[FIC] Star Trek: Then, Suddenly, Life Changed [1/6] (Kirk/McCoy, R)
Title: Then, Suddenly, Life Changed [1/6]
Authors: salvaged_pride and sullacat
Fandom: Star Trek XI
Pairing/Characters: Kirk/McCoy
Rating: R for language and sexual situations
Summary: In honor of the one year anniversary of the movie, an AU - What if Leonard McCoy had been at the bar that night? Two men, a cycle, and a trip that changes their lives. 2987 words -- Look for future chapters every other day.
Main Chapter Listing | Chapter 2 >>
Shit, that hurt. It was the first thought that went through Jim's mind as he leaned against the bar, mouth throbbing along with the burst of copper on his tongue. 'Cupcake' had a good right hook, and damn was he fast. So much for that Starfleet code of ethics, or whatever they were supposed to follow. Ganging up on a guy and then taking him by surprise didn't seem all that particularly Starfleet like, but then again maybe Jim just didn't know Starfleet well enough. He twisted his body back around, feeling the alcohol sliding in his veins and giving him a fool's courage. Thankfully, training went deeper than liquor and stayed as instinct.
It was a blur of motion. Twisting to sock that talking mouth, ignoring the blow that came from an opponent he couldn't fully see out of the corner of his eyes, getting a double handful of Uhura's breasts and unable to help a squeeze. Bar fights were never anything but ugly brawls of messy fists and flying bodies, and this was no better. As soon as 'Cupcake' got involved, something had told Jim that it would end like this. He never knew how to keep his mouth shut and mixed with alcohol on both sides, tempers flared fast when heated with insults.
His fingers wrapped around the coolness of glass, a weapon suddenly in his hands. He wrenched his upper body around and was secretly pleased at the sound of shattered glass against skin. That was a hit someone wouldn't soon forget. Unfortunately, 'Cupcake' had more than one friend, and someone snagged Jim good around the arms. His back hit a table with a fist at his face, and he couldn't focus straight forward enough to stop the fist from coming at him again.
Then suddenly that fist stopped. Momentum seemed to shift, and the hulking mass suddenly dropped on top of Jim, two hundred pounds of bulk. "Goddamn bully," he heard muttered low from somewhere to the right, just as a new fight broke out, two cadets jumping in the direction of that voice. Jim struggled to get the bastard off of him, hearing the body thunk down on the floor and not giving a damn about how painful it sounded. Jim dizzily forced himself to sit up and looked around. 'Cupcake' was now laying on the floor and drooling, and his two of his three friends had started in on someone else. Even with some heavy alcohol in his veins and with blood dripping down his face, Jim knew he had to do something. Guy must have done something to 'Cupcake' to drop him.
So without much other thought, Jim got fully to his feet and tackled one of the two guys from behind. He got a glimpse of the guy they were attacking - handsome, older-looking guy in a sweater and looking batshit insane - before he turned to focus on the guy he had attacked. He grabbed a handful of hair and slammed the guy's face down onto the floor once, twice, and felt him stop moving. Good. He twisted over, looking for Batshit Insane Guy and hoping he was holding his own.
And he was - a few more punches thrown in each direction, and it looked like that match might be a draw until a shrill whistle rang through the air. Everyone in the bar froze and looked up. "Outside. All of you!" gruffed an older man in a gray Starfleet uniform. Suddenly, there was a mad rush to empty the bar as cadets finished their drinks and began making their way out the door as fast as they could.
Jim saw the older guy in the sweater, the one that had saved his ass, heading in the opposite direction toward the back door. Jim looked toward the Starfleet guy who was looking at him oddly, at Batshit man fleeing in the other direction, and decided to go with the possibly safer of the two choices. He grabbed a handful of napkins on the way as he followed out the backdoor. "Hey, wait!" he called out towards the man's back, twisting a napkin between his two fingers and jamming it up a nostril to stop the blood flow.
But the man kept moving, stumbling a little as he hit the door, pushing it open with his shoulder and heading out to the back parking lot. One hand reached out to steady himself against the exterior wall, and he briefly turned toward Jim, eying him once over before moving on. He began walking toward the road, away from the sea of red in the front lot. "Fuckin' hell..." Jim had to work a little to keep himself upright, but he nearly trotted to catch up to the guy. "Hey, old man, come on! Just wanted to thank you," he growled out as he got a second napkin into the other nostril.
