Hold On, Hold On 2/2

[lovely_ambition]

*

It’s been two weeks on the Riverside and McCoy has yet to see the deck. He’s exhausted the trinkets in Kirk’s room and is considering taking out the maps once more when Kirk storms into the Captain’s quarters, shoving the doors open and glowering at McCoy.

“Let me guess,” McCoy drawls. “Uhura wouldn’t give you the last apple slice?”

What he doesn’t expect is for Kirk to storm forward and backhand McCoy with force, using his elbow to pin down against his windpipe as he straddles the older man in the rickety and wide wooden chair. “God...damn it, Kirk!” McCoy wheezes out. He’d known that this had been a possibility, that one day Kirk would merely snap and kill him. The pirate had seemed so civil, though, almost as if he hadn’t belonged in this life.

“Bastard,” Kirk accuses. He may look angry, but he sounds hurt. “Mongrel! Whoreson.” He adds more pressure against McCoy’s windpipe. “The Navy just returned their response to my demands.” He eases off, just enough that McCoy has been given back the ability to speak. “You,” Kirk says hotly, “are not Pike.”

McCoy stares at him and doesn’t say anything that might condemn him.

“Who are you?” Kirk demands.

Once more, McCoy doesn’t utter a single sound.

“Who are you?”

McCoy knows that there’s no point to allowing the lie to go on any further. He lets out a heavy sigh and stares at Kirk with regret and apology in his eyes, though he has nothing to be sorry for and stands by his actions. He’d do it a hundred times over, maybe even a thousand.

He reaches up and presses his thumb to the scar on Kirk’s neck, made by McCoy’s sword. Lightly, faintly, he brushes the pad of his thumb there and McCoy watches with sick fascination as it makes Kirk shiver and withdraw his hips suddenly. “Anyone who says that I’m a genius with a scalpel is an idiot who’s too eager to praise. Bones,” he says, giving away his identity and taking all of Kirk’s leverage in one blow.

“Bastard,” Kirk hisses again and withdraws from McCoy’s thumb, storming out of the Captain’s quarters without a single moment’s hesitation.

McCoy doesn’t see the Captain for three long days after that.

*

The next McCoy sees of Kirk, he still appears angry. He’s also carrying two trays with him as he enters the cabin. McCoy has only been allowed to the deck for the first time the other day and it had been with Sulu’s sword at his back, encouraging him along in order to treat a shipmate with scurvy. McCoy glances up from the book he’s currently reading about trade in China and sets it down on his knee to mark the place.

“Poison?”

“I asked Gaila for beef, but you never know with the woman,” is Kirk’s distracted reply, lifting the covers off of the plates and staring at McCoy over the table. “I hate that book.”

“I’ve read all the rest you have to offer.” McCoy looks up to appraise Kirk’s mood. They haven’t actually spoken since Kirk found out that McCoy had been posing as Pike and he’s not exactly sure what punishment will be meted out to him for such a thing. “If you hate it, why do you still keep it?”

“I might need to know how to trade gold in China one day,” Kirk says, his voice dulled. “You lied.”

“Oh, for...you’re a goddamn pirate and you’re acting like a spoiled brat because I lied?” McCoy scoffs, unable to believe his ears. “God knows what you would’ve done with Pike! The Navy cares about that man too damn much and I couldn’t let you have him. Not when I owed him my life.”

“So I got the Sawbones civilian instead,” Kirk says.

“Don’t sound too happy about it,” McCoy says with a roll of his eyes.

“I’m not disappointed.” Before McCoy can interpret that, Kirk unveils the dinner and slides the plate across with cutlery rolled tightly in a napkin. “Go on, eat. Now that I know who you really are, I want to talk. I want you to tell me everything about you. I’ve been toting a stranger along on my boat and I don’t take too kindly to providing room and board for people whose history I don’t know.”

McCoy hadn’t expected Kirk to suddenly demand his hopes and dreams of him. “You do remember I didn’t ask to be on this ship.”

“It’s more than fine,” Kirk assures with a tight smile. “You may not be Pike, but you underestimate yourself. Apparently the Navy doesn’t care about you, but the medical community does. You’re something of a genius according to the ransom offer we received.”

McCoy goes chilled as he wonders who would be that much of an idiot...

“Doctor Boyce would be more than happy to pay for you.”

McCoy rolls his eyes and probably could have guessed if given two more seconds. He’s not surprised that his colleagues are idiots, but he had at least had hope that they would have just let him go once they got word that Kirk had him. He pokes at the food on his plate and wonders what the weather is like at the moment, if the night is just chilly enough to take a brisk walk after when the wine has settled.

