Star Trek fic: The broken clock is a comfort. Kirk/McCoy (R) 1/2
Title: The broken clock is a comfort (it helps me sleep tonight)
Author: mellaithwen.
Pairings: Kirk/McCoy
Rating: R
Warnings: Angst, eventual character death.
Word Count: 6, 163 words.
Summary: James T. Kirk first meets Leonard McCoy when he is six years old.
The Time Traveler's Wife movie AU written for
The broken clock is a comfort, it helps me sleep tonight.. Maybe it can stop tomorrow from stealing all my time.
--Lifehouse.
~*~*~*~*~
It’s the beginning of a breezy October in Chicago, when James T. Kirk finally drags himself down to the library to get the books he needs to finish his essays.
He thinks it might take him a while to get everything on his to-do list done. He thinks he might need to grab food on the way back. The milk’s running low and he hasn’t even had his caffeine fix yet.
He doesn’t think he’ll see Bones standing confused and looking younger than he’s ever been to Jim. He doesn’t think that today he will go to the library in search of four books, and come out with nothing but a grin on his face and a spring in his step.
He doesn’t think his world will change more so than it already has. He doesn’t think that everything that he’s been wondering about since he was six years old will suddenly be set in motion right here, right now.
But then, he likes a nice surprise every now and then. And he’s always thought Bones turning up in the middle of, well, anywhere, at any time, was a nice surprise.
~*~*~*~*~
Time-travel, to most, is considered impossible.
To others it is wished for, dreamed of.
For Leonard McCoy it is a curse that leads him to drink. And drink. And drink some more.
His father had a similar reaction, and now both are estranged. Years of pain and suffering and confusion at the hand’s of Leonard’s “condition” has left their once strong bond tainted with bitterness.
“We both like the same whisky, but that’s where the similarities end.” Leonard will tell Jim three weeks into their relationship when the latter asks about family. McCoy will grimace, before giving in to those deep blue orbs.
Months later, Jim will insist that father and son should rebuild their broken bond.
Years later, McCoy will finally agree.
He’ll badger his father to open the door, they’ll fight, loud and angry and long overdue. Eventually, when the shouting has quietened down, Leonard will tell his father about Jim. And finally, when the coffee is cold, he’ll tell his father about his most recent journey to the past; wherein his mother was on a train, alive and smiling and on her way home to her loving husband and adoring child.
But he hasn’t met Jim yet, and he still drinks a lot, so he travels more, which makes him want to drink more, and drink he does...and the world spins madly on.
~*~*~*~*~
Jim studies engineering because he can’t bear to run off to the Air Force and leave his mother heartbroken. He wants to fly like his dad but just when he thinks he needs to escape, Bones appears. He’s always there. In the meadow, in the street. Once on a beach in the middle of February when Jim had run away at fourteen while he and his mother were visiting his grandparents.
Bones is always there, and knowing that gives him more relief than he thinks flying ever could.
So he works hard, gets good grades, gets into University and waits. And one day when he’s not even thinking about it, when he’s searching for a ridiculous amount of out-of-print texts (because professors like to make things difficult) there he is.
Introduced as McCoy, just McCoy, he appears from behind the bookshelves with a grimace that tells Jim he’d rather not be out in the open at all. There’s a rather thick layer of stubble on his chin and his hair is unkempt. There’s the slightest whiff of alcohol on him that Jim only really notices because it’s so damn out of place.
“Can I help you?” He asks, in a southern drawl; a hint of a growl just there in the background.
Jim can’t think. Can’t speak. Can only stare. He doesn’t realise he’s been holding his breath until he tries to speak and feels his lungs expand all of a sudden at the strain of talking.
“It’s you. You’re here.” He smiles after what seems like an age of silence, wherein the helpful receptionist has long since left. They are alone, as-Jim thinks-it should be.
“That I am.” McCoy replies dryly, his eyebrow cocked in what Jim thinks might be mild annoyance and a hint of curiosity. This Bones seems so new to him, and yet...
“I...I mean, you always said you’d see me again but you, you never said here. Now. Today.”
Understanding dawns and McCoy takes hold of Jim’s arm suddenly, pulling him into the darkness of the bookshelves.
“We’ve met...before?”
“Oh yeah. Lots of times. Your hair’s longer and that’s kinda weird, but it’s definitely you.”
“Hey-”
“I didn’t mean it in a bad way. I’m just so used to something else you know? You appear, I give you clothes, we hang, but you’re always so much older.”
“Look...”
“I can explain. Properly. I mean.” Jim breathes. “Come to dinner. I’ll...we can talk. And discuss. And I’ll explain in more detail or something.” Jim says all at once, surprising himself somewhat.
“Dinner?”
“We’ve been planning it for a long time.” He smirks, rattling off information about a diner nearby. He notices that he’s late for a lecture and races off, heart beating hard in his chest because while McCoy might not have realised, Jim certainly understood that he had just asked the love of his life on a date for the first time.
And to James T. Kirk, that was suddenly a very big deal.
~*~*~*~*~
The broken lights on the freeway left me here alone, I may have lost my way now haven't forgotten my way home.
--Lifehouse.
~*~*~*~*~
McCoy has been here before, he’s been here a few times, more than a few times,
It’s Christmas, and soon his mother will drive past him after he has broken into the back of someone’s car and stolen their gym clothes.
Es ist ein’ Ros’ entsprungen, aus einer Wurzel zart... His mother’s operatic voice is on the wind. Her melodies caught between the ice crystals of the snowflakes that fall down to the ground in their soft arches. ...Wie uns die Alten sungen, von Jesse war die Art.
She sings and he feels safe, but he could never carry a tune. After that night he never bothered to try again. Not for...
His memories of this night are disjointed. A combination of what he saw as a terrified child in the backseat, and from each and every angle as he has grown older. He finds himself humming the German carol as the flames dance and climb higher and higher. He clutches the blanket in his hands and races towards the shivering child in the middle of the road.
He remembers all of this, he remembers the car skidding, the headlights shining from a dozen other times where he’s tried and failed to stop it all from going wrong-he realises then that he is the man from that night. The kind stranger who told him to be careful, to not be afraid.
He says everything just as he remembers it.
There’s nothing you can do, listen to me, Leonard, hey look at me, listen, you were in the back of the car and it was spinning and all of a sudden you were back home, two weeks ago, watching your mom and dad read to you…You travelled back in time, Leonard. Just like I did to come see you…
He drapes the blanket over his younger self.
“I’m you, Leonard, when you’re all grown up. And everything’s gonna be okay, I promise.”
And he’s back in his apartment, half an hour late for dinner and shivering from the lingering effects of thirty-year old snow.
~*~*~*~*~
“Uh...hi.” is all McCoy can manage as he slinks into the booth in the diner to find a smiling Jim sitting across from him. The man from the library who appears to not only know him, but find his hair strangely long.
“Sorry I’m late.”
“That’s okay, I’m used to waiting.”
McCoy frowns, but before he can comment the waitress asks what they’d like to drink and while Jim orders water, McCoy orders bourbon.
“You shouldn’t drink.” Jim says and McCoy stares at him as though he’s insane.
“Excuse me?”
“You told me that Dr. Puri told you not to drink,” his voice lowers then, “It makes you travel.”
When the waitress arrives with their drinks, McCoy takes a moment to eye up the brown liquid he’d more than like to down right about now before launching into his questions.
“Tell me.” He says in a no-nonsense tone that he nearly regrets when Jim frowns.
“Excuse me?”
“Everything. Tell me everything. I mean, you...You do realise why I don’t know you, right? And Dr. Puri? I’ve never even heard of him. Who is he? Who are you?” He says hurriedly, mumbling, half hoping that his words won’t be heard and should this stranger not know his secret, he can explain it away in a cough or stutter or something.
