Fic: Contra Spem Spero, 2/2. Kirk/McCoy.
Jun. 25th, 2009 05:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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cjs_owndisclaimer. Not mine. Never have been and I'll only ever be playing in the sandbox.
title. Contra Spem Spero
rating. Adult
pairing. Kirk/McCoy
summary. Hope against hope.
warnings. NOT a death fic.
notes. Sequel to Inter Spem et Metum.
Bones crashed once on day three and twice on days four and five, Jim's heart breaking slightly more with each resuscitation. Days six and seven were better only in that he never crashed, though he came close.
Then day eight dawned.
“I'm not saying it,” Beckett warned when he woke from the sedation she'd forced on him four hours earlier, wearing clean scrubs instead of her uniform – she hadn't left Medical since the first night, called back by a frantic Chapel, and wouldn't until McCoy was no longer critical. “I'm not saying anything requiring we knock on wood since there's none of it on this godforsaken ship.”
Jim, brain fogged from the drugs, didn't understand what the hell she was going on about, though he eyed her hypo hand wearily. She was as fast as Bones and even more sneaky about it, though what she called mild and he called mild were two very different things and he appreciated the lower doses she'd been hitting him with. It granted him the sleep he'd been foregoing while trying to simultaneously care for Bones and improve the mood on the ship by leaving the sickbay at least twice a day, going to quarters where crewmembers could find him to talk for a few minutes or wandering around Engineering with Scotty.
“I mean it – I'm not saying anything anything about stability,” she went on, “But I will say that I think we might be able to leave here for about an hour while I go back to quarters to change and you go eat something.”
“You're sure he'll be okay that long?” Jim asked, nervous at the thought of both himself and Beckett leaving at the same time. The other staff doctor, Rentu, was there and completely capable of handling any McCoy-centered crisis that arose, but he hadn't dealt with the bulk of Bones' care due to the fact that Beckett hadn't let anyone besides her own self, Chapel, and another nurse (Brenton? Brandon? Something with a b- and an -on) near the man.
“Again, something I won't say, but I think we need to before Ren chases both of us out of here with a large stick,” she retorted.
He smirked at idea of 5'1” Uto Rentu chasing them anywhere with a blunt object, music from the archaic circus his mother had dragged him to as a child playing in the background of the visual and he laughed for a moment before the beep of an isolation room machine had both of them going ashen. He was out of the chair and on her heels, fear filling him along side the endless repetition in his head of Gets harder to revive him every time, maybe it's time, maybe he's trying to die.
But it was nothing, just an alert that the computer had sensed movement on the bed which at first meant nothing to either of them until Jim noticed something out of the corner of his eye, writing it off as a twitch of his lover's fingers which was something that happened in trauma cases – until it happened again. Bones' finger stretched and moved, followed by the one next to that and then they were tripping over themselves in a frenzy to get inside, fuck the gowns and caps.
Chapel flew into the room at double time and immediately reached to hold down her CMO's hands, both having sprung to life like Frankenstein under the lightening and had reached up to weakly pull at the few tubes he was outfitted with. Twenty-third century medicine had not yet found away to advance past the need for IV lines, bandages, and feeding catheters, annoying as they were, and Bones' displeasure at their employed use on his body bled from his pores.
“Stop moving, Leonard!” Beckett scolded and pressed a hypo against his neck, listening to the hiss as it dispensed.
Slowly he calmed, going still once more causing Jim a moment of panic. He'd seen far too much inactivity in Bones, terrified that he would turn around at any given time and realize that he'd become so complacent by the non-movement that Bones had died and no one had noticed. That was not possible, not with the computer's monitoring equipment and software parameters, but it was a nightmare that existed in his subconscious, floating up at random times to terrify him.
Jim remained stoic and silent at Bones' side, hand gripping the one Chapel had dropped while the two women went about checking screens and data and asking the computer for information on this organ or that one, until Beckett heaved a sigh and let out a cry of relief. “He's sleeping now. Real sleep – no coma, no medication to keep him unconscious. Fuck me,” she said, “I think he's going to live.”
Spock remained in control of the Enterprise in the days after Bones' sudden recovery, much to Jim's chagrin. Damnit, he could handle his ship now that he had the assurance that his lover wasn't going to wind up in an early, undeserved grave. Of course, that argument hadn't worked with Pike or any of the other Admirals nor his mother or Uhura (teach him to ask for womanly advice) and they all told him, in no uncertain terms, that the only job he had for the time being was caring for Bones.
Who needed the care, don't get him wrong – McCoy had remained in the isolation room for two days, most of them spent sleeping, before Beckett had relented to the few weak but adamant demands for a private, non-glass enclosed room – but there were times he simply couldn't remain in the sickbay, either because of Bones' orders or Beckett's. Watching his lover get a sponge bath, for instance, was not nearly as nice an idea as he had once joked it would be, if only because Jim wasn't the one wielding the sponge.
“For God's sake, Jim,” Bones bitched, propped against pillows so he could comfortably recline in the bed while he was spoon-fed a bland soup of broth, overcooked carrots, and rice.
Even with the NG tube Beckett had placed, Bones had lost twelve pounds in his fight for survival and needed to gain back at least three before the temporary ruling tyrant of Medical Bay would allow him to return to quarters. So there Jim sat, cross-legged on the bed in front of his lover with the other man's legs splayed over his and a blanket thrown over them both, though Jim respected the fact that Bones was no where near ready for sexual activity and kept his hands to himself. Instead, he'd carefully fed his lover spoon after spoon of the disgustingly lukewarm soup until Bones had snapped at him.