“Don’t look so glum,” Kirk sighs and rolls his eyes heavenwards. “Have I really treated you so badly?”

“Other than acting like a spoiled child throwing a temper tantrum?” McCoy coolly baits.

“You lied to me.”

“Again, you’re a pirate. Worse things have happened in your life,” McCoy retorts. Outside, the sea has finally calmed. McCoy hates to allow the praise, but he’s almost impressed by the way that Kirk’s crew handled the storm. They couldn’t outrun it, so they merely braced themselves for the inevitable and battened down the hatches and made sure the sails wouldn’t be ripped to shreds.

They may be a motley crew of sailors, but they know how to keep themselves afloat. It’s evening now and the dusky light spills into the cabin, wondering where his path is going to end now that Kirk knows the truth and seems resigned to sullen acceptance.

McCoy lifts the lid covering his plate and inspects the food, still unconvinced that Kirk (or some other zealous crewmate) hasn’t taken it upon himself to dose it in order to rid themselves of their unexpected little surgical problem.

“So why would Boyce pay so much for you when you’re just out at sea, patching up gunshot wounds and forcing good food down men’s throats?” Kirk asks as he stretches out in his chair, feet brushing against McCoy’s as they share this small space around the table. “Why would the Navy take you on her flagship?”

“You’re asking for logic?” McCoy asks dubiously. “I suppose once upon a time, I used to be valuable. I’m not, anymore,” he says pointedly before Kirk can interrupt. “I did an unforgivable thing or two and no one in port tends to hire you once word spreads. The divorce didn’t help, either.” It’s more sharing than McCoy is used to and while he hasn’t spilled everything, he still feels as if he’s given Kirk more than he deserves.

Kirk just keeps staring at McCoy and doesn’t move to eat his food.

McCoy refuses to take the first bite either, so they find themselves in a strange standstill.

“Divorce, hmm?” Kirk murmurs nosily. “What was her problem?”

“Wasn’t the same man she married,” is the easy way out that he takes. Saying ‘she didn’t think that she married a murderer’ seems oddly personal, even if Kirk seems to want to know about him. He adjusts slightly and in the process his foot drags against Kirk’s ankle, bare and rough with coarse hair. He suppresses the feeling it gives him – a sickening rush that makes him feel nauseated and giddy at once. “If you’re so curious, then you must enjoy to share. What drove you to piracy?”

“I don’t do well with other men’s rules,” Kirk replies and unrolls his fork from his napkin, tucking it into his neck as he begins to poke at the potatoes and meat on the plate, taking the first bite and assuaging only some of McCoy’s fears.

He mirrors Kirk’s movements and pierces a cut up slice of meat, extending it out across the table.

Kirk laughs. This is nothing more than a joke to him. “Why, Bones,” he drawls, voice like honey and poison – all sticky sweet and lethal. “How romantic.”

“Eat it,” McCoy demands. “Prove that your crew isn’t trying to poison me.”

Kirk rolls his eyes and leans forward over the table, parting his lips just widely enough to press down over the fork and slide backwards, the piece of meat now in his mouth. He chews and really gets the work in his jaw before he swallows.

Forty seconds later and they’re both sitting there in healthy silence. McCoy understands that it may yet be a slow-acting poison, but Kirk was willing to take the chance. He plucks up the knife from beside him and begins to stab and saw at the meat, using the opportunity to get his frustrations out as best as he can.

“What was your wife like?” Kirk asks curiously.

“I don’t like to talk about her,” McCoy mutters gruffly.

“What do you like to talk about?” Kirk wonders, making slower work of his own food. It’s almost as if he’s trying to extend this meeting, to elongate the hours of dinner by eating slowly.

Almost as if to be difficult and to make it so that Kirk isn’t going to get what he wants, McCoy stays steadfastly silent, offering a challenging look that just dares Kirk to prod and try and find more than that out.

“My father was a Navy-man,” Kirk finally speaks when he seems to accept that McCoy won’t just talk. “Following the rules got him killed and destroyed my mother. You’ve never seen a widow more wrecked. My brother ran away for London when he was just a boy and I was left to make my own way.”

“And you chose this.”

“And you chose that,” Kirk hotly counters, stepping on McCoy’s words and not even waiting to see what else he might have to say. “What makes your choice more valid?”

“It’s not illegal!” McCoy snaps.

“You’re living by the laws of men who don’t care what happens to you. I care about my crew and I take care of them. More than the majority of you Navyboys,” Kirk says with a sneer. “You may be the exception, Doctor McCoy, but the rule says that people put themselves first. I don’t do that. And yes, we might steal things in order to pay for it, but it funds a better lifestyle.”

McCoy sighs heavily and wearily. Kirk is too young to have been in this life as long as he has been, by all accounts.

