The Most Beautiful, the Most Immediate Breath of Life - Part 1 (Kirk/McCoy) PG-13
Title: The Most Beautiful, the Most Immediate Breath of Life
Author: fritz42
Fandom:Star Trek AOS
Characters/Pairings: James T. Kirk, Leonard H. McCoy; pre-slash
Ratings: PG-13
Warnings: H/C, Angst, grief, previous death of minor character, swearing and tissue warning (so I am told)
Word count: approx. 14,900
Beta: The wonderful
ellie_pierson
Disclaimer:This wonderful universe is own by Paramount, Gene Roddenberry, JJ Abrams and a host of others. I make no money off this. I am truly only here to play. The only thing that is mine is the cookie recipe, which is divine.
Summary: Jim was always good as a drinking partner, a person to sit with at meals and at times, someone to study with. He was slowly becoming what looked like a good friend. But the day Leonard’s past caught up with him, Leonard learned something new: that Jim was also a good man.
A/N: This is a prequel to A Good Dose of Hammock. As always, I want to thank my wonderful beta,
ellie_pierson for her help and letting me bounce a number of ideas off her.
The Most Beautiful, the Most Immediate Breath of Life
Part 1
Leonard gritted his teeth. Murphy always was a son of a bitch.
The Murphy’s Law, currently governing Leonard’s life, must read: The chance of Jim Kirk walking through that door was inversely proportional to the number of minutes Leonard had left to get something done.
In other words, Jim Kirk equaled the whole butter side down thing. So, he really shouldn’t have been surprised that with only a half hour left to get his paper done and submitted on time, Jim Kirk would walk through his damn door.
Ignoring him didn’t work. “C’mon, Bones! A bunch of the guys are celebrating the end of finals. We’re going out!”
If he actually had the time, he’d start beating his head on his desk.
Instead, Leonard kept his eyes firmly on the PADD in his hand and continued to work, attempting to ignore the body that came to stand beside him with long jean-clad legs, and what Leonard assumed would also be the ubiquitous t-shirt and leather jacket. Jim Kirk’s standard bar crawling outfit.
A hand descended onto the PADD in his hand. “A bunch of us are heading over to Mulligan’s. They’re having ‘Two-for-One’ night. All the better to get some thirsty cadets over there, happy to drown out their memories of finals. You plus me, Bones, equals two. Let’s go.”
A second hand slapped Leonard’s back as Jim attempted to pull the PADD out of his tighten grip. Looking up, Leonard growled and glared at his friend’s annoyingly smiling face. His frustration and irritation were met with amusement and cheerfulness.
Not being cowed, Jim gave him an even bigger shit-eating grin. “Put this down, Bones! Finals are over, man. You don’t have to impress anyone else. You’ve already left inferior med students crying in the hallways.”
Jim gave another tug on the PADD. Pursing his lips, Leonard tried to yank the PADD out of Jim’s hand, who was strangely strong for being so wiry.
“Damn it, Jim! Maybe for you, but not for me. I have less than a half hour to get this damn thing in to Salstrom, so just let me finish.”
Jim pulled on the PADD, tilting it just enough so that he could see what Leonard had been writing. His head jerked back as he frowned in confusion. “Bones, what the hell? You could have written this in your sleep. Why’cha leave it until now?”
Jim was right. He could’ve written this paper in his sleep, and he had been kicking himself all afternoon that he hadn’t gotten it done earlier. But with all the different classes he did have to study for, he had pushed doing this paper back until the end and got caught with his pants down when his schedule went to shit at the hospital.
It was only because his other class work had been exemplary and had proven he did have an emergency at Starfleet Medical, that he was able to even get a small, brief extension. He was still smarting from the sarcastic dressing-down he had gotten from the instructor, Salstrom, a man known to chew up cadets and spit them out just for the hell of it. He wasn’t going to add to it by turning in a half-done paper.
All he needed to do was finish the conclusion and proofread it, and that meant thirty minutes of quiet, something that Jim Kirk wasn’t familiar with. Leonard glared, jerking the PADD out of Jim’s hand, as his irritation and frustration found a target. Thirty minutes. Was that too fucking much to hope for?
He growled as his fingers flew over the keyboard, punching with greater force than needed. “Maybe because when I had planned to write this damn paper, I was stuck in emergency surgery, fixing some goddamned idiot who didn’t possess the common sense of an ameba, after he tried to blow off his whole goddamn arm.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Jim throw up his hands in a typical “I’m innocent” gesture. “Hey, that wasn’t me,” Jim said, as he took a step back.
“Funny how you assume when I mention an idiot I’m talking about you.” Leonard grabbed his other PADD off from his desk to confirm the source of the journal article he needed to reference.
Brushing off the insult, Jim laughed as he patted Leonard on the back, finally giving Leonard some space as he turned to go sit on the bed. Obviously he hadn’t taken the hint and was planning to wait until Leonard was done.
“Hell, coming from you, I thought it was your term of endearment for me. Hey, you got a package,” Jim noted.
Leonard kept typing away furiously, trying to keep at least part of his mind on what he needed to write. “Strangely enough there are other idiots out there, other than you,” he muttered. He glanced at the chrono by his bed and pleaded with his friend. “Jim, I really need to get this done. Salstrom gave me until 17:00 to have this submitted.”
Was it too much to hope that Jim could just give him a twenty-five minute quiet reprieve?
Jim flopped onto Leonard’s bed, causing the package sitting on it to tilt towards him. Jim caught it as he said, “Sure, go ahead. I’ll just wait un - hey, you didn’t open this yet.” His voice became excited. “It’s from your mom!”
