the Dalaverse

So way back when, I offered a fic for help_haiti. My recipient was the kind, wonderful, talented, and incredibly patient ivorysilk, and I was excited to write a fic for her. Except then I got a bad case of writers block, and couldn't get anywhere with the story I had started, and basically couldn't write anything that wasn't a specific prompt with a hard deadline (and I only took a couple of those on, to try to force myself out of the hole). Anyway she was very understanding, I eventually knuckled down and started over, and now I've got the first of two fics for her.

Title: Never Have to Wonder
Bones is having a hard time coping with his mother's remarriage.
Author: Dala
Pairing: Kirk/McCoy
Rating: R
Disclaimer: standard applies; title from Colbie Caillat
Author's Note: Written as an exceptionally late help_haiti gift for ivorysilk, for her prompt using these words: tree, write, brush, fall, tie. See if you can spot them! Also, fair warning: the coda is very schmoopy.



Never Have to Wonder


It all started when Emma McCoy bought the farm.

At the age of eighty, Bones's grandparents were finally ready to retire and see the stars like they’d been planning for years. Though there was a cousin willing to take over most of the day-to-day business on their modest sixty-acre in Kentucky, he didn’t have the funds to run it by himself. They called up their daughter in Georgia to see if any of her patients or colleagues were looking to relocate. To their surprise, she made them an offer on the spot.

Bones wrinkled his brow as he reread the comm, muttering that his mother didn’t know one damn thing about running a horse farm and furthermore, had no business selling the veterinary practice she’d owned for two decades. Jim pointed out that she wouldn't be running it alone; Bones raised his eyes to glower at him over the desk. Jim sighed and returned to his lunch, resolving not to get involved in McCoy family business.

Subspace communications and the Enterprise’s penchant for wandering into trouble being what they were, Emma's messages usually queued in threes and fours before Bones was able to answer her. Jim wasn’t even sure she noticed he was letting a little more time go between replies. When he brought it up, Bones snapped that his communication with his own mother was sporadic at best so what the hell did he know?

Regret shaded his eyes as soon as the words left his mouth. Jim accepted his apology but they both knew he'd struck a nerve, and things weren't quite right between them for a few weeks -- not until a simple mission on a newly discovered moon called Verpas took a turn for the disastrous.

With the away team accidentally caught up in a brutal tribal war, Jim's efforts to keep his people safe landed him in a rebel prison. The faction trying to maintain peace managed to smuggle him out while the invaders triumphantly announced his execution, so his appearance on a Verpasian refugee shuttle came as something of a shock, albeit a wholly welcome one. Scotty whooped, Chekov shook his hand vigorously, Uhura smiled with genuine warmth, Spock did his trying-to-suppress-strong-emotion thing, and Bones -- Bones cursed, took Jim's face in his hands, and kissed him.

Things started to settle down between the McCoys right around then, or maybe Jim was simply too caught up in figuring out this new...whatever it was they were. Might be. Someday. They'd agreed it was better to avoid labels for now. Jim couldn't claim a lot of experience with serious relationships; Bones had Certain Ideas about romance (he'd actually referred to having courted Jocelyn in college, more than once -- he was just lucky Jim thought it was cute and not appallingly old-fashioned). And they were both afraid of the damage their friendship might suffer if it ended badly. So they resolved to take it slow, practice discretion, wait to see where it went. Of course there were no secrets aboard a starship and they ended up in bed together within a couple of months, but by Jim's usual standards it was a downright Victorian progression.

So he was bemused to find Bones pacing the captain's quarters one evening, the dinner he'd planned to cook nowhere in sight.

"She's getting married!" he shouted, shaking a padd in Jim's general direction.

Jim blinked. There were only a few people capable of getting Bones this worked up, and he was pretty sure Spock wasn't the culprit this time. "Who’s getting married?"

Bones’s jaw was clenched so tight it made his voice come out short and clipped. "My mother! Not enough she had to abandon her home and turn her whole life upside down, now she's gettin' hitched -- to the farrier, of all goddamned people!" "Farrier" came out sounding like a pseudonym for the biggest, meanest Klingon warlord who'd ever terrorized the galaxy.

"...Okay," Jim replied in what he hoped was a neutral tone. He dropped down in front of the computer to check his own comms and sure enough, there was a short note from Emma McCoy announcing her engagement to one Henry Sullivan of Benton, Kentucky. She didn't write to Jim often, but her messages were affectionate and funny and he was always glad to find one in his inbox. The name Henry sounded familiar, too. "Oh yeah, she's mentioned this guy to me a few times."

