[Fic] A Fucking Greek Tragedy (M) - Part IX [FINAL CHAPTER]
And so, the end. Thank you all for reading this. It has been a pleasure to write this for you. Hope this last chapter and epilogue satisfy.
( Part VIII)
Part IX - Tantalus
[ Olduvai - sewer entrance 18 ]
Bones sincerely regrets getting leaving both his communicator and his med kit in the Ark chamber. Not only does he have nothing to heal Jim (when he gets there, dammit just how far into the complex did Sarge chase him?) but he has no way of contacting the Enterprise and telling them to hold their fire.
He almost slips on the blood-socked grill as he finally reaches the hall where he left Jim. Bones panics when he doesn’t see his Captain where he left him. His mind conjures images of Duke being tugged through the metal grating, body tearing and shredding into sausage meat. It is easy enough to pick up on the trail of blood, and he follows it a few feet and around a corner.
The poor bastard is conscious, but there are no monsters here, so that is a small mercy. Only a small one, he thinks, as he catches up to the man who takes one shuddering step after another, leaning his good shoulder against the wall just to stay upright. Jim is still bleeding, still has a huge chunk of his shoulder torn out, and still doesn’t seem to notice him even as Bones catches up to him and is standing right in front of him.
“Jim,” he whispers, hands out non-threateningly in front of him. The last thing he needs to do is to scare Jim and send him further into shock, which would no doubt stop his heart at this point. Frantic blood-shot eyes snap up and swivel around the hall wildly until they land on Bones. “I gotcha Jim.” His tone is calm and unhurried even as his comm. unit beeps at him again, warning him that they have just under a minute to get the hell out of there.
He reaches out tentatively, knowing that the young man is going to collapse any second now. As soon as Bones has a firm hold on him, Jim finally gives in and goes unconscious. Bones slings him over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry, relieving his CO of his communicator and running as fast as he dares back to the Ark chamber. He flips the communicator open, desperately praying that he can still get a decent signal in here.
“Enterprise!” He readjusts his grip on Jim so he can operate the thing single handedly. “McCoy to Enterprise, do you read?”
“Affirmative Doctor.” Bones never thought there would be a day when he would be so fucking happy to hear the hobgoblin’s monotone.
“Spock, we’re no longer in immediate danger, so you’d better damn well think twice about blowing this place to hell until we get out of here.” His voice echoes as he enters the monstrous Atrium, making a beeline for the hole in the airlock. There is considerably less static in here, and he wonders if maybe they can get a beam out from here.
“Of course, Doctor. If you could give us your location, I shall have Mr. Scott supply you with the coordinates of the nearest possible beam out location.”
“I’m just about to enter the Ark chamber,” he says, taking a moment to peel the Captain off if his shoulders and sets him down just outside of the airlock. He dare not waste time trying to put get Jim in there, not if it’s going to cause him any more pain and slow them down. He curses furiously when he notices that Jim is bleeding from more than just his mauled shoulder, and is too pale and cold for his liking. “Jim’s seriously hurt Spock, so if you guys can hurry the fuck up, I may just be able to get him to Sick Bay soon enough to save his life.” His Georgian snarl is back, his doctoring habits returning full force in the wake of such injuries. Jim is tense even in unconsciousness, the muscles of his chest and shoulder quivering.
“Scotty…” Bones slips easily into the room, grabbing his med kit and rushing back to the Atrium. To Jim.
“A’right there McCoy,” Scotty’s voice crackles over the transmission, his usual manic cheerfulness gone. “I cannae get ye out of that room. Most of the place is buried under rock, and I cannae get a lock on either of ya.”
“Then just tell me where I should go.” Jim’s breathing is becoming more shallow as the pool of blood grows around them, and he is shivering less and less each passing second.
