[fic] Armed With Every Precious Failure 1/2 (Star Trek: AOS)
Armed With Every Precious Failure
Part One of Two
Fandom: Star Trek AOS
Rating: Adult (language, themes)
Ship: Kirk/McCoy
Summary: Keep his hands clean. His father’s most important lesson. Leonard’s are covered in blood, and yet he offered one to Jim.
A/N: For 1297, with love (and for contributing in the help-chile drive). Many thanks to linelenagain for beta reading. This part is 4,100 words. (10,000 words total.) As per my policy, my warnings are vague. If you need more details, please PM me. There's really nothing explicit here.
Part One: October 2255
Leonard doesn’t make the connection. Not at first. As far as lapses go, he supposes it’s forgivable; when he first met Jim Kirk, he was drunk, scared shitless, missing his daughter and his practice back in Georgia, mourning his father and his marriage. Besides, there have to be dozens of men named Jim Kirk, maybe hundreds. After the Kelvin disaster, James got a boost in popularity, and Kirk is a common enough surname.
Leonard doesn’t realize his Jim Kirk - his friend, Jim Kirk - is that Jim Kirk, until about two months after their arrival in San Francisco.
They’re in Early Starfleet History, listening to a lecture on the Earth-Romulan War and how it led directly to the establishment of the Neutral Zone and the founding of the United Federation of Planets. Leonard’s taking notes on his PADD; he learned most of this stuff in grade school, but it’s been a while and he knows he’s not going to remember which battle was fought where and which Starfleet captain did what. He likes history and this is pretty engrossing stuff, but while he’s absorbing everything the instructor’s saying, he’s also aware of Jim, seated next to him.
The kid isn’t taking notes, but he isn’t slouching or nodding off, either. He’s leaning forward in his seat, his elbows on his thighs, he hands clasped. There’s something oddly appraising or expectant in the cant of his head. Leonard is curious, but he doesn’t say anything. He figures he’ll ask after the lecture’s over, if Jim doesn’t start talking on his own.
Then it happens.
“As you recall,” the instructor says, “or should recall from your reading, ship-to-ship communications of the mid-twenty-second century were not what they are today. During the war, and during the peace negotiations following the Battle of Cheron, all communications between Earth-allied ships and Romulan-allied ships were conducted by subspace radio. No visuals. Consequently, neither side ever saw the face of its enemy. Think about that. Until the Kelvin disaster - more than seventy years after Cheron - no one even knew what a Romulan looked like.”
The instructor pauses and scans the crowded lecture hall. “Speaking of the Kelvin,” she says, “we have among us one of the many survivors of that tragic encounter: the son of the late Captain Kirk.”
She says it casually, like a side-note. There’s a rustle and a shuffle as cadets turn in their seats, but since the dead hero’s son doesn’t acknowledge himself, curiosity fades as soon as the instructor resumes her lecture. While she proceeds to explain the intricacies of the Human, Vulcan, Andorian, and Tellarite alliance, Leonard steals a glance at Jim.
The kid hasn’t moved, but there’s tension in the line of his jaw now, and his knuckles are practically white. His glance flicks sideways unexpectedly, and just for a moment, their eyes meet.
Well, damn, Leonard thinks, looking down at his PADD.
*
When he thinks about it, he realizes that the Kelvin tragedy is the first news story that really made an impression on him as a child. He remembers sitting between his parents on the upholstered sofa in the living room, watching the story unfold.
His mother, a Professor of History at Emory University, tried to explain about the Romulan Star Empire and the Neutral Zone, but almost everything she said went over his head. Leonard was exceptionally smart - not even six, and they were talking about moving him up to second grade in the fall - but all he could focus on were the images taken by the shuttles as they fled: the Kelvin falling like a sparrow into the enemy ship, disappearing in a burst of flame and metal shards.
At least one man was still on the Kelvin at the moment of impact: Captain George Kirk, who’d remained behind and seen the shuttles safely away.
“Is he still alive?” Leonard remembers asking his parents, as curls of flame and fragments of titanium-alloy filled the vid screen. He could still see them, even when he closed his eyes.
“No,” his father said.
“Are you sure?” He looked at his father. David McCoy was a brilliant surgeon. As far as Leonard was concerned, he could save anyone. The idea that, with a single word, he could consign a man to death seemed incredible. Even if the man was hundreds of light years away from Atlanta, Georgia.
His father wrapped an arm around his shoulders and kissed the top of his head. “Yes.”
*
“That was weird,” Leonard says as he and Jim jog down the granite steps outside the lecture hall.
Jim shrugs. “At least she didn’t ask me to raise my hand and wave.”
“I had no idea. I swear,” he adds, not sure why he’s suddenly feeling defensive.
Jim stops and flashes him a brief, hard smile. His eyes are grayish in the misting rain. “I know you didn’t. Look, I need to run. I’ll see you later. Chinese food at your place? Then, I don’t know, maybe we can quiz each other on Tactical Analysis.”
He slips away before Leonard can respond. He was either going to say Yeah, sure, Jim or Since when do you need help with tactics? Finding himself alone, he grips the strap of his satchel, and turns in the direction of his next class.
*
Jim shows up at Leonard’s dorm at around 20:00 with his PADD and a few cartons of Chinese food. There’s rain in his hair and mud on his boots. Leonard trades him a towel for the cartons, which he sets on his desk and cracks open. Jim brought brown rice, steamed dumplings, sweet and sour soup, lo mein, vegetables steeped in hoisin sauce, and some kind of chicken thing with peanuts. As the aroma fills the small room, Leonard’s stomach growls; he expected Jim two hours ago, and he’s hungry.