"Mentioned him," Bones repeated scathingly, his left eyebrow making a break for his hairline. "She never said it was anything serious. Who just up and gets engaged outta the blue like that? What the hell do we even know about this guy?"

Bones was liable to go on like this for hours if left to his own devices. Jim stood up and slipped an arm around his neck, pressing his lips to the wayward eyebrow. "Not much, but I'm sure your mom will tell you all about him if you ask. Nicely."

"Still don't have to be happy about it," Bones huffed, but Jim could feel the downward curve of his mouth softening. He was so much easier to handle like this; not for the first time, Jim wished he'd figured that out sooner. Another, slightly dirtier kiss and he relaxed some more, tongue sliding into Jim's mouth and one hand trailing down his back. He broke away, sighed, and reached up to card his fingers through Jim's hair. "Sorry about dinner," he murmured, latching onto a spot beneath Jim's ear that always produced a shiver of anticipation. Maybe epic hissy fits were better for Jim's sex life than he'd thought.

He shrugged and started to walk backwards to the bed. "You know I was that kid who tried to sneak dessert in first."

Bones really had decided not to be happy about his mother's upcoming marriage, and further correspondence didn't much help. His mother was obviously far too good for a man who shod horses for a living. Henry Sullivan was a liar and a cheat and a gold-digger, being sixteen years younger (which Bones ungraciously rounded up to twenty, even after Jim argued that logically he'd have to adjust their six-year age difference as well). And just what was she supposed to do with his two teenage children? She was done raising her only child, thank you very much, and she didn't deserve that additional burden in her golden years. The daughter was practically the same age as her granddaughter, for Christ's sake (she was fourteen and Joanna had just turned eight, but Jim had learned not to criticize Bones' math skills by the time that rant came up). The whole situation was a horrible mistake and he was sure his mother would see sense before she went through with it.

Though his reaction could be categorized as extreme, Jim did understand where it came from. Leonard McCoy was simply not a person who took well to change. He might have decided to cross the galaxy on a starship but Emma was supposed to stay just where she was in Marietta, Georgia -- in the house where cowboy curtains still hung in Bones’ childhood bedroom, fifteen miles away from where David McCoy was buried next to his parents. Still, Jim had hopes that, once Bones saw for himself that his mother was happy and content in her choices, he'd get over this bizarre early mid-life crisis. After all, the timing had worked out perfectly -- Enterprise was due back to Earth for a brief shore leave and retrofit in May, so Emma had planned the wedding for their first weekend planetside (despite Bones's dour prediction that such a short engagement would have people talking).

When they pulled up to the farmhouse in Benton, Jim had every reason to think he‘d been right. Bones had broken into infectious laughter when Joanna had met them on the ground in San Francisco, all the tension rolling off his shoulders like water, and the same thing happened when he caught sight of his mother for the first time in over two years. He jumped out of the rented hovercar before Jim had even put it in park, took the porch steps in a bound, and swept Emma up in his arms.

Then a tall man with thinning black hair emerged from the door behind her, and the confident, multiple-degreed, well-respected and sometimes feared doctor with whom Jim shared his bed turned into a sullen teenager.

A sullen teenager who three days later was hiding beneath a maple tree, sheltered from view of the main house by its spreading branches. Jim had just managed to spot a bit of gray from the back porch. Since Bones didn’t have a dress or hairstyle or makeup or strappy sandals to wrangle, no one else was likely to come looking for him -- not until the ceremony started in forty minutes, anyway.

"I believe the relevant cliché is 'runaway bride,' not 'runaway man of honor.'"

Bones turned his head to track Jim as he circled the broad tree. "Not runnin’. Just wanted to come out here for some peace and quiet. Can’t hardly hear myself think in there." He’d taken off his shoes and socks and had one foot planted firmly in the earth, the other folded up behind him against the trunk. Jim leaned on one arm next to him, carefully; Bones's suit held up better under wear than Starfleet’s dress uniforms. And was far more attractive and comfortable, in Jim’s opinion, but Emma thought he looked dashing in uniform and Jim had wanted to please her.

"It’s quiet, I’ll give you that," he said, scraping his fingers across the rough bark. The bustle of wedding planners and attendants and caterers had faded away behind them, leaving only the faint rustle of a breeze through the leaves and the occasional birdsong. "Hey, is that a rope?"

"Yeah," said Bones, flicking the tattered remains hanging from a nearby branch. "Grandpa Ben hung a tire swing out here to keep us mostly on the ground after I fell and broke my arm." The late morning sunshine cast dappled patterns on his skin, highlighting the tan he always picked up at the start of shore leave. "One of Gram’s kittens had gotten itself stuck up on a high branch and I was tryin’ to rescue it."

