Fic: Monster
It's a cold bottle, draft of course, that puts the monsters at bay for Leonard McCoy. But only for awhile, because the monsters that haunt your dreams at night, that hide in the deep recesses of your mind and jump out at you when no one's looking, that leave you piss-scared, quaking, and teary-eyed, never go away.
Leonard knows that from experience. He takes a sip, as his eyes glaze over, and the monsters in his head rear their ugly faces.
“Don't you fucking die on me, woman!" He was shirtless, ripping the sleeves of his command tunic into strips. It shouldn't have been this bad, a lower abdominal wound, about the size of a quarter, was seeping blood down the front of Nyota's uniform, the crimson blending in with crimson. No matter how hard he seems to try, however, the wound just keeps pouring blood, dying his hands a ghastly color.
He tries to pull away from the memory’s grasp, but the alcohol was making it hard to concentrate. He shakes his head, trying to banish the monsters back from whence they came, but it’s useless. A tidal wave of emotions pulls him back under the torrent of horrors.
She's gasped, desperately trying to hold it together, trying to prove herself to the men in the away team that she wasn't just some pushover chick that needed rescuing all the time. But frankly, Leonard wouldn't have thought any less of her, even if she was screaming bloody murder.
"Doct-"
"Back up, god damn it and let me WORK!" He yells. Nyota whimpers and lets out a sob, tilting her head to look past Leonard.
"Spock..."
"Nyota," The Vulcan was there in a flash, holding her hand in his, not caring for keeping up the emotionless facade. He kissed the back of her wrist, sorrow prominent on his face. Leonard didn’t bother pushing Spock away. No, he couldn’t. Not when his fiancée was dying.
"Doctor!"
Leonard wheels around, "WHAT do you WANT?"
It's a mousy ensign, with set determination on her face. "The Captain's waking up."
He claps a hand over his eyes, shielding the light out of them. Staring down at the table, as if it would solve all the world’s problems, Leonard takes a sip of his warm beer. The froth clings to his face, making him look savage. Like an animal. He doesn’t fight it this time as the rest of the memory washes over him.
"Jim!" He scrambles over a few feet, to Jim, who's in the same state as Nyota. He groans, biting his lip to keep from screaming. He's breathing heavily through his nostrils, pupils blown wide, when he looks over at Leonard.
"Bones..." He mumbles, coming out of his drugged state. "Bones!"
"Right here, kid. I've got ya'." He still has a fist full of jimmied gauze, and is pressing them to his wound; it's one shaped like a quarter, exactly like Nyota's.
Jim growled, digging his fingernails into the dirt floor. His lips were painted with blood, his teeth stained a strawberry red, and Leonard catalogued all of this, as Jim opened his mouth and let out a screech of pain. Beside him, Nyota emitted a high pitched shriek of agony. Her lips too were plastered with blood.
He didn’t know who to run to first.
His head and world was spinning - JimNyotaJimNyotaJimNyota...
And as stood there, like a deer in headlights, Jim's jaw opened. Wide...wider than possible. A sickening crack, like a tree being snapped in half, echoed though the cave, accompanied by more screaming from Jim. He let loose four backbreaking spasms that almost completely lifted his form off the cave floor, in quick succession, before falling still.
"Nyota!" Spock's yelling too. "Doctor!"
There was so much yelling…and so much panic. His throat hitches. He looks into the bottom of his glass, watching the liquid part as he shakily blew into it. Calm, he thinks to himself. He repeats the word out loud, “Calm…”
“Hey buddy,” A man with a porn ‘stash, and a woman with the biggest tits Leonard’s ever seen are looking at him, bug eyed. The woman cocks her head to the side, idly nursing a martini. “Are you okay?” She asks.
Leonard licks his bottom lip. “Peachy, ma’am.”
Oh what a fucking lie.
Both of their jaws were unhinged, completely crushed into an unnatural angle. Jim's head was snapped back while Nyota's was lulled to the side, a pond of blood being made by her mouth. Then as quick as the screaming had started, it stopped.
Silence.
Pure silence.
Then…softly…
Boowoop; it was like the sound of a coin being dropped into water. It was a sound that shook Leonard to his very core, and nearly drove him insane. It was the sound of a lizard-like creature, maybe a foot in length, tumbling out of Jim’s mouth, its lime green forepaws landing softly in the puddle of blood that haloed Jim’s head.
“No…” He spun…and watched with gross fascination as the process repeated itself with Nyota, only with a silver lizard-like being.
