notabricklayer | (no subject)

(no subject)

McCoy has fallen into a rhythm in the bar - waking up late (for him), coming down eventually to see if anything particularly interesting is going on, pick up something for lunch, trade in a stack of videos for a brand new stack of videos, and go back upstairs.

This morning, he is downstairs much earlier.

He is in uniform for the first time in a week.

And he doesn't detour at the Bar, striding straight to the door, no pauses, no stops, just a quick trip to the front door, which hisses open obligingly, dragging him back aboard his shipboard life.

If he were to stop, he'd never make it through that door.

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He hums his contentment, stroking along her spine, his body slowly relaxing in her embrace.

"Love you, darlin'." He murmurs, unwilling to move away from her just now. Or even for the foreseeable future.

"Lyonya, lyubimaya." She pulls back to look into his face, her smile subtle but genuine. Her hand comes up and touches his cheek, her thumb brushing his lips.

The real response ripples through his mind, her owl and human voices strangely mingled in an eerie overlay.

I love you.

It is eerie, the reptilian brain shivering in a 'you are so very much in over your head, boy' sort of way, but he knows those voices, and loves them both. Ignoring the warning chill, he nips at her fingers playfully, grinning back at her, almost boyish with his hair tousled.

"You know, I could get used to your proper greetings in a hurry."

Her smirk broadens, and she pushes him back down onto the bed, sliding into the crook of his arm, one knee draped over his thigh.

"Quilts, next time. This," she sneers at the blanket as she pulls it up over them, "is no good at all."

"Indeed. Next time we make Starbase I'll put in an order with the Quartermaster." He drawls, teasing. Just where is he supposed to get a quilt that he can explain the existence of, he asks?

But later, later. Right now he has her in his arms, which puts him at a tactical advantage when it comes to arguments.

She sighs nestling closer to him with a tiny shiver.

"It's being so far above the ground, I think. The chill, it isn't entirely from the room."

"Above the..." He blinks, eying her (or rather, the top of her head). "You can tell how far we are from Earth?"

She goes still for a moment, her awareness spreading out.

"We're moving away from it, but yes. It is at the center of wheel. The -- mm -- leylines, I think you might call them, the threads that weave the tapestry, spread out in all directions, but the Earth is at the center of them. At least, for me."

That makes sense, as much as any of her magic makes sense to him.

"We're only going further, darlin." He sighs, his hand warm oer her shoulders. "We aren't due to swing by Earth any time this year."

Meaning it never will get warmer for her, on board ship.

Her brow furrows, and a bit of a frown forms. She nestles closer to him, and imagines herself covered in the downy warmth of her feathers.

"It is easier when I am transformed."

While he would regret not being able to hold her like this, he doesn't want her to be uncomfortable here either. Regretfully, he brushes back her hair.

"You should switch over then, Olya." He doesn't, however, suggest that she leaves.

She pulls back to look into his face, her eyebrows telling him quite clearly that she thinks he's a bit of a moron sometimes.

"Later. You're warm, and you feel good."

Duh.

He raises his eyebrows right back at her - does she seriously believe that he'd ask her to be uncomfortable just so he can have her close? Honestly?

"I'm holding you to that." He warns her, before pulling her back down. He can't keep her warm if she's going to be all pulled away like that.

She snuffles a quiet laugh against his chest. "Yes, doctor," she singsongs, clearly teasing him.

"Later, you will show me around your ship?"

He rolls his eyes at her, but he knows some of that teasing was earned. No, he's still not going to try and switch it off. She knew what she was getting into.

"Sure thing - we're dropping off supplies at a penal colony soon, things should be pretty quiet then."

"I'm not going to get you in any trouble, am I?"

She has no idea what kind of security systems a vessel of this advanced technology might have, though if it were serious enough, she should have already triggered alarms.

He sighs, staring up at the not-so-distant ceiling. There's the reality he's been trying hard not to think about.
"You could, darlin'. You definitely could." After Charlie, he can't imagine that the captain would be overly pleased to hear about someone with as much power as she has on board ship without his express permission.

"Well, then, I shall do my best to stay out of sight, then. Or if they do see me, they will not -- see me, as such."

"I'd appreciate it, Olya." If she so chose, she could wreak havoc with his life here without hardly trying. Maybe, if he was thinking about it, or particularly inclined to believe she'd do that to him, he'd be worried. But right now he has her curled up beside him, and his lonely cabin isn't so lonely just now.

"I should only stay a little while, anyway. Katya, you know..."

That girl might burn down the bar while she's gone.

(Even so, she's nestled close to him, and it's clear, she feels the same way that he does.)

"That girl is a holy terror." He grumbles, a tone of voice much more familiar to the crew of this ship than the one she usually hears from him. "If you didn't say so, I'd never have known you're colleagues."

Olga chuckles under her breath.

"She is high-spirited. Battle mage," she murmurs drowsily against his skin, as if that explains everything.

Sulu is high-spirited. When the ship went mad he was chasing people with a sword, for crying out loud. But when he tells Sulu to stay down, the boy stays down.

Never mind he does so because even in the short few months this ship has been flying, the entire crew is well-trained in matters of obeying the medical staff or facing severe consequences.

"Well, I certainly fell in love with the right Other."

Olga snorts at this little tidbit.

"Yes, and a good thing, too," she says, shifting to hold him closer, as if there was ever any doubt who he belonged to.

He chuckles, amused (and not believing) the mental image of Olga duking it out with the young woman he spent a couple weeks brow-beating back to health.

But he won't protest her getting closer. He'll even encourage the notion, with an arm curled around her to keep her close.