Blood Ties - part 5a/6
Title: Blood Ties
Rating: NC-17
Character/Pairing: Kirk/McCoy
Word Count: ~21,500 words (this part)
A/N for this part: WWIII was a genocidal, nuclear cataclysm that ended in 2053. 50 years on, various parts of Earth remain affected by what became known as the ‘post-atomic horror.’
Characters: Spock
Intriguing snippet: “Bones, Bones, don’t be like that,” he soothes shifting so he’s got one arm round her chest and he can free the other hand to stroke her temples. “I said I wouldn’t hurt you. You have to trust me, come on Bones.” Then, with a chuckle, he fishes the gun from the back of her pants and she hears it thud as he throws it aside and it lands somewhere behind them.
Previous parts, warnings, thanks, disclaimer and additional notes are to be found in the masterpost .
Blood Ties: Chapter 5
~
Reincarnation, at least as I conceive it, does not nullify what we know about evolution and genetics. It suggests, however, that there may be two streams of evolution - the biological one and a personal one - and that during terrestrial lives these streams may interact. ~Ian Stevenson
~
Iowa, 2109
“Dr. McCoy, I need your help.” It’s like the man looking at her from the vid screen is a hologram and the power’s running out, the way he’s flickering, fading, almost disappearing before her eyes.
He must have been handsome once, he’s got full lips, his eyes are shiny, bluer than the sky used to be… before. Now his skin’s heavily lined and sallow with pronounced purple shadows under his eyes, so that it’s hard to tell how old he is. Then, they’ve all been through a lot.
“Who am I speaking with?”
The man hesitates, glances off screen and leans in, says his name like it might get him into trouble.
“Kirk, Jim Kirk.”
“How can I help you, Jim? If I can help, that is?”
One corner of his mouth twitches, like he’s highly amused by the question but doesn’t want to show it. “You can either help me a lot, or not at all. It depends…”
“On what, Jim?” Leah says, rubbing her eye with her knuckle.
“First up, you’ll need to promise not to kill me.”
Leah frowns. “I’m a doctor, I don’t generally kill anyone, not unless they back talk. Jus’ don’t take it personally if I point a gun at you.”
“Now why would I take offence?” he smirks, which for some reason irritates her more than it should. “You’re from the south - isn’t it like offering a guy a glass of lemonade on a warm day?”
“Yep, that’s about the long and short of it,” Leah quirks a smile. “Where are you?
“Not far, I’m on a public comm.” He leans to the side so she can see that he’s in a make-shift bar, a dimly lit room, ancient cheesy music playing, a few shadowy figures behind him.
“Okay, I’ll send my location,” she says.
“No need, I know how to get there.”
This should worry her, but it doesn’t. The guy doesn’t look dangerous, just desperate maybe, and she assumes that like all the rest, he’s been given her contact details by the NTs - the neo-transcendentalists - who are trying to make order from chaos. She looks at his lank hair; maybe it’s radiation, or he could be suffering from malnutrition; she won’t know for sure till she sees him in the flesh.
“Do you need treatment? I can gather some things before you come.”
“No, I’m good.” He quirks a smile that doesn’t reach his electric blue eyes and the image flickers again - damn power’s so unreliable.
“Really? You look like something the dog’s been keepin’ under the porch.” She narrows her eyes and peers more closely at the screen as the face looks vaguely familiar - maybe she’s seen it on a flier somewhere, maybe not; there are a lot of wanted and fuck, she’s so tired they’re all starting to look the same. Or maybe she’s treated him in the past - who knows…but he’d have mentioned it if she had.
Jim shrugs and leans towards the screen. “See you in ten.”
+++
She comms Dieghan; they’ve agreed it’s a sensible precaution given her insistence on treating anyone, no matter what their political beliefs. She forces herself not to return his smile when his tan face appears on screen.
“Hey!”
“Liam, I’ve got a patient coming over in a few, can you run a check on him?” He looks mildly disappointed that her call’s all business - well, he’ll just have to get over it she thinks, hoping how flushed she looks won’t register with him. “Jim Kirk? Caucasian, maybe sixty, seventy or so, slim build from what I could make out...”
“Leah, it’s late - how many times have I got to tell you it’s not wise to just let anyone..?”
Tell her? She lets it ride this time but... “I won’t refuse anyone treatment, Liam, you know that. Now run the goddamn check while I get some supplies ready...” Because she isn’t going to chat, no way; it was one night, that was all.
First she kicks aside some clothing, then decides it’s pointless and powers up the scanner while she searches for her gun; she checks it’s loaded before she tucks it in the back of her jeans.
She leans over the screen when Liam calls her back. “Which one is he?”
Half a dozen images are up on screen and she scans them quickly.
“He’s none of those, Liam-“
“Okay, in that case it might be this guy; I haven’t got an image for you, but the description fits - looks like he’s a hybrid; a human turned vampire - an old one too. You might wanna think twice about...”she twitches her lips and he stops himself. Good. “... files show he’s got quite a rep though nothing in over fifty years.” Liam frowns, looks to the side, back at her (she hopes) impassive face.
“Vampire? Okay...that’s why you haven’t got an image...thanks.”
“Yep.” He sees her lean forward to cut the connection and holds up his hand, “Wait - I’ll comm Spock - he’s not far. Check in half an hour, okay.”
“Okay - stop goddamn worrying, I can handle myself.”
“If you need to shoot him, make it right to the head, then you’ve got to follow up with a stake; you got something you can use?”
“I’ll find something; gotta go, thanks.” The second she hangs up, she looks up at the door and it chimes a moment later. She’ll have to improvise on the stake, looks like.
She can barely make Kirk out on the screen. He’s alone and doesn’t look desperate or dangerous, just like he needs a shower.
Kirk leans on the doorway when she pulls it open. He looks worse in the flesh. He’s tall, broad-shouldered but skinny as hell, as if he’s lost a lot of musculature, going by how baggy his clothes are.
“You gonna invite me in?” he says, bright eyes boring into her. He indicates the room behind her with a big, broad hand.
“Sure.” If he’s a vampire, she knows he needs an invite and this will be a subtle check, seeing how he reacts.
He hesitates, raises thick eyebrows, so she rolls her eyes and adds, “Come in, why don’t you?”
Leah steps aside and watches him move awkwardly to the center of her room, like he’s holding an injury or something.
Given the state of his clothes, Kirk ought to smell like a bum, but though he looks like he hasn’t showered in months, there’s a faint whiff of something floral, though she can’t place it; it’s been a long fucking time since she’s been anywhere green, and since the war started who the hell has cut flowers anymore? Her sense of smell has been dulled, anyways, by sewage, antiseptic, and broken bodies - the only smell lifts a girl’s spirits these days is a bit of contraband bourbon.
“I’d apologize for the mess, but yanno, at least I have walls.”
“I can see that. You got any booze?”
Leah nods. “Some little things we can’t forgo, eh?”
She fetches an unlabeled bottle from her bedside table and tips it into a tumbler. “No cooties, I’m a doctor,” she says resting the glass on the coffee table. She folds her arms. “Take a seat.”
Glass in hand, he slumps into the armchair onto a pile of clothing. He knocks back the drink in one and lets out a little groan, ”Fuck that’s good.”
He hasn’t taken his eyes off her for a second and she looks away, a little dry mouthed, trying to figure out why she feels like they’ve met before.
“You want anything to eat? I haven’t got a whole heap in, I’ll warn you.” Damn, he’s skinnier than an alley cat.
Kirk shakes his head, leans back in the armchair, stretching long legs in front of him. His sneakers are worn through, the laces missing on one, and his leather jacket is bunched round his chest like it’s several sizes too big. But everyone’s living on scavenged clothing anyway - she ain’t no celebrity wife herself. “You sure? Looks like you haven’t eaten in a while?”
“Don’t worry about it.” Finally his eyes leave her, to dart around the room; maybe he’s wondering if she’s bugged. Though she knows she isn’t - Spock’s swept the place recently enough. “You won’t have anything I can eat; I’ve…I’ve got a lot of allergies.” He looks directly at her, “Special diet and all.”
Pride it’ll be; he doesn’t want to come off as desperate - she gets that.
She watches long, elegant fingers grip the armrests; an antique looking ring glints in the lamplight and she wonders why he hasn’t hocked it - she hasn’t got fuck left herself. “Maybe I can give you a protein shot or something? You’re mighty skinny.”
“Well, we’re none of us what we were, eh?”
“Ain’t that the truth?” She grabs her med kit and drags a chair close. Okay, he’s not going to say why he’s there and she won’t push. She glances at her watch. “Let me take a look at you.”
“No, I said I wasn’t injured, okay?” He practically growls at her and she starts, forcing herself to take a breath, then lifts a placating hand - she’s used to folk snapping when they’re injured. When he doesn’t pull away, she takes his wrist gently; touching him is enough for her to confirm Dieghan had the right Jim Kirk; he’s not human. Kirk’s skin is too cool; and it feels like satin, sure satin that’s been dragged behind a steer, but it doesn’t feel quite right; the veins are too pronounced, he’s too damned pale. She swallows; while she doesn’t condone the persecution of the hybrids, Kirk doesn’t know that, does he? Unless he’s reading her mind like they say vampires can.
Kirk holds her gaze, challenging her, eyes fierce and bright. “You gonna turn me in?”
“Should I?”
He half closes his eyes, voice even. “I dunno. If you want to.”
“Don’t be an asshole, Kirk. You don’t look like you’re gonna hurt me.”
“You shouldn’t trust people, Bones.”
Now where did that dumb name come from? She decides not to comment, if anything he needs to trust her too. “If you let me scan you, I can make my own damn mind up.” She raises an eyebrow. “No charge.”
“That’s a shame, I was looking forward to coming to some kind of arrangement…”
Well, if he’s flirting with her, he can’t mean any harm, right?
She takes up the scanner and holds it to his face. It stutters and she thumps it against the palm of her hand. “Piece of shit, “ she growls and glances up at him. “Not you, this,” she explains with a frown. She resets the scanner and gazes at the readings. No pulse, no lung function. Fuck. Definitely a vampire and he knows she knows because he unravels her fingers and takes it from her; she finds that she can’t stop him, can’t move even.
“You’re kind of pretty to be a doctor,” he says mildly, eyes sweeping her face, settling on her lips for a moment then dropping to examine the readings. He tosses the scanner aside and she baulks when he reaches for her jaw. His eyes are like fucking magnets; she shouldn’t have allowed this, should have known to look away, but that goddamn smell, it’s…her eyes droop a little. Fuck, he’s compelling her - she’s heard about this, how vampires draw their prey in and control their minds so they can’t struggle, don’t want to, how they give themselves over willingly. Her gaze floats to his lips which she notes are cracked, almost the same color as his sallow skin; what the hell happened to him? Why does he look so worn out when, way she understands it, vampires are supposed to be beautiful, eternally young and flawless?
Then, just like that he releases her and she draws in a ragged breath, still finding she can’t move immediately, though her heart-rate is picking up again. She twitches her fingers experimentally, like she’s come out of a coma.
“Pretty. To be a doctor,“ she repeats his words slowly, her voice thick with weary sarcasm, and she makes sure to look away. “What? Were you turned in the last goddamn century? I haven’t heard anyone say that about a woman in…well, not since I last watched a shitty old movie.”
“Not last century - you get two more guesses before I give you the big prize,” he says. He blinks and releases his hypnotic hold on her, but rather than try and escape, she finds her medical curiosity overwhelms her.
“Just tell me; do I look like I’ve got all fuckin’ night?”
Kirk lets out a bark of laughter. “You McCoys,” he says, shaking his head, and his tone is almost fond. “1793, seeing as you are pretty.” He raises ridiculously thick eyebrows and an indulgent look crosses his features. “I’ve never told anyone that before, you know.”
“Well, aren’t I the lucky one?” She leans back then brushes her hair from her face. What the hell did he mean by that? ‘You McCoys’? “How come they didn’t get you, Jim?”
“They did. I escaped.”
“Didn’t they chip you?”
He bends forward, moving the hair at the nape of his neck aside and she reaches out, touching the partly healed wound. He winces but doesn’t stop her examining it. “Why’s it still a mess? Thought you guys…vamps, whatever, had super healing powers.”
“Like I said, I haven’t eaten in a while.”
“How long’s ‘a while’?”
“Guess it depends what you mean by ‘eating.’”
“I could fix up some blood for you.”
“I’m fine - stuff’s not meant for vampire food; it wouldn’t be right.”
Now she’s really fucking confused. It looks like he’s been denying himself the one thing he needs: blood - no wonder he looks like shit.
“I’ve got some synthetic blood or will that offend your high morals?”
He looks at his hands covered in liver spots then back at her with big, wide eyes. “Go ahead, but don’t hold it against me if I heave all over this nice rug of yours.”
