ship olympics: event 3: team mccoy
Title: Now We Are Free
Creator(s): theslashbunny and piobairegriosai
Universe: Star Trek 2009 AU
Word Count: 9431
Rating: R to be safe
Summary: Basically, it's McChekov during WWll with plenty of angst and schmoop to satisfy any Trekkie.
Disclaimer: We are too darned poor to own Star Trek, especially since it's already owned by CBS.
Leonard H. McCoy hated the military. It was disease and danger wrapped in discipline and drills, nothing more. Everyone who knew him knew his feelings on the subject. And yet, no one was more surprised than he was that by late October 1944, he had officially been employed by the military for over six months as a contract surgeon in the Medical Corps. And by the end of December 1944, he found himself up to his elbows in the blood and innards of a young soldier, trying to patch him up as best he could in a poorly lit tent hospital in the middle of only-God-(and-hopefully-his-CO)-knew-where in Nazi Germany. He’d developed an entirely new definition of “hell” in the time since he’d been “recruited”... and he knew that he was right where he belonged.
Every day he was forced to think quickly, be creative and resourceful and use all of his knowledge and skill to patch up kids that needed him. It was tiring and frustrating and emotionally draining, but it was also far more rewarding than the hospital position he’d had back in rural Georgia, treating bunions and gallstones and rarely getting to use his skills as a surgeon. He was consistently cold, hungry, and damp, and there was constant need for supplies, but he’d made some of the best friends he thought he’d ever have, friends that he trusted with his life every day. Friends like the feisty nurse who was holding the flashlight as he performed triage on a dark and snowy field.
Friends like the young blond kid from Iowa who was much too young to be a captain, but whose men would follow him to hell and back, whose men had followed him to hell that very night and who were currently laying on stretchers in the dark, waiting for the next available doctor, nurse, or medic to assess their wounds and tell them that it would all be okay - or that at least the pain would be over soon. It was that very blond captain that Christine led him over to next. Recognition flashed in those blue eyes (a good sign, medically, not a head wound then) and a smirk spread across his face.
“Heya, Bones. Fancy meeting you here.”
“Jim. How’d’ya manage to hurt yourself this time?” As a doctor, he was informed of advances only so that he could expect casualties, nothing more. Normally, he’d banter a bit as he inspected the wound, but there were too many wounded and not enough medical personnel. His hands quickly and gently lifted the bandage on Jim’s thigh - deep and a little too close to the knee, but the medic on site had done a good job cleaning it and removing the worst of the metal shards sticking out of Jim’s leg so the kid could be put low on the list.
“Oh, the usual. Kicked some German ass, ended up standing too close to a grenade, got stabbed with pieces of a truck door.” He leaned up a little and grimaced as he looked down at his leg before Leonard covered it again and tagged him. “Shit, that’s gonna scar. All in all, a good day, though.” Kid was bat-shit insane, lying there shivering and bleeding, yet still smiling and joking. He’d be hitting on the nurse if he thought that Chapel would let him get away with it. Leonard shook his head in fond exasperation as two corpsmen moved over to carry Jim’s stretcher to one of the tents, but he couldn’t keep from smiling. Bat-shit insane, but good for morale. And just like plasma, O neg whole blood, and good lighting, morale was in short supply.
Before the young captain could be carried too far, he called out, making Leonard turn from his path to the next patient waiting.
“Hey, Bones! Where’s the Russian kid?”
“What Russian kid?”
“In the prisoners we freed, there was this kid, kinda thin, curly hair. Seriously, he barely looked old enough to shave. He looked pretty bad - we barely figured out what language he was speaking before he passed out.” Jim leaned up on his elbows to look at Leonard, jostling the litter and barely keeping seated as the corpsmen did their best to compensate for the movement. Leonard couldn’t see his face clearly, but he could hear what he needed to know in his voice. “Could you, ya know, make sure someone gets to him before it’s... well. You know.” And there it was. The worry for other human beings that made Jim one of the best men he knew. And there was the fear that he’d lose someone he felt responsible for. It was that shared fear that had originally bonded the two men, and it was because of the fear that Leonard told Christine to find the kid while he flagged over another corpsman with a flashlight.
He’d performed a quick yet thorough assessment on two more injured, one American and one German who looked like he’d rather die than let Leonard touch him, before he heard Christine’s strong alto cut through the darkness and the sounds of pain. There was an urgency in her voice that no one ever wanted to hear during nights like this.
By the time Leonard was able to navigate his way through the stretchers littering the field and arrive at Chapel’s side, the nurse had the flashlight held between her shoulder and chin, needing both hands as she frantically dug into the boy’s side to stem the bleeding and make a preliminary assessment to tell the doctor. McCoy knelt at the kid’s - yes, Jim was right, he was just a kid - side and listened to Chapel’s stream of information as he formed his own opinions as well regarding the kid’s state.
“The head wound is superficial, but one of his pupils is unresponsive.” Likely concussion, maybe worse. “The bandaged tibia is an older injury, poorly set, Denning will need to look at that.” Someone had done a half-assed job with that one... Christine took a deep breath, but her next words still came out in a waver. “Chest wound, left side. At least two broken ribs. The cut itself looks minor, but...” Massive internal hemorrhaging.
Leonard could see why the medic hadn’t marked him as urgent. Field medics weren’t physicians and a wound like this, not much obvious blood loss and the sluggish blood flow making it look like it was clotting, it was easy to overlook. But the whole left side of his chest was bruised, his belly slightly distended from bleeding internally for at least a half hour...
“Surgery. NOW.”
It’s easy to lose track of time during an operation. By the time he’d gotten the young man stitched up as well as modern medicine could manage, he’d been in surgery on one patient for four and a half hours. It took another three for Major Denning to re-break and reset the poor kid’s tibia after a shoddy German fix, and another forty minutes for a consensus to be reached that the kid wasn’t going to die from the head wounds he’d sustained. But it was anyone’s guess as to when he would wake - assuming he survived the rest of his injuries.
It was late - or early, depending on how you wanted to look at it - when McCoy made it to Post Op to check on his patients. He should’ve gone straight to his bunk to sleep, the nurses and doctor on staff were more than capable, but there was just one that couldn’t wait until morning and he figured if he was already there, he should check on them all. Leonard made his way through, mimicking the more thorough assessments he’d complete on his rounds the next day, and eventually reached the curtained area the nurses had set up for their lone Soviet patient.
Leonard was as unsurprised to see Chapel already there as she apparently was to see him. Pale blue eyes barely glanced up as he pushed past the curtain and long-fingered hands gently smoothed the blanket over the still form and softly brushed the curls off of a feverish forehead. McCoy knew it was likely that she’d be here any chance she had until the boy was out of danger. Christine had a bad habit of getting attached to the young ones - a product of the fact that her own younger brother, merely 18 years old, was serving somewhere in the Pacific. She’d confided in Leonard once, after he had watched her hold the hand of a 19-year-old private in his last moments, that she did it because, if her brother were ill or in pain, she’d want someone to be there to comfort him and soothe him, to maybe make the end a little easier for him.
And so he waited quietly to the side as she stood and, nodding to him, left the ward, presumably to get some much needed rest. Once she was gone, he picked up the chart at the end of the cot. It was depressing to have so little information on a patient. They didn’t even know his name. The chaplain hadn’t found any belongings in the boy’s clothes, no identification, no letters, no tags. The lack of information was something about front line surgery that always made McCoy nervous - no blood type, no list of allergies, no way to know if the IV you’d just inserted would kill your patient faster than his injuries. He moved carefully, rechecking vital signs and bandages that Christine had probably checked not five minutes prior, thinking that, when the kid finally woke up, they might not be much better off if they couldn’t get a Russian translator.
Leonard allowed himself to slump down into the chair that had been placed by the side of the cot and finally took a good look at the kid. During triage, he’d been covered in dirt and blood, and the nurses had since had time to clean him up properly. But Leonard couldn’t tell which was better - mud and gore or actually being able to see the swelling and bruises that covered the kid’s face. He couldn’t stop the bone-deep sigh from escaping. Those damn Nazis had worked the kid over good. Maybe he was just tired, but that made him want to hit something, or someone. He saw injuries just as bad every day, usually worse sometimes since this one had at least made it so far. But there was something different about wounds caused by a bullet or shrapnel than ones caused by human fists and boots. There was just something about the fact that the people who’d done this had looked this poor kid in the eye, had heard him cry out, and then continued to beat the shit out of him.
He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, eyes still fixed on that pale face. He knew he should be in bed (well, what counted for a “bed”), knew that he couldn’t sit here until the kid woke up, but... Leonard just needed to see the kid’s eyes open, even if one was probably too swollen to open properly. He needed to know that everything they’d done was enough, that the kid would pull through. Fuck, keeping professional distance was hard enough when working on babies like this, but this kid... with this kid, it was damn near impossible. He’d never seen a man - a battered, bruised, and bloodied man - look so much like an angel from those paintings on his grandmother’s parlor walls. Just looking at him lying like this made his throat feel tight and his eyes water and he didn’t even know the kid’s name! He wanted those eyes to open, to look at him, to show that the kid - whoever he was - was still in there. He wanted to see what color they were...
Christ, he really was tired. With a grunt, he leaned forward, hands on his knees to stand, and then noticed something that made him huff out a laugh. He’d have to tease Jim tomorrow. The kid may be young, but he was definitely old enough to shave - he had a fine dusting of golden stubble to prove it.
Standard procedure for the United States Army Medical Corps was to give a post-operative chest wound patient five days to stabilize before evacuating said patient to a station hospital for the rest of treatment and recovery. The Russian kid got two days - two days in which he still hadn’t woken - before the order came to evacuate the entire hospital via rail and air. The Nazis were on the offensive and pushing back to the west.
Less than 30 hours after the order came through, Leonard found himself on a hospital train bound for France with several of their more critical cases. Every time he got done with his rounds through his assigned cars, carefully navigating the narrow corridor and the rickety connections, checking bandages and conferring with each car’s nurse, he managed to find his way back to the young Russian’s side. Seated on a small stool, leaning up against the supports holding his litter, he’d watch the boy sleep, allowing himself to be lulled into a nap by the gentle swaying of the train and the soft noises of the other sleeping patients.
