This week to keep with last weeks theme *wink wink* The prompt is BRO MANCE! 😀
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Day 6
“What are you doing here? Again! And what is that supposed to be?”
“It’s called, let’s see … orange juice. Very twentieth century, I know, but I thought we might try something different from the bourbon from time to time.”
He’s not stupid, okay? He sees right through Jim’s casual smile and easy laughter and he knows what the brat is trying to do.
And he doesn’t need it.
But instead of throwing Jim out of his room he just sighs and opens the door a little more. Then he spends the rest of the evening listening to Jim’s anecdotes about sex in cramped places, and with zero gravity.
It might even be a little bit more fun than drowning in bourbon and wallowing in misery. He still doesn’t get why the kid keeps coming back to him though.
Day 7
There’s a muffled crash. Then he hears Jim cursing from the kitchen. “Shit …”
“What?” McCoy is kind of grumpy, and it’s got nothing to do with the fact that Kirk somehow made him forget to drink something yesterday. It’s not as if he needs the bourbon or anything. It’s just … the world is a lot brighter and louder and faster now without that soft fuzzy blanket that he’s grown so accustomed to. It might be the lack of bourbon or it might be Jim, he isn’t so sure about that.
“I … uh … look, I’m really sorry, but …” Jim hesitates. “I think I broke something.”
“Great.” McCoy rolls his eyes and rises from the couch. “What do you mean, you ‘broke’ something? Like bones? Or like stuff?” He doesn’t really care about stuff so this is actually a valid question. He wonders fleetingly when it had started to become so normal that Jim showed up at his doorstep every evening and rummaged around in his sparse kitchen for food.
“Like stuff.” To his utter surprise he feels a surge of relief at that, but then Jim adds, sounding a little reluctant and embarrassed all at the same time: “You might want to take a look nevertheless … I … I’m kind of bleeding over your stuff. A little bit.”
He can’t even remember moving so fast, but between one blink and another he finds himself next to the kitchen sink.
“Oh come on … what the hell did you do?” He barks at the sight in front of him. There are broken glass shards and angry looking cuts at Jim’s hands and right forearm, and he’s bleeding more than ‘a little bit’.
Jim shrugs carelessly. “I guess I was a bit clumsy.”
That’s a lie if he ever heard one. He might not know that guy well, but that he knows – Jim is a lot of things, but clumsy isn’t one of them. It’s only after he realizes exactly which bottle he broke, that he gets what Jim is trying to do. Except … he totally doesn’t get it.
Silently he watches drips of bourbon mixing with drips of Jim’s blood in the sink.
“I’ll buy you a new one if you want me to,” Jim offers, looking at him all earnest and sincere while McCoy is about to patch up his arm. It’s a silly little question and it’s so much more than that.
He feels torn between anger and amazement, between shaking some sense into him (because the kid is clearly a loony little nut job) and a strange kind of worry that goes deeper than he expected.
Jim is self-destructive and reckless and hopelessly devoted in everything he does. Hurting himself so other people don’t get hurt in the long shot seems perfectly logical and acceptable to him … and it scares the hell out of McCoy.
“No, thanks,” he finally says and Jim smiles and nods as if he’d expected it.
Day 8
He’s disgustingly sober. He hasn’t been really sober for a while now and it feels weird in a ‘not exactly bad’-way. Damn it, Jim.
“Hey, did you shave?”
“No.”
“You did shave.” Jim looks interested. “Looks good. You know, young and smart. The girls are going to love it.”
“No, smart alec, I didn’t shave. My facial hair is trained to drop from my body every other week, alright?”
Jim cocks his head to the side. “Only the facial hair?”
Unbelievable. Bones flips him off and walks away. He’s totally not smiling. No way.
Day 9
That evening McCoy catches Jim staring at him across the table. At first he ignores it and tries to concentrate on his assignment. After five minutes of eerily silence from the other end of the table he gives in, because Advanced Theoretical Physics is a bitch.
