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singularity2009-06-06 02:13 am
fringedwellerfic) wrote in singularity2009-06-06 02:13 am
Fic: The Bait
Title: The Bait
Author:fringedweller
Rating: NC-17 for a bit of language and mild sex
Warnings: Kirk/McCoy. Also stars Sulu, Chekov and a fish called Oskar. Could be considered Sulu/Chekov if you are that way inclined.
Disclaimer: Not my characters, no money being made here. Oskar is mine, but he's a fish.
Author's Note: Fourth (and possibly last?) in a short series charting the progression of the Kirk/McCoy relationship through the poetry of John Donne. No, I have no idea why either.
Follows Confined Love
The Good Morrow
Break Of Day
Come live with me, and be my love,
And we will some new pleasures prove
Of golden sands, and crystal brooks,
With silken lines and silver hooks.
There will the river whisp’ring run
Warm’d by thy eyes, more than the sun;
And there th’enamoured fish will stay
Begging themselves they may betray.
It was quiet. Too quiet. As much as McCoy complained about having his sickbay full of casualties from Away Teams, burns victims from the illegal still in Engineering nobody was supposed to know about blowing up and embarrassed botanists (botanists, of all people) coming in with exotic STDs, he hated it more when it was quiet. An empty sickbay meant that Nurse Chapel had the time to round up his as-yet unfinished paperwork and force him to do it. Her tenacity was downright impressive, and McCoy would have been full of admiration if he hadn’t been quite so scared of her.
Sure enough, there was Chapel rounding the corner from the isolation rooms, her arms full of data pads and her eyes full of steel. Just as she was about to reach him and bury him in enough inventory requests and chart checks to keep him busy for the rest of their five year stint, the sickbay doors opened with their familiar swoosh. McCoy jumped up and grabbed his tricorder, eager to escape from the black hole of bureaucracy. Instead of an ensign with a twisted ankle, or a certain Chief Engineer with first degree burns to his eyebrows, there stood Jim Kirk, captain of the Enterprise, old friend, and lover. Nobody was supposed to know about the lover part, but for the most part the crew of the Enterprise turned a determinedly blind eye and deaf ear, especially when walking past the captain’s quarters on deck five. Jim had a big smile on his face, and his arms full of fishing equipment, blankets and a large picnic basket.
“Bones!” he greeted him cheerfully, “Gear up!”
McCoy’s eyes narrowed. “What sort of mission needs a physician and a fishing rod? I’m a doctor, not an angler!”
“It’s not a mission Bones, it’s shore leave. You remember shore leave? It’s what we get for being good little Starfleet officers and not blowing anything up recently.”
“You mean apart from the still that you know nothing about? Because that exploded yesterday.”
Kirk’s face paled. “Not the vodka? I had hopes for that vodka.”
Bones snorted. “No, this was the third attempt at Scotch. Scotty’s lost an eyebrow, but he thinks he knows where he went wrong.” He paused. “Scotty’s making vodka now?”
Jim grinned. “No, stellar cartography is. Apparently you can only count stars for so long before you get bored and build a still in the corner of the lab. Who knew? Anyway, Spock has the conn, the lovely and talented Nurse Chapel can run this place better than you can;” he shot Chapel a grin and McCoy was positive he could see her stagger under the force of it, “We’re going fishing, Bones.”
McCoy sighed loudly for effect, and threw in one or two of the eye rolls he knew that Jim would expect, but he was inwardly cheering. In between Jim’s role as captain and his as chief medical officer, they didn’t get an awful lot of time to spend together. What they did get was usually spent in the dark of Jim’s room, naked, sweating and sated. It would make a nice change to spend a few hours planet side, outdoors with the sun on his skin and the wind in his hair, away from the dark and cold of space. Fishing wasn’t his favourite pastime, and lord only knew where Jim had got the idea, but McCoy had fished in his youth with his grandfather. He remembered the basics.
Grumbling about sunburn and allergies purely for the sake of form, he handed Chapel his tricorder, took his share of the equipment from Jim and headed in the direction of the transporter room. Jim stopped him, and gently turned swung him about.
“Wrong way, Bones, shuttle bay’s this way.”