“Ye’ll have ta go back the way ya came, lad. I cannae get yaw he yer stuck in there.” Bones takes out a massive pair of scissors and cuts away the shirts, peeling them back to get a better look at the mess Sarge made. The doctor winces, seeing a map of coloured bruises around the ribs, one of which looks broken. He listens to Jim’s breathing, feeling the cold hands of fear as he hears a wheezy bubbling. Shit! Bones berates himself for his careless handling of Jim. I’ve gone and pierced his lung.
“Can’t do that right now Scotty,” he responds, pulling out a wad of sterile bandages. “Captain’s not going to make it to the beam out if he’s not stabilized. He delicately wraps up what’s left of the shoulder before injecting Jim with a coagulant. None of Jim’s scrapes or more serious injuries have shown signs of cessation of blood flow, and Bones reasons that something in Sarge’s saliva is acting as an anti-coagulant.
He goes into full-blown doctor mode, pulling out every medical trick he’s ever learned in all of the many years of medical training he’s received. He anesthetizes the Captain, trying to alleviate the strain and the shock. There is still a bit of tension under the tanned skin, but he’s stopped trembling, and for now that is a good thing. He wraps the ribs in order to immobilize the puncture wound, which will make transportation easier in a minute. He cleans and binds and regenerates wherever he can.
Leonard and Jim are a lot alike in that neither of them can accept no-win scenarios. He doesn’t let the fear of death, the bone-chilling terror of the thought of losing Jim enter his mind, not even as the Captain continues to fade beneath his hands.
“Come on Brat, stay with me!” There’s nothing more he can do here. They have to leave, he has to get Jim proper care on the Enterprise. A more morbid and resigned part of his mind thinks that Jim would prefer to die on his ship than in this hell hole.
Bones growls at himself for daring o even think that, and jabs a hypo full of adrenaline in Jim’s neck. He knows that it will accelerate the heart rate and he’ll risk losing the man to blood loss before they even reach the final airlock, but he needs the man awake. If he’s awake, he reasons, Jim can keep fighting to stay alive.
“Come on Jim, show me those baby blues.” He brushes a calloused thumb over the man’s bloodied cheek, dutifully taking note of just how damned cold he is to the touch. His eyelids flutter open and those blue eyes are unfocused by the miasma of drugs and pain, but they’re open none the less.
His lips move faintly, as if he’s trying to say something, but whatever it was is drowned out by hacking coughs and his lips and teeth are soon stained as red as the rest of him. Bones’s mind reels with anger and panic, trying not to choke on the rising tided of helplessness and he picks up his med kit and a barely-conscious friend. He has centuries of medical knowledge and experience under his belt, and he can do nothing for this man. Nothing except to pick him up and run.
“Don’t you dare, darlin’,” he warns as Jim’s eyes drift closed again. “Don’t you dare give up on me now.” Jim does not acknowledge him, and he awkwardly retrieves the communicator, letting Spock know that they’re on their way out, and about half way there now. Spock dutifully intones that both Scotty and a medical contingent is ready and waiting.
Bones can hear each and every one of Jim’s fading heartbeats, even over the pounding of his own feet as he moves faster and faster through Olduvai. He can feel the bubbling breaths getting more and more shallow, the flesh cooling bit by bit.
If Leonard didn’t hate Olduvai before, he sure as hell does now. It was his own personal nightmarish Hell that was still stealing everything from him, a house of horrors that stripped him of his soul piece by piece until he had nothing left but the bleeding, broken man in his arms.
And now it was taking his Captain. It was stealing his Jim.
John feels a phantom, sympathetic pain in his gut, can feel his own skin grow cold as he remembers his own death. He feels that Jim’s heart is no more than a weak flutter as the man’s breathing stops. Jim is almost thrown to the ground and Leonard’s lips cover his mouth, nose pinched, head tilted back as he forces air into the man’s drowning lungs.
This is most certainly not the way he had ever hoped to claim those lips. Not once in a million lifetimes would he ever imagine Jim would be this cold, this lax under his hands. He never imagines following such an act with the breaking of ribs, trying desperately to pump his failing heart.