At this the older man stopped, crossed his arms, and turned to face Jim. Jim could see, after a moment, the older man's shoulders lifting and lowering as if he were laughing to himself. "... Don't worry 'bout it, kid. Was nothin'." In the low light of the bar signs, Jim could see that Batshit had some nice swelling starting on the left side of his face and a busted lip.
"Shit, you got it good." Jim stepped forward, eying the other man's face. He was pretty sure his own nose was broken, and he probably looked like hell. "...Least I can do is help you get it fixed up. Grab a bottle of vodka and a rag and we can get it cleaned out." He turned his head to the side and spat out blood, wiggling a loose tooth with his tongue.
"Nah," the guy muttered, with a shake of his head. "You go back o'er there with your friends, 'kay?" He began walking off, but after a few steps, he turned around once more. "You should get that checked out, your nose I mean. Looks busted."
Jim wrinkled his nose and winced, "Pretty sure it is. Huh, and what friends? Came alone tonight, Mr. Whistle chased off everyone off, and the bar's closing." He walked right up to Batshit. Looked younger, up close, but those eyes were less fierce looking and more... tired. "You need a ride somewhere?" He wasn't... too terribly drunk. He could manage to get Batshit home.
Then a pair of hands was on his face, lifting his chin carefully. It took everything in Jim not to grab those hands and drag them off him, but he remained still as a pair of dark eyes looked into his, peering inside him. "No concussion, prob'ly." The older man sighed heavily, as if the weight of the world sat on his shoulders. "...'m staying down the road at a hotel. Can walk, kiddo, no worries." Suddenly an eyebrow arched over a swollen eye. "You ain't drivin' anywhere, are you?"
Surprised, Jim actually just answered truthfully, "...Yea. Can't stay 'round here." Batshit had a heavy accent, thick as moonshine and as potent. "...Not like anyone's on the roads around here." From this close up, Jim got a better look at his drunken southern savior. There was at least a few days of stubble on the man's face, his hair was greasy, and he needed to sleep about a week from the look of it. Not that I look much better right now. He could taste blood every time he breathed in.
A worried look crossed the older guy's face, as if he could read Jim's mind. "Look," Batshit man began, blinking a few times, rubbing a hand across his mouth. "We get back to my hotel room, I can fix your nose up. Shouldn't leave it too long like that, if you plannin' on traveling."
Jim felt his brows rising up. "...You a doctor or something?" Guy didn't even get pissed he planned to drive drunk.
A gentle snort. "Yeah, or somethin' like that." The doctor, or something, began walking down the road, heading in the direction of town. "You comin'?" Jim wasn't even sure what to make of that. Well, hell, it was a free place maybe to even spend the night. He looked back at the bar, decided his cycle could live the night in the parking lot, and followed the stranger down the road.
He did, though, offer the cleaner of his two hands, "Jim Kirk."
The other man took it. "Leonard McCoy," he replied quietly. They walked quietly for a few minutes, the lights of the bar dimming and the road dark ahead of them. "You get into a lotta bar fights, kid?" McCoy asked, kicking at a rock under his boot.
"Enough of 'em. Enough to know as soon as that guy got pissed I was gonna be in one." Jim stumbled, just a bit, but kept himself upright. He was sweating in the heavy heat of the late Iowa summer, and felt sticky, hot, and disgusting thanks to the blood on him. "You took him down quick. You trained in fighting?" Seemed weird, if the guy was a doctor.
"Hmpf," McCoy snorted again, pulling a small device out of his pocket. "Never go out empty-handed anymore," he replied, twirling it around a finger before showing Jim. "Just shot your friend up with 50 ccs of Sonambutril. Figure that'd keep him down for an hour or so." He pulled his sweater up and over his head, and ran a hand through his hair. "Shit, didn't feel like it took this long earlier tonight."
A very slow, huge grin spread out across Jim's face as he stared at McCoy. A hypo - the man carried a god damn fucking hypo like a cowboy carried his gun. He definitely could get to like this guy. "Yea well, you weren't drunk then. And hadn't gotten punched in the face yet." Jim shrugged, grinning despite the fact it hurt like shit. "Nice going, though."
