universal_charm | SANCTUM IC CONTACT

Something in him twisted, wondering where this was going. He sat beside the other, looking down at his sandwich as he spoke, but not eating it. His stomach wouldn't allow it when he was nervous, waiting for some hammer to fall. He couldn't imagine it, going through this amount of shit at the age of twelve. He didn't want to know. His childhood had been shitty enough without thinking about what it would have been like with this at his door. And in some abstract way he had understood Leonard had gone through this, but never thought to much on it. It had never come up, after all. Not like this.

"There's nothing wrong with the way you are, Leonard," he said, dropping into the use of his name rather than his sign. It was quiet here, no one else around, and the subject to personal for him to think of using anything else.

He picked at the paper of his sandwich, not sure what was expected of him here.

"Then why d'ya keep look'n at me like I'm some kinda disappointment for be'n more will'n to fight? For not lett'n you roll on through do'n whatever you want? For hav'n a job and keep'n to it instead of dropp'n everything to do whatever it is you think I oughta be do'n? I know you're used t'your McCoy do'n whatever you ask him to but Jim, I can't. I got obligations. I got decades of this-" He flicks his fingers at the names. "On my back."

It'll wear any man down, nevermind a doctor. "I know you don't mean noth'n by it. But I can't help but feel like I"m supposed'ta be a little different when you look at me like I"m a stranger."

A long moment of silence stretched between them as he thought on that. Wasn't it the truth though? Weren't they strangers? He simply had never thought to question the ease or familiarity he had adopted with him. He didn't want to. And yet he wasn't a stranger too. It was odd, because so much was similar and so much was different.

"I'm not disappointed in you, Leonard," he said quietly, turning those blue eyes on him. "I'm not disappointed in you or what you're not or what you are. It's just... shocking sometimes, that's all." He rubbed at his face, setting his sandwich to the side, wondering how to explain this, how to work through his own feelings on this. It was tough, especially since a part of him feared pushing Leonard away even though it was the last thing he wanted. "I know you're not him. I understand that. But there are times where it's like a slap in the face. And it's not because I'm disappointed or because I feel like you're not good enough or should be different. I don't want you to change who you are. I wouldn't ask that of you."

He paused, realizing he had been rambling and bit his lip, watching Leonard, though it was harder to focus on him than it was on the wall.

"I guess I just keep assuming some things, and when I expect you to go right, you go left. It's not bad, just different, and I keep finding myself with these moments of not knowing what to do around you. Hell, half the time I feel like I've disappointed you."

Edited 2015-02-10 02:19 (UTC)

"Habits." Habitual reactions, arguments, jokes. Things they just don't get out of each other because they are and aren't...who they think they might be.

Still.

The idea that he might be dissappointed in this kid? Has him shaking his head and hooking an arm around his shoulders for a brief squeeze. "Kid, c'mon. You ain't him. I'm GLAD you ain't him cuz after chris...he went in a bad way. Then he went miss'n. THen he turned up a right angry, bitter Jackass and if there is one thing the world don't need it's a bitter, surly James T. Kirk. It don't fit. You're him as he should be. All the shit that happened in your world and you're- you're still the right timeline. Wouldn't wish what we got go'n on here on anybody. So I ain't dissappointed. I'm a little astonished, that's all."

"Yeah, habits," he nodded. "You got some of his, and there are a lot you don't. But I kind of like the ones all your own."

He leaned into his touch, scooting a bit closer to him, looking at him as he spoke, drinking in the words, needing them more than he had thought he did. He'd spent a lot of his life being told he couldn't do things, that he wasn't good enough. It was why he so enjoyed praise, so enjoyed doing things right, or smarter, or better. It was why he liked winning fights. Why it meant something when people he cared about said those things.

"You don't know how much I wish you never had to go through all this shit," he motioned to the wall. "I know that it's made you who you are, but I hate knowing you went through that." He ran a hand through his hair, reminding himself it wasn't something he could fix. It was done and gone, and who knew what the hell wouldn't come to pass if it wasn't like this? His own time had been altered so drastically...

"What kept you going?" he asked him softly, looking back at the row upon row of names. "You were twelve when all this started. How did you survive it?" He wasn't sure he could have, not at that age. Hell, he barely survived Sam leaving him, much less facing crap like what Whiskey was talking about.

"It is what it is." He shrugs, hands peeling back the paper of his sandwich. It's no big thing to him anymore, eating here. He used to be unable to. Hell he used to not be able to look at meat anymore- not with the smell, the bones, the sounds of it tearing as the atmosphere slowly turned toxic. NOw...he's not so much bothered.

It's damning in it's own way.