“What?” He snaps irritated. “Something on my face I should know about?”
Jim shakes his head, still staring hard and concentrating like he’s trying to … see something. It makes McCoy slightly uncomfortable. More often than not Jim looks relaxed and dorky with that silly little grin of his, so it’s kind of unsettling to be scrutinized like that.
McCoy rolls his eyes. Even when he’s quiet the kid is able to annoy the hell out of him.
“Take a picture. It lasts longer.”
“It’s just …” Jim cocks his head, still deep in thought. “You don’t look like a Leonard to me.”
Okay. That? Completely unexpected.
“Yeah thanks, whatever.” McCoy grimaces. “I’d rather you wouldn’t call me that anyway.” Nobody calls him Leonard anymore. Only his mother ever did and then later his ex-wife did too, mostly when she was angry with him, which she was a lot during those last few weeks. Or maybe months. It still makes him flinch a little bit every time someone says it.
“But it’s your real name, isn’t it?” Jim asks, sounding completely sincere as if he honestly expects McCoy to use a fake name just for the hell of it.
“Yes, Jim, it’s really my name. And I’m really going to punch you if you ever use it.”
“Leonard,” Jim mouths, frowning some more. “Leo. Leon? Lenny.”
McCoy snaps his book shut and throws him an evil look. “You ever call me Lenny, you little brat, and I swear, I’ll end you. Call me McCoy if you actually need to call me something. Everybody else does, too. I heard ‘hey you’ works fine, as wel.”
“I don’t wanna call you McCoy.”
“Why not? What the hell is wrong with that name?” He can’t help but feel a little offended. ‘McCoy’ is a fucking decent and completely normal name!
Jim shakes his head. “I don’t like calling friends by their last name. It feels … impersonal.”
“Impersonal? What the …? You call everybody else by their last name!” McCoy points out, because it’s true.
Jim shrugs and averts his eyes. He plays with his pencil, looks kind of vulnerable and embarrassed all at the same time. “They’re not friends,” he finally answers.
McCoy opens and closes his mouth without saying anything.
“You know, ’Doc’ could work,” Jim adds hastily, as if he’s afraid McCoy would dare to comment on this statement. Well, McCoy won’t, because he’s rendered speechless.
“Wait no, not ‚Doc’ …“ Jim is still staring at him, eyes narrowed and focused. Suddenly a blinding grin starts to spread over his features. He leans back and crosses his arms behind his head. “What did you say in the shuttle? All you have left are your bones? Sawbones,” he announces with a cocky grin.
“What the …?” McCoy sputters. “Do I look like a butcher to you? I’m a doctor, not a veterinarian!”
“Easy, short. To the point. I like it. Sawbones … Bones! Nice ring.”
“It’s ridiculous!”
“I can live with Bones,” Jim nods, sounding completely satisfied for the first time.
“Well, I can’t!”
As it turns out he has no say on the matter.
Day 10
“Bones!” McCoy shudders at being called by that name. It’s also way too early to sound this happy, even though the sun is already shining brightly.
“What?” He turns around, but it’s too late and he’s already got one of Jim’s arms casually slung over his shoulder. McCoy sighs and just lets it happen. It’s way too early to give a damn.
“Don’t look so grumpy, Bones.”
“Don’t call me that.”
“Anyway, Bones. I was wondering …”
“Please, no.” He rolls his eyes at Jim, but this guy only grins back at him.
“How come you’ve got a single apartment?” Jim asks while they go side by side across the lawn.
“Jealous much?”
“Just curious.”
“I bribed the accommodation office with my grandmother’s delicious chocolate-lemon-cake, if you really need to know it.” For a second Jim looks like he actually believes him and the wondrous powers of his nanny’s cake, and McCoy has to laugh. “No, Jim. I’m what they so nicely call a mature student. And because I know way more about toxins and undetectable poison than the rest of the medical students, for everybody’s safety it was decided that I don’t have to share my room with some frat boy,” he explains and leaves out the part where he thought Jim to be one of their honorary members.