“This’ll last a few days.”
“S’what I figured,” Jim says as he toes off his boots and leaves them to dry on the mat by the door. Rubbing his hair with the towel, he joins Leonard by the food. “We can avoid the mess hall for a while. Tactics, my friend.” He extends his hand, and Leonard gives him a pair of metal chopsticks.
“Plates?”
“Nah.” Jim claims the lo mein. He sits cross-legged on the floor and digs in.
Leonard takes the carton of vegetables and a fork.
Jim clicks his chopsticks and slurps his noodles. After a few minutes, he lifts his head and says, “Where’s your flask?”
“In the drawer. Where it always is.”
“Anything in it?”
“There’s always something in it.”
Jim sets his food down and rummages through the bottom drawer of Leonard’s dresser. He finds the flask of emergency bourbon and unscrews the cap.
“Look, about this morning,” Leonard begins.
“I don’t wanna talk about it.”
Which translates to, I don’t want to talk about it sober. A few swigs of bourbon later, and he’s a chatterbox.
“Fuck her,” he mutters, stabbing at the dumplings with his chopsticks. “Fuck her, fuck her, fuck her. Does she think I have some kind of special insight into what happened just because I was there? I wasn’t even two minutes old. I didn’t know my father was dying.”
Cautiously, Leonard says, “I don’t think that’s what she meant.”
“Fuck you too.”
Leonard lets that slide. “Come on. She was trying to make the lesson more real. Make the history more real, by connecting it with the class. It was a stupid thing to say, but I honestly don’t think she meant any harm.”
“If she didn’t mean any harm, she shouldn’t have fucking said it.”
“Fine.”
Leaving his chopsticks impaled in the dumplings, Jim pushes the food away from him and slouches against Leonard’s bed. Still holding the flask and glaring at his socks, he says, “D’you know what the worst thing is?”
“No, Jim. What is it?”
“I’ll tell you the second-worst thing first. The second-worst thing is that everyone here expects me to follow in his footsteps. Not that I’m supposed to die in the line of duty, but that I’m supposed to be this … this legend, or something. Like it’s genetic. One Kirk died? No problem, here’s a replacement. Which is funny, ‘cause half the people I knew in Riverside thought I was going to be a worthless piece of shit just like my Uncle Frank.”
Leonard wonders just who Jim thinks is pressuring him here. They don’t have all their classes together, but from what he’s seen, no one’s giving Jim undue attention. Of course, that doesn’t mean he isn’t getting any. He also wonders just how many people here have put two and two together - something Leonard occasionally fails to do, apparently - and realized that Jim is who he is. He doesn’t like that he’s been kept in the dark all this while, though he can’t think why. He’s only known the kid two months.
“The worst thing,” Jim says, “is that I’m supposed to be so fucking proud. Like it’s such an honor to have a father like mine, and I should be so grateful. For what? ‘Cause he died honorably? Y’know, that’s almost all I know about him? Growing up, that’s practically the only thing anyone ever said to me about him. Maybe he was an asshole like me, and he just happened to be there. Maybe:
“Nothing in his life
Became him like the leaving it. He died
As one that had been studied in his death
To throw away the dearest thing he owed
As ’twere a careless trifle.”
It’s not the first time since Leonard met him that Jim has broken into iambic pentameter. The words flow naturally, Leonard notes with some appreciation; the kid could’ve been an actor.
“Fuck him.” Jim drops his head against the edge of Leonard’s bed and lets out a long, constricted-sounding sigh. He shakes the flask. “You’re out of bourbon.”
“I can get more.”
Jim lifts his head. His eyebrows are raised.
“I don’t mean right now.”
“Oh. Sorry. Look.” Jim bends his knees and starts to push himself up. “It was nice of you to listen and all. Sorry I … never mind. Where’re my boots?”
“Where you left them,” Leonard says dryly. “By the door.”
“Oh. Yeah. I need to get going.” He crosses the floor with surprising steadiness.
“You don’t have to,” Leonard says, though he’s a little annoyed; he hadn’t planned on waiting two hours for Jim, then listening to his morose babbling.
“Yeah, I do.” He shoves one foot into a boot and bends to lace it. His long fingers move nimbly; he holds his liquor well. “I swear, if I don’t get laid in the next hour, I’m gonna explode.” He glances up, and his lips actually quirk in a faint smile. “You should come with me. I owe you a drink. ‘Sides, it’s been - what? Two months since your divorce? Three? It’s time.”
“For what?” Leonard asks, one eyebrow raised.
“For you to get your rocks off.”
“Who says I haven’t been?”
Jim laughs as he starts on his other boot. “I do. C’mon, old man. It’ll be fun.”
“Somehow, I don’t think so. Besides, I have to work tomorrow. Early.”
“But it’s Friday.”
“And tomorrow’s Saturday, and the hospital doesn’t close for the weekend. Which is a good thing for assholes like you.”
Having finished with his boots, Jim stands. “Well, I’ll give someone a good, hard fuck for you. I’ll even make them call me Leonard.” His sudden frown is thoughtful. “Or Len? Lenny? Leo?” He smirks.
“If I wanted you to call me any of those names,” Leonard says in a low growl, “that’s how I’d’ve introduced myself.”
