McCoy stared after Alice as she exited the shuttle, nearly as mesmerized as he had been when he first spotted her.
The way she carried herself, she could command the entire room if she wanted to, yet she kept to herself, remaining quiet in her mannerisms and behavior even though you would expect of her. It was the first thing that he noticed about Alice. When she had made her way to her seat, she slipped past everyone gracefully, making sure not to bump into anyone; and when she had taken her seat, she did all she could to make herself smaller, avoiding any contact with those next to her. It was as if she were afraid of her own beauty that demanded the attention of everyone in the room. The second thing he noticed were her eyes. McCoy had never seen eyes so vibrant and unique in his life, although that wasn't completely true. He saw it in a textbook back in med-school: sectoral heterochromia iridum,a genetic mutation that affects eye pigment. Glacier blue, forest green, and shimmering gold, the color of her eyes was only amplified by her long ebony hair and pale complexion.
Her features were almost the polar opposite of his wife, and yet her beauty was the same if not greater.
An elbow jabbing into his ribs pulled him from his observations. The kid beside him was smiling at him with a shit-eating grin. "Looks like she has a thing for you. I suggest you make sure you bump into her. Several times if you get what I'm saying." The foolhardy wink he threw in made McCoy want to punch him in his already bruised and bloody face.
"Please," McCoy sneered. "A girl like wouldn't want anything to do with someone like me. Besides," he pulled out his flask and took another sip before getting up from his seat. "I did the whole relationship thing once and ended up here. What makes you think I want through that horseshit again?"
"Come on, Bones," Kirk said, enthusiasm saturating his words as his eyes noticeably traced down the figure of the female cadet, Uhura, in front of him. "Here's not so bad."
"Bones?" he asked as he exited the shuttle, the warm San Francisco air hitting him.
Kirk spun back to face him. "Well, all you've got left are your bones right?" He asked, clasping McCoy on the shoulder playfully. The kid's whole enthusiasm and eagerness reminded McCoy of a puppy. It was something that was going to get really old really quickly.
"Don't call me that," McCoy threatened him with a low growl.
What would have made even the most intimidating of people think twice, Kirk merely laughed off; before he could fire off some wise ass remark, however, a very loud and commanding voice interrupted him.
"Kirk!" Captain Pike hollered, waving for the kid to approach.
"I'll be right there, sir!" Kirk punched McCoy in the shoulder playfully. "See you around, Bones," he said as a teasing farewell before taking off.
McCoy opened his mouth to yell at the kid to knock it off with the stupid nickname but realized there wasn't any point. Instead, he waved him off, thankful that he was likely to never see that idiot again before he went to retrieve his things from the cargo hold of the shuttle.
As he waited in line, he was able to spot Alice's ink black hair and slim silhouette walking away from the crowd, bag slung over her shoulder as she walked away from the docking area. Something caught her attention, though, and she turned around, waiting patiently with an impatient hand on her hip as a cadet Uhura caught up with her. Even at a distance, Alice's eyes were still dazzling.
McCoy smirked, Here might not be so bad after all.
It wasn't shortly after the brief burst of optimism that McCoy had realized just how wrong that statement was. Here really was as bad as he thought it was going to be, but not for the reasons he thought.
Everything at Starfleet Academy had one motto that it stuck by as though lives depended on it: hurry up and wait.
Hurry up to retrieve the ridiculous amount of clothing you were required to wear on campus for various reasons and wait in a long line to receive them only to have to hurry and lug all of it back to the dorms. Then once you were there, you had to wait to figure out which dorm you were assigned all while still carrying your heavy gear in the hot San Francisco sun. After you found your dorm, you had to drop off your gear and hurry over to the advising center where you had to wait over an hour to finally be called in by an academic advisor. An academic advisor who didn't listen to a word you said while creating your schedule and shoving you out of the door after five minutes with a piece of paper that was your schedule and a reminder not to be late to evening formation for physical training.
Which is where McCoy was now, dressed in the bland gray and black Starfleet standard issue PT uniform, equally as tired as he was miserable from the longest day of his life. Or from the alcohol from the night before that had finally caught up with him. One thing good be certain, though, the splitting headache was caused by an awful decision on his part.
It was as he was assigned to a platoon in the PT formation that he realized he had been wrong on two counts. Not only was being here worse than he imagined, but he would also be seeing that annoying little shit from the shuttle much more often than he thought. The look on the kid's face when he saw him approaching the platoon was like throwing a match on the impulse fuel that was McCoy's anger and frustration.
"Bones!" Kirk greeted him, flashing him an obnoxious smile.
