Fic: And the Mountains and Woods Have Their Day, K/Mc preslash
Title: And the Mountains and Woods Have Their Day
Author: northatlantic
Pairing: Kirk/McCoy friendship, preslash
Rating: PG for bad language
Summary: Jim Kirk celebrates. He is not an object of celebration.
Dedication: for my muse and coconspirator, breakthecitysky, a poor reflection of the gifts and givers below but what's mine is yours.
Jim has never known how to feel about his birthday, ever since he'd first asked his mother why he didn't have one like the other kids in school. She'd tried a couple of times after that, but it had always felt hollow, a bouquet of balloons on a casket, and he'd been more relieved than anything when they'd stopped trying.
Well-meaning friends, or the occasional girlfriend who hadn't given up on him, had tried to resurrect the cause but the fact of the matter was, he just didn't get it. It wasn't like being born was an achievement. Living was what you did because the alternative was dying, and Jim Kirk might be self-absorbed but he wasn't self-pitying. There was a big, fast, bright, fierce world out there that he wasn't going to miss and he didn't have time to piss and moan about what he'd never had and didn't see the point of anyway.
Jim Kirk celebrates. He is not an object of celebration.
***
Leonard McCoy, Jim learns, among the many other internal contradictions that give him his elemental properties, never forgets a birthday. If you penetrate into the inner circle of people Bones gives a damn about--which is a good many more than he'll admit to on any given day--you'll know it when something small, anonymous, and frequently downright strange in a perfect sort of way turns up in your mailbox, on your doorstep. Or possibly, if you share a room with him, on your pillow when you've come back from your morning run.
Jim studies the small brown-paper-wrapped parcel. No identifying information mars the surface, its edges smoothed ruthlessly neat, tape parsimoniously applied. It is heavier than he expects as he fumbles it open, stares at the battered and faded elegance of the dual altimeter/barometer inside, cupped in his palms. The weight of brass and glass and leather and centuries, dammit, is the only thing steadying his hands from shaking. "Bones," he snaps. "What the fuck?"
McCoy looks over from shaving; a proper Luddite, he is doing it with a blade and foam instead of beard suppressant. Claims his beard is too thick for it to work without burning. "I thought about a bottle of decent booze, but you drink too much as it is. Give you a taste for the good stuff, you'd be bankrupt."
"You can't give me this! Jesus, what did it cost?"
McCoy turns back to the mirror, drawing metal over his throat. "Nothing. Traded an antique stethoscope for it. One of the few things Jocelyn gave me and didn't ask for back. Happy to be rid of it."
"Jesus, you could have sold it..."
Bones nicks himself and curses, sets the razor down, turns and glares. "Well, I didn't, and I sure as shit don't want an altimeter. It's yours, pitch it or pawn it or do whatever the hell you want with it."
There's something brittle in that tone that stops Jim's protest, his hands going white around the gauge. "Thank you," he murmurs, that weight solid and cool and terrifying. He sets it on the bedside table as if it might detonate. Maybe it already has.
The word 'birthday' is never mentioned.
Jim realizes later, thumbs brushing over the edge of the disc and watching the readings shift minutely, that he doesn't know what day Bones' birthday is.
***
Minor hacking reveals Bones' birthday, and Jim winces as he realizes it was the day a drunk and defensive McCoy had threatened to vomit on him in the shuttle. It's as well it's some months away; he's going to need time to figure out what he's doing. For James T. Kirk, this is unmapped and possibly hostile--wait, possibly? We ARE talking about Bones here--definitely hostile territory.
Returning the gesture in kind seems kind of spectacularly wrong. Although Bones is a technophobe, it doesn't apply to medical instruments, as demonstrated by his caustic, amused humor over the "medieval torture devices" in the School of Medicine's display cases ("see, you big baby, I could be sticking you with that NEEDLE and you bitch about a hypo?") And a bottle of bourbon is way, way too impersonal, even if it's really good bourbon. Bones doesn't have hobbies, unless you count writing goddamned brilliant papers about freak-weird diseases or hustling pool for beer money. And he doesn't collect anything except grudges.
Jim gets pissed off about it around April, decides fuck it, he didn't ASK for a birthday present, and even if it's the most amazing thing anybody ever got him ever, he's not obliged to reciprocate. This decision lasts for about a week, as the dial winks sadly, accusingly at him from the bedside table. Bones gets fed up around the fifth day and locks him out of their room until "whatever crawled up your ass and died is appropriately dealt with." And that's another thing: Bones does not take shit. While he offers rough sympathy when needed and irritating unsolicited advice that is even more aggravating for usually being what he SHOULD have done, he does not try to psychoanalyze or speculate about Jim's motives, his ghosts and demons. Jim is just Jim and a pain in the ass, not a broken child or a spoiled legacy.
