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[notabricklayer]

The lights of their apartment come up in the way he is used to lights coming on the way he is used to lights coming on - smoothing increasing from dark to light with barely a hitch inbetween. The apartment is the same as before - a naturally quirky Victorian that's slightly stark thanks to the driven surgeon who had made this his home once upon a time.

He always meant to take time off, decorate the place a little more elaborately, set it up to be more of a home than a place to collapse after long shifts. Maybe now's time.

But right now he can do something about these damned boots. Some day he is going to both fund and write a paper outlining the evils of these boots, and he'll stuff it down the throats of every lazy ass on the Starfleet Surgeon General's board.

Comments

[olyabird.livejournal.com]

She follows him through, dropping her coat on the sofa and bending to unzip her boots, kicking them off with abandon.

"And you say you're from the future, hmm?"

Her eyes spark with mischief as she heads passed him back into the kitchen. There's bound to be a bottle of something in there. Yes, there is. Right where she left it.

[notabricklayer.livejournal.com]

"Yes, but these boots are from the Spanish Inquisition." McCoy calls after her as he drops onto the couch, tugging the boots off irritably.

As for the alcohol stash, he has plans on restocking that particular asset. It's a shame there's no Romulan Ale.

[olyabird.livejournal.com]

"Oh really," she deadpans, emerging with the bottle and two glasses. And a butterknife.

A butterknife shouldn't seem so ominous as it does when Olga starts eyeing the fireplace unit.

[notabricklayer.livejournal.com]

"Mmm. Don't you know it's military tradition to carry on something stupidly idiotic generation after generation, no matter how brilliant the rest of it might be?" The hated boots are off, and he's eying her, and that butterknife.

Well. This ought to be interesting.

[olyabird.livejournal.com]

She sets the vodka and glasses down, and puts the knife between her teeth, leaving her hands free to slip out of another layer of grey, threadworn jumper, down to her camisole.

"Don't worry," she says. "It'll be fixed in no time."

She turns her attention back to the flimsy little enclosure in the fireplace, kneeling and pushing the metal curtain back out of the way. Fire suppression techniques be damned, she wants something more than a candle flame to heat the room.

[notabricklayer.livejournal.com]

His expression is one of very poorly contained glee as he sprawls a little further, fully prepared to enjoy the show.

"You know, I'm sure there's a toolkit around here somewhere. Or maybe the rats could lend us one." He drawls, though he looks severely disinclined to actually get up and fetch one.

[olyabird.livejournal.com]

She scoffs under her breath. Tools are for the weak.

It's only a span of heart beats before there's a clang, followed by another bit of squeaking, metal being jimmied against metal, and another clang. She tosses aside the shielding and scoots over to the controls.

"Hmm. Shit."

There's a little red light flashing on the console. She looks across at him, her face expressionless as she puts one hand on the device. "Oops."

The crackling and sizzling that follows is impressive, as is the wisp of smoke that curls up. No more blinking light!

[notabricklayer.livejournal.com]

"That must be the fire the fire suppression system was there to suppress." McCoy supplies helpfully from his ridiculously lazy slouch. "Convenient. You should move to San Francisco, you'd make a killing as a mechanic."

He eyes the slightly warped butterknife.

"Though you'd be paying a small fortune in silverware."

[olyabird.livejournal.com]

She blows on her fingertips, looking smug as the cat who ate the canary.

"No, Lyonya. This is the fire it was meant to suppress."

Another twitch of her fingers and the hearth crackles, the flames rising up to a decent height.

"Better?"

[notabricklayer.livejournal.com]

"Much." He agrees - but it's the way she looks so pleased with herself that he approves of, as much as (or even more than) the healthy fire.

Though, we won't lie, the boy did jump impressively when the flames erupted. Usually fire erupting, in his life as it is now, means something more along the lines of 'someone is shooting at us'. Even way back, in Georgia, fire had to be coaxed out of hiding.

This seems a much more efficient (and decidedly less frustrating) method. He approves.
"I think you'll be the one explaining how that happened to the cleaning crew."

