dated to June 30th - late hours

[leftwithmybones]

To say that McCoy is beyond exhausted is an understatement. He'd managed to grab about two hours of sleep in the clinic, refusing to leave because Bucky's condition still hadn't improved to the point that he felt comfortable going anywhere. He's got one surgery on his hands and he'd cleaned up one hell of a mess from the couple of trials he had to go through to get to the right one. By the time mid-afternoon rolls around and the patient's sedated, he wants nothing more than to trudge back home and collapse, preferably for a year.

He makes it back home, ignoring the demanding yowls of Plum and only almost hitting him in the head with a shoe. Almost. It's not like he's a bad owner for almost. Shoes off, the shirt's next and he throws it over the couch, barrelling through his door using the weight of his shoulder.

The bed looms in sight like a gorgeous oasis and three steps later, McCoy's completely sacked out on it, facedown in a pillow and already half-snuffling through exhaustion.

Six hours. That's all he needs. Six hours and he'll get right back to it.

Comments

[leftwithmybones]

"Well, Jim, then I guess I might be putting myself in the kind of situation where I do what's best and think of myself later," he says, words so tense he can practically hear them snapping. "Like, oh, I don't know, about fifty percent of your away crews when they get back with a confirmed success and a whole goddamn lot of injuries!" Yeah, he's shouting now.

[chasedthestars]

"My away crews beam down with a security team!" Jim shouts back, half-horrified at himself already for bellowing in Bones' exhausted face, but he's starting to wonder how hard Bones will fight him on this, if he won't be allowed in, if Bones is really going to go back in there alone with someone that could snap his neck.

"You'd see a hell of a lot more injuries if they didn't have people there to protect them, which you don't have! Do you really think you're going to be Rogers' first concern?"

[leftwithmybones]

"Then I do my goddamn job," he snaps, breathing in only to take a deep breath and get more air to argue. He's sitting up, now, ready to pace and throw things and get the hell out and he's still exhausted, which means that his tongue is a little looser than it ought to be. "First, do no harm. That means if harm comes to me, but I can help the patient, then that's what I'll do!"

[chasedthestars]

"You can't help the patient if he fucking kills you!" Whole body thrumming with an energy he can't stop, Jim launches from the bed, certain that he's going to hit something in the next ten seconds, and he doesn't want it to be Bones.

Crossing through the open door, he stares wildly around the kitchen, has a fist raised ready to punch the wall but that will break something and then Bones will have to fix it and Bones needs rest if he's going to stay sharp and stay alive and -

Spying a pitcher on the table, Jim half stalks, half flails his way to it, picks it up and throws it at the wall as hard as he can. They've been in danger before, but he's never sent Bones in alone, and he can't. Jim just can't, now least of all.

[leftwithmybones]

"I'm not going to die just because I went into surgery," he snarls right back at Jim, wincing when he hears the sound of the pitcher hitting the wall. It looks like he's not going back to sleep anytime soon. "Jesus Christ," he swears under his breath, closing his eyes as tightly as he can and letting his head fall back against the pillow. "Are you telling me that three capable men are going to let me get killed? Really, Jim? Are you really saying that to me?"

[chasedthestars]

In the other room, Jim breathes hard, shaking his head almost manically long before he answers. "I don't trust them to keep you safe," he says, voice as jagged as the scattered pieces of the pitcher at his feet.

Turning away, Jim comes to stand in Bones' open door. "I don't trust anybody." Bones could get hurt. Bones could die, and Jim won't even be there to try to stop it. "Not with you."

[leftwithmybones]

He doesn't know, at first, how to cope with this. He goes for pragmatism, in the end. "Jim, think about this. You can't personally make sure I'm safe on the ship, either. Hell, during the Narada conflict if I hadn't been on the bridge with you, I'd be dead," he points out flatly. "Can't stop that. Almost got killed a couple times on missions, security team or not. I know that you're scared. Hell," he says, "This is how I feel every goddamn time you go on a mission. Every time."

[chasedthestars]

"This is worse," says Jim, quiet under the weight of his dread. "This is different, everything is different. You were my best friend and my CMO then, and that was hard enough. And now we're...I love you, Bones."

Jim's fingers tighten around the door frame. "I don't know how to even think about losing you."

