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Art by boldlyqueertastic
Ikarosé is going to be plastered all over Starfleet advertising billboards before McCoy has even bashed the sand from out of his shoes.
It's that kind of place: copper sand, white water, snow-capped mountains lazing into the sky. The atmosphere is breathable and the gravity just shy of Earth's – within a comparable margin, Spock had said, while McCoy made a languishing effort to toe off his shoes. McCoy regrets sticking his feet into that long run of beach, now, having damned his socks and favourite sneakers to carrying Ikarosé for the rest of creation, but as soon as they beamed down onto the promenade and he saw that stretch of ocean, the little baby Jesus himself couldn't've stopped him from paddling in.
An hour must have passed since then – McCoy's shoulders are starting to tingle, warring between sunburn and tan. Thirst drove him back up the beach to unroll his pants and unsand his socks; he smacks his sneakers against the brick wall separating the promenade from the sea, tap tap tap.
His bags are gone. Kirk. Any sense of time or direction. He recognises other members of the crew dotted along the beach: engineers and scientists and navigators stripped down to their civvies or less, rolling out towels and blowing up beach balls, striped bikinis like a 20s holiday phamplet. McCoy isn't all that at forty – a bit thin, a bit knobbly, and definitely not sporting a racy pair of swimming trunks – but at least he's baring his ankles to the sand. Spock, on the other hand, is wearing a black turtleneck and a goddamn herringbone sports jacket, because of course he darn well is.
He looks good though, McCoy will admit it. Spock cuts a fine figure wherever he chooses to grace his impeccable Vulcan presence, and not just because of those ears. From behind his shades, McCoy allows himself to ogle the dark 'v' of Spock's turtleneck as he struggles back into his shoes.
"Jim scoutin' out the hotel?"
"I expect him to return shortly," Spock confirms, swiping to the next page of whatever he's reading on his PADD.
Local guides and information, most likely, weighing up the idea of fun. A long weekend of shore leave is more than the crew is usually allowed – especially its senior officers; McCoy can't recall the last time Kirk took a break, let alone Spock. Vulcans don't need breaks, or something. Poor bastard probably doesn't know what to do with himself. A dunk in the ocean might do him some good.
McCoy will need Kirk's help with that one. Alone, he is no match for a Vulcan. But between the two of them, they should be able to strong-arm Spock over to the surf. Verbally, if not physically. Or, in Kirk's case, just by batting those pretty eyes.
Whether Spock is more or less susceptible to such underhand tactics now that they have gone and put a label on this thing growing between them is up for debate. The label, of course, doesn't make much of a difference in McCoy's mind, but Vulcans like to be neat and organised about things – proper, even, politically correct. There's nothing political nor correct about the way they've chosen to go about their personal business – the three of them, that is – but Spock's gonna think the way Spock's gonna think, and Kirk's going to bat his golden eyelashes at him all the same.
McCoy never used to be a betting man. But he'd bet one little pout from Kirk will have Spock throwing himself into the sea.
Speaking of, "He leave any water?" McCoy asks.
Spock draws a bottle out from beneath his jacket. McCoy helps himself to more than strictly polite – Spock'll just harp on about growing up on a desert planet anywho – and then caps the bottle for the inevitable moment when Spock admits he isn't as highly adapted to hot weather as he thinks he is.
"Thank –"
An off-white bundle of animal bumps into his legs, scattering sand. A dog of some kind, tail wagging, damp from the sea and gold from the sand – except it can't be a dog now can it, not on Ikarosé, which McCoy's brain belatedly reminds him isn't Earth.
Strictly speaking, McCoy is not a dog person. That's more Kirk's angle of attack when they lament their childhood pets. McCoy grew up with horses, the superior animal. Spock had some kind of saber-toothed bear for chrissake.
"Ah, hell. Shoo."
The dog does not shoo. It stares up at McCoy with completely black eyes and a panting tongue, and its oval-shaped ears twitch like a pair of earmuffs as other tourists walk past, chatting and laughing, and none of them claiming this dog.
"What," McCoy says.
"The water, perhaps," Spock suggests. "Alternatively, it may be seeking play."
It is barking up the wrong pair of jeans for that. McCoy uncaps the bottle again, grumbling, "Don't suppose you've got a bowl under that jacket?"
"I do not."
"Darn. It better not bite me for this."
He pours a steady stream of water in front of the dog's muzzle – well, mostly onto the dog's muzzle, all but drowning the poor bastard. The dog snaps and slurps the air until the bottle is empty, and then it licks its jaws with a fleshy pink tongue. More sand sweeps across McCoy's sneakers as it wags its tail.
"Oh for – Go bother someone else!"
Spock hops down from the sea wall, volunteering himself. He hardly strikes McCoy as a dog person, either, although it is debatable which is closer: horses or sehlats. He kneels into the damp sand to give the dog a pat – and to swivel a collar out from beneath its mane.
