Fic: I Can't Have You
Title: I Can't Have You
Pairing: Kirk and McCoy
Rating: PG-13
Length: one shot (500 words)
Disclaimer: I have absolutely no connection to Paramount or the Star Trek franchise
Warnings: Dark themes (but no character death)
Summary: He’d never been so consumed with needing someone to live.
A/N: For my dog. Beta’d by ranka_lee and enemyanemone. Title and cut text from the Jonas Brothers song Can't Have You
He watches as Kirk limps towards him, that usual smile reserved just for McCoy on his face. And McCoy feels the familiar accompanying twist in his gut.
***
He had never heard the full story of what had occurred, he just knew that something had gone wrong in Engineering that day two weeks ago when Kirk went down to visit Chief Engineer Scott. At the time he had been too focused on all the blood that was pouring out of Kirk’s leg to even consider asking the ensign who had brought him what the cause was. McCoy’s heart hammered in his chest as he desperately administered hypo after hypo while the distant sound of Chapel yelling behind him echoed throughout the room.
He’d never done that.
He’d never been so consumed with needing someone to live, to make sure that they weren’t hurt and to make sure that they just didn’t die on him, dammit, that he completely ignored Chapel. Silly emotion laden thoughts had filled his head instead, not the kind a professional Doctor should have.
McCoy could remember one time he had fretted over Joanna when she was only four after she had scraped her knee. His hands had fumbled as he sterilized the cut as she cried.
With Kirk it was a lot worse.
He had administered the wrong hypo in his haste and somehow Kirk bled even more. Chapel pushed him out of the way and stopped Kirk’s bleeding with a single hypo while M’Benga led McCoy out of the room.
Ever since that day he had tried to stay away from Kirk. The hypo had caused permanent nerve damage resulting in a serious limp. Whenever Kirk smiled at him in the hallway or teased him, hands going for McCoy’s pants and moaning, “C’mon, baby,” when there was no one in sick bay during Kirk’s physical therapy, he felt himself focusing on the leg. On the mistake he had made.
It became obvious that Chapel and M’Benga had neglected to tell the Captain that the limp was all McCoy’s fault. And McCoy couldn’t tell him. Selfishly, he kept Kirk believing that the treatment had just gone wrong instead of the fact that McCoy had panicked.
At night McCoy would pet Kirk’s leg, desperately wishing it to get better. When Kirk slept, McCoy could hear him groaning in pain or sometimes there were tiny whimpers as he cried into his pillow. Kirk hid his problems well when he was on the bridge with a cocky grin but it all came out when he was asleep.
***
“Hey,” Kirk says, snapping McCoy out of his trance, and leans in to give him a quick kiss on the cheek.
McCoy pulls back and the kiss lands in the air near his ear. “Dammit, Jim,” he plays it off as if he doesn’t enjoy Kirk’s PDAs but honestly he just doesn’t deserve to be treated so kindly for what he did.
Maybe one day he could kiss Kirk again.
***