Leonard wondered if a brain could spontaneously combust. The clock ticking away in his head was starting to sound like the timing device on one of those old-fashioned bombs that were in those old movies Jim made them watch. He pinched the bridge of his nose as he watched Jim turning the large box from side to side, inspecting it from all angles.
Sighing in exasperation, Leonard asked, “If I let you open it, will you shut the fuck up so that I can get this done?”
Giving him a saucy smile, Jim held up his hand in the classic Boy Scout salute. “If your mother has sent you some of her cookies, I can guarantee that my mouth will have something better to do than talk.”
“Great. Fine. Have at it.” A gleeful look came over Jim’s face and he jumped on the package. “Wait!” Leonard’s sharp word halted Jim in mid-action. “Just leave me some.”
“No problem, Bones,” Jim replied as he pulled off the sealant, flipping open the top and diving into the box.
Shaking his head, Leonard turned back to his PADD, pulling up the chrono and placing it in the corner so that he could monitor the time - less than twenty-five minutes now - as he worked to finish the conclusion of his paper. The sounds of Jim making happy noises at the contents of the box faded to the background.
With two minutes to spare, Leonard pressed the send key after a hastily done proofread, praying that he made sense at the end. He didn’t need another lecture from Salstrom on top of everything. After setting the PADD on his desk, he leaned back in his chair, rubbing his hands over his forehead, trying to will his mind and body into believing he was finally done. No more papers or tests for the next three weeks.
Damn he was tired. Leonard sighed as he rubbed his fingers across his eyebrows and over to his temples. His fingers worked in small circles, trying to ease the tension he felt there. His brain felt like mush, yet every muscle in his body felt tight.
Leonard stretched out his legs, arching his back, and felt various vertebrae crack into place with the movement. He was so bone-tired, but yet, he still felt wired. His body still hadn’t gotten the message that it didn’t have to get up and do one more shift, one more exam, or one more fucking paper.
Maybe a few drinks with Jim would be the thing to do. He wouldn’t stay until last call, no matter how much Jim whined. He could come home early and crash for the night, waking up tomorrow only when his stomach demanded something to eat. It might just be the way to get his whole body out of the “push, push, and then push some more” cycle it had been in this whole week.
Taking a deep breath and letting out another long, tired sigh, Leonard twisted his head and glanced over to tell Jim he’d be going. He shook his head in resignation. He should have known.
The contents of the box were strewn all over the bed as if they had been the dirt that had covered a puppy’s favorite bone. Leonard’s eyes drifted up the mattress to the head of the bed and softly snorted. It looked like those hoped-for cookies had been in there because Jim was happily stuffing one into his mouth as he read a book, quiet and oblivious, propped up on the bed, a pillow folded under his head.
Leonard’s eyes widened in amazement as he watched Jim. Would wonders never cease? The kid could be quiet and sit still. No muttering, no jiggling, no foot bouncing like he normally did when he had to stay in one place for a time, and all it took was his mother’s cookies and a book.
Leonard laughed to himself. He wished he had discovered that sooner. He was going to have to ask for a monthly shipment if that was what it took. His mom’s ginger molasses cookies were his favorite, and it seemed like they were Jim’s too, if the sight of Jim eating a second cookie in the few moments since he had been watching his friend was any indication.
“You’d better have left me some this time,” Leonard growled as he pushed himself up off from his chair and made his way across the room and over to the bed. He needed something to raise his falling blood sugar right about now.
“M’yeah. She sent wots.” A little spray of cookie flew out of Jim’s mouth and he flicked it off the edge of the book.
“For God’s sake, Jim! Don’t talk with your mouth full,” Leonard barked as he stood by Jim’s side.
Jim exaggerated his chewing and swallowing before replying, “Then don’t ask me questions when I am eating.”
Leonard rolled his eyes as he snatched the cookie container off from the bed by Jim’s side and took a look inside it. “You’re damn lucky this is still three-fourths full, or there would have been hell to pay.” It was a large container, but it was probably completely full when she sent it, knowing Jim’s unhealthy love for anything sweet.
Jim just smiled around his cookie before taking a large bite from it.
Taking a cookie for himself, Leonard set the container back on the bed, placing it well out of Jim’s immediate reach. Granted, his mother always sent extra cookies for Jim since she found out that he never had homemade cookies growing up, but damn it, they were his cookies, too.
Jim dived over, grabbing a handful, before giving Leonard a big grin. Short of wrestling them out of Jim’s hands - and Jim would fight for them, Leonard was certain about that - it would be easier just to let the man-child have them. Leonard raised his eyebrow and growled under his breath - he couldn’t let it seem like he condoned Jim’s cookie addiction - before he took a large bite out of his, looking over the contents of the box spread out over the narrow bed.
A warm feeling grew in his chest. Leonard loved getting these little care packages from his mother. Besides the cookies she always sent, his mother had been trying to do her part in making his dorm room more like home by sending personal items that she thought he might appreciate.
Jim must have been watching him. “She sent you some hardcover books,” Jim said, indicating with the book in his hand. “There’s also some really cute holos of Joanna and some PADDs with some old medical journals on them.”
Leonard rolled his eyes. He should have known that Jim would look at everything. Jim’s idea of personal boundaries was if it wasn’t locked up, then you must have wanted him to see it.
“Oh, and…” Leonard could hear the teasing tone in Jim’s voice. “She sent some more sweaters.”
Leonard looked to see a couple of hand-knitted sweaters that Jim had laid to the side, and he couldn’t help but smile at their sight, even though he knew he just opened himself up for more teasing. He had complained to his mother about the weather here. The cold and rainy winter had been hard to endure, and he had heard horror stories about the fog during the summer months. Leave it to his mother to do her part in keeping him warm.