He continues breathing for Jim, manually pumping his heart for what could only be hours, because it cannot possibly the few short minutes that his portable chronometer is telling him. His mind is cold and reptilian as he reaches blindly through his med kit, searching for one final rabbit to pull out of his hat.
His fingers wrap around a vial and his heart stutters. He’s holding C-24 in his hand, staring almost blankly at the clear poison, because that very well may be exactly what it is. Bones knows Jim, knows that for all that the kid tries to hide it, there is a dark part of him, nasty and possessive and utterly ruthless. He knows the Brat wants to be like his father, a good man who’s willing to make ultimate sacrifices for the greater good.
But Bones knows too well what is likely to happen to Jim if he injects the chromosome into the almost-empty bloodstream. He saw it in Jim’s eyes when he was shot in the thigh with his own gun. Jim is just a bit too selfish, a bit too relentless and damaged for C-24 to do any good.
Never the less, he fills an empty hypospray and injects the man, praying more desperately than he can remember ever doing before that he is wrong, that Jim has the right genetic markers, that he is a good enough soul to stay that way, to live so that Bones can tell him exactly who he is, explain exactly why he is so selfish as to risk infection and to dare to make Jim like himself, to tell him exactly how much he needs Jim.
Someone is trying to reach them over the comm., but Leonard ignores them, keeping a vigil over his too-still friend, waiting to hear if the heart will start up again. Waiting to see if his gamble pays off, if he’s not too late.
A whole six minutes trickle by until he hears Jim’s heart beat again, sees his chest begin to rise and fall all on its own. Bones chokes out a sob of relief, pulling Jim’s torso to him, holding him from behind as he stays on his knees, cradling Jim’s blonde head under his chin as he finally lets himself cry, stroking the man’s face.
Jim shudders violently as comes to, muscles tensing, ready to spring free from Leonard’s hold. The doctor shushes him, stroking his hair with one hand as he whispers assurances into Jim’s ear. He plants a kiss on one temple, inhaling the scent of Jim. It’s mostly the smell of blood and fear, but Reaper catches a faint whiff of something underneath it all, something different.
“Bones...” There is confusion in that one word and he relaxes his grip a bit, removing his hand from Jim’s hair and brushing the bandages on Jim’s shoulder instead, noting with pleasure that his Captain did not flinch with pain. The smell gets stronger and he tests the flesh of the shoulder, feeling the tissues begin to knit themselves together.
“Bones.” Jim is more urgent this time, and Bones can feel the muscles under his skin begin to twitch agitatedly. Bones slips his arm from under Jim’s arm and lays it across his shoulders, tracing his neck gently in an effort to soothe and calm. The man’s skin is quickly reheating itself until it becomes almost hot under Leonard’s touch.
He can almost taste that unidentifiable smell now and removes his hand from the bandages. It comes away stained almost black. The body in his arms jerks and shudders, hands grabbing his arm tight enough to leave bruises, breathing becoming more and more labored.
“No.” He hold on tight with both arms now, almost crushing Jim into his chest as he begins to struggle, the grip on his own arms becoming more and more painful. A painful whine escapes the bloodied teeth as they are ground tight against pain. “No, no no no!”
Despite his protests, Jim’s moan becomes a yell, fingernails breaking Bones’s skin, far too sharp to be the blunt nails his Jim had always kept trimmed. Muscles shift under tanned skin and he sobs as Jim’s scream becomes more feral, his struggles more frantic.
Arms slip smoothly from shoulders until the crook of one elbow is locked under Jim’s jaw around his throat, the other completing a chokehold. Bones takes a shuddering breath before he starts to squeeze.
The enraged screams are cut off, and there is only the sound of Jim’s weakening struggles and Leonard’s choked, shuddering breaths. They become shuddering sobs as Jim’s body stills. He relaxes his grip when he can’t hear a heartbeat anymore.
