Dr Leonard "Bones" McCoy (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
homeostatic) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
westwhere2022-12-10 07:41 pm
homeostatic) wrote in westwhere2022-12-10 07:41 pm
oc nu necheth windes blast and weder strong
WHO: mccoy and you
WHEN: december
WHERE: the inn & around the grounds
WHAT: catch-all top levels of winter pastimes, spooky ghosts, indoor hobbies, and necessary self care
WARNINGS: event warnings; will add any if this changes
WHEN: december
WHERE: the inn & around the grounds
WHAT: catch-all top levels of winter pastimes, spooky ghosts, indoor hobbies, and necessary self care
WARNINGS: event warnings; will add any if this changes
no subject
( Throughout this joyous musical interlude, prospective mental breakdown, convulsive blinking and overall staggered indignation, Lan Wangji might be forgiven for only murmuring: )
What occurs to clocks on their tenth-day anniversary?
( ...a cultural difference, surely. )
this is the greatest thing ever
I relieve you of cat herding for the evening, ( he declares, shifting the crate against his chest. ) I'm gonna introduce our furry friends here to the mice in the stables, then I got a date with a bottle of wine.
You in?
pleased 2 serve
( The cats will be relieved of their indignity, promiscuity and inelegance.
The doctor will ease himself to comfort.
All will be right in the world —
...but for the latter half of the proposition, mouth petrified agape in the thickening, dusty clout of warmth the room's countless braziers breathe out like dragonic exhalations. Drink, then.
It horrifies him, blood relieved of his cheeks, pallor a misfortune of miscalculation. In his lap, hands clench and dispel their clasp, fingers stiff when a pretty feline creature cradles her head between them. He rasps out: )
Drink does not favour me.
( ...notice here, sir. The choice of articulation. After a time, a man does not choose his cups. They find him lacking. )
no subject
One glass, ( he clarifies, maybe hoping to assuage the man's terror, ) A nightcap.
no subject
( Ah. But then, they are but two men overcome by a plethora of cats, the doctor McCoy does not understand he has entered the territory of perpetual landmines. Allow Lan Wangji's mien to blanch to the powdering of the snow that dusts their sills, before he murmurs: )
Unadvisable. ( But then, perhaps a man is owed the debt of sophisticated warning. ) Minacious.
( If the brush strokes to spell out this particular hint were broader, Lan Wangi's master of calligraphy would cordially evacuate him from this metaphorical exercise.
Perhaps, mouth thinned and hand stiffened, best to detour the doctor's interests: )
You drink for sport?
no subject
To relax, ( McCoy stresses, gesturing at him with the box of felines. More little paws emerge to pat-pat-pat over his fingers. )
Which you could sorely use. Glass of wine, soak in a hot bath, ( Wangji gets an eyeball then, and Bones decides to go all-in on teasing him, ) Massage from that strapping young man of yours...
no subject
( Indulgence, inebriation, idleness. Lan Wangji's very core might tolerate each of these items, independently. They send him to the dull, shivered heavens of indignation, in rapid succession.
Until the good doctor, grace be, ends his parade of vice with... flattery.
Of Wei Ying.
Careful, so careful, watch the unbinding of his fingers, loose, watch how he coaxes the trinkets of his diplomacy back to this sleeves' pocket. Then, only residually astringent: )
You have encountered him.
( ...and found Wei Ying apparently not wanting. Ah, but to be a fly on every wall Wei Ying has dutifully honeyed before charming base metals to mirror's silvers. Of course this rapprochement was a foregone conclusion. )
no subject
Here and there. You've got to remember, it's been years for me, but I recall his kindness when I had taken sick in Serthica.
( Five years, to be precise, a long road between the cadet he had been then, to the seasoned Starfleet Officer he is now. McCoy adds, slyly: )
...and he's gorgeous. Were I you, I wouldn't be wastin' my time with cats.
( Sir why are you not tapping that right now? )
no subject
( Drenched, his voice. Positively saturated. A wonderfully embittered marinade. Don't mind if Lan Wangji salts his own hemorrhaging wounds with an airy: )
You would expend it singing his praises.
( Perhaps this is how better men live, with cats sprawling in their laps and braziers licking pleasantly at the roots of their backs and trading courtesies over the other halves of their lives. Perhaps he is not intended to grow brittle and cold and to exit his own skin, as if he manipulates sooner than lives the moment.
But then, he is not the better man. )
How fares your family?
( He fled. Returned. The doctor, who also possesses kin and kind in his own world. )
no subject
McCoy smiles then, touched. )
She's well, thank you. Joanna's twelve now and growin' like a weed. What about your son; how's he getting on?
no subject
( A man, his wandered eyes and Lan Wangji's sword. A strained triarchy. It summons his bile, sours it down his throat. It trickles in slow, steadied beads, then, carefully: )
Some better suit song. ( ...and distance. From dead, roused and necromanced husbands, who skillfully dance steps around their allegiance. ) Others, silence.
( Cue, the inevitable, the explicable: a lowered gaze, his hand travelling the swollen span of a cat's arched back, knotting and binding in all the ways that earn her purrs. He is not for the easy expression of affections. Joanna, twelve and grown. Growing still. )
My son remains beside me. ( A blessing. A curse. He cannot say. But he thinks, to lose the company of a child — is enough hardship that his own hand seeks touch, hovered, then tickling down over the mountain chain of Bones' knuckles, before urging him to stroke the cat Wangji had suffocated with attention. ) Strength. I do not envy you the loss of your daughter.