It could have been minutes or hours since he fell asleep, but it only took him seconds to realize what had woken him. He heard the sound of shifting fabric even before he opened his eyes and as he looked down at his patient, he saw the curly-mopped head turn towards him and eyes blink open. Every medical professional working in a war zone quickly learns to recognize the beginnings of panic in a newly awakened patient and Leonard noticed it right away. He instinctively moved closer to the young man’s side, reaching out to gently grasp the boy’s hand resting atop the blankets. Leonard’s other hand softly began stroking the boy’s hair, mimicking what he’d seen Christine and the other nurses do thousands of times before. He was almost certain the kid couldn’t understand a single word he said, but as Leonard began to whisper reassurances of safety, he could see the tension seep from those wide eyes until they eventually slid closed, a soft smile gracing the young man’s chapped lips. Leonard didn’t move, didn’t stop speaking in hushed tones with a gentleness that would probably frighten those who knew him, until he was certain that the kid was asleep again. Even then, all he did was return to his seat, keeping watch over his young patient once more. Again the movement of the car made him drowsy and before he knew it, he was drifting to sleep himself, with one final thought in his mind: They are green... greyish-green, like the sage that grows in my mother’s backyard...
Once in France, it was decided that a surgeon like McCoy would be more useful in a station hospital, and so he found himself reassigned to an American hospital in the southwestern part of Champagne-Ardennes in France. It was a real hospital - an honest-to-god hospital with wards and surgeries and a pharmacy and actual beds and real goddamn walls and a permanent roof over their heads! It felt like heaven. There were even several houses and spare rooms that the locals had offered for use by the medical staff in exchange for the care and services they received at the newly reopened hospital. Leonard’s lodgings were only two doors down from the main hospital entrance with his own room and a double bed. Leonard wouldn’t have been able to think of an appropriate way to thank the elderly couple he was boarding with, even if he could actually speak French.
It was easy to slip back into a slightly more normal hospital routine again. There still weren’t enough doctors to go around, but he’d become used to long hours anyway. It’s not like he had anywhere else to be, he occasionally thought wryly. And anyway, any free hours he had were spent at the bedside of a certain curly-haired blond with grey-green eyes.
According to his still-lacking chart, the kid hadn’t woken again after what Jim was calling their “little moment” on the train. After physical therapy for his leg, the blond captain would wheel himself to the curtained area around the boy’s bed and sit with him, speaking at the unconscious form about the random stuff that regularly flowed through that remarkably brilliant head of his. Leonard would often find him there and sometimes they’d sit and chat as well, waiting not-so-patiently for the young man to wake up. Sometimes he’d find Christine there, smoothing down the white sheets and grey blankets, speaking gently for a few minutes before moving on to the rest of her patients.
But most of the time, Leonard was there on his own after his duties as physician were over, he’d usually just sit quietly by the side of the bed, sometimes going through paperwork, which was probably the only thing that wasn’t in short supply, and sometimes reading letters from home or writing their responses. Every time he stopped by though, he’d check the kid’s chart, hoping to find something new or maybe just to see that someone had managed to catch him awake. He was starting to wonder if he’d dreamt the whole damn thing.
It was on one of these solitary visits that, when looking over the mostly empty chart once again, he indulged himself and spoke aloud.
“You know, kid. If you don’t wake up and tell me your name, I might just have to make one up.” Maybe Paul... He looked like a Paul...
“...Chekov.” Leonard froze at the raspy tenor he heard. You’ve gotta be kidding me. He forced his gaze to slowly raise above the chart he was holding and locked sight with a pair of grey-green eyes blinking blearily up at him. “My name is Pavel Andreievich Chekov.”
The kid - Chekov - looked exhausted and in pain, lying limply on his bed, skin pale even against the white sheets. But there was a hint of steel in those eyes and in that voice as he added, “And I am not a kid.”
And finally, McCoy was able to get a patient history - though at one point it did devolve into an argument about whether or not being nineteen constituted use of the term “kid”. And Leonard didn’t think he could believe that “Russians don’t have allergies,” no matter how emphatically Chekov insisted in that adorable accent of his. The only question that he didn’t readily answer was for his rank. He blushed - quite prettily, Leonard’s mind supplied before he could mentally slap it back into professionalism - and hesitated only a moment before stating that he didn’t know it in English. Leonard wasn’t sure what it was, but something was off about the way he said it. Later on in their conversation, after finding out that the kid was a certifiable genius with degrees in engineering and physics, he just decided to chalk it up to Chekov being unaccustomed to not knowing something.
To the joy of everyone who treated him or visited him, Chekov was now spending equal times awake and asleep. And to the boost of everyone’s morale, the young man was utterly charming. He always had a cheerful smile and a kind word and the nurses adored him. He started playing cards with Jim whenever the man stopped by, no doubt to the relief of the nurses in Jim’s ward, and he regularly asked Christine about her day and about her brother.
Ultimately, no matter how energetic he seemed, Chekov was still healing from severe wounds. His “long nap”, as he was now calling it, had given him time to heal, but there where still moments of pain, usually after he got too excited or overexerted himself. In those moments, with morphine flowing more strongly through his system, he’d whisper things in Russian, murmurings that Leonard couldn’t understand but which seemed very important.
His leg was healing well, there was no lasting damage from the blow to his head, and while his lung and liver function would never be the same, he was going to be fine. His only complaint was that the liver damage meant no more vodka, and soon he was asking for the curtain around his bed to be removed and to be able to talk to his fellow ward denizens. He made friends easily, entertaining those around him with stories of the greatness of Russia in that quirky accent of his and listening intently to the other soldiers’ stories of home and family. And it was soon obvious to all just how thoroughly even grumpy Doctor McCoy was wrapped around his finger.
Leonard was spending almost all of his free time - though it wasn’t much - with the young man. Sometimes pushing him around the hospital; sometimes just sitting in the chair beside his bed, doing paperwork while Chekov rested. But mostly, they would sit together and talk, asking each other questions and telling stories, each getting to know the other better than any other person stationed there.
The stronger Chekov got over the next two months, the harder it was to keep him contained to his ward, let alone his bed. During the day, he was constantly up and about, hobbling around on crutches as soon as his lung allowed it and McCoy gave the thumbs-up. At first he’d just visit with the other patients, spreading cheer better than Christmas even had this year to every ward he made his way into. And pretty soon, he was helping distract patients from their pain, translating for the nurses when they had a French patient, and eventually even made his way into the German POW ward.
Now the patients in this ward weren’t happy to see him anymore than they were happy to see the Allied doctors and nurses. But he soon became indispensable, able and willing to be interpreter to even the most hostile, gracefully ignoring what had to be rather vicious insults from some of them. Chekov even went so far as to lecture one of patients when he’d been rude to one of the nursing staff (though only Chekov really knew what he’d said), effectively shaming the soldier into a broken apology. Apparently, the ability to guilt someone into doing something was yet another thing invented in Russia.
However, there were a few patients he did his best to avoid, specifically a rather large man who could’ve been the poster boy for the “Aryan race” with his pale blond hair, blue eyes and strong jaw. Anytime, Chekov had to deal with this man, a coldness seeped into his features and a harsh quality could be heard in his clipped tones. He always helped the nurses with what needed to be said and asked, but he obviously felt distinctly uncomfortable whenever the man’s eyes followed him.
And follow him they did. McCoy noticed it quickly, this preoccupation the patient seemed to have with Chekov. And he also noticed how Chekov stayed a little closer to his side whenever the man stared too intently. Soon enough, McCoy put it all together. The man was Sturmbannführer Kellner, the German equivalent of a major in the unit who’d held Chekov captive. The leader of the unit that had almost killed him.
As soon as he knew who the man was, the questions began to form in Leonard’s head. Was this the man whose boot had snapped three of Chekov’s ribs, sending one into his liver, and the other into his lung? Or was he the man who had smashed Chekov’s head into a wall so forcefully that it had broken the skin and fractured his skull? He and some of the other medical staff had at first been concerned about how capable they were of putting personal feelings aside and providing these German patients with the best care they could offer, but it turned out to be quite easy to view them simply as patients in need of assistance. Not so for this man, at least not in Leonard’s eyes. He was simply the man who’d terrorized Chekov and who was doing his best to continue that foul treatment, even in the position he was in, even though Chekov was willing to help him. Leonard had never despised someone so thoroughly before.
It was easy to hate an abstract, to hate “the Nazis”, to hate someone you didn’t know and had never seen. Seeing these men’s faces, these soldier’s faces that could’ve belonged to their friends and neighbors back home, helped the medical staff - and especially the nurses who had to spend so much time with them - get past the negative feelings directed towards “the enemy” in general. But even after having seen Kellner’s face at its most vulnerable, he was surprised at the level of anger he could feel for him.
Leonard would never let that interfere with his duties as a physician, however. Personal dislike had no place in a treatment center and McCoy took his duties very seriously. He treated the man, provided regular assessment, and did his best to ignore the looks that Kellner gave to both McCoy and the shadow at his side, Chekov. At least the man never spoke except to answer direct questions. It’s easy to ignore the silent.
But one day, as Leonard was marking the order to lower the man’s morphine dose - he’d healed enough and grudgingly admitted that he was healing well, regardless of the assumed incompetence of American doctors - Kellner did, in fact, have something more to say. Something that he said directly to McCoy, false innocence barely hiding the malice underneath a small smile.
“I’m surprised you let him stand so close to you, Doctor.” McCoy sighed. Piece of shit actually knew English?
“You know, you’d’a made life a lot easier if you’d just told us you spoke English sooner.” The soldier ignored him in favor of staring at the young Russian by his side.
“He’s not as sweet as he looks.” He sneered and McCoy felt Chekov tense beside him. “Russia’s very own little Mata Hari...”
McCoy looked back at the soldier, eyebrow raised. That was the type of comment that he couldn’t just ignore. Mata Hari? As in... The German noticed his interest and continued. “Oh. Did he not tell you?”
By this point, Chekov had paled even further, eyes as hard as jade and voice as cold as steel as he bit out a phrase in German. The major just smiled at him, voice dripping with condescension as he replied.
“So the little dog doesn’t want me to tell his new master just what his place really was? Just answer me this, kleine Hure, did you slit his throat before or after you let that sick bastard fuck you one last time?”
Chekov exploded. With a yell, he launched himself at the Nazi. He got in two good hits before McCoy managed to get his arms around him and pull him off of the prisoner.
As he bodily dragged the young man out of the ward, still screaming in a mix of German and Russian, he could hear the other man’s laughter follow them into the hall.
McCoy ended up getting Chekov back to his bed and sedating him when all of the yelling caused a coughing fit, risking damage to his newly healed lung. By morning, the story of his outburst in the prison ward had gotten around the staff and they were giving him a wide berth. Nothing was more frightening than finding a fierce temper in a previously harmless being. It just made the level of anger that much more frightening.
It was just as well. Chekov didn’t seem inclined to speak to anyone, only speaking enough to say goodbye to Jim when he was shipped back out to his men. After a whole week and a half of silence, an unnerving time for everyone in the ward, Leonard had had enough. He informed the damn kid in no uncertain terms that if he continued to ignore his exercise regimen, he was going to set back his recovery time. After physically manhandling him out of the bed and onto his crutches, he marched him down to the PT room and placed him in the capable, if possibly sadistic, hands of Lieutenant Rand.