"Family. Duty. Had to find a cure, you know? Had to hold the line. Take care of people like my Dad did up till he couldn't. That's still the goal- find a cure. Get you lot home." Maybe not die choking on air or getting ripped to shreds. Who knew.

Seeing the other eat, he took up his own sandwich again, though he really wasn't tasting it as he chewed.

Whiskey was always saying that - hold the line. He'd said it that day at the house too, the day he was shot, and he'd told him that he'd help him hold that line. He wondered if he was strong enough sometimes. Even with those doubts, he still felt the same now. Even if Whiskey wasn't Bones he was... someone he didn't think he could do without either.

"Worry about the cure first. Once that's done I bet the rest will fall in line."

Speaking of home...

"Heh, wonder what my crew is doing without me right about now," he murmured, thinking of them with a sudden pain. It felt like forever since he had seen them, any of them. In the end he had been alone in Luceti, an empty house the only thing left to him with their echoing ghosts.

"If I had my old data from when I was treat'n my father- maybe. But that got confiscated when I was declared legally dead." He snorts, staring down at the bread and meat in his hands. Another bite, another hard swallow- he can look at that data now. He hadn't kept it backed up because it'd been so fucking hard to look at it again. To watch himself fail.

To watch David McCoy Die.

"Look'n for you. If they are anything like they seem t'be."

"Declared legally dead?" he repeated, his eyes widening slightly. He was sure it wasn't like anything he had gone through, where he had actually been dead, and at the last minute iced to preserve whatever brain function they could. Still, it was an odd thing to hear from someone, and not a set of words he liked. "What's the story behind that?"

Maybe they would be, maybe they wouldn't. He couldn't know. If this was the future, they could all be dead. The mere thought made his heart twist, hand rising to rub at the ring and chain he still kept under his shirt. He glanced down, saw the pulse of the vein in his wrist, wondered...

"Used t'be you go miss'n for three years- you're considered dead. Now? If you're stuck outside the dome, no supplies, no transport, noth'n for three weeks? You're dead in the eyes of the law. I was out there for two months." So he came back to no house, no wife, and no legal rights till shit got sorted.

God Bless Keith for helping him get things fixed.

He picked at pieces of bread from his sandwich, wondering so many things, wondering if he had the right to ask them, if he wanted to know. Well, no, he wanted to know. He wanted to know these things about Whiskey, felt like he needed to, knew he wanted to even as horrible as it might be.

"What happened out there?" he asked quietly, glancing upwards at the eggshell dome above them.

He had been told what was out there, but it was hard to appreciate it - or fear it - without properly seeing it. He had no illusions that Whiskey probably had to do some crazy, even horrible, things to survive though if what he was hearing was anywhere close to truth.

"Our transport got stolen by Kilo. Left me and my team in the lurch well what as left of it. Me and Golf were the only ones that survived- we were out to get some data and samples from an old medical outpost from when the whole thing started. Research on native animals, originally, and it became a place where they studied the first strain before it got so goddamn mutated and infectious. Me and Golf were stuck walk'n back home and had to duck in at what few safe points we could find. Old bunkers, houses that still had air circulation. It was slow go'n since the suits only carried so much by way of air scrubbers and I had to carry him. He was injured pretty bad, needed to remove his leg as soon as we got in..." Whiskey shakes his head, trying to clear it. "Two months. Two months to drag our raggedy asses back in."

Stars have mercy.

Walking back through who knew what kind of shit for two months, wondering each day how much closer you'd come, how much further you had to go, if you could get that little bit further every day? It was impressive, to say the least, inspiring too, and also sad. He wondered if he could have done that, crawled through the muck and the horror... he liked to think he could have. That he would have done it for the person stuck with him. You never leave someone behind, not if you could help it. And you didn't lay down and take it either. You fought until the end, til there was nothing left of you, not ever your ghost.

He would do it for Whiskey. For a lot of people here.

Fingers grasped Whiskey's bicep, feeling the hard muscle there, different from the Leonard he knew, not as hard or defined. Another reminder of how Whiskey was... well, Whiskey. He squeezed gently and dropped his hand.

"What happened after you got back?"

It was the next logical question, right? He could guess some of it from what he already knew, but he wanted to hear it from Whiskey.

There are details he doesn't really wanna get into if he doesn't have to. Things he'd rather not say. Places he'd rather not go. Things he had to live through that he'd rather leave buried back out with the last of the crew that died. He got their dog tags and their names and that's all he could manage. No ports. No bodies. The few that lived long enough to be infected didn't need their families knowing about it.

No, just him. Just him. Golf hadn't even known. Better that he didn't- not that he'd remember now. Better to carry that and many little nuggets quietly.

Talking about it again- it's. Difficult. He's always kept it vague because that hell? That'd been a highly personal hell. Something that he'd never thought could be any worse until he arrived home.

