McCoy near chokes on a snorted laugh. Incidental crew members indeed. He can't remember who gave the creature they picked up the name Kevin, but it cracks him up every time and he can't say why. He suspects that he's just an awful person. No one would argue that, at any rate.
He wanders along with Jim, falling into easy step. After years together in the Academy and on the Enterprise, it would be difficult not to. He feels like he's just put his unhealthy and probably inappropriate amusement over Kevin aside when Jim comes up with Vulcans and handshakes.
Well, whatever. It's probably the last time he's gonna actually be amused for some time, he thinks as he catches sight of the probe being fitted to their craft. "Well, I'll say this for humanity: we do tend to go full speed ahead and damn the torpedoes. I'm sure the Vulcans might someday come to appreciate that."
Kevin is a very helpful contract crewman, and not just because Keenser feels better about not being the tiniest sentient being on board anymore. Probably. Well, he's entertaining, and makes a good impression at the weirder diplomatic encounters.
He laughs. Making fun of the Vulcans was a little sketchy there for a while, Jim felt - despite his frequent desire to boot Spock out an airlock, bless his little liver-y heart - but years on, with New Vulcan flourishing and the population rebuilding, it'd be needlessly patronizing not to give them their due percentage of shit. As is the custom of all Terrans.
"Maybe these guys," the pink teddy bears, he means, "will evolve into a people we can have some real fun with in the adventure department."
McCoy's expression probably gives him away, because his ridiculous mind immediately tries to conjure up pink teddy bears kicking ass and taking names through some of the situations the Enterprise has warped right into. It's... jarring. A little mind-boggling.
Does not compute. Leave a message, come back later, Doctor McCoy is out for the count.
"What?" It's the only word he can manage. He knows what you said, Jim. He even tried to answer it with something more coherent than that, but...
... pink teddy bears with phasers. Everyone was kung fu fighting and McCoy's mind has stuttered to a halt.
Jim tries - really, he does, for a good two seconds, not to lose it laughing at his friend's expression, but he fails miserably and cracks up. The officers working on their shuttle all pause and give Captain Kirk a curious-confused-maybe-alarmed look, in varying degrees, and Jim puts a hand on McCoy's shoulder while he tries to stop laughing. It's an ordeal.
"C'mon, Bones! IDIC!" The teddy bears had to get through the hunter-gatherer stage, maybe they've had some civil wars... they could easily end up serving on a starship. "You never know who'll end up being the next humans."
You know, Jim, laughing at the best friend you've ever had really is in poor taste. IDIC nothing, kid; that was all Jim's fault, planting that ridiculous image in his head. Absolutely ignoring the looks they're garnering from pretty much everyone around them, McCoy elbows Jim in the side.
"Let's get out of here." He'd rather go poke things with sticks than stick around here than continue to be flummoxed by pink teddy bears building technicolor buildings.
Yeah yeah and he totally hurt Leonard's delicate sensibilities, too, he's the worst. Jim throws an arm around McCoy's shoulders, still chuckling a little. "I need to bring you on more away missions," he says, despite knowing that the response to that is going to be explosive.
He does, however, concede to getting this show on the road-- he angles his friend towards the control station so he can take a look at their course projections, and releases the other man so that he can talk with their escorts about The Game Plan for checking out the anomaly on the way back. He is and isn't stalling; part of him does want to stay and see more of this civilization, even though he knows he can just investigate the reports later.
Really? More away missions? What part of 'happy to simply take up shifts in the 'fleet hospital' did Jim miss, huh? McCoy ducks out from under Jim's arm and actually growls a bit in his direction at that one. "You a need a check-up. I don't think your head's on straight."
But, yeah, going for the control station and then the shuttle afterward. Let Jim hammer out those details while McCoy goes over their course and takes another look at their initial readings. It's not like he's expecting a flash of brilliant insight, but he'd really like to know -- preferably without falling headfirst into some sort of trouble -- why that thing was following their shuttle. If he knew that, he might have a chance of figuring out when or if it could happen again.
That's what the probe's for, though. Unfortunate, in his mind, that sometimes figuring these things out means poking them with pointy sticks. That rarely goes well. Jim can do his thing, though, and even stall if he wants. McCoy will take the time to peruse the readouts.
And find nothing new, but hey. That's the nature of science: go through data until it doesn't make sense anymore and wait for something new to crack you upside the head.
That growl gains startled looks from the people nearby, but the beaming smile on Captain Kirk's face settles any alarm. There are all kinds of things said about the current senior staff of the Enterprise; Kirk is intense, Spock is intimidating, Doctor McCoy is fucking terrifying. Only some people figure out that beneath the porcupine bristles is endless marshmallow fluff-- or, well, maybe only Jim has figured that out, and maybe it's not so much detective work as it is delusion and warped perceptions of acceptable standards of friendship. WHO KNOWS.