"It is likely the owner is nearby."
McCoy isn't so sure about that. If he was a dog living on a planet like this, he'd be escaping through the fence to frolic in the sea nearabout every afternoon. The owner might be back at home, none the wiser.
That is assuming the dog isn't a tourist like damn near everybody else on this beach, but the point still stands. Copper-gold sand and a foamy sea beat out a stuffy transport ship any day.
"Well, I ain't babysitting someone else's dog on my shore leave," McCoy says. "We're supposed to be relaxing."
"On the contrary," Spock begins, only for a blur of red and gold to cut him off; Kirk leaping over the wall to join them, cotton shirt flapping open, straw hat pitched up over his eyes.
"Gentlemen! Who's this?"
The dog, perhaps recognising a kindled spirit, bounces up and almost takes him out at the knees. Kirk only laughs and pets the dog roughly, mucking up its fur and flapping its earmuff ears. The tail does not stop wagging. It whips between Kirk and Spock, thu-thud thud thud thud thud.
Aw hell, maybe they can babysit it for five more minutes. McCoy can't remember the last time he heard Kirk laugh so easily – not on the ship for certain, under the constant scrutiny of Starfleet and the crew. He ain't even relaxing in their quarters, not really, which is half the reason McCoy had a go at half of Starfleet Command to ensure nothing an' nobody snatched this shore leave away. It sure would be nice if the brass went about feeling generous for once and giveth as much as it likes to goddamn taketh away.
"We have yet to ascertain its origins," Spock says.
"Someone might be looking for it," Kirk surmises, inspecting the collar for himself. The dog tries to lick his fingers. "I could ask around."
McCoy almost rolls his eyes. Of course he could ask around; it ain't like they're on shore leave or anything. Scouring Ikarosé for an inattentive owner is exactly how McCoy wants to spend his time. God forbid Kirk ever not feel responsible for every lost thing in the universe.
They're supposed to be taking a break from all that but McCoy seems to be the only one who got the memo. Five seconds it took him to kick off his shoes and race into the sea. Five years it's gonna take these two to put away their science PADDs and their captain's stripes, and they haven't got that time.
"You could gimme that sunscreen and park your ass," McCoy counters, snatching it before he hears any complaints. He pours some into his hand, divvying the dog's attention. If the way its drool drip-drops onto the sand is any indication, it mistakes it for squirty cream. "There ain't no way you did your back yourself."
"But –"
McCoy glares at Spock for help, slapping the sunscreen between his palms. Tag-teaming a Vulcan into a fun time is one thing but Kirk is an altogether different beast. He seems to think fun only exists for other people. No amount of harping from McCoy has ever convinced him otherwise, which is why they need Spock in this little band of musketeers.
"The creature is in no distress," Spock says. "If the owner does not make themselves known by the time we must depart, then we will begin local enquiries. Until such time, please indulge the good Doctor's request."
"Ain't a request," McCoy grunts. "Shirt off."
Kirk gives the dog an apologetic pat and then shucks off his shirt. His eyes twinkle as he bares his freckled shoulders and turns around. "You do know how to sweet-talk me, Bones."
"This'll need reapplying if you go for a dip."
His smile suggests he will definitely be vaulting into the sea. "Can I tempt either of you gentlemen into joining me?"
"Well, it ain't gonna be Mister Hydrophobe over there," McCoy says, eyebrows aiming at Spock. "Unless he feels like stripping out of his evening attire."
Spock raises one perfectly straight eyebrow in response and adjusts the cuffs of his herringbone jacket like he knows exactly what he's doing.
"An activity for later, perhaps," says Kirk, biting his lip. He shares a promising look with McCoy, nearabout as mad over Spock's dark figure as anybody else, which is to say, not at all. "I do believe that means you've volunteered, Bones."
McCoy has hardly volunteered. They all know he'll follow Kirk into space or sea, blind or dumb and into danger, no question about it. It's practically a compulsion by this point. A curse. The only path he knows. Life just ain't that interesting otherwise. And if it keeps Kirk happy, well.
"Not in these jeans."
"Not to worry," says Kirk, wrenching open his bag and pulling out a pair of leaf-printed swimming trunks – McCoy's – and a pair of open-toed flip-flops, contingency planner be thy name. "I came prepared."
##
Sometime between the sunscreen and dunking a wad of wet sand down Kirk's swim shorts, the dog disappears.
Despite his complaints about babysitting, McCoy had kept half an eye on it lolling in the shallow waves while he and Kirk swam out into deeper waters – mostly to ease the burden of responsibility from Kirk – but that eye's only useful when it isn't getting dunked underwater by a mischievous pair of hands, and he eventually loses sight of it.
