Fic: Inter Spem et Metum, 2/2. Kirk/McCoy.
Jun. 3rd, 2009 12:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
katydidmischief posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
cjs_owndisclaimer. Not mine. Never have been and I'll only ever be playing in the sandbox.
title. Inter Spem et Metum
rating. Adult
pairing. Kirk/McCoy
summary. Life is what happens between hope and fear.
notes. Death of a minor character/child.
No one from senior staff went to Risa.
The enlisted personnel hadn't been able to get off of the ship quick enough, though, filling shuttles to capacity as they cheered. They'd changed into civvies, taken every available credit they had to their names, and ran from their quarters to the amusement of those who'd volunteered to stay behind and keep the ship running. They had no clue as to the tight, high-emotion feeling permeating the Bridge.
Jim had reported for duty as soon as Lt. Commander Klein of the USS Roosevelt had reported Bones' safe arrival aboard and his morose and heavy mood had been immediately apparent. While he yelled at no one – they were not the source of his foul state of mind – there was a definite impression among them all that a single slip of tongue or finger could result in destroying the precarious balance.
Through unspoken agreement, they were all unnervingly silent as they sat or stood at their stations and went about their business, exchanging glances every now and again with the person nearest them. Rather, they did so until Uhura got a report from Command and she interjected, “Captain, there's a message from Starfleet for you.”
He rubbed his eyes, blinking himself out of the reverie he'd fallen into, and turned in his chair to face the woman. “Read it, Lieutenant.”
“Sir, it's sealed and labeled for you only,” she explained as she shook her head. Jim wondered for a moment why she was being so proper, calling him by his title and respecting his station, but he stopped when she added, “It's from Admiral Pike.”
He was up, handing command over to his first officer and leaving the Bridge without hesitation, heading for his private office. Perhaps a design flaw or an attempt to make staff a little more humble, the Captain's office was down the corridor and to the left and amounted to little more than a large closet. It was not the grand space he'd imagined, with heavy desks and books, a place for crew to seek out the person who led them, but a room with a metal built-in desk and a few chairs, white and cold.
The computer unit flashed from the floor where it had fallen during their last battle, demanding his access code and he punched it in with jabs of a finger. Words appeared, white on black, and Jim felt the tension in his chest tighten.
I tried, but they've denied the request three times now, Jim.
If anyone outside his door heard the computer smash into the wall, they were wise enough to not mention it.
Bones arrived on Earth for the first time in eight months to Winona Kirk and Christopher Pike looking at him as though he were some swooning maiden, about to fall to pieces at their feet. He very nearly turned around to hide inside the shuttle until it left, not wanting to deal with pity and sympathy, especially from Jim's mother or his former Captain.
Gripping the strap of his duffel bag tighter, he finally moved through the throng of people disembarking and came to a stop before them. He hugged Winona reflexively when she wrapped her arms around his broad shoulders, enjoying the feel of it for only a minute before the squeak of Pike's wheelchair reminded him where he was and why.
“Sir,” he greeted, shaking the hand extended to him.
Pike patted his arm before letting go, telling him, “I'm sorry I couldn't get Jim here,” with a short, sad frown.
Bones could sense the annoyance of the man at his fellow Admirals, but McCoy only shrugged, not entirely sure he'd have wanted Jim with him anyway. He was too hellbent on deciding what was good for Bones and what wasn't, to the point that he'd wanted to punch Jim's lights out. He needed to know some things and make peace with them to move on, but Jim wouldn't even let him see the fucking death certificate.
“Leonard,” Winona called softly, touching his shoulder.
“Sorry,” he muttered and told Pike, “It's better for him to stay with the ship anyway. Bastard gets into enough trouble on a daily basis with a full medical bay at his beck and call.” He realized too late which thought had come flying out of his mouth until Mrs. Kirk was looking at him with a hint of disappointment in her eyes.
He flinched back, wishing like hell she'd drop the hand she was holding but the look on her face disappeared and Bones instantly took back every ill thought he'd had in the last forty-eight hours about his lover. The space at his side seemed so bitterly cold and he shifted the bag on his back, needing to reach the nearest computer.
It would be a good hour and a half before he'd get that, having to drive from the Iowa shipyard to the Kirk family home where he would spend the night before the three returned to catch the first shuttle to Savannah. Pike and Winona had gone straight to the kitchen, friends, he'd learned, from back when he'd been working on his dissertation and he'd screwed up his courage to knock on her door.
With the computer in the living room, he had a moment of privacy as he hit record and spoke. “The next time one of us has to go anywhere for any fucking reason, I'm recommending to Starfleet that Enterprise is the vessel to do it because I nearly committed assault against Captain Prutesti. Green-skinned bitch,” he muttered, pausing with the ebb of his anger before telling the screen, “Try to be in one goddamn piece when I get back.”
It was the closest he ever came to an apology and a declaration of love, the same kind of sentiment he used when Jim was standing on the transporter pad with a cocky grin on his face that always made Bones want to toss him against a wall and fuck him where everyone could see.
Groaning at himself, he tried to press the urge down, wanting his body to accept what his mind had – there was a time for response, and this was not it. Not when he couldn't get his head to stop dancing between memories of pink birthday parties, yellow walls adorned with shelves of dolls and figurines, and horseback rides in mid-summer.
Pike came up beside him, letting one hand fall to the back of his neck and it felt so intolerably intimate that he shrugged it off. He didn't bother to cover it with a stretch like Jim would've, merely sat there with the screen of the computer telling them both that the message was half-way through transit. Only after it clicked over to read Transmission Complete, did he dare to speak.