“Enterprise to McCoy, are you there?” Uhura’s voice only just snakes through the fog that’s encasing his mind. Bones reaches numbly for the discarded communicator, his hand trembling violently as he opens the channel to the Enterprise.
“Yeah.” His voice is hardly a whisper, and he wonders if Uhura can hear him. “Yeah, I’m here.”
“Are you almost out? We lost contact with you for eight minutes.” Is that it? he wonders. Is that how long it takes for the world to end? Eight minutes?
“He’s dead.” The words fall like rocks from his mouth, heavy and painful. “James Tiberius Kirk, age 29, died 1732 hours, stardate 2262.0305. Unknown toxin causing asphyxiation and cardiac arrest.” He hears Nyota gasp over the comm. and tries not to break down into sobs again, letting tears stream down his face.
“Doctor Leonard Horatio McCoy,” he hears Nyota hasp with understanding. He continues before she can try to interrupt him. “Age 36, died 1737 hours, stardate 2262.0305. Same unknown toxin.” There is silence on the other end for several minutes as he cradles Jim’s limp form in his arms. He hears Uhura take a slow, deliberate breath.
“Goodbye Bones.” He chokes on a bitter laugh at the use of his nickname.
“Don’t forget to blow this place to pieces, ya hear?” He swallows a lump in his throat. “And tell M’Benga that he’s the new CMO, and he’d better keep that Sick Bay clean, or Chapel’s gonna rip him a new one.” He turns off the channel without further ado.
John “Reaper” Grimm and Leonard “Bones” McCoy shift so that they are sitting, back against the ball and drag his beautiful Captain into his lap, hands stroking the once more cooling flesh, lips pressing desperately tender kisses into the bloodied hair.
“I’m sorry Jim,” he whispers between shuddering sobs as he begins to rock back and forth. His acute hearing picks of the whine of incoming photon torpedoes. He turns the lax head to him and claims the too-cold lips one more time. “I’m so sorry.” And he is. He so desperately is.
Hell is burning, and it scatters the two into the black, like some sort of fucking Greek tragedy.
[ Fin ]
( Part VIII)
Part IX - Tantalus
[ Olduvai - sewer entrance 18 ]
Bones sincerely regrets getting leaving both his communicator and his med kit in the Ark chamber. Not only does he have nothing to heal Jim (when he gets there, dammit just how far into the complex did Sarge chase him?) but he has no way of contacting the Enterprise and telling them to hold their fire.
He almost slips on the blood-socked grill as he finally reaches the hall where he left Jim. Bones panics when he doesn’t see his Captain where he left him. His mind conjures images of Duke being tugged through the metal grating, body tearing and shredding into sausage meat. It is easy enough to pick up on the trail of blood, and he follows it a few feet and around a corner.
The poor bastard is conscious, but there are no monsters here, so that is a small mercy. Only a small one, he thinks, as he catches up to the man who takes one shuddering step after another, leaning his good shoulder against the wall just to stay upright. Jim is still bleeding, still has a huge chunk of his shoulder torn out, and still doesn’t seem to notice him even as Bones catches up to him and is standing right in front of him.
“Jim,” he whispers, hands out non-threateningly in front of him. The last thing he needs to do is to scare Jim and send him further into shock, which would no doubt stop his heart at this point. Frantic blood-shot eyes snap up and swivel around the hall wildly until they land on Bones. “I gotcha Jim.” His tone is calm and unhurried even as his comm. unit beeps at him again, warning him that they have just under a minute to get the hell out of there.
He reaches out tentatively, knowing that the young man is going to collapse any second now. As soon as Bones has a firm hold on him, Jim finally gives in and goes unconscious. Bones slings him over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry, relieving his CO of his communicator and running as fast as he dares back to the Ark chamber. He flips the communicator open, desperately praying that he can still get a decent signal in here.
“Enterprise!” He readjusts his grip on Jim so he can operate the thing single handedly. “McCoy to Enterprise, do you read?”