A quick glance around confirms the dog isn't out drowning anywhere, nor is it back up the beach and bothering Spock. A soft line of pawprints diverge off along the waveline and then eventually smooth into obscurity as the tide washes in. McCoy and Kirk follow it until there isn't anything but sand to follow anymore, and that's when McCoy shoves a lump of the beach into Kirk's shorts. Because why the hell not. And the sound Kirk makes is a glorious thing.
They stagger back up the beach, waterlogged and sizzling. Spock greets them both with a towel. God bless him, he has finally removed that jacket and rolled up those sleeves. McCoy takes a second to appreciate the dark curves of hair on Spock's arms while Kirk shoves his face straight into the towel.
"Didcha see where the dog went?" McCoy asks.
"I did not," says Spock. He hands over their shirts. "Presumably, it has returned to its owner."
"Or gone to bother some other holiday makers." McCoy is more than fine with that, if that is the case. Let some other poor suckers get slobbered on this afternoon. It's too dang hot to be running around with a search party, anywho. "We fixin' for something to eat?"
"It would be prudent to make ourselves known at the hotel," Spock suggests, judging their sandy attire. Kirk is still trying to shake pebbles out of his shorts, bless. "A shower would be wise."
"Goddamn you, Bones –"
"It better be a mighty big shower," McCoy says, lowering his eyes across Kirk's sand-stuck stomach. There's more than one good reason for those shorts to come off.
Spock does nothing to ease Kirk's predicament except to say, "I agree."
It's a short walk to the hotel – or waddle, if you're Kirk. Ikarosé's streets are bronze and peach, uneven paving stones faded in the sun. Rosey fruit lays scattered on the ground, dropped from trees with enormous sloping leaves, and monkey-like animals dart between passing feet to find the largest feast.
Folks of all sorts are shopping and meandering and lazing about: blue-stalked Andorians and yellow-eyed Edosians; and a flash of green too close to a Gorn that sets McCoy on edge. Enterprise crewmen salute as they amble past in groups of three and four, and at one café along the promenade sits Lieutenant Uhura and Nurse Chapel, chatting over colourful drinks.
Light dazzles from every direction: off the sea and the sidewalk and the pink-tinted glass. The d'ja pagh of Bajoran women glint in the sun. McCoy sees a flash of white bounding behind the fruit trees and stops mid-step, shielding his eyes. He could've sworn that looked like…
"This is us," Kirk announces, taking off his sunhat as they approach a hotel foyer.
The hotel itself has a distinctly foreign feeling, like it doesn't quite fit into the rest of the town. It's classy for a Starfleet sanctioned hotel. Maybe that's why. McCoy and Kirk look underdressed. Spock blends right in.
"Seventeenth floor," Kirk says. "Sorry about this next bit, Bones…"
They catch the glass elevator up; McCoy closes his eyes. He half-wishes he had kept them closed when Kirk keys them into their room and reveals the goddamn water feature just smack bang in the middle of it: a sheet of water draping down from god knows where. How it doesn't splash all over the stone flooring is anybody's guess, especially when Kirk sticks his hand into it and the water bends out of the way, leaving him dry.
"The shower better not do that," gripes McCoy.
The shower does not do that, thank Christ. It is a perfectly normal, respectable shower that involves actually getting wet – or, it is until McCoy goes down to his knees. Kirk's got to get that sand off him somehow. And hearing a moan of approval, McCoy is only too happy to oblige.
##
"We will be late for our dinner reservations," Spock says, as McCoy's hands slip up under his turtleneck and tease the hair across his stomach.
"Shouldn't have made 'em then, should you?" McCoy retorts, setting his mouth to Spock's neck. It ain't a real vacation unless there's no such thing as a schedule, if anybody bothered to ask him, but god forbid he try and convince a Vulcan of that. Or a starship captain. Half of Kirk's job is glorified project planning. McCoy's just along for the ride.
"It seemed – admissible," Spock says.
McCoy works open his pants. "Like you ain't been achin' for it, listening to us in the shower."
He yanks Spock's pants down with a little help from Kirk, who stops him from tipping back off the deck chair. Why in god's name Spock chose to posture all over this uncomfortable thing rather than spread himself out on the bed is lost on McCoy. The view of Ikarosé, maybe, desert hot and tundra bright, the white sea becoming the white mountains. It brings a certain mood, that's for sure, just not the one McCoy and Kirk were in when they staggered out of the shower, wrapped in bruises and towels.
Kirk's hand splays across McCoy's lower back. His cock is limp and well sucked, ringed by love bites on his thighs, but that doesn't stop him from pressing it against McCoy's ass.
"Shall I contact the restaurant, Mister Spock?" Kirk asks, smirking over McCoy's shoulder. "Or should we head back inside to find our clothes?"
"Clothing will not be necessary," Spock says, taking McCoy's hips in his hands. His sleeves are still rolled up from earlier, black and rib-stitched like lines in the sand, and they squeeze his biceps as he lifts McCoy onto his lok.