“He wouldn't tell me what killed her,” he said, not really to Pike or to Winona though they were there to hear it. It was more for himself, to try to maintain the one thing that was keeping him grounded – irritation at his lover. “He kept saying I don't need to know COD, and...”
“You don't,” Winona cut in abruptly with her eyes wide and hands gripping the back of the couch. She sighed as she forced her fingers to relax, moving around the piece of furniture to sit on the coffee table in front of him, sandy blonde hair falling down her shoulders as she leaned forward to rest her hands on his knees. She looked so much like Jim in that posture, it hurt, having seen it not that long ago.
She drew in a breath and pursed her lips, before wetting them with her tongue, and telling him, “When Jim's older brother, Sam, died, my husband at the time was off having an affair with a friend of mine and I was off-planet.
“Sam had run away, hitchhiking west. He'd apparently made it as far as Nevada when a man picked him up,” she continued, “He killed my boy, left his body on the side of some desert road. By the time the police came the next morning to pick up his remains, a scavenger animal had plucked out one eye and part of his face.”
Bones grimaced at that, at how easily she could recite what had happened to her child.
“Frank was unreachable by the Nevada State Police and Jimmy was barely a teenager, so they contacted Starfleet who sent me the reports and the pictures.” Her face grew pinched, as though she were remembering the exact moment she'd opened the files to find the horror within. “I was home a few hours later and I can't tell you why Jim did it, but he got into my bag and he was in the pictures in seconds. Neither one of us could sleep well for weeks because no matter how hard we tried, we had that image in our heads of Sam at the end.”
He closed his eyes as Jim's actions slid into place, making sense, wondering how much of his own tragedy had brought back the memories of Sam's for Jim. He groaned, “Goddamn idiot,” as the thought of how little sleep Kirk had gotten over the preceding days hit him.
“He loves you, Leonard, so much and I know that sometimes you just get so aggravated that you don't know if you want to hug him or hurt him,” she said, voice warm. “I know it probably didn't make sense, what he was doing, but Jimmy's like his father – he'll do anything to protect the ones he loves. Even if it means sacrificing himself.”
The funeral was small with family, a few friends, and the priest at the head of the grave. McCoy stood off to the side with a cousin holding his hand and an aunt behind him, fingers buried in the curls of hair at the nape of his neck. He wanted, badly, to shake them off, but all attempts to elude the two women had ended when the service began with the most traditional of words.
“Ashes to ashes, dust to dust...”
He had missed the first wake getting to Earth and the second had been too painful, Bones leaving five minutes after walking in; no one blamed him. Standing over the hole in the ground that would put irrevocable distance between himself and Joanna, he wished like hell he'd used that pity to his advantage, avoiding this horrendous and public goodbye in favor of whatever liquor he could find.
Not for the first time since he woke did Bones wish for Jim to be there. He'd have stood by McCoy, sober and professional, until it was over, then whisked him off to get so drunk standing would have become an issue. Maybe they'd have had sex, maybe not, but either way they would have been together and as fucking emasculating as it was to admit it, Bones knew that was what he needed.
The priest droned on for a while longer, bible perched between long slender fingers, though nearly all of it was lost in the wash of white noise that flooded Bones' ears. He heard only the collective sing-song of “Amen” and then the shovel was being pressed into his hands as the casket was lowered into the ground.
His heart beat fast in his chest and it felt like a metal corset had been wrapped around his chest and tightened. The panic, the anxiety was rising in him, and with an anguished look, he threw the shovel down and blinked back tears.
He couldn't do this. He couldn't be the one to throw the first heft of dirt onto the pristine top of the white box that housed his daughter's remains.
With all eyes on him, Bones stepped backwards, completely ignorant of his aunt as he stepped on her, and fled to lean against a nearby tree. He bent forward, one hand on the trunk; he knew he was still in full-view of the gathered party, but he couldn't stop himself from vomiting when the bile rose in his throat and his stomach clenched painfully.
A hand landed on his back, soothing and familiar and he wanted to tell Pike to fuck off for a minute, but it was Jim's voice that told him, “Easy, Bones,” with the press of kiss to his temple.
If he hadn't been hit with a wave of dry heaves, he would have asked how Kirk had gotten there, why he hadn't come sooner. He would have asked the same when he finished, but Jim handed him a water bottle and guided him back with one hand wrapped around McCoy's.
He let go only when Bones took the shovel back from the priest, yet those calming fingers found their way to his back, touching him through the heavy cloth of his black suit.
The first bits of dirt hit the lid, making Bones stand stock still as he looked down. Wordlessly, he handed the shovel to Jim though he didn't move, unable to take his eyes from the sight as one by one, people obscured the casket from the world. He was so entranced, he missed Sulu, Chekov, and Scotty take their turns at the end of the line. Nor Uhura or Spock.
“Hey, you need more time?” Jim whispered to him, breaking his thoughts like the shatter of glass and Bones looked around to see that most of the group had dispersed; the diggers were waiting to the side with a bored haze in their stare.
He looked down at the pit, shook his head, and said, “Get me out of here, Jim.”
Jim refused to tell him how much trouble the senior staff was about to get in; an ensign from Engineering who had been recruited as a driver and didn't know McCoy from Chekov let it slip that Starfleet had ordered them twice to remain at the port in Risa, but Kirk had ignored the Admirals both times. And while Bones was grateful for his timely appearance, he still reamed his lover out on the ride back to his Savannah home.
He only stopped when Jim pulled him back against the seat, nudged his nose up to Bones' ear and told him in a hushed tone, “You needed me,” before adding, “And anyway, it's not like we stole the ship to run off for playtime – we came to Earth, the fucking seat of the Federation, and it was a majority decision among the crew.”