"I thought I told you to cut it out with that stupid name," McCoy grumbled, lining up in the platoon. The whole discipline, yes-sir, line up straight, stand up at attention, the monotonous routine was easy to learn but difficult to conform to as quickly as the instructor's wanted. Thankfully he had arrived early and didn't need to be quite so perfect while standing at ease in the platoon.
"You know, I think you might have mentioned that," he teased. "I also think I might've chosen to ignore you at that moment too."
McCoy eyed the kid. He had cleaned the blood and dirt off of his face and was wearing the same PT uniform as him. It made it easier to see the bruises on his hand and the defensive wounds on his arms from blocking. His face was still slightly swollen, though, as was his hand.
"Did you also ignore me when I told you to go to medical?" McCoy glared at him, daring Kirk to lie to him.
"No I went," Kirk answered. "I walked in, and then right back out."
"Listen, dumbass—" McCoy started, getting ready to give Kirk the lecture of a lifetime, but quickly found himself being talked over.
"Hey, look who it is!" Kirk exclaimed, McCoy's earlier observation of him behaving like a puppy holding to be true.
"Unbelievable," McCoy hissed as Kirk's attention was snapped away, but he turned to see what Kirk deemed to be so much more damn important than his own health.
McCoy nearly forgave Kirk when he saw Alice approaching their platoon, however. Her chaotic eyes seemed to give her a dangerous look as she walked towards them.
Alice was wearing the same PT uniform as they were: gray short sleeve with a small collar and black pants. Though on her, it didn't look quite as ridiculous as McCoy thought it did. The uniform hung to her slender form well, hugging her curves. Her ebony hair was pulled up into a tight bun, making her look much more serious than she had in her civilian clothes. Out of everyone here, Alice looked the most like someone who belonged in Starfleet, belonged in the uniform.
"Look who's in the same platoon as we are," Kirk chuckled once Alice was closer to them. "High-five!" And like a five-year-old child, he rose his hand expectantly.
Alice snorted, shaking her head as she did so. "I'm going to leave you hanging there."
Kirk dropped his hand, clearly looking disappointed. "What's the matter, Alice, afraid to make friends?"
"Khan," she corrected him. "And I don't mind making friends, I just prefer them at a distance."
"Alright," Kirk said, sounding serious for the first time since McCoy had me him. He even took a half step back from her, an unexpected courtesy.
Alice clearly didn't expect him to give her distance either, eyeing him curiously before she turned her attention to McCoy, giving him a small smile in greeting, "I take it we have a portion the K, L, and M last names in this platoon?" McCoy nodded. "Lucky me," she said, but the smile Alice had worn turned into a frown. "You look terrible, Doctor."
"Gee, thanks," McCoy grumbled, crossing his arms defensively.
Kirk, however, found her observation hilarious. "Go easy on him, Alice," he laughed, refusing to use her last name in you made your bed, now lie in it sort of way. "It looks like Bones can't hold his booze."
"And it looks like you don't know how to hold your own in a fight," McCoy sneered.
"At least I don't need to be half drunk to fly on a shuttle," Kirk retorted, his smile only growing.
"At least it doesn't look like my face was dragged across the pavement—"
Alice's laughter caught them both by surprise. Until then she had only given them half smiles and slight teasing. Her giggling—because that's what her quiet laughter could only be considered as—was soft and playful as she tried to hide it behind one of her pale, slender hand.
"I'm sorry," she said, trying to rain in her laughter. "Please continue bickering like children."
McCoy hadn't even realized what he was doing up until that point. Apparently, Kirk's obnoxious immaturity had managed to rub off on him in the short time that he was exposed. Kid's like a disease, McCoy thought bitterly, straightening up as he quickly shut up.
Alice regained her composure and then shot Kirk a questioning look. "What was that you called him? Bones?"
"Alright everyone, form up!" the shout from this evening's PT instructor prevented Kirk from answering her.
McCoy didn't even bother stifling his groan as they lined up in the proper formation: alphabetical order in squads. In front of him, he heard Kirk chuckling softly, his laughter trailing from behind him. McCoy hoped that he could feel the murderous glare he was using on the back of his head that would have given actual murderers pause. The swift jab to the ribs he saw Alice give him with her right elbow as he stood beside her was almost satisfactory, though.
When standing at attention, your arms are quite literally pinned to your sides with your hands clenched into loose fists. McCoy wondered if the position was meant to be uncomfortable so as to remind everyone who had to do it to superior officers just how insignificant they truly were in comparison. But as he was looking forward, eyes front as it were, he noticed something odd about Alice.
She stood tensely, more so than the cadets around her; and her shoulders were hunched, reminiscent of someone who was standing on a crowded train, avoiding touching those around them. Her left hand wasn't really clenched like her right, and her thumb was tracing lightly across her fingertips.
