fic: flat eyes
title: flat eyes
fandom: star trek 09/daybreakers
pairing: kirk/bones
rating: pg-13
word count: 3129
notes: prompt here. Daybreakers AU. "One of them is a vampire, one is part of the resistance and they've found the cure. The problem is that the other might not necessarily want to be cured because the humans are losing the battle." Kind of ran awry with me.
Another long day.
Leonard “Bones” McCoy takes a deep breath as he leans against the wall of the shabby little hut that they’ve been living in for the last couple of days. It’s a pretty depressing place, definitely qualifying as a shanty. The walls, really just big pieces of steel, lean slightly inwards due to the pathetic supports given to them. The roof, another steel piece, has wires running across it, hiding nearly the entire rusted surface. It’s those wires that power the few things they’ve got here: some lamps, a hydroponic garden, clean water and a purifier. Luckily, this one’s close enough that they were able to funnel running water into the place, even if it’ll only be good for moving sewage. The last time, they dug crap holes, and that wasn’t fun at all.
“Doctor McCoy,” Spock says, from the floor where he’s sitting. An chemist and physicist by trade, Spock’s always been a weird one, the kind of guy Bones doesn’t really like due to that cool, logical way he carries himself, almost as if he’s got no emotions at all. Bones looks at him and nods in greeting but doesn’t reply, too tired from staying hidden all day to get the few supplies they need, mostly first aid things.
That’s his job, where he got the nickname, even before all this fucking nonsense started happening. The problem is, you can’t grow suture wire on trees, and every time he goes out, he wonders if that’s the day they’ll capture him and stick him in one of those farms to die of blood loss, eventually. None of them have evaded the vampires perfectly, and some better than others: the most recent close call is Spock’s ear, where a piece of it has been sheered off due to a bad gunshot wound, leaving one of his ears oddly, shortly pointed. Not counting Olson, who they lost last week entirely. Fuck, Bones thinks, as he runs a hand through his hair. There’s got to be more than life than running and hiding and wondering what the fuck’s happened to everyone you knew.
Like Jim Kirk. Yeah, he knew the guy ages back, knew him for years, was even his lover, when people were still getting turned into vampires, before said vampires realized how unsustainable their population was. But Jim disappeared off the map a while back and McCoy doesn’t really know what happened to him. It’s not exactly like he can find out without risking his neck anymore than he does now.
“We’re probably safe for the night. I can’t hear or pick up anything.”
Uhura, Spock’s girlfriend, is a linguist and communications geek. She’s feisty and intelligent, and quite frankly, Bones doesn’t know what the hell the girl sees in him. But whatever it is, it’s deep.
“Well, I rebuilt the car for us to get out of here when we’re ready. I talked to Sulu, he knows where we’re going, too.” Then there’s Montgomery Scott, or Scotty, as he likes to be called, their engineer, and Hikaru Sulu, navigator, with his genius Russian boyfriend, Pavel Chekov.
It’s a strange bunch of refugees, but Leonard’s decided that if had to be constantly on the run from everyone and everything, it would definitely be with these guys. Jim would make a good addition, he finds himself frequently thinking. Despite all the specialities here, they don’t really have a leader.
“We will leave tomorrow, then,” Spock nods the gathered crowd. In absence of a real leader, McCoy and Spock tend to both hold it, though they disagree more often than not. “Assuming Doctor McCoy has acquired his supplies.”
Bones nods, too tired to complain. Right now, he’d kill for peach cobbler, whiskey, and an actual house. With all of those things missing, he’ll have to settle for whatever it is they’ve gotten together today - potatoes. Lovely. And instead of whiskey, there’s lukewarm water that’s been boiled for contaminants.
Isn’t this the life.
“Would you set watch?” Spock asks him over dinner. “There are a number of experiments that I am cultivating, and I would like to tend to them.”