Interactions between Chekov and the rest of his surroundings seemed to normalize a bit after that. But McCoy couldn’t forget Kellner’s words, nor could he forget the Russian’s reactions to them. He wasn’t sure it was a good idea to approach Chekov about it, but he knew that the young man needed to talk to someone - Leonard didn’t even need his psych degree to know that. So one day, after Chekov’s PT, when he’d be good and tired and less likely to attempt to throttle his doctor for bringing it up, Leonard cornered him in an empty hallway on his way back to the ward and ushered him into a deserted alcove.
He didn’t even need to ask any questions. Chekov just looked up at him wearily, with those eyes that were far too old for a nineteen-year-old face, and started to speak.
“I was the Obersturmbannführer’s... I think ‘valet’ is the euphemism Americans would use... Or maybe ‘house boy’.” Honestly, Leonard had been expecting a denial. But then again, he had a feeling that this wasn’t the only surprise he’d be getting today.
“Wait a minute. You really were … well, having sex with his commanding officer?” Those slim shoulders simply shrugged.
“For over a year. It was the fastest way to get him to trust me, especially once I was certain that he liked men. Getting him into bed, making him fall for me - that was the easy part.” To say that so casually...
“You actually -” McCoy realized that the phrase ‘whored yourself out’ might not go over too well in this situation, “- seduced a man for...?”
"I told you, that was easy. But I did not kill him. He was trusting and talkative - not exactly good qualities for a commander to have, but it helped me a great deal. He slipped out what I needed to know and never suspected me even when he found me going through his desk.” An almost fond, but mostly incredulous smile graced the young man’s lips and he huffed out a laugh. “He actually believed when I told him I was looking for some paper to write a letter to my mother.”
Chekov’s expression and tone sobered again when he continued. “Roderick was a terrible man. His ruthlessness is probably what got him his command. But he treated me well.” He shrugged again, but this time it was tense. Leonard could see his discomfort even as he feigned nonchalance. “He was already dead when I woke up and the Sturmbannführer was already standing over us."
Well, this was... What was that phrase the soldiers were always using? FUBAR. Yes, this definitely qualified as FUBAR.
“You really were a spy?”
“Yes.”
“And that’s why you couldn’t tell me your rank.” Chekov nodded. “Chekov... is that your real name?”
“I swear I haven’t lied to you. Not once.” Sweet baby Jesus. None of this jived with the cheerful and outgoing young man they’d all grown attached to. Or maybe it did. Maybe he hid this part of himself underneath the mask of innocence and good humor.
It certainly made some aspects of his personality more clear. The anger and pain Leonard could sometimes see in his eyes. His ability to hide physical pain so easily. The way he could listen to horror stories from the other patients without a tear, to empathise and comfort them so easily, and distract them from their trauma better than many nurses. Because men didn’t just want sex - they wanted someone to talk to, who would comfort and reassure them, too. Skills that Chekov would’ve had to be good at if he had drawn in and kept this “Roderick” satisfied and unsuspicious for over a year.
“You are disappointed in me.” Chekov was staring at him, eyes almost accusatory, and pained, as though the very idea hurt him.
“No, Chekov. I’m not - I just -” Fuck. “This just doesn’t make sense to me.” He avoided the eyes studying his face.
“What doesn’t make sense? That I seduced someone for information?” No, it wasn’t that part and the kid had to know it. Though the idea of someone as angelic-looking as Chekov seducing someone did seem a bit far-fetched. “Or is it that I seduced a man for information?”
Hell, Leonard didn’t know. All that he did know was that he’d heard some bizarre shit in his time, but this really took the cake. Not only had this actually happened to someone, said someone was telling him, of all people. What was he supposed to do with this information? Did Chekov expect him to report it? Or maybe that was the point - Leonard was a civilian, technically, someone safe to tell. Leonard opened his mouth, unsure of what to say and going to admit it, but instead, out came, “Why are you telling me this?”
Chekov actually blushed, the second time Leonard had ever seen it, and ducked his curly head. “...потому что я тебя люблю...” Leonard didn’t know what he’d said, but the tone alone made his breathing rate speed up. It was intimate, the kind of voice used for a lover.
“Chekov...” His hand seemed to move on its own and brushed a curl behind a flushed ear. Sage-colored eyes met hazel and Leonard was shocked by the heat he saw there - heat that spread through his own body and settled low into his gut. Heat that made him realize where he was and who he was with and how inappropriate this all was. And that realization made him drop his hand and take a step back. “Chekov, I... You’re only nineteen...” For some reason, Leonard wasn’t surprised that it was the age and not the gender that bothered him. A few things in his past certainly made more sense with this revelation.
He saw something like determination flash through Chekov’s eyes as they narrowed and before he could move further away, the lithe form in front of him had leaned into Leonard’s space, one hand playing with the doctor’s stethoscope before using it to tug him close enough to whisper in his ear. Leonard could feel his own heartbeat quicken as he heard the husky tenor and felt the warm moisture of the younger man’s breath on his ear.
“It is not as though I was inexperienced before the war. How do you think I got the assignment to begin with, мой красавец?” Then with a nip to Leonard's ear and a kiss on his stubbled cheek, Chekov was hobbling down the hall towards his ward, a distinct swagger that no man on crutches should rightly be capable of. Leaving Leonard shell-shocked and half-hard behind him.
Oh, this was going to be a problem.
After that, things went even further back to normal - at least for Chekov. Leonard, on the other hand, couldn’t forget that moment in the hallway. It never interfered with his work or with his public interactions with that attractive creature, but, at night in his room, thoughts and fantasies came to him, tormenting him with possibilities. The mornings after, it was as though Chekov knew what he’d been thinking. He’d lock eyes with the doctor and give him a small smile and a wink, and Leonard wouldn’t be able to look him in the eye the rest of the day.
But for the most part, their interactions stayed the same. Chekov was still one of the only people to receive a smile from the abrasive doctor and he still received the gentlest attention from him - possibly because, as Leonard loudly maintained if anyone brought it up, the young man managed to keep himself out of trouble and actually followed doctor’s orders.
The time came when Chekov was healed enough to be released. He was mobile, though still required a cane and regular rest, and the hospital desperately needed the bed. They were receiving more and more wounded soldiers and prisoners from evac hospitals as the Germans got more desperate. But where could Chekov go? He was a Soviet citizen, but still needed physical therapy and was a useful translator in a hospital full of multi-nationals. The Soviets had yet to claim him, most likely because of his known status with the Nazis as a spy, and honestly, the hospital staff was reluctant to let him go.
So color Leonard surprised when he heads to his lodgings one evening to find Chekov chatting away on the couch in accented French to the elderly man who owns the house. As he entered the parlor and greeted Mr. Laurent, the old man rose and left the room with a fond smile and a parting comment to the young Russian. Chekov was as energetic as he always was lately and practically bounced off out of his seat to stand beside the coffee table, his excitement at a near-tangible level.
“Major Pierce spoke to Colonel Boyce and he spoke to his superiors and they decided that since I’ve been so helpful and there is no way to safely return me to Russia, here I am!“ There was that gleaming smile and arms stretched wide in his enthusiasm. “Monsieur and Madame Laurent offered to board another and they said I could sleep on their divan! Isn’t that wonderful?” Chekov’s arms raised a bit more then dropped to his sides and Leonard let his gaze slip to the couch against the wall. No, it wasn’t wonderful. And he said so out loud adding, “You won’t be able to move after just one night on that monstrosity.”
It was true. The piece of furniture had not been designed with sleep in mind. But this was the closest Chekov could probably get to the hospital and he needed the proximity if he was going to limping back and forth with his cane for a while. And since there was only one spare room - Leonard’s - and he certainly couldn’t sleep on the couch himself... He let out a heavy sigh. This was going to end poorly somehow, he just knew it.
“We could just share the double in my room, ya know.”
His statement was met with silence. Chekov just stared at him, eyes wide. After a moment, the staring was making him self-conscious.
“Well, it’s not like either of us have a lot of stuff, so the room’s big enough.” Still no reaction. He reached up and scrubbed a hand through his hair, sighing again. “And it’s not like you take up a lot of space.” At least that got his eyes to narrow. Hey, it was true. He’d been putting on some muscle in physical therapy, but he was still scrawny.
“You are certain?” And then Leonard realized just what he was proposing - and to whom.
“Look. It’s not -” What was he going to say? It’s not like we’ll be doing anything other than sleeping? Because if Leonard were being honest, he doubted he get a lot of actual sleep with the object of his dreams lying right next to him. But he didn’t want to make the kid uncomfortable by mentioning any other nighttime activity. Especially after how poorly things had gone the last time Chekov had shared a bed with another man. And why did it feel like so much hinged on Chekov agreeing to this? He felt like a damn teenager asking a girl to dance and his discomfort made his next words a little gruffer than they needed to be. “If you don’t want to, just say so. The offer’s there, if you want it.”
And when Leonard turned and grouched his way up the stairs, he missed the wide grin that spread across lightly freckled cheeks. But he didn’t miss the sound of happy feet racing up the stairs after him a few seconds later.
And so, Chekov remained in Leonard’s life, eventually becoming Pavel when Leonard was informed in accented English that it was ridiculous to use last names when they shared a bed. Every night, Pavel kept a respectful physical distance, but every day it was harder and harder for Leonard to tear his gaze away from the young man, to not spend every spare second thinking about him. And the more he got to know Pavel, the less he wanted to fight his desires.
The waiting and internal debate came to an end one night. Not ten minutes after they’d both settled under the covers, Pavel was no longer on his side of the mattress and instead was draped over Leonard, legs tangled together and propped up on one elbow, searching his eyes in the pale moonlight from the window. Leonard didn’t move, made no attempt to dislodge the warm body against his, nor to stop Pavel from leaning down to kiss him.
The kiss didn’t spark fireworks. Bells didn’t ring and time didn’t stop. But for the first time in his life, Leonard was right where he was supposed to be - at the right time doing the right thing with the right person. Though physically so far away from Georgia, Leonard felt like he was home. Pavel felt like home.
Which is why every part of him - from his eyebrows to his toes, and deep within his very soul - rebelled when he gently pushed Pavel away. Because he’d hate himself forever if he didn’t know:
“Why are you doing this?” He had to know that this wasn’t happening out of misplaced loyalty or gratitude. That this wasn’t a form of compensation or manipulation. That the feelings Leonard had been fighting for weeks were answered and matched.
Two sets of eyes searched each other in the dim light and a pale, graceful hand came up to gently brush the hair from Leonard’s forehead as a soft whisper answered:
“потому что я тебя люблю...”