"Well, nothin' pisses me off more than an unfair fight." McCoy coughed, then spit into the ground. "Fuckin' cowards, calling their friends to jump on one guy. Won't stand for that..." The doctor just mumbled to himself as they walked.
There was more traffic now as they approached Riverside proper, and McCoy headed toward a cheap motel on the edge of town. Fishing in his pockets for a keycard, he growled and cussed loud, until he found it tucked away in his boot. "Dammit," McCoy sighed as he opened the door and let Jim inside. "Well, here we are."
Better than a lot of the places he had stayed over the years, Jim decided easily enough. He just walked straight across into the bathroom, grabbed what looked like a clean towel, and started to run water over it. He wanted to get some of the blood off himself so the doc could look at his nose. He tugged the napkins out before he came back out into the room, blotting his face, "You probably saved my ass, or at least my face, so thanks," spoken through the muffle of the towel.
"You were doin' okay there," McCoy chuckled, sounding a little impressed despite himself. He walked across the small room and sat down heavily at the table near the back wall, pushing off a small travel bag onto the floor and pulling another bag into his lap, shuffling around inside it. "I just evened the odds a little." Jim saw him pull out a bottle of dark liquid, tug two square glasses from the neat setup left by the hotel, and pour two generous glasses, holding one out to Jim.
"You know, until I was flat on my back," Jim said sarcastically as he took the glass, sniffing at it. Some sort of cheap bourbon; if the look on the guy's face was anything to go by, he'd been living out of this bottle. Still, Jim swallowed some of it with appreciation of that, feeling the burn. The burn went up his nose and he winced, face twisting up. "Shit, strong stuff," Jim said as he glanced into the bag McCoy had pulled the bottle from. Little vials, some medical devices, bandages, a scanner. Huh, so the guy really was a doctor, or thought he was one. Long as his nose was gonna get fixed up, Jim didn't care one way or the other.
McCoy chuckled to himself, taking a long drink from his glass, exhaling loud when he slid down this throat. "Yeah," he agreed, not saying much more as he put his head back, closing his eyes. A few moments passed and all of a sudden he opened his eyes and stared at Jim, as if he'd forgotten there was someone else in the room with him. "Oh yeah," McCoy shook his head, reaching down for his medical bag. "Here, c'mere and let me look at that nose." Digging out a small vial of colored liquid, McCoy popped it into his hypospray and began fiddling with the dial.
"...What is that?" Jim was cautious about the hypo, sheerly because the last thing he needed tonight was a reaction to something, "I don't do well with drugs." He didn't step closer, not yet. He was fine with fixing, but drugs were different. Should have checked the glass before I drank this. Fuck, the idea of getting raped or something because he was an idiot tonight...
"Hydrocortilene," McCoy told him, showing Jim the hypo before injecting it into his own neck without so much as a blink. "Keep the headache away in the morning. Want some?" he asked, offering it to Jim.
Shit, seriously? Guy had to be a doctor to get that - too expensive for someone like him. "Fuck yea." He took the hypo, made sure it was facing the right way, and dosed himself. "...Have bad reactions to a lot of drugs, gotta be cautious about what someone wants to jack me up with."
"Really?" McCoy asked, looking back at Jim as he stood, slowly walking toward the bathroom. He returned to the table with freshly washed hands, pulling his chair right in front of Jim. McCoy leaned over, turned on the old-fashioned lamp, and pulled the light toward Jim for a better look. "Okay, lemme look at this," he murmured. McCoy stank of booze and smoke, but his hands were cool and gentle as he carefully tilted Jim's face, the better to see the fractured nose.
"Nearly died a few times in my life from doctors just getting me and not asking first," Jim muttered, trying not to move his mouth too much while McCoy looked. The scent was a familiar one, easy to ignore. The touch on his face was less so, and he forced himself to stay relaxed with it.
"Most medications nowadays have few reactions 'nless your body chemistry just don't tolerate 'em at all," McCoy said matter-of-factly, but quietly as he reached into his bag and pulled out a regen unit. "This might hurt a bit," he said, pressing the device against the bridge of Jim's nose. As promised, it hurt. Jim grunted as he felt McCoy turn on the unit, and a gentle whirr let him know that it was working. "Okay, what else is wrong?" he asked, one thumb running across Jim's forehead, examining a small laceration and frowning.