“Go ahead,” Bones mutters, and Spock heads off to the second part of their shanty compound, where the experiments and makeshift med station are. He recently casted Chekov’s wrist there. Kid took a bad fall.
He arranges who works with whom and who’s staying up at what hours - yes, this is what they’ve come to, keeping watch - to keep things safe. Chekov and Sulu first, Uhura and Spock, then Scotty and himself. That way, he can get plenty of sleep now and worry about that later. He curls up in his blanketed corner and is asleep.
He doesn’t feel rested at all when Uhura wakes him. It’s been four hours, he realizes, but it feels like twenty minutes. He still feels fucking exhausted. God. But he sits up, rubs his face, looks at the engineer across the little house that’s also waking up. They find a good place to sit together. Scotty plays with some spare cogs and gears as he keeps an eye out for any of the warning signs that all of them are about to be fucked up - Bones lets his mind wander.
“Doctor,” the word,a while later, startles both of them.
“Shit, Spock, you scared the piss out of me. You’re supposed to be resting. What is it?” The sun’s just beginning to peek over the horizon. It’s almost time to go, really.
“There is something I must bring to your immediate attention. If Mr. Scott can keep watch himself for a two minutes, you must see this.”
“You got it, Scotty?”
The Scotsman nods, so Bones follows Spock back to the experiments that are spayed out across the table. Spock picks up a syringe filled with some kind of red fluid and motions to it. “This is the cure,” he says, and is that excitability? “We are now capable of reversing the changes to DNA that vampirism causes. We now possess a cure. However, we do not possess a good test…”
It hits harder than a solid right hook. Bones stares.
“You can cure it? You can fix all of this bullshit?”
“I am confident it will work.”
“How is it administered?”
“Intravenously. Fortunately, because vampires feed primarily on blood, it can also be given orally.”
The doctor chews his lip and runs a hand through his hair and tries to figure out how the fuck they can get this out into the blood supply. Considering the fact that that means they’d have to get to the farm in the middle of the fucking city swarming with vampires. He can’t exactly see them jumping to get this, for some reason, even if he’d like to. Leonard’s always been a realist.
“Bring it,” he says after a while. It’s time to get moving, anyway. He can’t sit here and stand dumbly. Planning on the move is just as important as having the necessities to survive. “We’ll have to think about how to get it out there as we move to wherever Sulu’s got us going next. When we get there, we’ll figure it out. I don’t want to be here for another day.”
“Yes, doctor,” Spock replies, and begins to fold up his experiments, placing the special formula to the side.
“I’ll wake everyone else.”
*
They cram into the destroyed-and-rebuilt-thrice-over vehicle - a modified SUV that can fit eight, but currently fits the six of them along with all their food, medical gear, experiments, and miscellaneous items like their bedding and tents, if they need be. Sulu assures them that, according to the internet, there’s an abandoned hotel about eight hours away from here that they can live in for a few days, maybe more depending on the surrounding area.
And it’s a long drive to think about how the hell to try and cure a couple hundred million vampires nationally, not to mention the rest of the world. The best part is, though, it’s not weight-based; they can cure everyone in a local water system as long as they can get the stuff into the blood. But blood doesn’t flow like water - it’s still in bags. There’s the difficulty.
They’ve already discussed the possibility that it won’t work but Spock is confident it will. More confident than usual, even, and Leonard wants to believe him, wants to know this will make it all better. They’ve settled into silence afterwards, though, and with no radio, all Bones can hear is the rapid noise of air over the car. There’s something shockingly, wonderfully relaxing about it. With Sulu driving, he can drift off back to sleep.
He has no idea how long he’s been sleeping - what time it is - where they are - what’s going on.
Only that the world has just erupted with sound.
A crash in front of them startles Sulu, who twists the wheel sharply; the entire car twists, swerves, is wrested back into control - and then they see three motorcycles behind them, all holding at least two people (focused driver and passenger with gun and what the fuck, one of them has a rocket launcher) and they some of their mouths are open, and as they catch up Bones can see fangs and yellow, yellow eyes.
