Grudge Match, Part Two

A few minutes earlier

McCoy avoided Grudge Night with a vengeance. She protested, long and loud, to anyone who would stand still long enough to even give the impression of listening that it was a "damn fool thing to do" and generally grumbling that she had enough injury to fix, between the Klingons and the various scrapes half the crew (but mostly Kirk) got themselves into on an all-too-regular basis to go looking to add to her workload. But she only did this because she had to maintain her reputation as a crotchety joykill.

No one needed to know Grudge Night had been her idea in the first place.

Normally, she stayed in her quarters, or retreated to SickBay. There was always paperwork to do, forms to fill out in triplicate and notations to append to personnel records. Normally, she went to the other side of the ship, and stayed there, far away from violence and blood. Far away from any temptation to unleash the animal inside, let the violence out of the shackles.

Tonight was not a normal night.

And it was all the fault of that unimaginable bastard.

McCoy snarled as she paced in the confines of her quarters. Who the hell did he think he was? She'd only done it to save his life, but bloody James goddamn Tiberius fucking Kirk couldn't be grateful for that. Noooo. He had to be in control of every little detail. He had to approve or deny every little thing. He was such a goddamned pain in the ass, McCoy wondered why she even put up with him.

And now he had her hiding, - hiding, her! – like a mouse in a hole, avoiding the Great Walking Disaster that was her captain. Lenore McCoy didn't hide. Johnna fucking Grimm didn't hide either. Yet here she was, cowering in her quarters to avoid having to deal with Kirk on anything than an emergency, world-is-ending basis.

She whirled and punched the wall, her fist sinking into the bulkhead as if the metal were made of butter. It hurt, blissful pain, for all of three seconds before her supercharged healing soothed the ache and knitted the bones back again.

She should have let him die. If nothing else, she'd have some goddamned peace of mind.

Intellectually, she knew that wasn't true. She wouldn't be able to live with herself if she let Jim go without a fight. It wasn't in her nature. It wasn't even in his. She knew, logically, he'd come around sooner or later. The voice in the back of her head, the one that sounded aggravatingly like Spock, was cool and rational, telling her to just ride it out. But in any of her myriad lives, she had never listened to cool rationalism. She was a creature of instinct, a predator, a hunter and a killer. Her instincts had told her to save Kirk, and she had.

And he seemed intent to make her pay for her mistake.

Suddenly, her quarters were too confining, too close, too tight. She knew it was irrational, but it felt like she couldn't breathe in them, like they weren't stretching far enough to contain her safely. And maybe they weren't; it had been a long time since she'd felt quite this angry, this hurt, this outraged.

Well, fuck it then. The only one keeping her in her quarters was her.

She knew it was a bad idea. She knew her feet would find their way to Grudge Night. She knew that someone would end up taking the brunt of her rage. Knew she'd be very remorseful and self-castigating tomorrow. Knew that, right then, she didn't care.

The door hissed open, and McCoy stalked out into the ship, almost spoiling for a fight. God help anyone who got in her way.

oOoOoOo

Also a few minutes ago

Kirk typically avoided Grudge Night, though not because he didn't want to participate. Bones had had to talk him into the whole thing to begin with, resulting in an hours-long conversation about crew morale and stress relief and charts of biochemical responses and psychological studies that made his eyes glaze over simply thinking about them. The crew had enough to deal with, without adding beating the crap out of each other. But McCoy had protested, loud and long, and made him sit until he agreed to it. The speed at which she'd assumed responsibility for extra broken bones, bloody noses and bruised egos had been dizzying and, almost before he knew it, he was agreeing to the whole thing.

He had a reputation to maintain, after all, as a seat-of-the-pants wild card. No one needed to know Grudge Night hadn't been his idea.

Normally, he stayed in his quarters or in his ready room, pushing through the paperwork that being the Captain engendered. The forms and personnel records seemed to procreate as they sat in their pile on his desk, padd after padd stacking until the workload seemed impossible for one man to wade through. He signed off on more disciplinary recommendations and promotions on Grudge Night than any other night.

Tonight was not a normal night.

And it was all the fault of that unimaginable bitch.

Kirk snarled as he paced in the confines of his ready room. Who the hell did she think she was? He'd known the risks, going onto a hostile ship, had been prepared for whatever the consequences had been. But bloody Lenore goddamn Honoria fucking McCoy couldn't let things happen as they would. She couldn't let her iron control slip. Nooooo. She had to impose her will on every little detail. She had to play God with every little fucking thing. She was such a goddamned pain in the ass, Kirk wondered why he even put up with her.