Jim palms the round, illuminated button on the panel behind him, and the door slides open. “McCoy, Leonard McCoy, the man with nothing left but his bones.”
Then he’s gone, and Leonard’s left alone with the Chinese food, the smell of alcohol, and a growing sense of unease. It claws in his stomach and he tries to ignore it, but he can’t. This thing he has with Jim, this odd friendship, can’t be going anywhere good. Somewhere down the line, there’s going to be an explosion, and it’s going to be messy.
But at least he knows now how he’s going to get Jim Kirk out of his hair.
*
Leonard thinks of his father as his first teacher. He remembers listening avidly, even at the age of five or six, to everything his father told him. He adored his mother, of course, but she was mostly concerned with dates, political movements, and people long dead: things Leonard couldn’t, at least as a small child, wrap his head around.
But his father knew about the real world, about living bodies. The things he tried to explain to Leonard were things that Leonard could see with his own eyes: if you play in the sun too long without a hat or sunscreen, you’ll burn and it’ll hurt like hell; if your nose is bleeding, and you tip your head backward instead of forward, yeah, you won’t stain your shirt, but the blood’ll drip down your fool throat and you’ll choke.
Since Leonard’s father seemed to be right about so many things, Leonard took just about everything he said to heart.
He took his vitamins faithfully. He didn’t stuff himself at his friends’ birthday parties. He brushed his teeth after breakfast and dinner (and after lunch too on the weekends or holidays). And he washed his hands.
“That’s probably the most important thing you can remember, Len,” his father said once. “Keep your hands clean. I’m not saying don’t have fun, but before you do anything else, wash your hands.”
(It’s been nearly a quarter of a century, but Leonard thinks this most sacred of lessons must have been imparted to him at a picnic. He has a vague memory of cool grass beneath a scratchy green blanket, and his father wiping peach juice from his hands with a napkin and anti-bacterial gel.)
“I mean it,” said his father. “It’ll keep you and everyone you go near from getting sick. In the old days, doctors used to kill their patients by treating them with dirty hands. You got that, Len?”
“Uh-huh,” he said solemnly.
*
There are plenty of reasons for Leonard McCoy to want Jim Kirk out of his hair.
Jim’s basically a good kid - brilliant, considerate when he wants to be - but he’s a mess. Leonard knew he’d lost his father at an early age, even though he hadn’t known the circumstances. He knows Jim’s relationships with his mother and older brother are rocky, that he has an uncle who was verbally if not physically abusive. He knows Jim never went to college, though he could’ve gotten into just about anywhere if he’d felt like applying.
Jim likes to drink, he likes to fuck strangers in bars, and he likes to fight. Often all three in the space of one evening. He generally saves his self-destructive behavior for the weekends and it doesn’t seem to interfere with his coursework, but it is self-destructive behavior. Leonard’s sealed enough abrasions, put ice on enough bruises, and listened to Jim whine and groan through enough hangovers to know that.
And Leonard can’t deal with that, not the mess in Jim’s head. He isn’t qualified. He has a Master’s in psychology, but he’s a surgeon, damn it.
Jim needs someone who can do more than just patch him up when he’s injured. He needs someone who can get at the core of his problems.
And Leonard can’t. He just can’t. He has problems enough of his own.
There’s his aviophobia, for one thing. His heart starts racing and his hands shake at the thought of getting on a shuttle sober.
There’s his daughter, his little girl, whom he misses like a piece of his soul.
There’s the fact that he’s twenty-eight - almost twenty-nine - and once more living in a goddamn dorm with kids ten years his junior. At least he’s been spared the indignity of having to deal with a roommate; his PhD and MD have done that much for him.
There’s the fact that, as Jim rightly deduced, he hasn’t gotten laid since one wholly un-noteworthy one-night-stand a week after his divorce was finalized.
And then there’s the fact that Jim wouldn’t want Leonard’s help, never mind his friendship, if he knew the truth.
Keep his hands clean. His father’s most important lesson. Leonard’s are covered in blood, and yet he offered one to Jim.
*
Still, when there’s a lull in his Saturday morning shift, Leonard comms Jim. It’s closer to lunchtime than to breakfast, but the kid sounds truly out of it when he finally answers.
“Fuck, man. What the fucking fuck?” he groans.
“Morning, sunshine. How’re you feeling?”
“Could tell you. Or you could stab yourself in the eyes with a scalpel an’ see fer y’erself. Ow, fuck, ow.” He sounds hoarse. Either he shouted his throat raw, someone tried to choke him, or he’s really dehydrated. Or all three.
“Just checking to make sure you’re alive. And that you made it home safe.”
Something about Jim’s silence rubs him all wrong.
“Kid? You’re home, right?”
“Uh, no. M’at the beach, actually.”
For a few seconds, Leonard can’t talk. Then he can’t stop: “The beach? You spent the night on the beach? Are you out of your goddamn mind? You spent the night on the beach in the middle of October. In the rain. Drunk. You do know alcohol lowers your body temperature, right?”
“Not the whole night. Just the last … I dunno. Few hours or so. Was walking around before that. It’s not that bad. Not all of us are from the South. Some of us can handle a little cold.”
“Jim, I want you to get your ass in a cab, and get yourself up here now.”
“Sure, Mommy. Whatever you say.”
“I’m speaking as your doctor. If you’re not up here in half an hour-”
Jim breaks the connection.
*
He shows up in under half an hour. Which, if nothing else, saves Leonard the trouble of thinking up something suitably dire.
