the Dalaverse

More fic - specifically, commentfic for the st_respect battle post, slightly edited and cleaned up from the original. I'd just like to point out that it's twice as long as my actual challenge entry. Oh, and it is pure crack.


Title: Imitation is the Sincerest Form of Flattery
While Jim has the flu, McCoy stumbles upon his secret hobby.
Author: Dala
Pairing: Kirk/McCoy; obliquely, about a dozen others
Rating: PG-13 for...artistic depictions of various sexual acts
Disclaimer: standard applies
Notes: commentfic for st_respect; contains distinct traces of crack



Imitation Is the Sincerest Form of Flattery


McCoy has seen some vicious strains of influenza in his time, but the one Jim picked up on shore leave to Setii IV isn’t one of them. The contagion period is over by the time he gets back on the Enterprise, so there‘s no risk of starting an epidemic. And the flu’s symptoms - fever, sore throat, headache, body aches, and faint pink splotches on the torso - are fortunately mitigated by one of the only antiviral treatments to which he’s not allergic. Jim still sulks when McCoy confines him to quarters until his scans are clear. After receiving fifteen whiny messages on the first day and eight on the second (I’m so bored, Bones, nobody wants to hang out with the sickie, I don’t wanna read anymore and I watched all my good vids, bring me chicken soup or some new porn?) McCoy finally caves. Well, not on the porn, but a bored Jim is liable to get up to some kind of trouble, so it’s in everyone’s best interest if his physician pays a house call.

After three years of living in each others’ pockets at the Academy, it doesn’t even occur to McCoy to chime before entering. But despite the numerous rounds of S.O.S., Jim is clearly surprised to see him. He scrambles from an easy sprawl on the floor to his knees, nearly toppling over as he shoves something under the bed behind him.

McCoy raises an eyebrow, about to comment that clearly Jim hasn’t run out of wank material after all, when something crunches under his boot.

“Oh, don’t!” Jim makes an abortive little flail in his direction, eyes going wide.

He lifts his foot and bends down to pick up…himself.

Or rather a tiny, stiff-legged plastic version of one Leonard Horatio McCoy, MD.

“What the hell?”

Jim peers anxiously at his hand. “You didn’t break it, did you?”

McCoy turns the little figure over, twisting an arm. It doesn’t appear to be any worse for wear, but - “Why are my eyes blue?”

“Factory mistake,” says Jim matter-of-factly, sitting back on his heels. “They’re really rare, took me forever to find that one.”

Little Leonard’s hair is stupid and the eyes are wrong, but he has to admit that the facial expression is fairly accurate considering they both spend most of their time around a certain featherbrained starship captain. He steps into the room and holds it out for Jim, and that’s when he looks down. The floor of Jim’s bedroom is littered with brightly colored toys.

McCoy raises an eyebrow. “I know that medication makes you a little loopy, Jim, but honestly - playing with dolls?”

Jim sticks his reddened nose in the air. “They’re not dolls,” he says loftily, “they are action figures. Collectibles.”

“Those are dolls,” McCoy retorts, pointing to a pair with shiny black hair, “and they were supposed to be Joanna’s birthday present.” He takes a closer look and frowns. “Jim. Are they naked?”

“No,” Jim mutters down at the floor. “The pants wouldn’t come off.”

Apparently this hadn’t stopped tiny plastic Uhura, sans dress, from mounting tiny plastic Spock reverse-cowgirl-style.

Jim must see the gathering thunderclouds in his eyes; he squirms with guilt. “I saved the boxes, I’ll put them back.”

Those two are Joanna’s - she has an inexplicable crush on Spock and wants to be Uhura when she grows up - but the rest…

There’s a Kirk and a Spock, shirts artfully ripped, wielding some kind of staff weapon and grappling with each other in a manner that looks more like foreplay than combat. Scotty and a Chekov with ridiculous fluffy plastic hair appear to have progressed beyond foreplay; they’re stuck in a frozen clench atop a padd covered in formulas.

A green Tyrannosaurus rex stalks the ridge of Jim’s unmade bed, carrying Cadet Uniform Kirk (one of Joanna’s favorites; she likes to play Daddy Sneaks Uncle Jim onto the Enterprise So They Can Save Earth) and Admiral Pike on its back. For some reason Pike is wearing a Hawaiian shirt over his dress grays. On the floor directly below them, Sulu in a yellow spacesuit is defending another Chekov from a stampeding tribble with his extendable katana. The Action model must be new; McCoy makes a mental note to pick one up for the ever-growing birthday package. Near them is an Admiral Pike with his jointed arm wrapped around a female doll with long brown hair. McCoy vaguely recognizes it and assumes Joanna left it behind on their last visit, although he hopes she wasn’t the one who pulled the doll’s top off.

Over by Jim’s left knee he’s set up one of the Enterprise bridge playsets, featuring the captain’s chair and science station (with “realistic flashing lights and alarms,” if he recalls the box label correctly). The details are pretty accurate, actually, but the scene -

“What the hell, Jim!”

Jim smirks, leaning back against the bed. “Thought you’d like that one.”

The set has its original Spock and Uhura, but someone has swapped out the captain for a pair of identical McCoys. One of them is contorted into a kneeling position before Uhura in the chair, his head stuck under her red skirt. The other McCoy has Spock bent over the console.

Scowling, McCoy fights a childish urge to kick the whole thing over. It’s their vacant expressions that bother him more than anything else, really. “Sometimes I can’t believe you’re actually responsible for your own self, let alone a ship full of other people.”