Jim nods and McCoy feels his heart beat faster and faster. There’s an eager tint to Jim’s ridiculously blue eyes, a love hidden there that McCoy isn’t used to seeing directed at him. Especially from complete strangers who know a great deal about him and who he’s only ever met once.
“Dr. Puri is your Doctor. He’s a geneticist. He’s been researching into your condition, the gene that makes you travel. You never told me more than that. But he helps you, in the future, I guess.”
“And you?”
“I’m...well, I’ve known you my entire life. You’re my best friend.” He pauses as he rifles through his bag before bringing out a bundle and continuing. “I wrote down every time that you came to visit me.” Jim says holding the tattered notebook in his hands. “You told me that you go back to the same places a lot.”
“Yeah,” McCoy nods, half amazed to hear someone else talk about himself, about things he’s never told anyone, not yet. “It’s like gravity, big events pull you in.”
Jim can’t help but smile, it’s something pretty new to him, but he’d be lying if he said he didn’t like this...this random happiness he feels at the sight of his best friend looking so much younger than he’s ever seen before.
“I was a big event.”
Yeah. He likes this.
~*~*~*~*~
Jim first meets Leonard McCoy when he is six years old.
He is playing in the meadow behind his mother’s family home. His father, George-an esteemed pilot-has been dead for two years, and they have lived here ever since.
When Jim runs around the house in his red cape, he tells anyone who will listen that he wants to fly just like his daddy, just like superman. He only stops when he sees his mother start to cry, and so he heads off into the meadow to fly around Metropolis in peace.
Jetting around in a circle, he hears rustling in the bushes and a head pops up from behind the leaves.
“Can I borrow your cape?” The head asks kindly.
“Why?”
“I’ve lost my clothes, I’ll give it back to you, I promise.”
Jim thinks for a moment before handing the large red blanket over to the man, who then emerges, covered in Jim’s makeshift cape.
“Who are you?”
“My name’s McCoy, I’m from the future. We’re friends there, when you’re all grown up.”
“Prove it.”
“Your name is James Tiberius Kirk, you’re six years old and right now your mom is making lunch up at the house for when your Uncle Pike comes to visit.”
“That’s just knowing stuff...” A beat, and then; “do people live on the moon where you’re from?”
“Uh….no, they don’t, kid.’
The boy pouts at this, seemingly unimpressed with this far off visitor.
“You don’t believe me, do you?” He smiles somewhat knowingly and Jim shakes his head. “Well if you stick around long enough, you’ll see me disappear.”
As his new best friend vanishes in front of his eyes, young James Kirk adds Time Travel to his already quite imaginative list of interests (for a six year old). His mother smiles as he bounds into the kitchen and starts to tell her all about his new friend Leonard from the future.
Weeks later, when Winona notices things going missing from George’s half of the wardrobe she sighs sadly and thinks it’s a result of Jim trying to be closer to his late father. Searching the garments for a comfort long gone but a smell that lingers still.
She does it too.
~*~*~*~*~
“Where...where did we meet for the first time?”
“In the meadow,” Jim grins as Bones’ eyebrow quirks in what he presumes is amusement. “Behind my house, when I was six.”
“You’ve known me since you were six years old?”
“I was pretending to be Superman and there you were asking for my cape.”
“You had a cape?” Bones can’t help but smile. He’s talking to a complete stranger who knows his great big secret, and he’s smiling at the thought of a little boy being the Man of Steel.
“I stole my mom’s picnic blanket and uh you were kinda...well, you know.”
McCoy clears his throat.
“When I travel, I can’t take anything with me, just my bones.”
“You say that a lot. I even started calling you Bones as a nickname. You said Leonard reminded you of other people and that-”
“What?”
“That I would call you Bones when I’m older too.”
“I guess it’s a done deal then. Did you...I mean, no clothes, no food...?” McCoy leaves the question vague and open-ended, feeling almost rude to ask outright if six-year-old Jim had helped him out at all.
“Food was pretty easy. My mom used to think you were my imaginary friend and that I ate for the both of us and clothes, well, I left some of my dad’s clothes in the woods for you.”
“He didn’t mind?”
The seemingly permanent shine in Jim’s eyes dims, and his gaze darts down to the journal in his hands.
“He died when I was little.” He whispers, fingers unconsciously curling around the corners of the book and Bones-nickname now firmly stuck-decides to change tactics.
“Well, you seem to know a lot about me. What about you? What do you want to do?”
Jim smiles, he hasn’t told this version of his best friend yet, and that’s confusing...sort of. Though more so for the unknowing Bones.
“Fly, Bones, I’ve always wanted to fly.”
A shudder runs through the older man’s shoulders, the same from Jim’s childhood. Every version of this time traveller hates flying just as much as he hates any kind of travelling he has no control over. Jim laughs.
“So you still hate flying.”
“Do you have any idea how dangerous those things are?”
“Yes. Actually I do. But I also know there’s nothing I want more than to be sitting in that pilot seat. Well, that, and you.”
He worries he might have just been too forward, but there’s only curiosity in Bones’s eyes, and it’s that curiosity and attraction that leads them both to his apartment that night in a flurry of hurried kisses and searching hands in the corridor while McCoy hurriedly tries to find his keys.
~*~*~*~*~
“You have to count to a thousand.”
“What?”
“Just do it.”
He does.
1, 2, 3, 4, Bones runs around shoving crap into corners, and clothes behind the sofa, 10, 11, 12, when he needn’t really bother; Jim’s only got eyes for him. 24, 25, 26.
He straightens out the bed, and does the same haphazard cleaning in that room too. Jim cracks open an eyelid and watches as most of this goes on.
“A thousand!” He announces, before he’s even reached one hundred.
The kiss is sudden, one moment they’re staring and the next their lips are locked together. Bones returns it with the same fervour as Kirk’s initial advance. There’s something about Jim, a safety of sharing his secret, an understanding he doesn’t even comprehend yet. And then there’s the attraction and the way Jim manages to undress him with his eyes. Those blue, blue eyes that want him so badly.
They fall back onto the couch, hands roaming as they remove one another shirts and all of a sudden Bones feels compelled to mark Jim’s skin in the crook of his neck.
“Does that mean I’m yours?” Jim grins; losing himself in everything that is Bones.
“Definitely.” Bones breathes, completely unsure of what the hell he’s getting himself into, and really not caring-content to bask in this release, in this moment, in Jim.
~*~*~*~*~
When Kirk wakes up, he blinks a few hundred times before he remembers exactly where he is and who is lying next to him still fast asleep.
He stops smiling when he finds the lipstick in the medicine cabinet that looks old but not old enough to ease his jealousy. It hurts that someone had his Bones first when technically Jim called dibs a long, long time ago.
But the lipstick is old, and Bones tells him as much as he bids him back to bed. Jim trusts him, because, well, it’s Bones.
~*~*~*~*~
They’re running along the lakefront away from the observatory when Jim says, gasping for breath, that he’d like Bones to meet his roommates.
“They’re well meaning nosy people who won’t stop hassling me, so I’d appreciate it if you came to dinner. But don’t worry I’m not the one cooking.”
Nowhere in that sentence does Bones remember a warning about Spock. He’s met some protective friends before but this is something else.
Spock is stoic, and his gaze seems to look straight through him. Bones resists the urge to mutter under his breath because something tells him this guy? This close friend of Jim’s? might just hear every word.
He doesn’t relax all evening, and it takes several meetings for Bones to realise that that stiff posture and blank face is relaxed. Nyota’s a lot easier to talk to, she’s friendly and open and while she won’t take any crap from Jim, her hits to his shoulder are playful at best. She is Spock’s polar opposite and yet, together, anyone can see they make perfect sense. They fit.