“You said that before. What does it mean?” Even in the dark, the answering smile glowed with contentment.
“Because I love you.” Love. Leonard had always had difficulty with such an abstract concept as love. He believed in its existence wholeheartedly. But to express such a thing to another... Pavel had proven yet again how brave he was, to make himself so vulnerable. Everything about the young man spoke of earnestness - he understood what he was promising with those words and he meant it with all of his being. Leonard could see it in his eyes and hear it in his voice. But could he say it himself? Could he really mean it the way that Pavel needed him to? And if he wasn’t sure...
“Leonard...” Another kiss. “Лёня...” The nickname Pavel had always said with a grin, paired with another kiss. “You do not have to say it back. But if you want me to stop, just tell me and I will stop.” There it was. Pavel was giving him an easy exit.
But he couldn’t take it. He didn’t want him to stop. He didn’t want to wake up one more day with Pavel on the other side of the bed. He wanted to taste, to touch... to hold on to him and never let him go.
May 9th, 1945, should have been a happy day. The fighting was over, the surrender of Germany had been formalized and put into effect. They all could finally start to go home. The mood in the hospital was at an all-time high and the joy was palpable in every Allied ward. Leonard had not seen Pavel all afternoon, but he fully intended to celebrate with him as soon as they were together. And so he entered their shared room in high spirits, an actual smile on his face, and wanted nothing more than to bury himself in his partner and in their shared happiness for as long as Pavel and necessities of life - like eating and sleep - would allow.
But the sight that greeted him stopped him short, ripped the smile from his face, and drew his heart into his throat. Pavel, his Pavel, sat on the end of the bed, pale-faced and eyes locked on a piece of official-looking paper gripped in white-knuckled hands. Instead of the happy sanctuary that this room had become, Leonard felt like he’d stepped into a tomb, and he unconsciously tread softly over to Pavel, kneeling carefully on the soft rug at the young man’s bare feet.
“Pavel?” His hand reached out, resting a broad palm on the side of Pavel’s slim shoulder. No response. “Pavel...” All happy thoughts he’d had during the day had fled, left only with an indeterminable fear. He didn’t know what had happened, he couldn’t read the letter held in those tense fingers, and he’d never seen Pavel look so... broken.
Placing his free hand on the young man’s hip and moving his other palm to cup his strong jawline, hazel eyes searched sage ones, looking for something, anything, any sign of recognition. Leonard had been awakened too many times in the night by a thrashing, nightmare-stricken bed partner to think that the trauma of the war was just hitting the young man now. But even after recounting some of his worst memories, the young Russian had never seemed so catatonic. “Pav... Please... You’re scaring me.”
Something in Leonard’s voice must have gotten through somehow. Eyelids slipped closed, squeezing together; trying to hold something in or keep something out, Leonard didn’t know. But when those eyes opened again and his gaze met Leonard’s, they were lifeless. As empty as the voice that seemed to just fall out of him.
“I have to go back.”
“What? What do you mean?” Curls bounced as he shook his head, as if to clear it before speaking again. His voice was only marginally stronger.
“They’re sending me back to the Soviet Union.” The fingers holding the paper clenched more tightly, wrinkling it with a sound that seemed to echo in the quiet of the house, louder than the sounds of celebration outside. “I have no choice.”
In the silence that followed, the hand on Pavel’s cheek slipped to rest on his shoulder as his statements sank into Leonard’s mind. They would be going home; Leonard McCoy would be going back to Georgia and Pavel Chekov would be returning to the USSR. Which meant they’d likely never see each other again. Their meeting had been a fluke in history, a stroke of unbelievable luck. The USSR and the USA only tolerated each other for the sake of defeating a common enemy. Visits would not be permitted, especially not so a decadent capitalist could see his equally-male Soviet lover.
“...You should have let me die. ...” Leonard’s gaze refocused instantly on that blank face and its dull eyes as his anger - the anger that had begun to fester as the unfairness and the pain of separation registered in his thoughts - gained force, bursting into flame at such a statement.
“How can you say something like that?” His hands had tensed and his voice held a venom born of pain that made the young man flinch. But at least those eyes now met his and there was finally something growing in them - indignation.
“When I return to Russia, I won’t get a hero’s welcome like your soldiers will. My country doesn’t look kindly on prisoners of war and even less kindly on homosexual prisoners of war, especially ones who have since been helping Americans!” His tenor was gaining strength and color was returning to his face as his intensity grew. “I was supposed to fight to the death! It won’t matter how useful I was to them during the war; I will only be seen as a coward, a failure! I will tortured, accused as a traitor and fascist... Or if I’m lucky, I will just be shot. If I’m unlucky, I’ll be sent to the labor camps, only to disappear or worse. I shouldn’t still be alive, Leonard.” He sounded furious, but he also sounded defeated. He was giving up. And Leonard couldn’t let that happen.
“You don’t know that, Pavel! What if-” His own voice was shaking, from what - fear, anger - he didn’t know. Pavel’s words burst out of him, cheeks pink, eyes burning and hands trembling, the crackling of the paper and the revelry outside creating a surreal score.
“Think about it, Leonard! Why else would they send an eighteen-year-old, no matter how brilliant? I was supposed to send them as much useful information as I could for as long as I could, but I was never supposed to make it home alive!” There were tears in his eyes, not yet falling but threatening to spill over. “I was a pawn! A whore! Useful for a time and then thrown away!” The laughter that ripped from his throat was painful to hear. “I asked you once, how you thought I got this assignment. I’ll give you the answer! It was service or prison! They had rumors about Roderick and an expendable deviant who filled their purpose!”
Pavel was crying now, tears streaming down his cheeks and dropping on the paper still in his lap. “I am nothing! You all get to go home to your families and friends. But I have no home to go to.”
No one should ever have reason to sound so bitter, nor so betrayed. Pavel loved Russia. His sense of self was wrapped up in it, filled him and most likely sustained him for a time. But now... He’d been used and rejected and he had nowhere left to turn. Before he was even aware he was moving, Leonard had slipped his arms around the trembling and sobbing form in front of him, pulling him off the bed and into his lap. He buried a hand in the curly mess he loved so much and said the only truth that he thought mattered, pouring as much of his strength and love into his words as he could: “You are everything. And you will always have a home with me.”
But Pavel’s words had also been true. Leonard had only been thinking about going home; he’d forgotten that they wouldn’t be going to the same place. As far as their governments were concerned, his home wasn’t with the amazing young man in front of him, even though wherever Pavel happened to be was the only place that Leonard would ever want to go.
Leonard H. McCoy shipped out to England on June 2, 1945, two weeks before Pavel was scheduled to leave with an escort back to Russia. The two men had spent their last twenty-four days soaking up as much of each other’s presence as they could, only parting when forced and never speaking of what was to come. Pavel had refused to say goodbye and, after straightening the tie on Leonard’s uniform, didn’t even wait for Leonard to board his train before turning on his heel and walking briskly out of Leonard’s life.
After a few months working at a hospital in Herefordshire, his eighteen-month contract with the Army expired and he finally flew back to America. Once again in Georgia, he managed to stay in contact with Christine and Jim, tried to stay busy at the hospital that had celebrated his somewhat gruff return, and failed miserably at not thinking about a certain green-eyed, curly-haired genius. He didn’t want to think about where Pavel was now, what had happened to him. He didn’t want to think about how much he wanted to have Pavel in his arms, next to him as he woke every morning.
In December, he knew that Jim would be returning to the States, but he hadn’t expected a phone call at six in the morning.
“Bones? That you?”
“You called my house, you damned idjit. Who else would it be?”
“Aw, I’m glad to hear your voice, too, Bones!” Leonard couldn’t stop the chuckle that escaped.
“Good to know you’re home safe. You are still in one piece, right?”
“Yeah, yeah, you damn mother hen. I didn’t ruin any of the medical establishment’s fine work.” There was a pause on the line, but before Leonard could fill it, Jim was speaking again.
“Hey, Bones, could you do me a favor? It’s real small. Promise!”
“So that’s why you called. Glad to hear my voice, my ass.”
“C’mon, Bones! One of my friends in flying into Georgia from the war. All I’m asking is for you to pick him up at the air strip.” Another pause as Jim let Leonard consider for a moment before continuing. Hell, Leonard could practically feel Jim batting his eyelashes at him. “Pleeease?”
“Fine. When’s he get in?”
And so Leonard H. McCoy found himself at Robins Army Air Depot, just south of Macon, pulling out his Army credentials once more and getting a visitor’s pass so he could wait inside the gates. He waited as he heard the plane land, then taxi to its unloading space, before he headed outside to meet whoever it was. Jim had hung up before giving a name - some genius, he is - so all he knew was he’d be looking for a second lieutenant who needed a ride.
Thankfully, Georgia in December is much warmer than in Germany and so Leonard wasn’t shivering the second time Pavel Andreievich Chekov appeared in his life. He cut a smart figure in his US Army Air Force uniform as he descended the steps from the plane. The cut of the coat accented his narrow hips and his recently trimmed hair, curls still peeking out from under his hat, showed off his chiseled features. He looked healthier than Leonard could ever remember and as they locked eyes, Pavel’s grin was brighter than Leonard had ever seen it.
The native Georgian was having difficulty keeping his composure in the cool air as the confident young man moved through the crowd toward him. By the time they were face to face, Leonard was able to squeeze one word past the tightness in his chest.
“...How?” Chekov’s smile somehow managed to grow and Leonard noticed the moisture in those beautiful eyes, eyes he’d never thought he’d see again outside of dreams and memory.
“I managed to speak to Captain Kirk. He put me in touch with a Colonel Pike, who put me in touch with a Lt. Colonel Scott in the Air Force. Apparently, they need aeronautical engineers more than they care about returning me to Russia.” From the sound of his voice, the Russian seemed just as overwhelmed as Leonard felt, though he’d had more time to process the fact that, yes, they could finally be together again.
Leonard couldn’t speak. He could barely even think. What he’d been hoping for, the one thing that he wanted in life anymore was standing in front of him. All he could seem to do was drink in everything in sight, eyes moving and memorizing before finally resting again on a lightly freckled face. A lightly blushing, freckled face that looked happy and vaguely uneasy.
The owner of that face cleared his throat, straightened his jacket, and took one step closer before breaking the silence between them.
“They told me it would be safer if I changed my name. I hope you don’t mind...” He gestured toward the name tag on his jacket, more nervous than Leonard had ever seen him. Leonard leaned in closer to read the name before sweeping him into an embrace, witnesses be damned, swallowing past the lump in his throat and whispering:
“I love you, too, Pavel McCoy.”
One year and seven months since shipping out to Europe, Leonard H. McCoy was finally home.