[olyabird.livejournal.com]

Olga rises, wiping her hands on her trousers. The butterknife, mostly unscathed, is returned to the kitchen, and then she joins him.

"Shove over," she murmurs. Which is funny, really, as she still wants to curl up right next to him, her head on his chest, her head tucked under his chin.

[notabricklayer.livejournal.com]

He complies, shifting more towards the end of the couch rather than more of the middle than one man should be able to cover comfortably. She's right, he has to admit it - a big fire is just better. Must be why, when he lived here and it actually was in San Francisco, after the series of failed attempts to get it to work properly, he never lit a fire in the fire place again.

[olyabird.livejournal.com]

She settles down along his side, and lets out a long sigh.

A moment later, she shifts back, to look into his face.

"Cleaning crew?"

[notabricklayer.livejournal.com]

"They're called Loompas, so far as I've gathered. Never seen one, but they're supposedly around here somewhere." He shrugs, not terribly bothered by it, and it's rather hard to work up a good head of steam when he has her cuddled up against him.

[olyabird.livejournal.com]

Her hand rests on his chest and she's half propped on one hand, half leaning against him.

"Loompas."

Her brow furrows.

"Like in the movie?"

[notabricklayer.livejournal.com]

"... There's a movie?" He replies, bewildered. "About a cleaning crew?" Honestly, it doesn't sound like a very interesting movie, but then not all stories can be good ones.

[olyabird.livejournal.com]

"No. Nono. It's -- about a man who makes chocolate. And he has this," she shakes her head, trying to recall, "factory. And the Oompa Loompas, these little dwarf creatures, they do his bidding in everything. Including the cleaning."

She remembers watching it one time over at Tiger Cub's place. From the wild colours, she'd thought they'd laced her drink with some kind of psychedelic, but no, that was really the way the film was intended.

[notabricklayer.livejournal.com]

"..." He eyes her. "A chocolate factory and dwarf creatures who clean... and do other things." He's just trying to decide if someone was on drugs while making the movie, or on drugs deciding to name themselves after something from a movie like that.

"Really."

[olyabird.livejournal.com]

"Yes, it's very famous in the west, apparently."

She shares his scepticism. But then, her world is filled with enough strangeness that what people consider entertainment usually doesn't even register.

"Do you have films? In space?"

[notabricklayer.livejournal.com]

"Sure do. There's even a movie night for the crew, every other week or so, barring emergencies. Keeps morale up, theoretically." Some movies work better than others - 'Die Hard' had most of the crew in hysterics (and led to some interesting off-duty injuries in the low-grav exercise chamber), but 'Life is Beautiful' earned a week full of psych calls.

[olyabird.livejournal.com]

She hums a little, under her breath.

If he listens carefully, he can hear the gears grinding in her head.

"Lyonya..."

[notabricklayer.livejournal.com]

One hopes he doesn't listen carefully - actual gears grinding would freak him out, just a little. Possibly more than the trick she pulled downstairs. His universe isn't big on robots, yet.

He does get the impression she's thinking about something, though.

"Yes, Olya?" He asks, lazily tracing patterns on the exposed skin under his hand.

[olyabird.livejournal.com]

She licks her lips, trying to think of just how to phrase the question.

"They always show the cosmonauts, floating around in space. In the capsule, I mean." She's seen footage of the ISS. "Do people fuck like that? In your star ship?"

Olga has never been one to mince words.

[notabricklayer.livejournal.com]

His first reaction, which he successfully keeps to himself, is to laugh. That question, though less crudely phrased, shows up a lot when the young public are invited to ask questions of the Enterprise crew.

The second is to imagine that particular situation with Olga and himself.

It is... a very good image. Sometimes that good imagination is a blessing.

"I'm sure folk do, they just generally don't inform me of the specifics unless they get into trouble of some sort. Forming that sort of personal relationship on board ship tends to get tricky."

[olyabird.livejournal.com]

She chews on that answer for a moment. And then her brow knits again.

"How many people aboard your ship, anyway?"