Leonard McCoy (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
oldfashionedfutureboy) wrote2023-01-28 11:31 pm
oldfashionedfutureboy) wrote2023-01-28 11:31 pm
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Looking down through a tide of no return
This isn't how he'd wanted to handle things. This isn't something Leonard's particularly proud of, isn't something he rightly knows how to handle. By all rights he should do what they all do in times of trouble- talk to Jim, talk to Spock, talk to the command crew that's become a second family to him but- he's older than the lot. Settled in with enough dignity and pride to want to handle this his own way, even if it ain't rightly all that fair. So when the tests come in and he gets a proper read on what's happening? The only person with any idea at all is Chris Chapel. Saint that she is- she keeps mum. Lets Leonard get his recommendations and arrangements all typed up for when they finish the trip to earth.
At least he caught it early.
At least he caught it close to home.
At least there are enough regulations, expectations, interviews and social obligations keeping crew and Jim Kirk busy while Leonard quietly packs a bag and sends everything he'd typed up and prepared in that one agonizingly long week back to their pretty blue marble. The Enterprise will ship out- with a new CMO. The message to Jim cites age, joints, and a desire to retire comfortably- nothing alarming, nothing that should have the man running to haul him back out to the stars again- promises to keep in touch. That he's welcome to visit when the next five year trip's come and gone.
Nevermind that he'll be gone. That he's on the first Shuttle to the ranch as soon as he's turned in all his notes and data, tendered his resignation, and sent time delayed messages of condolence and farewell to the crew that's kept him crazy and kept him alive over the past short while.
The last thing they need to do is watch him hammer away at a wasting disease and hope for a miracle.
Better to head to a house he hasn't lived in for years, better to tell his flesh and blood family what's happening, what to expect. A little more than a year is what he's got. Less, maybe, with all the running around he used to do. Is it any wonder he wants to spend that last year with his boots on the ground, familiar stars overhead, home? Comfortable. There's not much that can be done for him other than to be...comfortable.
Content.
He'll get more writing done than he's ever managed before, having to jump from patient to patient, crisis to crisis. Got a lifetime of messages to record and leave behind for the crew, for Jim. Decades of messages for Jim because he knows- he knows Jim will need it. That it won't be as good as having him there to help but he can't be there if he's going to be six feet under. Maybe he'll feel cowardly when they ship out. Maybe he'll feel like just another asshole that's abandoned him-
Maybe Jim'll hold it against him. Get angry. He'd have a right to it.
God knows what he wrote before heading home wasn't near good enough an excuse for simply vanishing from Starfleet Headquarters during what was meant to be a brief 72 hour report and restock before they head out again. Everyone got messages and only M'Benga and Chapel checked in with him while he was enroute, just. Offering condolences. Notes of studies they looked up. Medications that can ease symptoms. They understand what it is Leonard's doing, wandering back to his own graveyard of a cottage, empty of the wife that left him and the bones of a life he'd abandoned in favor of the stars. It aches, a little, pulling the dustcloths off the old sofa and bed, airing out the place. To think of everything he'd wanted to build, everything he'd never see.
Maybe it hadn't kicked in just yet, what that ticking clock in the back of his mind meant. Maybe this was just another way of running. But he doesn't burst out the bourbon just yet. Gets his kitchen sorted, the firewood for the actual hearth chopped for when the nights get cold, settles up on the porch to watch the sunset. Let his body finally sink in to the gravity of the situation and rest. He'll have to leave Jim a handwritten apology, he figures. The entirety of his journal will go to Jim, every bit of research, every thought and memory, every emotion save one.
You don't really tell someone you love them when you've discovered you've got a terminal illness.
On the one hand some might say it didn't need say'n, that Jim knew every gesture and worried snipe and sharp hand to the shoulder to haul him back from the edge were those three little words carving away at the spaces they didn't touch, stitching them together like cloth. Pulling away felt a little like unraveling and now? Now he's entirely unspooled, that last secret held bittersweet on his tongue like honeywarm whiskey, watching the horizon.
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It's hard, he knows this is hard, planning for it has been hard- "...Leav'n this place to you won't do much of anything, will it? I know you don't care for earth the same way I do."
Having a home with his feet on the ground- that doesn't matter to Jim the way it matters to Leonard. All this house might become instead of a place of refuge is a tomb to bitter memory.
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It's good to know it'll be a while. Damn, he doesn't want to load Bones up with too much extra shit at this point, but he needs to make sure that Bones knows, that he knows that Jim won't give a damn when the time comes.
He shakes his head. "You deal with messy things when other people are sick. I can do it for you."
Especially given how much I love you, he doesn't think.
And a small wince at that, along with a frown. The words are like ashes in his throat. "I'll do whatever the hell you want. I can..."
Breathe, Kirk, breathe.
"...remember you anywhere."
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this little cottage that Jim's only seeing because Leonard chose it as where he'll spend his last year alive?
It'll only hurt.
