saturday the 14th

[leftwithmybones]

He's not sure what it is that convinces him, but midway through the month, McCoy wakes up with Jim at his side breathing heavily and he thinks to himself: What the hell am I doing running around like a stressed idiot? It's the thought in mind as he takes hold of a towel, a bag with food, sunscreen, and other paraphernalia, and heads down to the little stretch of beach that's only a ten minute walk from their home. Sometimes, he forgets how nice it is to enjoy the small things. It's what he's doing now, lying on his back with sunglasses blocking out the UV rays.

So maybe Jim still doesn't remember and maybe he's got a full battery of patients and amnesia cases in his friends to worry about. All that will still be there in an hour. Right now? Right now, he just wants to relax.

Comments

[leftwithmybones]

Yeah. He knew that'd been coming, even if he wished that he could ignore it pretty much for the rest of his life. "Honestly? I didn't want to. Figured you'd find out eventually, especially now that you're on the Council. What do you want me to say about it? I was your best man at the wedding, you were happy."

[chasedthestars]

"Best man," Jim murmurs, closing his eyes against a wondering laugh. "I can't even...I can't see that. I can't see getting married in the first place, and I can't see - "

Jim stops short of saying I can't see me marrying anyone but you, but the silence likely says it for him. "Feels wrong. You being there, as the best man."

[leftwithmybones]

"Well, thanks for implying I'm not good enough to stand by you," he says wryly, even if he knows what Jim's actually saying. He leans over and smacks the back of his head for good measure. "I want you to shut the fuck up about you can't see and not seeing. You want to say the same thing about me and my last girlfriend just because she's not here? How do you think I'd feel if a new her showed up and acted like that much of an asshole about me, huh? Manner," he growls.

[chasedthestars]

"That's not the same thing," Jim growls back, sitting up again with an angry huff. "She's not here, and neither is he, and I don't even know this guy, Bones. What do you want me to do? Wish he was still here? Pine for him? I mean does it feel right to you, now that we're together, me standing up on my wedding day and you're only my best man?"

[leftwithmybones]

If they're being honest, it makes McCoy feel like he's had a parasite invade and turn his insides into a breeding ground for a tumultuous storm, the likes of which even his best stuff can't cure. "Honestly, Jim? It feels like hell, but the truth is that I would do anything in the world if it meant you're happy."

After everything that Jim's been through, there's no other option, as far as he's concerned. "You're my number one priority."

[chasedthestars]

"Well, we're mine," says Jim, "And. Okay, getting us back to the Enterprise, but right now, us. Not me, or you, us. And me marrying some other guy feels wrong." Jim looks over his shoulder at him. "It should feel like hell. I don't think that's disrespectful to some guy I never met, I think about it and it feels like hell."

[leftwithmybones]

"I'm not going to tell you how you ought to feel," McCoy concedes that much, biting his tongue about them getting back to the Enterprise because he likes it on the island. Crazy instances barred, he likes the solid ground and the fact that he can practice medicine and do his research in peace. Hell, if he thinks about the vanishings like he does about death, it's not all that different from regular walks of life.

He sighs and reclines back onto the towel, peering over at Jim. "Guess there was a part of me that was just grateful you'd matured enough to settle down."

[chasedthestars]

"God, yeah, that's..." Jim drops back onto the towel again. "Kind of mindblowing. And it's not like I'm not curious about the guy who actually got me down the aisle. And I do wonder what it'd be like to settle down, but. You know, after a few tours of duty. That's what my life is supposed to be, I know it is. And you're supposed to be with me."

[leftwithmybones]

"You want to know what I figured would happen? We'd be on some distant speck of rock," he drawled. "You and the rest of some away team and you'd end up stupidly charmed by some alien species or their science or something. I figured one day, you'd come back from a mission with a new Kirk in the family," he drawls teasingly, given that he knows it's not really going to happen, but it'd been in the back of his mind for a while. "And maybe the tours of duty for you. I'd have been happy to just survive the one."

[chasedthestars]

"You wouldn't leave me alone up there," says Jim, head turning against the towel. "I'd be a mess and you know it, and god." Jim elbows him lightly. "I'm not that fickle. Charmed is one thing, coming back with a spouse is another."

