B.Y.O.T.

[asouthron]

Characters: Leonard McCoy asouthron and Jim Kirk jirk
Date: 13th; early afternoon
Location: Water Sector, and then one of their apartments? Bow chicka wow wow
Situation: McCoy has just arrived and he's brought along some serious troubles.
Warnings/Rating: IDK, McCoy swears like a sailor and Jim isn't much better. So there's that. PROLLY GONNA BE SPOILERS FOR INTO DARKNESS.


After his surreal communication with Jim, the man had nothing to do but wait. He had to wait for Jim in a strange world that should only exist in a holofantasy. God, how stupid was he? One hit to the head and suddenly he had forgotten the first rule of survival: Don't let Jim come to you. You should go to him. The doctor should have fought it harder, but he had just been so stunned by the entire conversation that the kid had taken advantage of him.

"Damnit!" he huffed under his breath, thumb already pressed against his teeth as he tried not to pace in front of a large fountain and failed spectacularly. He kept his eyes on the horizon, hoping to catch a glimpse of dishwater blond hair any moment. Shockingly, no one else seemed to find his behavior in any way strange. Sure, he got the occasional glance or a shake of the head, but apparently he wasn't some kind of magical oddity among them. For his part, McCoy wasn't sure if that comforted him or made him all the more suspicious. Probably suspicious.

"C'mon, c'mon..." Finally, he took a hard seat on the lip of the fountain at his back when it was clear this wasn't going to be a quick rescue. The doctor took out his communicator, tempted to call him just to make sure he wasn't off on some tangent, but thought better of it. This wasn't some kind of trip where he was free to lollygag to his heart's content. The Captain would be here as soon as he could to pick up one of his stranded crew members. Oh boy, and wasn't that going to be a grand story. McCoy couldn't wait to hear it.

With a heavy sigh, the man dared a glance into his medical case, dreading what he knew already to be lurking in there. Thankfully upon inspection, the furry thing hadn't started to multiply just yet. For now, they were alright. But he certainly couldn't guarantee that for long.

Comments

[jirk]

Normally, Jim wasn't one to swallow his pride. He just wasn't, okay? That pride had been a lot more enduring than a lot of his other emotions or impulses, it was as much a facet of his personality as his surname was a brand, and he couldn't just... shake it off, step out of it, ignore it.

But somewhere out there there was a universe where he begged for his crew, and that's part of him now, too. Even if he hadn't lived it. Maybe especially because he hadn't lived it, only saw it through Spock's eyes. So Jim gritted his teeth and flagged down the Keeliai equivalent of a cab.

He could walk. He didn't have to prove that to anyone, the whole mangled leg thing, the near-week of incarceration, the torture, none of that changed the fact that he could damn well walk anywhere he pleased and do it with bells on, but his pride wasn't worth Bones having to wait.

(Spock called him 'Jim', the first time he saw him here, and there was a little bit of that anguish in Bones, too, and Jim hated, he hated that he was the one that put it there.)

The cab dropped him off, as per his instructions, just near Bones' coordinates and Jim scrambled outside, trying not to lean overmuch on his cane as he scanned the crowd. Because Bones was here, and that-- God, he wasn't old enough to be able to say he was getting sentimental in his old age, but hearing that voice was like getting a shot of pure adrenaline and hope stabbed somewhere unpleasant. He hadn't realized how much he missed the damned grouch until just now.

He saw him across the way, parked at a fountain, and even with everything, despite everything, he grinned. Bones just had that effect on him. Jim limped in his general direction, not even trying to blend in with the crowd (like he could ever blend in with any crowd, with how he carries himself) but didn't speak until he was at the fountain properly, head canted to one side.

"Bones." He had a moment's indecision, to go for the formal or informal approach. Spock had needed formality. Bones... hell, Bones always was his opposite number. "Fancy meeting you here."