Pike's snort from the front seat did not go unnoticed though no one remarked about it. There was no time to as the car came to a stop in front of the modest home, exterior walls a shade of autumnal red with black wrought-iron railing along the two-tier wrap-around porch. White sheer curtain waved in open windows and as Jim hopped out of the car, he could see the people milling about inside.
The front door was open and the man who answered the door was dressed primly in pinstriped black trousers and a white linen shirt. “Dr. McCoy,” he greeted as he passed into the foyer.
“Joseph,” Bones said with a nod before handing over his jacket and squaring his shoulders. He would have to face those mourning his daughter at some point and he could only hope that the old adage “the sooner the better” applied here, so he could make use of Scotty's new upgrades to the transporter system and return to quarters. Or the still, it really didn't matter much to him at that moment.
Which he knew spoke to his state of mind – looking forward to being beamed around and drinking the swill the Chief Engineer made from fluids Bones hesitated to name – yet he knew enough to know that he had slid into the fourth stage of the Kubler-Ross model for grieving: depression. Drinking wouldn't help that, not when too much booze made him maudlin, and still, he didn't care. He missed Joanna already, missed her from the minute Jim had told him that his time as a father had come to an unexpected end.
Jim touched his wrist gently. “Kitchen's pretty quiet if you want to start there,” he said, pointing toward the aforementioned room where a handful of people were picking, lazily, at hors d'oeuvres while talking softly; wisps of conversation floated to his ear, and he nodded in acquiescence.
He took a step toward wanting to join those he could now identify as his cousins, only he couldn't go any further and he looked at Jim.
“I'm not going anywhere,” Kirk promised.
Bones lifted an eyebrow and told him, “Just don't flirt with my cousin Marie,” and the tension bled out of his joints when the corner of Jim's mouth lifted into a half-smile.
Bones made it barely half an hour before stealing a cigarette from his uncle John and digging out the bottle of whiskey he'd hidden under the porch when he was seventeen. His ex-wife would have scolded him like a child were she to see him now, would have told him to stop double-fisting his vices and come inside before people started to worry.
Instead, Jim came out as the moon rose in the night sky, fireflies flittering around the yard and the bray of the horses from the stable. It was peaceful and serene and Jim slid onto the porch swing beside him, feet flat on the floorboards. He started a gentle rock, back and forward, a parody of the rhythm Bones used to set when Joanna was a colicky newborn.
And there was no way for Jim to know that, of course, but as the seconds ticked by and the motion continued, Bones felt his careful resolve begin to falter. He took another sip from the bottle, a slow drag off the cigarette, and closed his eyes as the rocking continued. His mouth opened, prepared to tell Jim to stop, but he gagged on the word.
“Just you and me, Jo,” Leonard murmured over the squalling infant in his arms and grunted as he fell back onto the swing. He swung one foot up, one setting the pace as they began to sway. “It's okay, sweetheart, oh, it's okay. I'm here.”
“Jim,” he finally forced out and declared, “Stop.”
But the rocking continued.
“Daddy!”
McCoy was up in an instant, tearing from his bed to two-year old Joanna's side. Relief flooded him; she was fine, the scream a product of whatever nightmare had left her scared and in need of comfort. “What's the matter, Jo? Bad dream?” he asked as he picked her up and reached down for the receiving blanket she never let out of her sight.
The nod of her head was felt more than seen, eyes buried in his shoulder, and he kissed her hair. The floorboard creaked when he moved toward the rocking chair in the corner, but she yanked on the fistful of tee shirt to get his attention. “Outside,” she said.
He kissed her forehead this time, wandering down to the swing; settling in, he got comfortable and began to rock.
“Jim, please,” he pleaded.
“Just me, you and the stars out here, Bones,” Jim responded, heel rising and falling from the boards slowly but surely. “Spock and Uhura are getting everyone into cars, Sulu's taking care of mom and Admiral Pike. Chekov and Scotty are preparing the ship ready to get back underway.” He leaned over, one hand in the other man's hair, and told Bones, “No one around to see anything.”
McCoy blinked and set his feet down, stopping the swing with a slosh of the bottle he'd forgotten about and the burn of the equally forgotten cigarette. He said nothing as he stood, abandoning the liquor on the porch step and dropped the lit stick to the ground, stomping it out before striding toward the small stable a few yards away.
His father had built it, many years ago, when they brought home their first mare and Bones had tried to ride it – all of nine years old – without any idea of how to do so. He'd nearly been trampled after Augusta had thrown him and his mother had demanded there be a stall for the horse, if only to keep her son from getting somewhere he shouldn't. Unable to rent one, his father had built it himself with scrap from a friend and still it stood, not impressive or imposing but beautiful nonetheless.
It was also a wonderful distraction, Bones knew subconsciously, because horses had been his Daddy's pride, not his or Joanna's. They reminded him of a pain already grieved though always a sore wound; David McCoy had been died a year before the divorce, right at the beginning of the end, only his life had been a long one with many triumphs.
Joanna's was not, his mind supplied and he angrily pushed it away. He didn't need to think like that, didn't need to think of her at all right now. He kicked at a stack of hay laid near the main door, listening to the horses whinny and breathe.
“You can't run from it, Bones,” Jim said into the silence of the stable. Silhouetted by the moonlight at his back, Kirk told him, “You can try to bury it, stick in a jar, become fucking Vulcan, but it just catches up to you and you're right back at square one.”
“What the fuck are you going on about, kid,” he spits, reverting back to the nickname Jim had loathed.