He spends most of May studying Bones as if he was the last member of an alien species. He IS going to figure out what Bones doesn't know he wants.
He doesn't believe in no-win scenarios.
***
"So what are you doing for break?"
"Working. Some of us have child support. Although your bar tab probably comes close."
"You're not doing anything fun?"
"Kid, my idea of fun is a nice, peaceful drink, or maybe a hike. What vacation I have I have to save for Jo, if Joss will let me see her."
Jim frowns. "What do you mean, if? She's your daughter too."
"Oh, it won't be anything so outright crude as forbidding me to see her. It'll just so happen that she'll be visiting her grandparents on Cygnus, or a girl scout trip to Disney World, or some fantastically wonderful thing that I won't be able to afford to do with her that the choice will be, I have her come to San Francisco with me and miss it, or I let her go and miss her."
Jim looks at him, and there isn't even anger in Bones' eyes, just something intensely tired and sad. And he knows what, finally, but not how. That's all right, though. Identifying the objective was the hard part. How can only be easier by comparison.
***
Jocelyn Darnell Treadway is an unforgiving personality where her ex-husband is concerned. Unsurprising, but not an insurmountable obstacle. Some creative thinking and dipping into his savings purchases a trip for two to Olympus Resort for her new husband to "win" in a faked "romantic getaway" promotion, timed in such a way that the only logical thing for Jocelyn to do is call her ex-husband to take Joanna for the week. He comes back early to see it, Bones transparently happy and Joanna serious and shy and dark and fiercely intelligent, a miniature of her father. He tries not to intrude more than he can help, but he feeds on it in a way he refuses to acknowledge to himself, thrilled and terrified both by Joanna's guarded affection, Bones' tenderness.
The night it is actually his birthday, Jim gives Bones his acknowledged present, a 200th anniversary reprinting of Yeats, The Wind Among The Reeds. The sound of him reading to Joanna is like a gift in return; Jim lies on his bunk and listens to Bones' voice, the rise and fall of it, his pleasure in the lyrics a tangible thing because like so many pessimists there's a romantic beneath.
Joanna is asleep, and he is mostly so, when Bones' hands smooth the blanket over him, linger over his hair a moment before he goes to his own bed.
Jim thinks he could learn how to have birthdays.
Author: northatlantic
Pairing: Kirk/McCoy friendship, preslash
Rating: PG for bad language
Summary: Jim Kirk celebrates. He is not an object of celebration.
Dedication: for my muse and coconspirator, breakthecitysky, a poor reflection of the gifts and givers below but what's mine is yours.
Jim has never known how to feel about his birthday, ever since he'd first asked his mother why he didn't have one like the other kids in school. She'd tried a couple of times after that, but it had always felt hollow, a bouquet of balloons on a casket, and he'd been more relieved than anything when they'd stopped trying.
Well-meaning friends, or the occasional girlfriend who hadn't given up on him, had tried to resurrect the cause but the fact of the matter was, he just didn't get it. It wasn't like being born was an achievement. Living was what you did because the alternative was dying, and Jim Kirk might be self-absorbed but he wasn't self-pitying. There was a big, fast, bright, fierce world out there that he wasn't going to miss and he didn't have time to piss and moan about what he'd never had and didn't see the point of anyway.
Jim Kirk celebrates. He is not an object of celebration.
***
Leonard McCoy, Jim learns, among the many other internal contradictions that give him his elemental properties, never forgets a birthday. If you penetrate into the inner circle of people Bones gives a damn about--which is a good many more than he'll admit to on any given day--you'll know it when something small, anonymous, and frequently downright strange in a perfect sort of way turns up in your mailbox, on your doorstep. Or possibly, if you share a room with him, on your pillow when you've come back from your morning run.
Jim studies the small brown-paper-wrapped parcel. No identifying information mars the surface, its edges smoothed ruthlessly neat, tape parsimoniously applied. It is heavier than he expects as he fumbles it open, stares at the battered and faded elegance of the dual altimeter/barometer inside, cupped in his palms. The weight of brass and glass and leather and centuries, dammit, is the only thing steadying his hands from shaking. "Bones," he snaps. "What the fuck?"
McCoy looks over from shaving; a proper Luddite, he is doing it with a blade and foam instead of beard suppressant. Claims his beard is too thick for it to work without burning. "I thought about a bottle of decent booze, but you drink too much as it is. Give you a taste for the good stuff, you'd be bankrupt."
"You can't give me this! Jesus, what did it cost?"