Day 11
They hadn’t talked about it, but somehow they manage to end up in the cafeteria at the same time. After they had two different classes at the opposite side of the campus.
McCoy thinks he just should stop wondering, it would probably make everything so much easier. Jim doesn’t seem to find it odd that they stand next to each other in line for their meals, he just smiles and is hell bent on making McCoy’s stomach turning inside out with all the crap Jim plans to eat for lunch.
“And then, I’m gonna have extra chocolate on my triple-choco-shock ice cream.”
“Jim, you’re going to die before you’re thirty if you make this your choice of lunch everyday,” he admonishes him. Jim stops in the description of his plans and looks at McCoy, as if it is a novel idea for him to be alive at that age. It’s only for a second, but McCoy’s stomach tightens for completely different reasons this time.
“Naaah, Bones – “
“I’ll take you for strippers and beer if you,” McCoy disrupts him and grabs the nearest healthy thing he can find, “at least add an apple a day to your diet.”
Jim takes a step back when McCoy all but shoves the Golden Delicious in his face. It takes a moment, but slowly Jim takes the apple out of McCoy’s hands and puts it onto his tray.
Day 12
“No offense or anything, but why the hell are you still here?”
McCoy yawns. It’s almost one o’clock in the morning, he’s tired and he had a damn long day. He gets cranky when he’s tired.
Jim is sprawled lazily on the couch, looking almost half asleep himself. This question makes him jolt though, almost as if he had been waiting for it. He straightens.
“Uhm look …” He hesitates and fiddles with his beer. Eventually he coughs and throws an innocent smile at him that makes McCoy instantly suspicious. “Since you’re alone all the time and I feel really bad for you – not to mention I can’t hardly stand that lonely, miserable little look you always get when I’m leaving – I thought I’d do you a favor and stay the night. Just, you know … to make you feel a little bit better for not being such an exuberant, charismatic personality as me.”
McCoy raises an eyebrow, unimpressed. “Are you begging me for a place to crash?”
“If you want to put it that way …” Jim shrugs that careless little shrug that means he feels really uncomfortable and is trying not to show it. It makes McCoy wonder. What is his problem? And when the hell had he begun to know the kid so well that he recognizes different kinds of shrugs?
“Don’t you have your own place?” He inquires.
“I guess.”
“Did it burn down or something?”
“No.”
“Bugs? Vermin? Plague?”
“Well, that’s one way to put it …”
McCoy stares at him and Jim sighs eventually. “See, I got this roommate named Steve …”
Day 13
McCoy is pissed off. He’s sitting in some hall with a famous name with hundreds of other students, its way too overcrowded, the air is sticky and hot and he has much better things to do than to listen to some greenhorn promising the beginning of Admiral Desmond’s speech in the next five minutes for the sixth time.
McCoy growls at no one in particular when the greenhorn leaves the stage, and seriously contemplates just leaving this stupid exercise in futility when Jim suddenly reappears next to him.
“Where’ve you been?” He asks with a scowl.
“Relax, Bones,” Jim says and settles down next to him. That’s when McCoy sees what Jim is carrying.
“Is that what I think it is?”
Jim slouches back into his seat, a shit-eating grin on his face. “Oh yes, I think, Doctor McCoy. Original Risan mai-tai. Well, as originally as you can get it with a replicator.”
“The replicator?!? Don’t tell me it’s on their menu.”
“It is now.” Jim hands him the mai-tai and he takes a sip. It’s delicious. Exactly what he needed to endure this otherwise horrible afternoon.
Day 14
“I can’t believe it,” Jim exclaims as soon as he’s enters through the door. McCoy is not really sure he wants to know what exactly Jim doesn’t believe, but he can’t help himself. He’s a hopeless fool in that way.
“What? Did some hot chick withstand your overly confident charm?”