Bones looks down to find Jim’s fingers interlaced with his own underneath the table.
He smiles.
He likes this. The calm, friendly atmosphere.
He doesn’t travel for an entire week and that both thrills and terrifies him.
~*~*~*~*~
McCoy waits for Jim after class when he knows they’ll have the afternoon together. Jim studies, and Bones works, and at night they fall into each other’s arms like there’s nowhere else they’d rather be.
There is nowhere else they’d rather be.
Until Bones’ body disagrees and suddenly decides to send him to the past, or the future or anywhere in-between.
He’s making dinner in the kitchen when Jim spins around at the sound of broken dishes and pans flying. He hears footsteps from the living room and curses as he shoves Bones’s clothes and shoes into a cupboard.
“What happened?” Nyota asks, rushing forward to help Jim pick up the remains of dinner off of the floor.
“Where’s McCoy?”
“He had to go lie down for a bit, I hope I didn’t just wake him up...” Jim trails off and Spock’s raised eyebrow sees straight through the lie. He helps Jim with the broken china while Nyota bins the ruined food. They order pizza, and Jim spends the entire night keeping them away from his bedroom, until finally McCoy appears in the doorway and Jim excuses himself for bed.
“Are those my pants?”
“Well I couldn’t find mine.” Bones growls, as Jim takes him on a detour to the kitchen, retrieves the hidden garments, and laughs.
“I’m glad you find it funny, these aren’t big enough for a child.”
“Hey! We can’t all be broad-shouldered and freakishly built like-what happened?” Jim’s tone goes from joking to serious in the time it takes Bones to remove Jim’s old tee. There’s bruising starting to form on Bones’ back and he moves before Jim can reach out and touch it.
“Nothing.”
“Don’t be an asshole, what happened?”
“What do you think happened, Jim? A naked guy turns up in an alleyway in the middle of the night.” Bones growls harshly, and Jim swallows the lump in his throat and gets under the sheets of the bed.
The other side of their life, the danger, the fear, suddenly rears it’s ugly head and Jim can’t think of anything else.
“Stop looking at me like that, kid. I’m fine. Let’s just go to sleep, okay?”
Jim nods, and while they both might close their eyes, neither sleeps a wink.
It’s not always like that.
Bones has gotten used to the flying punches, and he’s usually a lot better at ducking and dishing out his own, but his mind was still on dinner that night and he wasn’t prepared...
~*~*~*~*~
The next time he travels, it’s cold, and he works fast to find clothes in the back of someone else’s car. There’s something familiar about all of this and he makes it to the road in time to watch as his mother drives past. He sees himself in the back seat and he knows exactly what’s about to happen next.
He’s back again. Back to this moment, the beginning of it all.
He reaches out; a million thoughts racing through his head and yet the one telling him to move, to run, to fix it, fix it now, has been silenced by years of failed attempts.
He remembers jingle bells and a stinging sensation on his cheek, trickling blood and lights and snow and so much fear and suddenly it’s two weeks ago and he’s warm in his house, and there is his mother and there is his father and there, strangely enough, is himself...and it’s like déjà vu from a whole other perspective and he’s analysed it a million times since.
And then he’s back on that snow slicked road, and his mother’s car is on fire and while he feels everything around him lose meaning a man appears from nowhere with a blanket and a sad smile. He holds him, he tells him that it’ll be okay, and that he time travelled to two weeks ago and to not be afraid because it would happen again.
And that his name was Leonard, and he was him.
~*~*~*~*~
And then there’s that time with the homophobe in the alley, and the pink frilly blouse that turns into a reason to pummel some guy into the ground.
And then Spock’s there asking what the hell is going on, and they’re breaking into the Army-Navy Surplus store. He tells him the truth, and Spock says he’s crazy-the disbelieving man is halfway through a long list of esteemed psychologists when Bones disappears without warning.
In a blink he’s in the library, where he works, in the stacks between aisles of books hidden in shadow in the furthest point of the building. His clothes are in the same pile his impromptu departure left them in and he quickly dresses before heading back to the student waiting for his requested periodicals to be found.
“Took you long enough.”
“You have no idea.”
~*~*~*~*~
“When were you going to tell me about McCoy’s condition?” Spock says having strolled into the apartment they’ve been sharing since college with an air of what Kirk thinks is anger.
Jim freezes; that’s more than a little out of the blue, not to mention terribly un-specific. Maybe Bones said something, but there’s no guarantee it was about the-
“And by condition, I mean his innate ability to travel through time.”
“He, uh, he told you?”
“Yes, and I told him he was clearly troubled and should seek professional help as my degree in Physics proves how illogical his statement is.”
“And then he vanished?”
“Indeed.”
Jim smiles a little at that.
“This amuses you? I saw him fighting in an alleyway wearing, well, not much. And then he time travelled? Not to mention the amount of breaking and entering offences he committed-”
“You don’t have to be concerned, Spock. It’s okay.”
“Jim, perhaps-”
“And even if I wanted to change it, I couldn’t, but I don’t, so it’s all good. Relax. Be happy for me, because I am really happy. It’s just a little complicated.”
“I could cite a hundred different reasons why this wouldn’t be a good idea, but I know you will simply ignore it.”
“Ah, you know me well!” Jim replies to the back of Spock’s head as he does his best impression of a child and stalks off.
When he arrives home and tells Nyota she wonders if he’s finally begun to make jokes at the expense of others, but his eyes are deathly serious, and eventually, even she witnesses it at first hand.
People know, and for once, it doesn’t scare the shit out of Jim. If anything, he feels the weight on top of his shoulders lessen just a little and he wonders if Bones feels the same way.
~*~*~*~*~
McCoy blends in well, he looks a little rough around the edges, and the clothes on his back don’t fit properly-mainly because they’re never his own when he jumps like this-but he knows how to make himself invisible.
Don’t make eye contact, just walk. Don’t talk, just walk, keep walking, keep looking ahead. You have a destination just like everyone else. It’s just a little farther, that’s all. Keep walking, keep going and in a second you’re gone and they’ll never remember you. Lost in the crowds, in the wave, in the light, in the dark, down an alleyway, through a door.
Same ol’ same ol’.
Until Jim.
Jim notices every time you leave.
You never should have let someone in...but...but…
Even when they argue, Bones can’t deny the feeling inside. He’s in love, pure and simple and it’s hard but goddamn, Jim smiles and it’s okay for that second in time.
~*~*~*~*~
The broken locks were a warning, you got inside my head, I tried my best to be guarded; I’m an open book instead.
--Lifehouse.
~*~*~*~*~
His father tells him he’s been ill, but the real reason he’s pale and gaunt is that he’s been nearly constantly drunk for a long time. He hasn’t played in the orchestra for months, and his apartment is a mess. His beard is unkempt, and he smells of whisky and unwashed clothes. He pours himself a drink while McCoy tries to clean a path from the bedroom to the kitchen.
“That’s not gonna help.” He says, tossing rubbish into the bin.
“Sure it will. Want one?”
“No, I quit.”
“Pity. It was our one shared enthusiasm.”
This is where the fighting begins. McCoy tries to tidy up his father’s desk, but he’s met with rebuttal after rebuttal and get your own life in order before you start telling me how to live mine. Their arguments always end the same. His condition ruins their lives, and his father doesn’t understand why his wonderful wife can’t be stopped from getting in that damned car. McCoy ends up telling his father that not only is his life coming together, but he’s in love, and he’s getting married, and he’s happy for once in his damned life.
And all his father can do is sigh.
“I miss her, I miss her everyday.”
“So do I.”