Sooner rather than later, Jim's swanning onto the shuttle and plopping down in the pilot's seat. "Preflight systems check," he announces. "You know, I swear you've told me plenty of times 'if you don't stop making that face it'll stay that way permanently', and I have concerns about the line between your eyebrows at the moment. If you frown any harder your head's gonna cave in, Bones."
Who knows indeed. McCoy hasn't gained a reputation of being fucking
terrifying by cultivating a gentle bedside manner nor has he ever been one
to offer smiles to passers-by. (If he did, at any point, Jim would probably
lock him up in the brig and go about trying to figure out how an imposter
got on his ship.) There may be some marshmallow fluff in there somewhere;
anyone who's seen him around kids and dogs can likely attest to that.
Fortunately for his reputation, there's a decided lack of both on a
starship.
Jim's stalling didn't take long and McCoy is wrapped up in earlier readouts
when he practically tosses himself into his chair. "That's already
permanent," he mutters, switching attention between his science(!) and
preflight checks. "Voice of experience and reason, kid. Listen to it
sometimes." If he says, in that dad-tone he swears he doesn't have, that
you're face is gonna freeze like that, believe him. His already has.
"I always listen to you," Jim says sweetly as he powers the shuttle up. The dad voice is pretty great, in his opinion, it's just hilarious. Jim occasionally worries he's developing one of his own for talking to some of the younger crew members-- but he's never having kids, not after being temporarily dead from radiation exposure, so they'll never know, really. (Somewhere, Carol Marcus is going YEAH THAT'S WHAT I THOUGHT TOO, ASSHOLE.)
There's some chatter with the control station, coordinating take-off and making sure the new modifications with the probe are functioning properly, and then Jim's clear to take them out.
He snorts in absolute disbelief at that. Always listens, his ass. One of these days, he's going to stop offering advice (or just plain objecting to whatever half-assed plan Jim has come up with) and then they'll see where they all end up. He turns his attention to the console, though he really doesn't have much to do here besides watch Jim pilot.
"Well," and it's drawn out a bit, like he's giving an answer he's not too certain of, "I can tell you what it looks like, strictly from a pathologist's point of view." He taps the console, leans forward to give the readings he's looked over a million times one more perusal, and shrugs. "This is an energy disturbance in space, not living organism. But... if it were, I'd say it reacted almost like..." He waves his hand, a vague gesture that's likely supposed to mean something. "Like we're a... a virus in an otherwise healthy organism." Which is, admittedly, a pretty unlikely scenario and also pretty pessimistic, since the end goal of natural antibodies is to wipe out the intruding virus.
Another shrug. "But that doesn't explain why it followed us instead of the other shuttle. I still haven't found anything that would differentiate us from them." Again, though, doctor, not... whatever he needs to be to figure this out.
The thing with crazy space escapades is, sometimes it does actually take a pathologist's eye to notice a key detail. Whatever expectations Jim had of starship exploration being pure astrophysics were ground to dust within the first few months out here-- asteroids and gravity wells and wormholes, yes, but also gigantic silicone floating hearts with eyeballs, space whales, sentient viruses, and so on and so forth. Space is batshit crazy and he no longer finds it weird to be asking a medical doctor for his professional opinion about an energy anomaly.
Still,
"I think I like my puppy idea better than being targeted by a stray galactic white blood cell."
McCoy could have told him space is batshit insane from the get-go -- in fact, he's pretty sure he did, multiple times over -- but he does honestly appreciate that Jim does ask for his opinion, even if whatever they're looking at is so far out of his field he's squinting sideways at it.
Or has him squinting sideways at Jim, which is perilously close to happening right now. "I didn't say it was preferable."
"I don't know," Jim says slowly, piloting them away from the little outpost and back out into space, "sometimes when you're right about the worst-case scenario, you seem kind of smug."
Jim's definitely just giving him shit, but also-- well. Every time Bones has been right about something that Jim insisted was absolutely unquestionably Not A Big Deal, he's heard about it for weeks. Months. Years, even! There was that thing, with the rehabilitation planet and the mind control, which in Jim's opinion should have hit its expiration date ages ago.
Smug? No, it's not smug, Jim; it's pointing out that he is occasionally right when it comes to his pessimistic outlook and one should never simply dismiss it out of hand. Reminders are necessary, especially in this business.
... And, really, mind control is never something to take lightly.
"There is nothing wrong with being right." You want smug? That's a smug statement, conjuring up with all the arrogance he can summon.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
my dog 'helped' on this one; she sat on my shoulder and watched. this tag Molly-approved.
He wanders along with Jim, falling into easy step. After years together in the Academy and on the Enterprise, it would be difficult not to. He feels like he's just put his unhealthy and probably inappropriate amusement over Kevin aside when Jim comes up with Vulcans and handshakes.
Well, whatever. It's probably the last time he's gonna actually be amused for some time, he thinks as he catches sight of the probe being fitted to their craft. "Well, I'll say this for humanity: we do tend to go full speed ahead and damn the torpedoes. I'm sure the Vulcans might someday come to appreciate that."