“What?”
McCoy sighed and flopped back, beads of sweat popping up on his brow from that small exertion. “Nothing,” he muttered after a minute had passed, annoyed with himself; Jim meant well and he was following Beckett's orders that Bones eat something every few hours to allow his battered system to deal with the onslaught of actual food via his mouth after so many days of IV lines and tube feedings. It was her fervent hope that he would gain the needed three pounds quickly enough that he would be handed over to Jim's care long before he had the energy to bellow, argue, and otherwise be belligerent, because if the old adage was that doctors made the worst patients, then Bones was the most hellish of them all.
Jim bent forward, trying to keep his shirt out of the bowl and his weight off the sore spot on Bones' abdomen, and kissed his lover. Gentler than usual though no less affectionate, Jim felt the tension bleed from Bones which only came flooding back for some unknown reason a minute later. “What is it?” Jim asked, worried as he jumped back in case he was the cause of the distress. “Did I...”
“Not you,” Bones answered and lifted shaking hands up from the mattress, holding them out for Jim to see the involuntary movements.
“Hey, Beckett said that'll stop – you were in a fucking coma,” Jim spat the last word, bitter, before adding, “You're going to be fine so suck it up and let me do for you what you've done a hundred times over for me. It's...kind of nice to take care of you for a change.”
McCoy pursed his lips, resisting the urge to point out all that Jim had done for him the year before when Joanna had died, and wiggled around on the bed, trying to get comfortable. Letting Jim feed him another spoon, he chewed thoughtfully on the bits of vegetable as he tried to curb the irrational annoyance, the anger, at having to be dependent on Jim for even the most basic of needs. Food, water... hell, the man was the Captain of the Flagship of Starfleet and he'd had to hold Bones' dick for him that morning when Beckett finally removed the foley catheter, telling him to piss in an actual toilet.
He settled his hands over his eyes, once more letting his head fall on the pillow and groaned. If this was the experience Jim had every time he fell into the medical staff's lap, no wonder he avoided the place; it was one thing to be helpless and vulnerable in private, but the private rooms in Medical Bay weren't all that private. Staff came and went throughout the day as if the room had no door, checking vitals and asking him for a self-report – he rarely had more than five minutes alone with Jim, which stung in light of the knowledge that Jim was on standdown and had barely made it through the week of his coma without completely coming apart.
“Computer, weight check,” he barked out, Jim still sitting between his legs in a wholly non-sexual manner.
“One hundred sixty-nine pounds,” it responded.
“You know it takes into account the fact that you just ate – you can't trick the computer into saying you've gained half a pound when it's in your stomach.” Jim smirked, closely retorting what he'd been told by Bones after his own six-day coma.
Bones just glared at him, provoking the smirk to become a full grin. It looked good on Jim, lit up his eyes in a way that Bones realized had been lacking. The usual mischievousness and playful attitude that reflected in them on a daily basis had disappeared, McCoy figured, when he was transported back to the ship under emergency circumstances or perhaps before then, when they were still on the planet... whenever it was, he felt a surge of warmth in his belly at the return, particularly when it was aimed at him.
There was a hint of something else written on Jim's face though, and it took Bones a minute to place it – fear, the kind of fear that one harbored after watching another have a brush with death. Jim, obviously still relieved by his recovery, had yet to let go of the terror of Bones nearly shuffling off the mortal coil and the need to get them back to quarters where he could prove to Jim how full of life he was strengthened.
Six more days would pass before Beckett would even allow the idea to come to fruition. As iron-handed as he was with Medical Bay, the woman had proved that she, too, could rule the department with a tight fist, keeping everyone to their schedules and busy.
Bones had watched some of it with amusement, his former reclusive mood diminished once Jim had been restored to his place as Captain at Beckett's urging, though they remained at the Space Station under orders to continue aiding the people there with their research so Jim had more than enough free time on his hands. But it got him out of everyone's hair and made it easier for Bones to start the physical therapy he'd need to continue until he was back in shape and able to resume command of his staff.
He'd been allowed to begin walking from his room to therapy and back as well as the short trips to the head, and Beckett had even allowed him to read over his chart, trying to make him understand why she was keeping him there. It had quelled some of the fight in him to get himself out from her control and moved back to quarters to continue his recovery, but it had also made his heart ache when he read through the various notes and side comments.
He'd crashed, repeatedly, and considered dead for a minimum of thirty seconds each time, and at the onset of this whole saga, Beckett had written his prognosis in one word: Poor. For Jim, who had stood by his grandfather Tiberius through his slow decline into death, Bones could only imagine his emotional state as he watched Bones do the same. His miraculous recovery, unheeded by either man or machine due to exhaustion on the human part and subtle improvements that went unnoticed on the computer's part (damned machinery and its software failures), had to have startled Jim.
“Morning, beautiful,” Jim greeted, knowing how much the endearment annoyed Bones. Though it was obvious he was still struggling somewhat to keep his mind on the fact that Bones had survived and would continue to survive, Jim had slipped back into their usual banter, teasing and stealing small kisses here and there.
