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Leonard had never hated being a doctor before this moment.
Never, not when med school took him away from home so often that his wife cheated on him, not even when his father asked him to use those skills to end his life. He was good at being a doctor. Excelled even. It didn’t matter what state the seemingly endless amount of idiotic crew came to him in, he always managed to put them together again. Sometimes even with the walls literally falling down around him.
But in this moment, he hated his medical training. Loathed it. Despised every class, book, lecture that gave him the knowledge of what each blow was inflicting. Every time the baton landed on the torso was a broken rib, possible punctured lung, ruptured spleen. Each gurgled scream indicated internal bleeding. The electric shocks; destroyed muscle tissue. The periods of complete silence; unconsciousness and concussion.
Throughout it all he could do nothing but scream his threats, clench his tied fists, and struggle in his restrained cage. All the while his medical mind helplessly bent diagnosing the condition of Jim. His Captain. His best-friend.
His husband.
They had been here for days.
~
‘‘m srry Bones.’
Leo’s voice, horse from his own screaming rage, was raspy when he tried to sooth.
‘Don’t you be apologising darlin’. Spock’ll be here soon to take us back home, then I’m gonna patch you up like I always do.’
Jim was shaking his head, slow jerky movements.
‘Not this time. Too much. Can’t.’
‘Course you can! You got another miraculous escape in you kid – a Jim Kirk special. You just gotta hang in there kay? You just do that for me kid. You do it for me or I’ll kick your sorry ass when we get home.’
He was angry, insistent. Voice echoing with the strength of his conviction.
They locked eyes across the dingy room, through the bars. Bloodshot and swollen, and still the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.
~
‘Tell me ‘gain, ‘ones.’
Like a child asking for a bed-time story.
Leonard knew exactly which one he wanted, it was the favourite – their future. A dream, not much more to Jim than a way to get through the tough nights out in the black, when the universe closed around them; weighty and suffocating. They would be laying in bed, sweaty and sated, wrapped around one another. All tangled limbs and synchronised breathing.
Jim would ask and Leonard would tell, and as the younger man drifted to sleep, his thoughts would secretly turn from telling to planning.
‘It’s a big house. Reckon we need the room with the 4 kids an’ all.’
Jim mouthed ‘4 kids’, his amusement weak but still evident. Leo knew what he found funny, their dream family grew at every retelling.
‘Yea, gotta have us a girl too. Blonde hair and your eyes. Little darlin’ to payback all them grey hairs you put on my head.’
He had it pictured, a mini-Jim. All fire and beauty, dangerously combined. Oh how he would laugh when the boys came a calling.
‘We got acres of ranch, good farming land. Plenty space for you to explore, honest work to keep us goin’.’
‘Horses?’
He asked with a hopeful lilt, as if he didn’t know Leo would never deny him the pet. As if he didn’t know there was nothing he could ever deny him.
His spoilt infant lover.
‘Yea darlin’ we got horses. Gotta get you ridin’ something safer then that damned motorbike. Kids love ‘em too. You teach ‘em, long days in the wilderness with their daddy.’
His voice cracked, the image too vivid. A future slipping from them both.
Jim lifted his hanging head, incremental bobs, connecting their eyes.
‘I’ll wait for you there. Wait a long time.’
Leo hitched, an intake of breath met a sob, and he choked.
‘Promise me?’
A soft smile graced Jim’s face, his eyes blinking though they were losing focus.
‘Always.’
He whispered, soft yet fierce. All Kirk, defiance till the last.
‘love you s’ much.’
The words stopped. His last breath given. His body, once strained and taunt, now limp. Still.
Bones froze for the next. Waiting for the rally. The miraculous next step. The rescue, cavalry charge, timing primed for dramatic effect. Perfected dozens of times before.
Moments passed. Silence continued. He stayed eerily still.
No one came.
James T. Kirk-McCoy was gone from him.
Leo slumped in his chains and screamed.