Hell almighty. McCoy's eyes flutter as he sinks down, taking it easy. He fists Spock's sweater in his hand.
"Do we think our neighbours are in?" Kirk asks, kissing the side of McCoy's neck. He fingers at the silver chain McCoy hardly ever takes off, toying with the 'O' shaped pendant. He swivels it around like he had with the collar and Spock's hips jump, slamming into McCoy.
"Ugh!"
"We may soon find out," Spock replies, a little strained. He purses his lips with a downright catty look as he rubs McCoy's hips with apology, as though Kirk didn't put his hands exactly where Spock wanted them to be.
Kirk's smirk is bitten-pink as he hides it into McCoy's neck. He flicks the pendant with a gentle tink! and then pinches McCoy's nipples, working them red.
It hurts just shy of too much – a sharp and loving pain. McCoy arches his back to get closer and move away, all too aware of Spock's lok securing him in place, the audacity of it, that Vulcan superiority, bigger than it has any right to be. How it manages to surprise him every time it goes up his ass is anyone's guess. By god, he should be used to it by now.
"So, the reservations?" Kirk asks, still toying with McCoy's chest. He shares a look with Spock and then twists the necklace almost dangerously, silencing McCoy before he can get a word in: "Not you, Bones. Spock?"
McCoy's cock pops up against his stomach. The rush of blood from his head leaves cold balls of cotton in his ears; he misses Spock's answer completely, slipping like a party girl across his lap. It seems to catch them both off guard – the slap of their bodies or the tonal shift as Kirk takes charge, either or.
"I will – cancel them," Spock gasps. He bounces McCoy on his lok with a flourish of Vulcan strength, but it is Kirk who has his attention, mouthing along the chain around McCoy's throat.
"You will, Mister Spock?"
He tweaks McCoy's nipple again, throwing them off rhythm. Spock shunts inside at the right-wrong angle, feeling huge, and McCoy groans loud enough for half of the hotel to hear.
A warm flush spreads across Spock's face. God forbid anyone refer to it as embarrassment, although if McCoy had the breath to do anything but pant like that godforsaken dog all wore out on the beach, then he'd darn well be calling a spade a spade.
"Perhaps not at present," Spock says.
Kirk laughs. He stops torturing McCoy's chest to reach out with two fingers and kiss the Vulcan way, which Spock obliges. Left behind are purpling marks on McCoy's skin: his hip and ribs, matching the love bites on Kirk's thighs.
Sunlight and sweat trickle down McCoy's back. Kirk's cock has stiffened to wet and wanting, close to butting in. It teases McCoy's ass cheeks every time he bears down; he couldn't take it, not with Spock's lok slamming between his legs. But the thought of it – the thought of both – this poor plastic deck chair creaking as Kirk climbs on top – it's enough for pre-cum to splash on McCoy's stomach as he desperately takes himself into his hand.
Kirk all but crows. "Bones, Bones, Bones. Finished already?"
He spreads his fingers across McCoy's neck, all the way up to his jaw. The push and pull of obedience is the game McCoy and Spock usually play; it's different with Kirk, with his captain, away from the eyes of the crew. McCoy will go down to his knees with just a look. He'll strip out of his clothes without a word. He'll open his legs and let damn near any of Kirk's crazy ideas come in – even the one rutting up against his ass, if that's what Kirk really wants.
He knows what Kirk wants; he wants this to last. Kirk is greedy like that, always wanting more, wanting everything. But does he damn well let himself have any of those things? Of course not.
McCoy's got his work cut out for him with these two. A Vulcan and a starship captain. God almighty. Demanding, cagey bastards, the pair of them. They could at least stop trying to one-up the entire universe while they fuck.
"And what if I am?" McCoy pants.
His head lolls back to Kirk's shoulder, baring the white skin of his neck. It's a damned struggle just to speak with Kirk's hand on his throat and Spock thrusting between his legs, and McCoy groans open-mouthed as Kirk rubs his thumb across his hammering jugular vein.
"Then I suppose I better hold off on cancelling our reservation," Kirk says, turning McCoy's face for a kiss. "Unless you'd like to watch Spock and I have a go?"
"Since when am I good – at watching?" McCoy gasps, vision going white with pleasure. His eyes slip shut of their own accord, blurring clouds into the sky. "God, god – I'm –"
Stitches burst in Spock's poor sweater as he fists it tighter, hanging on. The disapproving sigh he gets in response almost sends him over the edge. He loses all momentum as his entire body squeezes with a laugh.
"Leonard."
He hears the crack of plastic as Spock grabs the chair. The whole thing shunts backwards with an almighty screech; that Vulcan strength again, showing off in the daftest way possible. He could be bruising McCoy's hips with that grip, but no, apparently this goddamn deck chair deserves it more.
