trans woman mccoy getting beamed aboard the enterprise in tmp, after walking away from her two shitty boyfriends post five year mission (after they walked away from her first), with literally no one besides uhura, chapel, and scotty knowing she transitioned in the intervening years.
kirk, finding out there on the transporter platform, looking at her in her deep vee jumpsuit, showcasing a type of cleavage she never had before, and the primary emotion in his eyes is anger, isn't it: anger that there's any part of bones that he doesn't know, that he didn't know before anyone else.
mccoy, who'd finally had the space and distance - distance away from the way her life collapsed after her dad's death, after her marriage ended, after james kirk started filling up every single bit of her life, after spock started crowding in and impossibly filling up even more - cast adrift without a purpose for the first time in her life, having had the chance to actually figure things out, and finding a way to be happy, finding a way to be happy. she's got a boyfriend back on earth, a thriving practice, a life.
i need you, bones. badly, kirk says.
where else is she going to be but by his side?
spock walking onto the bridge, and she moves towards him to greet him without thinking, without -
is it surprise, she thinks, in his face? surprise that's so quickly pulled back underneath that perplexing, frustrating, endearing poker face?
she doesn't think so.
she thinks it's guilt.
so that's what she gets.
she gets anger from one of them and guilt from the other, and neither of them are talking. that's fine. she's spent too much time talking the last few years. talking in therapy, talking things out, talking about her families expectations and her father's legacy and her daughter's hero worship and the way jocelyn always accused her of holding something back.
she's held a lot of things back, she thinks.
for what purpose? what did it all matter, in the end?
(isn't she right back where she swore she'd never be?
isn't she right back where she'd knew she'd always end up?)
when this mission is over, she'll leave. she'll go home.
(doesn't that other life feel paper-thin as soon as she's thrown back into the action? doesn't it all rip apart when she's by their sides?)
uhura asks her, in the few seconds of breathing space they have, whether she's missed it.
(scotty gives her a glass of moonshine she downs quick and easy, and she knows which one she prefers.)
they're gonna fight about it. of course they're gonna fight about it. what has she ever held gripped tight in her hands that kirk hasn't tried to grab, that spock hasn't tried to trick her into dropping. what has she ever had that was ever hers and hers alone?
(this, she thinks. me, she thinks.
she used to be better at lying to herself, she thinks.)
it knows only that it needs, commander, spock says. but, like so many of us...it does not know what.
she keeps her eyes steady on the viewscreen.
what do i need, she thinks. what do i know but the fact that i do need.
what it requires of its god, doctor, is the answer to its question, 'is there nothing more?'
what more is there than the universe, spock? she asks.
it's a philosophical question.
it's the least philosophical question she's ever asked.
they lose decker and gain a new lifeform, watch evolution happen before their eyes.
what more is there than the universe?
she can see it in spock's eyes that he's staying. knows it long before he says it. there was a time, she thinks, that kirk wouldn't have even asked, would've taken her staying as guaranteed: he wants her there, so there she'll be.
he's cautious with her, now. cautious in his anger, in the anger they both know he has no right to feel.
he left. he doesn't get to miss the things he missed.
he does anyway.
bones... he says. he's older, and so is she. spock, the bastard, still looks the same as ever.
she wants to make him say it.
she wants to make both of them say it. wants to drag it out of them, beat it out of them, make them choke on it if she has to.
what do i need, she thinks. what do i know but the fact that i do need.
doctor? spock asks. he's got that little worried twist to his mouth that he's never been able to hide, not from her. they're all an open book to each other, aren't they.
aren't they still.
she should make them say it. she should.
she won't.
bones? kirk says, worry, for the first time, spilling out over the anger.
she'll give them their fight. she'll box their fucking ears if she has to. but she can't make him worry and wait, not for this.
she gets to live her life, and if they want to know what's happening - if they want to know her - then that's their responsibility, not hers. he can be angry all he wants. she's angry, too.
but where else is she gonna be, besides at their sides?
(where else, she thinks, are they ever going to end up, but at her side?)
second star on the right? she says.
kirk smiles, but spock takes a step closer, crowding into them like he always pretends he's not doing. she can see it in him, can see it in both of them, that they want to touch her. they don't, not yet. not quite.
but spock shifts just enough to brush his shoulder against her. kirk's smile gets brighter.
Something a lot of people forget about Holmes is that, because ACD was Like That, his 'relatable audience insert' Watson is actually a lot weirder than Holmes is
That is something that is so fun about reading the books, Watson being the narrator adds so much because you slowly realize how bizarre his perspective is and how strangely grounded a lot of Holmes’s ‘strange’ behavior is. There was something so fascinatingly wrong with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and he passed it on to his self insert.
I’ve said it before but most of what is ‘wrong’ with Holmes is largely understandable and a lot of what is wrong with Watson can be explained by him being a British man from the 19th century but there are just some things about Watson that make you go ‘Dude, what the fuck?’
People hate it when one girl is super clingy and obsessive to a concerning degree. But what if both girls in a relationship were super clingy and obsessive to a concerning degree? What could possibly go wrong?
aaaaa omg a coworker just came to my desk like "oh, you changed your name? me too, look!--" and pointed out her badge and then her ringless hand and gleefully announced, "divorce!!" and we exchanged congratulations and fist bumped djdnsnjs best interaction of my entire transition
It's important to remember whenever citing the Picard Double Face Palm that on the other side is Data trying to calculate the parameters of just how much he's accidentally broken his favourite Captain's brain. Again.
"my great grandmother who survived 3 wars and raised 10 children by herself while working in a factory watching me go to therapy because my parents yelled at me" ok but your great grandmother was also miserable. maybe your great grandmother would be happy you try your best to not be miserable
