, and he smiles a little.
-
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: 2669
Pairing/Character: gen, Uhura + Kirk
Summary: In No-Win Scenario, there's a line where Kirk recalls the last time he and Uhura were planetside together: "cramped and cold, him holding a hand against the hot pulse of her bloody leg and telling bawdy jokes to keep her awake and out of shock. " This is that mission. Set a couple months before No-Win Scenario, but can be read without having read the former.
Warnings: Inappropriate and very bad joke(s).
Notes: Been sitting on my HD for a while, so I thought I might as well post it. Now to finish on meme responses. \o/
Disclaimer: I do not own Star Trek, XI or otherwise.
-
"Kirk to Enterprise," he hisses to his communicator, "come in, Enterprise, goddammit--"
Sudden spike of pain twisting through his skull, blooming wide and flaming against his nerve endings out of nowhere--he's on the floor before he knows it, curled into himself and biting off a groan. Hands pressed against the pain, trying to keep down a wave of nausea and mentally calculating the strength of the blow, the possibility of concussion--a thousand points of light swimming before his eyes and fuck it, he can hear that they're still fucking coming forward, get a hand around your goddamn phaser, Jim, move move move, some part of his brain's screaming--
His fingers are digging into the snow below him before he remembers that the assholes confiscated it last night.
Fuck.
"Where is the Lyenhra?" demands one of his attackers, looming up so he's shadow-silhouetted against the bright blue-white of the ice cave walls. Some distant, aware part of Jim notes that he's got a crossbow slung over his chest, and that his friend's cradling a nasty-looking club that's probably responsible for the explosion in Jim's brain. Two against one and no weapon; odds are real low he'll make it out with all his limbs, his tactics training whispers.
But then Jim's never said no to a challenge.
A brief glance reveals a lip of wall he might be able to use about ten feet to his left; he shoves himself toward it, cold searing through his uniform. "I told you," he grits out, "we didn't steal your goddamn Lyenhra!" Dammit, Uhura and Josston are still back at the stupid base, and he's got no idea if the Nehan went psycho on them, too--he bangs his communicator on the ground; why won't the thing work already? Jesus, he's gotta get back to that base, 'cause he's not losing anybody, not this fucking time--
Two silent bolts of phaser-fire arc through the air, splashing angry light over the walls. The guards are on the ground before Jim's brain catches up with the sequence, and he blinks in confusion. He levers up off the ground to get a look at his savior, and the wash of relief that goes through his body makes his limbs loose and warm. It's Uhura--safe and whole, eyes fierce as an avenging angel's and mouth flattened in her I'll-kick-your-ass look. She ducks around the corner and over to him.
"Up, up," she orders in a whisper, snaking down an arm to help.
"Thank god," he says, stumbling a little against her. "Josston?"
"Beamed back up." She pulls him back to the lip of the hollow, and glances both ways before pulling his arm around her shoulders. "Someone had to stick around and save your sorry ass, Captain."
"Never been more grateful," he pants, coldness making his sharp breaths into clouds.
"Sing my praises later," she tells him. He catches a corner of her grin, and then she's dragging him gently forward down the hallway. "We should try and get to the cave mouth--"
"--more room for Scotty to grab us there," he finishes, nodding his throbbing head as they shuffle forward. "Jesus, Bones is gonna kill me if I have another concussion."
"Hush, keep moving," she tells him, and yeah, she's kinda right, so he shuts his mouth and does what he's told.
They make it maybe twenty feet before they hear the echo of Nehan feet running some ways behind them. Jim's stomach drops to his feet like a stone.
"Fuck," Uhura swears, twisting her mouth. "Shit."
Jim's already scanning their surroundings; nowhere close enough to hide them. "Gonna hafta run," he mutters. "Look for a place to hide."
She gives a jerk of a nod, and then they're running silently down the hall with their breath slicing through the frigid air. It makes Jim's head swirl in a nauseating way, but hey, he's lived through way worse, so he just keeps pushing himself onward, panting and trying to stay upright while the pale white of the ice blurs past. Thinking, kind of far away, about how much he's gonna sleep when they get off this stupid planet, how fucking useless this mission was; all the places he'd like to tell Komack to stick it for getting them stuck here.
"Stop!" Uhura barks, soft and sudden, and grabs his arm. She pulls him towards a shallow hollow in the ice--or what looks like a shallow hollow, but turns out to be much deeper than it seems, enough so they can duck around a corner and stay hidden. He nods his impressed approval and she smiles quickly back, but they don't have time for words; they shove themselves as far away from the hall as possible.
They tuck themselves in low to the ground, then, and hold their breath, stretching to hear which direction the footsteps are coming in; they stay as silent as they can, breath tied up tight inside them, tension whirling in the air.