~*~*~*~*~
He gathers up the courage to whisper will you marry me? between the sheets finally on a Sunday morning in Autumn. Jim jokingly replies No, if only to have the certainty in Bones’ smile falter for a second.
“Wha-”
“I didn’t mean that, I didn’t, I just wanted to hear what it would sound like...if I didn’t, you know?”
“No?”
“I made it my choice. And I choose you, I do. I do. Of course. Yes, yes, yes.”
~*~*~*~*~
They go out for drinks to celebrate. Nyota smiles and hugs the both of them, beaming and Spock congratulates them, but his gaze seems perpetually hardened. Jim’s invited a Russian whiz-kid from his lectures and in turn Bones asks Scotty from work to make an appearance and Christine manages to make it too.
They toast to the future and Bones feels a shiver run down his spine.
“To us.” He says instead, staring at Jim.
“To Russia!” Chekov chimes in, somehow already quite drunk.
“To Scotland!” Scotty responds, not one to be put out when it comes to patriotism.
“To the happy couple.” Nyota finishes, re-iterating the celebratory element of the night, as they all finish toasting and take sips of their drinks.
~*~*~*~*~
The afternoon before the big day Bones gets his haircut to a style Jim is more accustomed to, and when he arrives back at the Kirk family home where the wedding is being held, he sees his father in the foyer waiting for him, smiling and sober. Everything’s coming together but before he can manage to take a valium to calm his nerves he freaks himself out and disappears in a flash.
Spock does not freak out. He paces, and he frowns hard enough for a small vein in his forehead to pop out uncharacteristically, but he does not freak out.
“Shit.”
Thankfully, McCoy appears a minute or so later. He’s a lot more grey around the edges, but if any of the guests notice they don’t comment on it. Jim does. Several times. Even more so, when his own Bones, from the present finally turns up, smiling.
I can’t believe you missed our wedding.
I’ll catch it on the flip side.
Jerk.
Shut up and dance with me.
*~*~*~*~
In the meadow, he meets young Jim for the first time.
“Finally.” The young boy mutters and McCoy deduces that this is far from their first meeting. Jim lays out a picnic of two turkey sandwiches and cold black coffee that could probably fuel a car for fifty miles.
“Uncle Pike says coffee is a grown up’s drink, so I figured you’d like it.”
McCoy smiles, and feigns drinking with aplomb.
“Are you married?” Jim asks, among many other questions.
“Yes.”
“Is your wife a time traveller?”
“No.” Bones laughs.
Then.
“Sam says he wants to run away again, forever.”
“He won’t.”
“You’ve never told me anything like that before. From the future, I mean.”
“Well there’s no use in you worrying if you don’t have to, kid.”
He ruffles the boy’s hair and takes a bite out of the sandwich as Jim tells him about his day at school, and McCoy offers to help him with his homework.
When he makes it back to the honeymoon suite Cary Grant and Grace Kelly are dancing around each other on the television. Fireworks burst in the sky outside, as Kelly plays coy and Grant plays aloof. Oh, what would you do? She asks him, stepping back into the darkness of the hardly lit room. The thrill is right there in front of you, but you can't quite get it - and the gems glistening on the other side of the window, and someone asleep, breathing heavily.
He switches off the television set and crawls into bed.
“I was in the meadow.” He tells Jim in between kisses, his coarse fingers lingering over soft skin in the darkness.
“You were?”
“Mhmm, I was.”
~*~*~*~*~
They’re happy, for the most part. Lonely dinners and smashed plates seem to fill the cracks of their relationship like unevenly placed polyfiller, but it is what it is.
At first Jim accepts the disappearing acts like he always used to but for some reason he thought the rings on their fingers would have changed something. Maybe given him more of a reason to stay.
No, that’s not fair, Bones can’t help it. He berates himself.
But they’ve moved into Bones’s apartment and Jim finds himself counting to a thousand as though he’ll feel less alone as he packs up the Christmas gifts he opened on his own over a week ago.
And one day while he’s getting ready for work, Jim hears a thump, and moments later Bones appears in the doorway to their bedroom, dressing as he smiles at the familiar face of his husband.
“Did I miss Christmas?”
Jim blinks. And he can’t swallow the anger; he can’t just let it go. Bones is grinning and he hasn’t got a clue.
“And New Years.”
To his credit, Bones looks apologetic but Jim has waited for two weeks and he won’t be late for work again, so he leaves his husband standing in the middle of the apartment instead.
When he leaves the hanger bay hours later Bones is standing there waiting. He’s shifting from one foot to the other and staring at the planes all around them with great disdain.
“They’re pretty safe, you know.”
“Don’t pander to me, kid.” Bones rants, muttering worst-case scenarios under his breath.
“Is that your way of apologising?”
“Yes.”
~*~*~*~*~
When they decide to search for Dr. Puri, to lay the groundwork of what they hope will help the two of them, they’re met with a geneticist who is more than a little sceptical. At first he thinks McCoy is crazy. And then he thinks Jim is crazy, and Nyota, and Spock and whoever else decides to vouch for this time travel acid trip they all appear to be on.
Bones tries to make himself disappear but he’s never had that much control and of course the one time he’d want to, he can’t.
He explains again and again. A genetic anomaly, chrono-impairment, it’s a term you come up with. Finally, to be rid of what he believes is a mad-man’s ranting, Dr. Puri agrees to do the tests, and when McCoy disappears out of the MRI machine, all the good doctor can say is “Oh shit.”
~*~*~*~*~
While Bones spends his time talking to Dr. Puri, and travelling from one place to the next, Jim starts taking pilot lessons in his free time. It becomes a release he didn’t know he needed, all of the stress of being left behind falls away and it’s just him and gravity. The rumble of the aircraft soaring through the clouds. It’s everything he’s been longing for since he was a little kid with a cape.
Bones does not take kindly to this information when he finds out but Jim can’t bare to compromise.
“What’s wrong with me wanting one normal thing in my life? I control the plane. I tell it where to go, when to land-”
“Do you tell it when to crash too? Damn it, Jim, it’s dangerous, why can’t you see that?”
“Life’s dangerous, Bones! When I was six years old a strange naked man wandered into the meadow behind my house! You time travel-you vanish into thin air, and you’re lecturing me on the dangers of life?”
“I can’t control whatever the hell is wrong with me, Jim, but no one’s forcing you into those planes.”
“It’s in my blood, Bones. It’s something I have to do, okay?”
Both of them are too busy arguing to notice the young girl they pass, who only stops and stares at them in a shop doorway, smiling.
~*~*~*~*~
The first time Jim is kissed by Bones, he’s eighteen years old. It’s raining in the meadow, and he’d been running around in it for nearly half an hour when out of the bushes, McCoy appears.
He’s angry; he’s just disappeared mid-argument and he’s jabbing the old jumper over his head in haste. He stops when he sees Jim, but the young man just grins and runs forward to greet his best friend.
Bones feels the anger melt away and Jim’s so close and he’s smiling so much and before Bones can even think of the repercussions, he’s taking the man’s face in his hands and kissing him hard.
Jim jerks himself backwards.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“I’m...I’m sorry, I’m sorry, Jim, Christ, wait, wait a minute, how old are you?”
“Eighteen.”
“Oh jesus, I’m sorry, kid. I am, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have done that.”
“You’re married!”
“I know, Jim-”
“What?”
And he’s gone.
~*~*~*~*~
Bones looks around and he’s back where he started-time wise at least. He recognizes the suburb too and he just about manages to get himself to his father’s house without being seen-though the homeless man on the corner didn’t seem to care...
He’s buttoning up one of his father’s shirts when the man himself appears in the doorway, slightly out of breath.
“Son...”
“Dad? What’s wrong? What’s happened?”
“It’s Jim.”