“Vampires!” He screams, startled awake. Sulu floors it. “Weapons in the trunk! Go!”
Chekov, Uhura, and Spock grab crossbows from the trunk as Sulu swears, maneuvering the large vehicle around, in and out, avoiding rockets and automatic weapon fire. Uhura opens her window and fires a shot, and her damn good eye nails a vampire, spiraling the creature’s motorcycle out of control and dropping both of them.
“Doctor,” Spock says tersely, and he reaches into a pocket and pulls out a filled syringe and several additional vials. “Take this.”
“Spock, this is ---”
“Take it,” he says, and there’s an unusual amount of serious force in his voice. Bones wraps his hands around the pieces, puts them in his pocket and nods. Then he reaches for a grenade that he knows they have, and yanks the pin out.
He throws it, downing another motorcycle.
And then in front of them they hear sirens, and Sulu’s hands are white on the steering wheel. And when Bones look forward to see what’s going on, blood drains from his face, because there are at least six or seven cops lined up on and around the road. “Thanks for everything,” Sulu shouts at them. “Now hold on!”
He lowers the windows of the vehicle, bows his body over the wheel, and drives into the cars in front of them.
The force of the explosion flings McCoy from the sudden flaming wreckage, and when he hits the ground he’s too dazed to make out the shapes above him, moving and shifting until only one is left. That one grabs him, slings him onto the top of a motorcycle, and jets off.
He can still feel the syringe in his pocket.
*
Consciousness returns slowly and painfully, first a throb in the back of his head and his right arm. The natural functions start, and with that the questions. What.. He’s not driving. There’s no sound of air rushing, sound of radios running, scanning frequencies. He can’t hear those small sounds of gears twisting and a hum in a language he can’t understand. It’s pretty quiet for one of their base camps. And dry, he realizes. And comfortable. Wherever he is, it’s pretty fucking soft.
Wait, his brain says, as it tries to center itself. The car ride, right, he thinks, and then, and then what? And then there’s the syringe from Spock - in his pocket, he confirms, lifting his hip slightly to feel the weight shift. And then there’s - fuck.
Those shapes. The motorcycle.
He’s on a bed.
He leans over and pukes on the floor. He’s seen those farms. He’s seen the way those people look. They have nothing. They’re tools. McCoy doesn’t want to be a tool. He’d rather die.
He bolts up (one arm feels heavy and restricted, but he can’t bother to look at that now) to see if he can find something to kill himself with. The room’s bare, except for the bed, bedside table, and dresser - all the windows drawn, too. There’s a cabinet that he could probably kill himself on if he threw his head against a point hard enough. He’s a doctor, he could pull that off.
“Bones?”
The voice sounds timid and familiar, but he ignores it as he studies the cabinet corner. The back of his head would probably be wiser, to cut off all basic functions. He’ll have to back himself into it --
“Bones!” A vampire hurries in, with dark hair and a young face. Of course, for a vampire, that doesn’t mean anything, really. The vampire grabs him, looks at him. “Are you all right?”
“Why the fuck would you care?” He snarls, spitting in the vampire’s face.
“Bones, it’s me. Jim.”
At that the doctor pauses, stares into those yellow eyes. It could -- yes, it is. Even with the pale skin, he can see the right facial structure, the delicate jaw, the pointed chin. And that’s Jim Kirk’s voice, too. Unmistakable. “Jim?” He echoes, reaching forward with -- agh.
His right arm is casted messily. Terrible job, he thinks. Done by someone who doesn’t know much about a cast. So that’s why it was heavy and restricted.
“You broke your arm, popped your shoulder out in the fall. I fixed you back up. You’re all right now, right?” The vampire - Jim, his Jim, James Kirk - brushes some hair from his face and looks concerned. “You look better. I pulled you from that mess on the highway. I don’t know what happened to your friends, but….”