He looks like hell: blood on his t-shirt, black eye, swollen lip, bruises across his knuckles. And that’s just what Leonard takes in with a cursory glance. Oh, and he’s limping. Wonderful.
“I hope she was worth it,” Leonard mutters as he closes the door to the small examination room.
“Oh, they were,” Jim says nastily. He hoists himself onto the table and winces.
“Maybe I should’ve gone with you. I’m curious as to what one woman would see in you, never mind two or three.”
“What makes you think they were all women?” There’s a challenge in his tone. It gives Leonard a curious flutter, but he doesn’t rise to the bait. “What makes you think they were all human? What, does that bother you?” Jim asks as Leonard walks over to him with a hypo of analgesic and a cold pack. “Which bothers you more, the men or the aliens?”
“Neither.” He doesn’t mean to jab Jim so hard with the hypospray, but the hiss of surprise and annoyance is damn satisfying. Shoving the cold pack into Jim’s hands, he says gruffly, “I don’t care who you fuck, so long as you’re all consenting adults, and you’re all protected. What bothers me is the fact that you’re bruised and bleeding, and you spent the night, or at least a good part of it, shivering on the beach. You’re telling me no one offered you a safe place to sleep?”
Once again, Jim’s silence says everything.
“Then don’t tell me a single one of them was worth this!”
He turns away, angry.
“Sorry,” Jim says. And the crazy thing is, he does sound sorry. And young, and raw, and in pain, despite the fact that the analgesic must have kicked in by now.
Leonard sighs. “You can go now. Come on, get up. I need the room.”
“Oh. So … I can’t stay here?”
“Why would you want to?”
“I wanna sleep. I’m tired. My roommate’s an asshole. It seems quiet here.”
Leonard pinches the bridge of his nose and sighs. There’s that odd flutter again, but he doesn’t have the patience to think about what it might mean. At length, he says, “You can sleep in my room. Just go. Take a shower, have something to eat, make yourself comfortable. You can borrow a clean shirt, if you want. I’ll be there in a few hours.”
Jim is quiet.
Curious, Leonard turns back around and looks at him. He’s just sitting there on the edge of the examination table, long legs dangling, fingers wrapped around the cold pack. Against the bruises and the flecks of dried blood, his eyes are a startling shade of blue, and for just a second, Leonard’s heart stutters.
“Thanks,” Jim says.
“Don’t mention it.”
“No, really.” Jim slides off the table. The touch of cold fingertips to the back of his hand sends a shiver through Leonard. “Thanks.”
*
Leonard half-expects Jim to be gone by the time he makes it back to his room at 16:00 hours. To his surprise, the kid’s still there, curled up in Leonard’s bed, his bare feet sticking out of the rumpled covers. He finds the sight of those feet oddly endearing, the pile of dirty clothes on the floor by the bed less so. Leonard doesn’t see any underwear in the pile, so the kid’s got that much on.
Leonard tries to be quiet, but as he’s toeing off his boots, Jim rolls over and pushes the covers back.
He does have his boxers on, but otherwise he’s naked. In the thin sunlight coming through the shades, his skin is very pale; the bruises and scratch marks stand out sharply.
“Hey,” Leonard whispers. “Didn’t mean to wake you.”
“Didn’t mean to sleep so long. I can-”
“No, stay. I’m too keyed up to sleep right now anyway.”
“Busy shift?”
“Got busy near the end.”
“Oh.” Jim smiles. “Why are we whispering?”
Warmth slides into Leonard’s stomach as he grins back. “I honestly don’t know,” he says in his normal voice.
For a heartbeat or two, all they do is look at each other.
Then Jim says, “Look, I’m sorry about before. I don’t just mean at the hospital or when you commed. I was an asshole last night.”
“Yeah, you were. It’s okay, though.”
“No, it’s not. I know your father died too.”
Leonard flinches, but the kid doesn’t appear to notice. “It was over a year ago. It’s all right.”
“Why are you so nice to me?”
There’s another silence, a little more awkward than the last one.
“It’s ‘cause your mamma raised a gentleman, right?”
“Right.”
Jim yawns. “Okay if I go back to sleep?”
“Yeah, it’s fine. I’ll try to be quiet.”
“You know what the real worst thing is? Not knowing him at all, and all the shit I missed out on. At least you have your memories, right?”
“Go to sleep, Jim,” Leonard says.
Tugging the blanket back up to his shoulder, Jim rolls over again. Now all Leonard can see is the tawny hair against the navy blue pillowcase, and the gentle curve of his neck. An unwanted image flashes through him: Jim on his back, eyes closed, lips parted, legs spread wide, ready for - God, anything. That neck thrown back, cords standing out against flushed skin. Hands touching him. All over. Leonard can’t tell whose hands they are, but - there are a lot of them.
The growing ache between his legs brings Leonard back to reality. He sucks in a sharp breath and looks away from Jim. He needs to take a shower. A cold one.
As Leonard’s loosening his uniform, the blankets rustle again, and Jim mumbles, “Hey … Bones?”
Leonard stops.
“F’you’re tired, there’s room.”
“No there isn’t,” Leonard says tightly. “And I’m not. Go back to sleep.”
Then: “What did you call me?”
But all he gets in response is a long, deep sigh.
So now he knows two things, Leonard thinks as he stands in the shower stall and lets cold water sluice down his back and shoulders. He knows how he’s going to get Jim Kirk out of his hair, and he knows that when he finally does, it’s going to do more than hurt; it’s going to break his goddamn heart.