“Why did your wife divorce you?” Kirk asks again when the silence becomes seemingly unbearable and the creaking of the wooden walls can’t carry the conversation.

“She didn’t want our daughter around me and I did a terrible thing.” McCoy keeps his attention on his dinner, even if it’s quickly vanishing and he won’t have it to distract his gaze much longer. He vehemently doesn’t want to give Kirk the satisfaction of a too-long linger, to look at those impossible-eyes and the scars on his neck and face that belie the life he’s been leading. “Don’t ask for specifics. You won’t get them.” Not unless you ask ashore, he doesn’t add, pushing around soggy potatoes on his plate.

“You did something incredible for Pike,” Kirk says quietly. “And Boyce says you do incredible things for people on the whole.”

“I told you, I’m just another sawbones.”

“Liar,” Kirk accuses evenly, his voice staying determined. “I don’t have a single crewman who’d do for me what you did for Pike and they adore me.”

“That just means none of them are as stupid as I am,” McCoy growls and rolls his eyes. “Don’t hang up some hero complex on my shoulders.”

“I wouldn’t dare hide those impressive things,” Kirk says and McCoy may have gone a good time without any kind of romantic contact, but that is a flirtatious tone if he’s ever heard one. The rollicking sensation is back with more nausea and giddiness, threatening to sap him of breath and sanity at once. McCoy looks up in time to see Kirk’s attentive stare fixated on him. “Why would Boyce pay for you?”

“I contribute to the medical community more than others because I have no goddamn life. I’m always at sea. Experimenting is as good a way as any to pass the time.”

“And keep your mind off her?” Kirk says with a knowing look.

McCoy just doesn’t mention how many hers exist in this equation.

McCoy finishes with his plate of food and Kirk – for all his efforts – doesn’t take that long to catch up. It’s not long before the sun outside has vanished from the sky and their plates are empty, their stomachs full.

“Well? Are you going to keep asking little curiosities?” McCoy wonders as he pats the corners of his lips with his napkin, mentally comparing this to his dinners with Pike, if only in the back of his mind. He’s not sure what else there is to tell about himself. Barring the excitement of his marriage and divorce, the tragedy of his family and his father, he’s a dull man when you boil things down.

Kirk pushes his plate away and reclines backwards. “No,” he says, stretching out and sliding his hands behind his head. “Just thought I’d let you know that we’re within a week of reaching our destination. Provided the Navy doesn’t assault us and the ransom is waiting, you’ll be a free man soon enough. I thought you’d like to know.”

McCoy isn’t sure how Kirk quantifies free, so rather than obsessing over the minute details, he lets that be a balm to his worries. He sits there still and unmoving until Kirk finally breaks the silence by clanging plates together as he begins to tidy up. “Do you want any help?” McCoy asks.

“No. I’ll have these to Gaila before you bed down in the hammock. And maybe tomorrow you’ll think about sharing more,” Kirk says, grasping McCoy’s bare plate from him. “After all, you did still lie to me. In my books, that means you owe me something.” He uses his hip to open doors for him and McCoy doesn’t even get the chance to protest that kidnapping him in the first place overrides any hardship that he thinks has come upon him.

The feeling of a warm meal in his stomach is doing wonders, but it’s no comparison to the weight off his back. At least now, no matter what happens, it will happen with the ship knowing of his true identity and if, God forbid, something does happen, the message will get back to land.

He’ll die known, if that’s to be his end.

*

The Riverside, if you listen to local gossip, is the ship you pray stays away from your port. Not violent, but thieves of the highest order and bound to take anything they need in order to survive. The worst only for that and only for the additional reason being that the Narada and its Captain have been rumoured to be sailing in the Indies looking for buried riches.

The dreaded Narada flies a flag that can’t be mistaken for any other. The flag bears a grey triangle slanting downwards and a dual-coloured butterfly adorning the triangle, foreign script atop it and offering the misnomer that the ship shouldn’t be considered dangerous.

It is the same flag on the ship bearing fast for the Riverside, men poised on ropes and wearing gaudy jewels and ink marks on their bodies.

McCoy knows all about the Narada’s well-earned reputation. He’s had to patch up the aftermath of the Narada too many times after the pirates have stormed his shores. They leave behind a bloody wake and care little for small trinkets. They care for high-profile hostages, large heists, and making a name for themselves by killing as many as they can and destroying in the process. They also care about ruling the seas and Kirk and his crew pose a threat to them. It must seem simple in the mind of a pirate: Kill or be killed.

McCoy just hadn’t expected the killing ground to come to him.