“You do remember who controls your inoculation schedule?” He retorted.
But Beckett, having emerged from one of the attached labs, cut into the conversation, telling them, “Yeah, me until your ass is up and in charge again.” She moved to stand beside the treatment room bio-bed he'd climbed into earlier, having tried to take a fifteen minute break from walking (and overexerting himself) which had somehow become an hour, and set one hand on top of the other on the edge of the mattress.
“I went over your case with the CMO of Starfleet, who, by the way, says he told you to let Kirk get into trouble, not you, and it was decided that if you'll agree to a few demands, you can be released to your partner's care,” she told him.
“Demands?” Bones peaked an eyebrow, fully aware that Doctor Joseph Hannigan, who was going to chew him to pieces in the near future over what had happened, rarely demanded anything unless it was serious.
The man had been a childhood friend of David McCoy's, growing up not far from each other in the rural Georgian town Bones had grown up in, and when David died, Joseph had made it his personal mission to be a mentor to the younger McCoy, having been the driving force behind Bones joining Starfleet in the first place.
He would also fly out to Enterprise personally to beat the ever living hell out of Bones himself if the demands weren't met, demands the Acting CMO knew were not going to be received well. Beckett was well aware she was in for an argument, yet she expected no less from the man before her – he may have finally relented to her medical opinions and actions, but he was still Leonard McCoy, the most stubborn ass she'd met this side of the universe. The man argued about whatever he could some days, even though he knew better and she gave a brief consideration to the idea that perhaps he was just trying to maintain his reputation as a horrific patient.
“Daily medical check-ins to monitor your condition as well as physical therapy twice a day until you've regained muscle mass. Meals five to six times a day and rest, which means no sex,” she answered, looking pointedly at them both, and continued, “And psychological counseling, apart and together.”
She knew the minute the words were out of her mouth that she'd hit the proverbial brick wall as Bones immediately scowled and Jim launched into a tangent about psychologists and himself and how he did not need one when he reported to the CMO regarding his mental health.
“Yes, but right now the Appointed CMO is on standdown and I do not have the same time or relationship with you to do so myself. And you cannot tell me you don't need to talk to someone, sir – you were out of your mind with worry for him at points – and that needs to be discussed especially since you are the Captain.” Beckett cringed as the last words went flying out of her mouth, realizing when the man went stiff and started backing out of the room why his file had a private, medical-staff only notation in it that read only: Be careful around Kirk with words and he always assumes ulterior motives when approached by someone he is unfamiliar with.
She smacked herself mentally as she called out to him; he ignored his name as it rang off her tongue, fleeing to the safety of his ship's bridge.
Left with Bones who was radiating anger, she steeled herself for whatever was to come, surprised when he spoke in a low, gruff voice, telling her to release him and he would harass Jim to quarters. “I'll fix this, but in the future, heed the goddamn warnings I put in his file.”
Jim refused to answer any of Bones' ten hails nor the missive he sent via the internal messaging system. Dinner passed without any sign of his lover and Bones had crawled into their cold bed alone, still getting slightly winded by the short walk. He fell asleep to the worry that had started to creep up from his gut, wrapped in a blanket that only faintly smelled like Jim.
But his sleep was filled with haunting images, terror, and hate – as they had been since he'd woken from the coma. He tossed and turned, never truly waking up from the nightmares enough to think of the hypo sitting in the nightstand drawer, until he moved to roll onto his back and ended up on Jim instead, who ran a hand down his flank and whispered, “It's okay. I'm here.”
If he'd been capable of coherent thought and speech, Bones might have commanded his lover to talk to him, to let him in and calm tangled nerves, but he could barely keep his eyes open enough to make up the chrono, let alone form words.
Bones slid back into sleep with Jim's arms around his waist and his mouth on Bones' neck, whispering promises and hopes against his skin.
I'll be safer. I swear, I didn't know this is what it felt like. I'll try harder to come home safe. I love you. I love you so much.
His recovery was pretty smooth after his release, which Beckett had appreciated to no end after six weeks as Acting CMO – she'd never understood how much McCoy actually did in a day, never able to keep the job relegated to one shift alone. Between paperwork, the never-ending inventory, inoculation schedules, shipboard injuries, and other more benign duties, she still found herself coming in early and leaving late and wondered how he managed to juggle those day to day duties with post-mission exams, battle injuries, and other space-related horrors.
So it was with great relish that she'd handed back command of McCoy's Medical Bay to him three weeks after his release to quarters, despite still needing to begin his mandated psychological counseling. “I spoke to Hannigan,” Bones had told her when he'd asked to be returned to active duty, “And you should be receiving a message from Starfleet Medical.”
The message had been brief, stating he still had to complete the therapeutic hours with the ship's counselor, but he could go back to his post and begin the sessions then. There had been no mention of James Kirk and Beckett hadn't asked, deciding it was his headache to deal with before racing back to her quarters to pass out gratefully in her bed.
Still, there were bumps in the road as Bones continued to struggle with the nightmares. More than once he woke them both with screams or flailing limbs, sometimes unable to calm himself sufficiently to avoid Jim using a hypo of sedatives on him and sometimes needing ten minutes alone with Jim's chest, his head laying over the man's heart until the panting stopped and he could breathe.
