Raised Expectations

[madimpossibledreamer]

Main Points:
Star Trek (the 2009!movie verse) Cambion AU (New Genesis)
Summary: Leonard's handling a lot.
Word Count: 2523
Rating: Teen 

 

         McCoy had been intending to keep his distance from the Vulcan delegation. He really had. It just so happens that making one smart remark suddenly means he’s actually having folks expecting things from him again, actually looking at him to speak up rather than counting down the time ‘till he stops, and given how his head’s smarting a little, it’s more work than he’s done in years. This definitely isn’t routine, something he could pull off in his sleep, and he’d gotten a little too complacent sitting on his rear end and not actually stretching his legs, or in this case, his brain, once in a while.
         Oh, it’s not as if he’s about to stop complaining, because there’s plenty to complain about. His mouth is just being kept too busy to do it much of anywhere other than his own head, and the few times it slips out in the middle of a heated debate, it’s actually, for the most part, ignored. He’s just this doctor who hasn’t bothered to keep up with anything, and on top of that he’s rusty. Why the hell are they all looking to him for answers? Sure, it’s not like he’s the only one, but it still doesn’t sit right. Why the hell does the Vulcan delegation all sound condescending even when that’s possibly not the intent, because they’re too good for emotions? Many of them don’t even disagree about the ethics of the whole thing, but seeing as it’s happening anyhow, they’re out to future-proof it as much as they can. A couple of the younger scientists take offense, sure, but several of the older scientists including some of the Vulcans not only take McCoy to task for the way he puts things but point out there’s some logic in his words, what he has to assume is high praise, however backhanded it feels. By the end of it, he’s far too sober, he’s actually having to dredge up old textbook memories about genetics and detecting life, and worst of all none of that is what is bothering him the most about this whole damn thing.
         He’s listed every single thing that could go wrong in his head, twice, and voiced a couple of ‘em out loud, just to give them more to think about and try to figure out failsafes for, and even then he’s having fun. He still thinks the whole thing is a terrible idea, of course, but he’s somehow managed to put that out of his mind a couple times today.         Probably even more annoying, when he does get the chance to think, he’s distracted by unexpected moping, like he’s somehow become a teenage girl. All right, a good part of that is Kirk’s fault, promising a man the sky and then going off to have a one-on-one with his ex and then spending time flashing those charms at literally everyone else and not exchanging a single word with him. If he’s being honest, a man has every right to a civil enough conversation with his ex. Even having barely known the man, McCoy can tell the rest of the flirting isn’t earnest, not like Kirk’s been with Leonard, but it still stings, and it doesn’t help that Amanda, the wife of the Vulcan ambassador, took it into her head to cheer him up. Her initial approach had been tougher than his ma or his nana, so he’d made the mistake of thinking her a pushover, and is still reeling a bit from how firmly she’d insisted on hearing every last detail about him and going into a discussion on books of all things. He’d wager her whole approach had been a survival strategy, the lone emotional human in the sea of unthinking robots on Vulcan.
         The food really is good, and he’d managed to at least catch a glimpse of the wayward captain as he goes back for seconds. Personally, Leonard would’ve been much more impressed if not for the fact that the Enterprise has its own chef, too, rather than just the typical food synthesizers. A damn good one, in fact.
         Still, the best break he gets is being able to come back to the quarters he’s been assigned, only to find he’s sharing with the blond, who happens to have made himself perfectly at home, having settled in on his stomach with a padd in hand and an absolutely ancient pair of headphones wrapped around his ears. Gentlemanly of him to insist on two beds. Given his reputation, they might have assumed they’d only need one, especially given how they arrived. Kirk’s trying to concentrate, but the occasional yawn says that maybe he’d found the flirting a little too strenuous even for his own natural tendencies. It actually takes tapping on his shoulder to get his attention, but he pulls the headphones down easily enough, and this time he doesn’t rip off the glasses, fiddling with them a little self-consciously.
         “Comin’ from a bona fide doctor, you’ll ruin your hearing that way,” McCoy informs him.
         Kirk smiles a little, but he’s more thoughtful than anything. “The music helps me concentrate. Better than the old earbuds I used when I was a kid. I actually got an ear infection wearing those too much. They were my dad’s.” And then he moves on easily. For a guy who insists on sharing far too much information about himself, he’s really a private individual, isn’t he? Just shares enough, especially shocking things, so no one asks too many questions. “Thanks for the concern, though, Bones.”