“Grief. I'm talking about that annoying motherfucker that sits in your chest and makes you puke until all you can do is cry like a damn woman because it's that or fight someone. And I can tell you from experience, the fighting does nothing but give you more pain.” Jim's voice rang through the space, strong and clear and Bones wanted nothing more than to beat the life out of his best friend.
Except for the part where he was right. His chest had hurt since Jim had told him, unbearably at times, and while he'd preferred to find someone who'd bloody his knuckles and bruise his jaw, McCoy had seen the fallout enough times with Jim to know he'd still feel just as empty after the dermal regenerators did their jobs.
“What if I want to fuck you into the floor instead?”
“Don't, Bones. I won't take...”
McCoy exploded, “For God's sake, Jim!” He threw down the bridle he'd picked up off the hook, hands clenching in anger. “What do you want from me? I'm thirty-two fucking years old with a dead ex-wife and a dead daughter and you just stand there telling me there's no one to see me do whatever shit you expect me to do when there's goddamn you.” He picked up the nearest object he could – a coiled set of reins – and threw them hard against the wall. The next thing to fly was a horseshoe he'd ripped from a hook on the side of one of the stalls and it slammed through a high window near Jim's head, shattering the glass.
After that, it was a hailstorm of whatever wasn't nailed down as McCoy's grief reached its pinnacle. By the time he was done, sweaty and exhausted and somewhat humiliated, the horses were agitated, Jim was sporting more than a few scratches from the objects he hadn't been able to dodge, and the Enterprise's senior staff were holding back the family members who'd been lingering at their cars when the screaming started.
“How's your chest feel now?” Jim asked, more of his usual tone in those words than in any spoken since Joanna died.
Bones muttered, “Asshole.”
He hadn't let Jim say two words to the crewman who beamed them back to the ship, only took his hand and yanked him through the corridors toward the Captain's quarters while Jim sputtered behind him. It felt good to throw the man off mental balance for once, to be the one needing and pursuing.
The outburst of anger in the stable had brought the sexual urges from the rest of the week to the top, fed by adrenaline and the desperate imperative to know that he'd lost Joanna but he still had Jim. Someone would call it comfort sex – probably Jim – yet it was what Bones wanted and as they found themselves obscured by the door to their quarters, Kirk gave in.
Slowly, he leaned in to steal a kiss before starting to unbutton the starched white shirt McCoy had worn for nearly eighteen hours. It stunk with sweat, a little bit of blood, and hay, an undercurrent of warm cinnamon from the soap Winona had supplied him with when Bones had realized he'd forgotten his own, and Jim discarded it on the floor. Bones' undershirt joined it not a moment later and then they were kissing again.
His mouth otherwise occupied, McCoy let his hands wander over the Starfleet Dress Uniform. Jim hadn't worn it much, usually forced to dress in whatever clothing a culture provided to him, and Bones regretted that mightily right then. The gold was gorgeous against the cream white of his skin, the heavy linen warm where Bones gripped it. It was almost a shame to toss the garment to their feet, but not enough to stop him.
Stripped down to pants and socks, Jim guided them into the bedroom, glad he hadn't bother to straighten the bed when he rose the previous morning. It meant their blankets had curled to the edges of the bed, framing McCoy's body when Jim pushed him down onto the mattress.
A pillow under his shoulder and the knot of a fleece under the other, Bones looked up at his lover who was crawling over him on hands and knees and a sparkle in his eye. “I think you're overdressed,” he whispered once he was face to face his lover.
“So're you.” Bones reached for the zipper on Jim's pants as he kissed the man again, lips soft and pliable against his own. “Missed you,” he whispered into Kirk's ear when he pressed his forehead into Bones' neck.
“I know,” Jim murmured back, shimming out of his pants and toeing off his socks. “What do you want? What do you need?” He asked with one hand trailing along the edge of Bones' pants, half-touching skin until he reached the button, undoing it with a flick of his thumb.
“Just you.” The words had tumbled from him in a breath; Jim thought it was the most arousing thing he'd heard from Bones since the night they'd first fallen into bed many months earlier.
He sat up, dragging down the zip and pushing open the fly to push his hand through, rubbing the skin of Bones' hip. Withdrawing his fingers, Jim let his weight fall onto McCoy only to be rolled onto his back, under his lover; underwear and pants were gone in short order and Bones pushed his pelvis into Jim's, cocks rubbing together.
One hand fisted in the sheet and the other gripping Bones' side, Jim wrapped his legs around his lover's back and fell into the thrusts. While they weren't usually rough in bed, they also were never as gentle and slow as they were now and Jim wondered why – Bones was growling and moaning, noisy where he was typically silent, and his face was screwed up in an expression of pure pleasure.
“Feels good,” Jim told him when Bones bit down on the pulse point in his neck There would be no hiding that tomorrow and Kirk couldn't bring himself to care when Bones continued to rut against him until the growl turned to a whimper.
“Come, Bones. Let go,” he murmured as he nipped at the nearest bit of skin.
In the low light, Jim couldn't be sure, but he could have sworn that as Bones' body grew lax with release, a tear slipped from one eye. Then McCoy reached for the nearest blanket, tossed it over them, and in a quiet voice, declared, “I don't regret... I don't regret any of it anymore, Jim – the divorce, leaving Joanna with her mother, joining Starfleet instead of finding some job in a fucking private practice.” He closed his eyes to continue, “I regret not getting to say goodbye.”
Jim rolled to face him, pressing one hand to his cheek before kissing his lover again. He knew he should say something to ease the hurt in Bones' eyes, something like “you just did” or “it gets better in time”, yet he couldn't bring himself to utter such useless platitudes.