“Don't scare me like that ever again,” Jim declared after dinner one night, laying in the dark of the their bedroom. Fully clothed in a set of dark-gray pajamas, he was laying on the covers with Bones' head curled under his chin in a way he used to rarely allow, now customary, and his eyes set on a dark spot on the ceiling. One arm was slung over Bones' shoulders, his hand running idly over an elbow and he murmured, “I'm the one who's supposed to come home in pieces so you can fix me up.”
“And I'd like the arrangement to stay like that. You've got the higher pain tolerance and the reckless attitude to match,” Bones answered, splaying on hand over his lover's belly and missing the sex they hadn't had since before the assault. He pushed a finger under the waistband of Jim's trousers, pleased when he didn't meet the fabric of boxers.
“Don't tease,” Jim murmured with eyes transfixed, pupils blown, on the vision that was Bones' hand rubbing at pale skin. He'd been trying to behave, to not push until Bones was healthy again and once that hurdle had been leapt over, for his lover to make the first move – he knew how he'd sometimes returned to the ship after a mission gone wrong to find himself unable to achieve an erection or not feeling terribly sexual. The first few times had been startling to the point of discussing it with McCoy, but Jim had eventually accepted his body's response to stress and now he'd applied the same patience to Bones as was occasionally applied to himself.
“Not teasing.” Bones' mouth grazed over the expanse of skin exposed when he rucked Jim's shirt up to his nipples, fingers still glancing the base of his lover's half-hard cock. “Missed the taste of you, the feel of you,” he mumbled over Jim's bellybutton, tongue slipping into the dimpled flesh with an anxious little sex noise as arousal flooded him.
“Missed you,” Jim replied in a growl, getting a surge of energy and flipping Bones onto his back, simultaneously trying to undress himself and McCoy until the other man batted his hands away; Bones stripped himself then Jim, grunting when a hand pushed itself between his legs and rubbed at the juncture where leg met body.
So wound up in the shock of pleasure as he was touched and kissed, he barely heard Jim speak again. “Want to be inside you,” he whispered into the soft air, “Want to feel you.”
“So feel me, Jim.”
The relief that passed through Jim with the given permission came in the form of a moan as he slanted his mouth over Bones', taking the long hard kiss he'd been dreaming about for days while strong hands flattened on his lover's stomach, floating over every inch of skin he could, the toes of one foot curling in the bedsheets.
“I was scared, Bones,” he revealed as his mouth slipped down from Bones' lips to his ear, a trail of nips left in his wake as he moved lower; a kiss laid on the pulse point in his lover's neck made McCoy close his eyes against the spike of heat, the tightening of his lower back. “You kept dying, a little while at a time, and I... I didn't know if you'd come back...”
With every kiss, Jim made a confession, filling the minutes with admissions he could not share with anyone else until his eyes came level with the leaking head of Bones' dick and he was silent, mouth stretched wide. Lips closed around the shaft, Jim looked like a pornographic advertisement while one finger lazily drawing over Bones' balls. He didn't linger long, though, pulling off with a wet pop and rising up and over Bones to deliver another kiss and a whimper when the agile surgeons hands ghosted over his ass, nails digging into the delicate flesh.
He gasped at the sensation, stilling for a moment, then rose up onto his hands and knees and dug their lube out from the nightstand with a grin and yet another kiss. “I love you, baby,” he said when they parted, “I fucking love you.”
The tenderness of the moment, mightily rare in their relationship, overpowered Bones and he reached on hand out to settle on Jim's face, sweeping his thumb over one cheek. “Love you too,” he replied, eyes locked on Jim's as they had a thousand times before.
“Don't want to lose you.”
Bones gave him a gentle smile, telling him, “You won't,” and pressing the lube into his hand. “I promise you won't,” he added as he pushed them up into a sitting position, Bones in his lap and on his chest and hands wrapped around one arm, in Jim's hair. “Fuck me.”
Jim would never be able to say how he'd managed, hands shaking like a San Francisco earthquake, to prepare his lover or himself, but he didn't really care. Not when Bones was kneeling down, legs spread wide over his lap and a hand on his shoulder, the other guiding Jim's dick into him as he bore down. The heat, the passion, was barely contained in Kirk's chest by the time Bones stopped, his body as joined as it could be with Jim's, his control hanging on by a thread.
And for a few minutes that was fine with Bones and with Jim, each adjusting to the fit after so long apart, until McCoy pulled Jim to him, whispering into the ear beside his mouth, “Let go, kid,” and he was gone, lost in the sight and the scent of his lover.
It was heaven and nirvana and perfection, every thrust into Bones bringing them closer to release and eliciting the gorgeous noises from Jim that pushed McCoy ever closer to the edge, eyes clouding with white stars when Jim found his prostate and time stretched on. Whole minutes ticked by with only grunts and moans and open-mouth kisses swept over any skin either man could reach until Jim ground out a strained, “Leonard!”, back arching and arms going taught with his orgasm.
A bare moment later, Jim was shoved Bones onto the mattress, uncoupling from his lover and pressing a finger inside, searching for the spot that he couldn't always find. Today though, somewhere in the cosmos, a deity must have smiled on them and he swiped his finger over the tiny nub, over and over; Bones yelled out, panting as he came.
Boneless and sated, the two men curled together on top of their blanket, Jim settling his head on his lover's chest in a reversal of their earlier position, and reveled in the glowing aftermath before eyes began to slide shut and bodies curled around each other.