He’d been up at the mast with Kirk as they discussed directionality and their destination when the first sighting had been called from crow’s nest. McCoy knows this pit in his stomach. He’d experienced it not long ago when Kirk had been the pirate coming to conquer. He has the feeling that Nero and his men will be far less merciful.

“Kirk...”

“Stay here,” Kirk warns, sounding half-mad with fury and young at the very same time. “Sulu, Uhura! Get ready. It looks like Nero’s come to pay us back for the Indies.”

What happened in the Indies? is the desperate question that McCoy wants to ask, but he’s sure that he won’t like the story.

Without warning or another word, Kirk vanishes to rouse some kind of defense and McCoy is left staring at the impending battle. This is the second fight between ships he’s seen in weeks and while he can hear Kirk rattling off plans to Sulu – involving reefing the Narada, sending someone over with gunpowder and matches, and trying to pick off Nero from a good distance – it’s all too late for that as the Narada’s cannons begin their fire and the planks are hoisted out from the depths of the other ship.

If you had asked him years ago, McCoy would have told you that good is good and evil is evil and there is no in-between, no shades of gray. That had been before a divorce gone awry, before a mercy-killing, and before this very moment on the deck of a pirate ship as he stares at Kirk jumping from the masthead to the lower deck to charge Nero’s men as they jump aboard his ship – the pirates of the pirate world, scum lower than the average criminal.

McCoy has treated many a man suffering from various wounds before. He’s seen scurvy and dysentery. He’s had to chop off limbs and treat the mildest of flu. He’s caught babies for most of the women of town and he’s patched up gunshot wounds.

He feels a chill rush down his back as he grips the banister and watches the array beneath him. This small theatre of war is fought hand-to-hand and Nero has only dispatched twenty of his men – child’s work for Kirk and his crew – but each kill earned on the part of Kirk’s crew seems ravenous. Soon, a pile of bodies is piling up and McCoy recalls whispers as to why the Riverside seems so very eager to do away with the ne’er-do-wells.

Kirk’s father was taken from him when he was just a babe by Nero. He’s been out for revenge ever since, blood swearing for it when he couldn’t even speak the word. It’s all they talk about at some ports. The disaster on the Kelvin. A dead Captain at sea, seemingly traded for a new baby at port.

McCoy stares at the fray and finally moves from his frozen state, trying to get to Kirk and to pull him away. He’s seen too many men throw their lives away on vengeance and he’ll be damned if a man like Kirk – who has promise to him if he just obeyed the damn law for once and who’s been more merciful to McCoy than he deserves – goes down that gutter like all the rest.

They say that Kirk will stop at nothing to see Nero dead.

Not even death.

He grasps at the railing and hauls himself down the stairs, grasping at his rapier and knowing it won’t do much in the face of a hail of bullets. Kirk is across the ship, facing off with Nero and looking worse for the wear. Neither man has a gun in his hand and McCoy only hesitates for a moment before he throws himself on the deck, sliding over to use one of Nero’s men as a shield as he digs through pockets of ragged linens to find a knife, a dagger, something, anything. The smoke from discharged guns fogs up the deck and McCoy crawls on hands and elbows to grab a flint-lock rifle, pushing to his feet and keeping his eyes around him as he readies the gun to be fired.

“Kirk!” he shouts, getting the man’s attention. Hand on one of the banisters that lead up to the helm of the ship, he uses his other to flex his forearm and throw the gun with enough force that anyone looking to intercept it would have to be as quick as lightning to grasp it.

When McCoy is assured that Kirk has a firm hold of the gun, he hurries up the stairs and gets himself to high ground, as if that’s safe in the melee. It’s from this high vantage point that he watches Kirk steady the gun in his hands, the barrel pressed against Nero’s neck.

There’s going to be no sympathy here. Kirk may not be a killer, but everyone has an exception.

McCoy looks away when the trigger is pulled, but it’s impossible not to hear the din of the gun. It’s impossible not to imagine the flash of the thing. He struggles to get the feeling of the ground under his feet, unsteady as the waves contribute to his lack of surety.

With Nero attended to by Kirk, the rest of the men seem to be without clear direction. They try, do they ever, but Kirk’s crew are swift and efficient and killers. Bodies fall to the ground never to breathe again and it’s all done at Kirk’s say-so. McCoy wishes that he could place this in some moral shade of grey, but that means he’d have to first understand. As the fight disperses, McCoy breathes relief and looks to his arms to see the hairs on edge. He’s never been this close to the battle before. Always, he’s the first stop when the smoke from the guns has settled and the cannons are quiet. He’ll saw a bone and set the crew right, but he never sees the action.

It’s so cold, is what he realizes. Now that the flashes have dimmed and the guns have stopped discharging, McCoy feels the briskness of the foggy day on the water.