Jim laughed at the story -- he could just see stubborn little Leonard inching along a bough, swearing at the kitten and reaching out to it at the same time -- and at Bones's wry grin. He’d spent the past few days stomping around in such a thunder that it was a relief to see him smile. "You’ve been bitching about this place so much, I forgot you used to spend the summer here."

Bones looked down, wriggling his toes in the loamy dirt. "Jim, I’ve been a royal pain in the ass and I know it," he said, rubbing the back of his neck and looking sheepish. "Mama’s too busy to properly notice or else I’d be sleeping in the barn."

"Mmm," said Jim, raising his eyebrows. If Bones happened to be coming around on the whole wedding thing, so much the better -- but on the other hand it could be a temporary cease-fire. Best not to over-commit.

"It’s just…" He made a face and jerked his chin toward the house. "Wedding’s such a big fuss and then you’re stuck with a marriage at the end, and neither of you really knows what the fuck that means. All you’ve got is this piece of paper with your names on it and that’s no guarantee it’ll last. Hell, the odds are stacked against you from the start."

Jim suppressed a frustrated sigh, knocking a fist against the tree. The divorce had been a cloud hanging over him in those first months at the Academy, a sense of failure that Jim had tried his best to draw Bones out of. While he still had moments of guilt with regard to Joanna, he and Jocelyn were civil now and he seemed to have made his peace with everything that had happened then, including his father’s death. Jim had expected Emma’s engagement to bring up some of those feelings, but projecting the disintegration of his own marriage was a new development. And damn it, even if he could finally get Bones to open up, there was no time. This conversation needed to take place in the comfort and safety of a dim bedroom with a bottle of something strong close at hand. It was how they had talked about David McCoy’s last request, about Tarsus, about Verpas and that first short, devastating voyage into space.

Bones had been concealing his fears and anxieties beneath a façade of cynicism and bad temper and Jim had let him do it, too uncertain about how their relationship had changed to broach the topic. Maybe that made him a coward, but with twenty minutes to go until the wedding, he couldn’t start fixing it just yet.

So he smirked at Bones and said lightly, "Guess we’re not gonna be walking down the aisle anytime soon, then."

Bones gave him a sharp look. "What?"

"Nothing, just a joke." Jim laid a hand over Bones‘ shoulder and squeezed. "C’mon, the bride’s escort can’t be late, you’ll spoil the entrance."

The backyard ceremony was short and sweet, just how Jim liked it whether he was officiating or attending. Bones walked his mother down the aisle with his shoulders held straight. He kissed her cheek at the altar, whispering something that made Emma hug him quickly and tearfully. Bones brushed a hand across his face, too, but he at last looked sincerely happy to be standing there. His eyes found Jim’s in the first row, bright with emotion and the same color as his maple tree’s sunlit canopy. Jim’s breath caught in his throat. There was something there he couldn’t read, something he got the sense Bones was holding onto the way Jim had been holding back these past few months. Then Bones turned back to his mother as she said her vows. Jim glanced around, sure that the sudden tension between them had been as heavy in the air as it had felt in his chest, but everyone was watching Henry slide a ring onto Emma’s finger.

Afterwards the guests moved to a pavilion set up on the other side of the house, mingling over cocktails before gathering around the small tables. Although Bones had complained about the seating chart earlier, he was clearly letting that go as well. He struck up a conversation with Henry’s daughter Maisie about the quarter horse her father had promised her for her birthday. She was a poised, forthright little thing and Jim could see that Joanna, perched on her father’s lap to chime in, already idolized her. The boy, Adam, kept ducking behind his shaggy hair, although he finally asked Jim if he knew anything about the engineering department at Starfleet Academy. Tales of Scotty kept them afloat until the band started playing, and then Jim found himself on his feet for a good two hours.

"How is it that there are only fifty people here but I feel like I’ve danced with a hundred?" Jim plucked a glass of water from a passing tray as he sat down, knocking it back with one gulp.

"You could always say no," Bones replied, taking a slow sip of his bourbon.

Jim gave an exaggerated gasp of indignation. "And damage my reputation as Starfleet’s most eligible playboy? It's like you don't know me at all, Bones."

Bones snorted, but he looked pensive as he circled the rim of his glass with a fingertip. They were alone at the table for the moment, the girls having absconded to the barn and Adam drifting hopefully toward a knot of younger cousins.

"Jim," he said, "what do you think of marriage?"

Jim swallowed a mouthful of champagne too quickly and coughed. "You speaking abstractly, or…?"

