Archive of Our Own

There’s someone shuffling around Bones’ side of the room when Jim gets back from Gaila’s. There’s no sign that the door’s been forced and nothing’s been damaged… roommate reassignment? Not if he can help it. Surprise inspection? Jim can’t see how that would be true, the guy can’t be more than twenty. With his back turned, Jim can only figure that he has a messy mop of hair, limbs that he hasn’t quite grown into, and a thick Southern drawl that coats his litany of mumbled curses with the most adorable burr holy shit.

Bones is young.

Jim says as much from the doorway. The scowl he receives when the kid turns around allays any suspicions he had about body swaps or shape shifters or whatever Starfleet brought home from school today; there’s only one person in the quadrant who has that ball-shrinker in his expressive arsenal.

“Well, kid, you’re the top of your track for a reason.”

“Bones, dude. Dude!”

“Before you ask, there was an experiment and a spill. Things went wrong, and then I went wrong.”

Jim considers this. Wrong is not the way that he’d put it. He was thinking more along the lines of the greatest thing that has ever happened ever.

“You are adorable.”

“Jesus fucking Christ.”

“Was there anyone else? And what the hell are you looking for?” Jim follows Bones’ increasingly frantic movements around the room. Bones always seems to live in a state of controlled, grump-powered chaos, but this is different.

“Just me, and damn it, Jim, can’t you see I’m trying to find some goddamn clothes!”

Bones pulls to a stop beside Jim’s bed, black undershirt and red trousers hanging limp from his body. It’s startling to think that there was a time before he was all bulk and presence. It doesn’t shake Jim that much, because the change is obviously restricted to the physical, but… it’s a matter of readjustment.

Still. Jim plows on. “Your reds are the tightest thing you own and they barely fit, Bones.”

“No shit, Jim, I did notice the part where I look like a damn skinny eighteen year old now.”

“Woah. You’re eighteen?”

“I’m twenty-nine. My cellular construction is eighteen.”

“How do you know?”

He crosses his arms and adopts the ‘Jim is concussed or drunk’ look. It’s strangely comforting.

“You really think they just let me out of Medical looking like this? They held me for observation overnight, dumbass, which you’d know if you’d been back to the room.”

Jim skips over that one. “What else did they find?”

He runs a hand over his face. The action yells fatigue and is ridiculously out of place on this young form.

“Nothing. The stuff I was testing… it healed wounds on contact.” Bones still uses the same methodical tone, but his eyes are brighter and have his lips always been that pouty? Jesus. “Now, we figure, it’s not so much a regen as a reversion. A cellular re-do. A small amount will heal up a recently acquired laceration in seconds. But, I was exposed to… well, you heard. Some got on me.”

“Did you shower in it?”

“Jim, if you think I’m above or incapable of hurting you right now, thi-" The end of the world is cut off by a squeak, an honest to god squeak. Jim’s grin almost splits his face in two, because Bones’ voice – the voice of the man twice voted “Scariest Doctor in the Fleet” by an esteemed committee of drunk experts at their dorm holiday party - is actively breaking in front of him.

“Oh my God.”

“I’m going to Requisitions. And I hate you.”

It’s only when Bones walks out (his walk’s still the same determined stride, thank God) that Jim realizes he didn’t mention anything about turning back.

-

Let it never be said that Leonard H. McCoy is a man easily deterred.

Over the next week, Jim finds him reading every scrap of info on shape shifting, mental occupations and enhanced regenerative therapies ever vomited up in academia. It seems that none of them fit his bill (“Save for the possibility of an intense stress-induced hallucinatory psychotic event, which seeing as how you’re here, I haven’t fully ruled out.”) and no one currently in the quadrant has any idea what’s going on with him.

So, the usual, basically.

It makes Jim think. You never notice growth whilst it’s happening. One day, you’re an eager kid with chicken legs and puppy fat, and the next your shoulders have filled out and that nice girl from history class wants you to come round for dinner. Jim watches Bones as they sit in the library, and it’s definitely still him, just… not. This form hasn’t seen the bars and the bourbon, endless residency hours or Starfleet intensive training. This body is a still a blank slate.

“I don’t know what the hell they’re lookin’ at.”

“Who’s looking at what?”

“Them.” Bones jerks his head towards a table to their left, never taking his eyes off his PADD. “Feels like they’re drilling holes in my neck.”

Jim sneaks a look at the offenders. The girls could be straight off an Academy recruitment poster, young, athletic, and definitely flickering fuck-me-eyes the way of his young friend.

He coughs. Hard. It’s the only way to stop the bark of laughter that leaps up his throat. Bones sees right through it, of course.

“It’s not funny,” he hisses.

“It is literally the funniest thing I have ever encountered.”

“Do you even know what literal means?”

“I cannot believe that you’re not milking this.”

“Jim.” He finally looks up, if only to stare daggers. “Those girls are at least a decade younger than I am – than I really am. Besides that, we still have no clue what’s been done to my body or what it could do to other people.”

“So some experimentation is in order. The energy of an eighteen year old paired with the prowess of an experienced man… I think there’d be a line around the block to find out what your body ‘could do to other people’-"

“God almighty-“

“And I have to say, if age is an issue, I’m only five years younger than you are-"

“I will leave.”