To Part Two.
Part One of Two
Fandom: Star Trek AOS
Rating: Adult (language, themes)
Ship: Kirk/McCoy
Summary: Keep his hands clean. His father’s most important lesson. Leonard’s are covered in blood, and yet he offered one to Jim.
A/N: For 1297, with love (and for contributing in the help-chile drive). Many thanks to linelenagain for beta reading. This part is 4,100 words. (10,000 words total.) As per my policy, my warnings are vague. If you need more details, please PM me. There's really nothing explicit here.
Part One: October 2255
Leonard doesn’t make the connection. Not at first. As far as lapses go, he supposes it’s forgivable; when he first met Jim Kirk, he was drunk, scared shitless, missing his daughter and his practice back in Georgia, mourning his father and his marriage. Besides, there have to be dozens of men named Jim Kirk, maybe hundreds. After the Kelvin disaster, James got a boost in popularity, and Kirk is a common enough surname.
Leonard doesn’t realize his Jim Kirk - his friend, Jim Kirk - is that Jim Kirk, until about two months after their arrival in San Francisco.
They’re in Early Starfleet History, listening to a lecture on the Earth-Romulan War and how it led directly to the establishment of the Neutral Zone and the founding of the United Federation of Planets. Leonard’s taking notes on his PADD; he learned most of this stuff in grade school, but it’s been a while and he knows he’s not going to remember which battle was fought where and which Starfleet captain did what. He likes history and this is pretty engrossing stuff, but while he’s absorbing everything the instructor’s saying, he’s also aware of Jim, seated next to him.
The kid isn’t taking notes, but he isn’t slouching or nodding off, either. He’s leaning forward in his seat, his elbows on his thighs, he hands clasped. There’s something oddly appraising or expectant in the cant of his head. Leonard is curious, but he doesn’t say anything. He figures he’ll ask after the lecture’s over, if Jim doesn’t start talking on his own.
Then it happens.
“As you recall,” the instructor says, “or should recall from your reading, ship-to-ship communications of the mid-twenty-second century were not what they are today. During the war, and during the peace negotiations following the Battle of Cheron, all communications between Earth-allied ships and Romulan-allied ships were conducted by subspace radio. No visuals. Consequently, neither side ever saw the face of its enemy. Think about that. Until the Kelvin disaster - more than seventy years after Cheron - no one even knew what a Romulan looked like.”
The instructor pauses and scans the crowded lecture hall. “Speaking of the Kelvin,” she says, “we have among us one of the many survivors of that tragic encounter: the son of the late Captain Kirk.”
She says it casually, like a side-note. There’s a rustle and a shuffle as cadets turn in their seats, but since the dead hero’s son doesn’t acknowledge himself, curiosity fades as soon as the instructor resumes her lecture. While she proceeds to explain the intricacies of the Human, Vulcan, Andorian, and Tellarite alliance, Leonard steals a glance at Jim.
The kid hasn’t moved, but there’s tension in the line of his jaw now, and his knuckles are practically white. His glance flicks sideways unexpectedly, and just for a moment, their eyes meet.
Well, damn, Leonard thinks, looking down at his PADD.
*
When he thinks about it, he realizes that the Kelvin tragedy is the first news story that really made an impression on him as a child. He remembers sitting between his parents on the upholstered sofa in the living room, watching the story unfold.
His mother, a Professor of History at Emory University, tried to explain about the Romulan Star Empire and the Neutral Zone, but almost everything she said went over his head. Leonard was exceptionally smart - not even six, and they were talking about moving him up to second grade in the fall - but all he could focus on were the images taken by the shuttles as they fled: the Kelvin falling like a sparrow into the enemy ship, disappearing in a burst of flame and metal shards.
At least one man was still on the Kelvin at the moment of impact: Captain George Kirk, who’d remained behind and seen the shuttles safely away.
“Is he still alive?” Leonard remembers asking his parents, as curls of flame and fragments of titanium-alloy filled the vid screen. He could still see them, even when he closed his eyes.
“No,” his father said.
“Are you sure?” He looked at his father. David McCoy was a brilliant surgeon. As far as Leonard was concerned, he could save anyone. The idea that, with a single word, he could consign a man to death seemed incredible. Even if the man was hundreds of light years away from Atlanta, Georgia.
His father wrapped an arm around his shoulders and kissed the top of his head. “Yes.”
*
“That was weird,” Leonard says as he and Jim jog down the granite steps outside the lecture hall.
Jim shrugs. “At least she didn’t ask me to raise my hand and wave.”
“I had no idea. I swear,” he adds, not sure why he’s suddenly feeling defensive.
Jim stops and flashes him a brief, hard smile. His eyes are grayish in the misting rain. “I know you didn’t. Look, I need to run. I’ll see you later. Chinese food at your place? Then, I don’t know, maybe we can quiz each other on Tactical Analysis.”
He slips away before Leonard can respond. He was either going to say Yeah, sure, Jim or Since when do you need help with tactics? Finding himself alone, he grips the strap of his satchel, and turns in the direction of his next class.
*
Jim shows up at Leonard’s dorm at around 20:00 with his PADD and a few cartons of Chinese food. There’s rain in his hair and mud on his boots. Leonard trades him a towel for the cartons, which he sets on his desk and cracks open. Jim brought brown rice, steamed dumplings, sweet and sour soup, lo mein, vegetables steeped in hoisin sauce, and some kind of chicken thing with peanuts. As the aroma fills the small room, Leonard’s stomach growls; he expected Jim two hours ago, and he’s hungry.