“The state of this place, I doubt you’d notice,” she says standing to move to the kitchen. She walks round the pile of medical equipment heaped to one side of the room where it’s kept overnight.
“If you’ve got no cash to buy the stuff, why don’t you hock that ring of yours? Looks like it might be worth a pretty penny.”
“This? You kidding me? It’s got sentimental value.” Another thin smile that doesn’t reach his eyes.
She doesn’t tell him, of course, he’ll probably figure it out soon enough, but in the kitchenette she unpacks a bag of real blood and leaves the synthesizer running, so he’ll think she’s processing blood substitute, then goes back to join him.
“Who gave it to you?” she asks pointing at the ring. “It’s real pretty. Or is it some kind of trophy?”
He looks at her through downcast lashes. “Don’t worry, I paid for it - I gave up torture a while back - along with a bunch of other shit I used to really enjoy. Plus, it reminds me of a friend of mine.”
“You have friends?” She can’t contain the sneer in her voice, feels a blush on her neck when Jim looks down, and swallows.
“Sure. Once.”
“What else have you given up, Jim?”
“You got all night?”
+++
She cracks open her last bottle, pours two generous measures and settles down on one end of the couch. “You’d better eat first,” she says wedging her glass between her thighs to free her hands so she can tie her hair up in a pony tail. Jim glances at her neck briefly then contemplates the bag of blood that’s been balancing on the pile of ancient medical journals for a quarter of an hour at least.
“I’m not hungry.” He folds his arms and sits back with the glass resting on his chest. Great - a vampire with an eating disorder; boy does she ever attract the weirdos.
“It’s always surprised me vampires can drink alcohol,” she says conversationally, rolling her first mouthful and savoring it. When this bottle’s gone, who knows when there’ll be any more.
“Well, maybe it’s proof there is a god after all.” Jim quirks a smile but doesn’t look at her. “And immortal life would really drag without it, right?”
She leans towards him, touches his arm, smooth and lightly haired and as cool as porcelain. “Listen, I know you’re hungry but, if you don’t do it for yourself, do it for me, you know ‘cause I took you in. I’d like to video it if I can. I’ve never seen the transformation - I don’t think there’s anything been filmed before - consider it as payment for the blood if that makes you feel better. Truth is, I haven’t done any kind of research in years - too busy dealing with, well...”
He shoots her a side-long look and nods. “Okay but it’s not that quick, won’t make too much difference, not like animal blood, or the good stuff.”
Good stuff. This is a killer, despite what he says about being reformed. She wishes she’d left her hair down; the way he keeps looking at her neck is making her nervous, but it’s too damned hot, plus she’s convinced herself he won’t try anything. “Well, I need what I’ve got, so you’ll have to put up with synthesised blood instead. Come on Jim, give yourself a break.”
His eyes seem to glitter amber for a second and his voice is a hiss when he answers. “I don’t deserve a break - I really don’t give a shit anymore. What’s the point? The good times are over, long gone. There’s only a handful of my kind left, all neutered, hunted down. It’s like the war all over again.”
“This still is a war, Jim, in case you hadn’t noticed.” Not the all-out nuclear war of before, but a personal war against xenophobia, persecution, poverty, food shortages, radiation sickness, poisoned water tables, goddamn rebels - it’s a fucking utopia is what it is, “and it’s not just your kind that have felt the brunt of the cleansing.”
“You shouldn’t use the same fucking language that bastard uses, Bones - cleansing - like it’s feng shui or something.”
“What Green did, what his followers are still doing is wrong and evil, but we’ll stop them, you’ll see if we don’t. There’s more against him than for him; it’s fucking tragic he’s got away with killing so many of the rads, but there’s plenty trying to stop him, people like Liam Dieghan, he’s got a lot of followers. We’ve gotta believe this isn’t the way it’s still gonna be.” She takes in his bored expression, like he knows this shit already, right. “Anyway, what’s it to you, Jim? How many have you killed in your time?”
“It would take me an eternity to kill as many as he did in a fucking hour. Don’t insult me.” His voice is a hiss and she wonders at how his lips are glistening with saliva, at the illogic of the virus in his blood, how it affects his physiology, with some functions present, others not. “Get your camera.”
She picks up her camera and points it at him. She knows the image won’t be very clear, they still haven’t figured out how to preserve vampire images adequately, but she also knows many of the quirks of what vampires can and can’t do, the inconsistencies have a lot to do with their age, their diet. Most die young, reckless in their first years, taking considerable risks and never get to build up their strength with the passing of time. And human blood is the elixir of eternal life, that which gives them strength. She knows that they can survive on animal blood too, but animals are protected these days, and those used for food, well, they’re back to the old ways, every part of the animal being used with nothing to spare. She winces at the memory of the taste of blood-pudding. At any rate, if Jim had been an Old One, a vampire who’d feasted exclusively on human blood, one who hadn’t taken to the ground for long stretches of time, she wouldn’t have a chance in hell of capturing any image at all. So this is a real opportunity.
“What’re you going to use this for? You could get shot just for talking to me,” Jim says casually, tearing the bag open with his teeth.
“I’ve survived this long, Jim. It’ll be a nice break from the routine of patching up a bunch of miscreants; now now shut up and smile for the camera.”
He wrinkles his nose, takes a breath just for show, and sips. She watches his lips, the pronounced cracks. Nothing.
“Drink all of it, come on, stop being an asshole.”
His eyes crinkle and he looks at her almost fondly. “McCoys - potty-mouths the whole lot of you.” He’s said something like this before...
“What do you know about my family?” she says, glancing at the screen, the record sign is pulsing - good.
Jim shrugs, taking a deep glug from the bag, his wrinkled fingers squeezing it gently. She glances at the image on the screen, at the skin sagging on his neck, his hair lank and thin - it’s not sharp, but it’ll do. Even in the poor image, his eyes are young, vibrant and clear.
“How long can you last without eating?”
“I dunno. Longest I’ve been is when I went to ground a while back. And it depends on what you ate before that. Time before, in the 1890s, I was on a full diet of human blood. Good fucking times, I tell ya.” She winces and he pats her knee. “That was a long time ago, Bones, don’t worry. I’m reformed you might say. My name is Jim Kirk and I’m an alcoholic,” he mimes standing at a microphone using the bag of blood as a prop. She doesn’t laugh though she gets it, how a vampire’s blood-lust will never go away, how he’s saying he has to fight the craving all the time. And now, since the end of the war, since the purge on vamps, as well as other alien species - what used to be called demons in the old days - the vamps, many of them reformed, trying to live within society, have been almost wiped out.
“Why’d you go to ground, Jim, was someone after you even then?”
Something dark passes over his face. “Could say I was suffering from depression. Immortal life’s a strain at the best of times. I never found a companion, you know, someone who I wanted to hang with. Well, no one who wanted to hang with me. I needed a break, so I went to ground. The bombs woke me.” He leans towards her conspiratorially. “Now, if I’d known the world was gonna be this cool, I’d have stayed out here.” Leah wonders if the alcohol has loosened his tongue, the way he’s saying so much - he doesn’t appear to have been affected by the drink in any other way, yet he’s enjoying it. She’ll have to look into that later - this is such an opportunity to find out more, she has to stop herself grinning.
“Maybe I should mix this with the booze…” he says, like she mentioned drink out loud. When she curls her lips, he winks and takes another long pull on the blood. He leaves a little drop on his lip and she watches, swallows as his tongue skates around his lower lip. He bares his teeth for her, and winks for the camera.
“You know,” he says, his voice softer, more melodic as the blood begins to heal him, the sharp edges evening out, “if you let me bite you, you could watch me disappear on the screen. How cool would that be?”
“It would be interesting.” Her mouth goes a little dry and she concentrates on keeping the camera steady while she reaches for her glass.
She doesn’t know how long it takes; it’s like watching the sunrise, like watching a flower grow with stop animation, frame by frame; right before her eyes, little by little, his hair thickens, changes from dull, gray blond to almost golden and she swears it grows a centimeter or two in length, though she’s sure part of it’s an optical illusion, like when you stare at a flickering candle flame and it appears to dance when in reality it’s burning normally.
“Take your jacket off, Jim,” she says wanting to see the changes before he’s all fixed and it’s too late.
“I thought you’d never ask,” he says cockily, and there’s a twinkle in his eye that wasn’t there before under lashes that shine and flutter when previously they looked like the last hairs in the plughole.
“Hey, don’t flatter yourself - I’ve seen more dicks, vamp ones included - than you have. You ain’t gonna make me blush.”
“I’ll bet,” Jim mumbles to himself, lowering his eyes, rolling his neck as he maybe enjoys how pliable it’s becoming. “Got anymore where that came from?”
She flushes, suddenly sure from the way he’s looking at her that he knows this is real blood. “Well yeah, thanks to the synthesizer, course I have; think I spend all my hard earned cash on fripperies? I need to keep a stock - but this’ll have to be the last or the records will show and draw attention to me.”
“You keep records?” Yeah, he knows.
She hands the camera to him, telling him to keep filming, and goes to the kitchenette to fetch the bag from the cooler, giving up on the pretence in case it makes him mad.
She nearly bursts the bag against her thigh when she sees the sight before her. She can only describe it as magic, though she knows one day the science will catch up and there will be an explanation for how this happens, but for now, she’s like a child, unquestioning, awe-struck at the beautiful creature in her room.
Jim’s removed more than his jacket; he’s standing shirtless, creamy skin glowing in the lamplight, caramel colored nipples peaked and as prominent against his blank canvas skin as the fine trail of tawny hair leading to the waistband of his jeans. His face is flawless again, other than the pock marks he must have got before he was turned and, if she thought his eyes were bright before, and young, she had no fucking idea what ‘jewel-like’ meant until now. As he moves his head to look at her, they seem to change color, flickering with glitters of gold then black. His pupils are dilated, like he’s sexually aroused. Purely for scientific reasons of course, she looks down at his groin and, yeah, Kirk’s certainly got back in touch with his inner teen. To her irritation, she feels a reflex shot of arousal course through her, her cheeks burning.
“Well?” he says. One fucking word but loaded, bursting with innuendo, invitation and sheer pride. And why not? He’s fucking beautiful.
“What were you fourteen when you first became a vamp?”
He laughs and hands the camera back to her, then lower his hands, stroking downwards to the waistband of his jeans. Her breath catches and she watches, temporarily dumb-struck. He pops the button and smirks at her. “Shall I?”
She swallows, closes her eyes for a moment, trying to ignore the pounding in her head, the fire between her legs. “Yes, this is interesting stuff.” How she said that without letting a little moan escape she has no idea. She’s sure that her physical reaction is due to his compelling her.
He takes the bag from her, tears it open with less care than the last time so some spills down his wrist. He licks his hand and fingers wantonly, unblinkingly posing for the camera, for her. He tosses it aside and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.
He’s filling out even as she watches - it’s fucking amazing the muscles on his stomach becoming more defined and he’s straighter, appears even taller. As he lowers his jeans (why doesn’t it surprise her that he’s commando?) his thighs are strong, buttermilk smooth and lightly haired. His finger nails seem to shine as he steps out of his jeans, then turns a slow circle.
“I should have kept those on so you had something to tuck my tip into,” he grins lazily and folds over, touching his toes with the flexibility of a ballet dancer, the muscles in his back rippling as he moves with mesmerizing grace. Then, to her surprise, he leans on his hands and effortlessly raises his legs in the air, walking on his hands, then drops down with a little bounce.
She’s managed not to look directly at his cock, but she can tell now, as it bobs till he comes to rest, he’s half hard. Shit.
“So, that was interesting - yanno, in a scientific way?” Jim says, leonine and graceful in front of her. Fuck, she doesn’t need a camera, she needs a piece of goddamn marble and a lifetime to do this justice.
She examines the camera’s screen and her eyes widen; His image has become even less defined, and it flickers.
It’s like he’s read her mind when he says, “Want to see me disappear?”
“Yes, no - wait.” She knows vampires move preternaturally fast, but when he’s suddenly standing right in front of her and they’re eye to eye, she can’t help but let out a gasp of surprise and lowers the camera.
“You’re fucking tall, Leah McCoy.” His nose is a thumb’s-width from hers but she can’t feel a single breath and though she knows what this is in front of her, the scary fairy-tales have a hold on her as much as the next person. She feels her scalp prickle, her heart rate quicken and her head’s beginning to swim - it takes all her will power to take a step away from him.
“So they tell me, Jim Kirk.” He’s back in front of her, even though she doesn’t remember him moving and it’s like she’s lying on her back staring up at a perfect sky looking into those eyes, cloud-white skin dominating her peripheral vision. “Stop doing that,” she says with little authority in her voice.
His middle finger trails down the side of her neck and even as she deep breathes to try and calm herself like she does in surgery (only here and now, it’s not goddamn working). She feels herself fucking aching for him to take her. She can only describe it as a need to be entered, torn open and emptied. Under his spell, she’s like an insect caught by hypnotic eyes.