Bones shook his head, incredulous. "I’m not proposing to you at my own mother’s wedding, jackass." At least he sounded like his usual acerbic self. "Of course I’m speaking abstractly -- generally -- philosophically, whatever."

Pursing his lips, Jim considered the question. Truth was, he’d thought a lot about it when he was a kid -- not the vows precisely but what they meant, what they were supposed to mean -- and come down firmly against it. Hence the parade of short-term flings and one night stands, though there were never as many as the rumors claimed and they’d dwindled further after he made captain. And then there had been Bones, and that was…well, he supposed that was what they were talking about, wasn’t it?

"My mother was -- broken by my father‘s death, by her love for him," he said after a moment. "At least that was how I always saw it, and I never wanted that for myself." Bones's arm shifted on the table as though he wanted to reach for Jim, but he hesitated. Jim traced the droplets of water sliding down his glass. "But I’ve gotten older. I understand that Mom's pain healed, in her own time and her own way, and things are a lot better between us than they used to be. I’ve married couples aboard the ship, knowing that a simple twist of fate could end their lives together before they’ve really started. I’ve watched Spock and Uhura make it work even though it’s hard, even when I have no idea how the hell they do it."

Jim raised his head to catch a corner of Bones's mouth lifting at that, although his eyes were fixed on Jim with a certain degree of trepidation. Jim let a smile touch his face and he covered Bones’s hand with his own. He was through with conditionals, what-ifs, maybe-if-we-justs. After all they‘d been through, the very least they deserved from each other was honesty.

"And this -- you and me." Bones turned his hand over, folding his fingers around Jim’s. Jim ran his thumb down the creases in his palm to his wrist, stroking the thin skin over his pulse. "It’s worth the risk."

"With me, it was the other way around," Bones said in a low voice. Jim leaned forward to hear him over the music. "I wanted what my parents had, thought I’d found it with Jocelyn. When Dad got sick --" His voice cracked and he dropped his head. Jim’s fingertips pressed against his knuckles. "I thought that was the end of -- of all of it."

He let out a shaky breath and gestured around the tent, at the guests on the dance floor and his mother and her husband laughing at their table. "But this doesn’t look like an ending, does it?"

"No," said Jim, his mouth quirking as Adam stepped out on the floor with a pretty red-haired girl. He was shy and gangly and awkward, but he’d still asked her. Or he’d said yes when she asked him, maybe; either way there they were, blushing and stepping on each other’s toes. "It doesn’t."

"Y’all sure look like you’re havin’ a serious conversation over here!" Bones’ uncle Andy -- no, Andy was the son, this was Bob -- swayed over them, his champagne glass flute tipping dangerously.

His misty gaze fell on their joined hands and his eyes went round as saucers. He gave Jim a once-over, then slapped his shoulder. "Don’t forget it’s a party, now," Uncle Bob said with an ineffectual wink at Bones before sauntering back to his own table.

Bones groaned. "Wonderful, now it’ll be all over three towns by the end of the afternoon."

"So much for discretion," Jim agreed. They’d been keeping their relationship quiet aside from family and friends, but going by what Bones had told him about Southern gossip mills, the newsfeeds couldn’t be far behind. It seemed less important now that it had six months ago -- hell, ten minutes ago.

Bones seemed to be thinking along the same lines, because he pulled Jim to his feet. "Might as well give ‘em something worth talking about, then."

He was a good dancer, much better than Jim -- it was no wonder Uhura and Chapel were always trying to coax him out on the dance floor at stuffy Federation events. Jim could boast enthusiasm but not much rhythm, and there was a lot of eye-rolling on Bones’ part until the band started up a slow song. Then he sighed with good-natured resignation and pulled Jim close, ignoring the faint twitters of surprise and interest from his relatives.

"So anyway, I didn’t mean what I said earlier, under the tree." Bones bit his lip, looking at Jim from under his lashes. Jim was used to that look in bed, not out of nerves. He cleared his throat and said quietly, "I could…think about getting married again one day."

Glancing over his shoulder, Jim noticed that Adam and his dance partner were still out there. With a foot of space between them, but still. The kid was learning. Over at the table, Jo paused her animated conversation with Maisie to give him a thumbs-up. She had bits of hay in her hair, but her dress was still neat. He’d have to ask her how she managed that.

Jim reached up to straighten Bones's tie, fingers trailing over his heart. "Might be nice to make it official, but it’s not the paper that matters to me."