Life had been re-affirmed and they slept, the nightmares held at bay.
title. Contra Spem Spero
rating. Adult
pairing. Kirk/McCoy
summary. Hope against hope.
warnings. NOT a death fic.
notes. Sequel to Inter Spem et Metum.
part one
contra spem spero
seven.
Bones crashed once on day three and twice on days four and five, Jim's heart breaking slightly more with each resuscitation. Days six and seven were better only in that he never crashed, though he came close.
Then day eight dawned.
“I'm not saying it,” Beckett warned when he woke from the sedation she'd forced on him four hours earlier, wearing clean scrubs instead of her uniform – she hadn't left Medical since the first night, called back by a frantic Chapel, and wouldn't until McCoy was no longer critical. “I'm not saying anything requiring we knock on wood since there's none of it on this godforsaken ship.”
Jim, brain fogged from the drugs, didn't understand what the hell she was going on about, though he eyed her hypo hand wearily. She was as fast as Bones and even more sneaky about it, though what she called mild and he called mild were two very different things and he appreciated the lower doses she'd been hitting him with. It granted him the sleep he'd been foregoing while trying to simultaneously care for Bones and improve the mood on the ship by leaving the sickbay at least twice a day, going to quarters where crewmembers could find him to talk for a few minutes or wandering around Engineering with Scotty.
“I mean it – I'm not saying anything anything about stability,” she went on, “But I will say that I think we might be able to leave here for about an hour while I go back to quarters to change and you go eat something.”
“You're sure he'll be okay that long?” Jim asked, nervous at the thought of both himself and Beckett leaving at the same time. The other staff doctor, Rentu, was there and completely capable of handling any McCoy-centered crisis that arose, but he hadn't dealt with the bulk of Bones' care due to the fact that Beckett hadn't let anyone besides her own self, Chapel, and another nurse (Brenton? Brandon? Something with a b- and an -on) near the man.
“Again, something I won't say, but I think we need to before Ren chases both of us out of here with a large stick,” she retorted.
He smirked at idea of 5'1” Uto Rentu chasing them anywhere with a blunt object, music from the archaic circus his mother had dragged him to as a child playing in the background of the visual and he laughed for a moment before the beep of an isolation room machine had both of them going ashen. He was out of the chair and on her heels, fear filling him along side the endless repetition in his head of Gets harder to revive him every time, maybe it's time, maybe he's trying to die.
But it was nothing, just an alert that the computer had sensed movement on the bed which at first meant nothing to either of them until Jim noticed something out of the corner of his eye, writing it off as a twitch of his lover's fingers which was something that happened in trauma cases – until it happened again. Bones' finger stretched and moved, followed by the one next to that and then they were tripping over themselves in a frenzy to get inside, fuck the gowns and caps.
Chapel flew into the room at double time and immediately reached to hold down her CMO's hands, both having sprung to life like Frankenstein under the lightening and had reached up to weakly pull at the few tubes he was outfitted with. Twenty-third century medicine had not yet found away to advance past the need for IV lines, bandages, and feeding catheters, annoying as they were, and Bones' displeasure at their employed use on his body bled from his pores.
“Stop moving, Leonard!” Beckett scolded and pressed a hypo against his neck, listening to the hiss as it dispensed.
Slowly he calmed, going still once more causing Jim a moment of panic. He'd seen far too much inactivity in Bones, terrified that he would turn around at any given time and realize that he'd become so complacent by the non-movement that Bones had died and no one had noticed. That was not possible, not with the computer's monitoring equipment and software parameters, but it was a nightmare that existed in his subconscious, floating up at random times to terrify him.
Jim remained stoic and silent at Bones' side, hand gripping the one Chapel had dropped while the two women went about checking screens and data and asking the computer for information on this organ or that one, until Beckett heaved a sigh and let out a cry of relief. “He's sleeping now. Real sleep – no coma, no medication to keep him unconscious. Fuck me,” she said, “I think he's going to live.”
eight.
Spock remained in control of the Enterprise in the days after Bones' sudden recovery, much to Jim's chagrin. Damnit, he could handle his ship now that he had the assurance that his lover wasn't going to wind up in an early, undeserved grave. Of course, that argument hadn't worked with Pike or any of the other Admirals nor his mother or Uhura (teach him to ask for womanly advice) and they all told him, in no uncertain terms, that the only job he had for the time being was caring for Bones.
Who needed the care, don't get him wrong – McCoy had remained in the isolation room for two days, most of them spent sleeping, before Beckett had relented to the few weak but adamant demands for a private, non-glass enclosed room – but there were times he simply couldn't remain in the sickbay, either because of Bones' orders or Beckett's. Watching his lover get a sponge bath, for instance, was not nearly as nice an idea as he had once joked it would be, if only because Jim wasn't the one wielding the sponge.
“For God's sake, Jim,” Bones bitched, propped against pillows so he could comfortably recline in the bed while he was spoon-fed a bland soup of broth, overcooked carrots, and rice.
Even with the NG tube Beckett had placed, Bones had lost twelve pounds in his fight for survival and needed to gain back at least three before the temporary ruling tyrant of Medical Bay would allow him to return to quarters. So there Jim sat, cross-legged on the bed in front of his lover with the other man's legs splayed over his and a blanket thrown over them both, though Jim respected the fact that Bones was no where near ready for sexual activity and kept his hands to himself. Instead, he'd carefully fed his lover spoon after spoon of the disgustingly lukewarm soup until Bones had snapped at him.