Kirk laughs. "Let's not break anything now, Spock."
"My apologies," Spock replies, not looking particularly apologetic as he grabs the chain around McCoy's neck and yanks him in for a kiss.
He isn't gentle about it, either, snatching McCoy's lip between his teeth. McCoy mutters a few choice words and bites him right back, rising up onto his knees for better leverage and wholly unprepared – although in retrospect, he shouldn't've been – for Kirk's open palm to smack his ass.
McCoy comes with a long stripe across Spock's chest and a hoarse moan. A hand grips his hair just a little too tight but he lets it happen, weak-willed and jelly-legged, and riding out the last of Spock's thrusts without even sense to his name.
##
They don't make it to their dinner reservation. Sometime between pouring McCoy onto an actual bed and making good on his promise to bash out a round with Spock, Kirk forgets to call the restaurant and reschedule. That adds Ikarosé to the list of planets where it isn't safe to show their faces for one reason or another, which tickles McCoy to no end once he wakes up from his sex-induced snooze and realises Kirk isn't just moaning about the lok in his ass.
It takes more effort than strictly polite to dissuade Kirk from ringing the restaurant right there in the middle of getting his ass pounded red – and it's not like Spock's doing anything to help, on his knees over Kirk, pitching for some of that Vulcan sense.
It is either madness or an ungodly – and McCoy truly means it – ungodly display of self-restraint for Spock not to toss Kirk's communicator off the seventeenth story balcony. If McCoy was balls deep in Kirk's ass and Kirk was trying to punch numbers into his goddamn comm instead of punching a hole through the wall, he would be halfway down to the hotel bar already, ordering enough drinks to kill a man while still zipping up his fly.
The embarrassment alone would put him off sex forever. But he's a pesky Human like that with his pesky Human emotions; Vulcans apparently don't subscribe to the notion of shame, and Spock probably gets a kick out of Kirk multitasking while rocking the entire bed across the floor.
Luckily or unluckily for pair of them, McCoy ambles over to pry the communicator from Kirk's white-knuckled grip. He tosses it somewhere between the side of the bed and East Jesus, and then when Kirk makes a biting comment about it, McCoy pushes his head down to bite the pillow instead.
Starship captains, seriously. Why can't they just switch their brains off? No-one needs to hear Kirk moaning like a whore except the three people in this room, prior commitments be damned. They could have reservations with Priestess T'Pau and still McCoy would insist on using up all of their holiday hours with the controversial activity of actually taking a holiday.
He runs his hand along Spock's back, watching them go at it. Kirk looks half-mad by the time he shoots his load across the bed, and not just because he still can't out last Spock. Everything's a goddamn competition with these two. McCoy rubs his fingers into the crease of Spock's ass to help him finish with a strangled groan.
"I'm thinkin' we might be ordering room service," McCoy says, and though doesn't mean it as a criticism, Kirk seems to take it that way.
He is up and searching for his comm before Spock's lok is all-the-way soft, and it slips out of him with a trail of semen that drip-drops all over the floor. Housekeeping will love them. At least in this hotel, McCoy doesn't have to face them at their annual physicals.
"We will not be resorting to room service," Kirk declares, the way one might refuse to settle for store bought cobbler instead of their nanna's homemade pie. He searches through their piles of clothes for the discarded communicator, unable to find it. "Goddammit Bones, how far did you throw it?"
"With my twigs for arms?" McCoy counters, stepping into his underpants. He spots the communicator almost immediately, saying, "Lookie, there it is," as he kicks it towards Spock.
Spock picks it up. "The hotel has a suitable dinner menu for Human and Vulcan pallets; it would be an acceptable alternative to our reservations."
Of course he checked. That's probably what he was up to while McCoy and Kirk were chasing a dog along a beach. He'll have planned out exactly what everyone will order down to their drinks just so he can be a smug asshole about it when he's right.
Kirk starts picking up their clothes and slinging them onto the bed. The problem with project planners, McCoy thinks, is that they can prepare for anything except ADHD.
"Or," McCoy says, missing that smile on Kirk's face. "We can hop under that ridiculous waterfall and hope it makes up presentable, and then we can go find someplace to eat that won't skin us alive for actin' like a bunch of hooligans. How's that sound?"
"Equally acceptable," Spock says. "Jim?"
Kirk bites his lip as he looks over the three of them: the scratches and the love bites and the white streaks of cum. If any part of him was willing to compromise on the evening plans he's got rattling around in that head, then surely he would say so now.
"Better make it a shower," is what he says, eyeing a hand shaped smudge of purple across McCoy's ribs; Spock's doing, with those blastedly talented hands. "We are representing Starfleet, after all."