Creator(s): theslashbunny and piobairegriosai
Universe: Star Trek 2009 AU
Word Count: 9431
Rating: R to be safe
Summary: Basically, it's McChekov during WWll with plenty of angst and schmoop to satisfy any Trekkie.
Disclaimer: We are too darned poor to own Star Trek, especially since it's already owned by CBS.
Leonard H. McCoy hated the military. It was disease and danger wrapped in discipline and drills, nothing more. Everyone who knew him knew his feelings on the subject. And yet, no one was more surprised than he was that by late October 1944, he had officially been employed by the military for over six months as a contract surgeon in the Medical Corps. And by the end of December 1944, he found himself up to his elbows in the blood and innards of a young soldier, trying to patch him up as best he could in a poorly lit tent hospital in the middle of only-God-(and-hopefully-his-CO)-knew-where in Nazi Germany. He’d developed an entirely new definition of “hell” in the time since he’d been “recruited”... and he knew that he was right where he belonged.
Every day he was forced to think quickly, be creative and resourceful and use all of his knowledge and skill to patch up kids that needed him. It was tiring and frustrating and emotionally draining, but it was also far more rewarding than the hospital position he’d had back in rural Georgia, treating bunions and gallstones and rarely getting to use his skills as a surgeon. He was consistently cold, hungry, and damp, and there was constant need for supplies, but he’d made some of the best friends he thought he’d ever have, friends that he trusted with his life every day. Friends like the feisty nurse who was holding the flashlight as he performed triage on a dark and snowy field.
Friends like the young blond kid from Iowa who was much too young to be a captain, but whose men would follow him to hell and back, whose men had followed him to hell that very night and who were currently laying on stretchers in the dark, waiting for the next available doctor, nurse, or medic to assess their wounds and tell them that it would all be okay - or that at least the pain would be over soon. It was that very blond captain that Christine led him over to next. Recognition flashed in those blue eyes (a good sign, medically, not a head wound then) and a smirk spread across his face.
“Heya, Bones. Fancy meeting you here.”
“Jim. How’d’ya manage to hurt yourself this time?” As a doctor, he was informed of advances only so that he could expect casualties, nothing more. Normally, he’d banter a bit as he inspected the wound, but there were too many wounded and not enough medical personnel. His hands quickly and gently lifted the bandage on Jim’s thigh - deep and a little too close to the knee, but the medic on site had done a good job cleaning it and removing the worst of the metal shards sticking out of Jim’s leg so the kid could be put low on the list.
“Oh, the usual. Kicked some German ass, ended up standing too close to a grenade, got stabbed with pieces of a truck door.” He leaned up a little and grimaced as he looked down at his leg before Leonard covered it again and tagged him. “Shit, that’s gonna scar. All in all, a good day, though.” Kid was bat-shit insane, lying there shivering and bleeding, yet still smiling and joking. He’d be hitting on the nurse if he thought that Chapel would let him get away with it. Leonard shook his head in fond exasperation as two corpsmen moved over to carry Jim’s stretcher to one of the tents, but he couldn’t keep from smiling. Bat-shit insane, but good for morale. And just like plasma, O neg whole blood, and good lighting, morale was in short supply.
Before the young captain could be carried too far, he called out, making Leonard turn from his path to the next patient waiting.
“Hey, Bones! Where’s the Russian kid?”
“What Russian kid?”
“In the prisoners we freed, there was this kid, kinda thin, curly hair. Seriously, he barely looked old enough to shave. He looked pretty bad - we barely figured out what language he was speaking before he passed out.” Jim leaned up on his elbows to look at Leonard, jostling the litter and barely keeping seated as the corpsmen did their best to compensate for the movement. Leonard couldn’t see his face clearly, but he could hear what he needed to know in his voice. “Could you, ya know, make sure someone gets to him before it’s... well. You know.” And there it was. The worry for other human beings that made Jim one of the best men he knew. And there was the fear that he’d lose someone he felt responsible for. It was that shared fear that had originally bonded the two men, and it was because of the fear that Leonard told Christine to find the kid while he flagged over another corpsman with a flashlight.
He’d performed a quick yet thorough assessment on two more injured, one American and one German who looked like he’d rather die than let Leonard touch him, before he heard Christine’s strong alto cut through the darkness and the sounds of pain. There was an urgency in her voice that no one ever wanted to hear during nights like this.
By the time Leonard was able to navigate his way through the stretchers littering the field and arrive at Chapel’s side, the nurse had the flashlight held between her shoulder and chin, needing both hands as she frantically dug into the boy’s side to stem the bleeding and make a preliminary assessment to tell the doctor. McCoy knelt at the kid’s - yes, Jim was right, he was just a kid - side and listened to Chapel’s stream of information as he formed his own opinions as well regarding the kid’s state.
“The head wound is superficial, but one of his pupils is unresponsive.” Likely concussion, maybe worse. “The bandaged tibia is an older injury, poorly set, Denning will need to look at that.” Someone had done a half-assed job with that one... Christine took a deep breath, but her next words still came out in a waver. “Chest wound, left side. At least two broken ribs. The cut itself looks minor, but...” Massive internal hemorrhaging.
Leonard could see why the medic hadn’t marked him as urgent. Field medics weren’t physicians and a wound like this, not much obvious blood loss and the sluggish blood flow making it look like it was clotting, it was easy to overlook. But the whole left side of his chest was bruised, his belly slightly distended from bleeding internally for at least a half hour...
“Surgery. NOW.”
It’s easy to lose track of time during an operation. By the time he’d gotten the young man stitched up as well as modern medicine could manage, he’d been in surgery on one patient for four and a half hours. It took another three for Major Denning to re-break and reset the poor kid’s tibia after a shoddy German fix, and another forty minutes for a consensus to be reached that the kid wasn’t going to die from the head wounds he’d sustained. But it was anyone’s guess as to when he would wake - assuming he survived the rest of his injuries.
It was late - or early, depending on how you wanted to look at it - when McCoy made it to Post Op to check on his patients. He should’ve gone straight to his bunk to sleep, the nurses and doctor on staff were more than capable, but there was just one that couldn’t wait until morning and he figured if he was already there, he should check on them all. Leonard made his way through, mimicking the more thorough assessments he’d complete on his rounds the next day, and eventually reached the curtained area the nurses had set up for their lone Soviet patient.
Leonard was as unsurprised to see Chapel already there as she apparently was to see him. Pale blue eyes barely glanced up as he pushed past the curtain and long-fingered hands gently smoothed the blanket over the still form and softly brushed the curls off of a feverish forehead. McCoy knew it was likely that she’d be here any chance she had until the boy was out of danger. Christine had a bad habit of getting attached to the young ones - a product of the fact that her own younger brother, merely 18 years old, was serving somewhere in the Pacific. She’d confided in Leonard once, after he had watched her hold the hand of a 19-year-old private in his last moments, that she did it because, if her brother were ill or in pain, she’d want someone to be there to comfort him and soothe him, to maybe make the end a little easier for him.
And so he waited quietly to the side as she stood and, nodding to him, left the ward, presumably to get some much needed rest. Once she was gone, he picked up the chart at the end of the cot. It was depressing to have so little information on a patient. They didn’t even know his name. The chaplain hadn’t found any belongings in the boy’s clothes, no identification, no letters, no tags. The lack of information was something about front line surgery that always made McCoy nervous - no blood type, no list of allergies, no way to know if the IV you’d just inserted would kill your patient faster than his injuries. He moved carefully, rechecking vital signs and bandages that Christine had probably checked not five minutes prior, thinking that, when the kid finally woke up, they might not be much better off if they couldn’t get a Russian translator.
Leonard allowed himself to slump down into the chair that had been placed by the side of the cot and finally took a good look at the kid. During triage, he’d been covered in dirt and blood, and the nurses had since had time to clean him up properly. But Leonard couldn’t tell which was better - mud and gore or actually being able to see the swelling and bruises that covered the kid’s face. He couldn’t stop the bone-deep sigh from escaping. Those damn Nazis had worked the kid over good. Maybe he was just tired, but that made him want to hit something, or someone. He saw injuries just as bad every day, usually worse sometimes since this one had at least made it so far. But there was something different about wounds caused by a bullet or shrapnel than ones caused by human fists and boots. There was just something about the fact that the people who’d done this had looked this poor kid in the eye, had heard him cry out, and then continued to beat the shit out of him.
He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, eyes still fixed on that pale face. He knew he should be in bed (well, what counted for a “bed”), knew that he couldn’t sit here until the kid woke up, but... Leonard just needed to see the kid’s eyes open, even if one was probably too swollen to open properly. He needed to know that everything they’d done was enough, that the kid would pull through. Fuck, keeping professional distance was hard enough when working on babies like this, but this kid... with this kid, it was damn near impossible. He’d never seen a man - a battered, bruised, and bloodied man - look so much like an angel from those paintings on his grandmother’s parlor walls. Just looking at him lying like this made his throat feel tight and his eyes water and he didn’t even know the kid’s name! He wanted those eyes to open, to look at him, to show that the kid - whoever he was - was still in there. He wanted to see what color they were...
Christ, he really was tired. With a grunt, he leaned forward, hands on his knees to stand, and then noticed something that made him huff out a laugh. He’d have to tease Jim tomorrow. The kid may be young, but he was definitely old enough to shave - he had a fine dusting of golden stubble to prove it.
Standard procedure for the United States Army Medical Corps was to give a post-operative chest wound patient five days to stabilize before evacuating said patient to a station hospital for the rest of treatment and recovery. The Russian kid got two days - two days in which he still hadn’t woken - before the order came to evacuate the entire hospital via rail and air. The Nazis were on the offensive and pushing back to the west.
Less than 30 hours after the order came through, Leonard found himself on a hospital train bound for France with several of their more critical cases. Every time he got done with his rounds through his assigned cars, carefully navigating the narrow corridor and the rickety connections, checking bandages and conferring with each car’s nurse, he managed to find his way back to the young Russian’s side. Seated on a small stool, leaning up against the supports holding his litter, he’d watch the boy sleep, allowing himself to be lulled into a nap by the gentle swaying of the train and the soft noises of the other sleeping patients.