That hurt. "It's definitely just me," Jim muttered, trying not to wrinkle his nose. "Don't think anything else major. Just some bruising." He patted his ribs where he was feeling a good sized bruise already starting.
"Hmmm..." Taking another sip from the glass, McCoy leaned down and Jim heard him poking around in his bag. A tricorder came into view at the corner of his eye, and McCoy sealed a few small cuts and scrapes on Jim's face. "Think anything's broken?" he asked, pointing at Jim's side.
"Probably bruised, not broken." He'd had enough in his life to know. Just sore, no stabbing pain. Man, having your bar-fight buddy be a doctor was useful.
"Can't help much with that, then," McCoy snorted, finishing his glass and dropping it on the table. He walked over to the bed and sat down on it, pulling off his boots. "You need a place to crash, kid?" he asked. "Don't got much, but you're welcome to half." Something about that statement seemed to amuse him, because the doctor started laughing to himself, scratching the back of his head.
How drunk is this doc? Jim wondered to himself, but kept on his easy smile, "Grateful. Better than spending it outside somewhere sleeping this off. You want the shower first? Dunno about you, but reeking like beer and blood all night's not something I want to do." Okay, so maybe it was a not so subtle hint to McCoy that he needed a shower bad.
It was a hint that McCoy wasn't taking. "I'm okay," he muttered sleepily, pulling off his t-shirt and laying back on the bed, eyes closed and bare-chested. "You go 'head, if you want." He didn't seem to worry about Jim hurting him, or robbing him. He didn't seem to be worried about much, other than getting some rest.
Jim stared at McCoy, licked his lips once before he shrugged it off. Good looking guy, this McCoy. He'd take care of him for ... taking care of him. Jim walked into the bathroom and took a fast shower, taking the time to make sure all the blood was gone and even washing his clothes before he came back out. As Jim hung up his clothing to dry overnight, he was grateful for McCoy already being asleep; it was less awkward this way. He did his best to climb onto the other side of the bed as lightly as possible, but McCoy was dead to the world and remained that way until the morning.
Authors: salvaged_pride and sullacat
Fandom: Star Trek XI
Pairing/Characters: Kirk/McCoy
Rating: R for language and sexual situations
Summary: In honor of the one year anniversary of the movie, an AU - What if Leonard McCoy had been at the bar that night? Two men, a cycle, and a trip that changes their lives. 2987 words -- Look for future chapters every other day.
Main Chapter Listing | Chapter 2 >>
Shit, that hurt. It was the first thought that went through Jim's mind as he leaned against the bar, mouth throbbing along with the burst of copper on his tongue. 'Cupcake' had a good right hook, and damn was he fast. So much for that Starfleet code of ethics, or whatever they were supposed to follow. Ganging up on a guy and then taking him by surprise didn't seem all that particularly Starfleet like, but then again maybe Jim just didn't know Starfleet well enough. He twisted his body back around, feeling the alcohol sliding in his veins and giving him a fool's courage. Thankfully, training went deeper than liquor and stayed as instinct.
It was a blur of motion. Twisting to sock that talking mouth, ignoring the blow that came from an opponent he couldn't fully see out of the corner of his eyes, getting a double handful of Uhura's breasts and unable to help a squeeze. Bar fights were never anything but ugly brawls of messy fists and flying bodies, and this was no better. As soon as 'Cupcake' got involved, something had told Jim that it would end like this. He never knew how to keep his mouth shut and mixed with alcohol on both sides, tempers flared fast when heated with insults.
His fingers wrapped around the coolness of glass, a weapon suddenly in his hands. He wrenched his upper body around and was secretly pleased at the sound of shattered glass against skin. That was a hit someone wouldn't soon forget. Unfortunately, 'Cupcake' had more than one friend, and someone snagged Jim good around the arms. His back hit a table with a fist at his face, and he couldn't focus straight forward enough to stop the fist from coming at him again.