He looks to the deck to search out Kirk as if to seek approval. Their ground has been less shaky now that McCoy has been attempting to right the wrongs of his lie (one he stands by and would do a thousand times over in order to save Pike’s life), but there are moments when McCoy expects Kirk to draw his sword and be done with him.

McCoy licks his parched lips, swallowing hard as pain envelopes him.

What is it he says to Pike’s men? When you’re shot, you’ve got a blissful few moments before the shock wears off. Cherish that before I have to start digging around for the bullet and save your cursed asses.

He stares down at his torso and sees the bullet hole and the sluggish pulsing of blood as it pours out, all at once explaining the weakness and the change of temperature. It also may explain the sudden look of shock and grief on Kirk’s face as he vaults back up the stairs. “Bones!” he cries out in alarm. “Uhura, Henderson, help me!” is his desperate cry, but he’s already catching McCoy when he loses the ability to stand and goes keening towards the deck in a fell swoop that threatens to bring his head into direct contact with the mast. He curls McCoy’s body in close to his and breathes hard from the exertion of the battle, slapping McCoy’s cheeks to keep him conscious. “C’mon, Bones,” Kirk begs. “C’mon. Stay with us.”

“It didn’t exit,” McCoy sputters out, hacking up heavily and groaning as the pain doubles. “Get all the medical equipment you have. Fresh sheets, sterilize everything, and then bring it to me.” The edges of his vision have started to grow fuzzy and go dark, but McCoy grabs at Kirk’s wrists. “Slap harder,” he coaxes, letting out a cry of pain as Kirk does as he’s told. “Tell your men to get me smelling salts. I need to be conscious while I do this.”

The panic on Kirk’s face seems to double and McCoy starts to wonder about something else that seems more pressingly urgent than his current condition.

“...Nero?”

Kirk’s expression darkens and he stares at McCoy, gripping hold of his arm as he begins to port him back towards the cabin. “He won’t be polluting the seas anymore. The crew is disposing of the rest of them. Uhura’s going to burn down their ship. Bones, none of that is going to matter if they claim your life in the fray,” he says. “We’ll talk about this later. What do you need to fix you?”

“Get me inside,” McCoy says. He understands that there’s sweat beginning to collect at the back of his neck, but he feels chilled yet. He could be operating in Siberia for the temperature he feels. He looks up to find an anchor and latches onto Kirk’s eyes, searching for stability in those blue eyes and breathing hard and heavy. “Whatever medical equipment you have, bring it.”

“Bones,” Kirk says, clasping at his wrist and pressing down tightly enough to make bruises. “Talk.”

Belatedly, McCoy realizes that his eyes had been slipping shut. The pain isn’t overwhelming, but between the drop in his body’s temperature and the loss of blood, his system is trying to shut off. It would be so easy to slip away into the depths of the blackness surrounding him and coaxing him lower. He wants to drown and let his limbs give in to their heaviness. There’s nothing left for him ashore with Jocelyn refusing to let Joanna close to him and the sea has been driving McCoy further off the edge.

“I can’t see her.”

“See who? Bones, are you seeing things?” Kirk asks with alarm as he, Gaila, and Henderson get him settled on the bed and Kirk starts to rip off his clothes, tearing long shreds of expensive linens bought for McCoy by Pike.

Each touch of the air to his skin is enough to make him hiss and brings him starkly back to his senses. “Joanna,” he breathes out her name.

“Who?” Kirk sounds worried and jealous at once, looking around him. There’s no spectre in the room for McCoy to be seeing, but the crew doesn’t know that. Kirk is dismissing everyone but Gaila, who he gives orders to bring fresh water in a bin. “Where?”

“Not here. It’s my daughter. My daughter, whom I can’t see,” McCoy says, and that’s about all he can take of the sharing while there’s still a bullet residing deep within the tissue of his body. He reaches to the tray beside him and plucks up the scalpel, yanking at the remnants of his clothes and pushing it away onto the floor of Kirk’s cabin. His fingers are clumsy and in the panic of searching for an operating tool, he sends the other surgical clamps and knives scattering to the floor noisily.

It sharpens his senses momentarily and he stares down at his torso. Each breath is a battle fought in and out as he thinks of what it will feel like to cut into his conscious body.

“Kirk,” McCoy roughly demands. “Leather. Wrap it in linen. Please,” he adds after, as though a brief and barely recalled thought. He barely abides by the smell and while it may keep him conscious, he doesn’t relish the thought of gagging on the thing keeping him from blacking out in pain.