##
They make for higher ground within this seaside town, eyeing little tavernas and side-alleys restaurants as they make the climb, searching for somewhere with a view of the tide pulling back with foamy waves. Kirk and Spock walk up ahead, stopping frequently to eye-up menus scrolling by on restaurant windows, and McCoy plods behind them with the knees of a man who has never enjoyed a cliff-side hike, and at this rate, never will.
That goddamn dog has found them again. McCoy ain't sure how, or why, or when, but he swears on that tin can Kirk and Spock both love so much that he saw it bounding up the steps behind them as they climbed above the sea. A blob with four gangling limbs; that foamy water come alive.
"It must be a different dog," Kirk reasons, when McCoy turns back at the third or fourth flash of white in his periphery. "We're nowhere near the beach – and it's been hours."
"I know what I saw, dammit. And if you think this dog couldn't find us again then you clearly ain't been out in the same space I have, 'cause I've seen weirder things. You remember the Horta? Spock remembers the Horta."
Spock does not look like he wants to remember the Horta but them's the breaks. There's a whole heap of shit McCoy would rather forget, starting with Gary goddamn Mitchell and ending with that time Kirk and Spock almost killed each other on Vulcan instead of just banging one out on the sand.
"It is unlikely that this canine poses a similar threat," Spock says. "It has, so far, demonstrated no tendencies towards aggressive or dangerous behaviour."
"So far," McCoy grumbles, because he sure as hell ain't heard that one before some planet natives started lobbing spears at them. It is always gratifying to see Spock have to duck though.
"It did try and eat my fingers," Kirk adds, almost cheerfully. "Come on, this place looks good. We'll even save a seat at the table for your dog."
##
Dinner is a treat. Kirk and McCoy share an entire bottle of Ikarosian wine. Spock pronounces every item on the menu perfectly for their dazzling waiter – a young girl with local flowers in her hair – despite not knowing a lick of the language, but fails to rein his pesky Human lovers in before they drunkenly order dessert.
Kirk is a handsy drunk. He's all up in Spock's business as they try to wrangle the bill. Poor Spock just lets it happen, no doubt collecting blackmail material for later. Yeah, he looks put out all right, hands kissing Kirk right there beside the dessert spoons, his all-weather boots stoically playing footsies with McCoy.
It is a beautiful evening. McCoy rolls a mint about his mouth as they trek back to the hotel, only half-listening to Spock and Kirk discussing the morning plans. There's some kind of cave system a ways away that might be worth checking out if they time the tide right – which they will, with Spock at the helm. God forbid that man not be correct right down to the second. It better not come to seconds on their way out of the caves before the sea floods in – and knowing Kirk, it probably will. It's hardly the relaxing shore leave McCoy was envisioning but he's enjoying his mint too much to say his piece.
As long as there's nothing in the cave that might chase, maim, or shoot them, so McCoy supposes he could tag along. It'll be a right side better than most of the caves they venture into if that is the case – they all still remember the Horta despite every attempt not to – which is just as well, because it ain't like McCoy packed his medical kit, or a phaser.
Well, who needs a phaser anywho? Spock's got all that Vulcan strength to throw around. McCoy bites his lip just thinking about it. He sure as hell ain't thirty anymore but he could go another round. He grabs Spock's hand as soon as they stop for a moment and pushes that thought across their minds.
Just a few steps away, Kirk is halfway into someone's garden making kissing noises at a cat-like creature. It has a bobcat-like tail and a strangely long face, but it flops over for a belly rub like a pussycat, so a pussycat it is.
Kirk seems to think so, anyway. He's too busy petting it to notice Spock and McCoy eyeing each other up in the shade of the trees.
##
"Coffee," McCoy grunts, worming out from underneath Kirk's arms and teetering towards the breakfast spread that has popped into existence on their hotel room table á la Spock or whatever – goddamn early risers.
Kirk's got another hour of sleep in him yet, especially after last night. If anyone'd asked him at thirty how much sex he'd be having at forty, McCoy would've laughed them out of the room. Now look at him: bruised like a peach and damn proud of it, still sloshing with Ikarosian wine.
Spock pours him a cup of coffee. He looks well rested, the bastard. God went ahead and gave Vulcans the pick of the bunch now, didn't he?
McCoy slumps into the chair opposite and drinks his coffee. It ain't as half as good as the wine. But it is, at least, almighty hot and goes down easy, especially when something DONKS! agains the balcony door.
"Gah, fuck –!"
McCoy slams the mug back onto the table, splashing what little coffee hasn't slopped into his lap. He jumps up at the same time Kirk does, vaulting from the bed in nothing but his birthday suit and wrenching open the balcony doors.
Kirk is radiant in the cockeyed midmorning sun – red with tough loving and shiny with sweat. He is also immediately beset by a familiar blur of white and a slobbering tongue: the dog from yesterday, here on the balcony on the seventeenth floor.