“Guess she knew her little Southern flower was getting cold,” Jim said smirking.
Just to spite him, Leonard leaned over and grabbed another cookie, ignoring Jim’s muttered complaint not to eat them all.
Leonard glared briefly at Jim, before shooting back a response to his teasing. “Just because you grew up on the frozen tundra, walking uphill to school both ways through knee-high snow, doesn’t mean the rest of us did.” He took an extra large bite of his cookie, tearing it emphatically from his mouth.
To an outsider, it might sound like something different, but it was a familiar and friendly rant between the two of them, showing their growing friendship. Leonard would complain endlessly about the cold, damp weather of San Francisco, and Jim would tease him relentlessly about being a Southern flower. Leonard would dress in as many layers as he could, and Jim would run around in a t-shirt and that leather jacket in all kinds of weather, no matter what the temperature. It made Leonard feel colder just looking at Jim.
But, thanks to his mother, that might not happen as much. Finishing the last bite of his cookie, Leonard smiled as he took a closer look at the bed. He’d just bet the rest of the cookies that the blue sweater his mother sent was for the cookie monster himself…currently going for the damn cookie container again.
“Damn it, Jim!” Leonard swatted at his hand. “You’re gonna get sick if you eat any more of those.”
“Nah, I have a high tolerance for cookies,” Jim said, snatching two more cookies and putting them in the pocket of his jacket. “Oh, wait.” He sat up, placing the book carefully on the bed. “There was a letter in there, too. It’s here somewhere.” Leonard rolled his eyes as Jim dug through different items in the mess now known as Leonard’s bed, searching for it. “It was even on real paper. Do you see a cream-colored envelope anywhere?”
At the sound of those words, the world closed in, and everything in him - his good mood, his irritation at Jim, his thoughts, hell, even his breath - all fell into the black hole that had opened up inside of him. The only thing left, the only thing that escaped the gravitational pull, was the word “letter,” swirling around the inside of the cold husk of his body.
A small touch on his arm made him jerk and look up.
“Bones?” Jim was standing by his side, and from the look on his face, Jim had called his name more than once. Jim’s eyes swept over him and he watched as concern pinched his friend’s eyebrows together. “Are you okay?” Jim asked, holding on tighter to Leonard’s arm as if he was afraid that Leonard might fall without his support.
Leonard forced himself to glance down to Jim’s other hand and saw the familiar envelope. The small nugget of hope that it wasn’t what he feared was crushed to dust and sucked away. He didn’t need to see the front of it to know who it was from.
Jim was giving him a funny look as he waited for Leonard’s answer. Pulling the strength from fuck knew where, Leonard tugged his arm gently from Jim’s hand.
It took a couple of tries, but Leonard was able to force his dry throat to swallow before he answered Jim gruffly, his own familiar frown plastered on his brow. “Yeah, kid…I just remembered something that I should have put in my paper.”
He could see that Jim didn’t totally buy it. Skepticism was etched in the lines in his forehead, but for whatever reason, Leonard knew the moment that Jim decided not to push.
“Yeah, I hate when that happens.” He brought the letter up, holding it out to Leonard. “Here.”
With every cell in his body screaming “Don’t touch it,” Leonard forced his hand up. Steeling his hands not to shake or pull away - he was a surgeon, damn it, he knew how to control his hands - Leonard took the envelope. He made himself glance at it, hoping that he appeared indifferent. He took in his name, the black inked letters in that familiar scrawl, before he walked closer to his desk and tossed it to the surface. He refused to watch where it landed.
“Say, didn’t you mention something about two-for-one at Mulligan’s?” Leonard was impressed he was able to get words out of his constricted throat, let alone how normal they sounded.
Jim’s eyes darted to the desk and then back to Leonard’s face, a small scowl on his own face. “Yeah, bunch of the guys went over there. Are you sure you don’t want to read that?” he questioned, nodding his head to the letter. “It must be important if someone took the time to write it on paper.”
No. Way. In. Hell. Not now, not later and definitely not in front of Jim. That’s all he would need, Jim’s genius mind putting lots, little or nothing together and coming up with the stupid fucking answer about what it contained.
Leonard by nature wasn’t duplicitous. He believed in speaking the truth, plain and simple, but today he didn’t want the truth anywhere near his friend. He needed both of them, him and Jim, anywhere but here. Like right now.
Waving his hand dismissively as he walked to his closet, Leonard quickly started to strip out of his cadet reds. “Nah, just something my mom likes to do every once in a while. I’ll read it later,” he said, trying to infuse his voice with as casual of a tone as he could muster even though his heart was trying to beat its way out of his chest.
He pulled on the first pair of jeans he could get his hands on and grabbed the heather-brown sweater off the bed, pulling it quickly over his t-shirt. Leonard stole a glance at Jim who stood with his hands on his hips, a puzzled look on his face.
Fuck. He knew that look. It was forebear to the tenacious one that Jim got when he wasn’t going to let something go. He’d be like a hound dog who picked up a scent if Leonard didn’t provide something else to distract him, at least for the time being.
Leonard quickly grabbed the blue sweater and tossed it over to his friend, who easily snatched it out of the air before it could hit him in the face. “Here. I’m sure that one’s for you.”
“Hey, wow!” Jim said as he held the sweater up before his face. He pulled it away, watching as Leonard pulled on his boots. “Did your mom make this?”
The distraction worked, and Leonard felt a little bit of the tension in his chest loosen at his temporary reprieve.
