Crash and Burn
Title: Crash and Burn
Author: drpepperupper
Characters: Kirk/Reaper!McCoy
Fandom: Doom/Star Trek crossover
Rating: R
Warnings: Just swearing
Notes: I am not entirely happy with this chapter, mostly because it is shorter than what I usually write and... Well, frankly, I kind of suck at fight scenes. But yeah, this is the sequel to 'Understanding', part three in this Doom/ST xi verse that I have yet to even think of naming... Next part is coming very soon, so just hang in here with my. I PROMISE, next chapter will be better. ]:
[ Part one] [ Part two]
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John couldn't even look at his best friend, but he could feel the intense gaze on his body when Jim saw him. It was pathetic to hide from Jim in plain sight; John knew that and yet he kept his eyes elsewhere, looking for anything and everything to distract him from the man on the biobed. It was futile and cowardly and John hated himself for it.
John hated himself for a lot of things, but selfishly turning his best friend into a genetically-altered super human just to keep him from dying (and from getting hurt later on in life) definitely hit a new low. His chest constricted painfully and he expertly avoided Jim's eyes, not even looking in the general direction of the biobed. As attempts at avoidance went, this was really, really pathetic and John knew it. It was obvious that something was up.
Jim and John had a routine, one that constituted that when Jim woke up, John would be sitting in a chair next to the bed, either glaring and grasping at Jim's pulse points with two of his fingers to reassure himself that his best friend was alive or fast asleep with his head near Jim's hip after working yet another medical miracle to keep his captain's heart beating. When both were aware and awake, they'd begin their yelling.
John would be shouting about the hero-complex that Jim had, always leaping before he looked and yelling about his general idiocy. Jim would be busy trying to raise his voice enough to be heard above John, saying over and over again that he was alive, he was fine, and could he please get out of Medical Bay? Their routine had never been discussed; it was just one of those 'we do it, no questions asked' thing that they had.
It was just another of their abstract ways to express affection for each other, they both knew that.
So, John didn't really want to think about the implications he was making by not being by Jim's side, not feeling his pulse, and not yelling.
"Stay with him." John took a deep breath and met Jim's never-wavering gaze, answering no questions and just putting on a brave, blank face.
I can't this time, George. I don't think he'll let me, John thought with a pang in his heart so painful that he felt like clawing the damned thing out to get it to stop betraying him like this. He was scared (though he did have a good reason to be) and he had to remember that Jim was like him and now could practically feel and smell the fear rolling off of John in huge waves.
If John was being honest with himself, he would be able to say without hesitating that he wasn't just afraid Jim would walk away from him and never talk to him again. No, it went deeper than that, in a way that made John truly want to throw up on someone. His absence from Jim's bedside and his position as far across the room as he could manage wasn't just from wanting to keep mental distance from his best friend, but also physical distance.
It was all that bastard Sarge's fault.
He had trusted and liked Sarge and had been his friend in a way he thought would never be repeated. John had practically been Sarge's right hand man, if not in rank then in their personal lives. He had been able to talk to Sarge (when no one else was around, mind you) and Sarge had confided in him as well. When C-24 was added into the confusing mix, it ended in disaster. Sarge had proven himself able to be corrupted in the most gruesome way possible.
He had been coherent.
When he advanced on John (Reaper, back then), he had been totally and completely himself.
It had been okay when the others had been turned into monsters, beyond recognizing others or being themselves. They hadn't known what was going on or who they were killing; it had just been the C-24, the killing instinct. They were too far gone to stop themselves. John had witnessed it, seen his team go to the brink of insanity and fear and he'd watched them fall.
He'd seen Sarge do it, too, in his own way. And by 'in his own way', John meant he had seen it when he had killed the Kid. Sarge had liked the Kid, enough to want to put him on the team. John had even witnessed some affection between the two of them. True, it was mostly Sarge patting and ruffling the Kid's hair and the Kid acting disgruntled and patting it back into place, but he had seen it and had smiled to himself. So, when Sarge killed the Kid, John finally got a clue that something was really, horribly wrong.
John should had seen it. He should have expected it when Sarge got pulled away from Sam and him, but it never crossed his mind. He had thought Sarge was all good, doing his job to protect other people. He never once imagined that Sarge would actually want to kill people. He hadn't realized that all Sarge really was, was just a murderer in a Marine uniform.
John would have been okay if he'd expected it.
John wouldn't have cared enough to hesitate when Sarge killed the Kid. Maybe at least Duke would still be alive if he'd seen it sooner. But John had a handy habit of overlooking the worst in people he actually cared about.