At McCoy’s raised eyebrow he explained loftily, “Chekov needs practice with landing small craft. He mentioned he and Sulu were going fishing, so I decided to let him play pilot. This way we’re giving him a few passengers.”
McCoy fell into step with Jim, whose big blue eyes and honest, open face was not fooling him for an instant. His lover was only too aware that McCoy’s hatred of space travel, by shuttle or Constitution class ship, was second only to his hatred of the transporter technology. Little moments like this made up for a lot of moments where McCoy found himself healing Jim’s bones, sealing his broken skin, dissolving his bruises.
Sulu and Chekov were waiting for them in the shuttle, their fishing equipment stored neatly in the lockers at the back of the shuttle. Jim stored his away by the simple expedient of opening his arms and dropping it into a heap; McCoy kicked his into a neater pile.
Chekov closed the doors and signalled the bridge that they were ready to leave. McCoy kept his gaze on the mercifully windowless wall in front of him. He felt Jim’s hand close over his, and Jim took advantage of the thick plastic straps separating the two compartments to lean over and whisper in his ear.
“If you’re going to be sick, there’s a bag under your chair.”
As romantic endearments went, it wasn’t in McCoy’s top ten. But again, a small part of him was grateful that Jim had thought about his aviaphobia in advance.
The trip was mercifully brief, and in no time Chekov was landing the shuttle neatly and carefully. He flushed with pride as his captain clapped him on the back and congratulated him on a job well done.
The shuttle had set down in a beautiful river valley. A long, crystal blue river snaked through it, the water clear and inviting. The sandy river banks led up to verdant green meadows dotted liberally with colourful wildflowers, tall trees standing sentinel over them. Insects buzzed busily among the flowers, birds soared overhead. The warm skin beat down on McCoy’s space-pale skin, and the gentle breeze carried a fresh smell that not even the sophisticated air filtration systems on the Enterprise could replicate. He could feel a tension that he didn’t even realise he was carrying start to lift from his shoulders.
Chekov and Sulu gathered their equipment and headed downstream with a wave, bickering amicably about which of them was going to catch the most fish for the mess hall that evening. Kirk and McCoy untangled their equipment and headed in the opposite direction.
They hiked gently along the river, passing a few crew members on the way. After they had walked for twenty minutes without spotting a soul, Jim declared that the location they found was the perfect spot. It was sheltered from view by a stony outcropping, the river licked happily at a soft, sandy beach-like river bank and the giant trees growing nearby were perfect for giving shade to keep their beer cool.
McCoy supervised the setting up of the rods and reels, the untangling of the silk lines and the baiting of the sharp, silver hooks. He could see clouds of silver fish dancing through the clear water, but none came close to nibble at the end of the lines. He locked the rods in place and turned to see what Jim had been busying himself with. He wasn’t surprised to see that Jim had spread a large blanket on the ground, stripped down to his tight black underwear and was dribbling an UV blocking gel into his hand. Jim smirked over at Bones, and began to put on a show of rubbing it into his body. McCoy found himself warm under the collar just watching Jim bask in the sunlight, before his reverie was ended by a flying bottle of gel.
“Do my back, Bones,” Jim commanded imperiously, wriggling on the blanket and pillowing his head on his arms. He waited expectantly.
Pulling his uniform tunic and undershirt over his head, kicking off his boots and shucking his underwear and trousers, Bones dropped down by Jim and let a thin drizzle of the cool liquid trickle down Jim’s back. He watched the play of muscles as Jim shivered, then started to work the gel into every inch of exposed skin. He eased Jim’s underwear down over his hips and discarded it, applying the gel to this newly exposed skin also. Jim instinctively rocked back up into Bones’ touch, the firm but loving strokes having an unbelievably erotic sensation. A stinging slap to his naked backside broke him from his dreamy headspace; a grinning McCoy was waggling the gel bottle at him.
“My turn. I’m a doctor, not a pool boy.”