Kirk is swift in returning with whatever McCoy asks for and it gives McCoy the dire and strange hope that perhaps he can make this right without causing the end of his mortality. Scalpel in mildly-shaking hands, McCoy frames the wound and swallows hard as he stares up at Kirk, trapped in those blue eyes once more. “If I die,” McCoy growls, “I will be very angry with you.”

“If you die, the Navy’s going to have my hide,” Kirk reminds McCoy. “So fix it.”

Well, at least McCoy knows that everyone’s priorities are well in order.

The first incision is enough to bring a staggering and stark cry of pain. It only evaporates when Kirk shoves a worn and cracked leather belt – wrapped carefully in the tattered shreds of McCoy’s shirt – into his mouth. A scream becomes a pained cry and McCoy fights through the blinding white flashes of pain to make the cut long enough, letting the scalpel clatter to the floor when he achieves his task.

“Bones,” Kirk murmurs his name as if a guttural prayer. It’s ignored as McCoy worries about the far more pressing matter of finding the bullet. His fingers slide inside the wound, slick against blood and struggle to reach for tweezers with his other hand. The contortion of his body evokes yet another piercing cry of abject pain, but he settles himself back.

The pain has to keep him conscious without pushing him over the edge. He’s returned to walking yet another perilous tightrope and as his shaking fingers attempt to find the bullet, he repeats to himself a constant mantra: Stay alert and alive, stay alive and alert.

McCoy can still hear Kirk’s voice, but whether he’s speaking to McCoy or to his crew fades beyond him and he only pays attention to clamping down on the bullet and sliding it out against the very present fear that one slip and shake of his hands will be too much and he will render himself unconscious.

“If I pass out,” he barks out as he spits aside the linen-covered belt, leg spastically kicking outwards and hooking at Kirk’s knee from behind, tugging him in closer. Kirk struggles to retain balance, but doesn’t topple over atop him. “You take these clamps and get the bullet out, clean the wound,” he orders, hand trembling with its own small earthquake.

And then it stills.

Suddenly, in a blink, his fingers and hand has gone steady.

He gapes up at Kirk in lack of comprehension and realizes belatedly that Kirk has slid his palm under McCoy’s and stabilized it. “Bullet out, then clean the wound,” Kirk repeats with a nod of understanding, acting as the steady anchor as he slowly pulls with McCoy in order to take out the foreign object from McCoy’s body.

It’s not until he hears the clatter of metal on metal that McCoy relaxes. Hours may have passed, but it only feels like terrifying seconds.

“We’ll get you cleaned up, now, Bones,” Kirk is saying, clasping hard against his shoulder and leaning in so close that McCoy can smell the gunpowder and blood and death all over him. “You can relax now.”

McCoy will refuse to ever concede that this is Kirk’s effect on him, but as his body slowly ebbs towards the loss of consciousness, he has to admit that possibly, he does feel relaxed -- considering he’s a man whose blood has stained most inches of Kirk’s ship and whose life might have simply ended today.

And yet, as he exhales a breath and slips into the darkness, he relaxes to the sounds of panicked cries echoing above him.

*

Each day after the battle brings with it a new sense of calm. The crew converse outside Kirk’s cabin as though the day is no different than any other and the battle is only a figment of his mind, though the wound in his side begs to contend for its reality.

McCoy has finally regained sensation down to his very toes. He’s woken each morning in Kirk’s large Captain’s bed and wiggles his toes for minutes on end, delighting in the way they move. Kirk hasn’t permitted him to leave and has taken to sleeping in the hammock nearby. The bed itself is bricked in by several heavy pieces, but it still sways just enough to give McCoy the faintest feeling of seasickness.

Rather than make him miserable, it gives McCoy a renewed sense of purpose.

He is alive to feel as seasick as he does. It’s a start.

They’ve not been swaying to the rhythm of the sea for six hours now and McCoy has been waiting on Kirk to appear. He’s seen Sulu and Uhura – the both arriving to offer him wishes for better healing – and he’s even seen Mitchell and Henderson. Gaila, who used to be the Captain’s Woman, is currently perched on the bed beside him.

“I used to be the one under those covers,” she purrs and causes McCoy to go as green as the splotches of colour on her cheeks. She’d once been in an accident and the dye had permanently stuck to her skin. It’d given her an exotic look, but no port had wanted her after that. “Oh, don’t look like that. We’re at port. Your treasure is in our belly and we’re ready to let you go.”

“And you?”

“Me?” She smiles sweetly, but there’s sorrow hiding behind that smile. “The fire stole away any chance I had at finding myself a good husband. No man wants to hire me because I scare the children and the customers. I don’t have a choice. Kirk gives me berth and I give him what I can. Food, sometimes companionship.”