And now she had him hiding, - hiding, him! – like a mouse in a hole, avoiding the Great Walking Disaster that was his CMO. James T. Kirk didn't hide. Yet here he was, cowering in his ready room to avoid having to deal with McCoy on anything than an emergency, world-is-ending basis.

He slammed his hands into the bulkhead, feeling it give under the force of the blow. It hurt, blissful pain, for all of three seconds before his system flagged it as an annoyance and promptly ignored it. His skin was crawling, like thousands of insects swarming over his arms and legs, infesting his back and chest, until he felt like he could gouge down to bone and muscle to tear it all off.

She should have let him die. If nothing else, he'd have some goddamned peace of mind.

Intellectually, he knew that wasn't true. He knew he should be grateful for the continuance of his life. It wasn't in his nature to do anything but fight against the inevitable. He knew, logically, he should forgive Bones, that she'd been unable to think about living without him. She'd done what she thought was best, even though she had to have known he'd be pissed. The voice in the back of his head, the one that sounded aggravatingly like Spock, was cool and rational, was telling him to just get over it. But he had never listened to cool rationalism. He was a captain who flew by instinct, shot from the hip and reacted on a hair-trigger instinctual grasp of facts that bordered on supernatural skill.

All of those were screaming with betrayal and fear and frustration and the unholy clamour in his head translated into one thing: deep, endless rage.

Suddenly, his quarters were too confining, too close, too tight. He knew it was irrational, but it felt like he couldn't breathe in them, like they weren't stretching far enough to contain him safely. And maybe they weren't; it had been a long time since he'd felt quite this angry, this betrayed, this outraged.

Well, fuck it then. The only one keeping him in his ready room was him.

He knew it was a bad idea. He knew his feet would find their way to Grudge Night. He knew that someone would end up taking the brunt of his rage. Knew he'd be very remorseful and self-castigating tomorrow. Knew that, right then, he didn't care.

The door hissed open, and Kirk stalked out into the ship, spoiling for a fight. God help anyone who got in his way.

oOoOoOo

Now

The silence was unnerving, the absolute unnatural quiet of a large crowd deathly afraid of making any sound to draw the attention of either of the two. Uhura choked on the scream trapped in her throat, fought to keep from curling up into a little, unthreatening ball so neither of them thought she was of any interest at all.

Spock's voice, calmly announcing the final match of the evening, dropped in the utterly still room like a shattering mirror. McCoy and Kirk moved towards the ring, eerily mirroring the other's pace. Slow. Measured. Coiled tight as a spring.

Apex predators stalking each other. Waiting to see who would break first.

Grudge Night was supposed to be about release of tension, working out problems in a safe, if somewhat violent, manner. It was supposed to be about restoring morale, fixing camaraderie. God help her, Uhura could even see the benefit in that now.

But watching Kirk and McCoy climb into the ring and stand in opposite corners, Uhura knew deep in her gut that this particular grudge match was going to end up with someone dead.

Kirk flexed his hands, staring at McCoy. McCoy reached into a pocket of her pants, pulling out a roll of some thin material which she began to wind around her hands. Uhura was at the wrong angle to see more than a third of McCoy's face, just enough to know she was talking. Whatever the Chief Medical Officer was saying, she spoke too softly for it to carry. But the effect her words had on the Captain were obvious. The more McCoy spoke, the tighter Kirk's shoulders tensed. The longer McCoy taunted him, the whiter his knuckles fisted at his sides. His jaw jumped, and if it was in time with his heartbeat, Uhura hoped that Christine Chapel was in the crowd, because McCoy didn't look like she was in the mood for emergency cardiac resuscitation.

BANG

Kirk slammed his hand into the table, and Uhura jumped, panic surging into her veins. Under the force of the blow, the canister containing the tags fell onto its side, clanging softly as it rolled to the edge and thumped onto the floor. The crowd shifted uneasily. Only Spock was calm, immovable, impassive. He merely raised an eyebrow at Kirk's hand, slammed onto the table in front of him.

"The rules of Grudge Night are clear," Spock said, in his normal officious tone of voice that now seemed wildly out of place amid the tension and hostility. Kirk and McCoy's heads turned towards him. "Bring it to the ring. Work it out in the ring. Leave it in the ring." His eyebrow went up another notch. After a significant pause, he added, "Neither of you are in the ring."

"Then we'll get in the ring." The captain's eyes still promised violence, but his voice was eerily calm.

"After you." The doctor's voice was also calm, but the slight bow and gesture towards the ring were nothing less than mockery.