McCoy settled back to enjoy Jim’s quiet touches. The trademark Kirk swagger and cockiness were absent; Jim touched his skin gently, reverently. Strong fingers worked away knots of tension so old that McCoy had started to think of them as friends. Jim didn’t speak, but used his lips to follow his fingers, trailing kisses along the line of McCoy’s neck, the length of his spine, the cut of his hips, the tips of his fingers. McCoy could feel Jim’s obvious arousal mirrored in himself but the unhurried pace of Jim’s tactile seduction was so different from their usual frantic, frenetic fucking that McCoy felt himself relax into his desire.
They lay draped on the blanket, exchanging long, deep kisses, leisurely touches and caresses. Their orgasms bloomed from deep within them, not hurtling them towards pleasure but gently pulsing with every synchronised heartbeat, every shared breath. Some part of McCoy’s mind knew that laying stretched out naked in the warm sunshine draped over the captain wasn’t a good idea. He just couldn’t bring himself to care.
When thou wilt swim in that live bath,
Each fish, which every channel hath,
Will amorously to thee swim,
Gladder to catch thee, than thou him.
If thou be so seen, be’st loth
By sun or moon, thou dark host both,
And if myself have leave to see,
I need not their light, having thee.
Eventually, Kirk roused himself from his endorphin-drenched daze. He stood and stretched, eying the river eagerly.
“Fancy a swim, Bones?”
McCoy shook his head, smiling.
“Too cold, Jim. You’ll be out before you’re in.”
Too late, McCoy realised he’d challenged Jim’s insatiable sense of adventure and he could only watch in amused horror as Jim shot him a grin, charged down the bank, ran into the river and dived under as soon as he reached the right depth. He came up howling, the noise loud enough to scare away a few of the birds from the branches of the tree. Water drops glistened as he shook his head, and the crystal water around him only served to highlight the deep blue of his eyes.
‘Typical,’ McCoy thought, amused beyond measure, ‘Trust Jim to accessorise himself with the landscape.”
“Come on in Bones, you don’t know what you’re missing!” called Jim, floating on his back.
“I’m good here, thanks.”
“Where’s your sense of adventure, Bones?”
“I don’t know Jim, maybe it’s tucked away in the same place your balls have retreated into right now? Come out of the water, lunatic. You’ll freeze.”
“I’m good here, thanks, “ parroted Jim, splashing around. “Hey, Bones, I’m making new friends!”
And just like that, the fish that had studiously avoided their lines all afternoon were crowding around Kirk, splashing their tails through the water and sucking at his skin. He laughed delightedly as the nibbled harmlessly at his extended fingertips. McCoy wished he’d brought a camera to capture this image of a golden haired, golden skinned Jim floating in the middle of a sliver cloud of fish. His memory would have to do, and McCoy spent a long time drinking in every sight and sound, filing it away to savour as a splash of colour in the long dark nights in deep space.
McCoy did go into the river eventually, as they both knew he would. They splashed around like kids, kissed like horny teenagers and retreated to the warmth of the blanket like the sensible adults they claimed to be.
Let others freeze with angling reeds,
And cut their legs with shells and weeds,
Or treacherously poor fish beset
With strangling snare or windowy net.
Let coarse bold hands from slimy nest
The bedded fish in banks out-wrest,
Or curious traitors, sleeve- silk flies,
Bewitch poor fishes wand’ring eyes.
The day passed and the reluctantly pulled on their clothes as the sun began to dim and dip over the wide horizon. Back at the shuttle it was clear that their afternoon had been far more pleasurable than Chekov and Sulu’s.
Chekov was muddied to the knee and the elbow, cold and obviously uncomfortable in his wet uniform. He was supporting a limping Sulu, who had several nasty looking gashes bleeding through his slashed uniform trousers. Sulu was holding their emptied tackle box, now heavy with water and a contented looking fish swimming in lazy laps around its new home.
“Permission to bring Oskar aboard, sir?” asked a worried looking Chekov. Not trusting himself to speak, Kirk nodded hurriedly, forcing back the laughter bubbling up inside him.
