Fic: Any Other World (1/1)
Title: Any Other World
Rating: R
Pairing: Kirk/McCoy
Word Count: 1,261
Summary: He wonders, idly, if moments really matter. For tourdefierce, who requested “Kirk/McCoy and fandom tropes” at my Winter Gift-Fic Extravaganza. Spoilers for Star Trek (2009). Warning for implied character death.
Disclaimer: I own nothing but the plot.
Author’s Notes: I’m probably a morbid bitch, but basically, one my of favorite fandom tropes involves death -- confessions when someone thinks someone else is dying, last moments with a vague kind of ending, thinking one person is dead and then finding they’re not and reuniting -- yeah, I’m that chick. I hope this, while angsty, is to your liking, doll.
Any Other World
“Jesus,” and he hears it, like calling down an empty hallway, reverberations and too much interference, too much echo and space -- he wants to be close to something, now; wants to have something he loves near to him at the end.
He never really thought it’d matter, until he broached the finish with his own last breaths. Funny, how that works out.
“Bones,” and it’s strange, that he couldn’t have said for sure that it was Jim there with him until he hears that name, lets it curve a smile from trembling lips as blood starts to bead at the corners, iron tang on the back of his tongue; and all he wants is to have enough left in him to man the fuck up and kiss the man he’s wanted, ever since he shared the last of his favorite brew on that shuttle bound for Hell and back -- the man he’s ached for since he tasted him secondhand on the mouth of that flask.
It’s not surprising, really -- Leonard’s kind of a fool, like that.
It’s morbid, maybe, but he’s thought of this moment before; he’s thought of what he’d say, if there were breaths left, what he’d do with the spare beats he’d be given. He has speeches, crafted in the back of his mind, cobwebbed with more important things -- rusty but functional, like so much else, so much that should never have been lost to such a fate. He has words he means for an occasion such as this, but he can’t really remember all of them, can’t really tell if they fit when Jim’s talking, his lips bitten red with worry and his eyes rimmed the same with grief, and Leonard’s sorry, real sorry, but he just can’t tell if any of it matters anymore.
Jim tells him to hold on, he thinks; feels like he reads the shape of his mouth over enough times to get that message through undiluted, fairly sure -- he’d laugh if he cared less about moments, feared less the shadows lurking in the shade, the cold hand on his chest to the warm one Jim’s got pressed against his wounds, some of them, hot against his side. He’d laugh, he should -- moments never mattered.
What he comes up with, what he makes due with, is something convoluted, something faint -- wise words that might be remembered or forgotten and are only half from his heart, and it’s not the best he can do, but it’s enough, maybe; it’s enough.
Has to be.
“We’re not meant to be extraordinary, Jim, he whispers, chokes on the weight, coughs up blood again, harder now, a second wind. “We’re jus’ meant to make the most of all this while it lasts.”
He feels the breath of a touch, whisper-light, and maybe he’s crying, maybe he’s sweating, maybe there’s blood but the touch itself is slick; that much he knows.
“You can’t leave me, you bastard,” Jim says, and it’s heartfelt, like maybe there’s more there for both of them, and isn’t that just how it’s meant to be, isn’t that just how it always is. “You can’t.”
“I’m sorry, Jim,” and he can’t hear that well, can’t make out much, and the sounds all blend together; he hopes it’s understood; “M’sorry.”
He is.
“Just hang on, Bones,” and Jim’s half-between begging and demanding, the two things he’s best at, getting the world to bend to his whim one way or the other, except this time, this time it ain’t gonna work; this time it won’t change a goddamned thing. “Please, just a little longer, that’s all we need.”
He shakes his head -- or else, he tries to; it hurts, and he’s losing the capacity to control any part of himself, to move and turn and brave and be -- everything’s slipping, and it’s coming up soon.
“You can be extraordinary, Bones,” Jim plunges on, and it might be his imagination -- the space between the here and the hereafter, playing tricks on him -- but he thinks Jim leans in close, thinks that his lips press slow and sweet against his forehead, that his cheek rests there and his words blow a stream of breath across Leonard’s cooling skin, his stilling features, and something quirks, ready to give it one last go, make it last a little longer -- moments that matter, he thinks, like maybe he gets it.
Maybe.