He doesn't have words for how much he wants to make sure Jim doesn't hurt in this mess- but he can, does, pull Jim in with arms tight around his shoulders, pressing his face into Jim's hair. "I just want you here. That's all. Might've had the nerve to ask for that insteada runn'n if I weren't so damn scared. Didn't want both of us to be miserable."
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His heart breaks all over again as Bones tugs him in close. "I want to be here, and you should ask me for any damn thing you want. Any time."
Not an offer he'd make to just anyone. This man bitched and moaned his way into Jim's heart basically on day one.
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He shouldn't ask. A large part of him doesn't want to, but he's standing in the hallway, dressed down to try to get some sleep, ready to leave Jim to it when his hand darts back to tangle their hands together.
Anything, Jim said, and he feels the worst kind of selfish, the worst kind of weak for swallowing past a suddenly dry throat and murmuring. "...stay with me tonight?"
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Jesus. "Thought you were gonna ask me something difficult," he says immediately, squeezing Bones' hand. "Just promise me you'll kick me in the shin if I snore. Not the face."
........and he's thought of something himself, something that needs saying. Shameless and obvious it might be, but he tells himself he's being shameless and obvious out of worry. "You need to know I usually end up holding people I sleep next to."
Jim's quite pleased with how delicately he's phrased that. Didn't say that it's often while he's conscious, and very deliberate.
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he wants to enjoy the weather while it's still easy.
"Like we haven't passed out together enough times for me to figure." Like he isn't sitting and all but pulling Jim into his arms and bullying him into a more comfortable position. Like no small part of him needs this.
First couple nights here, exhaustion took care of it, but tonight? He's rested and aware and...braced for the calls that will come in the morning. Jim'll let the crew know and they'll give him hell.
And he'll deal with that. In the morning.
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"Hey," Jim protests amiably, grinning at the thought of waking up mid air.
Man has a point there. Post alcohol or just post a really long fucking day, they've fallen asleep in a heap many times. He's woken up with Bones' pointy elbow in his chest, or his face in Bones' armpit. Whatever works, really.
Now, though? He's hurriedly shoving off his pants, because the breeze through the window still won't make it too cold for him to sleep in boxers, and otherwise he's submitting gladly to Bones tugging him around. Sleeping wrapped around the other man, and vice versa, will be fucking perfect to convince his hindbrain that yeah, he's got him back.
(Not for long.)
Jim has an arm across Bones' hip, and his familiar weight and scent is incredibly relaxing. The morning's gonna suck, but that can wait until the morning.
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Leonard lies in. Remains curled close, lashes tinted gold from the sun peeking through the window, hair spread like an ink spill over the pillow he's made of Jim, brows relaxed, chest rising and falling with the deep, even rest of the truly unconscious.
Years are shaved off him like this. No furrow in his brow, no clench of his jaw, no tension in his shoulders. No need to brace himself for the worst the galaxy can throw at him-
Just Bones, softened and sleep warm and quiet.
a million years later, sorry
This shouldn't be possible, though. He's been worried. Learning the truth sure hasn't made him less worried. He should've slept fitfully at best.
Must be the man in his arms. Reassuring his hindbrain that yeah, things are horrible but he has the best person in the universe with him and they can handle everything together.
Stupid hindbrain.
Jim's lips curve in a reflexive smile, though, as he peers down at his best friend's face. Everything's softened while he sleeps. Eyes, forehead. Those tiny angry lines around his mouth.
...his mouth.
No, idiot. Take it easy. You act on that impulse and it'll come across as confused pity.
No worries, life happens sometimes!
In fits and snatches he drifts back into his body- his brows furrowing, fingers curling in the sheets, tongue darting out to wet his lips and work out the evening's worth of cottonmouth. Not his favorite symptom, but one of the mildest. Eventually his eyes flutter open and-
This early in the morning, everything he's had on his mind? He can't hide the immediate affection and relief in his gaze, looking up at Jim. For half a second he can imagine this is how they are, tangled close and comfortable, like he's not a man with an expiration date.
bestest boyfr- er I mean friend (<333)
What he wants to say is how about we lie here in each other's arms for a while.
What he says is, "You want to sleep a little longer and I'll find you some breakfast?"
<3 <3 <3
There's no fix'n it but-
With a huff, he settles back against the pillows, letting his eyes drift shut. "G'wan, do your best. Pretty sure you can manage eggs just fine."
Re: <3 <3 <3
He finds the bathroom, then trots downstairs. He has a decent eye for basic food. Nothing fancy. Being asked to make a mirepoix or a veloute'd have him about as confused as he gets, but if he can find eggs and bread, he can do fried eggs and toast.
Probably.
There are various frozen meals in the big freezer, but he finds ingredients instead and then finds a pan on the fifth try. He heads back up the stairs slower, with a tray bearing coffee, two plates of eggs, toast, butter, and what looks like some kind of jam. Jelly? Jam? He's never been entirely sure of the difference.
"Here you go, sir," he says cheerfully.
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That also means the smile he turns on Jim is that same soft, honeysweet thing, tinged with a depth of emotion he won't dare put a word to.
Not when he's on his way out. "well I'll be damned, you can cook."