They’re out the door and headed for the hospital in seconds.
( Part Two. )
Author: mellaithwen.
Pairings: Kirk/McCoy
Rating: R
Warnings: Angst, eventual character death.
Word Count: 6, 163 words.
Summary: James T. Kirk first meets Leonard McCoy when he is six years old.
The Time Traveler's Wife movie AU written for
The broken clock is a comfort, it helps me sleep tonight.. Maybe it can stop tomorrow from stealing all my time.
--Lifehouse.
~*~*~*~*~
It’s the beginning of a breezy October in Chicago, when James T. Kirk finally drags himself down to the library to get the books he needs to finish his essays.
He thinks it might take him a while to get everything on his to-do list done. He thinks he might need to grab food on the way back. The milk’s running low and he hasn’t even had his caffeine fix yet.
He doesn’t think he’ll see Bones standing confused and looking younger than he’s ever been to Jim. He doesn’t think that today he will go to the library in search of four books, and come out with nothing but a grin on his face and a spring in his step.
He doesn’t think his world will change more so than it already has. He doesn’t think that everything that he’s been wondering about since he was six years old will suddenly be set in motion right here, right now.
But then, he likes a nice surprise every now and then. And he’s always thought Bones turning up in the middle of, well, anywhere, at any time, was a nice surprise.
~*~*~*~*~
Time-travel, to most, is considered impossible.
To others it is wished for, dreamed of.
For Leonard McCoy it is a curse that leads him to drink. And drink. And drink some more.
His father had a similar reaction, and now both are estranged. Years of pain and suffering and confusion at the hand’s of Leonard’s “condition” has left their once strong bond tainted with bitterness.
“We both like the same whisky, but that’s where the similarities end.” Leonard will tell Jim three weeks into their relationship when the latter asks about family. McCoy will grimace, before giving in to those deep blue orbs.
Months later, Jim will insist that father and son should rebuild their broken bond.
Years later, McCoy will finally agree.
He’ll badger his father to open the door, they’ll fight, loud and angry and long overdue. Eventually, when the shouting has quietened down, Leonard will tell his father about Jim. And finally, when the coffee is cold, he’ll tell his father about his most recent journey to the past; wherein his mother was on a train, alive and smiling and on her way home to her loving husband and adoring child.
But he hasn’t met Jim yet, and he still drinks a lot, so he travels more, which makes him want to drink more, and drink he does...and the world spins madly on.
~*~*~*~*~
Jim studies engineering because he can’t bear to run off to the Air Force and leave his mother heartbroken. He wants to fly like his dad but just when he thinks he needs to escape, Bones appears. He’s always there. In the meadow, in the street. Once on a beach in the middle of February when Jim had run away at fourteen while he and his mother were visiting his grandparents.
Bones is always there, and knowing that gives him more relief than he thinks flying ever could.
So he works hard, gets good grades, gets into University and waits. And one day when he’s not even thinking about it, when he’s searching for a ridiculous amount of out-of-print texts (because professors like to make things difficult) there he is.
Introduced as McCoy, just McCoy, he appears from behind the bookshelves with a grimace that tells Jim he’d rather not be out in the open at all. There’s a rather thick layer of stubble on his chin and his hair is unkempt. There’s the slightest whiff of alcohol on him that Jim only really notices because it’s so damn out of place.
“Can I help you?” He asks, in a southern drawl; a hint of a growl just there in the background.
Jim can’t think. Can’t speak. Can only stare. He doesn’t realise he’s been holding his breath until he tries to speak and feels his lungs expand all of a sudden at the strain of talking.
“It’s you. You’re here.” He smiles after what seems like an age of silence, wherein the helpful receptionist has long since left. They are alone, as-Jim thinks-it should be.
“That I am.” McCoy replies dryly, his eyebrow cocked in what Jim thinks might be mild annoyance and a hint of curiosity. This Bones seems so new to him, and yet...
“I...I mean, you always said you’d see me again but you, you never said here. Now. Today.”
Understanding dawns and McCoy takes hold of Jim’s arm suddenly, pulling him into the darkness of the bookshelves.
“We’ve met...before?”
“Oh yeah. Lots of times. Your hair’s longer and that’s kinda weird, but it’s definitely you.”
“Hey-”
“I didn’t mean it in a bad way. I’m just so used to something else you know? You appear, I give you clothes, we hang, but you’re always so much older.”
“Look...”
“I can explain. Properly. I mean.” Jim breathes. “Come to dinner. I’ll...we can talk. And discuss. And I’ll explain in more detail or something.” Jim says all at once, surprising himself somewhat.
“Dinner?”
“We’ve been planning it for a long time.” He smirks, rattling off information about a diner nearby. He notices that he’s late for a lecture and races off, heart beating hard in his chest because while McCoy might not have realised, Jim certainly understood that he had just asked the love of his life on a date for the first time.
And to James T. Kirk, that was suddenly a very big deal.
~*~*~*~*~
The broken lights on the freeway left me here alone, I may have lost my way now haven't forgotten my way home.
--Lifehouse.
~*~*~*~*~
McCoy has been here before, he’s been here a few times, more than a few times,
It’s Christmas, and soon his mother will drive past him after he has broken into the back of someone’s car and stolen their gym clothes.
Es ist ein’ Ros’ entsprungen, aus einer Wurzel zart... His mother’s operatic voice is on the wind. Her melodies caught between the ice crystals of the snowflakes that fall down to the ground in their soft arches. ...Wie uns die Alten sungen, von Jesse war die Art.
She sings and he feels safe, but he could never carry a tune. After that night he never bothered to try again. Not for...
His memories of this night are disjointed. A combination of what he saw as a terrified child in the backseat, and from each and every angle as he has grown older. He finds himself humming the German carol as the flames dance and climb higher and higher. He clutches the blanket in his hands and races towards the shivering child in the middle of the road.
He remembers all of this, he remembers the car skidding, the headlights shining from a dozen other times where he’s tried and failed to stop it all from going wrong-he realises then that he is the man from that night. The kind stranger who told him to be careful, to not be afraid.
He says everything just as he remembers it.
There’s nothing you can do, listen to me, Leonard, hey look at me, listen, you were in the back of the car and it was spinning and all of a sudden you were back home, two weeks ago, watching your mom and dad read to you…You travelled back in time, Leonard. Just like I did to come see you…
He drapes the blanket over his younger self.
“I’m you, Leonard, when you’re all grown up. And everything’s gonna be okay, I promise.”
And he’s back in his apartment, half an hour late for dinner and shivering from the lingering effects of thirty-year old snow.
~*~*~*~*~
“Uh...hi.” is all McCoy can manage as he slinks into the booth in the diner to find a smiling Jim sitting across from him. The man from the library who appears to not only know him, but find his hair strangely long.
“Sorry I’m late.”
“That’s okay, I’m used to waiting.”
McCoy frowns, but before he can comment the waitress asks what they’d like to drink and while Jim orders water, McCoy orders bourbon.
“You shouldn’t drink.” Jim says and McCoy stares at him as though he’s insane.
“Excuse me?”
“You told me that Dr. Puri told you not to drink,” his voice lowers then, “It makes you travel.”
When the waitress arrives with their drinks, McCoy takes a moment to eye up the brown liquid he’d more than like to down right about now before launching into his questions.
“Tell me.” He says in a no-nonsense tone that he nearly regrets when Jim frowns.
“Excuse me?”
“Everything. Tell me everything. I mean, you...You do realise why I don’t know you, right? And Dr. Puri? I’ve never even heard of him. Who is he? Who are you?” He says hurriedly, mumbling, half hoping that his words won’t be heard and should this stranger not know his secret, he can explain it away in a cough or stutter or something.