“Yeah, she hates to sit. Likes to keep her hands busy, but obviously, she doesn’t understand that your Midwestern hide doesn’t get fuckin’ cold,” Leonard said, hurrying to finish getting ready before Jim caught on.
Bitching at him was usually a good way to keep control of the conversation, something that might fool his friend into thinking things were normal. If he got Jim out the door, he stood a better chance at keeping Jim’s mind off from that cursed thing on his desk.
Shooting a smirk at him, Jim took off his jacket and pulled the soft v-necked sweater on over his white t-shirt. “Wow! It fits great,” he said with a look of childlike amazement on his face, almost as if he had never gotten a present before. He smoothed his hands over the front of the sweater and down the sleeves, checking out their length. “Bones, this is…Tell her thanks the next time you talk to her.”
Even in the midst of his own pain, Leonard stopped and considered his friend. Jim never really talked about his childhood much, but Leonard had seen little bits here and there over the course of the months they had spent at the Academy. He slowly ascertained from the little Jim had said - and didn’t say - that Jim’s childhood rated at the very least, neglectful if not downright abusive, and for a moment, he forgot his own pain in face of what Jim must have gone through as a kid.
Something must have shown on his face. That or Jim must have realized he had let on more than he wanted because his face closed down for a moment, his eyes loosing the warmth they had in them just a moment ago. Jim grabbed his leather jacket from where it had fallen on the floor and the Jim Kirk he knew fell over back over his shoulders along with the jacket.
“That’s if I’m not here when she calls next time,” he said, the side of his mouth turned up in a cocky grin.
Leonard schooled his face, erasing anything that might look like pity, before he did his classical eye roll, something that was familiar and safe for Jim. He watched as Jim fidgeted with a nervous energy that started to hum through him, his eyes darting at the door, impatient to leave the scene of the “crime” where he revealed more than he wanted.
Leonard felt a twinge of guilt. Did it make him a bad person that he was relieved that something had distracted Jim, even if it was most likely something painful from his childhood? Hell, it looked like both of them needed some good old-fashioned alcohol to forget the shit that happened in their pasts. And he knew exactly where they could find some.
“Kid, like you’re never not here. You talk to my own mother more than me.” Leonard pulled his comm out of his uniform pocket and slipped it into his jeans. “Now, let’s go get some two-for-ones before Mulligan grows a brain and figures out that he might be losing money with this deal.” Leonard walked to the door and turned. “First round’s on me.”
Jim bounded across the dorm floor, slapping Leonard on the arm as he passed. “C’mon, Bones. You know there’ll be more than just one round on you.”
~*~
He was crying. He was standing in an old cemetery with dead yew trees disperse between old, old grave stones. Everyone was gone, gone to wherever people go to shed the depressing blanket of misery following a funeral. Only he was left, and he was crying.
Grief shook and overwhelmed him. His knees could no longer hold him up, and Leonard felt himself crumble to the ground. His knees struck the base of the new headstone before him, and the pain briefly registered through his sorrow. From this position he could no longer avoid what he wanted to run away from; his vision was filled with the hard, true evidence he was forced to accept.
He could barely read the chiseled words in the front façade of the granite slab through his blur of tears, but he knew what it said.
David Leonard McCoy, June 4, 2190 - June 1, 2254. Loving husband, father and grandfather.
A sob tore its way out of his lips, and Leonard reached out to trace the letters, needing to have some kind of connection with the man that had been there his whole life, the one person who shaped the man he had become. His fingers slid along the only thing left to mark this gentle man’s life. A knifelike pain sliced through his quiet crying as the sharp edges of the letters cut into his fingertips, making even this need for connection a punishment that he deserved.
He watched as blood seeped out of the wounds, flowing as a rivulet of red down the grey, smooth stone before making a gravity-defying turn at the base of the loving tribute to the man. A caustic smell invaded his nose. He froze as more words slowly appeared; the letters, red and prominent, burnt forever into the granite stone by his blood.
Killed by his son’s own hands.
His stomach heaved at the damning words, and he no longer could hold back the bile churning in his stomach as he threw up over the base of the headstone. Waves of it made their way up his throat, and violence of his retching shook his body.
Suddenly, hands, horrible damning hands, rose up through the overturned Georgian soil beneath his knees, grabbing him around his waist. Terror tore through him, and Leonard slapped at the hands, trying to keep from being dragged down into the bowels of hell where he belonged.
“Bones!”
The familiar but worried voice made him stop, and the sound pulled him away from the terror of his dream.
Gentle hands held him across the chest, supporting his head as he vomited violently into the toilet. Minutes, hours later he finally finished, utterly drained down to his toes. He felt the hand leave his forehead, and he heard the sound of flushing. His knees hurt and he could barely hold up his head. More hands helped him lay his head against a cool, smooth surface. The sounds of water running filled the air before a cool, wet cloth wiped over his face, and he murmured with loving comfort of the gesture.
Something touched his lips. “Here, drink this.” His uncoordinated hand came up on its own and tried to slap it away. “Bones, drink!” the voice commanded.
Leonard felt a hand gently tip up his head, and he allowed a few sips of cool water to pass his lips until his stomach protested. He pulled away, gagging. Hands let him rest back down for a moment before coming up under his arms, pulling him up to stand.
“C’mon, Bones. Up.”
He struggled to get his legs underneath him, and they slowly made their way out of the bathroom to the blessed relief of a mattress beneath him. Hands pulled him up, and he groaned in protest before he felt them pull his clothes off over his head. No longer supported, he flopped back, his head landing on a pillow. He felt his shoes being tugged off his feet before he sunk down into the bliss of unconsciousness, no longer having to think or feel.
