Reminescence 1d
***
Then, if Jim did not get lucky, there were those nights where he got into fights, and Leonard had to get him out. Or Leonard would be already long gone by then, forgotten in the favour of anonymous sex in the bathroom, and Jim would come stumbling in through the sliding door with a split lip, a black eye and bruised ribs, asking to be fixed with a cocky smile that said, “You should see the other guy,” or he would receive a comm from Jim asking in a slurred voice to come and get him because he wasn’t sure he could go home on his own. He would always grumble that this was the last time, but Jim knew as well as him that it was bullshit; Bones was always there.
Tonight would appear to be one of the first kinds of bad night. They were back in another hole-in-the-wall dive bar, playing old music that soothed his mind. Of course, old for the people at large was from his time for him... He was lightly humming along with the song, before turning his attention toward his trouble-making friend. Jim had likely flirted with the wrong girl, as he eyed him trying to charm himself out of his tight spot, or maybe just being an arrogant and cocky ass...
The redhead was hanging back, one hand on the arm of the biggest guy, most likely trying to defend Jim. The other two had surrounded Jim. It was still relatively calm, so he decided to get up to try and drag away Jim peacefully. Jim could be a serious pain when he was offered a challenge. Then the girl’s friends came and dragged her away as her big hunk of a boyfriend threw the first punch. He felt himself wire up instantly.
His temper always flared whenever there was a fight, his senses on alert and the adrenaline racing in his veins despite the fact that there was no actual danger for him. He hated it, smelling fear and anger, hearing elevated heartbeats and his vision catching every little twitch of movements, all of them daring him to act and react. He could hear his mental siren screaming at him to defend Jim, even as he projected absolute (deadly) calm on the outside.
He navigates his way through the interested crowd trying to reach Jim. He knew the blond was good with his fists, and feet he mentally added as he saw a spectacular kick throw back one of the guys into a table. Jim had been listening to his combat instructor. But when the other goon distracted him, the bigger one took his shot and slammed Jim down, a series of punches and kicks hitting their target. He could hear Jim’s garbled groans of pain.
He pulled the guy up and away from Jim by the collar, placing himself between the three guys and Jim. He heard Jim scramble behind him, latching on a nearby chair to try and get up. When one sneered at him, telling him to get out of the way or he probably wouldn’t be able to recognize himself in the mirror, he stood his ground, slightly altering his pose into something more intimidating. The barmaids and bartenders had ushered most of the people outside; these punks were probably regular troublemakers and it was just simpler to get people out so they would avoid getting hurt. He saw a man peek out the doorway with his communicator in hand; the police force would arrive sooner or later.
When the leader approached him, he snagged the dirty shirt’s collar and pulled the guy up close to him. “You know what? If I were you, I’d get out now, while you are still intact. I could probably kill you in a hundred different ways and still make it look like an accident,” he said in a deceptively calm and threatening voice, low enough so nobody else could hear. He could feel his other hand twitching, thinking instinctively of all the possible options how this could all be over in a bloody mess or just with the right pressure applied at the right place. He was weapon less, but so were they and besides he didn’t need a weapon if he so wished.
The guy took a step back away from him, unsure what to make of the threat. His buddies pushed him forward, encouraging him and calling him a coward for being scared of one scrawny guy and his downed friend, and he threw another punch. He blocked it with one hand, feeling his lips quirk in a smirk. “So that’s how it’s going to be?” he commented quietly.
He manoeuvred the fist of the idiot, who stood puzzled at Reaper‘s reflexes, opening the palm so he could single the index out. “See this? You should go see a doctor; it’s broken,” he said nonchalantly. This guy really was an idiot staring at him open-mouthed like that before he started to deny and insult him. He applied just the right force and promptly heard the bone snap. The man howled in pain, holding his injured hand close to him, staring disbelievingly at him and cursing.
“Get out, before you accidentally break something else,” Reaper spat out coldly, unimpressed at the weakness displayed.