“I’m more than willing to suffer any consequences. Don’t even worry about a waiver!”

Bones’ voice goes all shouty-whispery. It’s a tone that used to command respect and convey danger. He can’t quite carry it off anymore.

“Does it ever occur to you that the words coming out of your mouth are being broadcast to everyone in the general vicinity?”

“The Yorktown doesn’t get back into a transmission zone for another four days.”

Bones gapes at the suddenly business-like tone, and Jim waves him off.

“Yeah, yeah, I know, why are you even surprised at this point, Bones? I bet you’re at the end of your rope right now; migraines, aches and pains, dizzy spells. Thanks for letting me know how things have been going, by the way.”

Jim looks down to his own work and waits out the silence. So yeah, there’s the part where he’s a little pissed that he’s had to hack Bones’ treatment reports, and peer over his shoulder to see what’s been eating his time on his PADDs, or ignore the steady stream of hyposprays that he’s been using when he thinks Jim isn’t looking.

Bones is his best friend. It’s been a week. He has officially reached the stage where he is allowed to be concerned.

There’s a sigh from across the table. His PADD is put to the side, and clasped hands take its place.

“I ain't hiding anything, kid. There’s nothing to tell.”

“But you’re sick!” Jim looks back up, at eyes that aren't tired and dark when they really, really should be. A hushing noise sounds from another table, and Jim leans in closer to hear Bones’ reply.

“It’s called puberty, asshole, and that kind of shit happens when a process that’s meant to take years is kicked back into gear without any damn warning.”

“You’ve been relieved from your duties at Medical.”

“I can’t be a doctor whilst I’m a patient.”

“Bones-“

“Jim, just…” Bones thumps his clasped hands against the table once, lightly, but it’s enough to convey his frustration. This time it’s not directed at Jim. “This isn’t one of those things where you can just jump in and fix it all up, okay? This is a waiting game.”

“It sucks.”

“It sure as fuck does, Jim, but we don’t gotta choice in the matter.”

Jim can’t help the twinge of a smile. Bones’ eyebrows crease in response.

“What?”

“The Georgian is strong with this one.”

Bones huffs out a laugh, and casts a sidelong glance over at the table of girls. They catch his gaze again and smile - he shakes his head and looks back to Jim, now in the midst of a wry grin.

“Everyone’s enjoying this but me.”

“But can you blame us, Bones?”

“Them, no. You? Absolutely. You’re getting dinner tonight to make it up to me.”

Jim casts another eye over his friend as he returns to study, now lacking some of the tension he’s been carrying around, whilst he reaches for his gear once again.

Dinner seems like a fair trade.

-

“He’s a damn boy scout.”

Gaila cocks an eyebrow. “Boy scout?”

“It’s an old Earth thing. How long before they slap his picture on a recruitment poster d’you think, Jimmy?”

Jim leans back against the shuttle stairs. He shrugs at Gary, smirks.

“My mind doesn’t really leap to 'poster boy' when I think of Bones, man.”

“I’ll bet.”

“The folks over in Medical must be having a field day.” Sulu’s graceful lines curve through his stretches easily. They’ve been cooped up in the sim for hours now – Jim’s tempted to join him.

“Medical’s been creaming themselves over him ever since he published that neural grafting article. Boyce was the one who sent out the directive to, and I quote, ‘figure out what the hell is going on with McCoy.’”

“Admiral Boyce?”

“The same.”

“Damn."

“And still there’s no word.” Gary sets himself down next to Gaila, perched in the doorway of the shuttle shell. “Seems strange, if an Admiral’s breathing down their necks to get shit done.”

Gaila nods, mouth pursed slightly with a concern that Jim appreciates. “As much as I hate to say it, he’s right. Do you think, maybe, they’re withholding treatment deliberately?”

Jim looks to his hands, clasped between his knees. It’d been the very first thing he’d thought of, actually, the idea that spurred him into hacking Bones’ info. The second had been that Bones himself was withholding the cure – if it’d been his research that was disrupted by the accident, then why wouldn’t he follow through with the effects? Jim had been with Bones throughout the process of the neural grafting thing. He knew the kind of dedication the man threw behind his work.

But that doesn't mean it's true. He looks around at his three fellow pilots. “Bones says they’re – that he’s doing everything they can whilst they wait for more intel to come in. I have to take his word for it.”

Jim isn’t sure he entirely appreciates the resounding snigger from the other members of the group.

Gary shakes his head. “Jim Kirk, it’ll be a cold day in hell before you simply take anyone’s anything,”

“Especially when it comes to McCoy.” Sulu mumbles, stretching into something that Jim is definitely going to call an arabesque now that he’s being a royal dick.

Gaila, sweet, wonderful, badass Gaila, rolls her eyes at their flyboy friends and looks Jim straight in the eye. "We know you’re doing everything you can to help Leonard. I’m sure that he knows it too. Convey our well wishes and newfound attraction to him, if you like.”

“Hey!”

Gaila fixes Gary with a look. “You wouldn't?”

Jim chuckles, imagines what Bones would say if he were here ("You ever heard of ‘barely legal’, Mitchell? Actually, wait, don’t answer that.")

“I’ll pass on the thoughts.”

“Two minutes, Cadets.”