[asouthron]

His legs almost started tapping as he waited anxiously for his friend's appearance, but thankfully Jim made himself known from a midst the crowd before he resorted to such desperate measures. McCoy's already frantic heart rate ratcheted up another beat when he caught sight of the top of him. Alright, finally this ridiculous farce would start getting productive, and then they could deal with the creature in his--

But, of course, his brains functions decided to shut down one by one when the crowd parted around Jim and he saw the man limp towards him. If McCoy had been a southern belle, he would have clutched his pearls and gasped. He still gasped, but it at least had a curse word attached to it. By the time his Captain finally came to stand in front of him, he had just regained motor functions like speech. Staring up into Jim's nonchalant face like an idiot, he snapped his mouth shut, turned his attention back to the appalling nub that was his friend's leg, and then pointed to it. "What. Is that?" he asked, scandalized and horrified and just so damn tired of this day already.

[jirk]

"'That'," Jim said patiently, with a surprising amount of good cheer, "is a long, complicated story that I cross my heart I'll tell you later." Jim's smile became tired, a little rough around the edges, and he rubbed at his shoulder, the one that ached sometimes, too many stupid stunts as a kid and no hospitalization to speak of.

"Look, Bones, just follow me, all right?" Without waiting for confirmation or denial, Jim turned and set off through the crowd once more, heading for an alleyway. Wood and Fire were close enough they could be cut through, and now that Bones was with him, he doesn't have to worry about how fast he was going, except for that damned fool pride.

[asouthron]

His hazel eyes narrowed at Jim's flippant remarks, but he kept his mouth shut. If the man said he would 'fess up later, then later it would be. McCoy may need to hold his friend to it, but he would eventually get the whole story. Until then, he would have to be satisfied with the promise.

Grumbling about how foolish it was to follow a gimp, the doctor slid off the ledge of the fountain and followed directly behind, trying hard to not get too distracted by the fantastical grandeur of this place. There were other issues that needed to be dealt with before sightseeing and, regrettably, medical care.

"Listen, I've--We've--got a serious problem." Oh yeah, he was dragging Jim into this completely. A crew worked together as a team, thus as the Captain he was automatically responsible for 75% of this disaster. He felt no guilt re-assigning that much weight off his shoulders. "I'm not sure how in the hell it happened, but I somehow brought a 'troubling' stowaway with me."

[jirk]

"A troubling wh--?" Jim was halfway through the statement when his brain caught up with the rest of them, and then he pivoted and grabbed McCoy specifically so he could jerk him into the relative shadowy protection of a large (and overfull) garbage bin.

"You've got a tribble? Bones, why the hell were you carrying a tribble!" He couldn't (or rather, didn't) keep the slightly manic edge of 'why god why' out of his voice. Tribbles in Keeliai were a worse idea than Jim Kirk in Keeliai, and that right there should be all the comparison anyone needed, ever. He could just imagine it, tribbles exploding out of every fountain, every drawer, every nook and cranny imaginable.

God, is the turtle a carnivore? He hoped the turtle was a carnivore. 'Hey, we solved your rationing problem sort of!'

He let go of Bones and stepped back a little unevenly, hand pressed against his forehead. "Okay, well, we know what stops them from replicating, so we do that. Please tell me it hasn't already started."

[asouthron]

"Whoa--H-Hey--!" For an invalid, the Captain could still muster McCoy into a corner pretty easily. The bin made a obscene thunk at his side. "Damnit, Jim!" he hissed at the unexpected treatment. This was completely unsanitary to boot! "Hell if I know! It's not like I put it in my pocket for safe keepin'! It just... Somehow when I was in the lab, I must not have been payin' attention and it--Look, right now, we gotta get this thing on ice!"

Once Jim let him go, the doctor straightened out his shirt and combed his hair back to its original position. At his friend's concern, he opened his medical kit to allay them, but what he found left a not-good look on the older man's face. "Shit!" was all he said.

[jirk]

Capital Nope. Jim lunged forward and slammed the satchel closed very, very firmly. He didn't need to look inside to properly interpret Bones' imprecations. "Not another word. I swear to god, Bones, if you start doomsaying all over me I am going to send you straight to the brig. I'll build one, just for you, property of L. McCoy. It'll have a floral pattern on the walls." He pointed at him, just to let him know How Completely Serious he was about this whole plan.