"Fascinating," Spock says, as the dog charges past Kirk and beelines for the coffee spill near McCoy's chair. "This is an unlikely occurrence."
"Unlikely?" McCoy squawks. "Try impossible! Where in the devil did it come from?"
The dog sure doesn't look like it has fallen or flown in from anywhere; it looks like a dog for chrissake, just a normal, slobbery dog, and unless McCoy's been away from Earth far longer than he intended, then it won't be sprouting wings anytime soon.
Not that this is Earth. But if it walks like a dog and talks like a dog, what else is he supposed to call it? It's not like reading up on all of those local guides has done Spock any favours in the "dog or alien" department.
"You may have been right about it following us, Bones."
"Oh, I may have, have I?" McCoy drawls, trying to stop the dog from slurping too close to his balls. "Goddamn, get it off me!"
"We have a mystery on our hands, gentlemen," Kirk says, as Spock valiantly steps in to untangle McCoy and the dog. He doesn't seem to notice that he is stark naked as he tries and fails to pull a communicator from his belt. "Oh – Right – Perhaps we should –"
And because he has to be the most dramatic bastard in the room, Spock chooses that moment to disappear.
"What in the –!?"
Kirk lunges across the room and grabs McCoy – for god knows what good that'll do, who knows, except that whatever is about to happen will have to happen to the both of them; together or not at all, McCoy had once said, although at the time he had included Spock on that hypothetical rodeo and it's not like the bastard's here to appreciate it.
Except – nothing happens. McCoy's slobbery, coffee-stained sleep shorts tense up against Kirk's birthday suit with the wrong idea, and still nothing happens. Kirk's hands clamped around his forearms probably couldn't do much against some alien disappearing act anyway, but it's a nice idea.
Kirk's voice is right in his ear. "Where's the dog?"
"The dog!?" McCoy cries, gesturing to the empty spot at the table. "Who gives a rat's ass? Where's Spo –?"
Spock blinks back into existence near that stupid water feature. It parts around him with a confused sort of flop, far too slowly to avoid getting him wet. The dog in his arms whines and wiggles right back into its disappearing act, vanishing once again. Spock takes a face full of water before those Vulcan reflexes kick in.
"Spock!" "My god, man!"
The dog reappears less than a moment later, shaking out its fur on the bed. Kirk and McCoy both shout at the same time but Spock hardly seems perturbed to have teleported across the room.
"Most extraordinary," he says, dripping on the floor.
Housekeeping will really love them.
Spock assures them that he is uninjured. In fact, he looks almost pleased; McCoy's spent too many hours up in the labs with him not to recognise the drafting of a scientific paper in that mind.
Kirk is less convinced. "Sit down, Spock. Bones – a tricorder?"
"Does it look like I packed a tricorder?" McCoy retorts, gesturing to himself. Seriously, that memo. Is he the only one who got it? "For the love of god, throw me a comm and I'll ask for a kit from the ship."
Kirk tosses over a communicator. Spock says, "I do not believe that is necessary," which they both ignore.
The dog barks. None of them ignore it popping out of existence again, sandy white paws and all. When it doesn't immediately reappear, Kirk scoots closer to Spock and herds him into the nearby chair. He doesn't look particularly intimidating with his ass on display but hopefully this alien dog thinks a prime example of Human physique is the scariest thing it's ever seen.
##
Spock pours another cup of coffee. Kirk gets dressed. The dog minds its own business on another part of the planet or plane of reality or whatever – god help the owners – and all of McCoy's scans confirm that nothing seems to have been shaken about during Spock's brief departure from the universe except for any screws he already had loose in his mind.
"Thank you, Doctor."
"You're welcome," McCoy replies in an equally snippy tone. He downs his second cup of coffee before the dog reappears and makes another mess. He really should do something about these clothes.
"All good?" Kirk asks, still hovering. He hasn't even brushed his hair. So much for those representatives of Starfleet he was talking about last night. But then again, he's never quite been sane when it comes to Spock's well-being.
"He's fine," McCoy grunts. "Have at it."
"Spock, can you – can we –? Can you show me?"
"I can," says Spock, holding out his hand. His fingers touch the psy-points on Kirk's face – the brow, the temple, and near the chin – and then they lock eyes and they lock eyes and they lock eyes.
McCoy sighs and leaves them to it. Mind melds are a funny business from the outside, just as boring as they are fantastical. He washes his face in the bathroom and then changes out of his sleep clothes, glancing back at them every few seconds to see if either of them have blinked.
It's a long mind meld. They must be having a party in there. McCoy tidies up the bed while he's waiting, and as he rearranges the slightly chewed pillows (courtesy of himself, but he'll blame Kirk), the alien dog reappears.
"Don't you dare," McCoy says, wagging his finger at it.
He takes a step away as the dog takes a step closer. It's a game, of course, to the animal; when have they ever encountered a semi-hostile alien race who didn't think it was a game?