Boowoop.
With a rage that would put an angry Vulcan to shame, McCoy let loose a howl, crushing the newborn creature’s skull under his boot. It wasn’t fair! Jim was a hero! He didn’t deserve to die like this, mangled and mauled in an M-Class planet’s cave! He was going to be an Admiral! Anguish fueling his rage, he brought his foot down: again and again and again and again and again and again and again…
The last thing that he could remember, before blacking out, was Jim’s glazed eyes, and his lips, dripping red.
It was funny, now in a hysterical way, that he is drinking a red tinted beer. In fact, the beer is so red that he believes it, for a moment, to really be blood under the pub lights. But he’s so drunk, he just doesn’t know anymore. Taking a finishing swig, he pushes his credits onto the table - which he’s sure is more than enough for his…how many beers? - and pilots his way to the bathroom.
There, he takes a piss, and a breath of air that wasn’t clogged with smoke. As he walks out, he startles himself by looking in the mirror. The man he sees, looking back at him, is nothing of the old ‘Bones’ McCoy. He is Leonard McCoy. And he is a complete monster.
He takes good, hard look at his haggardly reflection in the cracked mirror. His face is hidden behind a wave of stubble and a frown, with tired hazel eyes gazing straight forward. He runs a hand through his hair, wincing as he find’s himself caught up in the knots from weeks without brushing. His clothes have clearly seen better times, and…and he just looks old. Beat up and worn out.
Not like a Starfleet officer.
He trudges out of the bathroom, shouldering his coat a little higher, when he catches sight of Spock, who’s sitting at a table with his legs crossed, chin propped up on the heel of his palm, looking so incredibly human, Leonard has to do a double take. He shuffles over to the table, and even though he was just about to leave, grabs and empty chair and makes himself comfortable.
“Never thought I’d see you here,” His words are a bit slurred, but that is to be expected. “Thought Vulcan’s couldn’t get drunk.”
Spock stares at him with cold eyes. “You forget that I am half human, Doctor.” His words are clipped and cold, and the Vulcan is here for the same reason Leonard is.
To forget everything.
To become so stone cold plastered, that he can’t spell his own name without hurling.
Leonard flags a waitress with a floppy arm. They order, Spock a tall cold Miller and Leonard a Kentucky Bourbon, and respectively wallow in their own misery and silence.
It’s the closest to comforting each other they can get. And they drink.
--
It’s late now. Or rather, it’s early. Either way, it’s the time of night where not a soul is out on the roads and even the usual barflies have gone home, or to whatever roost they haunt till their next fill.
It’s at this time that the usual ritual begins.
They’re in the upstairs portion of the bar, no doubt for people like them, who have a physical need for the bar. They can’t leave - not in this state. There’s a flurry of hard, fury filled grabs: hair, neck, a shove to the gut, a kick to the thigh. There’s no kissing though, like some sort of unspoken rule, it stands prominent in the sort of ‘relationship’ they have.
“Pants. Now.” Leonard growls. Spock’s face screws up into something of resentment - no he won’t take orders, and no he won’t like it - before he belligerently grinded their crotches together, two symmetrical breaths coming out in a huff.
“You do not order me.” The Vulcan pants, and with his superhuman strength jerks all of Leonard’s weight onto the rickety bed, knocking the wind out of him. With a grunt, Leonard tries to push Spock off of him, but no-- he’s seen Spock like this before, once, when fighting with…
“You fucking, pointy-eared-”
“Shut. Your. Mouth.” The alien commands, clamping a hand tight around Leonard’s mouth. “It is all your fault. If you had not been so slow and incompetent-” His rant is deterred as Leonard bites his hand with a renewed rage.
“I lost someone too! You selfish, heartless, monster!”
Something changes in the atmosphere, as if a whole planet has changed orbit, freezing the room to the temperature of death. The rest of the night passes in a drunken haze of ice and pain.
It’s a messed up reality, the once-upon-a-time doctor muses, as he struggles to catch his breath, riding out the waves of a second orgasm. If it really was true, that an orgasm was a little bit of death, then Leonard should have been dead two times over. Spock has long since flown the coop, physically and mentally, leaving a little bit of credits on the nightstand to help pay for the room, making Leonard feel like the two-bit whore he knows he is.
His head is pounding with evidence of a hangover, but ignoring it, he looks upon his left hand, a thin ring shining.
“Keep it safe, okay? It’s my dad’s.”
“Yeah, Jim,” he whispers brokenly, “I’ll try.”