Sulu and Mitchell make for their instructor, readying their second brief in the sim control booth. Before Jim can follow them, though, a slight but steady hand takes his wrist. He sighs. Sometimes, he swears that there has to be some Betazoid in Gaila, for all her emotional intuition.

“There’s something else.”

“Honestly, G, I don’t have anything else I can say.”

“It’s not that you’re worried about him. It’s why you’re worried about him, isn’t it?” She stands, still one step above him, so that her eyes are disconcertingly level with Jim’s own. Her voice is low, almost her bedroom voice, but with a layer of comfort that’s too familiar to be sultry.

"I shouldn't expect you anymore, should I?"

"Gaila-”

“Cadets!”

Gaila gives him the smallest quirk of her lips, an I’m sorry and an I’m proud wrapped up neatly. It’s utterly disarming and it’s clear that she knows whatever it is that Jim’s been stumbling over these past few days.

Jim knows it too, if he’s being honest.

He liked it better when he had a choice about that.

-

The dreams are a problem.

This is about the third time this has happened, but he’s never been able to look before, never been anything beyond just a few grunts in the dark. It’s in the grey of pre-dawn. Bones clutches at his pillows and rolls his hips in a messy staccato pattern against the mattress. He’s hidden from the waist down, covered in his sheets, His face is half mashed into the pillow but his mouth is open, enough that his light panting sounds through the room.

It’s weird. Undeniably so. But Jim finds himself transfixed. He ignores the impulse to look away, couldn’t if he tried, just watches intently as Bones loses himself quickly and roughly in sleep. He remembers his own wet dreams, mixing between soft breasts and welcoming mouths and washboard abs and hard, fast, thick, in, now. He wonders what Bones sees, who he’s rutting against so urgently in his mind’s eye. He wonders if he’ll remember any of it when he wakes.

Jim certainly fucking will.

-

Of course, the Yorktown gets caught up in some skirmish with a band of Orion slavers the day before it's due back in transmission range. A totalled warp drives turns the four day wait into a fortnight. Bones is, of course, thrilled.

"I don't give a flying fuck how many medals or stripes Captain Nabutu has. What kind of a fool ships a fuckton of unidentified synthetic material back to Earth and then wanders back into deep fucking space without so much as a 'good luck with that?' One that was dropped on his damn head, that's what!"

Jim simply watches Bones march around their room from his perch on his bed. He learned early on that it's not usually a great idea to interrupt Bones whilst he's ranting. Besides, it's kind of mildly hilarious to watch mini-Bones rant. He's all lanky limbs and wild gesticulation - instead of inspiring abject fear it's actually hugely endearing. Like a very angry baby deer taking it's first steps.

But Bones' eyes are cuter.

Jim can't seem to stop those kinds of thoughts lately. Not since Gaila's semi-intervention in the sim bay. They don't trip him up or send his train of thought off the rails. In fact, the ease with which they slot into Jim's internal monologue is probably the most telling part of the whole situation.

In any case, Bones is unaware. Thank God.

"And of course we are exactly fucking nowhere with our own findings, I've lost my hours at the clinic, and stop looking at me like that, you unrelenting asshole, I keep telling you this isn't fucking funny."

Jim has the good grace to act scandalized. "I wasn't laughing!"

"Yes you were. With your eyes."

"It's only a few more days. "

"Easy for you to say! My instructors don't recognize me. I've got fucking growing pains. And I can't even go drown my sorrows because they won't let me into any fucking bars within a fifteen mile radius of campus because of all the actual fuckwit eighteen-year-olds who try and sneak in."

Oh. Oh. It’s really an easy out, probably too easy, but Jim can work with that.

Jim smiles. He pitches forward and reaches beneath the bed.

“Well, luckily for you, Bones, I know one bar where everyone knows your name and is open to children of all ages.”

When he sits up again, this time with the bottle of Romulan ale he’d been saving for whenever, Bones’ face twists.

“Kid, we don't know what it will do to me.”

“If you try and tell me that you didn’t spend one night of your eighteenth year drunk off your ass, Bones, I am walking out of this room right now and staying away until you’re back to normal.”

“Jim-”

“Bones, come on.” That comes out a lot more desperate than it should have been. It occurs to Jim, suddenly, that it’s been just over a week since he’s seen his best friend and he fucking misses him, wants to just have a sit down and a drink and a talk safely and quietly.

Bones sits opposite him. He rests his elbows on his knees and clasps his hands. Jim doesn’t like it, this quiet, and his chest loosens with relief when he looks up from beneath the hair falling into his eyes.

“I ‘spose one couldn’t hurt.”

-

“Y’know, technically I’m a virgin.”

Jim would’ve spit out his swig of ale if he had been able to summon the co-ordination required to do so. Instead, he swallows, flops back down on the floor, and proceeds to laugh until tears prick at the corners of his eyes.

“S’true, though. Josha-Joso-Jocelyn, she wanted to wait ‘til she was eighteen. So I waited ‘til she was eighteen. I happened to be nineteen when she was eighteen. So right now I haven’t had sex.”

“Oh my God Bones, I want to remember this forever.”

“Jim. Y’weren’t a virgin when you were eighteen.” Bones flops his head to the side and Jim does the same. They’re not touching anywhere, heads parallel on the floor, bodies facing away from each other, but now Jim can feel Bones’ breath on his face and there’s a slight burn in it from the ale but wow it’s so hot in his room and they're already down to shirts and boxers.