Then suddenly that fist stopped. Momentum seemed to shift, and the hulking mass suddenly dropped on top of Jim, two hundred pounds of bulk. "Goddamn bully," he heard muttered low from somewhere to the right, just as a new fight broke out, two cadets jumping in the direction of that voice. Jim struggled to get the bastard off of him, hearing the body thunk down on the floor and not giving a damn about how painful it sounded. Jim dizzily forced himself to sit up and looked around. 'Cupcake' was now laying on the floor and drooling, and his two of his three friends had started in on someone else. Even with some heavy alcohol in his veins and with blood dripping down his face, Jim knew he had to do something. Guy must have done something to 'Cupcake' to drop him.
So without much other thought, Jim got fully to his feet and tackled one of the two guys from behind. He got a glimpse of the guy they were attacking - handsome, older-looking guy in a sweater and looking batshit insane - before he turned to focus on the guy he had attacked. He grabbed a handful of hair and slammed the guy's face down onto the floor once, twice, and felt him stop moving. Good. He twisted over, looking for Batshit Insane Guy and hoping he was holding his own.
And he was - a few more punches thrown in each direction, and it looked like that match might be a draw until a shrill whistle rang through the air. Everyone in the bar froze and looked up. "Outside. All of you!" gruffed an older man in a gray Starfleet uniform. Suddenly, there was a mad rush to empty the bar as cadets finished their drinks and began making their way out the door as fast as they could.
Jim saw the older guy in the sweater, the one that had saved his ass, heading in the opposite direction toward the back door. Jim looked toward the Starfleet guy who was looking at him oddly, at Batshit man fleeing in the other direction, and decided to go with the possibly safer of the two choices. He grabbed a handful of napkins on the way as he followed out the backdoor. "Hey, wait!" he called out towards the man's back, twisting a napkin between his two fingers and jamming it up a nostril to stop the blood flow.
But the man kept moving, stumbling a little as he hit the door, pushing it open with his shoulder and heading out to the back parking lot. One hand reached out to steady himself against the exterior wall, and he briefly turned toward Jim, eying him once over before moving on. He began walking toward the road, away from the sea of red in the front lot. "Fuckin' hell..." Jim had to work a little to keep himself upright, but he nearly trotted to catch up to the guy. "Hey, old man, come on! Just wanted to thank you," he growled out as he got a second napkin into the other nostril.
At this the older man stopped, crossed his arms, and turned to face Jim. Jim could see, after a moment, the older man's shoulders lifting and lowering as if he were laughing to himself. "... Don't worry 'bout it, kid. Was nothin'." In the low light of the bar signs, Jim could see that Batshit had some nice swelling starting on the left side of his face and a busted lip.
"Shit, you got it good." Jim stepped forward, eying the other man's face. He was pretty sure his own nose was broken, and he probably looked like hell. "...Least I can do is help you get it fixed up. Grab a bottle of vodka and a rag and we can get it cleaned out." He turned his head to the side and spat out blood, wiggling a loose tooth with his tongue.
"Nah," the guy muttered, with a shake of his head. "You go back o'er there with your friends, 'kay?" He began walking off, but after a few steps, he turned around once more. "You should get that checked out, your nose I mean. Looks busted."
Jim wrinkled his nose and winced, "Pretty sure it is. Huh, and what friends? Came alone tonight, Mr. Whistle chased off everyone off, and the bar's closing." He walked right up to Batshit. Looked younger, up close, but those eyes were less fierce looking and more... tired. "You need a ride somewhere?" He wasn't... too terribly drunk. He could manage to get Batshit home.
Then a pair of hands was on his face, lifting his chin carefully. It took everything in Jim not to grab those hands and drag them off him, but he remained still as a pair of dark eyes looked into his, peering inside him. "No concussion, prob'ly." The older man sighed heavily, as if the weight of the world sat on his shoulders. "...'m staying down the road at a hotel. Can walk, kiddo, no worries." Suddenly an eyebrow arched over a swollen eye. "You ain't drivin' anywhere, are you?"
Surprised, Jim actually just answered truthfully, "...Yea. Can't stay 'round here." Batshit had a heavy accent, thick as moonshine and as potent. "...Not like anyone's on the roads around here." From this close up, Jim got a better look at his drunken southern savior. There was at least a few days of stubble on the man's face, his hair was greasy, and he needed to sleep about a week from the look of it. Not that I look much better right now. He could taste blood every time he breathed in.