McCoy turns back to the mirror, drawing metal over his throat. "Nothing. Traded an antique stethoscope for it. One of the few things Jocelyn gave me and didn't ask for back. Happy to be rid of it."
"Jesus, you could have sold it..."
Bones nicks himself and curses, sets the razor down, turns and glares. "Well, I didn't, and I sure as shit don't want an altimeter. It's yours, pitch it or pawn it or do whatever the hell you want with it."
There's something brittle in that tone that stops Jim's protest, his hands going white around the gauge. "Thank you," he murmurs, that weight solid and cool and terrifying. He sets it on the bedside table as if it might detonate. Maybe it already has.
The word 'birthday' is never mentioned.
Jim realizes later, thumbs brushing over the edge of the disc and watching the readings shift minutely, that he doesn't know what day Bones' birthday is.
***
Minor hacking reveals Bones' birthday, and Jim winces as he realizes it was the day a drunk and defensive McCoy had threatened to vomit on him in the shuttle. It's as well it's some months away; he's going to need time to figure out what he's doing. For James T. Kirk, this is unmapped and possibly hostile--wait, possibly? We ARE talking about Bones here--definitely hostile territory.
Returning the gesture in kind seems kind of spectacularly wrong. Although Bones is a technophobe, it doesn't apply to medical instruments, as demonstrated by his caustic, amused humor over the "medieval torture devices" in the School of Medicine's display cases ("see, you big baby, I could be sticking you with that NEEDLE and you bitch about a hypo?") And a bottle of bourbon is way, way too impersonal, even if it's really good bourbon. Bones doesn't have hobbies, unless you count writing goddamned brilliant papers about freak-weird diseases or hustling pool for beer money. And he doesn't collect anything except grudges.
Jim gets pissed off about it around April, decides fuck it, he didn't ASK for a birthday present, and even if it's the most amazing thing anybody ever got him ever, he's not obliged to reciprocate. This decision lasts for about a week, as the dial winks sadly, accusingly at him from the bedside table. Bones gets fed up around the fifth day and locks him out of their room until "whatever crawled up your ass and died is appropriately dealt with." And that's another thing: Bones does not take shit. While he offers rough sympathy when needed and irritating unsolicited advice that is even more aggravating for usually being what he SHOULD have done, he does not try to psychoanalyze or speculate about Jim's motives, his ghosts and demons. Jim is just Jim and a pain in the ass, not a broken child or a spoiled legacy.
He spends most of May studying Bones as if he was the last member of an alien species. He IS going to figure out what Bones doesn't know he wants.
He doesn't believe in no-win scenarios.
***
"So what are you doing for break?"
"Working. Some of us have child support. Although your bar tab probably comes close."
"You're not doing anything fun?"
"Kid, my idea of fun is a nice, peaceful drink, or maybe a hike. What vacation I have I have to save for Jo, if Joss will let me see her."
Jim frowns. "What do you mean, if? She's your daughter too."
"Oh, it won't be anything so outright crude as forbidding me to see her. It'll just so happen that she'll be visiting her grandparents on Cygnus, or a girl scout trip to Disney World, or some fantastically wonderful thing that I won't be able to afford to do with her that the choice will be, I have her come to San Francisco with me and miss it, or I let her go and miss her."
Jim looks at him, and there isn't even anger in Bones' eyes, just something intensely tired and sad. And he knows what, finally, but not how. That's all right, though. Identifying the objective was the hard part. How can only be easier by comparison.
***
Jocelyn Darnell Treadway is an unforgiving personality where her ex-husband is concerned. Unsurprising, but not an insurmountable obstacle. Some creative thinking and dipping into his savings purchases a trip for two to Olympus Resort for her new husband to "win" in a faked "romantic getaway" promotion, timed in such a way that the only logical thing for Jocelyn to do is call her ex-husband to take Joanna for the week. He comes back early to see it, Bones transparently happy and Joanna serious and shy and dark and fiercely intelligent, a miniature of her father. He tries not to intrude more than he can help, but he feeds on it in a way he refuses to acknowledge to himself, thrilled and terrified both by Joanna's guarded affection, Bones' tenderness.
The night it is actually his birthday, Jim gives Bones his acknowledged present, a 200th anniversary reprinting of Yeats, The Wind Among The Reeds. The sound of him reading to Joanna is like a gift in return; Jim lies on his bunk and listens to Bones' voice, the rise and fall of it, his pleasure in the lyrics a tangible thing because like so many pessimists there's a romantic beneath.
Joanna is asleep, and he is mostly so, when Bones' hands smooth the blanket over him, linger over his hair a moment before he goes to his own bed.
Jim thinks he could learn how to have birthdays.