Instead, Jim rose from their bed, grabbed a bottle of Whiskey from Bones' stash and popped it open as he slid back beside his partner and toasted to Joanna McCoy's life.
title. Inter Spem et Metum
rating. Adult
pairing. Kirk/McCoy
summary. Life is what happens between hope and fear.
notes. Death of a minor character/child.
inter spem et metum
eight.
No one from senior staff went to Risa.
The enlisted personnel hadn't been able to get off of the ship quick enough, though, filling shuttles to capacity as they cheered. They'd changed into civvies, taken every available credit they had to their names, and ran from their quarters to the amusement of those who'd volunteered to stay behind and keep the ship running. They had no clue as to the tight, high-emotion feeling permeating the Bridge.
Jim had reported for duty as soon as Lt. Commander Klein of the USS Roosevelt had reported Bones' safe arrival aboard and his morose and heavy mood had been immediately apparent. While he yelled at no one – they were not the source of his foul state of mind – there was a definite impression among them all that a single slip of tongue or finger could result in destroying the precarious balance.
Through unspoken agreement, they were all unnervingly silent as they sat or stood at their stations and went about their business, exchanging glances every now and again with the person nearest them. Rather, they did so until Uhura got a report from Command and she interjected, “Captain, there's a message from Starfleet for you.”
He rubbed his eyes, blinking himself out of the reverie he'd fallen into, and turned in his chair to face the woman. “Read it, Lieutenant.”
“Sir, it's sealed and labeled for you only,” she explained as she shook her head. Jim wondered for a moment why she was being so proper, calling him by his title and respecting his station, but he stopped when she added, “It's from Admiral Pike.”
He was up, handing command over to his first officer and leaving the Bridge without hesitation, heading for his private office. Perhaps a design flaw or an attempt to make staff a little more humble, the Captain's office was down the corridor and to the left and amounted to little more than a large closet. It was not the grand space he'd imagined, with heavy desks and books, a place for crew to seek out the person who led them, but a room with a metal built-in desk and a few chairs, white and cold.
The computer unit flashed from the floor where it had fallen during their last battle, demanding his access code and he punched it in with jabs of a finger. Words appeared, white on black, and Jim felt the tension in his chest tighten.
I tried, but they've denied the request three times now, Jim.
If anyone outside his door heard the computer smash into the wall, they were wise enough to not mention it.
nine.
Bones arrived on Earth for the first time in eight months to Winona Kirk and Christopher Pike looking at him as though he were some swooning maiden, about to fall to pieces at their feet. He very nearly turned around to hide inside the shuttle until it left, not wanting to deal with pity and sympathy, especially from Jim's mother or his former Captain.
Gripping the strap of his duffel bag tighter, he finally moved through the throng of people disembarking and came to a stop before them. He hugged Winona reflexively when she wrapped her arms around his broad shoulders, enjoying the feel of it for only a minute before the squeak of Pike's wheelchair reminded him where he was and why.
“Sir,” he greeted, shaking the hand extended to him.
Pike patted his arm before letting go, telling him, “I'm sorry I couldn't get Jim here,” with a short, sad frown.
Bones could sense the annoyance of the man at his fellow Admirals, but McCoy only shrugged, not entirely sure he'd have wanted Jim with him anyway. He was too hellbent on deciding what was good for Bones and what wasn't, to the point that he'd wanted to punch Jim's lights out. He needed to know some things and make peace with them to move on, but Jim wouldn't even let him see the fucking death certificate.
“Leonard,” Winona called softly, touching his shoulder.
“Sorry,” he muttered and told Pike, “It's better for him to stay with the ship anyway. Bastard gets into enough trouble on a daily basis with a full medical bay at his beck and call.” He realized too late which thought had come flying out of his mouth until Mrs. Kirk was looking at him with a hint of disappointment in her eyes.
He flinched back, wishing like hell she'd drop the hand she was holding but the look on her face disappeared and Bones instantly took back every ill thought he'd had in the last forty-eight hours about his lover. The space at his side seemed so bitterly cold and he shifted the bag on his back, needing to reach the nearest computer.
It would be a good hour and a half before he'd get that, having to drive from the Iowa shipyard to the Kirk family home where he would spend the night before the three returned to catch the first shuttle to Savannah. Pike and Winona had gone straight to the kitchen, friends, he'd learned, from back when he'd been working on his dissertation and he'd screwed up his courage to knock on her door.
With the computer in the living room, he had a moment of privacy as he hit record and spoke. “The next time one of us has to go anywhere for any fucking reason, I'm recommending to Starfleet that Enterprise is the vessel to do it because I nearly committed assault against Captain Prutesti. Green-skinned bitch,” he muttered, pausing with the ebb of his anger before telling the screen, “Try to be in one goddamn piece when I get back.”
It was the closest he ever came to an apology and a declaration of love, the same kind of sentiment he used when Jim was standing on the transporter pad with a cocky grin on his face that always made Bones want to toss him against a wall and fuck him where everyone could see.
Groaning at himself, he tried to press the urge down, wanting his body to accept what his mind had – there was a time for response, and this was not it. Not when he couldn't get his head to stop dancing between memories of pink birthday parties, yellow walls adorned with shelves of dolls and figurines, and horseback rides in mid-summer.
Pike came up beside him, letting one hand fall to the back of his neck and it felt so intolerably intimate that he shrugged it off. He didn't bother to cover it with a stretch like Jim would've, merely sat there with the screen of the computer telling them both that the message was half-way through transit. Only after it clicked over to read Transmission Complete, did he dare to speak.
“He wouldn't tell me what killed her,” he said, not really to Pike or to Winona though they were there to hear it. It was more for himself, to try to maintain the one thing that was keeping him grounded – irritation at his lover. “He kept saying I don't need to know COD, and...”