Jim nods and McCoy feels his heart beat faster and faster. There’s an eager tint to Jim’s ridiculously blue eyes, a love hidden there that McCoy isn’t used to seeing directed at him. Especially from complete strangers who know a great deal about him and who he’s only ever met once.
“Dr. Puri is your Doctor. He’s a geneticist. He’s been researching into your condition, the gene that makes you travel. You never told me more than that. But he helps you, in the future, I guess.”
“And you?”
“I’m...well, I’ve known you my entire life. You’re my best friend.” He pauses as he rifles through his bag before bringing out a bundle and continuing. “I wrote down every time that you came to visit me.” Jim says holding the tattered notebook in his hands. “You told me that you go back to the same places a lot.”
“Yeah,” McCoy nods, half amazed to hear someone else talk about himself, about things he’s never told anyone, not yet. “It’s like gravity, big events pull you in.”
Jim can’t help but smile, it’s something pretty new to him, but he’d be lying if he said he didn’t like this...this random happiness he feels at the sight of his best friend looking so much younger than he’s ever seen before.
“I was a big event.”
Yeah. He likes this.
~*~*~*~*~
Jim first meets Leonard McCoy when he is six years old.
He is playing in the meadow behind his mother’s family home. His father, George-an esteemed pilot-has been dead for two years, and they have lived here ever since.
When Jim runs around the house in his red cape, he tells anyone who will listen that he wants to fly just like his daddy, just like superman. He only stops when he sees his mother start to cry, and so he heads off into the meadow to fly around Metropolis in peace.
Jetting around in a circle, he hears rustling in the bushes and a head pops up from behind the leaves.
“Can I borrow your cape?” The head asks kindly.
“Why?”
“I’ve lost my clothes, I’ll give it back to you, I promise.”
Jim thinks for a moment before handing the large red blanket over to the man, who then emerges, covered in Jim’s makeshift cape.
“Who are you?”
“My name’s McCoy, I’m from the future. We’re friends there, when you’re all grown up.”
“Prove it.”
“Your name is James Tiberius Kirk, you’re six years old and right now your mom is making lunch up at the house for when your Uncle Pike comes to visit.”
“That’s just knowing stuff...” A beat, and then; “do people live on the moon where you’re from?”
“Uh….no, they don’t, kid.’
The boy pouts at this, seemingly unimpressed with this far off visitor.
“You don’t believe me, do you?” He smiles somewhat knowingly and Jim shakes his head. “Well if you stick around long enough, you’ll see me disappear.”
As his new best friend vanishes in front of his eyes, young James Kirk adds Time Travel to his already quite imaginative list of interests (for a six year old). His mother smiles as he bounds into the kitchen and starts to tell her all about his new friend Leonard from the future.
Weeks later, when Winona notices things going missing from George’s half of the wardrobe she sighs sadly and thinks it’s a result of Jim trying to be closer to his late father. Searching the garments for a comfort long gone but a smell that lingers still.
She does it too.
~*~*~*~*~
“Where...where did we meet for the first time?”
“In the meadow,” Jim grins as Bones’ eyebrow quirks in what he presumes is amusement. “Behind my house, when I was six.”
“You’ve known me since you were six years old?”
“I was pretending to be Superman and there you were asking for my cape.”
“You had a cape?” Bones can’t help but smile. He’s talking to a complete stranger who knows his great big secret, and he’s smiling at the thought of a little boy being the Man of Steel.
“I stole my mom’s picnic blanket and uh you were kinda...well, you know.”
McCoy clears his throat.
“When I travel, I can’t take anything with me, just my bones.”
“You say that a lot. I even started calling you Bones as a nickname. You said Leonard reminded you of other people and that-”
“What?”
“That I would call you Bones when I’m older too.”
“I guess it’s a done deal then. Did you...I mean, no clothes, no food...?” McCoy leaves the question vague and open-ended, feeling almost rude to ask outright if six-year-old Jim had helped him out at all.
“Food was pretty easy. My mom used to think you were my imaginary friend and that I ate for the both of us and clothes, well, I left some of my dad’s clothes in the woods for you.”
“He didn’t mind?”
The seemingly permanent shine in Jim’s eyes dims, and his gaze darts down to the journal in his hands.
“He died when I was little.” He whispers, fingers unconsciously curling around the corners of the book and Bones-nickname now firmly stuck-decides to change tactics.
“Well, you seem to know a lot about me. What about you? What do you want to do?”
Jim smiles, he hasn’t told this version of his best friend yet, and that’s confusing...sort of. Though more so for the unknowing Bones.
“Fly, Bones, I’ve always wanted to fly.”
A shudder runs through the older man’s shoulders, the same from Jim’s childhood. Every version of this time traveller hates flying just as much as he hates any kind of travelling he has no control over. Jim laughs.
“So you still hate flying.”
“Do you have any idea how dangerous those things are?”
“Yes. Actually I do. But I also know there’s nothing I want more than to be sitting in that pilot seat. Well, that, and you.”
He worries he might have just been too forward, but there’s only curiosity in Bones’s eyes, and it’s that curiosity and attraction that leads them both to his apartment that night in a flurry of hurried kisses and searching hands in the corridor while McCoy hurriedly tries to find his keys.
~*~*~*~*~
“You have to count to a thousand.”
“What?”
“Just do it.”
He does.
1, 2, 3, 4, Bones runs around shoving crap into corners, and clothes behind the sofa, 10, 11, 12, when he needn’t really bother; Jim’s only got eyes for him. 24, 25, 26.
He straightens out the bed, and does the same haphazard cleaning in that room too. Jim cracks open an eyelid and watches as most of this goes on.
“A thousand!” He announces, before he’s even reached one hundred.
The kiss is sudden, one moment they’re staring and the next their lips are locked together. Bones returns it with the same fervour as Kirk’s initial advance. There’s something about Jim, a safety of sharing his secret, an understanding he doesn’t even comprehend yet. And then there’s the attraction and the way Jim manages to undress him with his eyes. Those blue, blue eyes that want him so badly.
They fall back onto the couch, hands roaming as they remove one another shirts and all of a sudden Bones feels compelled to mark Jim’s skin in the crook of his neck.
“Does that mean I’m yours?” Jim grins; losing himself in everything that is Bones.
“Definitely.” Bones breathes, completely unsure of what the hell he’s getting himself into, and really not caring-content to bask in this release, in this moment, in Jim.
~*~*~*~*~
When Kirk wakes up, he blinks a few hundred times before he remembers exactly where he is and who is lying next to him still fast asleep.
He stops smiling when he finds the lipstick in the medicine cabinet that looks old but not old enough to ease his jealousy. It hurts that someone had his Bones first when technically Jim called dibs a long, long time ago.
But the lipstick is old, and Bones tells him as much as he bids him back to bed. Jim trusts him, because, well, it’s Bones.
~*~*~*~*~
They’re running along the lakefront away from the observatory when Jim says, gasping for breath, that he’d like Bones to meet his roommates.
“They’re well meaning nosy people who won’t stop hassling me, so I’d appreciate it if you came to dinner. But don’t worry I’m not the one cooking.”
Nowhere in that sentence does Bones remember a warning about Spock. He’s met some protective friends before but this is something else.
Spock is stoic, and his gaze seems to look straight through him. Bones resists the urge to mutter under his breath because something tells him this guy? This close friend of Jim’s? might just hear every word.
He doesn’t relax all evening, and it takes several meetings for Bones to realise that that stiff posture and blank face is relaxed. Nyota’s a lot easier to talk to, she’s friendly and open and while she won’t take any crap from Jim, her hits to his shoulder are playful at best. She is Spock’s polar opposite and yet, together, anyone can see they make perfect sense. They fit.