Bones socks him.
“Fuck, ow!”
“Look at you!” Leonard throws his good arm wide, his posture entirely too aggressive. “A vampire. And what happens if it wasn’t me? You would have thrown someone else to those goddamn farms. That’s what you did for all of them, didn’t you? Gave them the fate worse than death. And here I am in your fucking apartment. What do you think this is? I’d rather die.”
“I didn’t choose to be like this!” Jim snarls, his fangs evident. “The plague made me like this. But now that I’m like this, I deal. Yeah, I would have put anyone else there. Because I need to live too, and I can’t fucking live off sweet potatoes and water.” He rubs his cheek but doesn’t seem to complain anyway.
What stuns Bones is the eyes. He was always so fucking attracted to Jim’s baby-blues, could stare into those for hours while they talked or fucked or whatever it was they were doing. Jim’s eyes reminded him of the sky, of the ocean, of perfect sunny days. And when he talked they sparkled like clouds or precious stones.
They’re fucking flat yellow vampire eyes now. Dead.
“I can turn you,” Jim says, pulling him close again. McCoy hides his disgust at the cool flesh he can feel through clothes. “You don’t have to be chased again. We can be lovers. Fuck, I’ve missed you.” He kisses the doctor’s forehead.
His stomach turns.
Wait --
“I can turn you back,” he says, suddenly, and he pulls the syringe from his pocket, putting it on the bedside table, “You could be human again. We could be lovers.”
Far from the surprised, pleased shock that Leonard expects, Jim sits back from him, looking concerned. Those yellow eyes look at the syringe and then back at him. “Why?”
“Why what?”
“Bones, I…” Jim touches the badly-casted arm, then looks the doctor in the face, “Why would I want to be human? I know what being a human is like - running, hiding, being chased, always with that threat of death or farm. I’ve been tracking them down for a while now. Here, I’m safe. You could be safe, too. I could turn you. We’re not supposed to, but...I would, for you.” He touches Bones’ face briefly. “We could do so much together. As a human, now, I’d just be…...prey.”
Leonard McCoy stares, and his brown eyes slowly widen from shock to horror.
“How can you stay like that?” He starts, standing slowly, grabbing the syringe, and trying to inconsciupusly move towards the door. Running is a bad idea, yeah, but it’s better than being here with a shadow of the man he loved. “How can you say that.. that is better?” He’s impressed with how much hate he can put into one word. “You’re a monster now, Jim. A monster like the rest of them. I’d rather die than become one of you. I’d rather spend my whole life running, hiding, being chased - then become a vampire.”
Jim frowns hard at him, and when he chews his lip, the fangs make two pinpricks of blood. Bones picked up the habit from this kid, after all. He’s glad, too, that the words seem to have the intended effect of stabbing the guy repeatedly in the heart.
“I just want you to be happy,” Jim says, softly, hurt. “I want you to be with me.”
“If you really wanted to me with me, you’d be human again.”
There’s a long pause. Jim follows him, kisses him gently even though he pulls back. It’s not ownership, not passion, not that fierceness that Bones loved so much. It’s the pleading and begging Jim never did, when they were together. Longing.
Longing that he refuses to acknowledge as much as he might like to. It would be easy to be cool and dead and pointed and lay with Jim here for fucking ever.
“If you love me, you’ll tell me how to get out of here and let my friends go,” Bones says coldly.
Even with those flat vampire eyes, Jim looks like he’s about to cry.
“Right,” he says, and the voice that McCoy remembers as confident, smooth, flirty, sure - is shaking. “I can get them out. And you, too. Stay here. I’ll come back for you when I’ve gotten everything together.” He moves slowly, towards the doorjam.
“I can’t love something like that, Jim,” he says, to the kid’s back.