“This’ll last a few days.”
“S’what I figured,” Jim says as he toes off his boots and leaves them to dry on the mat by the door. Rubbing his hair with the towel, he joins Leonard by the food. “We can avoid the mess hall for a while. Tactics, my friend.” He extends his hand, and Leonard gives him a pair of metal chopsticks.
“Plates?”
“Nah.” Jim claims the lo mein. He sits cross-legged on the floor and digs in.
Leonard takes the carton of vegetables and a fork.
Jim clicks his chopsticks and slurps his noodles. After a few minutes, he lifts his head and says, “Where’s your flask?”
“In the drawer. Where it always is.”
“Anything in it?”
“There’s always something in it.”
Jim sets his food down and rummages through the bottom drawer of Leonard’s dresser. He finds the flask of emergency bourbon and unscrews the cap.
“Look, about this morning,” Leonard begins.
“I don’t wanna talk about it.”
Which translates to, I don’t want to talk about it sober. A few swigs of bourbon later, and he’s a chatterbox.
“Fuck her,” he mutters, stabbing at the dumplings with his chopsticks. “Fuck her, fuck her, fuck her. Does she think I have some kind of special insight into what happened just because I was there? I wasn’t even two minutes old. I didn’t know my father was dying.”
Cautiously, Leonard says, “I don’t think that’s what she meant.”
“Fuck you too.”
Leonard lets that slide. “Come on. She was trying to make the lesson more real. Make the history more real, by connecting it with the class. It was a stupid thing to say, but I honestly don’t think she meant any harm.”
“If she didn’t mean any harm, she shouldn’t have fucking said it.”
“Fine.”
Leaving his chopsticks impaled in the dumplings, Jim pushes the food away from him and slouches against Leonard’s bed. Still holding the flask and glaring at his socks, he says, “D’you know what the worst thing is?”
“No, Jim. What is it?”
“I’ll tell you the second-worst thing first. The second-worst thing is that everyone here expects me to follow in his footsteps. Not that I’m supposed to die in the line of duty, but that I’m supposed to be this … this legend, or something. Like it’s genetic. One Kirk died? No problem, here’s a replacement. Which is funny, ‘cause half the people I knew in Riverside thought I was going to be a worthless piece of shit just like my Uncle Frank.”
Leonard wonders just who Jim thinks is pressuring him here. They don’t have all their classes together, but from what he’s seen, no one’s giving Jim undue attention. Of course, that doesn’t mean he isn’t getting any. He also wonders just how many people here have put two and two together - something Leonard occasionally fails to do, apparently - and realized that Jim is who he is. He doesn’t like that he’s been kept in the dark all this while, though he can’t think why. He’s only known the kid two months.
“The worst thing,” Jim says, “is that I’m supposed to be so fucking proud. Like it’s such an honor to have a father like mine, and I should be so grateful. For what? ‘Cause he died honorably? Y’know, that’s almost all I know about him? Growing up, that’s practically the only thing anyone ever said to me about him. Maybe he was an asshole like me, and he just happened to be there. Maybe:
“Nothing in his life
Became him like the leaving it. He died
As one that had been studied in his death
To throw away the dearest thing he owed
As ’twere a careless trifle.”
It’s not the first time since Leonard met him that Jim has broken into iambic pentameter. The words flow naturally, Leonard notes with some appreciation; the kid could’ve been an actor.
“Fuck him.” Jim drops his head against the edge of Leonard’s bed and lets out a long, constricted-sounding sigh. He shakes the flask. “You’re out of bourbon.”
“I can get more.”
Jim lifts his head. His eyebrows are raised.
“I don’t mean right now.”
“Oh. Sorry. Look.” Jim bends his knees and starts to push himself up. “It was nice of you to listen and all. Sorry I … never mind. Where’re my boots?”
“Where you left them,” Leonard says dryly. “By the door.”
“Oh. Yeah. I need to get going.” He crosses the floor with surprising steadiness.
“You don’t have to,” Leonard says, though he’s a little annoyed; he hadn’t planned on waiting two hours for Jim, then listening to his morose babbling.
“Yeah, I do.” He shoves one foot into a boot and bends to lace it. His long fingers move nimbly; he holds his liquor well. “I swear, if I don’t get laid in the next hour, I’m gonna explode.” He glances up, and his lips actually quirk in a faint smile. “You should come with me. I owe you a drink. ‘Sides, it’s been - what? Two months since your divorce? Three? It’s time.”
“For what?” Leonard asks, one eyebrow raised.
“For you to get your rocks off.”
“Who says I haven’t been?”
Jim laughs as he starts on his other boot. “I do. C’mon, old man. It’ll be fun.”
“Somehow, I don’t think so. Besides, I have to work tomorrow. Early.”
“But it’s Friday.”
“And tomorrow’s Saturday, and the hospital doesn’t close for the weekend. Which is a good thing for assholes like you.”
Having finished with his boots, Jim stands. “Well, I’ll give someone a good, hard fuck for you. I’ll even make them call me Leonard.” His sudden frown is thoughtful. “Or Len? Lenny? Leo?” He smirks.
“If I wanted you to call me any of those names,” Leonard says in a low growl, “that’s how I’d’ve introduced myself.”
Jim palms the round, illuminated button on the panel behind him, and the door slides open. “McCoy, Leonard McCoy, the man with nothing left but his bones.”