Part 2
Author: fritz42
Fandom:Star Trek AOS
Characters/Pairings: James T. Kirk, Leonard H. McCoy; pre-slash
Ratings: PG-13
Warnings: H/C, Angst, grief, previous death of minor character, swearing and tissue warning (so I am told)
Word count: approx. 14,900
Beta: The wonderful
ellie_pierson
Disclaimer:This wonderful universe is own by Paramount, Gene Roddenberry, JJ Abrams and a host of others. I make no money off this. I am truly only here to play. The only thing that is mine is the cookie recipe, which is divine.
Summary: Jim was always good as a drinking partner, a person to sit with at meals and at times, someone to study with. He was slowly becoming what looked like a good friend. But the day Leonard’s past caught up with him, Leonard learned something new: that Jim was also a good man.
A/N: This is a prequel to A Good Dose of Hammock. As always, I want to thank my wonderful beta,
ellie_pierson for her help and letting me bounce a number of ideas off her.
The Most Beautiful, the Most Immediate Breath of Life
Part 1
Leonard gritted his teeth. Murphy always was a son of a bitch.
The Murphy’s Law, currently governing Leonard’s life, must read: The chance of Jim Kirk walking through that door was inversely proportional to the number of minutes Leonard had left to get something done.
In other words, Jim Kirk equaled the whole butter side down thing. So, he really shouldn’t have been surprised that with only a half hour left to get his paper done and submitted on time, Jim Kirk would walk through his damn door.
Ignoring him didn’t work. “C’mon, Bones! A bunch of the guys are celebrating the end of finals. We’re going out!”
If he actually had the time, he’d start beating his head on his desk.
Instead, Leonard kept his eyes firmly on the PADD in his hand and continued to work, attempting to ignore the body that came to stand beside him with long jean-clad legs, and what Leonard assumed would also be the ubiquitous t-shirt and leather jacket. Jim Kirk’s standard bar crawling outfit.
A hand descended onto the PADD in his hand. “A bunch of us are heading over to Mulligan’s. They’re having ‘Two-for-One’ night. All the better to get some thirsty cadets over there, happy to drown out their memories of finals. You plus me, Bones, equals two. Let’s go.”
A second hand slapped Leonard’s back as Jim attempted to pull the PADD out of his tighten grip. Looking up, Leonard growled and glared at his friend’s annoyingly smiling face. His frustration and irritation were met with amusement and cheerfulness.
Not being cowed, Jim gave him an even bigger shit-eating grin. “Put this down, Bones! Finals are over, man. You don’t have to impress anyone else. You’ve already left inferior med students crying in the hallways.”
Jim gave another tug on the PADD. Pursing his lips, Leonard tried to yank the PADD out of Jim’s hand, who was strangely strong for being so wiry.
“Damn it, Jim! Maybe for you, but not for me. I have less than a half hour to get this damn thing in to Salstrom, so just let me finish.”
Jim pulled on the PADD, tilting it just enough so that he could see what Leonard had been writing. His head jerked back as he frowned in confusion. “Bones, what the hell? You could have written this in your sleep. Why’cha leave it until now?”
Jim was right. He could’ve written this paper in his sleep, and he had been kicking himself all afternoon that he hadn’t gotten it done earlier. But with all the different classes he did have to study for, he had pushed doing this paper back until the end and got caught with his pants down when his schedule went to shit at the hospital.
It was only because his other class work had been exemplary and had proven he did have an emergency at Starfleet Medical, that he was able to even get a small, brief extension. He was still smarting from the sarcastic dressing-down he had gotten from the instructor, Salstrom, a man known to chew up cadets and spit them out just for the hell of it. He wasn’t going to add to it by turning in a half-done paper.
All he needed to do was finish the conclusion and proofread it, and that meant thirty minutes of quiet, something that Jim Kirk wasn’t familiar with. Leonard glared, jerking the PADD out of Jim’s hand, as his irritation and frustration found a target. Thirty minutes. Was that too fucking much to hope for?
He growled as his fingers flew over the keyboard, punching with greater force than needed. “Maybe because when I had planned to write this damn paper, I was stuck in emergency surgery, fixing some goddamned idiot who didn’t possess the common sense of an ameba, after he tried to blow off his whole goddamn arm.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Jim throw up his hands in a typical “I’m innocent” gesture. “Hey, that wasn’t me,” Jim said, as he took a step back.
“Funny how you assume when I mention an idiot I’m talking about you.” Leonard grabbed his other PADD off from his desk to confirm the source of the journal article he needed to reference.
Brushing off the insult, Jim laughed as he patted Leonard on the back, finally giving Leonard some space as he turned to go sit on the bed. Obviously he hadn’t taken the hint and was planning to wait until Leonard was done.
“Hell, coming from you, I thought it was your term of endearment for me. Hey, you got a package,” Jim noted.
Leonard kept typing away furiously, trying to keep at least part of his mind on what he needed to write. “Strangely enough there are other idiots out there, other than you,” he muttered. He glanced at the chrono by his bed and pleaded with his friend. “Jim, I really need to get this done. Salstrom gave me until 17:00 to have this submitted.”
Was it too much to hope that Jim could just give him a twenty-five minute quiet reprieve?
Jim flopped onto Leonard’s bed, causing the package sitting on it to tilt towards him. Jim caught it as he said, “Sure, go ahead. I’ll just wait un - hey, you didn’t open this yet.” His voice became excited. “It’s from your mom!”