“You could if you really wanted too,” Jim murmurs, not turning around. “But I love you - will do anything for you - regardless of what you drink or look like.”
fandom: star trek 09/daybreakers
pairing: kirk/bones
rating: pg-13
word count: 3129
notes: prompt here. Daybreakers AU. "One of them is a vampire, one is part of the resistance and they've found the cure. The problem is that the other might not necessarily want to be cured because the humans are losing the battle." Kind of ran awry with me.
Another long day.
Leonard “Bones” McCoy takes a deep breath as he leans against the wall of the shabby little hut that they’ve been living in for the last couple of days. It’s a pretty depressing place, definitely qualifying as a shanty. The walls, really just big pieces of steel, lean slightly inwards due to the pathetic supports given to them. The roof, another steel piece, has wires running across it, hiding nearly the entire rusted surface. It’s those wires that power the few things they’ve got here: some lamps, a hydroponic garden, clean water and a purifier. Luckily, this one’s close enough that they were able to funnel running water into the place, even if it’ll only be good for moving sewage. The last time, they dug crap holes, and that wasn’t fun at all.
“Doctor McCoy,” Spock says, from the floor where he’s sitting. An chemist and physicist by trade, Spock’s always been a weird one, the kind of guy Bones doesn’t really like due to that cool, logical way he carries himself, almost as if he’s got no emotions at all. Bones looks at him and nods in greeting but doesn’t reply, too tired from staying hidden all day to get the few supplies they need, mostly first aid things.
That’s his job, where he got the nickname, even before all this fucking nonsense started happening. The problem is, you can’t grow suture wire on trees, and every time he goes out, he wonders if that’s the day they’ll capture him and stick him in one of those farms to die of blood loss, eventually. None of them have evaded the vampires perfectly, and some better than others: the most recent close call is Spock’s ear, where a piece of it has been sheered off due to a bad gunshot wound, leaving one of his ears oddly, shortly pointed. Not counting Olson, who they lost last week entirely. Fuck, Bones thinks, as he runs a hand through his hair. There’s got to be more than life than running and hiding and wondering what the fuck’s happened to everyone you knew.
Like Jim Kirk. Yeah, he knew the guy ages back, knew him for years, was even his lover, when people were still getting turned into vampires, before said vampires realized how unsustainable their population was. But Jim disappeared off the map a while back and McCoy doesn’t really know what happened to him. It’s not exactly like he can find out without risking his neck anymore than he does now.
“We’re probably safe for the night. I can’t hear or pick up anything.”
Uhura, Spock’s girlfriend, is a linguist and communications geek. She’s feisty and intelligent, and quite frankly, Bones doesn’t know what the hell the girl sees in him. But whatever it is, it’s deep.
“Well, I rebuilt the car for us to get out of here when we’re ready. I talked to Sulu, he knows where we’re going, too.” Then there’s Montgomery Scott, or Scotty, as he likes to be called, their engineer, and Hikaru Sulu, navigator, with his genius Russian boyfriend, Pavel Chekov.
It’s a strange bunch of refugees, but Leonard’s decided that if had to be constantly on the run from everyone and everything, it would definitely be with these guys. Jim would make a good addition, he finds himself frequently thinking. Despite all the specialities here, they don’t really have a leader.
“We will leave tomorrow, then,” Spock nods the gathered crowd. In absence of a real leader, McCoy and Spock tend to both hold it, though they disagree more often than not. “Assuming Doctor McCoy has acquired his supplies.”
Bones nods, too tired to complain. Right now, he’d kill for peach cobbler, whiskey, and an actual house. With all of those things missing, he’ll have to settle for whatever it is they’ve gotten together today - potatoes. Lovely. And instead of whiskey, there’s lukewarm water that’s been boiled for contaminants.
Isn’t this the life.
“Would you set watch?” Spock asks him over dinner. “There are a number of experiments that I am cultivating, and I would like to tend to them.”