Her hands are loose and slack by her hips and she’s in danger of dropping the camera. Then, miraculously, she finds some of that McCoy reserve - the thing’s made her deal with her ex, deal with the aftermath of the war; the rations, the fucking drawn faces, and the inhumanity. Cursing a blue streak, because she’s got to break his hold on her before he drains her, she swings the camera back and smacks Jim in the side of the head with every ounce of mental and physical strength she can muster.
He goes flying clutching his head, and she automatically raises the camera to record the effects of a vampire equivalent to an adrenaline rush, the way bumps appear on his forehead and his eyes turn gold before her. He’s got a fine contusion but even as he rights himself, it’s disappearing right before her eyes, like milk in water. Any illusion remaining that he’s human, shatters into a million pieces, as if she’d thrown a giant mirror to the ground. It crosses her mind she’s in for about as much bad luck. His face is feral and his canines descend, eyes yellow, wolf-like, glaring murderously at her.
Dropping the camera, she leaps to the door and struggles to get it open, her hands slipping and fumbling over the keypad.
Jim growls, actually growls, then like air sucked from a punctured lung, she feels herself being drawn back and lifted by super-human hands so her feet dangle uselessly beneath her. For some minutes, she manages to flail and kick crazier than a sprayed roach; Jim’s only letting her move at all because it amuses him, same way her big brother did when she was a kid, only deadly now.
“You gonna kill me, you piece of horse-shit? Put me down so I can knock you in the head, you weasel-assed son of a b…”
His cock’s pressing against the back of her pants and his mouth’s close to her ear, firm and dry and, now he’s all better, bless his soul, it’s effortless for him, holding her in place, patiently waiting till she exhausts herself into stillness.
“Bones, Bones, don’t be like that,” he soothes shifting so he’s got one arm round her chest and he can free the other hand to stroke her temples. “I said I wouldn’t hurt you. You have to trust me, come on Bones.” Then, with a chuckle, he fishes the gun from the back of her pants and she hears it thud as he throws it aside and it lands somewhere behind them.
“Jesus Christ already, will you stop callin’ me that? Put. Me. Down!”
He presses his nose into the back of her head and inhales deeply. “Fuck. You McCoys are my Achilles heel, you know that?” There it is again - he mentioned her family earlier, but before she can react, he releases her. She drops, lands hard on her ass, legs akimbo and fucking livid. By the time she’s up on her feet and fished a syringe full of sedative out of her med kit, he’s sprawled on the couch in just his jeans, idly flicking through one of her mags.
“That won’t hurt me, Bones. Come and sit down, no hard feelings. I was just messing with you.” She doesn’t move, knowing the sedative is probably as much use as an ice dagger on a hot day, but she’s damned if she’s going to put it down.
He stands and lifts his hands to placate her, and when she doesn’t move, he gazes at her intently. Her hand flies up to her face and she shields her eyes like she’s protecting them from the sun. “Stop compelling me, Kirk! This is no way to repay my hospitality.”
“I can’t help it, Bones, it’s my animal magnetism.” He doesn’t sounds sorry and advances towards her all graceful, deadly seduction and she can’t move again. He takes her wrists, lowers them for her and takes a step so he’s standing between her feet. He sniffs her neck, strokes her hair out of her eyes and then puts his hand under her jaw, tilting her face so he can look at her. “Don’t be scared of me, Bones, I’d never hurt you, I’d kill anyone who tried.”
“I don’t want you to kill anyone, Jim…” her voice is ragged, distant to her own ears, and her field of vision is swamped by the amber-blue of his demon eyes, the scent of him, each breath she draws in intoxicating her further; she thinks about her gun, remembering what Dieghan said she should do, but how can she help herself if she can’t even move? Dammit, she’s getting soft, she should have expected this to happen; maybe the Pures are right - you can’t trust vampires, any of them…
“But you can trust me; I’ll look after you, keep you…”
He never gets to finish the sentence because there’s an ear-splitting sound and the door flies open. She hears a hiss and then a pop, and Jim’s grip loosens and he drops at her feet like his strings have been cut.
“Doctor, you failed to check in at the allotted time. That was remiss of you. I trust you are unharmed?”
Leah looks down at Jim who’s apparently unconscious, steps over him and picks up a pillow from the couch. She turns to throw it at her savior; it would have hit him full in the face if he didn’t have such excellent reflexes. He catches it mid air and raises a questioning eyebrow.
“That’s for breaking my door down, Spock. Imagine it was a sock in the jaw - that’s what I wanted to do - stop treating me like I’m made of goddamn glass. I can handle myself.” Why the fuck does she need to keep reminding people of this?
“I can vouch for that,” comes Jim’s voice from the floor where he’s come to.
“You were not in danger?”
“Not exactly…I don’t know.”
“It is imperative you call in, Doctor. It is illogical to break protocol. As you can see it results in wasted resources,” Spock says indicating the door.
“Hey, if I stand up, you gonna shoot me again?” Jim tries.
They both look down at him; blood leaks from where the vervain-laced bullet entered his shoulder. “Stay there,” Leah grumbles. “I’ll get the bullet extractor - only just cleaned the blasted thing…men and their goddamn pissing contests…”
+++
“Okay, Spock, Christ on a bike, I promise I’ll call in like a good girl next time.”
Spock nods then arches an eyebrow and waits. “And thanks,” she growls, tossing the instruments into the sterilizer, removing her gloves and throwing them into the container ready for incineration.
“There, that didn’t hurt, did it?” Jim smirks from where he’s stretched out on the couch.
Leah strides across the room and cuffs him hard across the top of his head. “That’s for compelling me, you ass. I don’t appreciate the way you abused my hospitality.” She ignores how Jim and Spock exchange sympathetic looks and roots around under the kitchen sink for booze she knows she doesn’t have. “Goddammit, I’ll make coffee - same herbal shit for you, Spock?”
“That would be agreeable,” Spock says evenly.
“And sit down, you’re making me nervous.” She fills the kettle and calls over her shoulder, “Oh, and by the way, Spock, this is Jim - he doesn’t have a beating heart either. You two should get on just fine.”
+++
Jim’s entry wound takes almost three hours to heal. She takes photos every 15 minutes, and though the definition’s shit now Jim’s on blood, since the vervain’s still in his system there’s some kind of image.
In-between times, she listens to him and Spock get to know each other. They’re an unlikely pair but there’s an obvious connection from the get go, and despite the fact that Spock shot him, Jim lets it go in an instant. She overhears him say as much when she waits for the coffee to brew.
“Hey man, she’s lucky to have you watching her back. I’d have done the same in your position.”
“Mr. Kirk, Dr. McCoy ‘watches my back’ also, as you so interestingly put it. She is exceptionally skilled with a variety of weapons, and trained in hand-to-hand combat.”
Now she sits in one chair, feet up on another, ignoring the way Jim’s eyes follow her slightest movement. Of course this is all bravado on her part; she didn’t stand a chance against Jim’s compulsion - it wasn’t a level playing field but she’s not giving Spock the satisfaction.
“I’ve not met a Vulcan before,” Jim’s saying.
“The probability of you having encountered a Vulcan is indeed one in-”
“That’ll be because most Vulcans think we’re barbarians, Jim: a lost cause,” Leah breaks in, “and if they do hang out with humans, they stick to the high-falutin’ ones.” She scowls at Spock and raises her third coffee to her lips. “For some reason, Spock here likes hanging out with the likes of me and Dieghan - you earned any street-cred points back home yet, Spock?”
“Mr. Kirk, Dr. McCoy is understating the situation. Liam Dieghan’s vision for this society, I believe, is a progressive one. Under his guidance many humans are re-building civilisation along-”
“-Vulcan lines?” Leah rolls her eyes. “Spare us!”
“Since a Vulcan expedition crash-landed on Earth in the 1950s, the belief of my people was that Earth was not ready for space-exploration. Indeed, the xenophobic views held by the majority would have proved counter-productive when making contact with other sentient species.”
“But you don’t agree with that?” Jim says, smiling. “That’s why you stayed?”
“Affirmative. It seemed illogical not to give humans a chance, as you would put it.”
“And boy we proved you wrong, didn’t we Spock? Eugenics War, another Word War, nuclear devastation, the eco-terrorists, the continued persecution, rebels...shall I go on?” Leah drains her coffee wishing she could get her hands on sugar from somewhere.
“It is unnecessary, Doctor, I am well aware of the failings you describe.” Spock sits with his hands resting on his lap, his gun on the table between them. “However, we have observed many civilisations follow cycles which involve barbarism - I argued the position that with the appropriate guidance, Earth will change.”
“They don’t like him, Jim. Oh, and they’re not big buddies with the Andorians either, the little matter of hostility between the two planets being something our friend doesn’t mention here, notice...”
Spock doesn’t react. “Indeed, my beliefs are at variance with those currently held by Vulcan High Command. They have not expressed like or dislike, Doctor; that would be an emotional response. They have allowed me to stay here, collect data, and advise Mr. Diegham.”
“What about you, Bones? You involved in the research?”
“Me? I’m just a simple country doctor - I patch folk up.”
“The doctor is displaying modesty, Mr. Kirk,” Spock says as Leah rises to take another photo of Jim’s shoulder. “She is involved with the movement against the Greens, those who would continue with the persecution of non-Terrans, the eradication of those suffering from radiation sickness-”
“Come on, Spock, call them ‘rads’, it won’t hurt you to use the odd abbreviation, I promise,” Leah interjects, a little embarrassed by his words.
Spock continues, ignoring her sarcasm: he’s had a lot of practice, after all. “She is involved on a daily basis and, despite her inability to control her emotional responses, is an excellent role-model and has frequently featured in my reports to High Command.”
Jim looks at her, a grin on his face, and she feels another annoying ripple of arousal at the way his tongue flicks across his lower lip. “Why do you live here, right next to the contamination zone, Bones?”
Leah shrugs. “Rather than in say, San Francisco where it’s safe as houses?”
“Yeah,” Jim says, staring at her intently.
“I’m a doctor, Jim, and there are patients here...” Her voice trails off and she can feel her face flushing. He doesn’t know her, how can she begin to explain why she’s here rather than say living somewhere safe, with at least the illusion of how things used to be. She changes the subject. “Spock, tell him about the so-called Hellmouth.”
Jim sits more upright at this. “I know that place, Spock, I’m old, older than you even so there’s not much you can tell me about it.”
“Then you are aware that since we discovered the origin of the Hellmouth, many wanted to destroy it and all life-forms emanating from it, since Philip Green sees no difference between alien life forms, demons, nor those suffering from radiation sickness?”
“Of course, but what’s that got to do with you?” Jim says.
“For many years, even as far back as the late twentieth century, there were government programs studying what we used to refer to as demons, yourself included.
“With the help of Vulcan scientists who examined the site, we learned of an alien craft that crash-landed there thousands of years ago. The so called demons were in fact unwilling captives in a menagerie, taken from all over the galaxy.”
“Aliens,” Jim nods. “Imagine that, stranded in the middle of nowhere, your physiology affected by the alien environment, no one to tell you who you are or what you’re supposed to be...”
Leah swallows, trying to imagine just that, how it must have been to be one of those captives, to spill out of the ground disorientated and mad into a hostile world. And vampires like Jim, it turns out, are hybrids. An alien life form originating from the menagerie which adapted to inhabit a host, humans being the most susceptible.
“And since they are as much in need of guidance as humans, I have taken a particular interest in studying ‘demons’, as they continue to be known.” Spock finishes.
“What do you prefer Jim, being described as a demon or an alien-hybrid?” Leah tries not to smile at him, though it’s hard.
He smiles back at that and Leah rubs a hand across her face, picking up her camera and watching the video she shot of Jim earlier, slipping the head-phones in so she can enjoy it in peace, leaving them to talk.
She fasts forward through the early part of the recording, glances at Jim talking to Spock, comparing how he is now, beautiful and eternally young, no longer the elderly man who first entered her apartment. Then she gets to the part of the vid where she handed Jim the camera and raises an eyebrow. As soon as she left him, he angled it to follow her ass as she went to the kitchen to get more blood. Her ears and neck burn when she sees how he turned the camera back on himself. A smug, pale, fading face staring back at her, filling the screen - he winks, “Missed you, Bones,” he says.
What the hell? She’s not the only one who thinks they’ve met before.
+++
It takes some persuading to get Spock to leave but when Leah insists that she only has one couch, one bed, and no more herb tea, he swaps his gun adapted for vervain bullets, hands her another round and takes her gun in exchange.
It’s late, really late and she looks at Jim warily when they’re alone. “I’m going to bed - do you need a blanket or something? Guess you don’t feel the cold…”
“I do when I’m shot through with vervain, Bones.”
She could ask him now, why he calls her that, what he meant when he said he missed her in the video, but she’s so tired she doesn’t have the energy for revelations and any more intensity.