“Of course I wasn’t,” Jim chuckles, laugh deepened by the alcohol swimming through his body. “Sixteen, dude. Pauline Saxby. First drunk birthday sex I ever had. Probably some of the best, too.”

Bones looks so intent. He’s not often a serious drunk, but now he whispers urgently and curls his hands into the carpet. Young Bones really can’t hold his fucking drink and it’s beautiful.

“Jim. Jim, I wanted her so badly.” He stares Jim down like it’s the most important thing in the world that he understand, tone as solemn as a priest. “I used to kiss her goodnight on her porch and all I wanted was to push her up against the wall and put my hands up her skirt.”

“Such a gentleman, Bones.”

“But I wasn’t. I was a kid and I wasted so much time.”

“You’ve made up for it! You’ve slept with, like, heaps of people since you’ve been here. Relatively. I guess.” Jim barely even blinks as he tries keep his sight connected with Bones’. Although, he’s starting to get the feeling that Bones isn’t just talking about time wasted not sleeping with people.

“So you’ve always been a slut.”

Jim scoffs. “Slut is as slut does.”

“And you do everyone.”

“Dude, seriously? I give you my booze and my comfort and you’re gonna call me names?”

“You are though.” Bones looks back to the ceiling. He reaches up to bat at Jim’s shoulder.

“Gimme.”

“Sure you can take it, kid?” God, it feels good to turn that back on Bones, even as he hands off the ale.

“Shut up and gimme, asshole.”

He listens for the swirl and gulp as Bones takes a new sip. His voice is husky from warmth when he replies – he sounds more like himself, now. Like the man he’s meant to be.

“You’re fucking lucky, Jim.”

Jim’s eyebrows try and jump off his fucking face when Bones lays that one out.

“Oh yeah? Why’s that, Bonesy?”

“’Cause you just… you don’t have that voice, do you?”

“Dude, if you’re hearing voices, maybe it’s time to-”

“Not a voice! That voice. The one in your head. Tells you when to fucking stop. Tells you when you shouldn’t or you can’t.” Bones sighs heavily. He seems to sink into the floor with the force of it. “You could do anything, kid. I mean it. Any-fucking-thing.”

Jim doesn’t really know what to say, either to the vote or confidence or the possible diagnosis of a lack of a survival instinct. They might be the same thing. Instead, he just rolls onto his stomach and stares at Bones’ profile, and watches Bones’ mouth as he talks.

“I can’t remember a time in my life when I wasn’t scared of something. Losing Joce. Losing Daddy. S’like… everything important I ever did, was just ‘cause I was chicken shit. But then there’s people like you! You, and every other damn person in this place. Y’all made the choice. Heard the call. I just fell over whilst I was running away.”

He rolls to face Jim fully now. Half of his face is mushed into the carpet and his eyes are way glassier than they were even a few minute ago… but he’s so close. He’s all Jim can see.

“I look in the mirror, Jim. I see what I was, what I could’ve done when I was like this, but I feel what I am and it’s fucking pathetic.”

Jim blinks and pauses slightly. When he replies, it’s terse. Almost angry. No, fuck it, he's drunk, and he is angry.

“Jesus. You were so wrong about so many things just then I don’t even know where to start.”

The eye roll that this gets him is, admittedly, pretty epic. Shame Jim isn’t even close to being able to appreciate that bullshit right now.

“Oh, fuck you, Jim.”

“Are you serious, though? You really believe that you’re the only person in the Fleet who doesn’t think they belong here? For the love of God, you share a room with me. Oh, and hey, for the record? Luck had shit all to do with me ending up here. In fact, I’d like to ask luck how it managed to drop the ball so fucking badly when it comes to my life.”

“Bu-“

“And in which universe are you pathetic, Bones? ‘Cause all that shit you were scared of – it happened. And you’re still here. Still you. Freakily de-aged body and everything.”

“But this isn't how things were meant to turn out.”

“Oh, so how should things be then, hm? Still in Georgia, turning a blind eye to the fact that you haven't seen your wife in a week? Should your Dad still be alive? Should mine still be alive? I bet you wish you could go back – really go back, you know, with everything you know now, so you could stay the fuck away from Starfleet and stay the fuck away from me-”

Of all the responses that Jim expected from that (partially) alcohol-fuelled rant, a harsh kiss was not one of them.

It’s awkward and uncoordinated, messy from their angle, but none of that is enough to sway Jim from reaching into Bones’ hair (it’s longer now, it looks so fucking good) and pull him in closer. Bones licks into his mouth unapologetically - Jim doesn’t even flinch when their teeth clack. He just takes everything Bones wants to give. No, that’s not right – he feels so muddled right now, but he's always wanted to meet Bones in the middle, so he does it now, wants return every sensation, the urgency and the fire and the want because right now he wants.

Bones shifts. It’s probably hugely undignified and Jim might kick himself later for not paying proper attention to the flaily-turn that he performs, but it’s really all kinds of irrelevant because Bones ends up pushing him onto his back and sitting up on his knees over Jim’s stomach.