Bones looks down to find Jim’s fingers interlaced with his own underneath the table.
He smiles.
He likes this. The calm, friendly atmosphere.
He doesn’t travel for an entire week and that both thrills and terrifies him.
~*~*~*~*~
McCoy waits for Jim after class when he knows they’ll have the afternoon together. Jim studies, and Bones works, and at night they fall into each other’s arms like there’s nowhere else they’d rather be.
There is nowhere else they’d rather be.
Until Bones’ body disagrees and suddenly decides to send him to the past, or the future or anywhere in-between.
He’s making dinner in the kitchen when Jim spins around at the sound of broken dishes and pans flying. He hears footsteps from the living room and curses as he shoves Bones’s clothes and shoes into a cupboard.
“What happened?” Nyota asks, rushing forward to help Jim pick up the remains of dinner off of the floor.
“Where’s McCoy?”
“He had to go lie down for a bit, I hope I didn’t just wake him up...” Jim trails off and Spock’s raised eyebrow sees straight through the lie. He helps Jim with the broken china while Nyota bins the ruined food. They order pizza, and Jim spends the entire night keeping them away from his bedroom, until finally McCoy appears in the doorway and Jim excuses himself for bed.
“Are those my pants?”
“Well I couldn’t find mine.” Bones growls, as Jim takes him on a detour to the kitchen, retrieves the hidden garments, and laughs.
“I’m glad you find it funny, these aren’t big enough for a child.”
“Hey! We can’t all be broad-shouldered and freakishly built like-what happened?” Jim’s tone goes from joking to serious in the time it takes Bones to remove Jim’s old tee. There’s bruising starting to form on Bones’ back and he moves before Jim can reach out and touch it.
“Nothing.”
“Don’t be an asshole, what happened?”
“What do you think happened, Jim? A naked guy turns up in an alleyway in the middle of the night.” Bones growls harshly, and Jim swallows the lump in his throat and gets under the sheets of the bed.
The other side of their life, the danger, the fear, suddenly rears it’s ugly head and Jim can’t think of anything else.
“Stop looking at me like that, kid. I’m fine. Let’s just go to sleep, okay?”
Jim nods, and while they both might close their eyes, neither sleeps a wink.
It’s not always like that.
Bones has gotten used to the flying punches, and he’s usually a lot better at ducking and dishing out his own, but his mind was still on dinner that night and he wasn’t prepared...
~*~*~*~*~
The next time he travels, it’s cold, and he works fast to find clothes in the back of someone else’s car. There’s something familiar about all of this and he makes it to the road in time to watch as his mother drives past. He sees himself in the back seat and he knows exactly what’s about to happen next.
He’s back again. Back to this moment, the beginning of it all.
He reaches out; a million thoughts racing through his head and yet the one telling him to move, to run, to fix it, fix it now, has been silenced by years of failed attempts.
He remembers jingle bells and a stinging sensation on his cheek, trickling blood and lights and snow and so much fear and suddenly it’s two weeks ago and he’s warm in his house, and there is his mother and there is his father and there, strangely enough, is himself...and it’s like déjà vu from a whole other perspective and he’s analysed it a million times since.
And then he’s back on that snow slicked road, and his mother’s car is on fire and while he feels everything around him lose meaning a man appears from nowhere with a blanket and a sad smile. He holds him, he tells him that it’ll be okay, and that he time travelled to two weeks ago and to not be afraid because it would happen again.
And that his name was Leonard, and he was him.
~*~*~*~*~
And then there’s that time with the homophobe in the alley, and the pink frilly blouse that turns into a reason to pummel some guy into the ground.
And then Spock’s there asking what the hell is going on, and they’re breaking into the Army-Navy Surplus store. He tells him the truth, and Spock says he’s crazy-the disbelieving man is halfway through a long list of esteemed psychologists when Bones disappears without warning.
In a blink he’s in the library, where he works, in the stacks between aisles of books hidden in shadow in the furthest point of the building. His clothes are in the same pile his impromptu departure left them in and he quickly dresses before heading back to the student waiting for his requested periodicals to be found.
“Took you long enough.”
“You have no idea.”
~*~*~*~*~
“When were you going to tell me about McCoy’s condition?” Spock says having strolled into the apartment they’ve been sharing since college with an air of what Kirk thinks is anger.
Jim freezes; that’s more than a little out of the blue, not to mention terribly un-specific. Maybe Bones said something, but there’s no guarantee it was about the-
“And by condition, I mean his innate ability to travel through time.”
“He, uh, he told you?”
“Yes, and I told him he was clearly troubled and should seek professional help as my degree in Physics proves how illogical his statement is.”
“And then he vanished?”
“Indeed.”
Jim smiles a little at that.
“This amuses you? I saw him fighting in an alleyway wearing, well, not much. And then he time travelled? Not to mention the amount of breaking and entering offences he committed-”
“You don’t have to be concerned, Spock. It’s okay.”
“Jim, perhaps-”
“And even if I wanted to change it, I couldn’t, but I don’t, so it’s all good. Relax. Be happy for me, because I am really happy. It’s just a little complicated.”
“I could cite a hundred different reasons why this wouldn’t be a good idea, but I know you will simply ignore it.”
“Ah, you know me well!” Jim replies to the back of Spock’s head as he does his best impression of a child and stalks off.
When he arrives home and tells Nyota she wonders if he’s finally begun to make jokes at the expense of others, but his eyes are deathly serious, and eventually, even she witnesses it at first hand.
People know, and for once, it doesn’t scare the shit out of Jim. If anything, he feels the weight on top of his shoulders lessen just a little and he wonders if Bones feels the same way.
~*~*~*~*~
McCoy blends in well, he looks a little rough around the edges, and the clothes on his back don’t fit properly-mainly because they’re never his own when he jumps like this-but he knows how to make himself invisible.
Don’t make eye contact, just walk. Don’t talk, just walk, keep walking, keep looking ahead. You have a destination just like everyone else. It’s just a little farther, that’s all. Keep walking, keep going and in a second you’re gone and they’ll never remember you. Lost in the crowds, in the wave, in the light, in the dark, down an alleyway, through a door.
Same ol’ same ol’.
Until Jim.
Jim notices every time you leave.
You never should have let someone in...but...but…
Even when they argue, Bones can’t deny the feeling inside. He’s in love, pure and simple and it’s hard but goddamn, Jim smiles and it’s okay for that second in time.
~*~*~*~*~
The broken locks were a warning, you got inside my head, I tried my best to be guarded; I’m an open book instead.
--Lifehouse.
~*~*~*~*~
His father tells him he’s been ill, but the real reason he’s pale and gaunt is that he’s been nearly constantly drunk for a long time. He hasn’t played in the orchestra for months, and his apartment is a mess. His beard is unkempt, and he smells of whisky and unwashed clothes. He pours himself a drink while McCoy tries to clean a path from the bedroom to the kitchen.
“That’s not gonna help.” He says, tossing rubbish into the bin.
“Sure it will. Want one?”
“No, I quit.”
“Pity. It was our one shared enthusiasm.”
This is where the fighting begins. McCoy tries to tidy up his father’s desk, but he’s met with rebuttal after rebuttal and get your own life in order before you start telling me how to live mine. Their arguments always end the same. His condition ruins their lives, and his father doesn’t understand why his wonderful wife can’t be stopped from getting in that damned car. McCoy ends up telling his father that not only is his life coming together, but he’s in love, and he’s getting married, and he’s happy for once in his damned life.
And all his father can do is sigh.
“I miss her, I miss her everyday.”
“So do I.”
~*~*~*~*~
He gathers up the courage to whisper will you marry me? between the sheets finally on a Sunday morning in Autumn. Jim jokingly replies No, if only to have the certainty in Bones’ smile falter for a second.