(He was actually a little serious)

"I've got an ice box back at my place, we'll put them there until we know what we're doing with them. That is an order, now stop with the--" he waved vaguely at all of McCoy, "-- That. Stop with the that. That's also an order."

[asouthron]

"The what--? Oh!" He mimed as if it had just suddenly struck him like a bolt of lightning. "Oh, you mean me freakin' out over bein' kidnapped here on a backwater planet with my Captain effectively stranded here too, and a potential ecological disaster just a few births away?" He paused to allow that all to sink into Jim before he dared to tell him to calm down in the face of doom and despair. "Is that what you're talkin' about, Jim? Sure, I'll try reinin' that in."

Taking full control of his medical kit back with a huff (so help him he would slap Jim's hands if need be), he motioned for his friend to hurry up with the walking again so they could get the furry nightmares quarantined as soon as possible.

[jirk]

"And my first officer. Spock's here, too. Did I not mention that?" Jim's tone maintained that veneer of cheerfulness, and he patted Bones' shoulder comfortingly-- or in any event, as close as he ever got to comfortingly.

"And would you? Man, Bones, you're the best." Choosing to ignore McCoy's fatalistic sarcasm is often one of the highlights of his day. Jim flashed him a brilliant smile and carried on at a brisk pace, ignoring the sundry aches and pains throughout. Being tortured wasn't a walk in the park at the best of times. Jim let the silence lapse between them briefly, maneuvering himself around a spilled crate of garbage, and then he absolutely could not take it any more, he had to know.

"What's the last thing you remember about back home?"

SPOILERS starting here

[asouthron]

"No, that little tidbit seemed to have slipped your mind." McCoy suddenly felt like a rebellious teenager who suddenly learned he had to take his little brother along with him on his big kid escapades. That was what Spock was: The buzzkill of all buzzkills. As much as he hated to admit it, though, he was also probably the only reason Jim was still in one piece after his condition on the Enterprise--Which need its own gap fill real bad! Clearly the Vulcan had taken Jim out of cryostasis--which he was going to get chewed out for the first change he got!--but how and why was still missing.

"I remember bein' in the lab synthesizin' blood and doin' research on this--" He raised his medical kit, referring to the stowaway inside. "After that, though, I... I can't remember anythin'." After a moment lost in thought, his intense gaze flicked back to Jim. "What do you remember exactly?"

the road goes ever, ever on

[jirk]

Jim exhaled. Gave Bones a rather irritated look. "Look, Spock told me everything, so you can drop the cagey attitude. I know I die, Bones." He didn't realize until that moment how much that would hurt like hell to say, almost as if admitting it outloud to someone other than Spock was... cementing the future, in a way.

A muscle jumped in his jaw, and he waved it off with irritation. "I've already got like a million plans to go back and fix it, case closed." This felt too much like Bones fussing at him, after Pike died. That memory of the shuttle ride where Carol came aboard.

[asouthron]

"You... die? Wait, what--?!" Okay, now McCoy was really confused. What exactly was Spock discussing with their Captain that brought about this kind of affirmation? Ugh, he was going to strangle that green-blooded bastard. "Just how exactly can you have died if you're standin' right here in front of me?" The incredulous look on his face melted into the something more terrifying when something came to mind.

"Hang on, you don't mean die, as in future tense? You didn't catch anythin' down here, did you? Goddamnit, this is why protocol needs to be upheld! I'm the doctor, damnit! That was my call! If they had just kept you in your cryotube, this wouldn't have happened!"

[jirk]

"Wait, what?" Jim blinked, briefly taken aback, and his forward march was once again halted by dint of something McCoy had said. He squinted, and then lifted a hand up near his temple to give a few fluttery gestures of 'trying to figure this out'. "A cryotube. Like Khan-- wait, you put me in a cryo-tube? Bones, what the hell for, you can't repair that kind of irradiation damage!"

[asouthron]

McCoy snorted at that. "Says who? You? Ha! You get yer MD sometime when I wasn't lookin'?" Honestly, the doctor was a little offended by Jim's incredulous comment about what he could and couldn't cure. His smugness was all the more justified because of it.