Home.

Where he thought he'd be safe. Where he thought he could get a good meal and tea and see hsi baby girl, his wife again. To walk in his home and sleep in his bed and breathe the recycled air and simply be Leonard McCoy again. Instead of the home he'd ached for, the wife he missed and prayed to see, the little girl he'd wanted to raise more than anything- there was ash.

Ash. Pity. And the bottle.

News from kind lips cutting unkind things into his heart, bleeding him out all over the street in front of the blackened shell of his home. No survivors. All's lost. Legally deceased. Climbing out of that hole- he was still working on it. He still has his darker days even now with jojo home and by his side. THey both did. Days where they curled up under a quilt from the farmhouse and held holos of Joyce and tried not to cry. Told stories.

"...The house was gone." A beat, he crumples the paper from his sandwich slowly, voice low and ragged. "Joyce was gone. Jojo was gone. Lost. Hid in the Immune housing, my smart girl. Knew not to trust anyone."

God, the sound of his voice cut something inside of him. It bore down and made him want to do any number of things. He wanted to hug the other, wanted to get up and leave him to his grief. He understood a part of it, the loss, but only a fraction of it - the loss of Pike, the loss of Spock, and Leonard, and anyone he cared about in Luceti. He wished he knew what to do for him, how to make it better even though the logical part of himself told him that he couldn't. It wasn't something you could make better, even as much as it pained him to see Whiskey show even the slightest distress.

Maybe he would get punched for it, maybe it would make Whiskey withdraw, but even so he reached out and laid his hand over Whiskey's. An offering of comfort if he wanted it, a show of solidarity maybe, a shoulder to lean on when he was ready for that or needed it.

He searched for something to say, but came up blank. What was there to say? So he left his hand where it was, letting the other take his time.

For a long moment he's quiet. Still and squeezing Jim's hand to remind himself it's not that- it is and it isn't that awful. That he's gotten through it. That he's endured.

"And I...had some rough times for awhile. Lived outta hotels till I got a flat. Fought with lawyers till I could prove I was me and got my shit back, but not much of it. Just what was left after it got put into the public archives or data logs back up at Bifrons." He pushes through. Skips to the part where shit ain't so awful- but it's always awful. That's just life here.

"Kieth died, I got the house- moved in. Moved Delta and Foxtrot and Golf it. Delta retired, got sent back with his family. Golf retired, headed back to work in the private sector in D3."

Fingers grasped Leonard's, squeezing back, patiently listening as he got it all out. Or most of it anyways. He knew that Whiskey was skipping over some things, but he didn't blame him.

A rarity for him, but he owed that to Whiskey. To listen to it. To hear it all and actually pay attention instead of turning to it with half an ear. In some ways he didn't want to hear it. Hearing it made him feel like he had somehow failed, like he should have been there when all this shit went down. But the rational part of him said no, there wasn't anything to do for it. Wishing to turn back time was pointless, and he already knew what going back in time could do to someone.

He wanted to say he was sorry, but that wasn't right. Well, he was sorry. He was sorry all of this had happened to Leonard, that he had to live that kind of life. But it wasn't the right thing to say, wasn't what the other would want to hear. He wouldn't want it from Leonard.

"And the rest is history?" he asked, though there wasn't a flippant tone to his voice. It was quiet, giving him an out if he needed it, realizing he had gotten quite a bit of a very difficult story out of the other already.

"...More or less." THe rest this guy was here for. Anything more feels like digging up old hurts just to show them off and while he's plenty scarred in many places and didn't do much to patch 'em over after the fact, he doesn't stand with his shirt open for everyone to enjoy his wounds. They're healed, or as healed as they're gonna get without him cutting on them just to share.

Jim's heard enough. He's said plenty. All he wants right now is to just. Sit and listen to the flow of water, breathe in the scent of something green and remember what the stars looked like.

"Jim." A beat. "What's it like, sailing between them? The stars. What's it like in space?"

The question caught him by surprise, making him blink those baby blues at Leonard.

"It's.... amazing," he said, thinking aloud as his thumb rubbed the back of Leonard's hand, more to help him think than anything else. Think and help him remember, because some days he worried he was forgetting, that it had been to long. Hell, it had been - years, even, and the reminder of that hurt in ways he had not expected.

A breath, turning his head up to look at the blank Dome overhead, hating it in that moment more than he ever had.

"Everywhere you look there are stars. They try and describe it as an ocean, but it's so much more than that. It's endless, and every light is a possibility for new life, for something wonderful. When you got into warp, they stream together around you, like you're rushing down a river. It feels like if you just reached out you could trail your fingers through the light stream and pull them back in full of stardust. You have no idea what will be on the other side, but that's the great thing about it. You can always be surprised. It's this great, vast, unexplored territory that we'll never be able to fully map - the possibilities of it endless."