“You don't,” Winona cut in abruptly with her eyes wide and hands gripping the back of the couch. She sighed as she forced her fingers to relax, moving around the piece of furniture to sit on the coffee table in front of him, sandy blonde hair falling down her shoulders as she leaned forward to rest her hands on his knees. She looked so much like Jim in that posture, it hurt, having seen it not that long ago.
She drew in a breath and pursed her lips, before wetting them with her tongue, and telling him, “When Jim's older brother, Sam, died, my husband at the time was off having an affair with a friend of mine and I was off-planet.
“Sam had run away, hitchhiking west. He'd apparently made it as far as Nevada when a man picked him up,” she continued, “He killed my boy, left his body on the side of some desert road. By the time the police came the next morning to pick up his remains, a scavenger animal had plucked out one eye and part of his face.”
Bones grimaced at that, at how easily she could recite what had happened to her child.
“Frank was unreachable by the Nevada State Police and Jimmy was barely a teenager, so they contacted Starfleet who sent me the reports and the pictures.” Her face grew pinched, as though she were remembering the exact moment she'd opened the files to find the horror within. “I was home a few hours later and I can't tell you why Jim did it, but he got into my bag and he was in the pictures in seconds. Neither one of us could sleep well for weeks because no matter how hard we tried, we had that image in our heads of Sam at the end.”
He closed his eyes as Jim's actions slid into place, making sense, wondering how much of his own tragedy had brought back the memories of Sam's for Jim. He groaned, “Goddamn idiot,” as the thought of how little sleep Kirk had gotten over the preceding days hit him.
“He loves you, Leonard, so much and I know that sometimes you just get so aggravated that you don't know if you want to hug him or hurt him,” she said, voice warm. “I know it probably didn't make sense, what he was doing, but Jimmy's like his father – he'll do anything to protect the ones he loves. Even if it means sacrificing himself.”
ten.
The funeral was small with family, a few friends, and the priest at the head of the grave. McCoy stood off to the side with a cousin holding his hand and an aunt behind him, fingers buried in the curls of hair at the nape of his neck. He wanted, badly, to shake them off, but all attempts to elude the two women had ended when the service began with the most traditional of words.
“Ashes to ashes, dust to dust...”
He had missed the first wake getting to Earth and the second had been too painful, Bones leaving five minutes after walking in; no one blamed him. Standing over the hole in the ground that would put irrevocable distance between himself and Joanna, he wished like hell he'd used that pity to his advantage, avoiding this horrendous and public goodbye in favor of whatever liquor he could find.
Not for the first time since he woke did Bones wish for Jim to be there. He'd have stood by McCoy, sober and professional, until it was over, then whisked him off to get so drunk standing would have become an issue. Maybe they'd have had sex, maybe not, but either way they would have been together and as fucking emasculating as it was to admit it, Bones knew that was what he needed.
The priest droned on for a while longer, bible perched between long slender fingers, though nearly all of it was lost in the wash of white noise that flooded Bones' ears. He heard only the collective sing-song of “Amen” and then the shovel was being pressed into his hands as the casket was lowered into the ground.
His heart beat fast in his chest and it felt like a metal corset had been wrapped around his chest and tightened. The panic, the anxiety was rising in him, and with an anguished look, he threw the shovel down and blinked back tears.
He couldn't do this. He couldn't be the one to throw the first heft of dirt onto the pristine top of the white box that housed his daughter's remains.
With all eyes on him, Bones stepped backwards, completely ignorant of his aunt as he stepped on her, and fled to lean against a nearby tree. He bent forward, one hand on the trunk; he knew he was still in full-view of the gathered party, but he couldn't stop himself from vomiting when the bile rose in his throat and his stomach clenched painfully.
A hand landed on his back, soothing and familiar and he wanted to tell Pike to fuck off for a minute, but it was Jim's voice that told him, “Easy, Bones,” with the press of kiss to his temple.
If he hadn't been hit with a wave of dry heaves, he would have asked how Kirk had gotten there, why he hadn't come sooner. He would have asked the same when he finished, but Jim handed him a water bottle and guided him back with one hand wrapped around McCoy's.
He let go only when Bones took the shovel back from the priest, yet those calming fingers found their way to his back, touching him through the heavy cloth of his black suit.
The first bits of dirt hit the lid, making Bones stand stock still as he looked down. Wordlessly, he handed the shovel to Jim though he didn't move, unable to take his eyes from the sight as one by one, people obscured the casket from the world. He was so entranced, he missed Sulu, Chekov, and Scotty take their turns at the end of the line. Nor Uhura or Spock.
“Hey, you need more time?” Jim whispered to him, breaking his thoughts like the shatter of glass and Bones looked around to see that most of the group had dispersed; the diggers were waiting to the side with a bored haze in their stare.
He looked down at the pit, shook his head, and said, “Get me out of here, Jim.”
eleven.
Jim refused to tell him how much trouble the senior staff was about to get in; an ensign from Engineering who had been recruited as a driver and didn't know McCoy from Chekov let it slip that Starfleet had ordered them twice to remain at the port in Risa, but Kirk had ignored the Admirals both times. And while Bones was grateful for his timely appearance, he still reamed his lover out on the ride back to his Savannah home.
He only stopped when Jim pulled him back against the seat, nudged his nose up to Bones' ear and told him in a hushed tone, “You needed me,” before adding, “And anyway, it's not like we stole the ship to run off for playtime – we came to Earth, the fucking seat of the Federation, and it was a majority decision among the crew.”