She comms Liam quickly before bed, tells him all is well and Spock’s headed home. She doesn’t mention Jim’s still there - Spock will fill him in if necessary.
She lies in bed, remembering how it felt to be temporarily in Jim’s thrall; she resists the temptation to allow her mind to replay the sensations she felt, how aroused she was by the way he spoke to her, the way he sniffed her skin. It occurs to her that he looked as compelled by her as she was by him, only she wasn’t making him feel like that.
Fuck it, she needs to sleep, no time for this bullshit; tomorrow’s not many hours away and she drifts off, curiously feeling safer than she has for years, the image of that intent, aquamarine stare following her into her dreams.
+++
Jim’s gone when she rises in the morning. She denies it’s disappointment she feels when she reads the note on the coffee table, a simple Thanks, Bones, x and no indication of where he’s gone, when and if he’ll be back. So that’s all he wanted from her, food, only too proud to ask out-right. And now he’s all ‘perfect’ and whole, he’s gone. Fine.
She heads for the kitchenette to brew coffee before she’s fit to begin loading up and moving the med supplies. “Well, I guess that’s that,” she says out loud.
But it isn’t.
Her make-shift clinic is in the apartment next to hers; the rest of the building’s abandoned, bombed-out and fucked, her home patched up with an illegal supply of power fixed up by Spock who dismissed her qualms about stealing with an, “It is for the greater good, doctor, you are one of the few medics who will treat patients without question. You are much-needed and many would suffer without you.”
Yeah, she’s a fucking saint. That’s why she doesn’t necessarily know where her next meal’s coming from, nor her next dime. Though, she thinks, the box under the treatment bed is filling up nicely with an assortment of gifts from the morning’s patients: a small bottle of contraband, some chocolate (or what passes for chocolate these days) an apple, and a pair of previously owned (but clean) silk panties. She had to say no to the kitten. “I hate cats,” she lied. Truth is she can’t bear the thought of it dying one day when someone inevitably poaches it for a meal. Plus its big staring eyes reminded her of Jim and she doesn’t want to think about that asshole, thank you very much.
After a hasty lunch of stale cookies and more coffee (black, no sugar because who the hell has cream or sugar anymore?) she’s stitching up some guy she’s sure is a guerrilla (though no idea which side he’s on) and the door flies open.
“Hey, Bones!”
“Ever heard of fuckin’ knocking, Kirk?” she says mildly, not taking her eyes off her patient, though her heart does skip a beat, she notices. She nods at the guy on the bed and he pulls his shirt back on. The guerrilla looks at Jim warily who, in daylight, is obviously a hybrid, the color of his skin, the glitter of his eyes give him away big time, to say nothing of how healthy he looks compared to other folk you’ll meet these days - herself included. She steps between them since her patient is obviously some faction of the Pures, the way he’s sneering at Jim.
“Your guard said you wouldn’t mind,” Jim says, grinning ear to ear. He’s carrying a beat-up box and she really doesn’t want to know what’s inside.
“Remind me to fire her.” Though it’s hard to fire a volunteer.
“Don’t be like that, Bones. She’s a loyal friend to the cause. I asked her first and she was very…accommodating.”
Great, that means the vervain’s out of his system already since he had to have compelled the guard to get past her.
“Don’t try and smooth-talk me like you did her, Kirk, I’m a doctor, I’m busy. Back in the day women might have been impressed by your romantic, creature-of-the-night bs, not me - so save it.” Jim reacts with a flicker of his tongue over teeth and an ‘are you sure?’ face.
The door snicks shut, the patient’s gone and they both look to the bed, at the pile of swabs in a dish, and the bag of coffee the guy left behind as payment.
“You could open a store,” Jim says smoothly.
“And have it burned to the ground by the Greens next day? No fuckin’ thank you.” She takes the package and tosses it under the bed. “Now what do you want? Much as I enjoy exchanging pleasantries with you, I’ve got patients waiting.”
She pushes past him and calls down the hall to the line of expectant faces, “Next!” A woman with a thin head of hair shambles towards her. Jim takes a seat by Leah’s desk and balances the box on his lap. Damn, he should stop grinning already. “Don’t mind him,” she says to the woman, pulling on fresh gloves. “He’s got nowhere to go. Want me to throw him out?”
Her patient shakes her head wearily and Leah pushes the step-up stool over with her foot and indicates she jump up onto the bed. She knows this is radiation sickness, sees it all the time, the folks with no money keep going back to the isolated areas finding it safer than risking being killed by snipers in the city, by those that think they’re doing us all a fucking favor by culling the sick, ‘protecting’ the goddamn population from having their precious gene pool corrupted. ‘Cept they didn’t ask Leah - she’d have given them a piece of her mind.
The woman’s too far gone for the treatment, such as it is, to make much difference, but she ain’t telling her that, so Leah goes through the motions. She checks her vitals, gives her a protein shot, half a dozen placebo pills and a shot of adrenaline - much fucking good it’ll do.
“Two a day after meals, well, yanno…if you can get one, won’t hurt on an empty stomach either.” Then she pulls out her box of shit from under the bed. “Just two,” she says gruffly and watches with interest while her patient deliberates. She tries not to smile when the chocolate and panties are tucked away in the woman’s raggedy coat. “Now get out of here,” she says.
“Doctor, I haven’t brought anything…I…” the woman lowers watery eyes. Leah slaps her on the shoulder. “Hey, the government takes care of it, if not, this one’s on me, k? Now stay away from the quarantine zones.”
They both know she won’t.
Leah turns to Jim who, yeah, is gazing at her adoringly. He looks devastatingly handsome sitting there, tall, elegant, all sunshine smile - it’s probably just the contrast with all the infirm she’s been dealing with for the past four hours.
“What are you, a goddamn dog? “ she huffs. “You’re in the way!”
“I brought you some stuff…”
“I don’t need stuff. I got more stuff than you’ve got ego, Kirk. Now get.”
Her harsh words ricochet off him like bullets and he smiles, his eyes shining. “Thanks, Bones.”
“For what?”
“Taking me in last night; trusting me.”
“I don’t trust you, but I guess since I did take you in, you’re welcome. Now stop sniffing round my ass or I’ll call pest-control.”
“Pest control? Kind of fun pretending things are like they were.”
“It’s pure joy, Jim. Now go…” Jim sashays to the door, all big shoulders and skinny hips and turns to wink at her. Then he raises his eyebrows a touch. “Yeah, okay, I’ll finish around ten. You can ‘walk’ me home if you like. I made up the couch already.”
His smile’s so brilliant it leaves Leah hoping that someone in the line outside may have thought to bring her some sunglasses. Then it occurs to her - how the hell is he moving around outside in the sunlight? She makes a mental note and adds it to the million questions she wants to ask him...all in good time.
“Next!” she barks, popping her head round the doorway, not quite resisting the overwhelming urge to track Jim’s progress down the hall as he winds through the refugees waiting in line. He won’t know she notices what a fine ass he’s got in those hobo jeans of his.
“What you looking at?” she growls at the guard who’s got a dreamy look in her eye.
“Same as you. Ma’am!” Well least she got a salute.
+++
He chuckles when she presses the vervain loaded gun to his throat. “Stop being nice to me, Jim!”
“Now I’ve got a boner,” he says, wriggling from under her and perching on the arm of the couch.
She tosses the gun onto the coffee table and places the box on her lap. Bourbon, thank fuck, the good stuff - she doesn’t dare ask where he got it from; then she pulls out a sealed packet of what looks like grass cuttings.
“Pot, Jim? Seriously?”
“Vervain. You’ll need it if I’m going to stick around.”
Her neck and chest heat up and she puts the packet back in the box carefully, not daring to look at him in case she shows something she’ll regret.
“Who says you’re gonna stick around…?” He doesn’t answer and watches her as she lifts a metal box out. Inside there’s a locket.
“It’s for the vervain,” he says, his voice almost a whisper. “So you feel safe around me. I know I’m a package, Bones, with the whole ‘irresistible’ vibe. Don’t want you to feel pressured into anything…” The sentence tapers off - he never says pressured into ‘what’ exactly, or maybe he just means compelled. Yeah, that’ll be it. She turns her back on him and lifts her hair and he takes the locket and fastens it round her neck, his fingers brushing against her skin for a moment, cool and steady. She swallows.
“Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.”
“You need to feed?”
“I’m good.”
Fine. Jim’s looked after his own damn self all these years, he doesn’t need her advice. “How’s your shoulder?”
She turns and looks at him dead in the eye by way of experiment, to see if the vervain’s working and preventing him from drawing her in. She does want to touch him, but that doesn’t prove a thing either away - he’s kind of easy on the eye; she’d have to dead from the waist down if she couldn’t at least admit that to herself.
He rolls his shoulder experimentally. “Good as new,” he says, looking away. “Wanna watch a movie?”
The question’s so unexpected she bursts out laughing. “Sure, why not? If the power packs-up half way through though, promise you won’t eviscerate me.”
“Depends on the movie,” he grins, kicking off his boots and bouncing onto the couch next to her. “Untold pleasure awaits us tonight, Bones; think you can handle it?”
He doesn’t see her swallow - she’s behind him, picking up her computer from her desk. She brushes the dust off the screen with her sleeve. “Sure I can, Jim, knock yourself out.” She’s not sure if she’s relieved or not when he reaches into the box and pulls out a packet of Oreos, drops them on his lap and leans back to look up at her. “Come and get it, Bonesy!” His throat is a column of marble, cream, other white shit she wants to touch, and she rolls her eyes at him, tapping him on the head with the base of her laptop.
“Don’t fucking call me that.”
He mock salutes and makes room beside him on the couch. They both stare in silence at the screen while they wait for her piece-of-shit laptop to finally boot up. “This isn’t a date,” she says placing a pillow between the two of them.
“Anything you say, Bones.” He stretches out, draping one leg over the armrest and pulls out some of her clothes from under him, bunching them up and resting his head on them. “Nothing with guns, okay? You got Amadeus?”
+++
Two weeks Jim’s been hanging around; he’s taken to accompanying her to the clinic and helping her out and she doesn’t say no. She hasn’t had the luxury of a nurse in years and he’s a fast learner, whip smart and doesn’t seem to get tired. And in all this time he hasn’t once asked her for a bag of blood and she hasn’t offered.
Every night he helps her lug all the medical equipment into her apartment, and every morning he helps her set it up as the line forms outside. He doesn’t ask her why she does what she does, he doesn’t say ‘when you gonna take a day off’, and he doesn’t complain when she asks him to leave the building and take a walk if her ex comms her and they need to talk. He sticks around when she holds N.T. meetings at her place and walks her to the truck when she goes for meetings elsewhere.
The rest of the time they co-exist peacefully, either she’s writing articles for the movement, or reading the illegal pamphlets Liam gets for her, or they watch movies. He watches her cook on the rare occasions she manages to get her hands on some fresh food; watches her chew her food, eyes on her lips then her throat when she swallows.
In turn, she never asks him where he goes when he disappears for hours on end, doesn’t ask him how he got into such a state when she took him in, doesn’t poke about the past, why he hardly ever eats, why he doesn’t kill anymore. Though he does tell her about his enchanted ring, how it means he can walk in the day without harm, how many times he’s nearly lost it. And he tells her how he’s known her family for years, but utterly refuses to go into details.
And little by little they get to know each other. He tells her little of his past, she tells him not much about hers; it’s just them. She eats the cookies he brings her and she teases him, calls him her hunter-gatherer, rests her feet in his lap on the couch, and once or twice catches his eye when he sneaks looks at her.
“Jim, you need to fucking eat,” she finally snaps one night, fiddling with her locket, trying not to feel worried at how there are lines showing round his eyes that weren’t there before. It’s an indicator he’s starting to degenerate.
“Actually, I don’t.”
“I know that, asshole, but you’re starting to look like smoked fish. You’d know, if you could see yourself in the mirror.”
Jim raises his glass of bourbon, sips and rolls it round his tongue. When he swallows, he turns to face her. She needs to change the ration of vervain in her locket, way those eyes hold hers, the heat she feels in her belly, well there’s no other explanation for it, right?
“Such tender words, Bones.”
“Come on, Jim, I got some real blood, all flavors, not just ordinary old o-neg…”
“There’s people need it. No.”
“How long did you go without, you know when you came over here the first time?”
He shrugs. “Long enough. I’m fine, ‘k? Now hit play.”
“You’re gonna get weaker; what if one of the vampire hunters ambushes you when you’re out, tries to drain your blood to sell? Or one of the Pures wants to make an example of you; it’s not safe for you, Jim, not if you can’t look after yourself; come on - see sense.”
He stands up leaving his boots on the floor and walks right out of the apartment in his socks, not looking back.
She stands, trying not to shake and closes the door. Though she bolts it, she opens the window so he can get in if he’s a mind to, and goes to bed.