They didn’t have to be told twice, as they walked away, the goons glaring at him while their leader looked at him with rightful fear. He was starting to calm down when he felt a weight settle on his shoulders. He was about to throw it off when he heard the slurred, “Wow. That was awesomely bad-assy Bones. I didn’t know doctors could do that. That looked like something out of a holo-vid or shomething...Though, your eyes ain’t right, you’ve got that weird gleam in them...but they’re so prettyyyy.” Hands tilting his face in an angle where Jim could scrutinize him some more, and rambled in a drunken, disjointed manner some more about how his smile had been sinister somehow, but very cool. He didn’t have the time to reply to that since Jim had blacked out again against him, leaving Leonard to carry his sorry ass back to the dorms.
He was never, ever coming back to this bar. Thank whatever Gods that Jim had been drunk, because he wouldn’t have to explain himself in the morning, but then again if Jim hadn’t been drunk he wouldn’t have had to intervene and nearly blow his cover...no, true abilities he decides as he mentally corrects himself.
He goes back home with a dead weight by his side, grumbling and bitching all the way under his breath. He’ll heal the light scrapes that Jim has earned and regenerate the bruised skin once they get home. He momentarily stops at the thought of having a place that feels like home, and he smiles. Then resumes scowling, because damnit, he had said it would the last time he’d defend Jim.
***
He wakes up early in the morning slow and lazy; the sun is not even up an inch outside but he still feels warmer than if it had been. It’s been a while since he has woken up like that. He doesn’t think too much of it, turning around so he can be closer to the warmth surrounding him. He burrows his head against a furred pillow, before cracking an eye open, realizing he’s never owned one of those.
His brilliant mind should have processed it sooner, but apparently even sleep-fog affects the superhuman. He wants to jump up and away, take a defensive position and assess where he is and what’s the fuzzy thing. But he doesn’t move, relaxing instead as he takes in the smell as belonging to Jim and the soft texture as his hair. He sighs softly, settling down, rolling away from Jim to be on his back, staring at the ceiling. It doesn’t happen frequently, but it’s happened before, crashing together (after Jim got into a fight, mostly) and waking up with Jim draped over him or them “not-cuddling” together.
The blonde-haired man was an insistent snuggler, somewhat like a girl he thinks, as Jim mumbles and an arm comes snaking across toward his shoulder. The blond’s head tucked away in the crook of his neck (he’d be damned if he admitted to pressing his nose in Jim’s hair and thinking about how Jim was the nicest thing he had ever smelled) and a leg tangled in his. He just stares at the ceiling, losing himself to his lazy drifting musings, mostly about Jim‘s occasional odd behaviour.
Remembering last night, when he had made out of Jim’s mangled speech that he had looked wrong, how his eyes and his smile hadn’t been right. He could picture the maniacal gleam Jim had talked about, glossing over the comment that his eyes were so “pretty” because it was such a drunk-Jim thing to say. He had seen it in the mirror accidentally a few times during the wars and the freelance work he had done.
He’d turned himself inside out, the cold nonchalant killer in him taking the forefront; it was troubling that it would resurface so easily. He had thought he had buried that part of him, when he had decided that he would not just be a weapon, a creature only able to kill, first designed to be a life-enhancement in an utopia than had turned to hell.
And all that led him here, in a bed warmed by another man, barely a kid to him, who was somehow his best friend. The only one he had in a while, truthfully. Despite his bitterness, his general resentment, Jim had slipped in somehow. It still puzzled him, even with Jim invading his space close like this and there was no denying the small sense of... right that he felt, there was no other way to describe it he mused, it simply felt right. He took it as it was. He preferred not to dwell on it, fearing the consequences of digging and thinking too deep about this. He feels himself drifting off again. He didn’t have class this morning and could go back to sleep.