"You really think I'd let you die, Jim? I'd be a pretty shitty CMO if a little necrosis stopped me." They would have had to pry Jim's cryotube out of his cold, dead hands before he'd stop looking for some solution. There was plenty of new medical research to exhaust before he hit a dead, but thankfully it hadn't come to that. "I'm not sure what bullshit Spock's been spoon-feedin' ya--" Oh, McCoy would be looking into that as soon as possible. "But I found yer cure coursin' through Khan's blood. You're welcome." He huffed, crossing his arms over his chest. Jesus, he was totally under-appreciated by his own patients. What could be worse for a doctor?

[jirk]

Jim just sort of stared at him. Take note, ladies and gentlemen, take note and due documentation because James Kirk was actually and utterly speechless. His mouth hung half-open in something that was either protest or a half-hearted denial and none of it actually came out.

His brow furrowed, eyes darting to focus on Bones' face, reading his expression. He wasn't lying. Holy shit he wasn't lying. He-- it--

He wasn't dead. Bones was going to bring him back. Bones was always going to bring him back. These last months of waiting, of knowing what he had to go back to, and it wasn't even in the same league.

His expression brightened, and then pitched back down to darkness almost immediately. Khan's blood could bring people back from the dead, then Pike-- but he'd have been interred by then, no way to preserve brain function, even Jim knew how important that was (five to seven minutes without oxygen and the brain's an expensive gray-matter paperweight) and-- Jesus. He needed a minute.

He had to turn away from Bones, shoulders drawing up, his breath a harsh inhalation as he flung a hand out to catch himself on the alley wall. He shouldn't be losing it like this and he knew it, but how often did you hear about your own death and the story of your miraculous recovery all in the same few months?

One miracle begot others, right? "And my-- my crew, Bones, did you--" save any of them? It was too much to hope for and he knew it, Spock cited forty percent casualties and those numbers weren't anything he'd be wrong about. But maybe. He closed his eyes, brows drawn down, and hoped.

[asouthron]

"We did the best we could with what we had." He wasn't going to dictate numbers like a damn computer to him. The man didn't need to hear that right now, but neither could McCoy shrink away from the truth. The situation had been far from optimal. Medical had been operating on nothing except the staff's combined elbow grease to keep anyone alive--Hell, just keeping them in a biobed when the gravity died had been a horrifying struggle. The flashes of images of the dark ward behind his eyes knotted up his stomach.

As the doctor watched Jim, he realized this wasn't just about his crew. There was something deeper under the surface. "Jesus, Jim," McCoy breathed, closing the small distance between them in a few quick steps. "Have you been thinkin' about it the whole time? Your death?" My God, it was morbid to say the least. What had Spock been thinking?! The doctor was sure when he placed a hand on the back of his friend's shoulder he would actually feel the weight of his burden.

"Jim. Jim! You're alive! I knew I could bring you back after you--After..." Now it was McCoy's turn to turn his head away. The loss of his best friend, his brother, and his Captain was just to fresh in his mind to talk about it flippantly. He still remembered the man's dead-eyed gaze vividly as his body slowly, painfully shut down on itself. "Jim, what you did--" His throat closed up all of a sudden and it took all of his willpower to ignore it and push through. "You did what you could to save us... I did what I could to save you and yer crew."

[jirk]

Jim blew out a breath, bracing himself, and by the time he turned back to face McCoy his expression was settled and bright. Not everything could be a victory.

(No such thing as a no-win scenario, but he was, frankly, sick of hearing himself say that now that he'd lived the reality of it all)

"I know. I know you did everything you could, Bones. You're amazing." Jim tipped his head up just a little, and dropped a hand against the man's shoulder in a gesture of camaraderie. There was a part of him that knew he should do, say more. Be grateful, or at least show it, but he was running on fumes. He could do it for Spock, maybe, but Bones-- Christ, the man'd seen more of his scars than anyone alive. Jim could afford not to be perfect around him. Bones needed the man more than the captain, the reverse was true for Spock. So he just gave Bones a brief smile.