Slowly – purposefully – he places his hands over Jim’s chest. He fists his hands in Jim's t-shirt. He doesn’t say anything. It’s about seventeen kinds of surreal. All Jim can think is how Jocelyn must’ve been made of stone if she was able to resist that wide-eyed look, bewildered and awed as he begins to sit back, and bites his lips when he seats himself fully over Jim’s cock.

Jim can feel him through cloth, hot and straining against the confines of their underwear. He doesn’t dare move, hesitates to even breathe, curses the way his heart pounds beneath Bones’ hands.

Bones rolls his hips suddenly, slowly, and for all his efforts Jim just can't hold back the groan that elicits. He bites it back almost as soon as it escapes but the damage has been done. Their eyes meet - and Bones' look about as panicked as Jim feels.

"Bones?"

He clambers to his feet and races past Jim's prone form. There's the whoosh of a door. For a terrifying, addled moment, Jim is faced with the idea that he has fucked up majorly and irreparably with his best friend. They were so close, though, not just to the sex, but to the bigger thing that's been lingering in the background of their friendship, the thing that Gaila saw and Jim is just now beginning to maybe accept. He closes his eyes and grits his jaw, every possible outcome of this situation mixed by ale into a grey swirl of not now not now not now please.

The thoughts stop when Bones' hasty exit is explained by the loud, pained retching that begins from the bathroom.

Jim huffs a sigh, and tries not to feel relieved.

-

They don't talk about it.

This does not surprise Jim in the slightest.

With no additional side effects displayed, Bones' clearance is reinstated at Medical - he's not back in the clinic, but he has full access to the research facilities again. Jim is asked to cover a self-defense course whilst an instructor is off planet. So, it's not like they actively avoid each other, or anything. They still pass each other in their room, sit together in their shared classes. But he can feel it. The uncertainty. Counting down until the return of the Yorktown, when they might be able to return to equal footing.

Wasting time.

It's one night when he's in the shower that he can’t help but wonder - about Bones doing all the little things. When he rushes from the mess to Medical, when he works diligently in the library. It’s stupid, because there was no reversion beyond the physical, but still - he's never really thought too much about the fact that Bones was always like this. Harboring less baggage, sure, but unmistakably driven. Jim thinks of himself at eighteen. They were similar, in a sense, both tasked with the legacies of their fathers. Bones ran with his. Jim ran from his. For him, there’s not much beyond his stints in the lockup, passing out with Frank’s shitty beer and stolen cigarettes, and the old mattress in the hayloft to remember. What would Bones have thought of him, if they’d met way back when?

Probably the same as he thought when he actually met you, asshole.

What if Bones had been one of those boys in the barn? No. Not that kind of guy. But still, he imagines. It doesn’t take much to envision teen Bones, actual teen Bones, his opposite in almost every way, always in such a rush to do something and get somewhere and impress anyone and everyone.

What if Jim made him pause; what if he’d had his shy looks and uncertainty, following him up into the loft, surrendering thoughts of what will dad say to wandering tongues and fingers and stripped off shirts, bruises on hips, the desperate, loving urgency that only teenage boys can muster. His mind’s eye can’t hold back the images of Bones – the rough rut of his hips beneath the sheet and face contorted with pleasure in sleep. The dorm bed becomes the shitty mattress in the loft and Bones is pressed against Jim’s hip instead, like he was that night in the dorm, both of them all angles and friction and “God, Bones, please" clutching so tight to those shoulders, not quite filled out yet but still carrying so much weight.

And then it is Bones, Bones as he knew him, as he wants to know him, moving against Jim in the loft. He has the same strong arms and heavy heart, perfectly broken by the world and Jim’s to keep, damn it, because he’d found him and claimed him when no one else had wanted him and that was how lost property worked. This Bones clutches tighter than the youth. This Bones doesn’t hide his face in Jim’s shoulder. The look that’s revealed – parted lips; eyes wet, wide, awestruck – it undoes him.

Jim barely has the presence of mind to fill his palm with some shower gel before he begins working himself roughly. He wants so many things but right now it’s just Bones, young Bones and old Bones, the conflicted child and the broken man all mingling into one, healing hands and deep brown irises and pursed brows and giving, giving, giving hearts. It was the two of them that he could see closing their eyes and whispering "Jim." Together. They hold him close as he comes, gasping, arching and calling out for them using their real name - the name he’d given that very first day, Bones, the anchors of a body, strong and faithful beneath sinewy, changing muscle, and the only thing that would be left of him when all else is gone.

He comes back to himself. Cold water pounds against his back, and he is alone.

-

Jim is leaving Advanced Telemetery when a voice calls down the corridor.

"Cadet Kirk."

Captain Pike cuts a swathe through the jumble of red. Jim can feel interested eyes and ears honing in on them, probably expecting some kind of reprimand or summons, but he ignores them all and stands to attention easily. It's been two years - he can do this now, play the upstanding future officer for any unconvinced observers.

"Captain, what can I do for-"

"It's McCoy. We have to go."

-

The Yorktown doesn't get back in range for three days.

Bones is fucking dying and the Yorktown doesn’t get back for three fucking days. Jim says as much to Pike. He only levels an even look at Jim, as he paces restlessly up and down the bleak hospital corridor.

“Dramatics won't get you anywhere. You don't know if he's dying.”

“Then why won’t they let me see him?”

“You heard Dr. Puri. He’s in the ICU.”