“What?”
McCoy sighed and flopped back, beads of sweat popping up on his brow from that small exertion. “Nothing,” he muttered after a minute had passed, annoyed with himself; Jim meant well and he was following Beckett's orders that Bones eat something every few hours to allow his battered system to deal with the onslaught of actual food via his mouth after so many days of IV lines and tube feedings. It was her fervent hope that he would gain the needed three pounds quickly enough that he would be handed over to Jim's care long before he had the energy to bellow, argue, and otherwise be belligerent, because if the old adage was that doctors made the worst patients, then Bones was the most hellish of them all.
Jim bent forward, trying to keep his shirt out of the bowl and his weight off the sore spot on Bones' abdomen, and kissed his lover. Gentler than usual though no less affectionate, Jim felt the tension bleed from Bones which only came flooding back for some unknown reason a minute later. “What is it?” Jim asked, worried as he jumped back in case he was the cause of the distress. “Did I...”
“Not you,” Bones answered and lifted shaking hands up from the mattress, holding them out for Jim to see the involuntary movements.
“Hey, Beckett said that'll stop – you were in a fucking coma,” Jim spat the last word, bitter, before adding, “You're going to be fine so suck it up and let me do for you what you've done a hundred times over for me. It's...kind of nice to take care of you for a change.”
McCoy pursed his lips, resisting the urge to point out all that Jim had done for him the year before when Joanna had died, and wiggled around on the bed, trying to get comfortable. Letting Jim feed him another spoon, he chewed thoughtfully on the bits of vegetable as he tried to curb the irrational annoyance, the anger, at having to be dependent on Jim for even the most basic of needs. Food, water... hell, the man was the Captain of the Flagship of Starfleet and he'd had to hold Bones' dick for him that morning when Beckett finally removed the foley catheter, telling him to piss in an actual toilet.
He settled his hands over his eyes, once more letting his head fall on the pillow and groaned. If this was the experience Jim had every time he fell into the medical staff's lap, no wonder he avoided the place; it was one thing to be helpless and vulnerable in private, but the private rooms in Medical Bay weren't all that private. Staff came and went throughout the day as if the room had no door, checking vitals and asking him for a self-report – he rarely had more than five minutes alone with Jim, which stung in light of the knowledge that Jim was on standdown and had barely made it through the week of his coma without completely coming apart.
“Computer, weight check,” he barked out, Jim still sitting between his legs in a wholly non-sexual manner.
“One hundred sixty-nine pounds,” it responded.
“You know it takes into account the fact that you just ate – you can't trick the computer into saying you've gained half a pound when it's in your stomach.” Jim smirked, closely retorting what he'd been told by Bones after his own six-day coma.
Bones just glared at him, provoking the smirk to become a full grin. It looked good on Jim, lit up his eyes in a way that Bones realized had been lacking. The usual mischievousness and playful attitude that reflected in them on a daily basis had disappeared, McCoy figured, when he was transported back to the ship under emergency circumstances or perhaps before then, when they were still on the planet... whenever it was, he felt a surge of warmth in his belly at the return, particularly when it was aimed at him.
There was a hint of something else written on Jim's face though, and it took Bones a minute to place it – fear, the kind of fear that one harbored after watching another have a brush with death. Jim, obviously still relieved by his recovery, had yet to let go of the terror of Bones nearly shuffling off the mortal coil and the need to get them back to quarters where he could prove to Jim how full of life he was strengthened.
nine.
Six more days would pass before Beckett would even allow the idea to come to fruition. As iron-handed as he was with Medical Bay, the woman had proved that she, too, could rule the department with a tight fist, keeping everyone to their schedules and busy.
Bones had watched some of it with amusement, his former reclusive mood diminished once Jim had been restored to his place as Captain at Beckett's urging, though they remained at the Space Station under orders to continue aiding the people there with their research so Jim had more than enough free time on his hands. But it got him out of everyone's hair and made it easier for Bones to start the physical therapy he'd need to continue until he was back in shape and able to resume command of his staff.
He'd been allowed to begin walking from his room to therapy and back as well as the short trips to the head, and Beckett had even allowed him to read over his chart, trying to make him understand why she was keeping him there. It had quelled some of the fight in him to get himself out from her control and moved back to quarters to continue his recovery, but it had also made his heart ache when he read through the various notes and side comments.
He'd crashed, repeatedly, and considered dead for a minimum of thirty seconds each time, and at the onset of this whole saga, Beckett had written his prognosis in one word: Poor. For Jim, who had stood by his grandfather Tiberius through his slow decline into death, Bones could only imagine his emotional state as he watched Bones do the same. His miraculous recovery, unheeded by either man or machine due to exhaustion on the human part and subtle improvements that went unnoticed on the computer's part (damned machinery and its software failures), had to have startled Jim.
“Morning, beautiful,” Jim greeted, knowing how much the endearment annoyed Bones. Though it was obvious he was still struggling somewhat to keep his mind on the fact that Bones had survived and would continue to survive, Jim had slipped back into their usual banter, teasing and stealing small kisses here and there.
“You do remember who controls your inoculation schedule?” He retorted.
