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McCoy was grinning wider with every word. “They’re making you do what?”
“Take a shore leave! They told me I ran out of space time, and they know that I know that there is no such regulation! The audacity of some people, I swear—”
He couldn’t help a burst of laughter. “Oh, poor you!”
On the screen of his teleunit, Scotty only shook his head.
It took McCoy a moment to calm down, but eventually he did say, “You know what, I might be able to help you out.”
Scotty gave him a suspicious squint. “Talk to them and remind them of their business?”
“Absolutely not! You do need a vacation. But— When is your deadline?”
“22nd is my last shift. After that, no less than fifteen days of doing anything but.”
“How terrible.” McCoy chuckled again. “But I can join you, if you’ll have me.”
“You can’t, lad. Your assignment on Jupiter Station—”
“—is nothing I can’t sign out of. It would be ridiculous for me to stay in space when you’re down here. Completely out of character.”
Scotty wasn’t arguing—wasn’t doing anything but looking at him from the too-small screen. “You realise that this will be the gossip of the month,” he said in a much lower voice than before, cracking a smile as well.
“Of course. Do you mind?”
“Eh. They have to talk about something. Alright, what do you have planned?”
What McCoy had planned was to tell Starfleet to go to hell, as he did every so often, and to head in the opposite direction—to Georgia, where he had a little house all to himself. That was where he’d spent a good year after resigning, growing a beard and going mad. He’d enjoyed it immensely; if it hadn’t been for Jim pulling him out, he would have stayed put, and would have begun to haunt the house by now, rather than live in it.
But maybe the current circumstances had their own charm.
Nobody would think of looking for Scotty there, and most people in his field knew better than to come by looking for him. He’d had years of experience giving earfuls to a certain pest in the rank of Admiral, and was never shy to put his skills to use.
Unless the world is ending, I’m not there, he’d told the substitute doctor. And if it is ending, I won’t be much help, either. So leave me alone.
Indeed no one had been too surprised to have to let him go.
He himself was somewhat surprised that Scotty was willing to join him in his hermitage, but—lovely as Aberdeen was, maybe they could agree (as long as they weren’t discussing it out loud) that sometimes less was more. If Starfleet could manage without Scotty for a week or two, then so could Scotty’s numerous extended family.
And there was not a soul in sight when they climbed the porch of the lone house in the middle of nowhere, weighed down with takeout food and nothing but.
“It’s good to be here,” Scotty sighed lightly, looking around.
“It’s good to have you here.” With a theatrical gesture, McCoy pushed the door wide open. “Please come in.”
They stepped inside, shrugged off their jackets, and just looked at each other for a moment with conspiratory smiles, the calm and quiet now sinking in.
“So,” McCoy said, breaking the silence at his own leisure. “As promised, there’s nothing to eat except what we brought, but my drinks cabinet is battle ready. I can mix us something, and when it’s dark outside, we can go out and lie in the field and watch the stars. How’s that sound? Because there’s literally nothing else to do out here.”
Scotty tilted his head to the side with a curious look. “I’ve always thought you hate the stars,” he said, instead of answering the question.
McCoy shrugged. “I do. Believe me, when I’m out there, I hate them with all I’ve got. That’s why I restrict myself to the Solar system when I can. But from down here, they seem like nice little twinkling lights. And why not fall for a sweet lie from time to time?”
“Whatever you say, doctor. Alright, I’ll put these in the—” Scotty glanced down the hall, then back at McCoy. “Tell me, is your fridge empty because you haven’t been here, or did you break it again?”
McCoy only raised an eyebrow. “I dont know what you’re talking about. The kitchen’s on the left, the—”
“Len.” The quiet word made him stop, for more reason than one; it was only ever said when they were alone, in a warm tone barely above a murmur. Scotty almost winked as he said it this time, too. “I remember me way ’round.”
Of course he did. They had been here time and again over the course of—how long had it been now? Twenty years, give or take?
To think of it, maybe that qualified as getting old together.
’The gossip of the month’ didn’t cut it. They’d had lengthy, completely unserious arguments on whether or not the whole fleet knew. Sometimes, they would meet over drinks, attracting glances and not bothering to acknowledge any; sometimes, they would run into each other at a conference or be put on the same training vessel for whatever reason the admirals might come up with.
At some point, they’d lived together, stretching out what their schedules allowed, for a little under half a year. They’d known from the beginning that it wouldn’t be forever. Something was bound to come up and put light years between them; but until that happened, they could just as well make use of the window of time available, much like now.
With one third of their lives of whatever-this-was under their belts, neither felt it necessary to put into words what exactly they were having. No one could figure out what they were doing, they least of all—part of the reason why the arrangement was so exciting.
Reassuring sounds could be heard from the kitchen, and in the meantime, McCoy had a couple of minutes for something he valued no less than good food. The drinks cabinet was indeed filled with treasures, including its own freezer section, so that he could fill two glasses with iced mint julep without stepping away for anything.
“Ye may be glad to hear that the fridge’s working,” Scotty called out from the hall on his way back.
“You may be glad to hear that I’m done here. Which one will it be, the hard liquors or the virgin option?”
Scotty looked at him with such indignation that it took McCoy a conscious effort not to drop both glasses as he tried and failed not to laugh.
“Yer a pest.” Scotty swatted at him, the back of his hand barely making contact. “They’re the same, aren’t they?”
“Sure are. Want to go outside?”
“Yes— You don’t expect me to actually sit in the grass, do ye?”
“I would be an idiot if I didn’t put a fraction of my hard earned money into a couple wicker chairs and some nice pillows. So we can sit outside and not test our kidneys while at it.”
“Good, good, me joints like it warm. That’s what spending your life next to the warp core does to ye.”
“I’ll pass, thanks.” McCoy nodded at the furniture. “Grab your pick, I’ll bring the table.”
Even when he was alone here, it never took him more than five minutes to rearrange the porch the way he saw fit. Those flew by especially fast, now that he had someone to exchange lighthearted comments with in the process.
“Love this place, really. It’s alive the way I would never trust a starship to be alive.”
Scotty stopped for a moment, as if hoping to hear something from the walls. “It sure isn’t purring like the engine. Don’t know if I can sleep in this quiet.”
That wasn’t true and they both knew it.
“I can go borrow my neighbour’s cat if that helps.”
“Hm? Does it purr a lot?”
“No, it knocks down furniture.” McCoy laughed, partly because he remembered the fluffy bastard and partly because he could finally set down his chair and sit in it. “Oh, this is good. I feel rejuvenated when I come here!”
“And only when you come here,” Scotty commented as he settled by, doing a fairly good imitation of McCoy’s own grumpy tone. “In space, you’ve acted like you’re a hundred the whole time I’ve known ye.”
McCoy let his eyes slip closed, for once too happy to try and put on an argument. “I don’t remember the last time you’ve roasted me. Do it more often, would you?”
Scotty clinked their glasses together. “Anything for ye.”
McCoy sipped his drink as well, then moved his chair closer and put an arm around Scotty’s shoulders, once again thinking about how there was no one around to see it. Not that it was a condition of whether or not they could touch—but they both agreed, with no words ever said on the matter, that they liked having nice things no one knew about. This, here, now, was nice indeed.
It was only going to get nicer. They would drink too much, and sleep in a pile, and wake up late, and complain to each other about sore necks and weird dreams, and then bicker about something completely unimportant even before getting out for breakfast.
He was looking forward to every minute of it.