Pike's snort from the front seat did not go unnoticed though no one remarked about it. There was no time to as the car came to a stop in front of the modest home, exterior walls a shade of autumnal red with black wrought-iron railing along the two-tier wrap-around porch. White sheer curtain waved in open windows and as Jim hopped out of the car, he could see the people milling about inside.
The front door was open and the man who answered the door was dressed primly in pinstriped black trousers and a white linen shirt. “Dr. McCoy,” he greeted as he passed into the foyer.
“Joseph,” Bones said with a nod before handing over his jacket and squaring his shoulders. He would have to face those mourning his daughter at some point and he could only hope that the old adage “the sooner the better” applied here, so he could make use of Scotty's new upgrades to the transporter system and return to quarters. Or the still, it really didn't matter much to him at that moment.
Which he knew spoke to his state of mind – looking forward to being beamed around and drinking the swill the Chief Engineer made from fluids Bones hesitated to name – yet he knew enough to know that he had slid into the fourth stage of the Kubler-Ross model for grieving: depression. Drinking wouldn't help that, not when too much booze made him maudlin, and still, he didn't care. He missed Joanna already, missed her from the minute Jim had told him that his time as a father had come to an unexpected end.
Jim touched his wrist gently. “Kitchen's pretty quiet if you want to start there,” he said, pointing toward the aforementioned room where a handful of people were picking, lazily, at hors d'oeuvres while talking softly; wisps of conversation floated to his ear, and he nodded in acquiescence.
He took a step toward wanting to join those he could now identify as his cousins, only he couldn't go any further and he looked at Jim.
“I'm not going anywhere,” Kirk promised.
Bones lifted an eyebrow and told him, “Just don't flirt with my cousin Marie,” and the tension bled out of his joints when the corner of Jim's mouth lifted into a half-smile.
twelve.
Bones made it barely half an hour before stealing a cigarette from his uncle John and digging out the bottle of whiskey he'd hidden under the porch when he was seventeen. His ex-wife would have scolded him like a child were she to see him now, would have told him to stop double-fisting his vices and come inside before people started to worry.
Instead, Jim came out as the moon rose in the night sky, fireflies flittering around the yard and the bray of the horses from the stable. It was peaceful and serene and Jim slid onto the porch swing beside him, feet flat on the floorboards. He started a gentle rock, back and forward, a parody of the rhythm Bones used to set when Joanna was a colicky newborn.
And there was no way for Jim to know that, of course, but as the seconds ticked by and the motion continued, Bones felt his careful resolve begin to falter. He took another sip from the bottle, a slow drag off the cigarette, and closed his eyes as the rocking continued. His mouth opened, prepared to tell Jim to stop, but he gagged on the word.
“Just you and me, Jo,” Leonard murmured over the squalling infant in his arms and grunted as he fell back onto the swing. He swung one foot up, one setting the pace as they began to sway. “It's okay, sweetheart, oh, it's okay. I'm here.”
“Jim,” he finally forced out and declared, “Stop.”
But the rocking continued.
“Daddy!”
McCoy was up in an instant, tearing from his bed to two-year old Joanna's side. Relief flooded him; she was fine, the scream a product of whatever nightmare had left her scared and in need of comfort. “What's the matter, Jo? Bad dream?” he asked as he picked her up and reached down for the receiving blanket she never let out of her sight.
The nod of her head was felt more than seen, eyes buried in his shoulder, and he kissed her hair. The floorboard creaked when he moved toward the rocking chair in the corner, but she yanked on the fistful of tee shirt to get his attention. “Outside,” she said.
He kissed her forehead this time, wandering down to the swing; settling in, he got comfortable and began to rock.
“Jim, please,” he pleaded.
“Just me, you and the stars out here, Bones,” Jim responded, heel rising and falling from the boards slowly but surely. “Spock and Uhura are getting everyone into cars, Sulu's taking care of mom and Admiral Pike. Chekov and Scotty are preparing the ship ready to get back underway.” He leaned over, one hand in the other man's hair, and told Bones, “No one around to see anything.”
McCoy blinked and set his feet down, stopping the swing with a slosh of the bottle he'd forgotten about and the burn of the equally forgotten cigarette. He said nothing as he stood, abandoning the liquor on the porch step and dropped the lit stick to the ground, stomping it out before striding toward the small stable a few yards away.
His father had built it, many years ago, when they brought home their first mare and Bones had tried to ride it – all of nine years old – without any idea of how to do so. He'd nearly been trampled after Augusta had thrown him and his mother had demanded there be a stall for the horse, if only to keep her son from getting somewhere he shouldn't. Unable to rent one, his father had built it himself with scrap from a friend and still it stood, not impressive or imposing but beautiful nonetheless.
It was also a wonderful distraction, Bones knew subconsciously, because horses had been his Daddy's pride, not his or Joanna's. They reminded him of a pain already grieved though always a sore wound; David McCoy had been died a year before the divorce, right at the beginning of the end, only his life had been a long one with many triumphs.
Joanna's was not, his mind supplied and he angrily pushed it away. He didn't need to think like that, didn't need to think of her at all right now. He kicked at a stack of hay laid near the main door, listening to the horses whinny and breathe.
“You can't run from it, Bones,” Jim said into the silence of the stable. Silhouetted by the moonlight at his back, Kirk told him, “You can try to bury it, stick in a jar, become fucking Vulcan, but it just catches up to you and you're right back at square one.”
“What the fuck are you going on about, kid,” he spits, reverting back to the nickname Jim had loathed.
“Grief. I'm talking about that annoying motherfucker that sits in your chest and makes you puke until all you can do is cry like a damn woman because it's that or fight someone. And I can tell you from experience, the fighting does nothing but give you more pain.” Jim's voice rang through the space, strong and clear and Bones wanted nothing more than to beat the life out of his best friend.