“You can, I’ve seen it,” Jim insists, and it takes Leonard a moment to put it all together, to remember where he’s going with that train of thought, and he ain’t nothing special, ain’t nothing worth all this trouble -- to live and die’s all a man’s worth, and he’s just seeing the end of it through, is all. “You’ve just got to hold on a little bit longer.”
Leonard tries once, twice to get his vocal cords to cooperate, to get his tongue to flap and his teeth to angle and his lips to fucking move; he tries, and he tries, and he tries again, and he says it: “Can’t,” like it means something, like he could try, until that instant when all the breath was gone.
He feels himself deflate a little, knows he’s pushing his luck, pushing the boundaries, and he silently thanks Jim for that capacity, thinks that’s where he picked it up.
Leonard blinks, and things go real clear for a moment, like he can see everything, see in it and through it and past it and near, and Jim’s whole face is blotchy, streaked with tears, and that aches more than the stabs and the cuts and the holes in him; that aches more. “I won’t lose you,” Jim hisses through clenched teeth; “I won’t.”
And Leonard; he doesn’t have his voice anymore, but he wills his mouth to move, to make the shapes without the sounds, and he prays that Jim’s still watching, that Jim knows what he needs to, sees what he can. “‘S nothing you can do, Jim. S’over...”
“Fuck no, it’s isn’t,” Jim growls, all grit and pain and fierce determination, like it matters much at all, like he can reach out and banish the laws of nature if he wants, and maybe he can, maybe he has, just not now; not this time. “Not until I say so. Do you hear me?”
He hears it, in his way, but it’s useless, too late.
“Fight it, Bones, for me,” Jim sobs, but Leonard’s too far, too deep to feel it, to connect much to the sentiment; and maybe they’d had their chance and missed it, or maybe they’d never gotten it at all, maybe they hadn’t needed one -- maybe there was care and love enough, unspoken, for the universe to be satisfied with the breadth of his soul.
“I need you,” Jim murmurs into his chest, and that’s the last thing Leonard feels, like a jolt against his heart before there’s nothing; nothing.
And losing, fighting the battle and coming up empty handed: it’s been so much of his life already, so much of his world that this almost seems fitting, that this is more familiar than most things he’s known; so weary of death, ready for more than this -- always had been -- he closes up and greets it, wishes moving on didn’t have to mean letting go.
Rating: R
Pairing: Kirk/McCoy
Word Count: 1,261
Summary: He wonders, idly, if moments really matter. For tourdefierce, who requested “Kirk/McCoy and fandom tropes” at my Winter Gift-Fic Extravaganza. Spoilers for Star Trek (2009). Warning for implied character death.
Disclaimer: I own nothing but the plot.
Author’s Notes: I’m probably a morbid bitch, but basically, one my of favorite fandom tropes involves death -- confessions when someone thinks someone else is dying, last moments with a vague kind of ending, thinking one person is dead and then finding they’re not and reuniting -- yeah, I’m that chick. I hope this, while angsty, is to your liking, doll.
Any Other World
“Jesus,” and he hears it, like calling down an empty hallway, reverberations and too much interference, too much echo and space -- he wants to be close to something, now; wants to have something he loves near to him at the end.
He never really thought it’d matter, until he broached the finish with his own last breaths. Funny, how that works out.
“Bones,” and it’s strange, that he couldn’t have said for sure that it was Jim there with him until he hears that name, lets it curve a smile from trembling lips as blood starts to bead at the corners, iron tang on the back of his tongue; and all he wants is to have enough left in him to man the fuck up and kiss the man he’s wanted, ever since he shared the last of his favorite brew on that shuttle bound for Hell and back -- the man he’s ached for since he tasted him secondhand on the mouth of that flask.
It’s not surprising, really -- Leonard’s kind of a fool, like that.
It’s morbid, maybe, but he’s thought of this moment before; he’s thought of what he’d say, if there were breaths left, what he’d do with the spare beats he’d be given. He has speeches, crafted in the back of his mind, cobwebbed with more important things -- rusty but functional, like so much else, so much that should never have been lost to such a fate. He has words he means for an occasion such as this, but he can’t really remember all of them, can’t really tell if they fit when Jim’s talking, his lips bitten red with worry and his eyes rimmed the same with grief, and Leonard’s sorry, real sorry, but he just can’t tell if any of it matters anymore.