But Beckett, having emerged from one of the attached labs, cut into the conversation, telling them, “Yeah, me until your ass is up and in charge again.” She moved to stand beside the treatment room bio-bed he'd climbed into earlier, having tried to take a fifteen minute break from walking (and overexerting himself) which had somehow become an hour, and set one hand on top of the other on the edge of the mattress.
“I went over your case with the CMO of Starfleet, who, by the way, says he told you to let Kirk get into trouble, not you, and it was decided that if you'll agree to a few demands, you can be released to your partner's care,” she told him.
“Demands?” Bones peaked an eyebrow, fully aware that Doctor Joseph Hannigan, who was going to chew him to pieces in the near future over what had happened, rarely demanded anything unless it was serious.
The man had been a childhood friend of David McCoy's, growing up not far from each other in the rural Georgian town Bones had grown up in, and when David died, Joseph had made it his personal mission to be a mentor to the younger McCoy, having been the driving force behind Bones joining Starfleet in the first place.
He would also fly out to Enterprise personally to beat the ever living hell out of Bones himself if the demands weren't met, demands the Acting CMO knew were not going to be received well. Beckett was well aware she was in for an argument, yet she expected no less from the man before her – he may have finally relented to her medical opinions and actions, but he was still Leonard McCoy, the most stubborn ass she'd met this side of the universe. The man argued about whatever he could some days, even though he knew better and she gave a brief consideration to the idea that perhaps he was just trying to maintain his reputation as a horrific patient.
“Daily medical check-ins to monitor your condition as well as physical therapy twice a day until you've regained muscle mass. Meals five to six times a day and rest, which means no sex,” she answered, looking pointedly at them both, and continued, “And psychological counseling, apart and together.”
She knew the minute the words were out of her mouth that she'd hit the proverbial brick wall as Bones immediately scowled and Jim launched into a tangent about psychologists and himself and how he did not need one when he reported to the CMO regarding his mental health.
“Yes, but right now the Appointed CMO is on standdown and I do not have the same time or relationship with you to do so myself. And you cannot tell me you don't need to talk to someone, sir – you were out of your mind with worry for him at points – and that needs to be discussed especially since you are the Captain.” Beckett cringed as the last words went flying out of her mouth, realizing when the man went stiff and started backing out of the room why his file had a private, medical-staff only notation in it that read only: Be careful around Kirk with words and he always assumes ulterior motives when approached by someone he is unfamiliar with.
She smacked herself mentally as she called out to him; he ignored his name as it rang off her tongue, fleeing to the safety of his ship's bridge.
Left with Bones who was radiating anger, she steeled herself for whatever was to come, surprised when he spoke in a low, gruff voice, telling her to release him and he would harass Jim to quarters. “I'll fix this, but in the future, heed the goddamn warnings I put in his file.”
ten.
Jim refused to answer any of Bones' ten hails nor the missive he sent via the internal messaging system. Dinner passed without any sign of his lover and Bones had crawled into their cold bed alone, still getting slightly winded by the short walk. He fell asleep to the worry that had started to creep up from his gut, wrapped in a blanket that only faintly smelled like Jim.
But his sleep was filled with haunting images, terror, and hate – as they had been since he'd woken from the coma. He tossed and turned, never truly waking up from the nightmares enough to think of the hypo sitting in the nightstand drawer, until he moved to roll onto his back and ended up on Jim instead, who ran a hand down his flank and whispered, “It's okay. I'm here.”
If he'd been capable of coherent thought and speech, Bones might have commanded his lover to talk to him, to let him in and calm tangled nerves, but he could barely keep his eyes open enough to make up the chrono, let alone form words.
Bones slid back into sleep with Jim's arms around his waist and his mouth on Bones' neck, whispering promises and hopes against his skin.
I'll be safer. I swear, I didn't know this is what it felt like. I'll try harder to come home safe. I love you. I love you so much.
eleven.
His recovery was pretty smooth after his release, which Beckett had appreciated to no end after six weeks as Acting CMO – she'd never understood how much McCoy actually did in a day, never able to keep the job relegated to one shift alone. Between paperwork, the never-ending inventory, inoculation schedules, shipboard injuries, and other more benign duties, she still found herself coming in early and leaving late and wondered how he managed to juggle those day to day duties with post-mission exams, battle injuries, and other space-related horrors.
So it was with great relish that she'd handed back command of McCoy's Medical Bay to him three weeks after his release to quarters, despite still needing to begin his mandated psychological counseling. “I spoke to Hannigan,” Bones had told her when he'd asked to be returned to active duty, “And you should be receiving a message from Starfleet Medical.”
The message had been brief, stating he still had to complete the therapeutic hours with the ship's counselor, but he could go back to his post and begin the sessions then. There had been no mention of James Kirk and Beckett hadn't asked, deciding it was his headache to deal with before racing back to her quarters to pass out gratefully in her bed.
Still, there were bumps in the road as Bones continued to struggle with the nightmares. More than once he woke them both with screams or flailing limbs, sometimes unable to calm himself sufficiently to avoid Jim using a hypo of sedatives on him and sometimes needing ten minutes alone with Jim's chest, his head laying over the man's heart until the panting stopped and he could breathe.