Except for the part where he was right. His chest had hurt since Jim had told him, unbearably at times, and while he'd preferred to find someone who'd bloody his knuckles and bruise his jaw, McCoy had seen the fallout enough times with Jim to know he'd still feel just as empty after the dermal regenerators did their jobs.
“What if I want to fuck you into the floor instead?”
“Don't, Bones. I won't take...”
McCoy exploded, “For God's sake, Jim!” He threw down the bridle he'd picked up off the hook, hands clenching in anger. “What do you want from me? I'm thirty-two fucking years old with a dead ex-wife and a dead daughter and you just stand there telling me there's no one to see me do whatever shit you expect me to do when there's goddamn you.” He picked up the nearest object he could – a coiled set of reins – and threw them hard against the wall. The next thing to fly was a horseshoe he'd ripped from a hook on the side of one of the stalls and it slammed through a high window near Jim's head, shattering the glass.
After that, it was a hailstorm of whatever wasn't nailed down as McCoy's grief reached its pinnacle. By the time he was done, sweaty and exhausted and somewhat humiliated, the horses were agitated, Jim was sporting more than a few scratches from the objects he hadn't been able to dodge, and the Enterprise's senior staff were holding back the family members who'd been lingering at their cars when the screaming started.
“How's your chest feel now?” Jim asked, more of his usual tone in those words than in any spoken since Joanna died.
Bones muttered, “Asshole.”
thirteen.
He hadn't let Jim say two words to the crewman who beamed them back to the ship, only took his hand and yanked him through the corridors toward the Captain's quarters while Jim sputtered behind him. It felt good to throw the man off mental balance for once, to be the one needing and pursuing.
The outburst of anger in the stable had brought the sexual urges from the rest of the week to the top, fed by adrenaline and the desperate imperative to know that he'd lost Joanna but he still had Jim. Someone would call it comfort sex – probably Jim – yet it was what Bones wanted and as they found themselves obscured by the door to their quarters, Kirk gave in.
Slowly, he leaned in to steal a kiss before starting to unbutton the starched white shirt McCoy had worn for nearly eighteen hours. It stunk with sweat, a little bit of blood, and hay, an undercurrent of warm cinnamon from the soap Winona had supplied him with when Bones had realized he'd forgotten his own, and Jim discarded it on the floor. Bones' undershirt joined it not a moment later and then they were kissing again.
His mouth otherwise occupied, McCoy let his hands wander over the Starfleet Dress Uniform. Jim hadn't worn it much, usually forced to dress in whatever clothing a culture provided to him, and Bones regretted that mightily right then. The gold was gorgeous against the cream white of his skin, the heavy linen warm where Bones gripped it. It was almost a shame to toss the garment to their feet, but not enough to stop him.
Stripped down to pants and socks, Jim guided them into the bedroom, glad he hadn't bother to straighten the bed when he rose the previous morning. It meant their blankets had curled to the edges of the bed, framing McCoy's body when Jim pushed him down onto the mattress.
A pillow under his shoulder and the knot of a fleece under the other, Bones looked up at his lover who was crawling over him on hands and knees and a sparkle in his eye. “I think you're overdressed,” he whispered once he was face to face his lover.
“So're you.” Bones reached for the zipper on Jim's pants as he kissed the man again, lips soft and pliable against his own. “Missed you,” he whispered into Kirk's ear when he pressed his forehead into Bones' neck.
“I know,” Jim murmured back, shimming out of his pants and toeing off his socks. “What do you want? What do you need?” He asked with one hand trailing along the edge of Bones' pants, half-touching skin until he reached the button, undoing it with a flick of his thumb.
“Just you.” The words had tumbled from him in a breath; Jim thought it was the most arousing thing he'd heard from Bones since the night they'd first fallen into bed many months earlier.
He sat up, dragging down the zip and pushing open the fly to push his hand through, rubbing the skin of Bones' hip. Withdrawing his fingers, Jim let his weight fall onto McCoy only to be rolled onto his back, under his lover; underwear and pants were gone in short order and Bones pushed his pelvis into Jim's, cocks rubbing together.
One hand fisted in the sheet and the other gripping Bones' side, Jim wrapped his legs around his lover's back and fell into the thrusts. While they weren't usually rough in bed, they also were never as gentle and slow as they were now and Jim wondered why – Bones was growling and moaning, noisy where he was typically silent, and his face was screwed up in an expression of pure pleasure.
“Feels good,” Jim told him when Bones bit down on the pulse point in his neck There would be no hiding that tomorrow and Kirk couldn't bring himself to care when Bones continued to rut against him until the growl turned to a whimper.
“Come, Bones. Let go,” he murmured as he nipped at the nearest bit of skin.
In the low light, Jim couldn't be sure, but he could have sworn that as Bones' body grew lax with release, a tear slipped from one eye. Then McCoy reached for the nearest blanket, tossed it over them, and in a quiet voice, declared, “I don't regret... I don't regret any of it anymore, Jim – the divorce, leaving Joanna with her mother, joining Starfleet instead of finding some job in a fucking private practice.” He closed his eyes to continue, “I regret not getting to say goodbye.”
Jim rolled to face him, pressing one hand to his cheek before kissing his lover again. He knew he should say something to ease the hurt in Bones' eyes, something like “you just did” or “it gets better in time”, yet he couldn't bring himself to utter such useless platitudes.
Instead, Jim rose from their bed, grabbed a bottle of Whiskey from Bones' stash and popped it open as he slid back beside his partner and toasted to Joanna McCoy's life.