It could have been minutes or hours since he fell asleep, but it only took him seconds to realize what had woken him. He heard the sound of shifting fabric even before he opened his eyes and as he looked down at his patient, he saw the curly-mopped head turn towards him and eyes blink open. Every medical professional working in a war zone quickly learns to recognize the beginnings of panic in a newly awakened patient and Leonard noticed it right away. He instinctively moved closer to the young man’s side, reaching out to gently grasp the boy’s hand resting atop the blankets. Leonard’s other hand softly began stroking the boy’s hair, mimicking what he’d seen Christine and the other nurses do thousands of times before. He was almost certain the kid couldn’t understand a single word he said, but as Leonard began to whisper reassurances of safety, he could see the tension seep from those wide eyes until they eventually slid closed, a soft smile gracing the young man’s chapped lips. Leonard didn’t move, didn’t stop speaking in hushed tones with a gentleness that would probably frighten those who knew him, until he was certain that the kid was asleep again. Even then, all he did was return to his seat, keeping watch over his young patient once more. Again the movement of the car made him drowsy and before he knew it, he was drifting to sleep himself, with one final thought in his mind: They are green... greyish-green, like the sage that grows in my mother’s backyard...
Once in France, it was decided that a surgeon like McCoy would be more useful in a station hospital, and so he found himself reassigned to an American hospital in the southwestern part of Champagne-Ardennes in France. It was a real hospital - an honest-to-god hospital with wards and surgeries and a pharmacy and actual beds and real goddamn walls and a permanent roof over their heads! It felt like heaven. There were even several houses and spare rooms that the locals had offered for use by the medical staff in exchange for the care and services they received at the newly reopened hospital. Leonard’s lodgings were only two doors down from the main hospital entrance with his own room and a double bed. Leonard wouldn’t have been able to think of an appropriate way to thank the elderly couple he was boarding with, even if he could actually speak French.
It was easy to slip back into a slightly more normal hospital routine again. There still weren’t enough doctors to go around, but he’d become used to long hours anyway. It’s not like he had anywhere else to be, he occasionally thought wryly. And anyway, any free hours he had were spent at the bedside of a certain curly-haired blond with grey-green eyes.
According to his still-lacking chart, the kid hadn’t woken again after what Jim was calling their “little moment” on the train. After physical therapy for his leg, the blond captain would wheel himself to the curtained area around the boy’s bed and sit with him, speaking at the unconscious form about the random stuff that regularly flowed through that remarkably brilliant head of his. Leonard would often find him there and sometimes they’d sit and chat as well, waiting not-so-patiently for the young man to wake up. Sometimes he’d find Christine there, smoothing down the white sheets and grey blankets, speaking gently for a few minutes before moving on to the rest of her patients.
But most of the time, Leonard was there on his own after his duties as physician were over, he’d usually just sit quietly by the side of the bed, sometimes going through paperwork, which was probably the only thing that wasn’t in short supply, and sometimes reading letters from home or writing their responses. Every time he stopped by though, he’d check the kid’s chart, hoping to find something new or maybe just to see that someone had managed to catch him awake. He was starting to wonder if he’d dreamt the whole damn thing.
It was on one of these solitary visits that, when looking over the mostly empty chart once again, he indulged himself and spoke aloud.
“You know, kid. If you don’t wake up and tell me your name, I might just have to make one up.” Maybe Paul... He looked like a Paul...
“...Chekov.” Leonard froze at the raspy tenor he heard. You’ve gotta be kidding me. He forced his gaze to slowly raise above the chart he was holding and locked sight with a pair of grey-green eyes blinking blearily up at him. “My name is Pavel Andreievich Chekov.”
The kid - Chekov - looked exhausted and in pain, lying limply on his bed, skin pale even against the white sheets. But there was a hint of steel in those eyes and in that voice as he added, “And I am not a kid.”
And finally, McCoy was able to get a patient history - though at one point it did devolve into an argument about whether or not being nineteen constituted use of the term “kid”. And Leonard didn’t think he could believe that “Russians don’t have allergies,” no matter how emphatically Chekov insisted in that adorable accent of his. The only question that he didn’t readily answer was for his rank. He blushed - quite prettily, Leonard’s mind supplied before he could mentally slap it back into professionalism - and hesitated only a moment before stating that he didn’t know it in English. Leonard wasn’t sure what it was, but something was off about the way he said it. Later on in their conversation, after finding out that the kid was a certifiable genius with degrees in engineering and physics, he just decided to chalk it up to Chekov being unaccustomed to not knowing something.
To the joy of everyone who treated him or visited him, Chekov was now spending equal times awake and asleep. And to the boost of everyone’s morale, the young man was utterly charming. He always had a cheerful smile and a kind word and the nurses adored him. He started playing cards with Jim whenever the man stopped by, no doubt to the relief of the nurses in Jim’s ward, and he regularly asked Christine about her day and about her brother.
Ultimately, no matter how energetic he seemed, Chekov was still healing from severe wounds. His “long nap”, as he was now calling it, had given him time to heal, but there where still moments of pain, usually after he got too excited or overexerted himself. In those moments, with morphine flowing more strongly through his system, he’d whisper things in Russian, murmurings that Leonard couldn’t understand but which seemed very important.
His leg was healing well, there was no lasting damage from the blow to his head, and while his lung and liver function would never be the same, he was going to be fine. His only complaint was that the liver damage meant no more vodka, and soon he was asking for the curtain around his bed to be removed and to be able to talk to his fellow ward denizens. He made friends easily, entertaining those around him with stories of the greatness of Russia in that quirky accent of his and listening intently to the other soldiers’ stories of home and family. And it was soon obvious to all just how thoroughly even grumpy Doctor McCoy was wrapped around his finger.
Leonard was spending almost all of his free time - though it wasn’t much - with the young man. Sometimes pushing him around the hospital; sometimes just sitting in the chair beside his bed, doing paperwork while Chekov rested. But mostly, they would sit together and talk, asking each other questions and telling stories, each getting to know the other better than any other person stationed there.
The stronger Chekov got over the next two months, the harder it was to keep him contained to his ward, let alone his bed. During the day, he was constantly up and about, hobbling around on crutches as soon as his lung allowed it and McCoy gave the thumbs-up. At first he’d just visit with the other patients, spreading cheer better than Christmas even had this year to every ward he made his way into. And pretty soon, he was helping distract patients from their pain, translating for the nurses when they had a French patient, and eventually even made his way into the German POW ward.
Now the patients in this ward weren’t happy to see him anymore than they were happy to see the Allied doctors and nurses. But he soon became indispensable, able and willing to be interpreter to even the most hostile, gracefully ignoring what had to be rather vicious insults from some of them. Chekov even went so far as to lecture one of patients when he’d been rude to one of the nursing staff (though only Chekov really knew what he’d said), effectively shaming the soldier into a broken apology. Apparently, the ability to guilt someone into doing something was yet another thing invented in Russia.
However, there were a few patients he did his best to avoid, specifically a rather large man who could’ve been the poster boy for the “Aryan race” with his pale blond hair, blue eyes and strong jaw. Anytime, Chekov had to deal with this man, a coldness seeped into his features and a harsh quality could be heard in his clipped tones. He always helped the nurses with what needed to be said and asked, but he obviously felt distinctly uncomfortable whenever the man’s eyes followed him.
And follow him they did. McCoy noticed it quickly, this preoccupation the patient seemed to have with Chekov. And he also noticed how Chekov stayed a little closer to his side whenever the man stared too intently. Soon enough, McCoy put it all together. The man was Sturmbannführer Kellner, the German equivalent of a major in the unit who’d held Chekov captive. The leader of the unit that had almost killed him.
As soon as he knew who the man was, the questions began to form in Leonard’s head. Was this the man whose boot had snapped three of Chekov’s ribs, sending one into his liver, and the other into his lung? Or was he the man who had smashed Chekov’s head into a wall so forcefully that it had broken the skin and fractured his skull? He and some of the other medical staff had at first been concerned about how capable they were of putting personal feelings aside and providing these German patients with the best care they could offer, but it turned out to be quite easy to view them simply as patients in need of assistance. Not so for this man, at least not in Leonard’s eyes. He was simply the man who’d terrorized Chekov and who was doing his best to continue that foul treatment, even in the position he was in, even though Chekov was willing to help him. Leonard had never despised someone so thoroughly before.
It was easy to hate an abstract, to hate “the Nazis”, to hate someone you didn’t know and had never seen. Seeing these men’s faces, these soldier’s faces that could’ve belonged to their friends and neighbors back home, helped the medical staff - and especially the nurses who had to spend so much time with them - get past the negative feelings directed towards “the enemy” in general. But even after having seen Kellner’s face at its most vulnerable, he was surprised at the level of anger he could feel for him.
Leonard would never let that interfere with his duties as a physician, however. Personal dislike had no place in a treatment center and McCoy took his duties very seriously. He treated the man, provided regular assessment, and did his best to ignore the looks that Kellner gave to both McCoy and the shadow at his side, Chekov. At least the man never spoke except to answer direct questions. It’s easy to ignore the silent.
But one day, as Leonard was marking the order to lower the man’s morphine dose - he’d healed enough and grudgingly admitted that he was healing well, regardless of the assumed incompetence of American doctors - Kellner did, in fact, have something more to say. Something that he said directly to McCoy, false innocence barely hiding the malice underneath a small smile.
“I’m surprised you let him stand so close to you, Doctor.” McCoy sighed. Piece of shit actually knew English?
“You know, you’d’a made life a lot easier if you’d just told us you spoke English sooner.” The soldier ignored him in favor of staring at the young Russian by his side.
“He’s not as sweet as he looks.” He sneered and McCoy felt Chekov tense beside him. “Russia’s very own little Mata Hari...”
McCoy looked back at the soldier, eyebrow raised. That was the type of comment that he couldn’t just ignore. Mata Hari? As in... The German noticed his interest and continued. “Oh. Did he not tell you?”
By this point, Chekov had paled even further, eyes as hard as jade and voice as cold as steel as he bit out a phrase in German. The major just smiled at him, voice dripping with condescension as he replied.
“So the little dog doesn’t want me to tell his new master just what his place really was? Just answer me this, kleine Hure, did you slit his throat before or after you let that sick bastard fuck you one last time?”
Chekov exploded. With a yell, he launched himself at the Nazi. He got in two good hits before McCoy managed to get his arms around him and pull him off of the prisoner.
As he bodily dragged the young man out of the ward, still screaming in a mix of German and Russian, he could hear the other man’s laughter follow them into the hall.
McCoy ended up getting Chekov back to his bed and sedating him when all of the yelling caused a coughing fit, risking damage to his newly healed lung. By morning, the story of his outburst in the prison ward had gotten around the staff and they were giving him a wide berth. Nothing was more frightening than finding a fierce temper in a previously harmless being. It just made the level of anger that much more frightening.
It was just as well. Chekov didn’t seem inclined to speak to anyone, only speaking enough to say goodbye to Jim when he was shipped back out to his men. After a whole week and a half of silence, an unnerving time for everyone in the ward, Leonard had had enough. He informed the damn kid in no uncertain terms that if he continued to ignore his exercise regimen, he was going to set back his recovery time. After physically manhandling him out of the bed and onto his crutches, he marched him down to the PT room and placed him in the capable, if possibly sadistic, hands of Lieutenant Rand.