“Gaila...” he starts before he realizes that he has nothing to give her. There’s no solace to offer when he doesn’t know what sort of happy ending he can use to try and give her hope. He smiles instead, one to mask the pain and reaches out to lightly squeeze her hand.

She smiles sweetly back at him. “You’re a good man. They’re all good men here,” she says warningly, as if he’s been thinking otherwise – and he has been, it’s been difficult to rid the preconceived notions from his mind. “I’ll tell Kirk not to wear you out too much.”

She leaves and closes the door firmly behind her. It leaves McCoy just enough time to start wiggling his toes again and marvel at the second chance he was given. He can hear gulls outside the window, calling to him and giving the promise of land and safety. The heavy pillows and blankets of Kirk’s bed should be suffocating, but instead they swath him in protection and promise not to let him go.

He has yet to receive his official pardon. Kirk has yet to tell him that he’s free to go rather than walk the plank.

Slowly, he begins to dismantle the grasp the pillows have on him. He pries himself out of bed slowly, the gunshot wound in his stomach keeping him from moving too quickly. He lets out a long groan of pain as he grabs for the wall and tries to bite down on his lower lip to stem the pain.

“What are you doing!” Kirk demands, alarm cutting through his voice as he bursts into the room, hurrying to his side to help brace him into a sit. “Honestly, Bones, if this is how you were with Pike all the time, I can see how the whole ship was willing to let me just walk off with you.”

“You’re not funny, kid,” McCoy spits at him.

“Kirk the Kid,” he echoes with a faint smirk. “You know, I think I could come around to that. I mean, it beats Tiberius.” McCoy shoots him a confused look. “Long story.” He slides his arm around McCoy’s waist, fingers careful to avoid any white-tissued scars that may be forming to repair the damage done by the bullet. “We’re docked,” he says, quieter than before. “It’s time for you to go.”

McCoy turns to look at Kirk, searching for some kind of emotion. Instead, he finds himself staring at a boy too young to have found himself ensconced in this life.

“Jim,” he exhales, speaking the kid’s Christian name for the first time since they’ve met. “You know, you don’t have to keep sailing.”

“There’s no life for me on firm land,” Kirk insists so devoutly that McCoy can believe that he believes that absolutely and that he’s never even considered anything else as truth. “The sea and my ship. She gives me what I need.”

“A lonely life,” McCoy sums up.

Kirk seems to consider those words for a long moment and turns a sad smile on McCoy. “Bones,” he exhales, like he’s sympathetic that McCoy doesn’t understand, like he’s reigning in his condescension. “I’ve been lonely a lot longer than the time you’ve known me. What makes you think that’s going to change?” He rests his hand on the bed, mere inches from McCoy’s thigh and when McCoy shifts his body to lessen the pain, he may push his leg up against Kirk’s fingers. “Gaila keeps me company.”

“Gaila’s mind is riddled with insecurities of her own,” McCoy sharply snaps. “Pushing your problems on that poor girl is...”

“Why, Bones, do you like my cook?” Kirk interrupts with a sly grin on his face.

“I respect the girl. I like...” he spits out without thinking, cutting himself off and shaking his head. “I like solid ground and the sky being clear. I like curing diseases and not sawing off limbs because infection has pushed too far into the bloodstream to save the poor sap. I like not seeing three cases of scurvy in a month and not dealing with goddamn pirates...” He might have rambled on longer if Kirk hadn’t leaned in and pressed his lips to McCoy’s in a fierce and biting kiss, Kirk’s stubble scratching and marking up McCoy’s not-so-clean cheek.

Kirk tastes of red wine, cinnamon, and salt. His teeth are insistent as they bite and tug on McCoy’s lower lip and Kirk wastes no time before grabbing hold of McCoy’s cravat to haul himself in closer, always careful to avoid the gunshot wound. After a thorough exploration and conquest of his mouth, Kirk eases back and looks at McCoy expectantly.

“Bones,” Kirk says, every consonant and syllable of the nickname being tried out on Kirk’s moist pink lips. “Go home, then.”

“I can’t,” McCoy admits and knows that he sounds hopeless, but that choice was made for him when he helped his father slide off the mortal coil and when Jocelyn chose a man who could be a husband to her and not just a doctor for the sake of a reputation with the town.

“Then find a new home,” Kirk says with all the trappings of sense and sympathy in those words. He pushes at the linens with his feet and splays out beside McCoy, his body arranges in a clumsy arrangement of limbs, staring up at McCoy from the bed. “Mine doesn’t obey the rules of the law. Mine has enough to keep a surgeon like you busy.”

“Your ship is filled with pirates,” McCoy patiently reminds Kirk.