Jim blinks big, innocent eyes at him. “Just because that’s the most action you’ve seen in years, Bones…” McCoy cuffs him across the top of the head and he ducks away, laughter turning into a cough. “Hey, no roughing the invalid!”

McCoy stares down in abject horror at the mock sick bay on Jim’s nightstand. Chekov’s left leg is hoisted up by his shoulder while a McCoy in a white doctor’s coat wields a tricorder in a way that makes the real McCoy very, very glad these things aren’t anatomically correct.

“Oh, come on!”

He stabs a finger down at yet another plastic counterpart, clad in a blue medical dress over his molded pants and bent over a little toy biobed. While Chapel doesn’t have her own action figure, the generic blond nurse is clearly meant to stand in for her. And she’s spanking her CMO with her tiny plastic palm.

“That’s just disturbing, kid,” he drawls, pinching the blue skirt and pulling it down to preserve what scant modesty little Bones has left. “Christine’s my direct subordinate.”

Jim strokes the T-rex’s chin with his thumb. “That’s your objection to that particular scenario?” His tone is light and teasing, but McCoy doesn’t miss the hoarse rasp of his voice or the slightly glassy sheen to his eyes. His infernal body chemistry is breaking down the medication faster than it should and it isn’t safe to give him another dose for at least six hours.

Propping himself against the bed, he wonders how long it’ll take to talk Jim into actually resting instead of holding a toy chest orgy. Something bites into the back of his thigh and he yelps.

“Jesus H. Christ, did you glue these?” A trio of figures dangles from his finger - Jim Spock and himself. They’re all shirtless and have their legs spread as best they can manage without ball-jointed hips.

“Just a little duct tape." Jim ducks his head and flushes, probably due more to the fever than to actual shame.

McCoy sighs deeply. “You are one sick, sad little man, Jim Kirk.”

“Who’re you callin’ little,” Jim mutters mulishly, then coughs and rubs at the hollow of his throat.

Reaching down to feel his brow, McCoy frowns. “All right, drink the rest of that juice, eat two more bites of dinner and then get into bed. Sleep’ll do more good than a hypo at this point.”

“You gonna help me get into my PJs?” Jim’s predictable leer is somewhat dampened by the wince as McCoy tugs him up to his shaky feet.

“I’m gonna clean this crap up so you don’t break your neck getting out of bed again, which by the way shouldn’t happen until alpha shift.” The fever looks like it’s about to start leveling off, and if it becomes necessary he could administer another dose while his patient sleeps. God knows he’s had to do it before - Jim has always been a pain in the ass about injections, but it’s worse when he’s sick.

The fact that he doesn’t get any more grousing or pathetic come-ons is proof enough that Jim is feeling poorly. By the time he’s cleared all the poor, oversexed plastic variations of the bridge crew back into their box, the kid is completely sacked out. McCoy gently resettles the arm dangling over the side of the mattress and pushes the box under the bed. It hits a bump, and he remembers that Jim had shoved something under there earlier.

Unsurprisingly, he comes up with yet more pieces of Jim’s collection. He squints at a female doll with a brown ponytail, about the size of the Spock and Uhura dolls Jim snuck out of McCoy‘s quarters. She has a blue Science dress with what look like hand-painted lieutenant commander stripes on the sleeves. It’s a bit too large, which must be why the boots weren’t likewise pilfered; instead the doll wears little pink tennis shoes. Her hands aren’t the right shape or size to hold her tiny tricorder and padd; it looks like the accessories have been shaved down a little to fit. Oddly, she has one blue eye and one green eye, with the pupil ever so slightly off-center.

He crouches down to examine a tube of green model paint and a paintbrush with just a few thin fibers, perfect for delicate work like repainting a doll’s eyes.

“Goddamnit, Jim.“ His voice is quiet, almost a whisper. Jim lets out a loud, gargling snore in response. “Jo already thinks you hung the moon, you don’t have to go to all this trouble.”

Behind the Joanna doll is something wrapped in paper. No, in cloth - looks like Action Sulu’s detachable parachute. He tugs it free.

It’s the missing Kirk from the command set and one last McCoy. They’re arranged on their sides, his flat plastic chest pressed to Jim’s flat plastic back, his arm manipulated to wrap around Jim’s waist. He snorts; the action figures might not be equipped for actual sex, but their wrists twist around so they can hold each other’s hands instead of the phasers and communicators that come standard.

McCoy glances from the pair of figures in his hand to the actual captain in the bed. Jim is breathing shallowly, his brow wrinkled like he‘s have fitful fever dreams.

“You need to learn to use your words, darlin’,” he murmurs, carefully placing the last three dolls in the box and sliding it back. Then he toes his boots off and clambers over to the far side of the bed.

Jim stirs as McCoy tucks himself under the covers. “Bones?” He moves his legs restlessly, making a small noise of discomfort.

“Shhh, I’ve got you,” McCoy says, touching his lips to the nape of Jim’s neck. Jim quiets and, after a moment where he seems to be working things out, tugs McCoy’s arm to curl around him.

McCoy smiles and presses closer. Glancing at the nightstand to make sure his comm is turned off, he notices the plate with Jim’s half-eaten dinner.

“Uh, Jim?”

“Hmm?” Jim stretches against him, tucks one foot back between his ankles.

“What the fuck is that Scotty doing to your sandwich?”