That was what made it so nauseatingly awful when he saw Sarge, saw the wound on his neck and Sarge still acted like himself. He was all Sarge when he threatened John. He had advanced on John, one of his very best friends, with the intent to kill. He was all Sarge during the fight so that by the end of it, John realized how much he really hated Sarge.
So, if John was going to be honest with himself, he would not be ashamed to admit that he was afraid of Jim doing the same exact thing. However, since Jim hadn't shown any signs of changing into one of those godforsaken monsters yet, he had allowed himself to relax while the kid was asleep. When he was awake, it was a totally different story. John was sure he looked like a deer caught in headlights.
It didn't help that he knew Jim was noticing everything. Even though his eyes stayed locked on John, John could practically hear the gears turning and the whistles blowing in Jim's mind. John had to keep reminding himself why he had done what he did. Jim was going to die. There was no time. If I had waited another two minutes, Jim would have been lost. I had to do it. I promised George. It was going to be worth it. It was going to be worth it.
It had to be worth it.
Jim, his beautiful, insane, uncontrollable force of a friend, was living and breathing. Granted, he was breathing because he had been bitten like in those goddamn vampire stories and had been practically poisoned, but he was breathing.
John just hoped he'd still be breathing by the end of this.
Jim finally stopped the staring match and an easy grin spread across his face and it would have seemed natural to anyone but John. John had known him since he was little, had watched him grow up and was his very best friend. He could see the wariness in Jim's eyes and he could easily see the tightness in his mouth, the tense shoulders that would have been slouching if he was really okay. "So, Doc, will I be able to play the piano?" The voice was off, too. There was too much seriousness in the voice that should have been laughing.
Kid, John thought, you'll be able to play Beethoven's Ninth in a day when you figure this out.
Oh, good God, the genius part of Jim was going to be absolutely insufferable. He was already too smart for his own good. With the added super intelligence that came with the whole, lovely package of the bomb that was C-24, Jim was going to be unstoppable.
Man, John was in trouble.
If Jim didn't kill him, the Admirals that had to deal with Jim's newfound genius would.
In reply, Bones tried for his customary eye roll back at Jim, though it was half-hearted and failed he miserably. Too-sharp eyes narrowed at him just slightly, but it was enough to make John tense and stand slowly, as if handling a spooked horse. Moving fast was just going to make everything worse and it really wasn't helping that Jim was watching his every movement, obviously uncomprehending but annoyed at John's attitude toward him.
"Bones?" The confused, almost lost voice almost made John's resolve crumble. He could... He could just pass off the new 'symptoms' as side effects of some drug that he'd had to inject Jim with and... He could just slip away during the night and the confrontation would never have to even take place and...
John wanted to run. He wanted to bolt out of the room and toss himself out of the airlock and never once slow down. Suddenly, it wasn't Jim that was the scared animal. Jim sat up slowly and swung his legs over his bed and stared straight at him with a closed off expression, too similar to the one John had seen Sarge look at him with. John froze, then moved one foot backwards and tensed, almost putting himself in a sprinter's position, one of his hands just barely extended towards the door, ready to punch in the code and take off running in a moment.
Jim's eyes narrowed even further.
John knew better than anyone that Jim was an explosive force. He was a fighter, not a lover. He was like gunpowder that had settled itself on John's skin over the years and had sunk into his blood and John was seconds away from lighting the match that would destroy them both.
Well, Jim was always complaining that the white walls in Medical Bay were too 'bland'.
Maybe a nice coat of red paint would remedy that situation.
Jim was perched on the bed, as if not able to decide if he should just stay where he was or if he should advance on John. After a few strained moments of debate, he settled back onto the bed but fixed John with an all-too penetrating look that John wished he'd attack him instead. "So, how long was I out this time?" The inquiry was innocent enough, but John backed a step away. It was that same mock-calm that Sarge had spoken in.
"You gonna shoot me?"
"Yeah, I was thinkin' about it..."
John shrugged feebly. "Not long," he answered vaguely, ignoring the fact that Jim knew he could cite just how many days, hours and minutes he'd been unconscious. "How do you feel?" Even though his voice was soft, John thanked his lucky stars that he didn't crack or stumble in his words.
Jim seemed to consider himself, flexing his arms and rolling his shoulders, shifting his legs and stretching out his back. "What happened to me?"
His mind screamed, What happened? You idiot, you beamed down to save me when I didn't want to be saved! You got holes shot in you and you almost died and I've turned you into some sort of monster and you are not the Jim I know and love. Happy? Instead, he said, "You got shot. Almost died down there, Jim. Again," he muttered and shook his head. "How do you feel?"