“Because that’s always a good sign. I’ve been in and out of hospital enough to know when it’s bad, Sir. You wouldn’t have contacted me if it wasn’t. And since when do officers make house calls, anyway? Starfleet going for improved customer service, or something?"

Pike's face hardens and he straightens his back. It reminds Jim, for all their familiarity, that he's dealing with a starship captain. A pillar of the fleet. A bad-fucking-ass.

“You’re out of line, Cadet. Believe it or not, I have a vested interest in McCoy’s wellbeing. Not to mention yours.”

That stops Jim dead in his tracks.

“You know, I’ve always wondered about that. Do you have a thing for fuck ups or do you just attract us? Bones told me about the little spiel you gave him, too - the galaxy needs people like you. I guess you just forgot to mention that the only thing they needed him for was cannon fodder.”

Pike simply raises an eyebrow at Jim’s barb. He relaxes his stance, and it's so, so clear that Pike has his number in pretty much every way.

“You done?”

Jim could’ve laughed, taken back to a moment from another life so easily. But there’s no laughter in him right now. Nothing but the maelstrom of unease that’s turning in his chest.

“Not even close.”

Doors slide open down the corridor, and Dr. Puri approaches them without hesitation. It’s the same focused stride that Jim’s watched Bones use around the clinic too many times to count. Christ, things are going to remind him of Bones for the rest of his fucking life, aren’t they?

“Captain.”

“McCoy’s status, Doctor?”

Jim doesn’t miss how Puri keeps his eyes firmly on Pike as he speaks.

“Dr. McCoy was admitted four hours ago with severe chest pains. They’ve since developed into intense muscle spasms, and migraines. About an hour ago he began seizing – that’s when we contacted you.”

“Is there anything you can do?”

“We’re treating the complications as they arise, sir, but we have no indication as to what their cause is. Beyond the cellular reversion McCoy was perfectly healthy. If anything, he was the healthiest he’s ever been.”

“Seizures can cause brain damage, right?”

It’s only then that Puri acknowledges Jim.

“I take it that you’re Dr. McCoy’s emergency contact?”

“No, I’m just here for the ambience.”

“Cadet.” It's stern but Jim could swear that there’s just the slightest twinge of amusement in Pike’s tone. “He was hoping he’d be able to see McCoy.”

“Not a possibility. He’s in isolation.”

“Fine.” Jim keeps the venom firmly in his voice. He really doesn’t like this guy, Bones' doctor or no. “Put me in a biohazard suit. I don’t care.”

“I think you’re missing the point, Cadet.” Puri meets Jim’s annoyance with an easy air of I-know-better-than-you. Until we can determine the cause of McCoy's deterioration we have to limit external stimuli. You can be assured that he is receiving as much assistance as we can give him.”

"Really?!"

Jim isn't remotely surprised when his voice emerges raised and raw, because and he is just so done with this, with being fucked over by self-important men in ‘Fleet uniforms and powers that be and just everything.

Puri just looks Jim up and down, eyes thinned with disdain.

"Leonard is my patient and a valued colleague. Be assured, Cadet, that we are doing all we can for him."

A tinny alarm sounds from Puri’s communicator. He snatches it from his belt, and the tense in his jaw is all Jim needs to see to know what it’s about.

“What’s happening to him? What’s going on?”

“Another seizure. Excuse me.”

“NO!" Jim turns to Pike, voice filling up the corridor and attracting some attention from the orderlies. "This is bullshit, Sir, I want to see him!”

Pike grabs the sleeve of Jim’s jacket and pulls him back - his glare is penetrating and unforgiving, but Jim knows that glare the same way every idiot in the Command track does. It's the universal sit-down-shut-up look, and frankly, Pike can shove it. But Puri's already dashing away, the onlookers are turning away, and there's really nothing for it.

Jim shrugs out of Pike’s grip. He ambles down the corridor towards the row of chairs propped against the wall, unzips his jacket as he goes.

“Jim…”

“Yeah. I know. Reprimand me at your leisure."

He drops into one of the chairs lining the corridor, runs a hand over his face. This shouldn't have happened. Bones had been fine, and Jim would have noticed if he wasn't. Maybe Bones knew this would happen all along; knew that it would end up grizzly and painful, didn't want Jim to worry. Yeah, like that was ever going to happen.

Or maybe not, considering how you scared him off, you unrelenting ass.

He wants to choke that thought before it grows, but there's no getting past the fact that maybe Jim crossed a line that night in the dorm. That he hadn't seen Bones for days, not really. That he isn't even sure if he'll get a chance to fix it.

Pike sits next to him.

“I don’t have an eye for fuck ups, Jim. But I can pick the tough ones. McCoy will pull through.”

When Jim doesn’t reply, Pike sighs. He leaves quietly shortly after.

-

Early the next morning (like, dawn early, not that it makes much difference when you’ve spent most of the night trying to negotiate the most uncomfortable hospital couches in the quadrant) Jim makes two decisions.

The first and probably most important of these is that he’s pretty much in love with Bones. It occurs to him that he might have crossed the point of no return on this front a while back, which is mildly embarrassing for a tactical prodigy. Probably should have picked it up somewhere between the startlingly high levels of co-dependence and the masturbatory fantasies. But, you know. Besides, even if he’s late to the game, he’s enough of tactician to admit that this is admittedly not the best decision ever made and the results of it will be, at best, problematic.