He didn't want to talk about his death, about watching himself die, about Pike or the crewmembers he'd have to bury (the ones he'd be alive to bury, God, that made it worse somehow, he was going to have to face their families--) or about how Spock was holding onto his self-restraint by a frayed (and fraying) thread. He felt both lighter and crushed beneath the weight of history's inexorable wheel all at once, and he pinched the bridge of his nose.

"I, ah. Come on, we've got this whole-- tribble thing to sort out." He shook his head, and then gave McCoy a wry glance. "And don't you go getting mad at Spock for this, either. I ordered him to give me a mind-meld of the whole incident. He's from the fight with Khan, it-- Jesus, Bones, I thought he was going to kill him. Whatever you did, it must have happened right after."

[asouthron]

"I'll get mad at whomever I wanna, Jim," McCoy pointed out as he followed the man, letting his hand slowly fall away when his friend moved forward. There were still several questions to be asked, but for now it was okay. He needed the time to recollect himself as well, and a stroll to Jim's apartment should do just that.

"You're my Captain, not my babysitter--And he would've!" The doctor was all for vengeance seeking, especially when it came from Mr. Emotionally Constipated in retaliation for their Captain, but he almost single-handedly condemned the very man they were trying to save. "Thanks God Uhura had her head on straight that day... Anyhow, I was usin' that tribble to test Khan's blood on. Goddamn stowaway."

[jirk]

Clearly, he was missing a lot more of the picture than he'd thought he was. Jim just set his mouth into a grim (for him) line and grilled McCoy about the specifics for the rest of their blessedly short jaunt. By the time they got to Jim's apartment, he was feeling like ten miles of bad road, and he just pushed the door open soundlessly and gestured McCoy inside.

"Dump the tribbles in the ice box, it's inside to the left."

[asouthron]

McCoy did his best to keep some semblance of dignity as he practically scampered into the man's kitchen like he was juggling a hot potato, opened his medical kit, and started shoving until they were all on in the ice box. Phase 1: Complete. Phase 2... Well, they'd deal with that later.

With his case already open, it gave him the perfect excuse to mosey on over to the Captain without alerting him preemptively. "Do I get ta poke and prod you now?" Generally he wouldn't ask. He really didn't need permission to do his job, but McCoy figured this would all go a lot more smoothly if he let Jim set the conditions. Hopefully those conditions were "right now" though.

[jirk]

Generally, Jim had the benefit of 'something else going on' that let him put off Bones' prodding until a more opportune time. Nothing like that here, huh. So he scowled a bit, but he was learning that when there was no value in the fight, you shouldn't bother showing up. Jim set his jaw, but his tone was perfectly congenial when he spoke, "Not even gonna offer to take me out for dinner first? Come on, man. Not everybody gets a free pass to come after me with a hypospray."

[asouthron]

"Sure, if yer payin'! I ain't forkin' over what little I've got just to make you pliable!" Besides, he wasn't going to let food drag this damn physical out longer than it already had. The older man was going to be insufferable until Jim submitted to him, so he might as well let him do his damn job!

"And besides, I don't plan on usin' a hypo unless you've caught somethin' particularly nasty." Their supplies were too minimal to start using superfluously. Instead, he took out his medical tricorder to get a reading on Jim with a few waves of the instrument. He scowled at the readings, but then again he always scowled. It was his default facial expression, so it never meant anything until he followed it up with cursing. Surprisingly, none came, though he wasn't exactly pleased by the gradual healing processes in play here.

"Good to see your nose healed correctly. You set it yourself?" McCoy acted like an interactive narrative to Jim's events in Tu Shanshu over the past two months as he continued scanning from head to toe, grumbling from time to time about what he found. The burns were worrisome, but nothing appeared infected or inflamed. What concerned him were the fissures in Jim's hand that hadn't been properly treated, and that knee.

The readings off his tricorder actually made him jump in his seat beside his friend. "My God, man! What the hell happened? Yer leg's like a makeshift war bunker!" Who still used metal plates? This was beyond barbaric! McCoy knew that he couldn't blame the doctor. This was about as state of the art as it came here, but even so his face was about to turn purple with fury.