Interactions between Chekov and the rest of his surroundings seemed to normalize a bit after that. But McCoy couldn’t forget Kellner’s words, nor could he forget the Russian’s reactions to them. He wasn’t sure it was a good idea to approach Chekov about it, but he knew that the young man needed to talk to someone - Leonard didn’t even need his psych degree to know that. So one day, after Chekov’s PT, when he’d be good and tired and less likely to attempt to throttle his doctor for bringing it up, Leonard cornered him in an empty hallway on his way back to the ward and ushered him into a deserted alcove.
He didn’t even need to ask any questions. Chekov just looked up at him wearily, with those eyes that were far too old for a nineteen-year-old face, and started to speak.
“I was the Obersturmbannführer’s... I think ‘valet’ is the euphemism Americans would use... Or maybe ‘house boy’.” Honestly, Leonard had been expecting a denial. But then again, he had a feeling that this wasn’t the only surprise he’d be getting today.
“Wait a minute. You really were … well, having sex with his commanding officer?” Those slim shoulders simply shrugged.
“For over a year. It was the fastest way to get him to trust me, especially once I was certain that he liked men. Getting him into bed, making him fall for me - that was the easy part.” To say that so casually...
“You actually -” McCoy realized that the phrase ‘whored yourself out’ might not go over too well in this situation, “- seduced a man for...?”
"I told you, that was easy. But I did not kill him. He was trusting and talkative - not exactly good qualities for a commander to have, but it helped me a great deal. He slipped out what I needed to know and never suspected me even when he found me going through his desk.” An almost fond, but mostly incredulous smile graced the young man’s lips and he huffed out a laugh. “He actually believed when I told him I was looking for some paper to write a letter to my mother.”
Chekov’s expression and tone sobered again when he continued. “Roderick was a terrible man. His ruthlessness is probably what got him his command. But he treated me well.” He shrugged again, but this time it was tense. Leonard could see his discomfort even as he feigned nonchalance. “He was already dead when I woke up and the Sturmbannführer was already standing over us."
Well, this was... What was that phrase the soldiers were always using? FUBAR. Yes, this definitely qualified as FUBAR.
“You really were a spy?”
“Yes.”
“And that’s why you couldn’t tell me your rank.” Chekov nodded. “Chekov... is that your real name?”
“I swear I haven’t lied to you. Not once.” Sweet baby Jesus. None of this jived with the cheerful and outgoing young man they’d all grown attached to. Or maybe it did. Maybe he hid this part of himself underneath the mask of innocence and good humor.
It certainly made some aspects of his personality more clear. The anger and pain Leonard could sometimes see in his eyes. His ability to hide physical pain so easily. The way he could listen to horror stories from the other patients without a tear, to empathise and comfort them so easily, and distract them from their trauma better than many nurses. Because men didn’t just want sex - they wanted someone to talk to, who would comfort and reassure them, too. Skills that Chekov would’ve had to be good at if he had drawn in and kept this “Roderick” satisfied and unsuspicious for over a year.
“You are disappointed in me.” Chekov was staring at him, eyes almost accusatory, and pained, as though the very idea hurt him.
“No, Chekov. I’m not - I just -” Fuck. “This just doesn’t make sense to me.” He avoided the eyes studying his face.
“What doesn’t make sense? That I seduced someone for information?” No, it wasn’t that part and the kid had to know it. Though the idea of someone as angelic-looking as Chekov seducing someone did seem a bit far-fetched. “Or is it that I seduced a man for information?”
Hell, Leonard didn’t know. All that he did know was that he’d heard some bizarre shit in his time, but this really took the cake. Not only had this actually happened to someone, said someone was telling him, of all people. What was he supposed to do with this information? Did Chekov expect him to report it? Or maybe that was the point - Leonard was a civilian, technically, someone safe to tell. Leonard opened his mouth, unsure of what to say and going to admit it, but instead, out came, “Why are you telling me this?”
Chekov actually blushed, the second time Leonard had ever seen it, and ducked his curly head. “...потому что я тебя люблю...” Leonard didn’t know what he’d said, but the tone alone made his breathing rate speed up. It was intimate, the kind of voice used for a lover.
“Chekov...” His hand seemed to move on its own and brushed a curl behind a flushed ear. Sage-colored eyes met hazel and Leonard was shocked by the heat he saw there - heat that spread through his own body and settled low into his gut. Heat that made him realize where he was and who he was with and how inappropriate this all was. And that realization made him drop his hand and take a step back. “Chekov, I... You’re only nineteen...” For some reason, Leonard wasn’t surprised that it was the age and not the gender that bothered him. A few things in his past certainly made more sense with this revelation.
He saw something like determination flash through Chekov’s eyes as they narrowed and before he could move further away, the lithe form in front of him had leaned into Leonard’s space, one hand playing with the doctor’s stethoscope before using it to tug him close enough to whisper in his ear. Leonard could feel his own heartbeat quicken as he heard the husky tenor and felt the warm moisture of the younger man’s breath on his ear.
“It is not as though I was inexperienced before the war. How do you think I got the assignment to begin with, мой красавец?” Then with a nip to Leonard's ear and a kiss on his stubbled cheek, Chekov was hobbling down the hall towards his ward, a distinct swagger that no man on crutches should rightly be capable of. Leaving Leonard shell-shocked and half-hard behind him.
Oh, this was going to be a problem.
After that, things went even further back to normal - at least for Chekov. Leonard, on the other hand, couldn’t forget that moment in the hallway. It never interfered with his work or with his public interactions with that attractive creature, but, at night in his room, thoughts and fantasies came to him, tormenting him with possibilities. The mornings after, it was as though Chekov knew what he’d been thinking. He’d lock eyes with the doctor and give him a small smile and a wink, and Leonard wouldn’t be able to look him in the eye the rest of the day.
But for the most part, their interactions stayed the same. Chekov was still one of the only people to receive a smile from the abrasive doctor and he still received the gentlest attention from him - possibly because, as Leonard loudly maintained if anyone brought it up, the young man managed to keep himself out of trouble and actually followed doctor’s orders.
The time came when Chekov was healed enough to be released. He was mobile, though still required a cane and regular rest, and the hospital desperately needed the bed. They were receiving more and more wounded soldiers and prisoners from evac hospitals as the Germans got more desperate. But where could Chekov go? He was a Soviet citizen, but still needed physical therapy and was a useful translator in a hospital full of multi-nationals. The Soviets had yet to claim him, most likely because of his known status with the Nazis as a spy, and honestly, the hospital staff was reluctant to let him go.
So color Leonard surprised when he heads to his lodgings one evening to find Chekov chatting away on the couch in accented French to the elderly man who owns the house. As he entered the parlor and greeted Mr. Laurent, the old man rose and left the room with a fond smile and a parting comment to the young Russian. Chekov was as energetic as he always was lately and practically bounced off out of his seat to stand beside the coffee table, his excitement at a near-tangible level.
“Major Pierce spoke to Colonel Boyce and he spoke to his superiors and they decided that since I’ve been so helpful and there is no way to safely return me to Russia, here I am!“ There was that gleaming smile and arms stretched wide in his enthusiasm. “Monsieur and Madame Laurent offered to board another and they said I could sleep on their divan! Isn’t that wonderful?” Chekov’s arms raised a bit more then dropped to his sides and Leonard let his gaze slip to the couch against the wall. No, it wasn’t wonderful. And he said so out loud adding, “You won’t be able to move after just one night on that monstrosity.”
It was true. The piece of furniture had not been designed with sleep in mind. But this was the closest Chekov could probably get to the hospital and he needed the proximity if he was going to limping back and forth with his cane for a while. And since there was only one spare room - Leonard’s - and he certainly couldn’t sleep on the couch himself... He let out a heavy sigh. This was going to end poorly somehow, he just knew it.
“We could just share the double in my room, ya know.”
His statement was met with silence. Chekov just stared at him, eyes wide. After a moment, the staring was making him self-conscious.
“Well, it’s not like either of us have a lot of stuff, so the room’s big enough.” Still no reaction. He reached up and scrubbed a hand through his hair, sighing again. “And it’s not like you take up a lot of space.” At least that got his eyes to narrow. Hey, it was true. He’d been putting on some muscle in physical therapy, but he was still scrawny.
“You are certain?” And then Leonard realized just what he was proposing - and to whom.
“Look. It’s not -” What was he going to say? It’s not like we’ll be doing anything other than sleeping? Because if Leonard were being honest, he doubted he get a lot of actual sleep with the object of his dreams lying right next to him. But he didn’t want to make the kid uncomfortable by mentioning any other nighttime activity. Especially after how poorly things had gone the last time Chekov had shared a bed with another man. And why did it feel like so much hinged on Chekov agreeing to this? He felt like a damn teenager asking a girl to dance and his discomfort made his next words a little gruffer than they needed to be. “If you don’t want to, just say so. The offer’s there, if you want it.”
And when Leonard turned and grouched his way up the stairs, he missed the wide grin that spread across lightly freckled cheeks. But he didn’t miss the sound of happy feet racing up the stairs after him a few seconds later.
And so, Chekov remained in Leonard’s life, eventually becoming Pavel when Leonard was informed in accented English that it was ridiculous to use last names when they shared a bed. Every night, Pavel kept a respectful physical distance, but every day it was harder and harder for Leonard to tear his gaze away from the young man, to not spend every spare second thinking about him. And the more he got to know Pavel, the less he wanted to fight his desires.
The waiting and internal debate came to an end one night. Not ten minutes after they’d both settled under the covers, Pavel was no longer on his side of the mattress and instead was draped over Leonard, legs tangled together and propped up on one elbow, searching his eyes in the pale moonlight from the window. Leonard didn’t move, made no attempt to dislodge the warm body against his, nor to stop Pavel from leaning down to kiss him.
The kiss didn’t spark fireworks. Bells didn’t ring and time didn’t stop. But for the first time in his life, Leonard was right where he was supposed to be - at the right time doing the right thing with the right person. Though physically so far away from Georgia, Leonard felt like he was home. Pavel felt like home.
Which is why every part of him - from his eyebrows to his toes, and deep within his very soul - rebelled when he gently pushed Pavel away. Because he’d hate himself forever if he didn’t know:
“Why are you doing this?” He had to know that this wasn’t happening out of misplaced loyalty or gratitude. That this wasn’t a form of compensation or manipulation. That the feelings Leonard had been fighting for weeks were answered and matched.
Two sets of eyes searched each other in the dim light and a pale, graceful hand came up to gently brush the hair from Leonard’s forehead as a soft whisper answered:
“потому что я тебя люблю...”
