Chapter Text
“I may throw up on you,” Leonard grumbled loud enough the guy on his left leaned away a fraction as if that was enough to avoid possible projectile vomit. Just for that, he was going to make damn sure he turned to his left to throw up.
As if to remind Leonard why there was an urge to evict the contents of last night’s dinner (breakfast was not going to happen two hours before a tin can flight), the shuttle jolted once more. It pissed him off to see everyone’s reaction to it. Or the lack thereof.
“You said that before,” the Kirk kid murmured. He side-eyed Leonard. He didn’t lean away, though. In fact, he tipped his head and shoulders closer to Leonard.
“Those are the warp coils locking into the fuel injectors.”
Leonard arched an eyebrow at the kid. “The what to the what?”
Kirk mirrored his eyebrow. “Uh…”
The shuttle whined. Another jolt.
“What the fuck was that?”
Okay, maybe Leonard was louder than necessary. All those Starfleet-wannabe babies stared blandly back at him. He hasn’t seen this many non-expression faces since a group of Vulcans congregated in the Atlanta ER after a bad (Vulcan soup) poisoning.
“Is there a problem, sir?” The lieutenant who dragged him out of the nice windowless bathroom squinted at him from her perch at the front of the craft. She gripped her harness buckle with one hand. She looked like she contemplated shoving him back in there.
“No problem,” Kirk answered for Leonard and that pissed him off because he didn’t need some blue-eyed, smirking brat to—Wait a second.
“Kirk,” Leonard murmured. He was a doctor, but he didn’t live under a rock. He only wished he did.
The Kirk kid shot Leonard a look, the same bland look as the others, but this close, Leonard caught the glimmer of something else. Kirk’s shoulders twitched in the way people tend to after a doctor with a loaded hypospray in hand, soothed and lied, “This isn’t going to hurt one bit.” Before slamming the injector into the appropriate blood vessel and dispensing.
…Okay, maybe it’s just their reactions to him.
Leonard’s ire evaporated. He squinted at Kirk.
Kirk’s jaw clenched. Then he rolled back his shoulders and relaxed his jaw.
He was bracing for a blow, Leonard realized. He made a show to slump back into his seat.
Kirk blinked, taken aback.
After a brief pause, Kirk turned his focus on the glowering Starfleet babysitter instead. Leonard watched Kirk charm, flirt, and convince the lieutenant not to do an emergency beam-out on Leonard’s ass.
Kirk sagged back into his seat when the lieutenant calmed down. He shot Leonard a rueful grin. Leonard grimaced back.
The shuttle shimmied again, then steadied.
“Let me guess, Kirk,” Leonard gritted out. He spied Kirk opening his mouth out of the corner of his eye. “Tin can shaking its ass to get ready to dance?”
Kirk snorted. “Close. It’s getting ready to switch modes to activate the propulsion drive. It needs to break through the atmosphere and pass through the Karman line.”
Leonard swallowed; the sour taste returned to the back of his throat again. “S’long it doesn’t actually break break.”
A hand pawed his front and wormed into his jacket under his safety harness.
Leonard slapped the hand away. “Buy me dinner first,” Leonard snapped. At the eyebrow rose high his way, Leonard rolled his eyes.
“I’m not hyperventilating either. I’m too pissed off at myself to do that.”
Kirk didn’t ask Leonard to explain—most likely to return the favor of Leonard not freaking out over James T. Kirk, the Kelvin baby, sitting next to him. Not that Leonard cared one way or the other. He’s here to do his four years. He resigned to a future rotting away in a far away starbase where he didn’t have to think about his little girl growing up without him seeing it.
“Actually,” Kirk held up a very familiar flask, “I’m trying to offer you a drink.”
Leonard boggled at his flask before he dragged a glare up to Kirk. Who grinned, unrepentant.
“Offer me a drink from my own flask?” Leonard growled. He made no move to take the flask. He glowered as Kirk tipped it back for a drab of his own. “Better be sure to save me some, Kirk.”