Maybe. Someday. Probably never.
what a good doge
He laughs. Making fun of the Vulcans was a little sketchy there for a while, Jim felt - despite his frequent desire to boot Spock out an airlock, bless his little liver-y heart - but years on, with New Vulcan flourishing and the population rebuilding, it'd be needlessly patronizing not to give them their due percentage of shit. As is the custom of all Terrans.
"Maybe these guys," the pink teddy bears, he means, "will evolve into a people we can have some real fun with in the adventure department."
one of two best dogs. Gizmo and Molly: Best Dogs.
Does not compute. Leave a message, come back later, Doctor McCoy is out for the count.
"What?" It's the only word he can manage. He knows what you said, Jim. He even tried to answer it with something more coherent than that, but...
... pink teddy bears with phasers. Everyone was kung fu fighting and McCoy's mind has stuttered to a halt.
👍
"C'mon, Bones! IDIC!" The teddy bears had to get through the hunter-gatherer stage, maybe they've had some civil wars... they could easily end up serving on a starship. "You never know who'll end up being the next humans."
no subject
"Let's get out of here." He'd rather go poke things with sticks than stick around here than continue to be flummoxed by pink teddy bears building technicolor buildings.
no subject
He does, however, concede to getting this show on the road-- he angles his friend towards the control station so he can take a look at their course projections, and releases the other man so that he can talk with their escorts about The Game Plan for checking out the anomaly on the way back. He is and isn't stalling; part of him does want to stay and see more of this civilization, even though he knows he can just investigate the reports later.
no subject
But, yeah, going for the control station and then the shuttle afterward. Let Jim hammer out those details while McCoy goes over their course and takes another look at their initial readings. It's not like he's expecting a flash of brilliant insight, but he'd really like to know -- preferably without falling headfirst into some sort of trouble -- why that thing was following their shuttle. If he knew that, he might have a chance of figuring out when or if it could happen again.
That's what the probe's for, though. Unfortunate, in his mind, that sometimes figuring these things out means poking them with pointy sticks. That rarely goes well. Jim can do his thing, though, and even stall if he wants. McCoy will take the time to peruse the readouts.
And find nothing new, but hey. That's the nature of science: go through data until it doesn't make sense anymore and wait for something new to crack you upside the head.
no subject
Sooner rather than later, Jim's swanning onto the shuttle and plopping down in the pilot's seat. "Preflight systems check," he announces. "You know, I swear you've told me plenty of times 'if you don't stop making that face it'll stay that way permanently', and I have concerns about the line between your eyebrows at the moment. If you frown any harder your head's gonna cave in, Bones."
no subject
Who knows indeed. McCoy hasn't gained a reputation of being fucking terrifying by cultivating a gentle bedside manner nor has he ever been one to offer smiles to passers-by. (If he did, at any point, Jim would probably lock him up in the brig and go about trying to figure out how an imposter got on his ship.) There may be some marshmallow fluff in there somewhere; anyone who's seen him around kids and dogs can likely attest to that. Fortunately for his reputation, there's a decided lack of both on a starship.
Jim's stalling didn't take long and McCoy is wrapped up in earlier readouts when he practically tosses himself into his chair. "That's already permanent," he mutters, switching attention between his science(!) and preflight checks. "Voice of experience and reason, kid. Listen to it sometimes." If he says, in that dad-tone he swears he doesn't have, that you're face is gonna freeze like that, believe him. His already has.
no subject
There's some chatter with the control station, coordinating take-off and making sure the new modifications with the probe are functioning properly, and then Jim's clear to take them out.
"So what do you think this thing is?"
no subject
"Well," and it's drawn out a bit, like he's giving an answer he's not too certain of, "I can tell you what it looks like, strictly from a pathologist's point of view." He taps the console, leans forward to give the readings he's looked over a million times one more perusal, and shrugs. "This is an energy disturbance in space, not living organism. But... if it were, I'd say it reacted almost like..." He waves his hand, a vague gesture that's likely supposed to mean something. "Like we're a... a virus in an otherwise healthy organism." Which is, admittedly, a pretty unlikely scenario and also pretty pessimistic, since the end goal of natural antibodies is to wipe out the intruding virus.
Another shrug. "But that doesn't explain why it followed us instead of the other shuttle. I still haven't found anything that would differentiate us from them." Again, though, doctor, not... whatever he needs to be to figure this out.
no subject
Still,
"I think I like my puppy idea better than being targeted by a stray galactic white blood cell."
no subject
Or has him squinting sideways at Jim, which is perilously close to happening right now. "I didn't say it was preferable."
i'm alive
Jim's definitely just giving him shit, but also-- well. Every time Bones has been right about something that Jim insisted was absolutely unquestionably Not A Big Deal, he's heard about it for weeks. Months. Years, even! There was that thing, with the rehabilitation planet and the mind control, which in Jim's opinion should have hit its expiration date ages ago.
alive is good. i'm glad.
... And, really, mind control is never something to take lightly.
"There is nothing wrong with being right." You want smug? That's a smug statement, conjuring up with all the arrogance he can summon.