That being said, Jim hates himself a little bit for falling back on the ‘feelings complicate things’ argument, because it’s the oldest in the book. Frankly, Bones deserves better (he deserves better on a multitude of levels, actually) and they’re both pretty fucked up already so how much more complicated can things be, really? Jim knows now that it’s not a question of if but when this will be addressed. Again: problematic.

Which brings him to the second decision: Bones is not going to die. As of ten hours ago, ‘Keep Bones Alive’ became the foremost goal in his life, so they’re already at an advantage. Aside from that, Jim’s cataloguing possible names and favors, what kinds of treatment ‘Fleet Medical might try or could try, if cajoled properly… he might have to make nice with Puri. Shit.

Jim skips over the thought of failure in this endeavour very, very quickly. Divergence from the latter decision messes up all his variables for the former – messes up his variables full fucking stop. It’s not worth thinking where or what he’d be without Bones.

Suddenly, he’s back in the dorm room. In his own bed, even, and he looks over when he hears a snuffle from the next bed.

Bones begins to roll over, and for just a second, Jim indulges himself in the hope that it’ll be his Bones that faces him morning, some overnight miracle fixing everything for them. Theoretically, he should be able to recall the memory of the older man doing exactly the same thing a hundred times over. He should know what Bones looks like when he wakes up. It feels fucking fundamental.

Right now, though, all he can see is a coltish young man, peaceful in sleep. He’s struck, suddenly, by the thought of never seeing that frowning, downcast, world-weary face again.

Jim jolts awake. There's dorm, and no Bones - only more staff milling about now, coming in for the start of the day. No one’s woken him, which means there’s been no change.

He needs to go. He’s still got classes today. Exams are soon. Life goes on.

He doesn’t move an inch.

-

It’s later that Jim notices the faster stream of nurses and doctors in and out of the ICU. So far as he knows, there haven’t been any other major emergencies since he arrived... and there’s only one patient in right now who’d get that many people hot and bothered so quickly.

He spots one of the nurses - Chapel. One of Bones' friends. She must recognise him too, because she hands off her PADD and meets him halfway up the corridor.

"Kirk, right?"

"Yeah. Is he...?"

"I can't say much. Puri'll flay me. But something's going on. His room's out of bounds to all non-essential personnel."

God, Jim can see why Bones is friends with her. She's got a brow crease that would rival his and a no-nonsense attitude to match.

"Is he...?"

"Believe me, Kirk, if I could tell you, I-"

"Chapel!" Another nurse pops his head out from the ICU entrance, sweat on his brow. "He's crashing again, we need you."

She doesn't give Jim a second thought, turns on her heel and runs, leaves him standing in the corridor with a million questions and feeling as helpless as he's ever been.

-

“I told you he’d be here.”

Jim doesn’t try and fight the grateful smile that springs to his face when he spies Gaila and Uhura turning into the corridor at lunchtime. Gaila’s carrying a bag of takeout and it’s only then that he realizes he hasn’t eaten since breakfast the previous day.

His stomach rumbles at the smell of the curry. Gaila’s laugh tinkles towards him.

“Humans. You’re precious.”

“Well, only some of us.” Jim winks at Uhura, who rolls her eyes. It all feels blissfully normal.

Once they’ve set themselves up on the couch (and Jim’s wolfed down an entire box of korma) he asks the inevitable.

“So, how’d you find me?”

“Everyone’s talking about how Pike grabbed you yesterday.” Uhura barely even looks up from her own lunch. “I just thought you’d been put on suspension for something or other. When Leonard was missing from our Xenobiology class this morning, Gaila figured it out.”

“Your faith in me is, as always, overwhelming.”

There's a beat, before Gaila puts down her fork and rests a hand on Jim's knee.

"I was worried. You could have commed."

Uhura's hmph at Gaila's words does not go unmissed. Gaila thins her eyes.

"We were both worried, about the two of you. Is Leonard... is he recovering?"

Jim plays with his rice, looks anywhere but at the women around him.

"I don't know. I really don't. I tried hacking his medical records but they just... there's nothing."

And isn't that just the kicker. For all his supposed genius, for all his growing clout, for being the kid who can do 'any-fucking-thing he wants,' he can't do this one thing that he needs to.

"Would you like us to stay for a while?"

Jim looks at Gaila with more than a hint of shock etching his face - Gaila leans forward in her chair and looks across Jim with an expression that's much the same. He is tempted, for about half a second, to tease Uhura mercilessly about this sudden and unprecedented display of compassion towards him. Also, he's kind of curious as to why she'd even notice that Bones wasn't in a lecture of two-hundred people... but mostly the teasing.

That’s all until she looks back at him, and it occurs to Jim that this might be the first time he's ever heard or seen Uhura as anything less than completely confident. Gaila sees it too, and tightens her hand on his knee. She wasn't kidding about their worry, apparently.

"If you want." Jim shrugs as nonchalantly as he can. He probably doesn't carry it off, especially since there's tightness in his throat that definitely wasn't there a minute ago, but neither Uhura or Gaila call him on it.

They stay.

-

Doctor Puri approaches him later that night, almost two whole days after this whole shitstorm began.