An audibly squelching Chekov got the shuttle up and flying as McCoy buried his aviaphobia under professional concern as he patched Sulu up with the emergency medical kit. Kirk sat on the remaining seat, with the Enterprise’s newest passenger occasionally splashing him with a flick of his tail. This time Kirk couldn’t hold back his laughter as Sulu explained, through gritted teeth, how many hours after casting their lines they had finally got a bite only for Chekov to have fits of remorse for the poor fish. Sulu had thrown the fish back, but instead of swimming away the fish had stayed near them. Chekov had ended up throwing the fish the remnants of his sandwich as an apology and had spent the rest of the afternoon bonding with it. When they packed up to leave, both Chekov and the fish were in so much distress that Chekov had decided to adopt it and keep it as a pet. Of course, the river bed was deceptively muddy and he had become mired in the coarse reeds almost immediately, plunging straight in. Sulu, in a scramble to rescue his friend, had slid on the only patch of sharp shale on the entire river bank and had lacerated his leg. Eventually, Sulu, Chekov and the fish (“I call him Oskar, after my uncle!” contributed Chekov from the front of the shuttle) had alternately limped, squelched and been carried back to the shuttle to wait for McCoy and Kirk.
“You mean to tell me that out of the four of us, we managed to catch nothing but a co-dependent fish?” queried Kirk as they touched down in the cavernous shuttle bay.
“I’m not so sure that the fish was the one that was captured,” muttered Sulu with the air of man who knew that assembling fish tanks loomed in his near future.
Chekov missed this exchange, as he was crooning at the delighted fish that was nibbling his fingertips in pleasure. They left the shuttle bay in search of the biological science unit, who had demanded that all crew bring potential pets to them for scanning after the trouble with the tribbles. Sulu limped off to sickbay to be healed properly by Nurse Chapel. Kirk exercised a privilege of rank and dumped the remaining fishing equipment on a passing crewmember. They ambled back to Kirk’s quarters, where a decent drink and a comfortable bed awaited them.
For thee, thou need’st no such deceit,
For thou thyself art thine own bait:
That fish, that is not catch’d thereby,
Alas! Is wiser far than I.
“Disappointed you didn’t make a catch, Bones?” asked Jim as he peeled off his clothes before padding into the bathroom. McCoy followed him, drink in hand, to watch Jim sluice away any remaining river water from his lithe, toned body.
“I’m already caught, “ McCoy replied quietly, hoping that the noise of the water would drown out his reply. From the triumphant look on Jim’s face though, McCoy wouldn’t have put money on it.
Author:
fringedwellerRating: NC-17 for a bit of language and mild sex
Warnings: Kirk/McCoy. Also stars Sulu, Chekov and a fish called Oskar. Could be considered Sulu/Chekov if you are that way inclined.
Disclaimer: Not my characters, no money being made here. Oskar is mine, but he's a fish.
Author's Note: Fourth (and possibly last?) in a short series charting the progression of the Kirk/McCoy relationship through the poetry of John Donne. No, I have no idea why either.
Follows Confined Love
The Good Morrow
Break Of Day
Come live with me, and be my love,
And we will some new pleasures prove
Of golden sands, and crystal brooks,
With silken lines and silver hooks.
There will the river whisp’ring run
Warm’d by thy eyes, more than the sun;
And there th’enamoured fish will stay
Begging themselves they may betray.
It was quiet. Too quiet. As much as McCoy complained about having his sickbay full of casualties from Away Teams, burns victims from the illegal still in Engineering nobody was supposed to know about blowing up and embarrassed botanists (botanists, of all people) coming in with exotic STDs, he hated it more when it was quiet. An empty sickbay meant that Nurse Chapel had the time to round up his as-yet unfinished paperwork and force him to do it. Her tenacity was downright impressive, and McCoy would have been full of admiration if he hadn’t been quite so scared of her.
Sure enough, there was Chapel rounding the corner from the isolation rooms, her arms full of data pads and her eyes full of steel. Just as she was about to reach him and bury him in enough inventory requests and chart checks to keep him busy for the rest of their five year stint, the sickbay doors opened with their familiar swoosh. McCoy jumped up and grabbed his tricorder, eager to escape from the black hole of bureaucracy. Instead of an ensign with a twisted ankle, or a certain Chief Engineer with first degree burns to his eyebrows, there stood Jim Kirk, captain of the Enterprise, old friend, and lover. Nobody was supposed to know about the lover part, but for the most part the crew of the Enterprise turned a determinedly blind eye and deaf ear, especially when walking past the captain’s quarters on deck five. Jim had a big smile on his face, and his arms full of fishing equipment, blankets and a large picnic basket.