He’s roused from his slumber by movement and by the time he opens his eyes, he finds that there’s light glaring from the window and that Jim has stumbled out of bed. He can hear the shower start running and sits up, running a hand through his hair, messing it up some more. He checks the clock and it says it’s 9:00 in the morning. The hangover hypo’s canister is half-empty, Jim having taken his dose. At least he’s kind enough to leave him a dose, even if he doesn’t really need it. Jim has complained more than once about his spectacular ability to “recover” from *non-existing* hangovers.
So much for lazing out in bed and not having class; he always awakens at the most insignificant movement or sound. He lets out a light chuckles when he hear snatches of Jim’s voice, singing old 20th century songs under the water and takes in the trail of clothes leading up to the bathroom. Jim is most likely in a hurry. When Jim gets out, dressed in his spare cadet uniform, drying his hair with a towel while he’s reaching for a piece of toast on the counter, unaware that John is awake, Leonard can’t help the small smirk on his face as he says teasingly, “You should sing more often, kid.”
He’s rewarded by a weak glare, blushing cheeks and a reply that suspiciously sounds like, “Fuck you, old man!” muffled by a toast, followed by a loud, “See you later!” and a mumbled, “I swear I wasn’t singing that loud...” (He probably wouldn’t have heard it if he didn’t have superior hearing) as Jim darts out the door.
***
He’s been recommended as a trauma surgeon for the nearest ER which operates under Starfleet Medical. It is also the training ground for the medical-track’s cadet-interns and he’s a bit pissed off that he cannot be the actual head trauma surgeon because of the lack of “experience he has within Starfleet” even if he’s more skilled than the man who actually holds the post; Although he’s been un-officially promoted, so to speak, by the rest of the staff.
Although, thank goodness Starfleet won’t put his skills to waste. He’s just a little bit faster, a little bit more sharp-minded and can assess more quickly the situation than the other surgeons with an advantage that they can’t have. The staffs are friendly enough and he feels he has a purpose again. It still hits him hard when he loses one of the lives that have been placed into his hands. He drinks heavily those nights, enough to feel a small buzz for an hour or so before his body removes the alcohol, and he’s glad that his senses are a little dulled by the impairing toxin. Sometimes he gets out the good stuff, such as Saurian Brandy or more rarely, Romulan Ale.
Sometimes Jim would find him when he’s intoxicated on the good stuff, eyes staring in the void and reflexes dulled. In those moments he’s so gone inside of his mind that Jim can’t do a thing to truly reach him. He’s vaguely aware of the blonde’s smell and the sound of his voice; a flash of blue concerned eyes staring level at his face only to be met by his blank stare; a bottle being slipped out of his loosened grasp.
Usually there’s a comforting hand on his shoulder that pushes him down and he goes willing, mentally tired as he still finds the loss of an innocent life hard to bear. Usually, Jim will card a hand through his hair and mutters soothing nonsense, mostly about how it wasn’t his fault, until he would fall asleep. They would never really acknowledge that it had happened in the morning.
One such night, after a little girl, that reminds him too much of Joanna, dies on his operating table and he couldn’t make a miracle this time, couldn’t be fast enough, and had to face the anguished parents; his calm facade crumbling as soon as he gets back to the dorm. He actually loses his carefully maintained control while he’s angry at himself and the glass shatters in his hand.
He stares dimly at the shards embedded in his hand and the few droplets of blood that falls as if in slow motion. Accidents like this haven’t happened in a long time... He can’t even clearly remember when. He hisses lowly in pain when the skin tries to regenerate despite the glass, almost trying to assimilate it. He plucks the few shards one by one, sighing and cleans up his mess before Jim comes back. The nightmares will start again. He can feel it in his bones.
Jim doesn’t come home that night. It’s a good thing because his sheets are torn to shreds when he wakes up in the morning. He didn’t become a monster, but he can’t deny anymore (he has been in denial since becoming Leonard McCoy) that there’s an undercurrent of violence and something a little like a predator in him that will never go away, and that he didn’t feel at first but developed during the years that he is not proud of. Maybe it’s the circumstances of his “enhancement” or maybe he’s not as good as Samantha thought.