"He's asking for you."

-

And it’s Bones.

Actual, grumpy, twenty-nine going on seventy-five, bourbon and beer and divorce and disease and danger, Bones.

“Jesus Christ.” The words escape on an exhalation of breath that Jim feels like he’s been holding for several weeks now. “If you wanted to see me, you could have just commed me or something, you know?”

Bones give him just the barest hint of a smile, but it’s enough to draw Jim over to the bed, perching himself just next to a drip-filled hand.

“How much do you remember?”

“Too much.”

His voice - that voice, thank fucking God, Jim’s missed it like a limb – is cracked like he’s hasn’t had water in a while. Or like he’s been screaming.

And maybe it’s because it’s late and Jim hasn’t slept in days, or maybe it’s because fucking Bones is back and here and real, but he doesn’t even hesitate to take Bones’ hand from it’s spot on the blanket and thread their fingers together. He’s gentle – he doesn’t know how much everything hurts right now, but from by Bones’ distinct effort not to move he’s going to with a lot - but there’s no way he can stop himself from reaching out. Not now.

Bones seems to get that. He tightens his fingers around Jim’s and cracks an eye open.

“Shoe was on the other foot, huh?”

That stings, a little, because Jim hasn’t pulled anything like this on Bones (recently). But it doesn’t make it any less than true. All he can do is shake is head, keep his voice light.

“Bones, we both know mortal peril is totally my thing. Get your own.”

“I’ll try.”

Jim doesn’t push the conversation, because Bones’ eyes have fallen shut again, and even though Jim’s readjusting to this older Bones it’s easy to tell that he’s positively haggard.

So he stays. Rubs his thumb across Bones’ knuckles. And when Puri comes back to check in later on, Jim just says “Thanks.” Because he doesn’t know what he would have done if he’d seen Bones writhing and yelling and transforming. Something that would’ve had him thrown out of the Academy, probably.

Puri only nods. “We’ll need to keep him for observation. After that, he’s all yours.”

Yeah. There's that too.

_

Captain Nabutu sends McCoy a personal comm an hour after he’s released from Starfleet Medical. He doesn’t let Jim watch it, but judging by the shade of red that’s coloring his face when it’s over, that’s probably a good thing.

“It was a biological weapon.” He’s clutching a cup of coffee in a death grip in their kitchenette, staring down the espresso like it broke his favourite hypo, or something. “The planet was Class M because the entire species was wiped out in a war, probably from decades back. They put it in the water, made aliens regress, wiped them all out. How the fuck they couldn’t have figured that out in the five minutes previous to send off the sample, I’ll never know. Goddamn adrenaline junkie flyboy idiots. And since the effect evidently isn’t permanent, we can’t even repurpose it for Medical.”

“You could try and fix that.”

Bones raises an eyebrow and glares. It takes every inch of Jim’s effort not to smile at the familiar face.

“If you think I’m going anywhere near that shit again, Jim, you’ve got another thing coming. Although you’d probably like that.”

He takes a long, slow sip of coffee whilst indignation swells in Jim’s chest.

“And what the hell is that supposed to mean?”

Bones doesn’t answer, just collects his PADD and mug from the table and heads to the sink. It only takes a moment for Jim to realize what’s talking about, and only one more after that to become royally pissed.

“Oh, go to hell, Bones.”

“I was there yesterday.”

He ignores that, pushes on. “You were the one that jumped me!”

Bones thunks his things on the kitchen counter. “You jumped right back, asshole!”

“I was drunk!”

“We were drunk.”

“You think I only did it because of how you looked, right?”

Bones turns around, leans against the edge of the counter. His lips are pursed like he’s holding words back; his eyes are narrowed, challenging, like he’s daring Jim to contradict himself.

So he does just that.

“And what if it wasn’t?”

“Piss off.”

“No.” Jim strides around the table, wastes no time in crowding Bones against the sink, in boxing him in with his arms and getting in his face. “No, I’m not going anywhere, you dick. You think I don’t want you or I couldn’t want you, just as you are? You’re wrong. You think you didn’t scare me to death when you were in the hospital? You’re so wrong. And if you think that I’m going to let this fuck us up, then I’m going to change your mind about that too.”

He takes a moment to let that sink in. He licks his lips, meets Bones’ eyes.

“I’m done with wasting time. How about you?”

The only response he gets is a hand on the small of his back, pulling him close, and a pair of lips crashing against his own.

It’ll do.

_

Jim is a big fan of turnabout and fair play and all of that. He is also a big fan of Bones. That’s why he asks his mom for the holos, really. It’s not like there are many – it was difficult to get him to stand still, back then. It was difficult to get him to do anything.

Bones doesn’t laugh. Bones doesn’t even crack a smile at his acne scars, his poofy hair, or the too-big leather jacket. He just tosses it into one of the bedside drawers and wraps an arm around Jim’s waist, presses a kiss at the skin behind his ear.

“You looked like an idiot.” His voice is warm and rumbly all that Jim can hear. It’s kind of the best thing ever.

“I was an idiot.”

“But not anymore.”

Jim chuckles.

“You’re getting sentimental in your old age.”

“You’ll cope.”

Jim doesn’t reply. He just settles in, with Bones, his Bones, wrapped around him, solid and strong.

He’ll cope.