“Bones!” he greeted him cheerfully, “Gear up!”
McCoy’s eyes narrowed. “What sort of mission needs a physician and a fishing rod? I’m a doctor, not an angler!”
“It’s not a mission Bones, it’s shore leave. You remember shore leave? It’s what we get for being good little Starfleet officers and not blowing anything up recently.”
“You mean apart from the still that you know nothing about? Because that exploded yesterday.”
Kirk’s face paled. “Not the vodka? I had hopes for that vodka.”
Bones snorted. “No, this was the third attempt at Scotch. Scotty’s lost an eyebrow, but he thinks he knows where he went wrong.” He paused. “Scotty’s making vodka now?”
Jim grinned. “No, stellar cartography is. Apparently you can only count stars for so long before you get bored and build a still in the corner of the lab. Who knew? Anyway, Spock has the conn, the lovely and talented Nurse Chapel can run this place better than you can;” he shot Chapel a grin and McCoy was positive he could see her stagger under the force of it, “We’re going fishing, Bones.”
McCoy sighed loudly for effect, and threw in one or two of the eye rolls he knew that Jim would expect, but he was inwardly cheering. In between Jim’s role as captain and his as chief medical officer, they didn’t get an awful lot of time to spend together. What they did get was usually spent in the dark of Jim’s room, naked, sweating and sated. It would make a nice change to spend a few hours planet side, outdoors with the sun on his skin and the wind in his hair, away from the dark and cold of space. Fishing wasn’t his favourite pastime, and lord only knew where Jim had got the idea, but McCoy had fished in his youth with his grandfather. He remembered the basics.
Grumbling about sunburn and allergies purely for the sake of form, he handed Chapel his tricorder, took his share of the equipment from Jim and headed in the direction of the transporter room. Jim stopped him, and gently turned swung him about.
“Wrong way, Bones, shuttle bay’s this way.”
At McCoy’s raised eyebrow he explained loftily, “Chekov needs practice with landing small craft. He mentioned he and Sulu were going fishing, so I decided to let him play pilot. This way we’re giving him a few passengers.”
McCoy fell into step with Jim, whose big blue eyes and honest, open face was not fooling him for an instant. His lover was only too aware that McCoy’s hatred of space travel, by shuttle or Constitution class ship, was second only to his hatred of the transporter technology. Little moments like this made up for a lot of moments where McCoy found himself healing Jim’s bones, sealing his broken skin, dissolving his bruises.
Sulu and Chekov were waiting for them in the shuttle, their fishing equipment stored neatly in the lockers at the back of the shuttle. Jim stored his away by the simple expedient of opening his arms and dropping it into a heap; McCoy kicked his into a neater pile.
Chekov closed the doors and signalled the bridge that they were ready to leave. McCoy kept his gaze on the mercifully windowless wall in front of him. He felt Jim’s hand close over his, and Jim took advantage of the thick plastic straps separating the two compartments to lean over and whisper in his ear.
“If you’re going to be sick, there’s a bag under your chair.”
As romantic endearments went, it wasn’t in McCoy’s top ten. But again, a small part of him was grateful that Jim had thought about his aviaphobia in advance.
The trip was mercifully brief, and in no time Chekov was landing the shuttle neatly and carefully. He flushed with pride as his captain clapped him on the back and congratulated him on a job well done.
The shuttle had set down in a beautiful river valley. A long, crystal blue river snaked through it, the water clear and inviting. The sandy river banks led up to verdant green meadows dotted liberally with colourful wildflowers, tall trees standing sentinel over them. Insects buzzed busily among the flowers, birds soared overhead. The warm skin beat down on McCoy’s space-pale skin, and the gentle breeze carried a fresh smell that not even the sophisticated air filtration systems on the Enterprise could replicate. He could feel a tension that he didn’t even realise he was carrying start to lift from his shoulders.
Chekov and Sulu gathered their equipment and headed downstream with a wave, bickering amicably about which of them was going to catch the most fish for the mess hall that evening. Kirk and McCoy untangled their equipment and headed in the opposite direction.