Uhura watched her two superior officers climb into the ring, and the bottom finally dropped out of her stomach. She didn't believe in silly superstitions, but her Nona had been convinced psychic abilities flowed in her matrilineal blood. The old woman had been more than a little dotty, but as the certainty that there would be death here before the night was out was so strong in her chest, tightening her lungs and halting her breath, that she couldn't help but wonder if there was something to her grandmother's bedtime stories after all.

oOoOoOo

The chromosome was nigh-instantaneous, but there was a learning curve to knowing what the body was now capable of. McCoy had had to learn fast, back on Mars, back in the old days, facing down Sarge as he mutated into savagery and rage. Fighting for her own life, for Sam, for the whole damn planet. Kirk hadn't had to fight for his life yet; the dawning realization came slower for him.

Well, time for her to ring the school bell, then.

Even as pissed off as he was, Kirk couldn't hit her. McCoy knew he wouldn't. No matter how enraged he was, no matter how out-of-control, Jim Kirk had his code of ethics, and beating on women simply wasn't on it. It didn't matter that he knew she could smack a Gorn into unconsciousness, take anything short of a nuke and live to tell the tale. She had breasts and cleaned up pretty, so she was shunted into the special category that demanded chivalry. He wasn't going to hit her first, no matter how badly he wanted to.

As Kirk stood there, hands trembling with iron-clad self-control, McCoy reached out and socked him across the jaw.

His head snapped back, comical disbelief flashing across his face, and he staggered back a couple of paces. McCoy hadn't even bothered pulling the punch by much. Anyone else, and he'd require neurosurgery to repair the massive brain trauma she'd just dealt him. But Kirk wasn't anyone else, not anymore. The most that blow would do was scramble him for a few seconds, while his increased healing got busy and repaired the damage.

The clinical part of McCoy's brain reeled off the process. The lizard brain thought hitting him felt fantastic. It wanted to do it again.

McCoy listened to the lizard, and followed with a fist to Kirk's nose. Cartilage crumpled under her knuckles with a satisfying crunch, and Kirk slammed into the ropes. He hung off them for a second, dazed and unfocused. Beyond him, in the blur of hyperfocus, she could see a sea of astonished faces.

Surprise, folks. Your surgeon is a badass.

"C'mon, kid," she said, knowing she was reckless, but simply not caring. "Gonna let your ass get beat by a girl?"

Her words hit their mark with pinpoint accuracy. Time slowed, just for a second, and she had all the time in the world to watch the fog clear, the words register, the exact moment when Kirk lost his shit, pulled himself off the ropes with blood on his face, and came at her.

It broke the tension in the crowd, and the silence snapped under the weight of the noise.

He was sloppy, telegraphing every punch before he threw it. McCoy didn't let that lull her into complacency. Eventually, the kid would realize what he could do, and his brain would spin into overdrive to catch up with his body. And that's when things would get interesting.

He telegraphed another slug, this one a vicious haymaker at a strength he hadn't yet processed. If it connected, it would have taken her head off. Instead, she sidestepped and dropped under his arm, so close it was barely a hair from her chin, and jabbed her elbow into Kirk's gut.

The air whuffed out of him. He bent double with a hilarious expression that on another day would have sent her into fits of laughter. Today, it only fanned the savage, burning glee. She followed the gut-shot with a knee to his face, a fatal blow. But Kirk just reeled back, streaming blood and snot anew from his nose. He dropped to a knee with one hand cradling his stomach, the other wiping his nose and chin.

Any second now…

McCoy bounced backwards, on the balls of her feet, hands loosely in front of her. "You're sloppy, Jim," she sneered. She knew where every single one of his buttons were, and she ruthlessly jabbed at them all. "Sloppy and reckless. I don't know what Starfleet was doing when they gave you the damn ship. Anyone with so breathtaking a death wish needs to be under psychiatric observation, not on the bridge of a starship."

Any second…

Kirk picked himself off the ground, moving like molasses. His head came up like a glacier, slow and inexorable. His eyes focused on McCoy, and she felt a frisson of fear shiver down her spine. The rage in his eyes was near mindless, endless fathoms that drew on wells as deep as childhood.

Time slowed to a crawl around her. The catcalls of the crew blurred into a long, continuous low buzz. She knew the biochemical process, had studied her own scans and bloodwork under the most microscopic of scrutinies available. Knew the speed at which her hypothalamus and adrenal glands communicated, knew how much cortisol was kicking fatty acids into her bloodstream, could almost feel the adrenaline rush as it happened, every moment stretched out to exquisite eternity.