At first it feels like they made it, maybe--then the steps break the silence again, insidious and loud and matching Jim's heart for speed. Fuck, he thinks. Must not be his lucky fucking day. One phaser between them, and it sounds like at least two Nehan coming down the hallway . . . his brain starts constructing scenarios, ways to stretch their odds of survival, but he's interrupted by Uhura.
"Oh no you fucking don't," she breathes, glaring in the direction of the hallway. Before Jim can say a word, she's cupping her hands around her mouth, and then this sound is coming from down the hallway, a lyrical hiss he didn't think the human throat was capable of producing. The shadows on the wall shiver and stop. They're close enough that Jim can see the glimmer of their weapons reflected in the ice, and his heart's beating in his throat under the cool sheet of control he's laid over himself. Uhura quiets after a moment, and the Nehan start conferring in their high, sliding language, short syllables indicating fear and anger. Jim takes his cue from Uhura; they sit utterly motionless, waiting waiting waiting. His heart sounds too loud, like it always does at times like this, but he forces himself calm, and can see her doing the same.
Finally--an eternity later--they hear two pairs of feet start back down the hallway. Jim closes his eyes briefly in relief, but that's all the celebration he allows himself, because danger could still be around the corner. They stay tight and quiet and near invisible for long minutes afterwards, until finally she nods at him and he nods back, and they relax.
"What was that?" he asks, hushed.
She quirks her lips. "Sound of a Nehan ice snake, feared over the planet," she explains in a whisper. "Big superstition. Threw my voice so it sounded like it was the opposite direction--hopefully that buys Scotty enough time. I seem to've lost his signal."
"You're a goddamn genius, you know that?" he asks, shaking his head a little with awe.
She doesn't get a chance to reply.
Out of fucking nowhere there are two Nehan guards leaning around the edge of their hiding place, and then there's a volley of phaserfire blasting loud and bright in his eyes and ears before he even realizes; one guard on the floor and a choked-off scream from Uhura--he snatches the phaser from her limp hand and brings the other one down, one-two-three right on point. He shoots them both again for good measure, rage twisting in his stomach, as he turns to take in the damage, a litany of Jim you stupid fucking idiot you let your guard down you were too slow you asshole running sharply through his mind.
She's huddled over one leg, trying to hold in these breathy little noises of pain, face hidden from view. He goes hot and cold all at once: she's alive, thank god, but she's hurt, and that thought's like fire in his blood.
"Dammit," he growls, slapping the ice in frustration in a way that gets him nothing but a smarting hand. He ignores that, shifting closer. "Keep taking deep breaths," he urges, "I don't want you going into shock."
"--irk, this is Enterprise, please respond--" crackles his communicator.
"Scotty, where the fuck've you been?" he demands immediately.
"Interference, sir, the minerals in the cave--"
"Jesus," Uhura gasps, squeezing her leg. "Fuck--"
"Okay, fuck, forget it. Just get us off this damn planet, please," Jim growls, eyes fixed on the wet red of her fingers. "I've got the best linguist in Starfleet with a wounded leg and we need to get to Sickbay right fucking now."
"I'm doing the best I can, Captain!" Scotty slams back. "Ten minutes and I'll have it worked out!"
"You've got six," Jim says. "And get Bones in the transporter room. Kirk out."
He slides over against the frigid rocks until he's up against her side, curled over her. "Hey," he says gently. "Scotty says--"
"Six minutes, I heard," she says, squeezing her eyes shut. "I'm right over here."
"Right, right--sorry, Ms. Aural Sensitivity," he jokes absently, trying to get a look at the injury around her hand, feathering his fingers over her knuckles and tugging.
"Best linguist in Starfleet, you said it yourself," she pants, pressing her hand down harder. "No, no--stop that. I'm not taking my hand off, the pressure'll help keep the sides of the wound together."
"I know, but we can do better than that," he argues, shoving down the tight, panicky feeling in his chest and the statistics on blood-loss flicking automatically through his brain. He's her Captain and she's wounded; he's her friend and she's in pain. He's got a duty, no matter the world's still spinning from the earlier blow to his head and the way more Nehan could show up at any minute. "Just hold on a sec, okay?" he says. "Keep up the deep breaths and don't move."
"Like I'm goin' anywhere," she grunts. She's too pale, he thinks tightly, almost grey--but he can help. That thought focuses him like nothing else. He's gotta keep her out of shock--there's no dermal regenerator here, nothing, and Jesus is he ever kicking himself over listening to those rules at the beginning of this "treaty session"--so he'll need to distract her till Bones gets her.
Okay, he thinks, I can do that. Jim Kirk is the king of stupid distraction, after all.