[leftwithmybones]

There are about a dozen issues inherent with Jim's words and yeah, McCoy's not exactly eager to tout the psychology part of his learning, but he gets this. Jim's lost and lost, now McCoy's in a situation where he could lose again. "I love you too, kid," he swears, "but I have since the Academy and I've feared losing you since then. Jim, I dragged you on board the Enterprise just so you wouldn't be too far at hand. Trust me when I say that I get this. And also, trust me when I say that you ought to learn to live with it or it'll drive you crazy."

[chasedthestars]

Jim regards him in silence. What Bones is saying makes sense, but he can no more feed logic to his heart than he can squeeze water from a stone. Jim takes a shuddering breath, and then another, and then he does the only he can do without falling apart - he rolls back his shoulders and finds his Captain face.

"You should get some sleep, Bones." His fingers tap the doorframe. "Need you on your A game tomorrow."

[leftwithmybones]

Right from anger to over professionalism. McCoy's practically got emotional whiplash from this. He takes in a deep breath and settles back onto the sheets, staring up at the ceiling before he looks back at Jim, that Captain face still there. "That's it?"

[chasedthestars]

"Bones." Jim's face is set so hard it feels like it might crack in two and take Jim with it, split him right down the middle and expose the still howling agony he feels each time he imagines Bones back in that clinic room.

"It's this or I start pulling down the walls. You say it'll drive me crazy, I'm already - I'm already there."

[leftwithmybones]

He sits up enough to stare at Jim, giving a soft sigh as he crooks his fingers towards the bed, towards him. "I'm right here. Right now. You saying you want to spend these three hours with you standing in the door glaring at me?"

"You want to pull down the walls? Do it when I'm out of the house and make sure you repair the damage."

[chasedthestars]

Jim hisses, because he might just do that, but he can't deny Bones when he's asking for him. Face as blank as Jim can make it, he comes, crawling across the bed to bury the sudden crumpling of his face against Bones' bare stomach.

"You're gonna keep that aerosol sedative on you, right?" he asks, head bowed and lips tickling warm skin. "I mean right on you, one in each pocket so you can get to it with either hand."

[leftwithmybones]

He flinches slightly, the brush of Jim's lips tickling against his stomach. He smiles down at Jim, threading his fingers through all that golden hair at his disposal. "I'll wear one in each pocket," he promises, kissing Jim's temple slowly. "Plus, we hooked up some electrodes to help with the surgery. I can amp them up, overload them if things get too risky."

[chasedthestars]

"If you have a free hand when you get grabbed," Jim murmurs, "It only takes fifteen pounds per - " But he stops, for if anyone knows how many pounds of pressure it takes to snap a human neck, it's the doctor beneath him.

Jim sighs, turning his head until his cheek rests over Bones' heart. "Don't kick Rogers out. I don't care how much he yells, you need some serious muscle in that room."

[leftwithmybones]

"Already kicked him out of the room," he mumbles, exhausted, exhausted beyond the telling of it. "He wanted to untie Bucky, wanted to let him loose because he was a friend, but we couldn't do it, not when he was a danger to the rest of us." He closes his eyes and wraps an arm around Jim's body as they twist and turn, getting more comfortable. "Emotions make us into idiots, Jim."

[chasedthestars]

Jim groans, wishing to god Bones would stop saying things that make him want to throw up. "Then get some muscle that's not acting like an idiot," he says, lifting his head.

[leftwithmybones]

"How about you shut up and let me worry about this," he retorts, letting his head fall back against the pillows, breathing out slowly and watching the way Jim's head descends with the exhalation. "There's a goddamn man of iron standing guard. I'm going to be okay."

[chasedthestars]

"You're going to be okay," Jim repeats, but he doesn't sound very sure, arms pulling Bones closer and legs tangling. "How long this time before you come out again?"

[leftwithmybones]

"I'm going back to monitor, not perform any other kind of medical procedure unless there's a sudden emergency," he says, breathing out slowly and evenly as the proximity to Jim starts to calm his heartrate right down. "Why, you planning on waiting up or something?"

[chasedthestars]

"Up?" Jim snorts. He feels like crawling right out of his skin, is so far from sleep he can't imagine ever finding it again. But he wants Bones to rest, so Jim lies still. "Try right outside the door."

[leftwithmybones]

That gets a bemused sound from McCoy, but he's too exhausted to do much more than lie completely still, his breathing turning heavy now that Jim's nearby and isn't staring at him like he wants to try and light his skin on fire from looks alone. By the time his mind begins to process the day, he's fast falling to sleep, a soft breath on his lips before he settles with them pressed to Jim's fine hairs, snoring through the hours and left to Jim's mercy to wake him up.