Knew it the exact microsecond Kirk's body woke up from its sluggish dormancy, could almost see through blood and bone and into veins and organs. Knew when his hypothalamus and adrenal glands broke the warp barrier, when his adrenaline went lightspeed.

Felt the vicious grin of elation stretch across her face. Time's up.

Here we go.

oOoOoOo

"You have to stop this!"

Uhura's fingers death-gripped on Spock's arm which, since he abhorred most forms of public physical contact, was a big no-no, but she couldn't care about that. Not when two of the most senior officers aboard the ship, the two most important officers on the ship, seemed hellbent on murdering each other in front of their bloodthirsty, screaming crew.

Spock's glance was surreally calm. "It would be illogical to put an end to a fight that was the entire purpose of this evening's Grudge Night," he said, and went back to watching the fight.

Uhura shot a wide-eyed look at the ring, where the Captain and the doctor were slugging it out so fast her eyes refused to even register all their motions. "They're going to kill each other!"

"On the contrary. I have already identified four crippling strikes, thirteen serious injuries and two killing blows. If they were going to kill each other, they would already be dead."

Uhura's mouth flapped open and shut for a few minutes, and her eyes blinked rapidly. "What?" she said faintly. "How is that even possible?"

This time, Spock gave her a full look, full of secrets and sympathy. "That," he said, "is a question for Doctor McCoy and Captain Kirk."

Uhura couldn't find the wherewithal to protest when he turned his full attention back to the fight.

oOoOoOo

Somewhere in the flurry of blows, McCoy realized she was laughing. The rage was gone, burned away in like mist under sun, transmuted by alchemical blood and pain.

She was a mess of bruises and broken bones, her system stretched to its limit by the injuries she'd sustained so far. Her ankle was swollen in her boot, a few teeth loose in her mouth, the taste of copper a constant companion in the back of her throat. She should have died a dozen times, would die if she weren't who she was, didn't know if she could die when faced with this kind of abuse.

But she was free.

For the first time since that horrible night in Olduvai, facing down Sarge with the fate of the world crushing down on her, she was free. In her long years and multiple lifetimes, she had never been able to let go. Not with the Xindi, not with the Romulans. Always alert, always observant. Always careful. Always leashed. No one could take the punishment she could deal. The world was tissue paper, fragile stuff that would rip unless she kept vigilant.

But none of that mattered anymore. Because now Kirk was like her, and he could take it. He would take it all and come back for more. She was free. She wasn't alone.

And that weight lifted off her shoulders, and she laughed with delight as it fell away.

Abruptly, the fight changed. Kirk's movements shifted, incoming attacks becoming lazier, almost playful. With a start, she glanced up at his face – she'd been paying more attention to his torso, where she could best predict his movements – and realized the rage was gone from him too. He was grinning, laughing. Eyes warm and bright instead of hot and dark.

Another weight of burden fell away. All was forgiven.

She swung at him again in no particular style, feeling the aches and agonies now. They'd be gone in a minute, but it was enough to slow her just a hair. Kirk caught her arm in a fist, wrapped his other arm around hers, and yanked her into him.

She hit his chest and his free arm snaked under hers, trapping her arms under his. His eyes glittered as he stared down at her, and her breath caught in her throat. The rest of the room faded into background noise. Oh, she had missed that look. "You're a pain in the ass," he murmured.

She blew a breath upward, tossing her bangs out of her eyes. "Looked in a mirror lately?"

"The hell am I supposed to do with you, Bones?"

She shrugged, a smile pulling at the corners of her mouth. "Either kiss me or kill me. Either way, we're being stared at."

Kirk jerked his head up, seeming to realize for the first time where they were and how many people were present. He glanced back down at her, shrugged and said, "Fuck 'em."

The smile was definitely there now. She could feel it. "Really? The whole ship? I know you have a reputation for being a man-whore, Jim, but that might be taking your interest in crew morale a little too far."

"Smartass," he replied. The move was sudden and unexpected. McCoy shrieked in a decidedly undignified manner as Kirk ducked under his left arm, set his shoulder against her chest and swung her ass-up over his shoulder. She flailed briefly, but had no leverage to free herself.

"The hell are you doing?" she demanded.

"Setting up for round two," he replied. "My quarters or yours?"

Her breath caught again, and a completely different sort of heat flared along her synapses. "Bed's bigger in mine," she said, a trifle breathlessly, "but yours has more stuff to break."

"Mine it is then," he said.

The last thing she heard as the door closed behind them was a plaintive voice calling, "But who won?"