         Leonard pauses in his getting his bed ready to stare over at the other, incredulous. “Isn’t it a little too early for nicknames, kid?”
         Kirk actually glances away, which is a bit surprising. He doesn’t seem like the kind of person who gets embarrassed. “This is maybe going to sound a bit bad, but when we came down and you kept freaking out about making sure your bones were all there and didn’t get misplaced by the transporter?”
         McCoy fully admits he’s an asshole and a hypocrite, but that doesn’t mean he’s incapable of calling it out when someone else does it. “Being mocked isn’t exactly appealing, Kirk.”
         “I’m not mocking! Well, maybe a little friendly ribbing, but…” he trails off, and then adds quietly, “...I kinda thought it was adorable, okay?”
         This kind of disarming comment is probably a good portion of why they even let him do diplomacy in the first place. “If you think that kinda thing is adorable, no wonder you need to get your eyesight checked,” is all he can think to respond. Plus, another thought occurs to Leonard. “That’s the nickname my counterpart had?”
         Kirk rubs the back of his neck. “It, uh. Yeah. From sawbones. Sorry, it just kind of slipped out. I promise I’m not confusing the two of you or anything.”
         “Distinguishing on account of eye color?” he clarifies wryly.
         He’s managed to startle Kirk, who actually glances over, eyes so blue behind the glasses, and then smiles shyly. “Something like that,” he drawls. This isn’t mocking either—at least, not intentionally so. It’s something that’s all Kirk, done for emphasis, probably. He’s definitely not from Georgia, but despite all the media declaring him a child of space, maybe he actually had spent some early years in the countryside. And then, because the man seems pretty dead-set on proving that grown men can, in fact, be adorable when flustered, he moves on. “So, uh. Remind me again. In the early search for life, what did we use, exactly?”
         “I’m surprised such a historian doesn’t remember exactly,” Leonard teases.
         Kirk chuckles. “Yeah, yeah, humor me. I could always bother McGivers but she’s still busy trying to help the Vulcans find a way to preserve their past, and coordinating with some colleagues on Earth to make sure we’ve got a backup plan in case anything happens to Earth. Honestly, I think she’s kind of making a nuisance of herself trying to preserve a lot of their more ‘barbaric’ history. Which I think they’re simultaneously embarrassed by but see some wisdom in having at least a little record about as a warning to not go there again. Going back to what we’d been talking about with the whole ‘learning your history’ thing.”
         That’s...interesting. Not that Leonard had bothered to pay too much attention to Vulcans before. “So where do they get off acting all high and mighty?”
         “They basically managed to find Buddhist Enlightenment as a species, way before we managed to stop having world wars?” Kirk suggests, and shrugs when Leonard crosses his arms. “Well, it’s not exactly the same, but there’s a lot of similarities between Surak’s teachings and Buddhist stuff, like some emotions only being temporary and not bringing true happiness and being centered on compassion, though for Vulcans it’s definitely seen through a logical lens. There’s other stuff they definitely disagree on, like reincarnation kinda, but I didn’t fully follow what Spock was saying there. He definitely mentioned something about it being one of the closest steps humanity has taken toward civilization, other than maybe stoicism, though he’s definitely raised an eyebrow at some of the stuff.”
         “Ass,” Leonard mutters, pulling the boots off.
         “I mean, he probably was teasing, yeah. Spock does have a sense of humor.” Kirk is entirely unfazed by Leonard’s incredulous look. “If you stick around you’ll see. But you didn’t answer the question. Some of it was proteins that we thought could only be made organically, right?”
         “That’s one of the main criteria they’re looking at now, yeah,” McCoy agrees, slightly impressed despite himself. Not only does this young, handsome captain read journals for fun, he actually remembers some of what he reads. Given the overachiever he is, it’s probably at least partly so he can actually read the reports he’s given and be able to ask intelligent questions and give some sort of grounded response. “The models have been fine-tuned over the years, seeing as we’ve met intelligent life since for comparison. No one raised a voice on the more plausible, but when I left they were still debating whether to include silicon-based life.” Personally, he’d call the existence more theoretical than anything—the whole universe and they still haven’t found one life-form, and like several of the other theories on alternative life, it doesn’t allow for the same kinds of complexity, though they’d still want to avoid destroying even an amoeba, of course.