“Ha-ha.” Jim just shakes his head. “As if that’s possible. No, Uhura still hasn’t told me her first name. And I had her sitting next to me for two hours during xenolinguistic!” Jim sits down on the couch, looking somewhat angry.
“Wow, I’d sure like to meet that fine woman.” McCoy laughs and is fast enough to duck when Jim throws one of the cushions in his direction.
Day 15
“You’re what?”
“Treasurer of the Xenolinguistic Club!”
“Yeah, I got that.” He still stares incredulously at his smirking counterpart. “What I don’t get is why?”
“Aw, come on Bones! The Academy is all about learning new stuff, meeting new species. What a better way to connect than to learn their languages?”
Jim is still smiling his shit-eating grin when Bones leans back on the couch. “I think you’re trying to bullshit me.” He tilts his head. “Who’s in that club?”
”You wound me!”
McCoy just raises an eyebrow.
“Okay, okay. Uhura is the president.”
“And?”
“And what?”
“What’s her first name?”
Jim shrugs with his shoulders. “Don’t know, she wouldn’t tell.”
Day 16
Somehow, McCoy thinks, he should have known this. Leaving Jim alone in his dorm was a bad idea, but the thing is that McCoy’s heart refuses to acknowledge any objections his brain might have concerning this kid.
So it doesn’t really come as a surprise when McCoy gets back from his trip to the library just shy of midnight and sees half the floor occupants gathered around his room door, where smoke is welling up and some of the Academy’s very own firefighters block the entrance.
He doesn’t think about his worldly belongings, about the picture of Joanna and the stethoscope from his dad, his only concern is Jim and he swears his heart doesn’t beat until he sees his personal troublemaker leaning against the wall next to the door, spotting dark smears of grime on his face.
“Jim?” McCoy asks when he’s pushed his way through the crowd and Jim jumps a little bit at the sound of his voice.
“Oh, Bones … “Jim’s gaze travels between McCoy and the dorm back and forth and he’s nervously kneading his fingers. “Gosh, I’m so sorry. I just wanted … you know … to …eh … cook.” He looks utterly guilty and won’t meet McCoy’s eyes. “And then something exploded and … gosh, I’m so sorry.” He brushes his hand through his hair, making it look even more disheveled. “I just shouldn’t cook, you know? I never got this right, not even when I had to – “He suddenly stops, as if he’s already said too much, as if that’s a story Jim would rather leave untold.
“Jim, hey,” McCoy lays his hand on Jim’s shoulder and Jim stops fidgeting. “Are you okay? Are you hurt?”
Finally, Jim meets his eyes again, but his eyes only betray confusion and fear, and McCoy has the feeling this is another of these untold stories. “Am I hurt? Bones, I just burnt down your kitchen!”
McCoy makes a wave with his hand in the general direction of his dorm. “It’s only a kitchen. I wanna know if you’re hurt, are you?”
Jim still stares at him as if he doesn’t really understand the question, but finally he nods. “I think I burnt my left arm, but it’s nothing, really.”
McCoy sighs mentally and shoves Jim in front of him. “Start walking. We’ll get you checked out in the hospital.”
Day 17
It is past midnight when they reach the Academy hospital and McCoy makes Jim sit down on one of the biobeds in an otherwise empty room while he gets the tricorder.
When he gets back Jim is as white as a sheet and looks ready to keel over any second. McCoy curses under his breath.
“Lie down before you fall down,” he admonishes and uses a slight pressure on Jim’s shoulder to make him comply. Jim doesn’t utter a word when McCoy bends his left arm to take a closer look. He cringes inwardly when he sees the burnt skin on the underside of Jim’s forearm, partly hidden by equally burnt parts of Jim’s shirts. Most of the burns are first degree, but some of them look like more severe second degree burns.
“I’m gonna give you something for the pain,” he says and wonders why Jim hasn’t complained about it before. It must hurt like hell. Jim just nods, but tenses when McCoy gets the hypospray near his neck. “Hey,” McCoy rubs Jim’s shoulder in slow circles, “its okay, and it’s just a hypospray.” Jim finally relaxes, but McCoy can see how much effort he has to put into it.