Leonard wondered if a brain could spontaneously combust. The clock ticking away in his head was starting to sound like the timing device on one of those old-fashioned bombs that were in those old movies Jim made them watch. He pinched the bridge of his nose as he watched Jim turning the large box from side to side, inspecting it from all angles.
Sighing in exasperation, Leonard asked, “If I let you open it, will you shut the fuck up so that I can get this done?”
Giving him a saucy smile, Jim held up his hand in the classic Boy Scout salute. “If your mother has sent you some of her cookies, I can guarantee that my mouth will have something better to do than talk.”
“Great. Fine. Have at it.” A gleeful look came over Jim’s face and he jumped on the package. “Wait!” Leonard’s sharp word halted Jim in mid-action. “Just leave me some.”
“No problem, Bones,” Jim replied as he pulled off the sealant, flipping open the top and diving into the box.
Shaking his head, Leonard turned back to his PADD, pulling up the chrono and placing it in the corner so that he could monitor the time - less than twenty-five minutes now - as he worked to finish the conclusion of his paper. The sounds of Jim making happy noises at the contents of the box faded to the background.
With two minutes to spare, Leonard pressed the send key after a hastily done proofread, praying that he made sense at the end. He didn’t need another lecture from Salstrom on top of everything. After setting the PADD on his desk, he leaned back in his chair, rubbing his hands over his forehead, trying to will his mind and body into believing he was finally done. No more papers or tests for the next three weeks.
Damn he was tired. Leonard sighed as he rubbed his fingers across his eyebrows and over to his temples. His fingers worked in small circles, trying to ease the tension he felt there. His brain felt like mush, yet every muscle in his body felt tight.
Leonard stretched out his legs, arching his back, and felt various vertebrae crack into place with the movement. He was so bone-tired, but yet, he still felt wired. His body still hadn’t gotten the message that it didn’t have to get up and do one more shift, one more exam, or one more fucking paper.
Maybe a few drinks with Jim would be the thing to do. He wouldn’t stay until last call, no matter how much Jim whined. He could come home early and crash for the night, waking up tomorrow only when his stomach demanded something to eat. It might just be the way to get his whole body out of the “push, push, and then push some more” cycle it had been in this whole week.
Taking a deep breath and letting out another long, tired sigh, Leonard twisted his head and glanced over to tell Jim he’d be going. He shook his head in resignation. He should have known.
The contents of the box were strewn all over the bed as if they had been the dirt that had covered a puppy’s favorite bone. Leonard’s eyes drifted up the mattress to the head of the bed and softly snorted. It looked like those hoped-for cookies had been in there because Jim was happily stuffing one into his mouth as he read a book, quiet and oblivious, propped up on the bed, a pillow folded under his head.
Leonard’s eyes widened in amazement as he watched Jim. Would wonders never cease? The kid could be quiet and sit still. No muttering, no jiggling, no foot bouncing like he normally did when he had to stay in one place for a time, and all it took was his mother’s cookies and a book.
Leonard laughed to himself. He wished he had discovered that sooner. He was going to have to ask for a monthly shipment if that was what it took. His mom’s ginger molasses cookies were his favorite, and it seemed like they were Jim’s too, if the sight of Jim eating a second cookie in the few moments since he had been watching his friend was any indication.
“You’d better have left me some this time,” Leonard growled as he pushed himself up off from his chair and made his way across the room and over to the bed. He needed something to raise his falling blood sugar right about now.
“M’yeah. She sent wots.” A little spray of cookie flew out of Jim’s mouth and he flicked it off the edge of the book.
“For God’s sake, Jim! Don’t talk with your mouth full,” Leonard barked as he stood by Jim’s side.
Jim exaggerated his chewing and swallowing before replying, “Then don’t ask me questions when I am eating.”
Leonard rolled his eyes as he snatched the cookie container off from the bed by Jim’s side and took a look inside it. “You’re damn lucky this is still three-fourths full, or there would have been hell to pay.” It was a large container, but it was probably completely full when she sent it, knowing Jim’s unhealthy love for anything sweet.
Jim just smiled around his cookie before taking a large bite from it.
Taking a cookie for himself, Leonard set the container back on the bed, placing it well out of Jim’s immediate reach. Granted, his mother always sent extra cookies for Jim since she found out that he never had homemade cookies growing up, but damn it, they were his cookies, too.
Jim dived over, grabbing a handful, before giving Leonard a big grin. Short of wrestling them out of Jim’s hands - and Jim would fight for them, Leonard was certain about that - it would be easier just to let the man-child have them. Leonard raised his eyebrow and growled under his breath - he couldn’t let it seem like he condoned Jim’s cookie addiction - before he took a large bite out of his, looking over the contents of the box spread out over the narrow bed.
A warm feeling grew in his chest. Leonard loved getting these little care packages from his mother. Besides the cookies she always sent, his mother had been trying to do her part in making his dorm room more like home by sending personal items that she thought he might appreciate.
Jim must have been watching him. “She sent you some hardcover books,” Jim said, indicating with the book in his hand. “There’s also some really cute holos of Joanna and some PADDs with some old medical journals on them.”
Leonard rolled his eyes. He should have known that Jim would look at everything. Jim’s idea of personal boundaries was if it wasn’t locked up, then you must have wanted him to see it.
“Oh, and…” Leonard could hear the teasing tone in Jim’s voice. “She sent some more sweaters.”
Leonard looked to see a couple of hand-knitted sweaters that Jim had laid to the side, and he couldn’t help but smile at their sight, even though he knew he just opened himself up for more teasing. He had complained to his mother about the weather here. The cold and rainy winter had been hard to endure, and he had heard horror stories about the fog during the summer months. Leave it to his mother to do her part in keeping him warm.