         Kirk nods, showing that he hadn’t been spending the entire time flirting. Or that, maybe, it’d been in service of a goal. “I mean, other than increasing the length of the instructions and thus storage requirements, adding all the lines with substituted silicon instead of carbon isn’t too big a deal. The issue would be if you expand that out—which, if we’re being cautious, we probably should. Add in some of the nucleic acids that aren’t used on Earth or any of the other planets we know about. And it’s self-preservation, too. Like, if you get mirror image chiral molecules, whether the Genesis Device would even be able to identify or reorganize it, and if it doesn’t, whether that doesn’t pose a threat, since it’s not like we have any natural defenses, ability to break down the molecules, or anything. Better to stay clear of that kinda stuff.”
         Maybe he’s showing off a little. Even if he’d just been hearing about all that for the first time at the dinner, or in talks with the scientists, that’s a good ability to grasp the important details. “I’m impressed. You do have a sense of self-preservation.”
         “I’m working on it,” is the not at all concerning answer. “Anyway, more obvious stuff like terraforming or alterations of the surface is easier to program for, but…”
         “This isn’t really my field, so I can’t pass on the details, but they’re thinking about adding a delay between the deployment and firing, along with further scans just to be sure. Long enough to make sure nothing got missed, not long enough for anyone to run the risk of landing at the wrong time.” Kirk’s sudden concerned expression says better than words could have that he sees the benefits and flaws of that little scenario, which is nice. Not that some of the others hadn’t, or they wouldn’t have argued over it in the first place, but Kirk thus far has a good sense for when he’s overreacting and when he’s got a point.
         So he continues. “Given the whole point of the exercise is to render planets habitable, it’s easy enough to confirm planet classification as one of the uninhabitable classes after the initial choice, and that covers the whole atmospheric composition angle. Considering sound or movement’s harder, but that’s physics, not biology.” Why couldn’t they have sprung for beds this nice for his bare-bones apartment, anyhow? Staying conscious is getting harder, and he notices his accent thicken as focusing becomes an issue. No wonder Kirk was resorting to music to keep himself awake.
         “And then, once it’s all finalized, they’re planning on making it a read-only file, right?”  Kirk sounds all casual and innocent, but that’s nothing but a bunch of bullshit and probably everyone who’s known the man for more than a few minutes would know that.
         Well, that sure explains why they’re making such a production out of it. “You’re trying to find some kind of saboteur.”
         Kirk won’t meet his eyes. “I’m not allowed to confirm or deny.”
         All the easy feelings disappear in a puff of smoke. “I’m havin’ a hard time understandin’ what’s goin’ on here. Why not just pull the plug until it’s sorted out? You know what kinda destruction it’s capable of.”
         Kirk lets out a long breath. “It’s not that easy.”
         Which has to mean some kind of internal politics or something. “Dammit, man, I’m a doctor, not a spy!”
         The man finally glances back, smile soft and fond and something he’s sure not ready to see directed in his direction again. “I know. Which is why I was trying to keep you out of it, forgetting you’re observant as all hell.”
         There it is again. That utter belief in his abilities, without a shred of doubt. It’s equal parts addictive and absolutely terrifying. Why, if asked, he’d probably say ‘Doctor McCoy could cure a rainy day’ or pull off some other sort of absolutely ridiculous miracle. “Nosy, you mean.”
         “That too,” Kirk agrees, and adds, “You involve yourself because you care.”
         It isn’t just faith in his abilities, then. Good God. And yet, if he thinks about it, today he actually had done his best to live up to those expectations. Probably hadn’t just been luck the man had managed to stop a mad Romulan, then, not if those expectations are enough to shift reality.
         “You’re overthinking over there, Leonard,” the man remarks, setting down the padd and burrowing under the covers.
         “Occupational hazard,” McCoy counters, yawning.
         “Occupation later, sleep now. Captain’s orders,” Kirk insists, before muttering a heart-warming, “Good night, Leonard,” half into the pillow.
         And Leonard follows pretty soon after.