“Don't scare me like that ever again,” Jim declared after dinner one night, laying in the dark of the their bedroom. Fully clothed in a set of dark-gray pajamas, he was laying on the covers with Bones' head curled under his chin in a way he used to rarely allow, now customary, and his eyes set on a dark spot on the ceiling. One arm was slung over Bones' shoulders, his hand running idly over an elbow and he murmured, “I'm the one who's supposed to come home in pieces so you can fix me up.”
“And I'd like the arrangement to stay like that. You've got the higher pain tolerance and the reckless attitude to match,” Bones answered, splaying on hand over his lover's belly and missing the sex they hadn't had since before the assault. He pushed a finger under the waistband of Jim's trousers, pleased when he didn't meet the fabric of boxers.
“Don't tease,” Jim murmured with eyes transfixed, pupils blown, on the vision that was Bones' hand rubbing at pale skin. He'd been trying to behave, to not push until Bones was healthy again and once that hurdle had been leapt over, for his lover to make the first move – he knew how he'd sometimes returned to the ship after a mission gone wrong to find himself unable to achieve an erection or not feeling terribly sexual. The first few times had been startling to the point of discussing it with McCoy, but Jim had eventually accepted his body's response to stress and now he'd applied the same patience to Bones as was occasionally applied to himself.
“Not teasing.” Bones' mouth grazed over the expanse of skin exposed when he rucked Jim's shirt up to his nipples, fingers still glancing the base of his lover's half-hard cock. “Missed the taste of you, the feel of you,” he mumbled over Jim's bellybutton, tongue slipping into the dimpled flesh with an anxious little sex noise as arousal flooded him.
“Missed you,” Jim replied in a growl, getting a surge of energy and flipping Bones onto his back, simultaneously trying to undress himself and McCoy until the other man batted his hands away; Bones stripped himself then Jim, grunting when a hand pushed itself between his legs and rubbed at the juncture where leg met body.
So wound up in the shock of pleasure as he was touched and kissed, he barely heard Jim speak again. “Want to be inside you,” he whispered into the soft air, “Want to feel you.”
“So feel me, Jim.”
The relief that passed through Jim with the given permission came in the form of a moan as he slanted his mouth over Bones', taking the long hard kiss he'd been dreaming about for days while strong hands flattened on his lover's stomach, floating over every inch of skin he could, the toes of one foot curling in the bedsheets.
“I was scared, Bones,” he revealed as his mouth slipped down from Bones' lips to his ear, a trail of nips left in his wake as he moved lower; a kiss laid on the pulse point in his lover's neck made McCoy close his eyes against the spike of heat, the tightening of his lower back. “You kept dying, a little while at a time, and I... I didn't know if you'd come back...”
With every kiss, Jim made a confession, filling the minutes with admissions he could not share with anyone else until his eyes came level with the leaking head of Bones' dick and he was silent, mouth stretched wide. Lips closed around the shaft, Jim looked like a pornographic advertisement while one finger lazily drawing over Bones' balls. He didn't linger long, though, pulling off with a wet pop and rising up and over Bones to deliver another kiss and a whimper when the agile surgeons hands ghosted over his ass, nails digging into the delicate flesh.
He gasped at the sensation, stilling for a moment, then rose up onto his hands and knees and dug their lube out from the nightstand with a grin and yet another kiss. “I love you, baby,” he said when they parted, “I fucking love you.”
The tenderness of the moment, mightily rare in their relationship, overpowered Bones and he reached on hand out to settle on Jim's face, sweeping his thumb over one cheek. “Love you too,” he replied, eyes locked on Jim's as they had a thousand times before.
“Don't want to lose you.”
Bones gave him a gentle smile, telling him, “You won't,” and pressing the lube into his hand. “I promise you won't,” he added as he pushed them up into a sitting position, Bones in his lap and on his chest and hands wrapped around one arm, in Jim's hair. “Fuck me.”
Jim would never be able to say how he'd managed, hands shaking like a San Francisco earthquake, to prepare his lover or himself, but he didn't really care. Not when Bones was kneeling down, legs spread wide over his lap and a hand on his shoulder, the other guiding Jim's dick into him as he bore down. The heat, the passion, was barely contained in Kirk's chest by the time Bones stopped, his body as joined as it could be with Jim's, his control hanging on by a thread.
And for a few minutes that was fine with Bones and with Jim, each adjusting to the fit after so long apart, until McCoy pulled Jim to him, whispering into the ear beside his mouth, “Let go, kid,” and he was gone, lost in the sight and the scent of his lover.
It was heaven and nirvana and perfection, every thrust into Bones bringing them closer to release and eliciting the gorgeous noises from Jim that pushed McCoy ever closer to the edge, eyes clouding with white stars when Jim found his prostate and time stretched on. Whole minutes ticked by with only grunts and moans and open-mouth kisses swept over any skin either man could reach until Jim ground out a strained, “Leonard!”, back arching and arms going taught with his orgasm.
A bare moment later, Jim was shoved Bones onto the mattress, uncoupling from his lover and pressing a finger inside, searching for the spot that he couldn't always find. Today though, somewhere in the cosmos, a deity must have smiled on them and he swiped his finger over the tiny nub, over and over; Bones yelled out, panting as he came.
Boneless and sated, the two men curled together on top of their blanket, Jim settling his head on his lover's chest in a reversal of their earlier position, and reveled in the glowing aftermath before eyes began to slide shut and bodies curled around each other.
Life had been re-affirmed and they slept, the nightmares held at bay.