“Guess she knew her little Southern flower was getting cold,” Jim said smirking.
Just to spite him, Leonard leaned over and grabbed another cookie, ignoring Jim’s muttered complaint not to eat them all.
Leonard glared briefly at Jim, before shooting back a response to his teasing. “Just because you grew up on the frozen tundra, walking uphill to school both ways through knee-high snow, doesn’t mean the rest of us did.” He took an extra large bite of his cookie, tearing it emphatically from his mouth.
To an outsider, it might sound like something different, but it was a familiar and friendly rant between the two of them, showing their growing friendship. Leonard would complain endlessly about the cold, damp weather of San Francisco, and Jim would tease him relentlessly about being a Southern flower. Leonard would dress in as many layers as he could, and Jim would run around in a t-shirt and that leather jacket in all kinds of weather, no matter what the temperature. It made Leonard feel colder just looking at Jim.
But, thanks to his mother, that might not happen as much. Finishing the last bite of his cookie, Leonard smiled as he took a closer look at the bed. He’d just bet the rest of the cookies that the blue sweater his mother sent was for the cookie monster himself…currently going for the damn cookie container again.
“Damn it, Jim!” Leonard swatted at his hand. “You’re gonna get sick if you eat any more of those.”
“Nah, I have a high tolerance for cookies,” Jim said, snatching two more cookies and putting them in the pocket of his jacket. “Oh, wait.” He sat up, placing the book carefully on the bed. “There was a letter in there, too. It’s here somewhere.” Leonard rolled his eyes as Jim dug through different items in the mess now known as Leonard’s bed, searching for it. “It was even on real paper. Do you see a cream-colored envelope anywhere?”
At the sound of those words, the world closed in, and everything in him - his good mood, his irritation at Jim, his thoughts, hell, even his breath - all fell into the black hole that had opened up inside of him. The only thing left, the only thing that escaped the gravitational pull, was the word “letter,” swirling around the inside of the cold husk of his body.
A small touch on his arm made him jerk and look up.
“Bones?” Jim was standing by his side, and from the look on his face, Jim had called his name more than once. Jim’s eyes swept over him and he watched as concern pinched his friend’s eyebrows together. “Are you okay?” Jim asked, holding on tighter to Leonard’s arm as if he was afraid that Leonard might fall without his support.
Leonard forced himself to glance down to Jim’s other hand and saw the familiar envelope. The small nugget of hope that it wasn’t what he feared was crushed to dust and sucked away. He didn’t need to see the front of it to know who it was from.
Jim was giving him a funny look as he waited for Leonard’s answer. Pulling the strength from fuck knew where, Leonard tugged his arm gently from Jim’s hand.
It took a couple of tries, but Leonard was able to force his dry throat to swallow before he answered Jim gruffly, his own familiar frown plastered on his brow. “Yeah, kid…I just remembered something that I should have put in my paper.”
He could see that Jim didn’t totally buy it. Skepticism was etched in the lines in his forehead, but for whatever reason, Leonard knew the moment that Jim decided not to push.
“Yeah, I hate when that happens.” He brought the letter up, holding it out to Leonard. “Here.”
With every cell in his body screaming “Don’t touch it,” Leonard forced his hand up. Steeling his hands not to shake or pull away - he was a surgeon, damn it, he knew how to control his hands - Leonard took the envelope. He made himself glance at it, hoping that he appeared indifferent. He took in his name, the black inked letters in that familiar scrawl, before he walked closer to his desk and tossed it to the surface. He refused to watch where it landed.
“Say, didn’t you mention something about two-for-one at Mulligan’s?” Leonard was impressed he was able to get words out of his constricted throat, let alone how normal they sounded.
Jim’s eyes darted to the desk and then back to Leonard’s face, a small scowl on his own face. “Yeah, bunch of the guys went over there. Are you sure you don’t want to read that?” he questioned, nodding his head to the letter. “It must be important if someone took the time to write it on paper.”
No. Way. In. Hell. Not now, not later and definitely not in front of Jim. That’s all he would need, Jim’s genius mind putting lots, little or nothing together and coming up with the stupid fucking answer about what it contained.
Leonard by nature wasn’t duplicitous. He believed in speaking the truth, plain and simple, but today he didn’t want the truth anywhere near his friend. He needed both of them, him and Jim, anywhere but here. Like right now.
Waving his hand dismissively as he walked to his closet, Leonard quickly started to strip out of his cadet reds. “Nah, just something my mom likes to do every once in a while. I’ll read it later,” he said, trying to infuse his voice with as casual of a tone as he could muster even though his heart was trying to beat its way out of his chest.
He pulled on the first pair of jeans he could get his hands on and grabbed the heather-brown sweater off the bed, pulling it quickly over his t-shirt. Leonard stole a glance at Jim who stood with his hands on his hips, a puzzled look on his face.
Fuck. He knew that look. It was forebear to the tenacious one that Jim got when he wasn’t going to let something go. He’d be like a hound dog who picked up a scent if Leonard didn’t provide something else to distract him, at least for the time being.
Leonard quickly grabbed the blue sweater and tossed it over to his friend, who easily snatched it out of the air before it could hit him in the face. “Here. I’m sure that one’s for you.”
“Hey, wow!” Jim said as he held the sweater up before his face. He pulled it away, watching as Leonard pulled on his boots. “Did your mom make this?”
The distraction worked, and Leonard felt a little bit of the tension in his chest loosen at his temporary reprieve.