“Go ahead,” Bones mutters, and Spock heads off to the second part of their shanty compound, where the experiments and makeshift med station are. He recently casted Chekov’s wrist there. Kid took a bad fall.
He arranges who works with whom and who’s staying up at what hours - yes, this is what they’ve come to, keeping watch - to keep things safe. Chekov and Sulu first, Uhura and Spock, then Scotty and himself. That way, he can get plenty of sleep now and worry about that later. He curls up in his blanketed corner and is asleep.
He doesn’t feel rested at all when Uhura wakes him. It’s been four hours, he realizes, but it feels like twenty minutes. He still feels fucking exhausted. God. But he sits up, rubs his face, looks at the engineer across the little house that’s also waking up. They find a good place to sit together. Scotty plays with some spare cogs and gears as he keeps an eye out for any of the warning signs that all of them are about to be fucked up - Bones lets his mind wander.
“Doctor,” the word,a while later, startles both of them.
“Shit, Spock, you scared the piss out of me. You’re supposed to be resting. What is it?” The sun’s just beginning to peek over the horizon. It’s almost time to go, really.
“There is something I must bring to your immediate attention. If Mr. Scott can keep watch himself for a two minutes, you must see this.”
“You got it, Scotty?”
The Scotsman nods, so Bones follows Spock back to the experiments that are spayed out across the table. Spock picks up a syringe filled with some kind of red fluid and motions to it. “This is the cure,” he says, and is that excitability? “We are now capable of reversing the changes to DNA that vampirism causes. We now possess a cure. However, we do not possess a good test…”
It hits harder than a solid right hook. Bones stares.
“You can cure it? You can fix all of this bullshit?”
“I am confident it will work.”
“How is it administered?”
“Intravenously. Fortunately, because vampires feed primarily on blood, it can also be given orally.”
The doctor chews his lip and runs a hand through his hair and tries to figure out how the fuck they can get this out into the blood supply. Considering the fact that that means they’d have to get to the farm in the middle of the fucking city swarming with vampires. He can’t exactly see them jumping to get this, for some reason, even if he’d like to. Leonard’s always been a realist.
“Bring it,” he says after a while. It’s time to get moving, anyway. He can’t sit here and stand dumbly. Planning on the move is just as important as having the necessities to survive. “We’ll have to think about how to get it out there as we move to wherever Sulu’s got us going next. When we get there, we’ll figure it out. I don’t want to be here for another day.”
“Yes, doctor,” Spock replies, and begins to fold up his experiments, placing the special formula to the side.
“I’ll wake everyone else.”
*
They cram into the destroyed-and-rebuilt-thrice-over vehicle - a modified SUV that can fit eight, but currently fits the six of them along with all their food, medical gear, experiments, and miscellaneous items like their bedding and tents, if they need be. Sulu assures them that, according to the internet, there’s an abandoned hotel about eight hours away from here that they can live in for a few days, maybe more depending on the surrounding area.
And it’s a long drive to think about how the hell to try and cure a couple hundred million vampires nationally, not to mention the rest of the world. The best part is, though, it’s not weight-based; they can cure everyone in a local water system as long as they can get the stuff into the blood. But blood doesn’t flow like water - it’s still in bags. There’s the difficulty.
They’ve already discussed the possibility that it won’t work but Spock is confident it will. More confident than usual, even, and Leonard wants to believe him, wants to know this will make it all better. They’ve settled into silence afterwards, though, and with no radio, all Bones can hear is the rapid noise of air over the car. There’s something shockingly, wonderfully relaxing about it. With Sulu driving, he can drift off back to sleep.
He has no idea how long he’s been sleeping - what time it is - where they are - what’s going on.
Only that the world has just erupted with sound.
A crash in front of them startles Sulu, who twists the wheel sharply; the entire car twists, swerves, is wrested back into control - and then they see three motorcycles behind them, all holding at least two people (focused driver and passenger with gun and what the fuck, one of them has a rocket launcher) and they some of their mouths are open, and as they catch up Bones can see fangs and yellow, yellow eyes.