“Affirmative Doctor.” Bones never thought there would be a day when he would be so fucking happy to hear the hobgoblin’s monotone.
“Spock, we’re no longer in immediate danger, so you’d better damn well think twice about blowing this place to hell until we get out of here.” His voice echoes as he enters the monstrous Atrium, making a beeline for the hole in the airlock. There is considerably less static in here, and he wonders if maybe they can get a beam out from here.
“Of course, Doctor. If you could give us your location, I shall have Mr. Scott supply you with the coordinates of the nearest possible beam out location.”
“I’m just about to enter the Ark chamber,” he says, taking a moment to peel the Captain off if his shoulders and sets him down just outside of the airlock. He dare not waste time trying to put get Jim in there, not if it’s going to cause him any more pain and slow them down. He curses furiously when he notices that Jim is bleeding from more than just his mauled shoulder, and is too pale and cold for his liking. “Jim’s seriously hurt Spock, so if you guys can hurry the fuck up, I may just be able to get him to Sick Bay soon enough to save his life.” His Georgian snarl is back, his doctoring habits returning full force in the wake of such injuries. Jim is tense even in unconsciousness, the muscles of his chest and shoulder quivering.
“Scotty…” Bones slips easily into the room, grabbing his med kit and rushing back to the Atrium. To Jim.
“A’right there McCoy,” Scotty’s voice crackles over the transmission, his usual manic cheerfulness gone. “I cannae get ye out of that room. Most of the place is buried under rock, and I cannae get a lock on either of ya.”
“Then just tell me where I should go.” Jim’s breathing is becoming more shallow as the pool of blood grows around them, and he is shivering less and less each passing second.
“Ye’ll have ta go back the way ya came, lad. I cannae get yaw he yer stuck in there.” Bones takes out a massive pair of scissors and cuts away the shirts, peeling them back to get a better look at the mess Sarge made. The doctor winces, seeing a map of coloured bruises around the ribs, one of which looks broken. He listens to Jim’s breathing, feeling the cold hands of fear as he hears a wheezy bubbling. Shit! Bones berates himself for his careless handling of Jim. I’ve gone and pierced his lung.
“Can’t do that right now Scotty,” he responds, pulling out a wad of sterile bandages. “Captain’s not going to make it to the beam out if he’s not stabilized. He delicately wraps up what’s left of the shoulder before injecting Jim with a coagulant. None of Jim’s scrapes or more serious injuries have shown signs of cessation of blood flow, and Bones reasons that something in Sarge’s saliva is acting as an anti-coagulant.
He goes into full-blown doctor mode, pulling out every medical trick he’s ever learned in all of the many years of medical training he’s received. He anesthetizes the Captain, trying to alleviate the strain and the shock. There is still a bit of tension under the tanned skin, but he’s stopped trembling, and for now that is a good thing. He wraps the ribs in order to immobilize the puncture wound, which will make transportation easier in a minute. He cleans and binds and regenerates wherever he can.
Leonard and Jim are a lot alike in that neither of them can accept no-win scenarios. He doesn’t let the fear of death, the bone-chilling terror of the thought of losing Jim enter his mind, not even as the Captain continues to fade beneath his hands.
“Come on Brat, stay with me!” There’s nothing more he can do here. They have to leave, he has to get Jim proper care on the Enterprise. A more morbid and resigned part of his mind thinks that Jim would prefer to die on his ship than in this hell hole.
Bones growls at himself for daring o even think that, and jabs a hypo full of adrenaline in Jim’s neck. He knows that it will accelerate the heart rate and he’ll risk losing the man to blood loss before they even reach the final airlock, but he needs the man awake. If he’s awake, he reasons, Jim can keep fighting to stay alive.
“Come on Jim, show me those baby blues.” He brushes a calloused thumb over the man’s bloodied cheek, dutifully taking note of just how damned cold he is to the touch. His eyelids flutter open and those blue eyes are unfocused by the miasma of drugs and pain, but they’re open none the less.