They hiked gently along the river, passing a few crew members on the way. After they had walked for twenty minutes without spotting a soul, Jim declared that the location they found was the perfect spot. It was sheltered from view by a stony outcropping, the river licked happily at a soft, sandy beach-like river bank and the giant trees growing nearby were perfect for giving shade to keep their beer cool.
McCoy supervised the setting up of the rods and reels, the untangling of the silk lines and the baiting of the sharp, silver hooks. He could see clouds of silver fish dancing through the clear water, but none came close to nibble at the end of the lines. He locked the rods in place and turned to see what Jim had been busying himself with. He wasn’t surprised to see that Jim had spread a large blanket on the ground, stripped down to his tight black underwear and was dribbling an UV blocking gel into his hand. Jim smirked over at Bones, and began to put on a show of rubbing it into his body. McCoy found himself warm under the collar just watching Jim bask in the sunlight, before his reverie was ended by a flying bottle of gel.
“Do my back, Bones,” Jim commanded imperiously, wriggling on the blanket and pillowing his head on his arms. He waited expectantly.
Pulling his uniform tunic and undershirt over his head, kicking off his boots and shucking his underwear and trousers, Bones dropped down by Jim and let a thin drizzle of the cool liquid trickle down Jim’s back. He watched the play of muscles as Jim shivered, then started to work the gel into every inch of exposed skin. He eased Jim’s underwear down over his hips and discarded it, applying the gel to this newly exposed skin also. Jim instinctively rocked back up into Bones’ touch, the firm but loving strokes having an unbelievably erotic sensation. A stinging slap to his naked backside broke him from his dreamy headspace; a grinning McCoy was waggling the gel bottle at him.
“My turn. I’m a doctor, not a pool boy.”
McCoy settled back to enjoy Jim’s quiet touches. The trademark Kirk swagger and cockiness were absent; Jim touched his skin gently, reverently. Strong fingers worked away knots of tension so old that McCoy had started to think of them as friends. Jim didn’t speak, but used his lips to follow his fingers, trailing kisses along the line of McCoy’s neck, the length of his spine, the cut of his hips, the tips of his fingers. McCoy could feel Jim’s obvious arousal mirrored in himself but the unhurried pace of Jim’s tactile seduction was so different from their usual frantic, frenetic fucking that McCoy felt himself relax into his desire.
They lay draped on the blanket, exchanging long, deep kisses, leisurely touches and caresses. Their orgasms bloomed from deep within them, not hurtling them towards pleasure but gently pulsing with every synchronised heartbeat, every shared breath. Some part of McCoy’s mind knew that laying stretched out naked in the warm sunshine draped over the captain wasn’t a good idea. He just couldn’t bring himself to care.
When thou wilt swim in that live bath,
Each fish, which every channel hath,
Will amorously to thee swim,
Gladder to catch thee, than thou him.
If thou be so seen, be’st loth
By sun or moon, thou dark host both,
And if myself have leave to see,
I need not their light, having thee.
Eventually, Kirk roused himself from his endorphin-drenched daze. He stood and stretched, eying the river eagerly.
“Fancy a swim, Bones?”
McCoy shook his head, smiling.
“Too cold, Jim. You’ll be out before you’re in.”
Too late, McCoy realised he’d challenged Jim’s insatiable sense of adventure and he could only watch in amused horror as Jim shot him a grin, charged down the bank, ran into the river and dived under as soon as he reached the right depth. He came up howling, the noise loud enough to scare away a few of the birds from the branches of the tree. Water drops glistened as he shook his head, and the crystal water around him only served to highlight the deep blue of his eyes.
‘Typical,’ McCoy thought, amused beyond measure, ‘Trust Jim to accessorise himself with the landscape.”
“Come on in Bones, you don’t know what you’re missing!” called Jim, floating on his back.
“I’m good here, thanks.”
“Where’s your sense of adventure, Bones?”
“I don’t know Jim, maybe it’s tucked away in the same place your balls have retreated into right now? Come out of the water, lunatic. You’ll freeze.”
“I’m good here, thanks, “ parroted Jim, splashing around. “Hey, Bones, I’m making new friends!”