He files this piece of information away in the growing folder of things concerning Jim he doesn’t understand. Maybe some day, when they’re both a bit more at home at the Academy, have spent more time together, Jim will let him in on these mysteries. He chooses not to ponder when or why he started to be intrigued enough by Jim to want to know them.
McCoy presses the hypospray against Jim’s neck and starts to work on his arm. It takes some time and finesse to peel the burnt cloth away and clean Jim’s wounds sufficiently, so he can use the dermal generator.
Jim still hasn’t said a word and it starts to unnerve McCoy. As far as he knows Jim is only still when he’s asleep.
“Hey, Jim,” he starts when he sweeps the generator over the damaged skin, but he doesn’t get any further, because suddenly Jim bends to the other side of the bed and throws up on the floor. McCoy is too surprised to even swear when he leaps to his feet.
“Sorry,” Jim mumbles and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.
“What? No … Jim, it’s okay.” He goes over to a cabinet to get another hypospray. “That’s the shock. I will give you some – “
“No, no more meds.”
McCoy turns around. “But … Jim … “
“No.” Jim tries to smile, but fails miserably. “I just don’t like … drugs,” he admits quietly and McCoy puts the hypospray back in its place and swallows. So the pain had had to be really difficult to bear, otherwise Jim would have never let him administer the hypospray.
“Okay,” he slowly says. “But let me get you at least a glass of water and clean the floor, okay?” He doesn’t wait for Jim’s answer, just gives him a glass to get rid of the taste in his mouth and quietly wipes the floor clean. It wouldn’t be fair to ask a nurse or some other member of the staff to do this.
McCoy has the feeling he screwed this up and he doesn’t even know exactly what or how. It’s just this gnawing feeling in his gut and he tries his best to ignore it while he works with the dermal generator on Jim. When he’s finally finished, Jim’s asleep. McCoy can’t help but to sweep a stray lock of Jim’s hair from his forehead.
“One day,” he murmurs, and then goes to sleep in the bed next to Jim’s. It’s been a long night.
Day 18
Before McCoy can even really compute it, Jim hops off his bed, waves at McCoy and is gone. He didn’t let himself be checked over one last time and McCoy sighs. He can’t say he expected anything different.
But still … Jim is a mystery to him and he doesn’t like that feeling. He’s starting to get that itch, the one that is so familiar to him, the one he gets whenever he encounters an unknown disease or some virus no one has ever seen before. Not that he compares Jim to a virus or anything. Well, when he thinks about it, Jim has kind of infected him and it’s not likely that McCoy is getting rid of him in the near future. Not that he would want that, if he’s honest.
McCoy’s mind slowly begins to formulate a plan when he gets up, with far less enthusiasm than Jim, and how the heck did that boy have the energy to be up and around so early after nearly having burnt his arm of the night before?
McCoy rubs his forehead and tries to clear the last cobwebs from his thought process. Unfortunately his conscience catches up with his plan as soon as he’s really awake, and it doesn’t like what he’s planned.
“Shut up,” he mutters to the empty room and sits down in front of a computer terminal. It’s not like he’s doing this to hurt Jim, he’s doing it for … medical reasons, that’s it.
“Computer, show me the file of James T. Kirk. Medical Authorization: McCoyBeta3Gamma7C.” The computer obeys his command and ignores the silent screams of McCoy’s conscience that he’s betraying his … whatever Jim is.
James Tiberius Kirk, born 2233.0.4, Medical Shuttle 37 of the Kelvin, space, McCoy reads and his brain needs a minute to understand what he’s reading.
Kelvin, Kirk, Kelvin, Kirk … oh, McCoy thinks. And then, Damn it, Jim. And then he curses at himself, because of course he knows about the Kelvin and the hero George Kirk and that tragic story that he never got to see his newborn son, he just never connected it to Jim, his Jim.