The arm circling his waist tightened and Jim knew he understood. He had always understood; it was one of the reasons Jim loved him. Maybe he’d come up with a list before he actually said it, or maybe he’d say it later tonight when they were shushing each other under a handmade afghan, trying not to make the ancient bed creak. In fact, Jim was pretty sure he'd never run out of ways to say it, with words or otherwise.
It was simple, in the end. He was in love with Bones, wanted to build a life with him, and he’d figure out the rest along the way. He’d always been good at winging it.

Bones spun them around and Jim laughed, trying not to trip over his own feet.




Coda: 33 Things


Message from: JT Kirk

Hey Bones,

Wrote this up on our last night in Kentucky while you were asleep, intending to send it to you as soon as we broke orbit. I’m kind of embarrassed reading it over because it’s incredibly sappy, but a plan’s a plan. I know this was a tough visit and we didn’t get much time. Hope this makes you feel a little better about saying goodbye.

--J


33 Things I, James T. Kirk Love About You, Leonard H. McCoy


1. Your eyebrows and the way the left one lifts up just a fraction higher than the right.

2. Your frown. I don’t think you’d do it so much if you realized how adorable it is.

3. Your smile, which I’ll do just about anything to see, and how other people react when they see it. Usually confusion and fear come first.

4. The fine lines around your eyes.

5. Your shoulders.

6. The way your hair falls into your eyes because you refuse to cut it.

7. Your ass.

8. Your cock. I could probably write up a whole manifesto just about your cock. Suffice it to say, I’m a fan.

9. Your long long legs.

10. Your mouth, how soft and lush and full it is, whether it’s pressed against my own or wrapped around my cock or calling me a goddamned idiot frat boy.

11. Your gorgeous eyes and how they change color slightly with your mood, what you’re wearing, if you’re outside. Last body part, I swear.

12. No, wait, how could I forgot your hands? You save lives with those hands. And the way you touch me...

13. Your single-minded dedication to foreplay even when I’m begging you to just fuck me already, damn it.

14. The way you go absolutely still for a moment when you finally push inside me, just looking at me, like I’m something sacred and cherished. Never thought I’d have anyone look at me like that.

15. That little groan you make when you start moving again.

16. The way you swear at me when I’m inside you, demanding more, harder, faster, right fucking now.

17. The way you blush when I start talking really dirty, even with that mouth on you.

18. Your accent getting all slow and sultry and Southern in bed, especially when you’re coming and you cry out my name.

19. When you call me darlin’. I love everything you call me, but that one’s my favorite. But of course you know that, because you see what it does to me.

20. Falling asleep in your arms afterwards and waking up with you in the morning, knowing you’ll be there for all the rest of our mornings

21. In case I haven’t been explicit enough, pretty much everything about our sex life. I don’t see myself ever getting bored or boring with you, and I firmly believe we’ll still be hot for each other when we’re all wrinkly and old and arthritic.

22. The way you flirt with Spock.

23. How much you care about the crew, from our close friends down to the very last ensign. Trust me, they know it, even if you don’t have the greatest bedside manner in the galaxy.

24. The way you run your very busy sick bay -- efficiently but fairly, with respect for your staff who respect you in turn. They learn so much from you and you all work hard to keep everyone safe and healthy; it never ceases to amaze me.

25. Your fierce love for your family. I know you’ve faced some difficult choices but they were all made out of love.

26. Your awesome kid. Seriously, Joanna’s gonna leave us all in the dust someday. That girl is going places and she is so lucky to have you as a father (as well as her younger, cooler Uncle Jim).

27. Your griping about the transporter. Have we ever failed to bring you back with all your molecules in place? Eventually, I mean.

28. The way you cheat at cards (yes you do, don’t even try to deny it).

29. The way you’ve always believed in me. I wouldn’t have made it through the Academy without you.

30. You constantly challenge me to be better - a better man, a better partner, a better captain. I wouldn’t make it through this mission without you.

31. That scar on your chest. I know it annoys you that the regen couldn’t fade it completely, but I like it because it reminds me how close I came to losing you and how precious our time together is. Also, it’s badass.

32. The way you wear your heart on your sleeve.

33. Oh fuck, I promised myself I’d stick to 33, the number of years since you threw your very first temper tantrum, because I actually do want to get some sleep tonight. And you look so warm and inviting, stretched out on your back with the moonlight casting shadows across your skin...okay, Jim, focus. Everything else, okay? Everything that you are, everything you believe in and fight for, everything you do for me and for so many others. And all that I can give to you in return, no matter how inadequate it seems to me, is yours.



Message from: LH McCoy

Inadequate? Jim, where the hell do you get -- you know what, never mind. Hand the conn over to Spock and get down here. We can take a little time out for nos. 3, 12, 17, 19, 32, and 14 or 16 -- pick one and we’ll save the other for tonight.

--B