Then he’s gone, and Leonard’s left alone with the Chinese food, the smell of alcohol, and a growing sense of unease. It claws in his stomach and he tries to ignore it, but he can’t. This thing he has with Jim, this odd friendship, can’t be going anywhere good. Somewhere down the line, there’s going to be an explosion, and it’s going to be messy.
But at least he knows now how he’s going to get Jim Kirk out of his hair.
*
Leonard thinks of his father as his first teacher. He remembers listening avidly, even at the age of five or six, to everything his father told him. He adored his mother, of course, but she was mostly concerned with dates, political movements, and people long dead: things Leonard couldn’t, at least as a small child, wrap his head around.
But his father knew about the real world, about living bodies. The things he tried to explain to Leonard were things that Leonard could see with his own eyes: if you play in the sun too long without a hat or sunscreen, you’ll burn and it’ll hurt like hell; if your nose is bleeding, and you tip your head backward instead of forward, yeah, you won’t stain your shirt, but the blood’ll drip down your fool throat and you’ll choke.
Since Leonard’s father seemed to be right about so many things, Leonard took just about everything he said to heart.
He took his vitamins faithfully. He didn’t stuff himself at his friends’ birthday parties. He brushed his teeth after breakfast and dinner (and after lunch too on the weekends or holidays). And he washed his hands.
“That’s probably the most important thing you can remember, Len,” his father said once. “Keep your hands clean. I’m not saying don’t have fun, but before you do anything else, wash your hands.”
(It’s been nearly a quarter of a century, but Leonard thinks this most sacred of lessons must have been imparted to him at a picnic. He has a vague memory of cool grass beneath a scratchy green blanket, and his father wiping peach juice from his hands with a napkin and anti-bacterial gel.)
“I mean it,” said his father. “It’ll keep you and everyone you go near from getting sick. In the old days, doctors used to kill their patients by treating them with dirty hands. You got that, Len?”
“Uh-huh,” he said solemnly.
*
There are plenty of reasons for Leonard McCoy to want Jim Kirk out of his hair.
Jim’s basically a good kid - brilliant, considerate when he wants to be - but he’s a mess. Leonard knew he’d lost his father at an early age, even though he hadn’t known the circumstances. He knows Jim’s relationships with his mother and older brother are rocky, that he has an uncle who was verbally if not physically abusive. He knows Jim never went to college, though he could’ve gotten into just about anywhere if he’d felt like applying.
Jim likes to drink, he likes to fuck strangers in bars, and he likes to fight. Often all three in the space of one evening. He generally saves his self-destructive behavior for the weekends and it doesn’t seem to interfere with his coursework, but it is self-destructive behavior. Leonard’s sealed enough abrasions, put ice on enough bruises, and listened to Jim whine and groan through enough hangovers to know that.
And Leonard can’t deal with that, not the mess in Jim’s head. He isn’t qualified. He has a Master’s in psychology, but he’s a surgeon, damn it.
Jim needs someone who can do more than just patch him up when he’s injured. He needs someone who can get at the core of his problems.
And Leonard can’t. He just can’t. He has problems enough of his own.
There’s his aviophobia, for one thing. His heart starts racing and his hands shake at the thought of getting on a shuttle sober.
There’s his daughter, his little girl, whom he misses like a piece of his soul.
There’s the fact that he’s twenty-eight - almost twenty-nine - and once more living in a goddamn dorm with kids ten years his junior. At least he’s been spared the indignity of having to deal with a roommate; his PhD and MD have done that much for him.
There’s the fact that, as Jim rightly deduced, he hasn’t gotten laid since one wholly un-noteworthy one-night-stand a week after his divorce was finalized.
And then there’s the fact that Jim wouldn’t want Leonard’s help, never mind his friendship, if he knew the truth.
Keep his hands clean. His father’s most important lesson. Leonard’s are covered in blood, and yet he offered one to Jim.
*
Still, when there’s a lull in his Saturday morning shift, Leonard comms Jim. It’s closer to lunchtime than to breakfast, but the kid sounds truly out of it when he finally answers.
“Fuck, man. What the fucking fuck?” he groans.
“Morning, sunshine. How’re you feeling?”
“Could tell you. Or you could stab yourself in the eyes with a scalpel an’ see fer y’erself. Ow, fuck, ow.” He sounds hoarse. Either he shouted his throat raw, someone tried to choke him, or he’s really dehydrated. Or all three.
“Just checking to make sure you’re alive. And that you made it home safe.”
Something about Jim’s silence rubs him all wrong.
“Kid? You’re home, right?”
“Uh, no. M’at the beach, actually.”
For a few seconds, Leonard can’t talk. Then he can’t stop: “The beach? You spent the night on the beach? Are you out of your goddamn mind? You spent the night on the beach in the middle of October. In the rain. Drunk. You do know alcohol lowers your body temperature, right?”
“Not the whole night. Just the last … I dunno. Few hours or so. Was walking around before that. It’s not that bad. Not all of us are from the South. Some of us can handle a little cold.”
“Jim, I want you to get your ass in a cab, and get yourself up here now.”
“Sure, Mommy. Whatever you say.”
“I’m speaking as your doctor. If you’re not up here in half an hour-”
Jim breaks the connection.
*
He shows up in under half an hour. Which, if nothing else, saves Leonard the trouble of thinking up something suitably dire.