+++
endof part 5a and onto part 5b
Rating: NC-17
Character/Pairing: Kirk/McCoy
Word Count: ~21,500 words (this part)
A/N for this part: WWIII was a genocidal, nuclear cataclysm that ended in 2053. 50 years on, various parts of Earth remain affected by what became known as the ‘post-atomic horror.’
Characters: Spock
Intriguing snippet: “Bones, Bones, don’t be like that,” he soothes shifting so he’s got one arm round her chest and he can free the other hand to stroke her temples. “I said I wouldn’t hurt you. You have to trust me, come on Bones.” Then, with a chuckle, he fishes the gun from the back of her pants and she hears it thud as he throws it aside and it lands somewhere behind them.
Previous parts, warnings, thanks, disclaimer and additional notes are to be found in the masterpost .
Blood Ties: Chapter 5
~
Reincarnation, at least as I conceive it, does not nullify what we know about evolution and genetics. It suggests, however, that there may be two streams of evolution - the biological one and a personal one - and that during terrestrial lives these streams may interact. ~Ian Stevenson
~
Iowa, 2109
“Dr. McCoy, I need your help.” It’s like the man looking at her from the vid screen is a hologram and the power’s running out, the way he’s flickering, fading, almost disappearing before her eyes.
He must have been handsome once, he’s got full lips, his eyes are shiny, bluer than the sky used to be… before. Now his skin’s heavily lined and sallow with pronounced purple shadows under his eyes, so that it’s hard to tell how old he is. Then, they’ve all been through a lot.
“Who am I speaking with?”
The man hesitates, glances off screen and leans in, says his name like it might get him into trouble.
“Kirk, Jim Kirk.”
“How can I help you, Jim? If I can help, that is?”
One corner of his mouth twitches, like he’s highly amused by the question but doesn’t want to show it. “You can either help me a lot, or not at all. It depends…”
“On what, Jim?” Leah says, rubbing her eye with her knuckle.
“First up, you’ll need to promise not to kill me.”
Leah frowns. “I’m a doctor, I don’t generally kill anyone, not unless they back talk. Jus’ don’t take it personally if I point a gun at you.”
“Now why would I take offence?” he smirks, which for some reason irritates her more than it should. “You’re from the south - isn’t it like offering a guy a glass of lemonade on a warm day?”
“Yep, that’s about the long and short of it,” Leah quirks a smile. “Where are you?
“Not far, I’m on a public comm.” He leans to the side so she can see that he’s in a make-shift bar, a dimly lit room, ancient cheesy music playing, a few shadowy figures behind him.
“Okay, I’ll send my location,” she says.
“No need, I know how to get there.”
This should worry her, but it doesn’t. The guy doesn’t look dangerous, just desperate maybe, and she assumes that like all the rest, he’s been given her contact details by the NTs - the neo-transcendentalists - who are trying to make order from chaos. She looks at his lank hair; maybe it’s radiation, or he could be suffering from malnutrition; she won’t know for sure till she sees him in the flesh.
“Do you need treatment? I can gather some things before you come.”
“No, I’m good.” He quirks a smile that doesn’t reach his electric blue eyes and the image flickers again - damn power’s so unreliable.
“Really? You look like something the dog’s been keepin’ under the porch.” She narrows her eyes and peers more closely at the screen as the face looks vaguely familiar - maybe she’s seen it on a flier somewhere, maybe not; there are a lot of wanted and fuck, she’s so tired they’re all starting to look the same. Or maybe she’s treated him in the past - who knows…but he’d have mentioned it if she had.
Jim shrugs and leans towards the screen. “See you in ten.”
+++
She comms Dieghan; they’ve agreed it’s a sensible precaution given her insistence on treating anyone, no matter what their political beliefs. She forces herself not to return his smile when his tan face appears on screen.
“Hey!”
“Liam, I’ve got a patient coming over in a few, can you run a check on him?” He looks mildly disappointed that her call’s all business - well, he’ll just have to get over it she thinks, hoping how flushed she looks won’t register with him. “Jim Kirk? Caucasian, maybe sixty, seventy or so, slim build from what I could make out...”
“Leah, it’s late - how many times have I got to tell you it’s not wise to just let anyone..?”
Tell her? She lets it ride this time but... “I won’t refuse anyone treatment, Liam, you know that. Now run the goddamn check while I get some supplies ready...” Because she isn’t going to chat, no way; it was one night, that was all.
First she kicks aside some clothing, then decides it’s pointless and powers up the scanner while she searches for her gun; she checks it’s loaded before she tucks it in the back of her jeans.
She leans over the screen when Liam calls her back. “Which one is he?”
Half a dozen images are up on screen and she scans them quickly.
“He’s none of those, Liam-“
“Okay, in that case it might be this guy; I haven’t got an image for you, but the description fits - looks like he’s a hybrid; a human turned vampire - an old one too. You might wanna think twice about...”she twitches her lips and he stops himself. Good. “... files show he’s got quite a rep though nothing in over fifty years.” Liam frowns, looks to the side, back at her (she hopes) impassive face.
“Vampire? Okay...that’s why you haven’t got an image...thanks.”
“Yep.” He sees her lean forward to cut the connection and holds up his hand, “Wait - I’ll comm Spock - he’s not far. Check in half an hour, okay.”
“Okay - stop goddamn worrying, I can handle myself.”
“If you need to shoot him, make it right to the head, then you’ve got to follow up with a stake; you got something you can use?”
“I’ll find something; gotta go, thanks.” The second she hangs up, she looks up at the door and it chimes a moment later. She’ll have to improvise on the stake, looks like.
She can barely make Kirk out on the screen. He’s alone and doesn’t look desperate or dangerous, just like he needs a shower.
Kirk leans on the doorway when she pulls it open. He looks worse in the flesh. He’s tall, broad-shouldered but skinny as hell, as if he’s lost a lot of musculature, going by how baggy his clothes are.
“You gonna invite me in?” he says, bright eyes boring into her. He indicates the room behind her with a big, broad hand.
“Sure.” If he’s a vampire, she knows he needs an invite and this will be a subtle check, seeing how he reacts.
He hesitates, raises thick eyebrows, so she rolls her eyes and adds, “Come in, why don’t you?”
Leah steps aside and watches him move awkwardly to the center of her room, like he’s holding an injury or something.
Given the state of his clothes, Kirk ought to smell like a bum, but though he looks like he hasn’t showered in months, there’s a faint whiff of something floral, though she can’t place it; it’s been a long fucking time since she’s been anywhere green, and since the war started who the hell has cut flowers anymore? Her sense of smell has been dulled, anyways, by sewage, antiseptic, and broken bodies - the only smell lifts a girl’s spirits these days is a bit of contraband bourbon.
“I’d apologize for the mess, but yanno, at least I have walls.”
“I can see that. You got any booze?”
Leah nods. “Some little things we can’t forgo, eh?”
She fetches an unlabeled bottle from her bedside table and tips it into a tumbler. “No cooties, I’m a doctor,” she says resting the glass on the coffee table. She folds her arms. “Take a seat.”
Glass in hand, he slumps into the armchair onto a pile of clothing. He knocks back the drink in one and lets out a little groan, ”Fuck that’s good.”
He hasn’t taken his eyes off her for a second and she looks away, a little dry mouthed, trying to figure out why she feels like they’ve met before.
“You want anything to eat? I haven’t got a whole heap in, I’ll warn you.” Damn, he’s skinnier than an alley cat.
Kirk shakes his head, leans back in the armchair, stretching long legs in front of him. His sneakers are worn through, the laces missing on one, and his leather jacket is bunched round his chest like it’s several sizes too big. But everyone’s living on scavenged clothing anyway - she ain’t no celebrity wife herself. “You sure? Looks like you haven’t eaten in a while?”
“Don’t worry about it.” Finally his eyes leave her, to dart around the room; maybe he’s wondering if she’s bugged. Though she knows she isn’t - Spock’s swept the place recently enough. “You won’t have anything I can eat; I’ve…I’ve got a lot of allergies.” He looks directly at her, “Special diet and all.”
Pride it’ll be; he doesn’t want to come off as desperate - she gets that.
She watches long, elegant fingers grip the armrests; an antique looking ring glints in the lamplight and she wonders why he hasn’t hocked it - she hasn’t got fuck left herself. “Maybe I can give you a protein shot or something? You’re mighty skinny.”
“Well, we’re none of us what we were, eh?”
“Ain’t that the truth?” She grabs her med kit and drags a chair close. Okay, he’s not going to say why he’s there and she won’t push. She glances at her watch. “Let me take a look at you.”
“No, I said I wasn’t injured, okay?” He practically growls at her and she starts, forcing herself to take a breath, then lifts a placating hand - she’s used to folk snapping when they’re injured. When he doesn’t pull away, she takes his wrist gently; touching him is enough for her to confirm Dieghan had the right Jim Kirk; he’s not human. Kirk’s skin is too cool; and it feels like satin, sure satin that’s been dragged behind a steer, but it doesn’t feel quite right; the veins are too pronounced, he’s too damned pale. She swallows; while she doesn’t condone the persecution of the hybrids, Kirk doesn’t know that, does he? Unless he’s reading her mind like they say vampires can.
Kirk holds her gaze, challenging her, eyes fierce and bright. “You gonna turn me in?”
“Should I?”
He half closes his eyes, voice even. “I dunno. If you want to.”
“Don’t be an asshole, Kirk. You don’t look like you’re gonna hurt me.”
“You shouldn’t trust people, Bones.”
Now where did that dumb name come from? She decides not to comment, if anything he needs to trust her too. “If you let me scan you, I can make my own damn mind up.” She raises an eyebrow. “No charge.”
“That’s a shame, I was looking forward to coming to some kind of arrangement…”
Well, if he’s flirting with her, he can’t mean any harm, right?
She takes up the scanner and holds it to his face. It stutters and she thumps it against the palm of her hand. “Piece of shit, “ she growls and glances up at him. “Not you, this,” she explains with a frown. She resets the scanner and gazes at the readings. No pulse, no lung function. Fuck. Definitely a vampire and he knows she knows because he unravels her fingers and takes it from her; she finds that she can’t stop him, can’t move even.
“You’re kind of pretty to be a doctor,” he says mildly, eyes sweeping her face, settling on her lips for a moment then dropping to examine the readings. He tosses the scanner aside and she baulks when he reaches for her jaw. His eyes are like fucking magnets; she shouldn’t have allowed this, should have known to look away, but that goddamn smell, it’s…her eyes droop a little. Fuck, he’s compelling her - she’s heard about this, how vampires draw their prey in and control their minds so they can’t struggle, don’t want to, how they give themselves over willingly. Her gaze floats to his lips which she notes are cracked, almost the same color as his sallow skin; what the hell happened to him? Why does he look so worn out when, way she understands it, vampires are supposed to be beautiful, eternally young and flawless?
Then, just like that he releases her and she draws in a ragged breath, still finding she can’t move immediately, though her heart-rate is picking up again. She twitches her fingers experimentally, like she’s come out of a coma.
“Pretty. To be a doctor,“ she repeats his words slowly, her voice thick with weary sarcasm, and she makes sure to look away. “What? Were you turned in the last goddamn century? I haven’t heard anyone say that about a woman in…well, not since I last watched a shitty old movie.”
“Not last century - you get two more guesses before I give you the big prize,” he says. He blinks and releases his hypnotic hold on her, but rather than try and escape, she finds her medical curiosity overwhelms her.
“Just tell me; do I look like I’ve got all fuckin’ night?”
Kirk lets out a bark of laughter. “You McCoys,” he says, shaking his head, and his tone is almost fond. “1793, seeing as you are pretty.” He raises ridiculously thick eyebrows and an indulgent look crosses his features. “I’ve never told anyone that before, you know.”
“Well, aren’t I the lucky one?” She leans back then brushes her hair from her face. What the hell did he mean by that? ‘You McCoys’? “How come they didn’t get you, Jim?”
“They did. I escaped.”
“Didn’t they chip you?”
He bends forward, moving the hair at the nape of his neck aside and she reaches out, touching the partly healed wound. He winces but doesn’t stop her examining it. “Why’s it still a mess? Thought you guys…vamps, whatever, had super healing powers.”
“Like I said, I haven’t eaten in a while.”
“How long’s ‘a while’?”
“Guess it depends what you mean by ‘eating.’”
“I could fix up some blood for you.”
“I’m fine - stuff’s not meant for vampire food; it wouldn’t be right.”
Now she’s really fucking confused. It looks like he’s been denying himself the one thing he needs: blood - no wonder he looks like shit.
“I’ve got some synthetic blood or will that offend your high morals?”
He looks at his hands covered in liver spots then back at her with big, wide eyes. “Go ahead, but don’t hold it against me if I heave all over this nice rug of yours.”
“The state of this place, I doubt you’d notice,” she says standing to move to the kitchen. She walks round the pile of medical equipment heaped to one side of the room where it’s kept overnight.