***
Three weeks later, he’s working his night shift at the ER when a body is rushed in on a gurney. At first, he smells the blood and a strange smell, it’s pleasant but the smell of blood overpowers it, that he knows from *somewhere* but can’t quite identify.
He takes one look at the blond mop of hair and the shirt that Jim is wearing soaked in blood before his medical PADD clatters to the floor and he’s running after the emergency team. He snaps and bitches, taking over before anyone else has the chance to contradict him, besides he’s a surgeon on ER duty, so he can take care of this patient if he wants.
He doubts any member of the team would object, seeing as Jim has been a common fixture recently, waiting for Bones’ shift to end, almost like a dutiful boyfriend (the rumours have started to go around but they pay them no mind). They barely lay the gurney down in the emergency surgery room that he’s already barking orders, as the door close.
Two hours later, Jim is stitched up from a nasty knife wound to the stomach. He had to be transfused blood and anesthetised twice, the little fucker first having an allergy and then waking up trashing in pain (because the second analgesic agent was too weak) while he was sewing him up, undoing part of his work.
They put him in the temporary recovery ward, dosed with painkillers, while he goes to clean off. He feels ragged and on the edge, and it shows until the end of his shift, where he slumps down into a chair beside Jim’s bed, glaring at the sleeping blond. Jim was a little banged up and the nurses took care of the superficial damage, but he’s still pissed, looking at the bandaged area on his stomach. It’s a miracle he didn’t die of blood loss. Someone in whatever dingy hole Jim had gone for the night had had the sense to try to stop the bleeding.
When Jim wakes up, he’s going to tie him up, toss him in a closet, and keep him safe from himself. He hasn’t slept much recently, he realizes belatedly. Too busy watching out for Jim, afraid of having nightmares again and accidentally hit or worst, kill Jim in a fit of panic. “You retarded idiot... you could have bled out in a back alley and be found dead in the morning...” is the last thing he thinks before the adrenaline comes crashing down, and he feels too tired to think anymore. The fatigue from the last few days catches him unaware and he dozes off the second his head drops against his folded arms on Jim’s bed.
He doesn’t know how much time has passed when he wakes again, but he flinches when there’s a hand on the top of his head, but stills again when it starts absent-mindedly toying with hair. He changes his position to be more comfortable, eyes barely open and the room is dark but to him it doesn’t matter as he peers up through his lashes. Jim’s awake and staring at him with a strange intensity, probably not realizing that he’s awake. Jim starts massaging his scalp more insistently, and he feels his eyelids drop down completely again as he makes a low rumble of satisfaction from the back of his throat that startles them both.
“Are you some kind of giant cat, Bones?” he hears the whispered question tinged with amusement.
“M’not. But that feels good,” he mumbles before stretching and sitting up, glaring at Jim.
He sees Jim wince as he asks, “What’s the glare-that-could-kill for...”
He hisses rapidly in response, “You know damn well, you idiot, and it’s for almost getting killed in a stupid bar fight and ending up on my operating table,” angry again at the recollection.
He sees Jim pale a little at the mention. “You worked on me?”
He glares again for good measure before uttering through clenched teeth, “Damn straight I did, wouldn’t trust anyone else, you know me. But I’d prefer not having to stitch you up in the first place. You could have died of blood loss out there, damnit!”
Jim simply lowers his head sheepishly and he can hear a small stream of apologies and promises that he won’t do it again.
“You better, or I am going to tie you to a chair and toss you in a closet,” he says, half-joking, making good on the threat he thought of earlier. Jim starts to laugh before cringing in pain and holding his stomach. Leonard takes the hypospray on the side table and jabs it in Jim’s arm, a little less violently than he would usually. The kid did scare the hell out of him, but he did also suffer extensive blood loss.
“How long do I have to stay in bed?” Jim asks before yawning as he settles himself more comfortably, the painkiller also having a mild analgesic in it, making him sleep.
“Until you’re healed. Good night Jim,” he replies more softly, before going back to their dorm room and leaving Jim to recover as he tries to unclench his fists.
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