"I feel... Like I didn't get shot at all. I feel fine. No soreness, no scars, no drugs, no pain at all... Nothing."
So it begins. "So, you feel great." Jim nodded slowly and narrowed his eyes again, studying John with absolute focus. He could only guess at what Jim was seeing; a friend, staying as far away from Jim as possible, ready to run at any sign of danger, radiating cautiousness and fear...
Jim sat up, ramrod straight. "What did you do?" He hated that damn C-24. Jim's brain worked abnormally fast without the superhuman variable, but that was a record time for all the little, mismatched puzzle pieces to fall into place. John glanced at the clock blinking on the wall, noting that they had a few hours until someone was supposed to check up on them. No one was going to overhear anything they had to say.
John straightened as well and moved a step forward. When he had injected (he refused to think of it as biting) Jim with the C-24 in his system, he had known that Jim liked to know everything that John was going to do to him. Even as he slipped into unconsciousness, he could count on Jim to struggle to stay awake, just to ask John what he was going to be doing. There had been no discussion about C-24. He hadn't given Jim a choice to reject the idea and he knew Jim hated that. Even when he stabbed Jim in the neck with a hypospray unannounced, he'd get the silent treatment for a couple hours after that or the "Jim treats Bones as if he's just a CMO and not his best friend' treatment.
John didn't even want to know what kind of a reaction this would provoke.
Apparently, Jim understood John's pointed silence for what it was. He slowly slid off the bed and straightened to his full height, staring intently at John. The hard look in Jim's eyes was enough to stop his heart and then kicked into gear, three times as fast. He saw Jim's jaw tic as the young captain ground his teeth together. Jim's hands clenched and unclenched and his breathing slowly turned a little rough.
John knew what Jim was feeling. He remembered waking up and feeling the effects of the extra chromosome all too clearly. He remembered how it felt to feel that unrestrained power flowing in his blood, seeping into his muscles and making him feel invincible. He remembered the stunning clarity, how he felt like he was seeing the world for the first time. He remembered the effortlessness he felt when he just moved. He remembered that it was a feeling he didn't particularly like.
He remembered how easy killing the monsters and zombies had been, how little thought he'd put into it. He remembered the calm that had descended on him, like it was right to kill the things and that it was okay. He remembered having no emotion, he remembered the absolute control he had felt.
Oh my God, John thought as Jim slowly advanced on him, I am so screwed.
John didn't move, but Jim kept coming until he was right in John's personal space. Jim never had any sense of boundaries and when he overstepped them, he was usually smiling and teasing. His face was as blank as the white walls around them, this time, his eyes the only spot of color John could see. They were burning. They were angry. "What. Did. You. Do. To me?" Yeah. Really screwed.
John knew what Jim was like when he was angry. The time with Spock hadn't been anything compared to angry Jim, mostly because Jim had been trying to make Spock angry. When Jim was angry, he was like a tornado. He was powerful and destroyed anything and everything in his path. Fits of rage ended in Jim beating the shit out of someone or leaving his room in the state of a disaster zone. John had been a rare witness to one of Jim's outbursts and even though it wasn't C-24-monsters-scary, it made John edgy and kind of afraid Jim would turn on him.
This time, it was directed at him. There was nothing to stop him, nothing for him to destroy except one John Grimm who probably really deserved it. This time, Jim was just as strong as John and that was frightening in itself. Maybe John wouldn't be able to keep him calm, keep him under control. They'd be an even match, John was sure, but Jim was a passionate fighter that hated to lose. Not only that, he had a great right hook, too.
Irrationally, John felt himself start to get a bit irritated as well. Who said Jim was even going to listen to his explanation? He had no right just to demand an answer like that and expect a good attitude from John! So, when Jim grasped his shoulders hard and growled, "Doctor McCoy, I order you to answer me," something inside John snapped.
John had his carefully built walls rattled one too many times. When they all came crumbling down, Reaper stepped out from the rubble. "I am so sick of orders!" Orders were what got John into his current situation. Orders were what killed his team. Not obeying orders was what killed the Kid, because he refused to kill innocent people.
Jim froze, wild eyes glinting dangerously. Shouting had not been the best course of action. John had known that, but it seemed as though Reaper had other ideas. "You wanna know what I did?" He challenged, stepping right back into Jim's space, reaching to the medical table nearby. His hand closed over a sharp tool in the amount of time it took for Jim to bat an eyelash and brought it savagely down on Jim's hand on his shoulder. For all his rage, he left a straight, clean cut on the back of Jim's hand.