“If you’ve got no cash to buy the stuff, why don’t you hock that ring of yours? Looks like it might be worth a pretty penny.”
“This? You kidding me? It’s got sentimental value.” Another thin smile that doesn’t reach his eyes.
She doesn’t tell him, of course, he’ll probably figure it out soon enough, but in the kitchenette she unpacks a bag of real blood and leaves the synthesizer running, so he’ll think she’s processing blood substitute, then goes back to join him.
“Who gave it to you?” she asks pointing at the ring. “It’s real pretty. Or is it some kind of trophy?”
He looks at her through downcast lashes. “Don’t worry, I paid for it - I gave up torture a while back - along with a bunch of other shit I used to really enjoy. Plus, it reminds me of a friend of mine.”
“You have friends?” She can’t contain the sneer in her voice, feels a blush on her neck when Jim looks down, and swallows.
“Sure. Once.”
“What else have you given up, Jim?”
“You got all night?”
+++
She cracks open her last bottle, pours two generous measures and settles down on one end of the couch. “You’d better eat first,” she says wedging her glass between her thighs to free her hands so she can tie her hair up in a pony tail. Jim glances at her neck briefly then contemplates the bag of blood that’s been balancing on the pile of ancient medical journals for a quarter of an hour at least.
“I’m not hungry.” He folds his arms and sits back with the glass resting on his chest. Great - a vampire with an eating disorder; boy does she ever attract the weirdos.
“It’s always surprised me vampires can drink alcohol,” she says conversationally, rolling her first mouthful and savoring it. When this bottle’s gone, who knows when there’ll be any more.
“Well, maybe it’s proof there is a god after all.” Jim quirks a smile but doesn’t look at her. “And immortal life would really drag without it, right?”
She leans towards him, touches his arm, smooth and lightly haired and as cool as porcelain. “Listen, I know you’re hungry but, if you don’t do it for yourself, do it for me, you know ‘cause I took you in. I’d like to video it if I can. I’ve never seen the transformation - I don’t think there’s anything been filmed before - consider it as payment for the blood if that makes you feel better. Truth is, I haven’t done any kind of research in years - too busy dealing with, well...”
He shoots her a side-long look and nods. “Okay but it’s not that quick, won’t make too much difference, not like animal blood, or the good stuff.”
Good stuff. This is a killer, despite what he says about being reformed. She wishes she’d left her hair down; the way he keeps looking at her neck is making her nervous, but it’s too damned hot, plus she’s convinced herself he won’t try anything. “Well, I need what I’ve got, so you’ll have to put up with synthesised blood instead. Come on Jim, give yourself a break.”
His eyes seem to glitter amber for a second and his voice is a hiss when he answers. “I don’t deserve a break - I really don’t give a shit anymore. What’s the point? The good times are over, long gone. There’s only a handful of my kind left, all neutered, hunted down. It’s like the war all over again.”
“This still is a war, Jim, in case you hadn’t noticed.” Not the all-out nuclear war of before, but a personal war against xenophobia, persecution, poverty, food shortages, radiation sickness, poisoned water tables, goddamn rebels - it’s a fucking utopia is what it is, “and it’s not just your kind that have felt the brunt of the cleansing.”
“You shouldn’t use the same fucking language that bastard uses, Bones - cleansing - like it’s feng shui or something.”
“What Green did, what his followers are still doing is wrong and evil, but we’ll stop them, you’ll see if we don’t. There’s more against him than for him; it’s fucking tragic he’s got away with killing so many of the rads, but there’s plenty trying to stop him, people like Liam Dieghan, he’s got a lot of followers. We’ve gotta believe this isn’t the way it’s still gonna be.” She takes in his bored expression, like he knows this shit already, right. “Anyway, what’s it to you, Jim? How many have you killed in your time?”
“It would take me an eternity to kill as many as he did in a fucking hour. Don’t insult me.” His voice is a hiss and she wonders at how his lips are glistening with saliva, at the illogic of the virus in his blood, how it affects his physiology, with some functions present, others not. “Get your camera.”
She picks up her camera and points it at him. She knows the image won’t be very clear, they still haven’t figured out how to preserve vampire images adequately, but she also knows many of the quirks of what vampires can and can’t do, the inconsistencies have a lot to do with their age, their diet. Most die young, reckless in their first years, taking considerable risks and never get to build up their strength with the passing of time. And human blood is the elixir of eternal life, that which gives them strength. She knows that they can survive on animal blood too, but animals are protected these days, and those used for food, well, they’re back to the old ways, every part of the animal being used with nothing to spare. She winces at the memory of the taste of blood-pudding. At any rate, if Jim had been an Old One, a vampire who’d feasted exclusively on human blood, one who hadn’t taken to the ground for long stretches of time, she wouldn’t have a chance in hell of capturing any image at all. So this is a real opportunity.
“What’re you going to use this for? You could get shot just for talking to me,” Jim says casually, tearing the bag open with his teeth.
“I’ve survived this long, Jim. It’ll be a nice break from the routine of patching up a bunch of miscreants; now now shut up and smile for the camera.”
He wrinkles his nose, takes a breath just for show, and sips. She watches his lips, the pronounced cracks. Nothing.
“Drink all of it, come on, stop being an asshole.”
His eyes crinkle and he looks at her almost fondly. “McCoys - potty-mouths the whole lot of you.” He’s said something like this before...
“What do you know about my family?” she says, glancing at the screen, the record sign is pulsing - good.
Jim shrugs, taking a deep glug from the bag, his wrinkled fingers squeezing it gently. She glances at the image on the screen, at the skin sagging on his neck, his hair lank and thin - it’s not sharp, but it’ll do. Even in the poor image, his eyes are young, vibrant and clear.
“How long can you last without eating?”
“I dunno. Longest I’ve been is when I went to ground a while back. And it depends on what you ate before that. Time before, in the 1890s, I was on a full diet of human blood. Good fucking times, I tell ya.” She winces and he pats her knee. “That was a long time ago, Bones, don’t worry. I’m reformed you might say. My name is Jim Kirk and I’m an alcoholic,” he mimes standing at a microphone using the bag of blood as a prop. She doesn’t laugh though she gets it, how a vampire’s blood-lust will never go away, how he’s saying he has to fight the craving all the time. And now, since the end of the war, since the purge on vamps, as well as other alien species - what used to be called demons in the old days - the vamps, many of them reformed, trying to live within society, have been almost wiped out.
“Why’d you go to ground, Jim, was someone after you even then?”
Something dark passes over his face. “Could say I was suffering from depression. Immortal life’s a strain at the best of times. I never found a companion, you know, someone who I wanted to hang with. Well, no one who wanted to hang with me. I needed a break, so I went to ground. The bombs woke me.” He leans towards her conspiratorially. “Now, if I’d known the world was gonna be this cool, I’d have stayed out here.” Leah wonders if the alcohol has loosened his tongue, the way he’s saying so much - he doesn’t appear to have been affected by the drink in any other way, yet he’s enjoying it. She’ll have to look into that later - this is such an opportunity to find out more, she has to stop herself grinning.
“Maybe I should mix this with the booze…” he says, like she mentioned drink out loud. When she curls her lips, he winks and takes another long pull on the blood. He leaves a little drop on his lip and she watches, swallows as his tongue skates around his lower lip. He bares his teeth for her, and winks for the camera.
“You know,” he says, his voice softer, more melodic as the blood begins to heal him, the sharp edges evening out, “if you let me bite you, you could watch me disappear on the screen. How cool would that be?”
“It would be interesting.” Her mouth goes a little dry and she concentrates on keeping the camera steady while she reaches for her glass.
She doesn’t know how long it takes; it’s like watching the sunrise, like watching a flower grow with stop animation, frame by frame; right before her eyes, little by little, his hair thickens, changes from dull, gray blond to almost golden and she swears it grows a centimeter or two in length, though she’s sure part of it’s an optical illusion, like when you stare at a flickering candle flame and it appears to dance when in reality it’s burning normally.
“Take your jacket off, Jim,” she says wanting to see the changes before he’s all fixed and it’s too late.
“I thought you’d never ask,” he says cockily, and there’s a twinkle in his eye that wasn’t there before under lashes that shine and flutter when previously they looked like the last hairs in the plughole.
“Hey, don’t flatter yourself - I’ve seen more dicks, vamp ones included - than you have. You ain’t gonna make me blush.”
“I’ll bet,” Jim mumbles to himself, lowering his eyes, rolling his neck as he maybe enjoys how pliable it’s becoming. “Got anymore where that came from?”
She flushes, suddenly sure from the way he’s looking at her that he knows this is real blood. “Well yeah, thanks to the synthesizer, course I have; think I spend all my hard earned cash on fripperies? I need to keep a stock - but this’ll have to be the last or the records will show and draw attention to me.”
“You keep records?” Yeah, he knows.
She hands the camera to him, telling him to keep filming, and goes to the kitchenette to fetch the bag from the cooler, giving up on the pretence in case it makes him mad.
She nearly bursts the bag against her thigh when she sees the sight before her. She can only describe it as magic, though she knows one day the science will catch up and there will be an explanation for how this happens, but for now, she’s like a child, unquestioning, awe-struck at the beautiful creature in her room.
Jim’s removed more than his jacket; he’s standing shirtless, creamy skin glowing in the lamplight, caramel colored nipples peaked and as prominent against his blank canvas skin as the fine trail of tawny hair leading to the waistband of his jeans. His face is flawless again, other than the pock marks he must have got before he was turned and, if she thought his eyes were bright before, and young, she had no fucking idea what ‘jewel-like’ meant until now. As he moves his head to look at her, they seem to change color, flickering with glitters of gold then black. His pupils are dilated, like he’s sexually aroused. Purely for scientific reasons of course, she looks down at his groin and, yeah, Kirk’s certainly got back in touch with his inner teen. To her irritation, she feels a reflex shot of arousal course through her, her cheeks burning.
“Well?” he says. One fucking word but loaded, bursting with innuendo, invitation and sheer pride. And why not? He’s fucking beautiful.
“What were you fourteen when you first became a vamp?”
He laughs and hands the camera back to her, then lower his hands, stroking downwards to the waistband of his jeans. Her breath catches and she watches, temporarily dumb-struck. He pops the button and smirks at her. “Shall I?”
She swallows, closes her eyes for a moment, trying to ignore the pounding in her head, the fire between her legs. “Yes, this is interesting stuff.” How she said that without letting a little moan escape she has no idea. She’s sure that her physical reaction is due to his compelling her.
He takes the bag from her, tears it open with less care than the last time so some spills down his wrist. He licks his hand and fingers wantonly, unblinkingly posing for the camera, for her. He tosses it aside and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.
He’s filling out even as she watches - it’s fucking amazing the muscles on his stomach becoming more defined and he’s straighter, appears even taller. As he lowers his jeans (why doesn’t it surprise her that he’s commando?) his thighs are strong, buttermilk smooth and lightly haired. His finger nails seem to shine as he steps out of his jeans, then turns a slow circle.
“I should have kept those on so you had something to tuck my tip into,” he grins lazily and folds over, touching his toes with the flexibility of a ballet dancer, the muscles in his back rippling as he moves with mesmerizing grace. Then, to her surprise, he leans on his hands and effortlessly raises his legs in the air, walking on his hands, then drops down with a little bounce.
She’s managed not to look directly at his cock, but she can tell now, as it bobs till he comes to rest, he’s half hard. Shit.
“So, that was interesting - yanno, in a scientific way?” Jim says, leonine and graceful in front of her. Fuck, she doesn’t need a camera, she needs a piece of goddamn marble and a lifetime to do this justice.
She examines the camera’s screen and her eyes widen; His image has become even less defined, and it flickers.
It’s like he’s read her mind when he says, “Want to see me disappear?”
“Yes, no - wait.” She knows vampires move preternaturally fast, but when he’s suddenly standing right in front of her and they’re eye to eye, she can’t help but let out a gasp of surprise and lowers the camera.
“You’re fucking tall, Leah McCoy.” His nose is a thumb’s-width from hers but she can’t feel a single breath and though she knows what this is in front of her, the scary fairy-tales have a hold on her as much as the next person. She feels her scalp prickle, her heart rate quicken and her head’s beginning to swim - it takes all her will power to take a step away from him.
“So they tell me, Jim Kirk.” He’s back in front of her, even though she doesn’t remember him moving and it’s like she’s lying on her back staring up at a perfect sky looking into those eyes, cloud-white skin dominating her peripheral vision. “Stop doing that,” she says with little authority in her voice.
His middle finger trails down the side of her neck and even as she deep breathes to try and calm herself like she does in surgery (only here and now, it’s not goddamn working). She feels herself fucking aching for him to take her. She can only describe it as a need to be entered, torn open and emptied. Under his spell, she’s like an insect caught by hypnotic eyes.