[jirk]

Jim blew a kiss at Bones in answer. Because really, if he couldn't be a sassy jerk to his CMO, who could he be a sassy jerk to? (The long answer is 'everyone'. The short answer is also 'everyone'.) But he fell silent, under the scrutiny of the tricorder. He hated being examined, had ever since he was a kid, and the fact that it was Bones made it only marginally better than it would have been otherwise.

This? This right here? Exactly why he missed modern medicine. This stuff would all be completely healed by now if he'd just had access to the right equipment, and he wouldn't be standing in front of his Chief Medical Officer like some kid trying to hide dirty hands from a parent at the dinner table. The little noises the tricorder was making actually made him want to reach out, take it away and break the damn thing, but that was hardly a rational reaction to this particular circumstance.

He wasn't dead. He wasn't going to go back home and end up a corpse, even if he couldn't fix everything to be better. And maybe that was the problem. He'd come to terms with his own death, he'd decided he'd do everything he could to stop Marcus, save Pike and his crew and to handle that damned situation with Khan, but he'd accepted the fact that doing all that might still kill him. And now Bones was here, telling him he never would have stayed dead.

Why did he get the second chance? Of all the fucking people in the world-- what made him worth it?

He couldn't think about it. Had to move on. He snapped himself back to the conversation, pinched the bridge of his nose at McCoy's comment about it. "Yeah. Set it myself. It was a few months ago, it's mostly fine now." And then Bones got to the leg.

Jim knew there was no real way he could pass this off flippantly. But he still wanted to choose his words with care, just in case. "Kedan are like-- Christ, I don't know, about twice as strong as normal humans. A friend of mine got in a fight and I stepped in. Hey, a least it wasn't a compound break." It could have been worse.

[asouthron]

"Of course! Yes, at least it wasn't a compound break! At least it didn't need to be amputated! At least you didn't break yer fool neck! Thank you, Jim, for puttin' this into perspective for me!" The doctor barked like an old junkyard dog. "Goddamnit..." McCoy was furious with everyone, but especially himself. The one time he wasn't by Jim's side. If only he'd--Why couldn't he have been kidnapped just a few weeks earlier? All of this could have been healed properly. A knot of guilt and impotence was beginning to turn his stomach into a battlefield.

"Everythin's aligned perfectly..." Which was a miracle in and of itself with the level of technology going on around here. The more McCoy learned about this mysterious miracle doctor, the more he wanted to meet her. "If it wasn't yer damn bone I could heal it, but even still... With those metal plates, the bone tissue could grow over it--God what a mess. You are a mess!" Bones accused, waving his hand in the air because he didn't know how else to dispel all this damn anger. "All those burns, where'd--Did you fall in a vat of acid? My God, I understand you actin' a fool when I'm around, but have some blasted sense! I can't put you back together if I'm not around!"

[jirk]

"You've got Soranik Natu to thank for that. She's amazing, Bones." There was genuine admiration in Jim's tone, more than the usual 'and I want to sleep with her' (although that was there too, in varying degrees). "You'll either hate each other or spend thirty six hours straight talking about surgical techniques. Me and Spock can get popcorn, it'll be great. Best entertainment I've had in weeks." He pulled some of that old arrogance up out of the depths to put the shine on those statements, but it didn't stick as well as it used to. It felt like mimicry rather than reality, and he coughed to clear his throat, glanced briefly away.

It wasn't often that Jim could be cowed by anger, he'd grown out of that years ago. And especially not McCoy's anger, the man barked like a bloodhound but Jim knew better. Knew him better. There wasn't any real bite to speak of in any bone of his body. Oh, he wasn't a pushover, but there wasn't anything he wouldn't do for his friends.

(Do you even know what friendship is? He'd asked Kyle that question, and he realized now he'd never really known either until he'd met Bones on that shuttlecraft.)

Jim reached out, dropped his hand against McCoy's shoulder and gave him a smile. "Hey. You're here now, right? It's not like you haven't patched up worse. Come on, Bones. Whatever doesn't kill me."