And just like that, the fish that had studiously avoided their lines all afternoon were crowding around Kirk, splashing their tails through the water and sucking at his skin. He laughed delightedly as the nibbled harmlessly at his extended fingertips. McCoy wished he’d brought a camera to capture this image of a golden haired, golden skinned Jim floating in the middle of a sliver cloud of fish. His memory would have to do, and McCoy spent a long time drinking in every sight and sound, filing it away to savour as a splash of colour in the long dark nights in deep space.
McCoy did go into the river eventually, as they both knew he would. They splashed around like kids, kissed like horny teenagers and retreated to the warmth of the blanket like the sensible adults they claimed to be.
Let others freeze with angling reeds,
And cut their legs with shells and weeds,
Or treacherously poor fish beset
With strangling snare or windowy net.
Let coarse bold hands from slimy nest
The bedded fish in banks out-wrest,
Or curious traitors, sleeve- silk flies,
Bewitch poor fishes wand’ring eyes.
The day passed and the reluctantly pulled on their clothes as the sun began to dim and dip over the wide horizon. Back at the shuttle it was clear that their afternoon had been far more pleasurable than Chekov and Sulu’s.
Chekov was muddied to the knee and the elbow, cold and obviously uncomfortable in his wet uniform. He was supporting a limping Sulu, who had several nasty looking gashes bleeding through his slashed uniform trousers. Sulu was holding their emptied tackle box, now heavy with water and a contented looking fish swimming in lazy laps around its new home.
“Permission to bring Oskar aboard, sir?” asked a worried looking Chekov. Not trusting himself to speak, Kirk nodded hurriedly, forcing back the laughter bubbling up inside him.
An audibly squelching Chekov got the shuttle up and flying as McCoy buried his aviaphobia under professional concern as he patched Sulu up with the emergency medical kit. Kirk sat on the remaining seat, with the Enterprise’s newest passenger occasionally splashing him with a flick of his tail. This time Kirk couldn’t hold back his laughter as Sulu explained, through gritted teeth, how many hours after casting their lines they had finally got a bite only for Chekov to have fits of remorse for the poor fish. Sulu had thrown the fish back, but instead of swimming away the fish had stayed near them. Chekov had ended up throwing the fish the remnants of his sandwich as an apology and had spent the rest of the afternoon bonding with it. When they packed up to leave, both Chekov and the fish were in so much distress that Chekov had decided to adopt it and keep it as a pet. Of course, the river bed was deceptively muddy and he had become mired in the coarse reeds almost immediately, plunging straight in. Sulu, in a scramble to rescue his friend, had slid on the only patch of sharp shale on the entire river bank and had lacerated his leg. Eventually, Sulu, Chekov and the fish (“I call him Oskar, after my uncle!” contributed Chekov from the front of the shuttle) had alternately limped, squelched and been carried back to the shuttle to wait for McCoy and Kirk.
“You mean to tell me that out of the four of us, we managed to catch nothing but a co-dependent fish?” queried Kirk as they touched down in the cavernous shuttle bay.
“I’m not so sure that the fish was the one that was captured,” muttered Sulu with the air of man who knew that assembling fish tanks loomed in his near future.
Chekov missed this exchange, as he was crooning at the delighted fish that was nibbling his fingertips in pleasure. They left the shuttle bay in search of the biological science unit, who had demanded that all crew bring potential pets to them for scanning after the trouble with the tribbles. Sulu limped off to sickbay to be healed properly by Nurse Chapel. Kirk exercised a privilege of rank and dumped the remaining fishing equipment on a passing crewmember. They ambled back to Kirk’s quarters, where a decent drink and a comfortable bed awaited them.
For thee, thou need’st no such deceit,
For thou thyself art thine own bait:
That fish, that is not catch’d thereby,
Alas! Is wiser far than I.
“Disappointed you didn’t make a catch, Bones?” asked Jim as he peeled off his clothes before padding into the bathroom. McCoy followed him, drink in hand, to watch Jim sluice away any remaining river water from his lithe, toned body.
“I’m already caught, “ McCoy replied quietly, hoping that the noise of the water would drown out his reply. From the triumphant look on Jim’s face though, McCoy wouldn’t have put money on it.