Her hands are loose and slack by her hips and she’s in danger of dropping the camera. Then, miraculously, she finds some of that McCoy reserve - the thing’s made her deal with her ex, deal with the aftermath of the war; the rations, the fucking drawn faces, and the inhumanity. Cursing a blue streak, because she’s got to break his hold on her before he drains her, she swings the camera back and smacks Jim in the side of the head with every ounce of mental and physical strength she can muster.
He goes flying clutching his head, and she automatically raises the camera to record the effects of a vampire equivalent to an adrenaline rush, the way bumps appear on his forehead and his eyes turn gold before her. He’s got a fine contusion but even as he rights himself, it’s disappearing right before her eyes, like milk in water. Any illusion remaining that he’s human, shatters into a million pieces, as if she’d thrown a giant mirror to the ground. It crosses her mind she’s in for about as much bad luck. His face is feral and his canines descend, eyes yellow, wolf-like, glaring murderously at her.
Dropping the camera, she leaps to the door and struggles to get it open, her hands slipping and fumbling over the keypad.
Jim growls, actually growls, then like air sucked from a punctured lung, she feels herself being drawn back and lifted by super-human hands so her feet dangle uselessly beneath her. For some minutes, she manages to flail and kick crazier than a sprayed roach; Jim’s only letting her move at all because it amuses him, same way her big brother did when she was a kid, only deadly now.
“You gonna kill me, you piece of horse-shit? Put me down so I can knock you in the head, you weasel-assed son of a b…”
His cock’s pressing against the back of her pants and his mouth’s close to her ear, firm and dry and, now he’s all better, bless his soul, it’s effortless for him, holding her in place, patiently waiting till she exhausts herself into stillness.
“Bones, Bones, don’t be like that,” he soothes shifting so he’s got one arm round her chest and he can free the other hand to stroke her temples. “I said I wouldn’t hurt you. You have to trust me, come on Bones.” Then, with a chuckle, he fishes the gun from the back of her pants and she hears it thud as he throws it aside and it lands somewhere behind them.
“Jesus Christ already, will you stop callin’ me that? Put. Me. Down!”
He presses his nose into the back of her head and inhales deeply. “Fuck. You McCoys are my Achilles heel, you know that?” There it is again - he mentioned her family earlier, but before she can react, he releases her. She drops, lands hard on her ass, legs akimbo and fucking livid. By the time she’s up on her feet and fished a syringe full of sedative out of her med kit, he’s sprawled on the couch in just his jeans, idly flicking through one of her mags.
“That won’t hurt me, Bones. Come and sit down, no hard feelings. I was just messing with you.” She doesn’t move, knowing the sedative is probably as much use as an ice dagger on a hot day, but she’s damned if she’s going to put it down.
He stands and lifts his hands to placate her, and when she doesn’t move, he gazes at her intently. Her hand flies up to her face and she shields her eyes like she’s protecting them from the sun. “Stop compelling me, Kirk! This is no way to repay my hospitality.”
“I can’t help it, Bones, it’s my animal magnetism.” He doesn’t sounds sorry and advances towards her all graceful, deadly seduction and she can’t move again. He takes her wrists, lowers them for her and takes a step so he’s standing between her feet. He sniffs her neck, strokes her hair out of her eyes and then puts his hand under her jaw, tilting her face so he can look at her. “Don’t be scared of me, Bones, I’d never hurt you, I’d kill anyone who tried.”
“I don’t want you to kill anyone, Jim…” her voice is ragged, distant to her own ears, and her field of vision is swamped by the amber-blue of his demon eyes, the scent of him, each breath she draws in intoxicating her further; she thinks about her gun, remembering what Dieghan said she should do, but how can she help herself if she can’t even move? Dammit, she’s getting soft, she should have expected this to happen; maybe the Pures are right - you can’t trust vampires, any of them…
“But you can trust me; I’ll look after you, keep you…”
He never gets to finish the sentence because there’s an ear-splitting sound and the door flies open. She hears a hiss and then a pop, and Jim’s grip loosens and he drops at her feet like his strings have been cut.
“Doctor, you failed to check in at the allotted time. That was remiss of you. I trust you are unharmed?”
Leah looks down at Jim who’s apparently unconscious, steps over him and picks up a pillow from the couch. She turns to throw it at her savior; it would have hit him full in the face if he didn’t have such excellent reflexes. He catches it mid air and raises a questioning eyebrow.
“That’s for breaking my door down, Spock. Imagine it was a sock in the jaw - that’s what I wanted to do - stop treating me like I’m made of goddamn glass. I can handle myself.” Why the fuck does she need to keep reminding people of this?
“I can vouch for that,” comes Jim’s voice from the floor where he’s come to.
“You were not in danger?”
“Not exactly…I don’t know.”
“It is imperative you call in, Doctor. It is illogical to break protocol. As you can see it results in wasted resources,” Spock says indicating the door.
“Hey, if I stand up, you gonna shoot me again?” Jim tries.
They both look down at him; blood leaks from where the vervain-laced bullet entered his shoulder. “Stay there,” Leah grumbles. “I’ll get the bullet extractor - only just cleaned the blasted thing…men and their goddamn pissing contests…”
+++
“Okay, Spock, Christ on a bike, I promise I’ll call in like a good girl next time.”
Spock nods then arches an eyebrow and waits. “And thanks,” she growls, tossing the instruments into the sterilizer, removing her gloves and throwing them into the container ready for incineration.
“There, that didn’t hurt, did it?” Jim smirks from where he’s stretched out on the couch.
Leah strides across the room and cuffs him hard across the top of his head. “That’s for compelling me, you ass. I don’t appreciate the way you abused my hospitality.” She ignores how Jim and Spock exchange sympathetic looks and roots around under the kitchen sink for booze she knows she doesn’t have. “Goddammit, I’ll make coffee - same herbal shit for you, Spock?”
“That would be agreeable,” Spock says evenly.
“And sit down, you’re making me nervous.” She fills the kettle and calls over her shoulder, “Oh, and by the way, Spock, this is Jim - he doesn’t have a beating heart either. You two should get on just fine.”
+++
Jim’s entry wound takes almost three hours to heal. She takes photos every 15 minutes, and though the definition’s shit now Jim’s on blood, since the vervain’s still in his system there’s some kind of image.
In-between times, she listens to him and Spock get to know each other. They’re an unlikely pair but there’s an obvious connection from the get go, and despite the fact that Spock shot him, Jim lets it go in an instant. She overhears him say as much when she waits for the coffee to brew.
“Hey man, she’s lucky to have you watching her back. I’d have done the same in your position.”
“Mr. Kirk, Dr. McCoy ‘watches my back’ also, as you so interestingly put it. She is exceptionally skilled with a variety of weapons, and trained in hand-to-hand combat.”
Now she sits in one chair, feet up on another, ignoring the way Jim’s eyes follow her slightest movement. Of course this is all bravado on her part; she didn’t stand a chance against Jim’s compulsion - it wasn’t a level playing field but she’s not giving Spock the satisfaction.
“I’ve not met a Vulcan before,” Jim’s saying.
“The probability of you having encountered a Vulcan is indeed one in-”
“That’ll be because most Vulcans think we’re barbarians, Jim: a lost cause,” Leah breaks in, “and if they do hang out with humans, they stick to the high-falutin’ ones.” She scowls at Spock and raises her third coffee to her lips. “For some reason, Spock here likes hanging out with the likes of me and Dieghan - you earned any street-cred points back home yet, Spock?”
“Mr. Kirk, Dr. McCoy is understating the situation. Liam Dieghan’s vision for this society, I believe, is a progressive one. Under his guidance many humans are re-building civilisation along-”
“-Vulcan lines?” Leah rolls her eyes. “Spare us!”
“Since a Vulcan expedition crash-landed on Earth in the 1950s, the belief of my people was that Earth was not ready for space-exploration. Indeed, the xenophobic views held by the majority would have proved counter-productive when making contact with other sentient species.”
“But you don’t agree with that?” Jim says, smiling. “That’s why you stayed?”
“Affirmative. It seemed illogical not to give humans a chance, as you would put it.”
“And boy we proved you wrong, didn’t we Spock? Eugenics War, another Word War, nuclear devastation, the eco-terrorists, the continued persecution, rebels...shall I go on?” Leah drains her coffee wishing she could get her hands on sugar from somewhere.
“It is unnecessary, Doctor, I am well aware of the failings you describe.” Spock sits with his hands resting on his lap, his gun on the table between them. “However, we have observed many civilisations follow cycles which involve barbarism - I argued the position that with the appropriate guidance, Earth will change.”
“They don’t like him, Jim. Oh, and they’re not big buddies with the Andorians either, the little matter of hostility between the two planets being something our friend doesn’t mention here, notice...”
Spock doesn’t react. “Indeed, my beliefs are at variance with those currently held by Vulcan High Command. They have not expressed like or dislike, Doctor; that would be an emotional response. They have allowed me to stay here, collect data, and advise Mr. Diegham.”
“What about you, Bones? You involved in the research?”
“Me? I’m just a simple country doctor - I patch folk up.”
“The doctor is displaying modesty, Mr. Kirk,” Spock says as Leah rises to take another photo of Jim’s shoulder. “She is involved with the movement against the Greens, those who would continue with the persecution of non-Terrans, the eradication of those suffering from radiation sickness-”
“Come on, Spock, call them ‘rads’, it won’t hurt you to use the odd abbreviation, I promise,” Leah interjects, a little embarrassed by his words.
Spock continues, ignoring her sarcasm: he’s had a lot of practice, after all. “She is involved on a daily basis and, despite her inability to control her emotional responses, is an excellent role-model and has frequently featured in my reports to High Command.”
Jim looks at her, a grin on his face, and she feels another annoying ripple of arousal at the way his tongue flicks across his lower lip. “Why do you live here, right next to the contamination zone, Bones?”
Leah shrugs. “Rather than in say, San Francisco where it’s safe as houses?”
“Yeah,” Jim says, staring at her intently.
“I’m a doctor, Jim, and there are patients here...” Her voice trails off and she can feel her face flushing. He doesn’t know her, how can she begin to explain why she’s here rather than say living somewhere safe, with at least the illusion of how things used to be. She changes the subject. “Spock, tell him about the so-called Hellmouth.”
Jim sits more upright at this. “I know that place, Spock, I’m old, older than you even so there’s not much you can tell me about it.”
“Then you are aware that since we discovered the origin of the Hellmouth, many wanted to destroy it and all life-forms emanating from it, since Philip Green sees no difference between alien life forms, demons, nor those suffering from radiation sickness?”
“Of course, but what’s that got to do with you?” Jim says.
“For many years, even as far back as the late twentieth century, there were government programs studying what we used to refer to as demons, yourself included.
“With the help of Vulcan scientists who examined the site, we learned of an alien craft that crash-landed there thousands of years ago. The so called demons were in fact unwilling captives in a menagerie, taken from all over the galaxy.”
“Aliens,” Jim nods. “Imagine that, stranded in the middle of nowhere, your physiology affected by the alien environment, no one to tell you who you are or what you’re supposed to be...”
Leah swallows, trying to imagine just that, how it must have been to be one of those captives, to spill out of the ground disorientated and mad into a hostile world. And vampires like Jim, it turns out, are hybrids. An alien life form originating from the menagerie which adapted to inhabit a host, humans being the most susceptible.
“And since they are as much in need of guidance as humans, I have taken a particular interest in studying ‘demons’, as they continue to be known.” Spock finishes.
“What do you prefer Jim, being described as a demon or an alien-hybrid?” Leah tries not to smile at him, though it’s hard.
He smiles back at that and Leah rubs a hand across her face, picking up her camera and watching the video she shot of Jim earlier, slipping the head-phones in so she can enjoy it in peace, leaving them to talk.
She fasts forward through the early part of the recording, glances at Jim talking to Spock, comparing how he is now, beautiful and eternally young, no longer the elderly man who first entered her apartment. Then she gets to the part of the vid where she handed Jim the camera and raises an eyebrow. As soon as she left him, he angled it to follow her ass as she went to the kitchen to get more blood. Her ears and neck burn when she sees how he turned the camera back on himself. A smug, pale, fading face staring back at her, filling the screen - he winks, “Missed you, Bones,” he says.
What the hell? She’s not the only one who thinks they’ve met before.
+++
It takes some persuading to get Spock to leave but when Leah insists that she only has one couch, one bed, and no more herb tea, he swaps his gun adapted for vervain bullets, hands her another round and takes her gun in exchange.
It’s late, really late and she looks at Jim warily when they’re alone. “I’m going to bed - do you need a blanket or something? Guess you don’t feel the cold…”
“I do when I’m shot through with vervain, Bones.”
She could ask him now, why he calls her that, what he meant when he said he missed her in the video, but she’s so tired she doesn’t have the energy for revelations and any more intensity.