His lips move faintly, as if he’s trying to say something, but whatever it was is drowned out by hacking coughs and his lips and teeth are soon stained as red as the rest of him. Bones’s mind reels with anger and panic, trying not to choke on the rising tided of helplessness and he picks up his med kit and a barely-conscious friend. He has centuries of medical knowledge and experience under his belt, and he can do nothing for this man. Nothing except to pick him up and run.
“Don’t you dare, darlin’,” he warns as Jim’s eyes drift closed again. “Don’t you dare give up on me now.” Jim does not acknowledge him, and he awkwardly retrieves the communicator, letting Spock know that they’re on their way out, and about half way there now. Spock dutifully intones that both Scotty and a medical contingent is ready and waiting.
Bones can hear each and every one of Jim’s fading heartbeats, even over the pounding of his own feet as he moves faster and faster through Olduvai. He can feel the bubbling breaths getting more and more shallow, the flesh cooling bit by bit.
If Leonard didn’t hate Olduvai before, he sure as hell does now. It was his own personal nightmarish Hell that was still stealing everything from him, a house of horrors that stripped him of his soul piece by piece until he had nothing left but the bleeding, broken man in his arms.
And now it was taking his Captain. It was stealing his Jim.
John feels a phantom, sympathetic pain in his gut, can feel his own skin grow cold as he remembers his own death. He feels that Jim’s heart is no more than a weak flutter as the man’s breathing stops. Jim is almost thrown to the ground and Leonard’s lips cover his mouth, nose pinched, head tilted back as he forces air into the man’s drowning lungs.
This is most certainly not the way he had ever hoped to claim those lips. Not once in a million lifetimes would he ever imagine Jim would be this cold, this lax under his hands. He never imagines following such an act with the breaking of ribs, trying desperately to pump his failing heart.
He continues breathing for Jim, manually pumping his heart for what could only be hours, because it cannot possibly the few short minutes that his portable chronometer is telling him. His mind is cold and reptilian as he reaches blindly through his med kit, searching for one final rabbit to pull out of his hat.
His fingers wrap around a vial and his heart stutters. He’s holding C-24 in his hand, staring almost blankly at the clear poison, because that very well may be exactly what it is. Bones knows Jim, knows that for all that the kid tries to hide it, there is a dark part of him, nasty and possessive and utterly ruthless. He knows the Brat wants to be like his father, a good man who’s willing to make ultimate sacrifices for the greater good.
But Bones knows too well what is likely to happen to Jim if he injects the chromosome into the almost-empty bloodstream. He saw it in Jim’s eyes when he was shot in the thigh with his own gun. Jim is just a bit too selfish, a bit too relentless and damaged for C-24 to do any good.
Never the less, he fills an empty hypospray and injects the man, praying more desperately than he can remember ever doing before that he is wrong, that Jim has the right genetic markers, that he is a good enough soul to stay that way, to live so that Bones can tell him exactly who he is, explain exactly why he is so selfish as to risk infection and to dare to make Jim like himself, to tell him exactly how much he needs Jim.
Someone is trying to reach them over the comm., but Leonard ignores them, keeping a vigil over his too-still friend, waiting to hear if the heart will start up again. Waiting to see if his gamble pays off, if he’s not too late.
A whole six minutes trickle by until he hears Jim’s heart beat again, sees his chest begin to rise and fall all on its own. Bones chokes out a sob of relief, pulling Jim’s torso to him, holding him from behind as he stays on his knees, cradling Jim’s blonde head under his chin as he finally lets himself cry, stroking the man’s face.
Jim shudders violently as comes to, muscles tensing, ready to spring free from Leonard’s hold. The doctor shushes him, stroking his hair with one hand as he whispers assurances into Jim’s ear. He plants a kiss on one temple, inhaling the scent of Jim. It’s mostly the smell of blood and fear, but Reaper catches a faint whiff of something underneath it all, something different.