“Wha-”
“I didn’t mean that, I didn’t, I just wanted to hear what it would sound like...if I didn’t, you know?”
“No?”
“I made it my choice. And I choose you, I do. I do. Of course. Yes, yes, yes.”
~*~*~*~*~
They go out for drinks to celebrate. Nyota smiles and hugs the both of them, beaming and Spock congratulates them, but his gaze seems perpetually hardened. Jim’s invited a Russian whiz-kid from his lectures and in turn Bones asks Scotty from work to make an appearance and Christine manages to make it too.
They toast to the future and Bones feels a shiver run down his spine.
“To us.” He says instead, staring at Jim.
“To Russia!” Chekov chimes in, somehow already quite drunk.
“To Scotland!” Scotty responds, not one to be put out when it comes to patriotism.
“To the happy couple.” Nyota finishes, re-iterating the celebratory element of the night, as they all finish toasting and take sips of their drinks.
~*~*~*~*~
The afternoon before the big day Bones gets his haircut to a style Jim is more accustomed to, and when he arrives back at the Kirk family home where the wedding is being held, he sees his father in the foyer waiting for him, smiling and sober. Everything’s coming together but before he can manage to take a valium to calm his nerves he freaks himself out and disappears in a flash.
Spock does not freak out. He paces, and he frowns hard enough for a small vein in his forehead to pop out uncharacteristically, but he does not freak out.
“Shit.”
Thankfully, McCoy appears a minute or so later. He’s a lot more grey around the edges, but if any of the guests notice they don’t comment on it. Jim does. Several times. Even more so, when his own Bones, from the present finally turns up, smiling.
I can’t believe you missed our wedding.
I’ll catch it on the flip side.
Jerk.
Shut up and dance with me.
*~*~*~*~
In the meadow, he meets young Jim for the first time.
“Finally.” The young boy mutters and McCoy deduces that this is far from their first meeting. Jim lays out a picnic of two turkey sandwiches and cold black coffee that could probably fuel a car for fifty miles.
“Uncle Pike says coffee is a grown up’s drink, so I figured you’d like it.”
McCoy smiles, and feigns drinking with aplomb.
“Are you married?” Jim asks, among many other questions.
“Yes.”
“Is your wife a time traveller?”
“No.” Bones laughs.
Then.
“Sam says he wants to run away again, forever.”
“He won’t.”
“You’ve never told me anything like that before. From the future, I mean.”
“Well there’s no use in you worrying if you don’t have to, kid.”
He ruffles the boy’s hair and takes a bite out of the sandwich as Jim tells him about his day at school, and McCoy offers to help him with his homework.
When he makes it back to the honeymoon suite Cary Grant and Grace Kelly are dancing around each other on the television. Fireworks burst in the sky outside, as Kelly plays coy and Grant plays aloof. Oh, what would you do? She asks him, stepping back into the darkness of the hardly lit room. The thrill is right there in front of you, but you can't quite get it - and the gems glistening on the other side of the window, and someone asleep, breathing heavily.
He switches off the television set and crawls into bed.
“I was in the meadow.” He tells Jim in between kisses, his coarse fingers lingering over soft skin in the darkness.
“You were?”
“Mhmm, I was.”
~*~*~*~*~
They’re happy, for the most part. Lonely dinners and smashed plates seem to fill the cracks of their relationship like unevenly placed polyfiller, but it is what it is.
At first Jim accepts the disappearing acts like he always used to but for some reason he thought the rings on their fingers would have changed something. Maybe given him more of a reason to stay.
No, that’s not fair, Bones can’t help it. He berates himself.
But they’ve moved into Bones’s apartment and Jim finds himself counting to a thousand as though he’ll feel less alone as he packs up the Christmas gifts he opened on his own over a week ago.
And one day while he’s getting ready for work, Jim hears a thump, and moments later Bones appears in the doorway to their bedroom, dressing as he smiles at the familiar face of his husband.
“Did I miss Christmas?”
Jim blinks. And he can’t swallow the anger; he can’t just let it go. Bones is grinning and he hasn’t got a clue.
“And New Years.”
To his credit, Bones looks apologetic but Jim has waited for two weeks and he won’t be late for work again, so he leaves his husband standing in the middle of the apartment instead.
When he leaves the hanger bay hours later Bones is standing there waiting. He’s shifting from one foot to the other and staring at the planes all around them with great disdain.
“They’re pretty safe, you know.”
“Don’t pander to me, kid.” Bones rants, muttering worst-case scenarios under his breath.
“Is that your way of apologising?”
“Yes.”
~*~*~*~*~
When they decide to search for Dr. Puri, to lay the groundwork of what they hope will help the two of them, they’re met with a geneticist who is more than a little sceptical. At first he thinks McCoy is crazy. And then he thinks Jim is crazy, and Nyota, and Spock and whoever else decides to vouch for this time travel acid trip they all appear to be on.
Bones tries to make himself disappear but he’s never had that much control and of course the one time he’d want to, he can’t.
He explains again and again. A genetic anomaly, chrono-impairment, it’s a term you come up with. Finally, to be rid of what he believes is a mad-man’s ranting, Dr. Puri agrees to do the tests, and when McCoy disappears out of the MRI machine, all the good doctor can say is “Oh shit.”
~*~*~*~*~
While Bones spends his time talking to Dr. Puri, and travelling from one place to the next, Jim starts taking pilot lessons in his free time. It becomes a release he didn’t know he needed, all of the stress of being left behind falls away and it’s just him and gravity. The rumble of the aircraft soaring through the clouds. It’s everything he’s been longing for since he was a little kid with a cape.
Bones does not take kindly to this information when he finds out but Jim can’t bare to compromise.
“What’s wrong with me wanting one normal thing in my life? I control the plane. I tell it where to go, when to land-”
“Do you tell it when to crash too? Damn it, Jim, it’s dangerous, why can’t you see that?”
“Life’s dangerous, Bones! When I was six years old a strange naked man wandered into the meadow behind my house! You time travel-you vanish into thin air, and you’re lecturing me on the dangers of life?”
“I can’t control whatever the hell is wrong with me, Jim, but no one’s forcing you into those planes.”
“It’s in my blood, Bones. It’s something I have to do, okay?”
Both of them are too busy arguing to notice the young girl they pass, who only stops and stares at them in a shop doorway, smiling.
~*~*~*~*~
The first time Jim is kissed by Bones, he’s eighteen years old. It’s raining in the meadow, and he’d been running around in it for nearly half an hour when out of the bushes, McCoy appears.
He’s angry; he’s just disappeared mid-argument and he’s jabbing the old jumper over his head in haste. He stops when he sees Jim, but the young man just grins and runs forward to greet his best friend.
Bones feels the anger melt away and Jim’s so close and he’s smiling so much and before Bones can even think of the repercussions, he’s taking the man’s face in his hands and kissing him hard.
Jim jerks himself backwards.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“I’m...I’m sorry, I’m sorry, Jim, Christ, wait, wait a minute, how old are you?”
“Eighteen.”
“Oh jesus, I’m sorry, kid. I am, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have done that.”
“You’re married!”
“I know, Jim-”
“What?”
And he’s gone.
~*~*~*~*~
Bones looks around and he’s back where he started-time wise at least. He recognizes the suburb too and he just about manages to get himself to his father’s house without being seen-though the homeless man on the corner didn’t seem to care...
He’s buttoning up one of his father’s shirts when the man himself appears in the doorway, slightly out of breath.
“Son...”
“Dad? What’s wrong? What’s happened?”
“It’s Jim.”
They’re out the door and headed for the hospital in seconds.
( Part Two. )