“And me.” As if Kirk doesn’t belong with them, as if he’s an outlier and an exception. As if he’s enough. He offers a hapless smile and shrugs. “We need a surgeon,” he points out. “I heard Korby and Chapel are on their way to Ireland to look for treasure, so she’s not coming back and after watching you...I could do worse.”

“You could do worse,” McCoy echoes with a heavy harrumph of indignation. He presses his hand lightly against his hip and exhales deeply as he tries to put his thoughts and his life in order. He hasn’t told Kirk a hell of a lot about him, about his father or his divorce or his daughter. Part of him wants to withhold this information just in case.

He could back to Pike and take his deserved punishment, but he’d only been biding time on that ship as he counted down days until it’s all over.

“What’s to incite me to stay?” McCoy finally asks wearily.

“I told you. I’m on this ship,” Kirk says matter-of-factly and with just a glimmer of mischief lingering at the corners of his lips. “It might not be any kind of home that you’re expecting or dreaming of, but I can try.”

“Pirates...”

“Free-thinking citizens,” Kirk corrects and leans forward with a devious smirk. “Is how I like to see it.” He claims a swift and brief kiss before easing back. “And my people won’t hang us just for that. Trust me, Bones,” he insists, full of passion and determination. “Just trust me.”

A poisoner, once a murderer, occasionally a terrible husband and father and here he lies, as if deserving of throwing stones against a glass house. “Trust you,” he lets out the words with quiet derision and suspicion. “You do know how that sounds.”

“I’m sure you’ve done worse.”

And Kirk doesn’t know the half of it, but maybe over time, McCoy will find some kind of comfort for his soul. Maybe he’ll tell Kirk. And maybe he’ll keep sailing the seas and patching up other men to try and pay his penance. He could do that aboard the Riverside. He could. It’s only a question of whether he will.

“Bones?” Kirk wonders, tapping lightly at his forehead with two fingers. “Are you still in there?”

Somewhere, deep inside, Leonard McCoy, the undamaged and untainted man is there. It’s just been a long journey trying to get back to him.

“I’ve done worse things,” McCoy finally decides aloud. “And you need a surgeon. We’ll see. We’ll see how it goes.”

*

The letter arrives in the Bahamas and it’s not until they’re two days back at sea that McCoy opens it up. It’s taken him two days to accept that just because Pike has stamped the wax with his seal, it doesn’t mean it’s haunted by the Captain. And really, what harm can one small letter do? It’s not thick enough to have anything too harmful in it (though he hasn’t ruled out the notion of the letter being lined with gunpowder and has given the crew express orders not to light a single damn flare around it).

“Stop staring and open it,” Kirk had huffed at breakfast that morning when McCoy had ignored grapefruit and bread to stare at the letter instead. “Or I’ll kidnap another surgeon who pays attention to me more than the mail...” He hadn’t gotten much further before McCoy kicks him in the shin and uses the silence to lean forward and steal a kiss from Kirk to quiet his worries.

McCoy takes the brief respite from Kirk’s yammering to pry the seal open and study the short letter contained there within:

Sawbones:

A pirate? Are you out of your mind? Don’t answer that. I’m not sure I want to think of a medical genius like you going insane. Chekov and Scotty told me what you did and don’t think I won’t cut you into ribbons the next time I see you. And I best see you again. Really, Sawbones. Piracy? I know you were low on options, but this one really beats the rest.

Don’t think I’ll be lenient when we catch up and we will catch up.

Give Captain Kirk my regards. And tell him that the next time the Riverside is in sight, I won’t dally. And remember, you were my surgeon first.

Yours,

Captain Pike

Postscript: You owe me a uniform. I’ll collect the next we meet.

McCoy smirks ruefully as he folds up the thick parchment and slides the letter into his front pocket.

“Well?” Kirk asks when he looks up and sees that McCoy’s attention is no longer occupied. “What does it say?”

“It goes along the lines of, he looks forward to meeting you too,” McCoy summarizes, not mentioning who it’s from, the details in between the lines, or any of the private words that Pike’s sent in the letter. Kirk doesn’t seem to need any more than that and grins broadly and eagerly, like a boy given his first toy to play with. “That and he seems to wish to exercise his claim to my medical services.”

“That,” Kirk announces, dark and joyful all at once, snatching the letter from McCoy’s pocket and smoothing it between his fingers before shredding it to pieces without a single glance at the carefully-penned cursive words, “is something he’ll have to fight me for.” The warmth of Kirk’s fingertips lingers at McCoy’s heart and he doesn’t miss the letter for a moment. He doesn’t miss the feel of land at all beneath his feet for the first time in years. He breathes in sea air and finds his sea legs right where he hasn’t been looking for them.

THE END