the Dalaverse

So I know I've been terribly uninteresting for the past month or so and I mean to rectify that, but first: fic! I wrote this for the second prompt over at st_respect (at the last moment so I had my lovely roommate do the requisite beta). Keeping to the 1000-word limit was a challenge - I actually thought I'd have trouble meeting it at first, so I wrote a couple of paragraphs with Chapel that I ended up having to cut. But it was a fun challenge and I'll likely do more of them. GO TEAM JONES!


Title: Ready to Back Down
'Six days. Six days and it's only getting harder after all these years.'
Author: Dala
Pairing: Kirk/McCoy
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: standard applies
Notes: written for st_respect challenge #2: 'ain't no sunshine when she's gone.' Thanks to tricksterquinn for the beta!



Ready to Back Down


It’s just like the last time, and the time before that, and the time before that. McCoy could sing every note of this tune without sparing a thought.

The captain leads a team of young fools down to a seemingly peaceful planet where they inevitably run into Klingons instigating war between colonial outposts, Romulans making shady deals with the locals, or some entirely new race wanting weapons or technology or Spock’s goddamned Vulcan brain. McCoy and Uhura will keep a vigil with a bottle of whiskey, if they haven’t been roped into the mission themselves; Scotty will strain the Enterprise’s every bolt and power cell; Chekov will flout the laws of physics to help him.

But nine times out of ten it’s Jim who pulls off the bluff or negotiation. And it’s Jim who lands in sick bay, beaten, bloodied, and never looking a day over twenty-two to McCoy’s burning eyes.

This time it’s religious genocide and the away team is out of contact for six days. He flatlines twice, first in Spock’s arms in the transporter room and then on the operating table. Just another entry in Jim Kirk’s medical file, in the profile they’ll teach in tactics seminars some day. Yet he has to ask M’Benga to finish up because the regenerator is shaking in his hand.

Six days. Six days and it‘s only getting harder after all these years. What the hell is he wasting all this time for?

“Hey,” Jim sighs before his eyes are fully open; he knows McCoy is there. McCoy is always there when he gets out of surgery, no matter how many hours he’s been awake or how many stims he‘s had to take to remain so. He blinks away the lingering haze of the drugs and turns his hand over in McCoy’s palm, lacing their fingers together. “Rodriguez make it out okay?”

McCoy finds his pulse, feeling the beat pick up. “Yeah, he’s fine.”

“Good.” Jim clears his rasping throat. He took a blast from an unknown weapon for the kid, but of course they’re not going to talk about that. McCoy shifts in the chair and watches Jim wiggle his toes at the end of the bed. He’s done that first thing ever since he came within squinting distance of losing his right leg three years ago. Once he’s satisfied that all nerve endings are present and accounted for, he smiles at McCoy without a trace of the ache he’s got to still be feeling.

“I think my biobed missed me, Bones. The monitors had this kind of forlorn whine to them whenever I walked by.” He taps his ring finger against the back of McCoy’s palm, clinking the platinum band against its mate.

McCoy’s throat tightens. He looks down at their joined hands and says, quietly but firmly, “I can’t do this anymore, Jim. I'm done.”

Jim is silent for several long, heavy moments. Then he pulls away from McCoy’s grip.

McCoy curls his hand onto a fist on the thin blanket. “You’re fifty-four, I’m pushing sixty. In a lot of ways we’re still men in our prime, but out here…” He shakes his head, can‘t quite bring himself to look at Jim‘s pale face. This day has been coming for a long time - for him. It‘s not like Jim had any clue.

“Every time you’re gone - every fucking time - I think, is this gonna be the time you don’t come back? The moment I’m not quick enough or smart enough or stubborn enough to keep you here where you belong? And Christ, I know that’s always been the case. I know this is nothing new and it’s who you are, the kind of captain I’m proud to serve under and - and the man I married with my whole heart.”

The words tumble out, all the things that have kept him up lately, his mind running through waking nightmares while Jim sleeps beside him and mutters in protest when he holds on too tight. “But we’re closing on the end of our fifth tour and I can’t help feeling like our number’s coming up. You’ve done good work for Starfleet, Jim - damn fine work, and so have I, but there are other -”

“Okay.”

McCoy looks at him sharply. “What?“

Jim’s leaning back against the pillows, face composed. “Six months left and then we'll retire. The admiralty’s been after me for years anyway.”

Maybe there’s still some sedative left in his system. Either that or McCoy’s going deaf and doddering at a truly alarming rate.

“You’re right, Bones. It’s time. And close your mouth before it starts catching flies.”

“I know I’m right,” McCoy snaps, pushing back in the chair and crossing his arms over his chest, oddly vexed by Jim’s complacence. “I’m usually right. Why aren’t you putting up a fight, you little hellion?”

Jim reaches out. “I used to think it would be enough,” he says quietly, smoothing out McCoy‘s quirked brow with his thumb. “That even if our time together was brief, it would be enough because I loved you so much. You talk about borrowed time; to me it always felt like a miracle to have this at all.” His cheeks turn pink under a yellowing bruise and he laughs at himself a little. McCoy swallows, turning his face into Jim’s touch, and doesn‘t find it the least bit ridiculous.

“But I don’t want us to flare up and burn out like my parents did, not when we’ve made it this far,” Jim continues, his blue eyes almost painfully earnest. “The truth is, I could spend ten lifetimes with you and it still wouldn’t be enough.”

McCoy bends to kiss his forehead. “So we move on together,” he murmurs roughly, stroking fine laugh lines. “We see how it ends.”

Jim leans on McCoy’s shoulder, his smile crooked. “Two old men telling fish stories about the stars?”

“They’re not fish stories if they’re true, Jimmy.” McCoy kisses him again, and thinks this is the only story that matters.