Jim yelped and threw Reaper away from him, sending the surprised man flying into the wall across the room as Jim clutched his hand close to his chest and cradled it. He crouched slightly, hissing at the pain until his eyes widened and he froze again. John already knew what he was seeing; the wound practically stitching itself up as the blood stopped flowing almost immediately.
John just barely picked himself off up from the floor when he was suddenly pinned to it by another body. He hissed and jerked as Jim crowded him, burning brighter than any sun John had seen. Harsh and unforgiving hands, calloused from work on an Iowa farm and too many bar fights pinned John's hands painfully behind his back. All John could see was red and he could only feel heat; heat from the anger and proximity of both men. "Doctor McCoy, I ord-"
Reaper surged forward, knocking Jim's head with his own and sent Jim reeling backwards. He was frustrated and irritated and really hated the name Leonard Horatio McCoy. "You may have control over Doctor McCoy, but you have no control over me," he snarled, ducking expertly as Jim came charging back towards him.
"You are Doctor McCoy and I do have control over you," Jim hissed back, raising his hand to strike out at John. Reaper caught his wrist, jerked it towards him and stared at the teeth marks permanently embedded on Jim Kirk's skin. He grinned slowly and leaned forward, teeth bared and challenging. Jim followed his gaze and all of his focus landed on the bite marks, then flicked back up to Reaper and back again.
"I'm not. Never have been Leonard Horatio McCoy," he snorted at the name and even though every fibre of his being was screaming at him to shut his mouth and run, Reaper ignored his rational side once again. Jim paused again and the puzzle pieces fell into perfect alignment again. John could feel Jim begin to shake, growing progressively angrier in his attempts to jerk away from John, growling quietly under his breath.
"You lied," he spat angrily, jerking one hand free and finally punching John in the face, hard enough to make the ex-Marine's head spin. He'd never seen Jim this angry before; he looked practically murderous. "You lied about everything!" His voice was growing in decibels as he hit John again, launching himself at John and sending them tumbling down onto the floor. John grunted under the assault, every hit and every word burning into his skin, bringing the match that much closer to the gunpowder on his skin.
"There is no Leonard McCoy!" Jim lunged at John and slammed his fists into any patch of skin he could reach.
"There is no Jocelyn!" Another hit landed, probably damaging some kind of organ inside of John.
"There is no Joanna!" John shoved Jim off of him and hit him back, bruising and bloodying his knuckles against Jim's face. He had to have a fighting chance, because if there was one thing Jim hated more than doctors and hyposprays, it was someone who lied to his face and John had definitely done that.
Jim listed every single lie that had been told, accenting each one of them with a solid hit, growing angrier every time and coming back with renewed force. John could practically feel the anger and the hurt and the feeling of betrayal pouring off of Jim each time their fists came in contact with each other. The room was in ruins and, as predicted, a small amount of blood was transferred onto the white walls, painting a grotesque picture that reminded John of how Goat's blood had looked on the wall back in Olduvai. The memory made him struggle harder against Jim, grappling at any skin he could get his hands on.
"I hate you. I hate you," Jim kept repeating, even when it ended with John throwing the kid against the wall so hard that bits of it crumbled off. John's nose and lips were bleeding profusely and Jim looked like a train had plowed into him. The anger bled out of John at the same time that Reaper retreated into the back corner of his mind and he felt sick again.
Jim was his best friend. His best friend that was slumped against the wall, struggling to stand now and was bleeding from quite a few places. John had just beat the shit out of his best friend and his best friend had tried his hardest to practically kill him. He remembered the rage that had fueled him to kill Sarge. He understood what Jim had been feeling, but he hadn't expected himself to get so angry and attack back.
"If," John started slowly, not meeting Jim's eyes as he punched in the override code to open the door, "if you had just left me there to die like I wanted to, this would never have happened." He could see Jim's chest rise and fall rapidly and he looked into cold, flat blue depths that screamed Jim's pain, both mental and physical. Jim wasn't going to let him talk, not now. There was no one else he could talk to. Except...
"Get off. My ship." Jim's voice was low and dangerous, a snarl that was both a warning and a challenge. Reaper bristled in the back of John's mind, hackles rising and teeth baring.
John quelled him because he knew that Jim was in the right. It didn't make the pain or anger go away, but he understood. He turned to walk out, only stopping to speak over his shoulder, leaving the one person he'd promised to stay with, save, protect and love, behind. "Find Doctor Samantha Grimm," was all he said before running at his top speed to the shuttle bay. It was surprisingly easy to sneak up behind the officers and render them incapacitated as to steal shuttle number 37 and begin to hightail it back to Earth.
"You promised."
I'm sorry, George. I'm so, so sorry.
TBC