"They'll be shittin' kittens if you poof me away," McCoy warns, although he can't deny he is curious about this teleporting malarkey. Spock didn't come back looking any worse for wear, after all, and it's always good to re-test these things. Scientific methods and all that. "And I'm bettin' you wouldn't like that."
The dog cocks its head as though considering it.
McCoy does the same. "Hell, would be funny. Don't tell Jim I said that."
"Tell Jim you said what?" Kirk asks, blinking out of the mind meld. He doesn't look any less troubled after seeing whatever Spock saw beyond or between the worlds, but he doesn't immediately call for the Enterprise or a phaser, so it can't have been all that bad.
"Nothin'," says McCoy.
Nothing, says the dog, having vanished from the corner of his eye.
##
"We still on for caving?" McCoy asks over breakfast, slathering a slice of something with a spread of something else.
If asked at gunpoint, he'd guess it was some kind rye-adjacent food staple and a knife of olive spread, but he's a doctor goddammit, not a chef. And besides, anything beats the ship's nutrients cubes.
"You want to go caving, Bones? Spock, pinch me."
McCoy shrugs. It wouldn't be a bona fide Starfleet adventure if they didn't all have the chance to get their kicks in, would it? McCoy's got his medical kit. Spock got plane-shifted by a fifteen pound animal. The only one left is Kirk.
"Well, I wouldn't say no to gettin' all our clothes off again, but we did just get dressed. Besides," McCoy says, throwing a scrap of food off the table, "If we run into any trouble down there, our escape route's tried and true."
As one, they peer down at the dog lying underneath their table. Its tail thumps against the sidewalk. They didn't spot any missing dog posters on their walk from the hotel but maybe Ikarosians don't go in for that sort of thing.
McCoy still isn't sure it's a native species. There's probably a transport ship full of tourists up there somewhere that can't leave until a middle-aged lady has her freaky dog back. He's not sure a leash would help much, but.
Kirk suggests placing an inquiry through Starfleet channels. Spock reminds him of improper use of official broadcasts but doesn't outright discount the idea. McCoy drops another scrap of food off the table and decides he could come around to having a pet. He feels less ganged-up on, for one. It's nice having someone in his corner when Kirk and Spock are doing their military-commander-talk thing; someone who would rather just lounge in the sun.
Sometimes, he would like to remind them that he never did the whole pseudo navy mumbo jumbo at the Academy. He was a civilian before Kirk swept him off to the stars. And this civilian would like to continue his beach holiday without getting Starfleet officials involved.
"I would rather not trust the lives of two of my senior officers to an animal," says Kirk with an annoyed little pout, as though reconsidering that phaser after all.
McCoy does love him. "You trusted the Horta."
"Spock trusted the Horta."
"Well, I trust the dog," McCoy retorts, and though there is a grain of truth in that statement, he mostly says it to be a pain in the ass. "And you trust me. I was thinkin' of a name for it."
"No, Bones –"
"A name would facilitate ease of conversation," Spock agrees, slurping some godawful green smoothie. "Perhaps the local histories can provide inspiration for a suitable namesake."
"We're not naming the dog," insists Kirk.
"How 'bout Rocky?" McCoy jokes, scooting closer to Spock as the PADD comes out. "Lots of inspiring rocks in caves."
Spock's eyes close with intellectual pain. "I was envisioning something more –"
McCoy clicks his fingers. "Sandy."
"Have you ever named an animal, Bones?" Kirk asks, rubbing the centre of his forehead. He'd be trying to kick them under the table if the dog weren't there. He's five like that. "And please don't take this the wrong way, but your daughter does not count."
"Joanna's a gorgeous name."
"I'm not arguing that, Bones. I said it doesn't count –"
"It would be a challenging pet," Spock says, like he doesn't get his dick wet for that sort of thing: Mister Had a Saber-toothed Bear As a Kid.
"Gentlemen," Kirk says in a strained voice. "I don't think –"
The dog sneezes and teleports across the road. They watch it greet a trio of Romulans with a wagging tail and an innocent expression and then pop one of them out of reality. The other two are still hooting about it when their friend reappears at the breakfast cafe behind Kirk.
McCoy rummages for his tricorder. Neither Kirk nor Spock stop him from turning around and offering assistance, although they do exchange a look which suggests a diplomatic incident might be inbound.
"Let's go caving," Kirk says, flipping his sunglasses back on as though it isn't exceedingly obvious that they are Captain James T. Kirk and two of his men.
Spock is one of the most recognisable men in the quadrant. Kirk's face is plastered all other recruitment billboards back home. Bit like Ikarosé: another one of Starfleet's golden ideals. McCoy's not sure about the teleporting local fauna but nobody's damn well perfect, are they?
McCoy smiles to himself. It could be a worse shore leave, he supposes.