"He's here," Velal whispered into McCoy's ear. There was no need to whisper, though, since they were alone in the room. Security officer Osborne was waiting in the corridor, behind the closed door which would prove difficult to open. Without power these doors were like a clam fiercly protecting its pearl, to get them to open manually, a crowbar and lots of muscle was needed. This was a door to the brig, which meant it probably had all sorts of well-thought-out safety mechanisms, too.
Velal pressed herself to McCoy's side, so close that he could feel the burning heat of her feverish body seep through his clothes and into his own skin. Her racing heart thumped a staccato against his elbow and he could feel every muscle within him tense, every hair on his arms and neck stand up. His breath flattened out. He estimated the Romulan, burning with that ancient need that was an inherited trait of her race, was about ten times stronger than himself. Her reflexes, though maybe not as alert as they were when she was her normal self, were no match for him either. So, what was there to do?
"Who is?" he asked smoothly, maybe he could calm her down a little?
"My bond mate. He must be the reason for this!" she said and her lips were touching his ear as she spoke.
He turned just a bit. Of course he couldn't see her face in the total darkness, but he'd heard a touch of fear in her voice.
"Does that worry you?"
"He thinks he's omnipotent. He'll claim me."
"But he is your bond mate, isn't he?" McCoy asked further.
"That doesn't give him the right to possess me. He's mad. He'll destroy your ship when he's found me." Her hands were seeking out his own and then started to awkwardly play with his fingers, touching and stroking.
McCoy suddenly remembered seeing Amanda and Sarek, Spock's parents, touching the tips of their fingers in a peculiar gesture, one that had been similar to this, if, admittedly, a bit more "civil".
For Vulcans and Romulans the hands are used to show intimacy. Maybe they're even an erogenous zone? he asked himself. He was a bit alarmed when he realized he actually liked Velal's touches, even though they probably did not have the same meaning for him as they did for her. He found them quite soothing, actually. They stood there for a while, silent. The air was becoming dense.
Were they running out of oxygen already?
"He'll try to destroy the Enterprise?" McCoy asked, shaking his head, trying to clear his thoughts. These touches were mesmerizing! He tried to concentrate on something else, anything, but the touch of her fingers on his. "He's on his own. Surely, he can't take on a whole starship, can he?"
She laughed quietly, deep in her throat. "He's a Tal Shiar agent."
"Oh, come on!" he snorted, thinking about unrealistic and exaggerated stories about secret agents and spies. Jocelyn had loved them, and he'd been forced to watch quite a few of those silly 007 movies. He drifted off into his past for what felt like the thousandth time today. His ex wife had been fascinated by James Bond, that rediculously smarmy Brit, always acting in the name of Her Majesty, the Queen of England. That strong, cultivated, permanently well-dressed, and sexually irrisitible walking stereotype was as similar to himself, as Spock was to Moneypenny. No wonder their marriage had ended in a catastrophy. He should have seen it coming. Jocelyn had wanted a man at her side that her friends envied her for, a status symbol, not a real person.
Velal tenderly bit his earlobe. Now, that didn't seem like Romulan / Vulcan foreplay. It was what a human would do. She is trying a new strategy, he observed. He waited for a few breaths, undecided about how to react.
With a loud hiss, the ventilation system came to life again, McCoy drew in a relieved breath, then he withrew from her, grasping her shoulders, pushing her away. "We should try to get out of here, then. If what you say is true, Tamulok probably is after you."
"Yes," she said simply. Again, there was a moment of silence before her hands reclaimed his hands that still rested on her shoulders.
He sighed, silently counting to ten, as her fingers resumed their mesmerizing touches. "You're a Tal Shiar agent, as well, Velal," he whispered gently.
"Yes," she repeated, stroking both his index fingers. McCoy began to ask himself what the equivalent to this gesture was in human interaction between a man and a woman. As he pictured the answer, it suddenly didn't feel so soothing anymore.
"Well, then, it should be easy to get us out of here!" he said a little louder than necessary.
"I don't want to get out of here," she purred. Two of her fingers touched his temple, and for a second he felt panic threaten to consume him. She wouldn't try a meld, would she?
She didn't. It was just a touch, interested, caressing, even loving as it traced down the side of his face, touched his lip, tracing the curve under his nose.
"Oh, cut the crap!" he grumbled, and batted the tantalizing fingers away.
She withdrew with a low growl, and for a moment he admired his own boldness or stupidity. He was sure she could break his neck with just two of her fingers.
"I like you. You are so real," she said possessively, through clenched teeth. Her hands now closed around his wrists pulling him towards herself by his forearms. "I'm fed up with lies, intrigues, disguises, and false identities. You are what you are, nothing more and nothing less," she declared.
It flattered him, for some reason, and he felt annoyed with himself as he realized it. "I'm human," he said, and meant it as an explanation for her, as well as for himself, maybe even an excuse for what was about to follow. He'd been with people who were less interesting, less attractive, even less considerate than this Romulan. He wasn't particularly proud of those experiences, but they'd been only human.
"That's what makes you so irrisitible," she said, and he could hear in her voice, that she was smiling, even though one of her hands was now creeping up his arm, shoulder and neck, until her fingers were clawing into his hair.
Nonetheless, she'd calmed considerably, compared to the state she'd been in when he'd first arrived in the brig, he noticed. How far into that mating ritual were they actually?
A noise was coming from the doors, rattling, rapping. Someone was trying to get them open. A good sign? Were they being rescued? Or was Tamulok on the other side of the door?
He grabbed blindly at the air in front of him, finding Velal, pulling her protectively to himself, and then dragging her to the wall to which they flattened themselves against. There was a weak sheen of light coming from the direction of the noise, as the door was pried open.
"Doctor McCoy?" Osborne shouted, out of breath. He was worried. When the lights and everything else had gone out, all he could think of had been that rabid Romulan escaping her cell. McCoy had been unarmed. He'd probably had a hypo with a strong sedative somewhere, and the doctor was famous for using his hypos with a healthy amount of pragmatism, but being totally blind, wouldn't have helped him. He'd called for Collins and O'Shea and they'd worked on prying the doors open, immediately. Now, that they'd succeeded, he used the light of a PADD to search for McCoy, or the Romulan. Behind him, his two colleagues waited, with drawn phasers.
"Yes, yes, yes," McCoy found himself trying to soothe the security officer once again. He held his hands in front of him as he walked away from the wall towards the now open door, as if Osborne had reason to feel threatened by him. He kept Velal close behind him, shielding her from the redshirts.
"Are, you … uh," Osborne was clearly confused by the CMO's behaviour, "Are you okay?"
He backed away, as McCoy and Velal approached them.
"We're … fine," he said and felt Velal suddenly press down very hard on his hand.
"Tamulok, he's close!" she said quietly, but loud enough, for Osborne to hear it too.
"Where?" the lieutenant asked, alarmed. If anyone wanted to enter the Enterprise, a total power failure was of course an ideal situation to do that.
Velal pointed towards her right, and Collins and O'Shea immediately turned into that direction. Osborne gave the doctor a quick once over. He seemed alright, and intend on protecting Velal. Maybe he'd been wrong about her. She certainly did not seem to be threatening now. What had McCoy done?
A noise came from the direction of where Velal had pointed, O'Shea shouted, then a phaser was fired and Osborne pressed himself to the wall of the corridor, setting his own phaser.
"Go!" he hissed, meaning McCoy and Velal. But when he turned again, he saw the doctor and his companion weren't there anymore. Good, he thought, now I can concentrate on the intruders.
He heard the hiss of the disruptor before he felt the agonizing pain.