"Cadet McCoy, eyes front!"
After receiving the basic rundown on what was going to happen, a lengthy ordeal of the instructor calling out routine and expectations, they were broken off into pairs to determine their levels of fitness. Khan and Kirk ended up together, and McCoy was paired with some cadet whose name might have been mentioned but he didn't bother trying to remember.
Back during med school, he had played college ball with a few friends, nothing professional, but enough to keep him active. Afterward, he had thankfully kept it up, making the push-ups and sit-ups he had to do to the best of his ability in a minute much easier than it was for some of the other cadets around him. As he was holding his nameless partner's ankles for the sit-ups, he had the chance to survey the other cadets.
McCoy was able to recognize a few of the cadets from those that had been waiting around the advising center for those who wanted to pursue the medical track. He felt a little bit of relief when he saw them struggling and performing much more pathetically than he thought he was.
Any optimism in his ability faded rather quickly when he looked at the mile-long loop of an obstacle course that loomed before him. McCoy thought he was probably projecting his resentment of having to do the course, but the shadows that stretched out from the obstacles themselves in the dwindling made the whole thing look ominous and dangerous.
"Looks like fun, right?" Kirk asked, clasping him from behind on his shoulder.
"If you enjoy pain and punishment," McCoy grumbled, his upper lip raised in a sneer as he shook his head. There was no way he was going to make through this thing without either breaking something or dying. "Not all of us can be masochists like you."
"Aw, come on, Bones! Live a little!"
But McCoy ignored him, instead, he looked for Alice. She didn't say too much, but she seemed to have a way to keep Kirk's enthusiasm from becoming overpoweringly obnoxious and from keeping McCoy from punching him.
Kirk nudged him. "I'll race you to the end."
"Do I look like I give a damn if you beat me?"
"You look like you're gonna throw up," Kirk answered with a smirk.
"Can't you annoy Khan or anyone else around here?"
The instructor blew a whistle signaling for the next group to line up at the starting point for the course. McCoy dropped into a reluctant starter position, waiting for buzzer to mark this overly elaborate suicide attempt
"It doesn't seem to faze her, and your more fun and convenient." Kirk didn't even bother taken any kind of ready position. "Plus I'm worried about you."
"You're worried about me?" McCoy asked, in disbelief. Who the hell does this kid think he is?
"Yeah," Kirk eyed McCoy up and down. "I didn't know they let old people enlist.
"Old?" McCoy yelled, a mixture of disbelief and anger. The buzzer went off and Kirk rushed forward. And McCoy lunged after Kirk. "I'll give you old, you little shit!"
"Well done, Bones!" Kirk grinned as they skidded to a halt.
McCoy had gone through the entire obstacle course just out of arms reach of Kirk, determined to make sure that the immature punk didn't show him up. He climbed over various sizes and degrees of walls, crawled through trenches of different depths and barriers, and overall charged through whatever came next in order to keep up with Kirk, who made it through the entire course with an athletic grace that McCoy could only, Towards the end of the course he had started to nearly trip over his own feet, but the good doctor had been too stubborn to slow down. He'd be damned if let Kirk get away with calling him old.
"I hate you," McCoy gasped, the burning in his lungs making it difficult to breathe, let alone speak as he remained hunched over, hands braced against his knees. The anger he felt towards Kirk was only amplified when he noticed that he wasn't having any difficulty breathing after running.
"Sure you do," Kirk laughed. "Will you still hate me when I point out our welcome party?"
McCoy looked where he was pointing, only to see Alice approaching, carrying three bottles of water towards him. "Maybe a little less," he grumbled, straightening up.
Her eyes met his own. "You alright?"
"I need a drink," McCoy sighed, exhaustion softening his features.
Alice flipped the bottle in her hand around so that she had a hold of it from the neck. "Guess it's a good thing I brought you two slackers water, huh?" she teased.
"Wrong kind of drink, sweetheart," McCoy said, graciously accepting the water with a half-smile.
"Well for that," Alice said, tossing Kirk his water bottle impersonally, "there's a bar a few blocks off campus. Not many other cadets know about it. Drinks at nine?" She asked, her eyes flickering between McCoy and Kirk.
"I'm always up for a drink in the presence of a beautiful woman," Kirk said, flashing his nicest smile, his blue eyes only adding to his charm. Alice rolled her eyes at Kirk before directing them towards McCoy.
"Nine it is," McCoy confirmed with a smirk.
~~.O.~~
And that marks the second chapter of my first Star Trek fic. I'm quite excited to keep it going.
I am always welcome to reviews of any kind. Please let me know what you honestly think. Your feedback is always appreciated.
Thank you for reading I hope you enjoy the story thus far.