"So, this guy," he starts, wriggling backwards in the little hollow. "This guy has a 25-inch dick."
Uhura groans. "Tell me this--isn't gonna be one of your awful jokes," she moans, breath hitching.
"Sorry, no-can-do," he says, aiming for cheerful. He manages to get his arms up and pull himself out of his over-shirt. He gasps as his head clears the neck and the freezing air hits his bare arms. "As I was saying, this guy has a 25-inch dick. This is obviously a huge problem."
"Oh, obviously," she bites out.
"Well, he can't have sex," Jim quips, panting, "which he's pretty unhappy about." He grips two edges of the shirt and yanks, smiling grimly when it tears apart like paper. First time he's been grateful for their damn flimsiness. "So he goes to his doctor, right?" he says, ripping it into even strips. "And he's like, 'Doctor, please, can you do something?' And the doctor says, 'dude, I can't--it's against the Hippocratic Oath--'"
"Have you ever read the Hippocratic Oath?" she rasps in her how-stupid-are-you-exactly? voice, turning her head to hide the shaky attempt at a smile on her face. "There's nothing about dicks in the Hippocratic Oath, I promise you."
"Yeah, well, he was a really shitty doctor, okay?" Jim says, snarky and bright in an attempt to make them both feel like this is no big deal. "He never actually read it. Hold still a sec?" He pries her hand off the wound; can't hold back a wince at the snarling gape of it.
"Is it bad?" she asks, the trace of humor gone. And like always with bad news, her voice is just--perfect steel. She's so, so good at lying with it; it's gotten their asses saved so many times he's lost count, her ability to keep her cool and just grit down and get through things.
But Jim would be a goddamn awful Captain if he didn't know his comm officer down to her very atoms, and a goddamn awful friend if he couldn't see right through her.
"Looks pretty bad," he admits softly. "I'm gonna wrap it up, though, so that'll be something till Bones gets his hands on you."
He starts by making a tourniquet above the injury, wincing at her hiss of pain. "Keep going," she orders stiffly when she catches him glancing at her, so he starts bandaging with the rest with the remaining strips, pressing his lips together tightly.
"Okay, so, back to the guy," he murmurs, wrapping carefully over the wound. "His doctor says, 'dude, I can't help you--but there's this magic frog in the woods. If you go to her and ask her to marry you, she'll say no, and your dick will get five inches smaller. So you could try that.' So the guy's like, 'okay,' and he goes off to the woods."
She snorts, and he brushes a hand over the snow to wipe off some blood, swallowing a sigh of relief that it's working. He goes for a second layer of bandages. "After a long search, he finds the frog," he continues. "'Will you marry me?' he asks. 'No,' she says, and his dick loses five inches. 'Will you marry me?' he says again. 'I said NO,' she says, and his dick loses five inches. He looks down at his fifteen-inch dick and thinks, 'nah, still too big,' so he asks one more time: 'Will you marry me?'"
He pauses for impact, winding a little tighter. "And the frog goes: 'For the last time: no, no, and NO!'"
He hears a hoarse chuckle, and glances up, grinning. "Was that," she asks, eyes sparkling, "supposed to be funny?"
"Made you laugh, didn't it?" he tosses back. He ties a final knot and smooths his hand over the bandage, sending up a little prayer to whoever's listening that he's done okay.
"Oversexed asshole," she whispers, wincing a smile and gripping his arm where it rests on her leg.
He looks at her searchingly, and his heart calms a little at what he sees. She's hurt, yes, but she looks lucid, not fucked up beyond what Bones can fix. She's going to be fine, he realizes with a rush of relief. Good, he thinks. Awesome.
He squeezes her hand and checks his chronometer. "Two minutes," he offers. "Be up again in no time."
"Yeah," she sighs. "Leg's going numb already, just so you know. Feels a little better."
"You're welcome."
"Thank you," she says, all solemn and quiet sincerity.
"You're welcome," he says again. He clears his throat before softly adding, "Hey, Nyota."
There's a beat of mildly surprised silence after, and he knows why.
He doesn't use her first name much. First 'cause he didn't know it, then 'cause he didn't want her to think it was something he'd just take and use. He wanted to know it, yeah, but he didn't wanna use it until she gave it to him freely. It's precious to him, the trust it implies. He can count on his hands the number of times he's used it in the last sixteen months that've been their crazy-ass mission, and first names have sort of become their thing, their little way of saying hey, I'm here.
"Yeah, Jim?" she asks. I hear you, he thinks she's saying back.
He clears his throat carefully. "So these two Andorians walk into a bar . . . "
Her dry laugh fills the cavern, and he smiles a little.
-