[leftwithmybones]

"I've got a pact with myself," McCoy says, flinching at the elbow. "Ten panic attacks and I'm done." Which is a lie, honestly, because he'd stay with Jim until the very end or until the day that Jim tells him his services as CMO are no longer needed. "And hell, I didn't say weird alien drugs weren't involved. We've already seen enough of those, haven't we?"

[chasedthestars]

Jim nods, rolling closer to him. "Feel like they followed us here. Emptying my head out like that. What if I'd been with someone else, huh?" he asks, knocking their shoulders together. "Somebody who didn't take care of me the way you do."

[leftwithmybones]

"Jim, your crew loves you. If anyone from the Enterprise was here, they'd take care of you," he says, assured of that much. After all, there's not exactly a lack of love going around on the ship and Jim deserves that much. "Besides, it's my duty to protect you, CMO and boyfriend. It's like I've got double the responsibility now."

[chasedthestars]

"Here's something even amnesiac me knew," says Jim, soft smiling growing a little sharper as he eases forward, brushing his nose over Bones' cheek, "Responsibility, competence, kindness...it's kind of a turn on."

[leftwithmybones]

McCoy rolls his eyes, not because he doesn't buy it or that he doesn't appreciate hearing it, but at some point, he got inundated with this crap and learned that shucking it away was the best defense. "How the hell did you know any of that stuff, I avoided you as much as I could."

[chasedthestars]

"Yeah, to go to the clinic and work," says Jim, "and slept in your own bed, even though you haven't in weeks. Responsible and competent. Wouldn't sleep with me no matter what I did, but let's be fair, I literally forgot my best moves."

Leaning up on an elbow, Jim arches a brow. "And you took care of me, especially on that first day, and when I remembered Tarsus. You were kind, Bones. You're a good man. And I happen to think that a good man should be rewarded."

[leftwithmybones]

There are lots of kind words coming from Jim's mouth right now and hell, but he's not strong enough to keep listening to them and not want to do anything about it. Still, he's trying to be good right now and good means they're talking about their feelings, which means he's behaving. "So, you know about the marriage thing now," McCoy says. "Anything else you want to know?"

[chasedthestars]

"I don't know," Jim admits. "Every time I learn something new about our lives here it leaves me reeling." Bones' hair is drying in tufts and spikes, and Jim drags his fingers through it, smooths it down. "Think maybe I'd rather shut up and just be with you for a while. S'been weeks."

[leftwithmybones]

"I could stand for some shutting up and being together," McCoy admits, groaning as he shifts onto his side, stretching out from head to toe in order to get comfortable on his towel. "Still do have to check on the patients. You know Jess has amnesia too? It's like it's striking everyone down."

[chasedthestars]

He'd known, but it's only recently that Jim can recall why that's particularly horrible. "Poor kid," he murmurs. "Helen, too, I 'met' her the other day. But if I got better, they probably will too, won't they?"

[leftwithmybones]

"Yeah. I think it's one of those things that tends to vary. I mean, even what vanishes seems to vary from person to person," he explains, even if he doubts that Jim wants to hear the particulars about all of this. "It'll just depend on a person to person basis."

[chasedthestars]

"What a shit show," Jim exhales, and he hates to think of it, Bones dealing with so many of the people he cares about, all walking blank slates. Jim had meant everything he said; Bones is a good man, and he's been running himself ragged.

"You tired?" he asks, still pushing fingers through Bones' hair as though he can massage any budding headache away. "'Cause I'll understand if you are, but I'd like to do some serious making out on a beach towel now if you're not."

[leftwithmybones]

"Exhausted," he gives a burst laugh as he leans into that touch of Jim's while he starts to grin like an idiot. "No different than any time at the Academy when they put me through bullshit exams to make sure I could do first-year procedures while they made me TA half their ignorant asses," he mutters, leaning in to steal a kiss as he speaks, because that's something he might've wanted to do all that time while rooming with Jim.

[chasedthestars]

"Work too hard," Jim says, stretching out on the towel next to him, one knee pushed between Bones' own to tangle their legs together. "Always have," and then, because he knows Bones, "Always will. Take few hours off, huh?" Jim begins kissing along that long stretch of stubbled throat. "I'll return you good as new, I promise."

[leftwithmybones]

"If you get your way, it's always more than a few hours," he grumbles, but he can't really protest the way Jim's kissing him, sliding onto his back and tugging Jim along with him, fingers tangling with the hem of his shirt to pull him on top and to lose himself in the kiss.