He looks like hell: blood on his t-shirt, black eye, swollen lip, bruises across his knuckles. And that’s just what Leonard takes in with a cursory glance. Oh, and he’s limping. Wonderful.
“I hope she was worth it,” Leonard mutters as he closes the door to the small examination room.
“Oh, they were,” Jim says nastily. He hoists himself onto the table and winces.
“Maybe I should’ve gone with you. I’m curious as to what one woman would see in you, never mind two or three.”
“What makes you think they were all women?” There’s a challenge in his tone. It gives Leonard a curious flutter, but he doesn’t rise to the bait. “What makes you think they were all human? What, does that bother you?” Jim asks as Leonard walks over to him with a hypo of analgesic and a cold pack. “Which bothers you more, the men or the aliens?”
“Neither.” He doesn’t mean to jab Jim so hard with the hypospray, but the hiss of surprise and annoyance is damn satisfying. Shoving the cold pack into Jim’s hands, he says gruffly, “I don’t care who you fuck, so long as you’re all consenting adults, and you’re all protected. What bothers me is the fact that you’re bruised and bleeding, and you spent the night, or at least a good part of it, shivering on the beach. You’re telling me no one offered you a safe place to sleep?”
Once again, Jim’s silence says everything.
“Then don’t tell me a single one of them was worth this!”
He turns away, angry.
“Sorry,” Jim says. And the crazy thing is, he does sound sorry. And young, and raw, and in pain, despite the fact that the analgesic must have kicked in by now.
Leonard sighs. “You can go now. Come on, get up. I need the room.”
“Oh. So … I can’t stay here?”
“Why would you want to?”
“I wanna sleep. I’m tired. My roommate’s an asshole. It seems quiet here.”
Leonard pinches the bridge of his nose and sighs. There’s that odd flutter again, but he doesn’t have the patience to think about what it might mean. At length, he says, “You can sleep in my room. Just go. Take a shower, have something to eat, make yourself comfortable. You can borrow a clean shirt, if you want. I’ll be there in a few hours.”
Jim is quiet.
Curious, Leonard turns back around and looks at him. He’s just sitting there on the edge of the examination table, long legs dangling, fingers wrapped around the cold pack. Against the bruises and the flecks of dried blood, his eyes are a startling shade of blue, and for just a second, Leonard’s heart stutters.
“Thanks,” Jim says.
“Don’t mention it.”
“No, really.” Jim slides off the table. The touch of cold fingertips to the back of his hand sends a shiver through Leonard. “Thanks.”
*
Leonard half-expects Jim to be gone by the time he makes it back to his room at 16:00 hours. To his surprise, the kid’s still there, curled up in Leonard’s bed, his bare feet sticking out of the rumpled covers. He finds the sight of those feet oddly endearing, the pile of dirty clothes on the floor by the bed less so. Leonard doesn’t see any underwear in the pile, so the kid’s got that much on.
Leonard tries to be quiet, but as he’s toeing off his boots, Jim rolls over and pushes the covers back.
He does have his boxers on, but otherwise he’s naked. In the thin sunlight coming through the shades, his skin is very pale; the bruises and scratch marks stand out sharply.
“Hey,” Leonard whispers. “Didn’t mean to wake you.”
“Didn’t mean to sleep so long. I can-”
“No, stay. I’m too keyed up to sleep right now anyway.”
“Busy shift?”
“Got busy near the end.”
“Oh.” Jim smiles. “Why are we whispering?”
Warmth slides into Leonard’s stomach as he grins back. “I honestly don’t know,” he says in his normal voice.
For a heartbeat or two, all they do is look at each other.
Then Jim says, “Look, I’m sorry about before. I don’t just mean at the hospital or when you commed. I was an asshole last night.”
“Yeah, you were. It’s okay, though.”
“No, it’s not. I know your father died too.”
Leonard flinches, but the kid doesn’t appear to notice. “It was over a year ago. It’s all right.”
“Why are you so nice to me?”
There’s another silence, a little more awkward than the last one.
“It’s ‘cause your mamma raised a gentleman, right?”
“Right.”
Jim yawns. “Okay if I go back to sleep?”
“Yeah, it’s fine. I’ll try to be quiet.”
“You know what the real worst thing is? Not knowing him at all, and all the shit I missed out on. At least you have your memories, right?”
“Go to sleep, Jim,” Leonard says.
Tugging the blanket back up to his shoulder, Jim rolls over again. Now all Leonard can see is the tawny hair against the navy blue pillowcase, and the gentle curve of his neck. An unwanted image flashes through him: Jim on his back, eyes closed, lips parted, legs spread wide, ready for - God, anything. That neck thrown back, cords standing out against flushed skin. Hands touching him. All over. Leonard can’t tell whose hands they are, but - there are a lot of them.
The growing ache between his legs brings Leonard back to reality. He sucks in a sharp breath and looks away from Jim. He needs to take a shower. A cold one.
As Leonard’s loosening his uniform, the blankets rustle again, and Jim mumbles, “Hey … Bones?”
Leonard stops.
“F’you’re tired, there’s room.”
“No there isn’t,” Leonard says tightly. “And I’m not. Go back to sleep.”
Then: “What did you call me?”
But all he gets in response is a long, deep sigh.
So now he knows two things, Leonard thinks as he stands in the shower stall and lets cold water sluice down his back and shoulders. He knows how he’s going to get Jim Kirk out of his hair, and he knows that when he finally does, it’s going to do more than hurt; it’s going to break his goddamn heart.
To Part Two.