“Vampires!” He screams, startled awake. Sulu floors it. “Weapons in the trunk! Go!”
Chekov, Uhura, and Spock grab crossbows from the trunk as Sulu swears, maneuvering the large vehicle around, in and out, avoiding rockets and automatic weapon fire. Uhura opens her window and fires a shot, and her damn good eye nails a vampire, spiraling the creature’s motorcycle out of control and dropping both of them.
“Doctor,” Spock says tersely, and he reaches into a pocket and pulls out a filled syringe and several additional vials. “Take this.”
“Spock, this is ---”
“Take it,” he says, and there’s an unusual amount of serious force in his voice. Bones wraps his hands around the pieces, puts them in his pocket and nods. Then he reaches for a grenade that he knows they have, and yanks the pin out.
He throws it, downing another motorcycle.
And then in front of them they hear sirens, and Sulu’s hands are white on the steering wheel. And when Bones look forward to see what’s going on, blood drains from his face, because there are at least six or seven cops lined up on and around the road. “Thanks for everything,” Sulu shouts at them. “Now hold on!”
He lowers the windows of the vehicle, bows his body over the wheel, and drives into the cars in front of them.
The force of the explosion flings McCoy from the sudden flaming wreckage, and when he hits the ground he’s too dazed to make out the shapes above him, moving and shifting until only one is left. That one grabs him, slings him onto the top of a motorcycle, and jets off.
He can still feel the syringe in his pocket.
*
Consciousness returns slowly and painfully, first a throb in the back of his head and his right arm. The natural functions start, and with that the questions. What.. He’s not driving. There’s no sound of air rushing, sound of radios running, scanning frequencies. He can’t hear those small sounds of gears twisting and a hum in a language he can’t understand. It’s pretty quiet for one of their base camps. And dry, he realizes. And comfortable. Wherever he is, it’s pretty fucking soft.
Wait, his brain says, as it tries to center itself. The car ride, right, he thinks, and then, and then what? And then there’s the syringe from Spock - in his pocket, he confirms, lifting his hip slightly to feel the weight shift. And then there’s - fuck.
Those shapes. The motorcycle.
He’s on a bed.
He leans over and pukes on the floor. He’s seen those farms. He’s seen the way those people look. They have nothing. They’re tools. McCoy doesn’t want to be a tool. He’d rather die.
He bolts up (one arm feels heavy and restricted, but he can’t bother to look at that now) to see if he can find something to kill himself with. The room’s bare, except for the bed, bedside table, and dresser - all the windows drawn, too. There’s a cabinet that he could probably kill himself on if he threw his head against a point hard enough. He’s a doctor, he could pull that off.
“Bones?”
The voice sounds timid and familiar, but he ignores it as he studies the cabinet corner. The back of his head would probably be wiser, to cut off all basic functions. He’ll have to back himself into it --
“Bones!” A vampire hurries in, with dark hair and a young face. Of course, for a vampire, that doesn’t mean anything, really. The vampire grabs him, looks at him. “Are you all right?”
“Why the fuck would you care?” He snarls, spitting in the vampire’s face.
“Bones, it’s me. Jim.”
At that the doctor pauses, stares into those yellow eyes. It could -- yes, it is. Even with the pale skin, he can see the right facial structure, the delicate jaw, the pointed chin. And that’s Jim Kirk’s voice, too. Unmistakable. “Jim?” He echoes, reaching forward with -- agh.
His right arm is casted messily. Terrible job, he thinks. Done by someone who doesn’t know much about a cast. So that’s why it was heavy and restricted.
“You broke your arm, popped your shoulder out in the fall. I fixed you back up. You’re all right now, right?” The vampire - Jim, his Jim, James Kirk - brushes some hair from his face and looks concerned. “You look better. I pulled you from that mess on the highway. I don’t know what happened to your friends, but….”