“You said that before. What does it mean?” Even in the dark, the answering smile glowed with contentment.
“Because I love you.” Love. Leonard had always had difficulty with such an abstract concept as love. He believed in its existence wholeheartedly. But to express such a thing to another... Pavel had proven yet again how brave he was, to make himself so vulnerable. Everything about the young man spoke of earnestness - he understood what he was promising with those words and he meant it with all of his being. Leonard could see it in his eyes and hear it in his voice. But could he say it himself? Could he really mean it the way that Pavel needed him to? And if he wasn’t sure...
“Leonard...” Another kiss. “Лёня...” The nickname Pavel had always said with a grin, paired with another kiss. “You do not have to say it back. But if you want me to stop, just tell me and I will stop.” There it was. Pavel was giving him an easy exit.
But he couldn’t take it. He didn’t want him to stop. He didn’t want to wake up one more day with Pavel on the other side of the bed. He wanted to taste, to touch... to hold on to him and never let him go.
May 9th, 1945, should have been a happy day. The fighting was over, the surrender of Germany had been formalized and put into effect. They all could finally start to go home. The mood in the hospital was at an all-time high and the joy was palpable in every Allied ward. Leonard had not seen Pavel all afternoon, but he fully intended to celebrate with him as soon as they were together. And so he entered their shared room in high spirits, an actual smile on his face, and wanted nothing more than to bury himself in his partner and in their shared happiness for as long as Pavel and necessities of life - like eating and sleep - would allow.
But the sight that greeted him stopped him short, ripped the smile from his face, and drew his heart into his throat. Pavel, his Pavel, sat on the end of the bed, pale-faced and eyes locked on a piece of official-looking paper gripped in white-knuckled hands. Instead of the happy sanctuary that this room had become, Leonard felt like he’d stepped into a tomb, and he unconsciously tread softly over to Pavel, kneeling carefully on the soft rug at the young man’s bare feet.
“Pavel?” His hand reached out, resting a broad palm on the side of Pavel’s slim shoulder. No response. “Pavel...” All happy thoughts he’d had during the day had fled, left only with an indeterminable fear. He didn’t know what had happened, he couldn’t read the letter held in those tense fingers, and he’d never seen Pavel look so... broken.
Placing his free hand on the young man’s hip and moving his other palm to cup his strong jawline, hazel eyes searched sage ones, looking for something, anything, any sign of recognition. Leonard had been awakened too many times in the night by a thrashing, nightmare-stricken bed partner to think that the trauma of the war was just hitting the young man now. But even after recounting some of his worst memories, the young Russian had never seemed so catatonic. “Pav... Please... You’re scaring me.”
Something in Leonard’s voice must have gotten through somehow. Eyelids slipped closed, squeezing together; trying to hold something in or keep something out, Leonard didn’t know. But when those eyes opened again and his gaze met Leonard’s, they were lifeless. As empty as the voice that seemed to just fall out of him.
“I have to go back.”
“What? What do you mean?” Curls bounced as he shook his head, as if to clear it before speaking again. His voice was only marginally stronger.
“They’re sending me back to the Soviet Union.” The fingers holding the paper clenched more tightly, wrinkling it with a sound that seemed to echo in the quiet of the house, louder than the sounds of celebration outside. “I have no choice.”
In the silence that followed, the hand on Pavel’s cheek slipped to rest on his shoulder as his statements sank into Leonard’s mind. They would be going home; Leonard McCoy would be going back to Georgia and Pavel Chekov would be returning to the USSR. Which meant they’d likely never see each other again. Their meeting had been a fluke in history, a stroke of unbelievable luck. The USSR and the USA only tolerated each other for the sake of defeating a common enemy. Visits would not be permitted, especially not so a decadent capitalist could see his equally-male Soviet lover.
“...You should have let me die. ...” Leonard’s gaze refocused instantly on that blank face and its dull eyes as his anger - the anger that had begun to fester as the unfairness and the pain of separation registered in his thoughts - gained force, bursting into flame at such a statement.
“How can you say something like that?” His hands had tensed and his voice held a venom born of pain that made the young man flinch. But at least those eyes now met his and there was finally something growing in them - indignation.
“When I return to Russia, I won’t get a hero’s welcome like your soldiers will. My country doesn’t look kindly on prisoners of war and even less kindly on homosexual prisoners of war, especially ones who have since been helping Americans!” His tenor was gaining strength and color was returning to his face as his intensity grew. “I was supposed to fight to the death! It won’t matter how useful I was to them during the war; I will only be seen as a coward, a failure! I will tortured, accused as a traitor and fascist... Or if I’m lucky, I will just be shot. If I’m unlucky, I’ll be sent to the labor camps, only to disappear or worse. I shouldn’t still be alive, Leonard.” He sounded furious, but he also sounded defeated. He was giving up. And Leonard couldn’t let that happen.
“You don’t know that, Pavel! What if-” His own voice was shaking, from what - fear, anger - he didn’t know. Pavel’s words burst out of him, cheeks pink, eyes burning and hands trembling, the crackling of the paper and the revelry outside creating a surreal score.
“Think about it, Leonard! Why else would they send an eighteen-year-old, no matter how brilliant? I was supposed to send them as much useful information as I could for as long as I could, but I was never supposed to make it home alive!” There were tears in his eyes, not yet falling but threatening to spill over. “I was a pawn! A whore! Useful for a time and then thrown away!” The laughter that ripped from his throat was painful to hear. “I asked you once, how you thought I got this assignment. I’ll give you the answer! It was service or prison! They had rumors about Roderick and an expendable deviant who filled their purpose!”
Pavel was crying now, tears streaming down his cheeks and dropping on the paper still in his lap. “I am nothing! You all get to go home to your families and friends. But I have no home to go to.”
No one should ever have reason to sound so bitter, nor so betrayed. Pavel loved Russia. His sense of self was wrapped up in it, filled him and most likely sustained him for a time. But now... He’d been used and rejected and he had nowhere left to turn. Before he was even aware he was moving, Leonard had slipped his arms around the trembling and sobbing form in front of him, pulling him off the bed and into his lap. He buried a hand in the curly mess he loved so much and said the only truth that he thought mattered, pouring as much of his strength and love into his words as he could: “You are everything. And you will always have a home with me.”
But Pavel’s words had also been true. Leonard had only been thinking about going home; he’d forgotten that they wouldn’t be going to the same place. As far as their governments were concerned, his home wasn’t with the amazing young man in front of him, even though wherever Pavel happened to be was the only place that Leonard would ever want to go.
Leonard H. McCoy shipped out to England on June 2, 1945, two weeks before Pavel was scheduled to leave with an escort back to Russia. The two men had spent their last twenty-four days soaking up as much of each other’s presence as they could, only parting when forced and never speaking of what was to come. Pavel had refused to say goodbye and, after straightening the tie on Leonard’s uniform, didn’t even wait for Leonard to board his train before turning on his heel and walking briskly out of Leonard’s life.
After a few months working at a hospital in Herefordshire, his eighteen-month contract with the Army expired and he finally flew back to America. Once again in Georgia, he managed to stay in contact with Christine and Jim, tried to stay busy at the hospital that had celebrated his somewhat gruff return, and failed miserably at not thinking about a certain green-eyed, curly-haired genius. He didn’t want to think about where Pavel was now, what had happened to him. He didn’t want to think about how much he wanted to have Pavel in his arms, next to him as he woke every morning.
In December, he knew that Jim would be returning to the States, but he hadn’t expected a phone call at six in the morning.
“Bones? That you?”
“You called my house, you damned idjit. Who else would it be?”
“Aw, I’m glad to hear your voice, too, Bones!” Leonard couldn’t stop the chuckle that escaped.
“Good to know you’re home safe. You are still in one piece, right?”
“Yeah, yeah, you damn mother hen. I didn’t ruin any of the medical establishment’s fine work.” There was a pause on the line, but before Leonard could fill it, Jim was speaking again.
“Hey, Bones, could you do me a favor? It’s real small. Promise!”
“So that’s why you called. Glad to hear my voice, my ass.”
“C’mon, Bones! One of my friends in flying into Georgia from the war. All I’m asking is for you to pick him up at the air strip.” Another pause as Jim let Leonard consider for a moment before continuing. Hell, Leonard could practically feel Jim batting his eyelashes at him. “Pleeease?”
“Fine. When’s he get in?”
And so Leonard H. McCoy found himself at Robins Army Air Depot, just south of Macon, pulling out his Army credentials once more and getting a visitor’s pass so he could wait inside the gates. He waited as he heard the plane land, then taxi to its unloading space, before he headed outside to meet whoever it was. Jim had hung up before giving a name - some genius, he is - so all he knew was he’d be looking for a second lieutenant who needed a ride.
Thankfully, Georgia in December is much warmer than in Germany and so Leonard wasn’t shivering the second time Pavel Andreievich Chekov appeared in his life. He cut a smart figure in his US Army Air Force uniform as he descended the steps from the plane. The cut of the coat accented his narrow hips and his recently trimmed hair, curls still peeking out from under his hat, showed off his chiseled features. He looked healthier than Leonard could ever remember and as they locked eyes, Pavel’s grin was brighter than Leonard had ever seen it.
The native Georgian was having difficulty keeping his composure in the cool air as the confident young man moved through the crowd toward him. By the time they were face to face, Leonard was able to squeeze one word past the tightness in his chest.
“...How?” Chekov’s smile somehow managed to grow and Leonard noticed the moisture in those beautiful eyes, eyes he’d never thought he’d see again outside of dreams and memory.
“I managed to speak to Captain Kirk. He put me in touch with a Colonel Pike, who put me in touch with a Lt. Colonel Scott in the Air Force. Apparently, they need aeronautical engineers more than they care about returning me to Russia.” From the sound of his voice, the Russian seemed just as overwhelmed as Leonard felt, though he’d had more time to process the fact that, yes, they could finally be together again.
Leonard couldn’t speak. He could barely even think. What he’d been hoping for, the one thing that he wanted in life anymore was standing in front of him. All he could seem to do was drink in everything in sight, eyes moving and memorizing before finally resting again on a lightly freckled face. A lightly blushing, freckled face that looked happy and vaguely uneasy.
The owner of that face cleared his throat, straightened his jacket, and took one step closer before breaking the silence between them.
“They told me it would be safer if I changed my name. I hope you don’t mind...” He gestured toward the name tag on his jacket, more nervous than Leonard had ever seen him. Leonard leaned in closer to read the name before sweeping him into an embrace, witnesses be damned, swallowing past the lump in his throat and whispering:
“I love you, too, Pavel McCoy.”
One year and seven months since shipping out to Europe, Leonard H. McCoy was finally home.