McCoy leans back in his chair and has no idea what to do now, so he just reads on. There are several links to sealed files he can’t access and he’s not sure he even wants to know, but he bet they would go a great length to help him understand Jim better.
He scrolls further down and when he reads the results of Jim’s aptitude test for Starfleet he has to blink twice to make sure he saw that right. Whoa, no wonder Starfleet took Jim even with his attitude. There’s also a note attached to it that has Captain Pike’s personal statement he is volunteering to be Jim’s Academic Advisor. McCoy has met this guy only once, but he likes his straightforward way, and he’s sure if anybody can reign in Jim than it’s the Captain.
The shuffling of a nurse behind him snatches him from his pondering and he closes the file. Whatever else there is to learn about Jim – and he bets there is a lot – he is going to wait for the man himself to tell him.
Day 19
“Did you see this?”
Jim waves a paper in front of McCoy’s face. It’s green and crumply and looks like a handout. To McCoy it looks pretty boring and Jim is way, way too excited about it. He clears his throat and tries to meet Jim’s eyes. It’s kind of weird, seeing him now and wondering how he could ever not know who he is. Now that he knows the resemblance is startling obvious. Jim is like a mirror image of the man who’s already a legend.
“What’s that?” He asks without actually wanting to know. “Make it short, because we’ve still got this assessment to do and …”
“Who cares about the assessment? This is about the Kobayashi Maru, man!” Jim points enthusiastically at the paper. “It says even freshmen can apply and the next tryout is jsut after New Year. We gotta do this!”
McCoy blinks. “What’s the Kobayashi Maru?”
Jim stops and stares at him. “You’re joking, right?”
“Do I look like I’m joking?”
“It’s like … it’s a legend! It’s famous! A test that you can’t pass. Nobody ever passes this test. You got this? Nobody! Never. Not once. In the history of Starfleet.”
Now it’s McCoy’s turn to stare. Why does Jim keep making no sense? He starts to suspect it’s on purpose. “That’s … great. Congratulations. Why the hell would you want to fail a test?”
Jim makes a face that’s all ‘duh!’. “Because I won’t fail. And I need you to do it.”
McCoy sighs, because he’s really tired and cranky and he still feels guilty about spying on Jim and they really, really have to do the damn assessment now. “Okay, Jim. Whatever. Sure. Sign me in. Why not?”
Jim beams. “Awesome!”
This is so going to come back to bite him in the ass. He knows it. Weirdly he doesn’t even care. He looks after Jim who is already on his way (to sign them up probably) and something makes his stomach clench. When he slowly wanders back to the dorm his mind is filled with images of the exploding Kelvin and he shudders.
Day 20
Jim comes back from his Xenolinguistic Club meeting and McCoy has to admit he’s a little bit curious himself – not that he’d ever admit that, no … but he might have to, since Jim’s been back (and when did back started to mean McCoy’s dorm?) for over an hour and went straight to his Interstellar Diplomatic 101 assignment.
“So?” McCoy starts when his curiosity gets the better of him.
“So what?” Jim asks and raises his head from his pad.
“Uhura?”
Jim sighs and shrugs. “Nothing. But you’re hereby cordially invited to attend the Xenolinguistic Club’s annual bake sale.”
“You have to bake?”
“At least it’s not cooking.” Jim looks sheepishly at him.
“You have no idea of how to bake. How could you say yes to this?”
“Well,” Jim looks just right over McCoy’s left shoulder and he gets a really bad feeling, “would you accept if I hereby cordially invite you to show me how to bake? You told me about that famous chocolate-lemon cake of your grandma’s and how it is an excellent choice for bribery.”
“That was my grandma’s cake! Not mine! And that story wasn’t even true!”
But now Jim looks directly into his eyes and McCoy knows when he’s defeated. He hangs his head. “I’ll go look for the recipe.”
“Thanks!” Jim exclaims happily.