She comms Liam quickly before bed, tells him all is well and Spock’s headed home. She doesn’t mention Jim’s still there - Spock will fill him in if necessary.
She lies in bed, remembering how it felt to be temporarily in Jim’s thrall; she resists the temptation to allow her mind to replay the sensations she felt, how aroused she was by the way he spoke to her, the way he sniffed her skin. It occurs to her that he looked as compelled by her as she was by him, only she wasn’t making him feel like that.
Fuck it, she needs to sleep, no time for this bullshit; tomorrow’s not many hours away and she drifts off, curiously feeling safer than she has for years, the image of that intent, aquamarine stare following her into her dreams.
+++
Jim’s gone when she rises in the morning. She denies it’s disappointment she feels when she reads the note on the coffee table, a simple Thanks, Bones, x and no indication of where he’s gone, when and if he’ll be back. So that’s all he wanted from her, food, only too proud to ask out-right. And now he’s all ‘perfect’ and whole, he’s gone. Fine.
She heads for the kitchenette to brew coffee before she’s fit to begin loading up and moving the med supplies. “Well, I guess that’s that,” she says out loud.
But it isn’t.
Her make-shift clinic is in the apartment next to hers; the rest of the building’s abandoned, bombed-out and fucked, her home patched up with an illegal supply of power fixed up by Spock who dismissed her qualms about stealing with an, “It is for the greater good, doctor, you are one of the few medics who will treat patients without question. You are much-needed and many would suffer without you.”
Yeah, she’s a fucking saint. That’s why she doesn’t necessarily know where her next meal’s coming from, nor her next dime. Though, she thinks, the box under the treatment bed is filling up nicely with an assortment of gifts from the morning’s patients: a small bottle of contraband, some chocolate (or what passes for chocolate these days) an apple, and a pair of previously owned (but clean) silk panties. She had to say no to the kitten. “I hate cats,” she lied. Truth is she can’t bear the thought of it dying one day when someone inevitably poaches it for a meal. Plus its big staring eyes reminded her of Jim and she doesn’t want to think about that asshole, thank you very much.
After a hasty lunch of stale cookies and more coffee (black, no sugar because who the hell has cream or sugar anymore?) she’s stitching up some guy she’s sure is a guerrilla (though no idea which side he’s on) and the door flies open.
“Hey, Bones!”
“Ever heard of fuckin’ knocking, Kirk?” she says mildly, not taking her eyes off her patient, though her heart does skip a beat, she notices. She nods at the guy on the bed and he pulls his shirt back on. The guerrilla looks at Jim warily who, in daylight, is obviously a hybrid, the color of his skin, the glitter of his eyes give him away big time, to say nothing of how healthy he looks compared to other folk you’ll meet these days - herself included. She steps between them since her patient is obviously some faction of the Pures, the way he’s sneering at Jim.
“Your guard said you wouldn’t mind,” Jim says, grinning ear to ear. He’s carrying a beat-up box and she really doesn’t want to know what’s inside.
“Remind me to fire her.” Though it’s hard to fire a volunteer.
“Don’t be like that, Bones. She’s a loyal friend to the cause. I asked her first and she was very…accommodating.”
Great, that means the vervain’s out of his system already since he had to have compelled the guard to get past her.
“Don’t try and smooth-talk me like you did her, Kirk, I’m a doctor, I’m busy. Back in the day women might have been impressed by your romantic, creature-of-the-night bs, not me - so save it.” Jim reacts with a flicker of his tongue over teeth and an ‘are you sure?’ face.
The door snicks shut, the patient’s gone and they both look to the bed, at the pile of swabs in a dish, and the bag of coffee the guy left behind as payment.
“You could open a store,” Jim says smoothly.
“And have it burned to the ground by the Greens next day? No fuckin’ thank you.” She takes the package and tosses it under the bed. “Now what do you want? Much as I enjoy exchanging pleasantries with you, I’ve got patients waiting.”
She pushes past him and calls down the hall to the line of expectant faces, “Next!” A woman with a thin head of hair shambles towards her. Jim takes a seat by Leah’s desk and balances the box on his lap. Damn, he should stop grinning already. “Don’t mind him,” she says to the woman, pulling on fresh gloves. “He’s got nowhere to go. Want me to throw him out?”
Her patient shakes her head wearily and Leah pushes the step-up stool over with her foot and indicates she jump up onto the bed. She knows this is radiation sickness, sees it all the time, the folks with no money keep going back to the isolated areas finding it safer than risking being killed by snipers in the city, by those that think they’re doing us all a fucking favor by culling the sick, ‘protecting’ the goddamn population from having their precious gene pool corrupted. ‘Cept they didn’t ask Leah - she’d have given them a piece of her mind.
The woman’s too far gone for the treatment, such as it is, to make much difference, but she ain’t telling her that, so Leah goes through the motions. She checks her vitals, gives her a protein shot, half a dozen placebo pills and a shot of adrenaline - much fucking good it’ll do.
“Two a day after meals, well, yanno…if you can get one, won’t hurt on an empty stomach either.” Then she pulls out her box of shit from under the bed. “Just two,” she says gruffly and watches with interest while her patient deliberates. She tries not to smile when the chocolate and panties are tucked away in the woman’s raggedy coat. “Now get out of here,” she says.
“Doctor, I haven’t brought anything…I…” the woman lowers watery eyes. Leah slaps her on the shoulder. “Hey, the government takes care of it, if not, this one’s on me, k? Now stay away from the quarantine zones.”
They both know she won’t.
Leah turns to Jim who, yeah, is gazing at her adoringly. He looks devastatingly handsome sitting there, tall, elegant, all sunshine smile - it’s probably just the contrast with all the infirm she’s been dealing with for the past four hours.
“What are you, a goddamn dog? “ she huffs. “You’re in the way!”
“I brought you some stuff…”
“I don’t need stuff. I got more stuff than you’ve got ego, Kirk. Now get.”
Her harsh words ricochet off him like bullets and he smiles, his eyes shining. “Thanks, Bones.”
“For what?”
“Taking me in last night; trusting me.”
“I don’t trust you, but I guess since I did take you in, you’re welcome. Now stop sniffing round my ass or I’ll call pest-control.”
“Pest control? Kind of fun pretending things are like they were.”
“It’s pure joy, Jim. Now go…” Jim sashays to the door, all big shoulders and skinny hips and turns to wink at her. Then he raises his eyebrows a touch. “Yeah, okay, I’ll finish around ten. You can ‘walk’ me home if you like. I made up the couch already.”
His smile’s so brilliant it leaves Leah hoping that someone in the line outside may have thought to bring her some sunglasses. Then it occurs to her - how the hell is he moving around outside in the sunlight? She makes a mental note and adds it to the million questions she wants to ask him...all in good time.
“Next!” she barks, popping her head round the doorway, not quite resisting the overwhelming urge to track Jim’s progress down the hall as he winds through the refugees waiting in line. He won’t know she notices what a fine ass he’s got in those hobo jeans of his.
“What you looking at?” she growls at the guard who’s got a dreamy look in her eye.
“Same as you. Ma’am!” Well least she got a salute.
+++
He chuckles when she presses the vervain loaded gun to his throat. “Stop being nice to me, Jim!”
“Now I’ve got a boner,” he says, wriggling from under her and perching on the arm of the couch.
She tosses the gun onto the coffee table and places the box on her lap. Bourbon, thank fuck, the good stuff - she doesn’t dare ask where he got it from; then she pulls out a sealed packet of what looks like grass cuttings.
“Pot, Jim? Seriously?”
“Vervain. You’ll need it if I’m going to stick around.”
Her neck and chest heat up and she puts the packet back in the box carefully, not daring to look at him in case she shows something she’ll regret.
“Who says you’re gonna stick around…?” He doesn’t answer and watches her as she lifts a metal box out. Inside there’s a locket.
“It’s for the vervain,” he says, his voice almost a whisper. “So you feel safe around me. I know I’m a package, Bones, with the whole ‘irresistible’ vibe. Don’t want you to feel pressured into anything…” The sentence tapers off - he never says pressured into ‘what’ exactly, or maybe he just means compelled. Yeah, that’ll be it. She turns her back on him and lifts her hair and he takes the locket and fastens it round her neck, his fingers brushing against her skin for a moment, cool and steady. She swallows.
“Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.”
“You need to feed?”
“I’m good.”
Fine. Jim’s looked after his own damn self all these years, he doesn’t need her advice. “How’s your shoulder?”
She turns and looks at him dead in the eye by way of experiment, to see if the vervain’s working and preventing him from drawing her in. She does want to touch him, but that doesn’t prove a thing either away - he’s kind of easy on the eye; she’d have to dead from the waist down if she couldn’t at least admit that to herself.
He rolls his shoulder experimentally. “Good as new,” he says, looking away. “Wanna watch a movie?”
The question’s so unexpected she bursts out laughing. “Sure, why not? If the power packs-up half way through though, promise you won’t eviscerate me.”
“Depends on the movie,” he grins, kicking off his boots and bouncing onto the couch next to her. “Untold pleasure awaits us tonight, Bones; think you can handle it?”
He doesn’t see her swallow - she’s behind him, picking up her computer from her desk. She brushes the dust off the screen with her sleeve. “Sure I can, Jim, knock yourself out.” She’s not sure if she’s relieved or not when he reaches into the box and pulls out a packet of Oreos, drops them on his lap and leans back to look up at her. “Come and get it, Bonesy!” His throat is a column of marble, cream, other white shit she wants to touch, and she rolls her eyes at him, tapping him on the head with the base of her laptop.
“Don’t fucking call me that.”
He mock salutes and makes room beside him on the couch. They both stare in silence at the screen while they wait for her piece-of-shit laptop to finally boot up. “This isn’t a date,” she says placing a pillow between the two of them.
“Anything you say, Bones.” He stretches out, draping one leg over the armrest and pulls out some of her clothes from under him, bunching them up and resting his head on them. “Nothing with guns, okay? You got Amadeus?”
+++
Two weeks Jim’s been hanging around; he’s taken to accompanying her to the clinic and helping her out and she doesn’t say no. She hasn’t had the luxury of a nurse in years and he’s a fast learner, whip smart and doesn’t seem to get tired. And in all this time he hasn’t once asked her for a bag of blood and she hasn’t offered.
Every night he helps her lug all the medical equipment into her apartment, and every morning he helps her set it up as the line forms outside. He doesn’t ask her why she does what she does, he doesn’t say ‘when you gonna take a day off’, and he doesn’t complain when she asks him to leave the building and take a walk if her ex comms her and they need to talk. He sticks around when she holds N.T. meetings at her place and walks her to the truck when she goes for meetings elsewhere.
The rest of the time they co-exist peacefully, either she’s writing articles for the movement, or reading the illegal pamphlets Liam gets for her, or they watch movies. He watches her cook on the rare occasions she manages to get her hands on some fresh food; watches her chew her food, eyes on her lips then her throat when she swallows.
In turn, she never asks him where he goes when he disappears for hours on end, doesn’t ask him how he got into such a state when she took him in, doesn’t poke about the past, why he hardly ever eats, why he doesn’t kill anymore. Though he does tell her about his enchanted ring, how it means he can walk in the day without harm, how many times he’s nearly lost it. And he tells her how he’s known her family for years, but utterly refuses to go into details.
And little by little they get to know each other. He tells her little of his past, she tells him not much about hers; it’s just them. She eats the cookies he brings her and she teases him, calls him her hunter-gatherer, rests her feet in his lap on the couch, and once or twice catches his eye when he sneaks looks at her.
“Jim, you need to fucking eat,” she finally snaps one night, fiddling with her locket, trying not to feel worried at how there are lines showing round his eyes that weren’t there before. It’s an indicator he’s starting to degenerate.
“Actually, I don’t.”
“I know that, asshole, but you’re starting to look like smoked fish. You’d know, if you could see yourself in the mirror.”
Jim raises his glass of bourbon, sips and rolls it round his tongue. When he swallows, he turns to face her. She needs to change the ration of vervain in her locket, way those eyes hold hers, the heat she feels in her belly, well there’s no other explanation for it, right?
“Such tender words, Bones.”
“Come on, Jim, I got some real blood, all flavors, not just ordinary old o-neg…”
“There’s people need it. No.”
“How long did you go without, you know when you came over here the first time?”
He shrugs. “Long enough. I’m fine, ‘k? Now hit play.”
“You’re gonna get weaker; what if one of the vampire hunters ambushes you when you’re out, tries to drain your blood to sell? Or one of the Pures wants to make an example of you; it’s not safe for you, Jim, not if you can’t look after yourself; come on - see sense.”
He stands up leaving his boots on the floor and walks right out of the apartment in his socks, not looking back.
She stands, trying not to shake and closes the door. Though she bolts it, she opens the window so he can get in if he’s a mind to, and goes to bed.
+++
endof part 5a and onto part 5b