A worried look crossed the older guy's face, as if he could read Jim's mind. "Look," Batshit man began, blinking a few times, rubbing a hand across his mouth. "We get back to my hotel room, I can fix your nose up. Shouldn't leave it too long like that, if you plannin' on traveling."
Jim felt his brows rising up. "...You a doctor or something?" Guy didn't even get pissed he planned to drive drunk.
A gentle snort. "Yeah, or somethin' like that." The doctor, or something, began walking down the road, heading in the direction of town. "You comin'?" Jim wasn't even sure what to make of that. Well, hell, it was a free place maybe to even spend the night. He looked back at the bar, decided his cycle could live the night in the parking lot, and followed the stranger down the road.
He did, though, offer the cleaner of his two hands, "Jim Kirk."
The other man took it. "Leonard McCoy," he replied quietly. They walked quietly for a few minutes, the lights of the bar dimming and the road dark ahead of them. "You get into a lotta bar fights, kid?" McCoy asked, kicking at a rock under his boot.
"Enough of 'em. Enough to know as soon as that guy got pissed I was gonna be in one." Jim stumbled, just a bit, but kept himself upright. He was sweating in the heavy heat of the late Iowa summer, and felt sticky, hot, and disgusting thanks to the blood on him. "You took him down quick. You trained in fighting?" Seemed weird, if the guy was a doctor.
"Hmpf," McCoy snorted again, pulling a small device out of his pocket. "Never go out empty-handed anymore," he replied, twirling it around a finger before showing Jim. "Just shot your friend up with 50 ccs of Sonambutril. Figure that'd keep him down for an hour or so." He pulled his sweater up and over his head, and ran a hand through his hair. "Shit, didn't feel like it took this long earlier tonight."
A very slow, huge grin spread out across Jim's face as he stared at McCoy. A hypo - the man carried a god damn fucking hypo like a cowboy carried his gun. He definitely could get to like this guy. "Yea well, you weren't drunk then. And hadn't gotten punched in the face yet." Jim shrugged, grinning despite the fact it hurt like shit. "Nice going, though."
"Well, nothin' pisses me off more than an unfair fight." McCoy coughed, then spit into the ground. "Fuckin' cowards, calling their friends to jump on one guy. Won't stand for that..." The doctor just mumbled to himself as they walked.
There was more traffic now as they approached Riverside proper, and McCoy headed toward a cheap motel on the edge of town. Fishing in his pockets for a keycard, he growled and cussed loud, until he found it tucked away in his boot. "Dammit," McCoy sighed as he opened the door and let Jim inside. "Well, here we are."
Better than a lot of the places he had stayed over the years, Jim decided easily enough. He just walked straight across into the bathroom, grabbed what looked like a clean towel, and started to run water over it. He wanted to get some of the blood off himself so the doc could look at his nose. He tugged the napkins out before he came back out into the room, blotting his face, "You probably saved my ass, or at least my face, so thanks," spoken through the muffle of the towel.
"You were doin' okay there," McCoy chuckled, sounding a little impressed despite himself. He walked across the small room and sat down heavily at the table near the back wall, pushing off a small travel bag onto the floor and pulling another bag into his lap, shuffling around inside it. "I just evened the odds a little." Jim saw him pull out a bottle of dark liquid, tug two square glasses from the neat setup left by the hotel, and pour two generous glasses, holding one out to Jim.
"You know, until I was flat on my back," Jim said sarcastically as he took the glass, sniffing at it. Some sort of cheap bourbon; if the look on the guy's face was anything to go by, he'd been living out of this bottle. Still, Jim swallowed some of it with appreciation of that, feeling the burn. The burn went up his nose and he winced, face twisting up. "Shit, strong stuff," Jim said as he glanced into the bag McCoy had pulled the bottle from. Little vials, some medical devices, bandages, a scanner. Huh, so the guy really was a doctor, or thought he was one. Long as his nose was gonna get fixed up, Jim didn't care one way or the other.