A pause, blinking rapidly as the pain of missing the Enterprise - his home - hit him. Missing his family. Bones and Spock had said that they were okay, but the truth was he didn't really know anything for fact after he died. He needed to believe what they had said, or else he'd drive himself insane, but some nights he wondered. For a second his grip tightened, swallowing back those thoughts, that grief.

"It's the most beautiful thing you'll ever see."

"From what i heard there wasn't anything to see when ships went through the warp gates. NOt a lotta windows on the craft used to colonize this planet. Just solid bulkhead." Which was a comfort to him in more ways than one. "...I think Jojo would love to see 'em."

No matter how Ringer, how Jim, or how anyone else is so goddamn sure he'll live to see this shit fixed he knows he's gonna die trying. He's too banged up to make it and too used to this rock to matter if everything changes again. Better to hold out hope for his baby girl- for his friends and family.

He bounced his leg, thinking back to the times he'd come out of the warp and seen something beautiful, something new and wondrous. He thought of all the things he could have come upon if he had been around to get the five year mission, his wanderlust burning bright for second. Remembered the few times it had been horrible, they had come out to fire and death, how the sanctity and beauty of the warp had been violated by Marcus.

"I'd love to take her. She can sit with me on the bridge in the Captain's seat - get the best view on the ship," he promised him, hoping the other didn't notice the tightening of his hand as he thought back to that, the small shiver that passed through him. "She can even pick the next star we go to."

Whiskey could kick and throw as many fits as he wanted, Jim would drag him by the scruff of the neck into the new day if he had too, through the fires and the long nights, pull him back from the edge of the grave. One way or another, he'd see the people he cared about through, like he always had, like he always would.

"SHe'd get a kick outta that." There are so, so few people he'd trust to keep an eye on Jojo after he inevitably kicks it. Jim's on that list. Frank, Jack, Christine. It's a precious short list. Mostly Immune. It's not enough to keep her safe- they have to get her out of here. One way or another- all the elder McCoys were of the same mind. If there's a way to get Jojo the hell off Zeus and somewhere safe? Taht is what they work for. Their own lives are lived through. It'll break his heart if it happens and he can't go and ain't dead yet but-

She needs to live. Not just survive, and that's all any of them are do'n under this fuck'n fishbowl, surviving. She needs to see the stars, to wonder and dream and not worry about the sky falling down or the air she breaths shredding her lungs.

Jim could give her that. And he'd love her just because she was Whiskey's. That's more than enough for him.

He would love her. He did love her. She was beautiful and bright, the best of Whiskey. He'd do anything for her - simply because she was Whiskey's. That was all that mattered. He'd whisk her and everyone else out of this place if he could, leave this place behind and find somewhere where everyone could thrive again. He'd make sure Whiskey was on that ship, him and Jojo and the whole family. Everyone he cared about.

Blue eyes watched Whiskey for a moment, thinking. He wanted to tell him so many things - the good and the bad. But he didn't know if this was the time for it. Or maybe it was. They were feeling each other, understanding what made them different from the men each of them knew. And as much as he wanted to be the shining beacon for Whiskey, it wasn't really a fair representation, was it? He should make his decision based on truths, all of them and not just the happy moments. He'd scraped it, sort of, that night, but....

"I wish I could show her Vulcan," he began softly. "I wish I could have shown her the people that made First Contact with us Earthlings, made everything I am possible."

Edited 2015-02-21 05:23 (UTC)

"Not your fault, Jim." He knows that tone. He saw guilt and regret less and less in his own as they got older- that this man still feels it is a point in his favor. Even if it's over shit he couldn't help. He reaches over, curling his arm around Jim's shoulders for a moment, a soft squeeze before he lets his arm drop.

He knows the feeling.

They're sitting in the middle of a wall marked with his regrets. Sure he was only 12 at the time but he comes here to remember that he could always do more. Be more.

He shook his head, the squeeze of his shoulders not enough this time. Whiskey was being honest with him, and he needed to do the same in turn. Baring sins and pain. It was the only way to move them past the assumptions.

"Yes, it was. Part of it was," he told him. "It was my job to go down to the drill and stop it. Me, Sulu, and another guy, a red shirt. We failed, and ten billion people lost their lives for that." It should have been simple and it wasn't. He didn't know that he'd ever forgive himself for that particular failure. People could tell him again and again it wasn't his fault, but he'd never believe them. Not entirely.

For a minute he hoped Whiskey didn't think he was trying to upstage him. He wasn't. The guilt for Vulcan was nothing compared to the wall in front of him. But Whiskey should know of his failures and judge him for those as well. He didn't want anything they might have to be built on half-truths.

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