Jim tells him to hold on, he thinks; feels like he reads the shape of his mouth over enough times to get that message through undiluted, fairly sure -- he’d laugh if he cared less about moments, feared less the shadows lurking in the shade, the cold hand on his chest to the warm one Jim’s got pressed against his wounds, some of them, hot against his side. He’d laugh, he should -- moments never mattered.
What he comes up with, what he makes due with, is something convoluted, something faint -- wise words that might be remembered or forgotten and are only half from his heart, and it’s not the best he can do, but it’s enough, maybe; it’s enough.
Has to be.
“We’re not meant to be extraordinary, Jim, he whispers, chokes on the weight, coughs up blood again, harder now, a second wind. “We’re jus’ meant to make the most of all this while it lasts.”
He feels the breath of a touch, whisper-light, and maybe he’s crying, maybe he’s sweating, maybe there’s blood but the touch itself is slick; that much he knows.
“You can’t leave me, you bastard,” Jim says, and it’s heartfelt, like maybe there’s more there for both of them, and isn’t that just how it’s meant to be, isn’t that just how it always is. “You can’t.”
“I’m sorry, Jim,” and he can’t hear that well, can’t make out much, and the sounds all blend together; he hopes it’s understood; “M’sorry.”
He is.
“Just hang on, Bones,” and Jim’s half-between begging and demanding, the two things he’s best at, getting the world to bend to his whim one way or the other, except this time, this time it ain’t gonna work; this time it won’t change a goddamned thing. “Please, just a little longer, that’s all we need.”
He shakes his head -- or else, he tries to; it hurts, and he’s losing the capacity to control any part of himself, to move and turn and brave and be -- everything’s slipping, and it’s coming up soon.
“You can be extraordinary, Bones,” Jim plunges on, and it might be his imagination -- the space between the here and the hereafter, playing tricks on him -- but he thinks Jim leans in close, thinks that his lips press slow and sweet against his forehead, that his cheek rests there and his words blow a stream of breath across Leonard’s cooling skin, his stilling features, and something quirks, ready to give it one last go, make it last a little longer -- moments that matter, he thinks, like maybe he gets it.
Maybe.
“You can, I’ve seen it,” Jim insists, and it takes Leonard a moment to put it all together, to remember where he’s going with that train of thought, and he ain’t nothing special, ain’t nothing worth all this trouble -- to live and die’s all a man’s worth, and he’s just seeing the end of it through, is all. “You’ve just got to hold on a little bit longer.”
Leonard tries once, twice to get his vocal cords to cooperate, to get his tongue to flap and his teeth to angle and his lips to fucking move; he tries, and he tries, and he tries again, and he says it: “Can’t,” like it means something, like he could try, until that instant when all the breath was gone.
He feels himself deflate a little, knows he’s pushing his luck, pushing the boundaries, and he silently thanks Jim for that capacity, thinks that’s where he picked it up.
Leonard blinks, and things go real clear for a moment, like he can see everything, see in it and through it and past it and near, and Jim’s whole face is blotchy, streaked with tears, and that aches more than the stabs and the cuts and the holes in him; that aches more. “I won’t lose you,” Jim hisses through clenched teeth; “I won’t.”
And Leonard; he doesn’t have his voice anymore, but he wills his mouth to move, to make the shapes without the sounds, and he prays that Jim’s still watching, that Jim knows what he needs to, sees what he can. “‘S nothing you can do, Jim. S’over...”
“Fuck no, it’s isn’t,” Jim growls, all grit and pain and fierce determination, like it matters much at all, like he can reach out and banish the laws of nature if he wants, and maybe he can, maybe he has, just not now; not this time. “Not until I say so. Do you hear me?”
He hears it, in his way, but it’s useless, too late.
“Fight it, Bones, for me,” Jim sobs, but Leonard’s too far, too deep to feel it, to connect much to the sentiment; and maybe they’d had their chance and missed it, or maybe they’d never gotten it at all, maybe they hadn’t needed one -- maybe there was care and love enough, unspoken, for the universe to be satisfied with the breadth of his soul.
“I need you,” Jim murmurs into his chest, and that’s the last thing Leonard feels, like a jolt against his heart before there’s nothing; nothing.
And losing, fighting the battle and coming up empty handed: it’s been so much of his life already, so much of his world that this almost seems fitting, that this is more familiar than most things he’s known; so weary of death, ready for more than this -- always had been -- he closes up and greets it, wishes moving on didn’t have to mean letting go.