McCoy chuckled to himself, taking a long drink from his glass, exhaling loud when he slid down this throat. "Yeah," he agreed, not saying much more as he put his head back, closing his eyes. A few moments passed and all of a sudden he opened his eyes and stared at Jim, as if he'd forgotten there was someone else in the room with him. "Oh yeah," McCoy shook his head, reaching down for his medical bag. "Here, c'mere and let me look at that nose." Digging out a small vial of colored liquid, McCoy popped it into his hypospray and began fiddling with the dial.
"...What is that?" Jim was cautious about the hypo, sheerly because the last thing he needed tonight was a reaction to something, "I don't do well with drugs." He didn't step closer, not yet. He was fine with fixing, but drugs were different. Should have checked the glass before I drank this. Fuck, the idea of getting raped or something because he was an idiot tonight...
"Hydrocortilene," McCoy told him, showing Jim the hypo before injecting it into his own neck without so much as a blink. "Keep the headache away in the morning. Want some?" he asked, offering it to Jim.
Shit, seriously? Guy had to be a doctor to get that - too expensive for someone like him. "Fuck yea." He took the hypo, made sure it was facing the right way, and dosed himself. "...Have bad reactions to a lot of drugs, gotta be cautious about what someone wants to jack me up with."
"Really?" McCoy asked, looking back at Jim as he stood, slowly walking toward the bathroom. He returned to the table with freshly washed hands, pulling his chair right in front of Jim. McCoy leaned over, turned on the old-fashioned lamp, and pulled the light toward Jim for a better look. "Okay, lemme look at this," he murmured. McCoy stank of booze and smoke, but his hands were cool and gentle as he carefully tilted Jim's face, the better to see the fractured nose.
"Nearly died a few times in my life from doctors just getting me and not asking first," Jim muttered, trying not to move his mouth too much while McCoy looked. The scent was a familiar one, easy to ignore. The touch on his face was less so, and he forced himself to stay relaxed with it.
"Most medications nowadays have few reactions 'nless your body chemistry just don't tolerate 'em at all," McCoy said matter-of-factly, but quietly as he reached into his bag and pulled out a regen unit. "This might hurt a bit," he said, pressing the device against the bridge of Jim's nose. As promised, it hurt. Jim grunted as he felt McCoy turn on the unit, and a gentle whirr let him know that it was working. "Okay, what else is wrong?" he asked, one thumb running across Jim's forehead, examining a small laceration and frowning.
That hurt. "It's definitely just me," Jim muttered, trying not to wrinkle his nose. "Don't think anything else major. Just some bruising." He patted his ribs where he was feeling a good sized bruise already starting.
"Hmmm..." Taking another sip from the glass, McCoy leaned down and Jim heard him poking around in his bag. A tricorder came into view at the corner of his eye, and McCoy sealed a few small cuts and scrapes on Jim's face. "Think anything's broken?" he asked, pointing at Jim's side.
"Probably bruised, not broken." He'd had enough in his life to know. Just sore, no stabbing pain. Man, having your bar-fight buddy be a doctor was useful.
"Can't help much with that, then," McCoy snorted, finishing his glass and dropping it on the table. He walked over to the bed and sat down on it, pulling off his boots. "You need a place to crash, kid?" he asked. "Don't got much, but you're welcome to half." Something about that statement seemed to amuse him, because the doctor started laughing to himself, scratching the back of his head.
How drunk is this doc? Jim wondered to himself, but kept on his easy smile, "Grateful. Better than spending it outside somewhere sleeping this off. You want the shower first? Dunno about you, but reeking like beer and blood all night's not something I want to do." Okay, so maybe it was a not so subtle hint to McCoy that he needed a shower bad.
It was a hint that McCoy wasn't taking. "I'm okay," he muttered sleepily, pulling off his t-shirt and laying back on the bed, eyes closed and bare-chested. "You go 'head, if you want." He didn't seem to worry about Jim hurting him, or robbing him. He didn't seem to be worried about much, other than getting some rest.
Jim stared at McCoy, licked his lips once before he shrugged it off. Good looking guy, this McCoy. He'd take care of him for ... taking care of him. Jim walked into the bathroom and took a fast shower, taking the time to make sure all the blood was gone and even washing his clothes before he came back out. As Jim hung up his clothing to dry overnight, he was grateful for McCoy already being asleep; it was less awkward this way. He did his best to climb onto the other side of the bed as lightly as possible, but McCoy was dead to the world and remained that way until the morning.