Bones socks him.
“Fuck, ow!”
“Look at you!” Leonard throws his good arm wide, his posture entirely too aggressive. “A vampire. And what happens if it wasn’t me? You would have thrown someone else to those goddamn farms. That’s what you did for all of them, didn’t you? Gave them the fate worse than death. And here I am in your fucking apartment. What do you think this is? I’d rather die.”
“I didn’t choose to be like this!” Jim snarls, his fangs evident. “The plague made me like this. But now that I’m like this, I deal. Yeah, I would have put anyone else there. Because I need to live too, and I can’t fucking live off sweet potatoes and water.” He rubs his cheek but doesn’t seem to complain anyway.
What stuns Bones is the eyes. He was always so fucking attracted to Jim’s baby-blues, could stare into those for hours while they talked or fucked or whatever it was they were doing. Jim’s eyes reminded him of the sky, of the ocean, of perfect sunny days. And when he talked they sparkled like clouds or precious stones.
They’re fucking flat yellow vampire eyes now. Dead.
“I can turn you,” Jim says, pulling him close again. McCoy hides his disgust at the cool flesh he can feel through clothes. “You don’t have to be chased again. We can be lovers. Fuck, I’ve missed you.” He kisses the doctor’s forehead.
His stomach turns.
Wait --
“I can turn you back,” he says, suddenly, and he pulls the syringe from his pocket, putting it on the bedside table, “You could be human again. We could be lovers.”
Far from the surprised, pleased shock that Leonard expects, Jim sits back from him, looking concerned. Those yellow eyes look at the syringe and then back at him. “Why?”
“Why what?”
“Bones, I…” Jim touches the badly-casted arm, then looks the doctor in the face, “Why would I want to be human? I know what being a human is like - running, hiding, being chased, always with that threat of death or farm. I’ve been tracking them down for a while now. Here, I’m safe. You could be safe, too. I could turn you. We’re not supposed to, but...I would, for you.” He touches Bones’ face briefly. “We could do so much together. As a human, now, I’d just be…...prey.”
Leonard McCoy stares, and his brown eyes slowly widen from shock to horror.
“How can you stay like that?” He starts, standing slowly, grabbing the syringe, and trying to inconsciupusly move towards the door. Running is a bad idea, yeah, but it’s better than being here with a shadow of the man he loved. “How can you say that.. that is better?” He’s impressed with how much hate he can put into one word. “You’re a monster now, Jim. A monster like the rest of them. I’d rather die than become one of you. I’d rather spend my whole life running, hiding, being chased - then become a vampire.”
Jim frowns hard at him, and when he chews his lip, the fangs make two pinpricks of blood. Bones picked up the habit from this kid, after all. He’s glad, too, that the words seem to have the intended effect of stabbing the guy repeatedly in the heart.
“I just want you to be happy,” Jim says, softly, hurt. “I want you to be with me.”
“If you really wanted to me with me, you’d be human again.”
There’s a long pause. Jim follows him, kisses him gently even though he pulls back. It’s not ownership, not passion, not that fierceness that Bones loved so much. It’s the pleading and begging Jim never did, when they were together. Longing.
Longing that he refuses to acknowledge as much as he might like to. It would be easy to be cool and dead and pointed and lay with Jim here for fucking ever.
“If you love me, you’ll tell me how to get out of here and let my friends go,” Bones says coldly.
Even with those flat vampire eyes, Jim looks like he’s about to cry.
“Right,” he says, and the voice that McCoy remembers as confident, smooth, flirty, sure - is shaking. “I can get them out. And you, too. Stay here. I’ll come back for you when I’ve gotten everything together.” He moves slowly, towards the doorjam.
“I can’t love something like that, Jim,” he says, to the kid’s back.
“You could if you really wanted too,” Jim murmurs, not turning around. “But I love you - will do anything for you - regardless of what you drink or look like.”