“Yeah, she hates to sit. Likes to keep her hands busy, but obviously, she doesn’t understand that your Midwestern hide doesn’t get fuckin’ cold,” Leonard said, hurrying to finish getting ready before Jim caught on.
Bitching at him was usually a good way to keep control of the conversation, something that might fool his friend into thinking things were normal. If he got Jim out the door, he stood a better chance at keeping Jim’s mind off from that cursed thing on his desk.
Shooting a smirk at him, Jim took off his jacket and pulled the soft v-necked sweater on over his white t-shirt. “Wow! It fits great,” he said with a look of childlike amazement on his face, almost as if he had never gotten a present before. He smoothed his hands over the front of the sweater and down the sleeves, checking out their length. “Bones, this is…Tell her thanks the next time you talk to her.”
Even in the midst of his own pain, Leonard stopped and considered his friend. Jim never really talked about his childhood much, but Leonard had seen little bits here and there over the course of the months they had spent at the Academy. He slowly ascertained from the little Jim had said - and didn’t say - that Jim’s childhood rated at the very least, neglectful if not downright abusive, and for a moment, he forgot his own pain in face of what Jim must have gone through as a kid.
Something must have shown on his face. That or Jim must have realized he had let on more than he wanted because his face closed down for a moment, his eyes loosing the warmth they had in them just a moment ago. Jim grabbed his leather jacket from where it had fallen on the floor and the Jim Kirk he knew fell over back over his shoulders along with the jacket.
“That’s if I’m not here when she calls next time,” he said, the side of his mouth turned up in a cocky grin.
Leonard schooled his face, erasing anything that might look like pity, before he did his classical eye roll, something that was familiar and safe for Jim. He watched as Jim fidgeted with a nervous energy that started to hum through him, his eyes darting at the door, impatient to leave the scene of the “crime” where he revealed more than he wanted.
Leonard felt a twinge of guilt. Did it make him a bad person that he was relieved that something had distracted Jim, even if it was most likely something painful from his childhood? Hell, it looked like both of them needed some good old-fashioned alcohol to forget the shit that happened in their pasts. And he knew exactly where they could find some.
“Kid, like you’re never not here. You talk to my own mother more than me.” Leonard pulled his comm out of his uniform pocket and slipped it into his jeans. “Now, let’s go get some two-for-ones before Mulligan grows a brain and figures out that he might be losing money with this deal.” Leonard walked to the door and turned. “First round’s on me.”
Jim bounded across the dorm floor, slapping Leonard on the arm as he passed. “C’mon, Bones. You know there’ll be more than just one round on you.”
~*~
He was crying. He was standing in an old cemetery with dead yew trees disperse between old, old grave stones. Everyone was gone, gone to wherever people go to shed the depressing blanket of misery following a funeral. Only he was left, and he was crying.
Grief shook and overwhelmed him. His knees could no longer hold him up, and Leonard felt himself crumble to the ground. His knees struck the base of the new headstone before him, and the pain briefly registered through his sorrow. From this position he could no longer avoid what he wanted to run away from; his vision was filled with the hard, true evidence he was forced to accept.
He could barely read the chiseled words in the front façade of the granite slab through his blur of tears, but he knew what it said.
David Leonard McCoy, June 4, 2190 - June 1, 2254. Loving husband, father and grandfather.
A sob tore its way out of his lips, and Leonard reached out to trace the letters, needing to have some kind of connection with the man that had been there his whole life, the one person who shaped the man he had become. His fingers slid along the only thing left to mark this gentle man’s life. A knifelike pain sliced through his quiet crying as the sharp edges of the letters cut into his fingertips, making even this need for connection a punishment that he deserved.
He watched as blood seeped out of the wounds, flowing as a rivulet of red down the grey, smooth stone before making a gravity-defying turn at the base of the loving tribute to the man. A caustic smell invaded his nose. He froze as more words slowly appeared; the letters, red and prominent, burnt forever into the granite stone by his blood.
Killed by his son’s own hands.
His stomach heaved at the damning words, and he no longer could hold back the bile churning in his stomach as he threw up over the base of the headstone. Waves of it made their way up his throat, and violence of his retching shook his body.
Suddenly, hands, horrible damning hands, rose up through the overturned Georgian soil beneath his knees, grabbing him around his waist. Terror tore through him, and Leonard slapped at the hands, trying to keep from being dragged down into the bowels of hell where he belonged.
“Bones!”
The familiar but worried voice made him stop, and the sound pulled him away from the terror of his dream.
Gentle hands held him across the chest, supporting his head as he vomited violently into the toilet. Minutes, hours later he finally finished, utterly drained down to his toes. He felt the hand leave his forehead, and he heard the sound of flushing. His knees hurt and he could barely hold up his head. More hands helped him lay his head against a cool, smooth surface. The sounds of water running filled the air before a cool, wet cloth wiped over his face, and he murmured with loving comfort of the gesture.
Something touched his lips. “Here, drink this.” His uncoordinated hand came up on its own and tried to slap it away. “Bones, drink!” the voice commanded.
Leonard felt a hand gently tip up his head, and he allowed a few sips of cool water to pass his lips until his stomach protested. He pulled away, gagging. Hands let him rest back down for a moment before coming up under his arms, pulling him up to stand.
“C’mon, Bones. Up.”
He struggled to get his legs underneath him, and they slowly made their way out of the bathroom to the blessed relief of a mattress beneath him. Hands pulled him up, and he groaned in protest before he felt them pull his clothes off over his head. No longer supported, he flopped back, his head landing on a pillow. He felt his shoes being tugged off his feet before he sunk down into the bliss of unconsciousness, no longer having to think or feel.
Part 2