“Bones...” There is confusion in that one word and he relaxes his grip a bit, removing his hand from Jim’s hair and brushing the bandages on Jim’s shoulder instead, noting with pleasure that his Captain did not flinch with pain. The smell gets stronger and he tests the flesh of the shoulder, feeling the tissues begin to knit themselves together.
“Bones.” Jim is more urgent this time, and Bones can feel the muscles under his skin begin to twitch agitatedly. Bones slips his arm from under Jim’s arm and lays it across his shoulders, tracing his neck gently in an effort to soothe and calm. The man’s skin is quickly reheating itself until it becomes almost hot under Leonard’s touch.
He can almost taste that unidentifiable smell now and removes his hand from the bandages. It comes away stained almost black. The body in his arms jerks and shudders, hands grabbing his arm tight enough to leave bruises, breathing becoming more and more labored.
“No.” He hold on tight with both arms now, almost crushing Jim into his chest as he begins to struggle, the grip on his own arms becoming more and more painful. A painful whine escapes the bloodied teeth as they are ground tight against pain. “No, no no no!”
Despite his protests, Jim’s moan becomes a yell, fingernails breaking Bones’s skin, far too sharp to be the blunt nails his Jim had always kept trimmed. Muscles shift under tanned skin and he sobs as Jim’s scream becomes more feral, his struggles more frantic.
Arms slip smoothly from shoulders until the crook of one elbow is locked under Jim’s jaw around his throat, the other completing a chokehold. Bones takes a shuddering breath before he starts to squeeze.
The enraged screams are cut off, and there is only the sound of Jim’s weakening struggles and Leonard’s choked, shuddering breaths. They become shuddering sobs as Jim’s body stills. He relaxes his grip when he can’t hear a heartbeat anymore.
“Enterprise to McCoy, are you there?” Uhura’s voice only just snakes through the fog that’s encasing his mind. Bones reaches numbly for the discarded communicator, his hand trembling violently as he opens the channel to the Enterprise.
“Yeah.” His voice is hardly a whisper, and he wonders if Uhura can hear him. “Yeah, I’m here.”
“Are you almost out? We lost contact with you for eight minutes.” Is that it? he wonders. Is that how long it takes for the world to end? Eight minutes?
“He’s dead.” The words fall like rocks from his mouth, heavy and painful. “James Tiberius Kirk, age 29, died 1732 hours, stardate 2262.0305. Unknown toxin causing asphyxiation and cardiac arrest.” He hears Nyota gasp over the comm. and tries not to break down into sobs again, letting tears stream down his face.
“Doctor Leonard Horatio McCoy,” he hears Nyota hasp with understanding. He continues before she can try to interrupt him. “Age 36, died 1737 hours, stardate 2262.0305. Same unknown toxin.” There is silence on the other end for several minutes as he cradles Jim’s limp form in his arms. He hears Uhura take a slow, deliberate breath.
“Goodbye Bones.” He chokes on a bitter laugh at the use of his nickname.
“Don’t forget to blow this place to pieces, ya hear?” He swallows a lump in his throat. “And tell M’Benga that he’s the new CMO, and he’d better keep that Sick Bay clean, or Chapel’s gonna rip him a new one.” He turns off the channel without further ado.
John “Reaper” Grimm and Leonard “Bones” McCoy shift so that they are sitting, back against the ball and drag his beautiful Captain into his lap, hands stroking the once more cooling flesh, lips pressing desperately tender kisses into the bloodied hair.
“I’m sorry Jim,” he whispers between shuddering sobs as he begins to rock back and forth. His acute hearing picks of the whine of incoming photon torpedoes. He turns the lax head to him and claims the too-cold lips one more time. “I’m so sorry.” And he is. He so desperately is.
Hell is burning, and it scatters the two into the black, like some sort of fucking Greek tragedy.
[ Fin ]