bonesmctightass:

For anon

Every time things get bad and it seems like life can’t possibly get any worse, it most assuredly will. Today McCoy had the joyous task of attending a court hearing which ultimately decided that Jocelyn was the better parent. And sure, McCoy worked too many hours and drank just a little bit too much, but he loved his little girl more than his very life itself and no lawyer or judge was going to tell him otherwise. It didn’t even matter that Jocelyn won the house and half his money. The worst of it was the realization that he’d never get to see his little princess again. She’d make sure of that.

He doesn’t remember exactly when he got to the bar, or how he ended up on the floor of the god forsaken place, punch drunk and aching in all the wrong places. But there he was, laying in a crumpled heap and marinating in his own blood, staring blankly at the dingy, paint chipped ceiling. And the pounding in his head wasn’t quite enough to numb the pain in his heart. So he gets up, anchors himself to the counter, and tries again. The room is tilting a little to the left but that doesn’t stop McCoy from taking another swing at one of the men he belatedly remembers he compared to a Regilian bloodworm.

Predictably, he reunites with the warped wooden floor and doesn’t make much of an attempt to stop it. Spending all of his time practicing his God Given gift of healing has made him an excellent surgeon and an abysmal fighter. The pain is a little more distracting now, which is exactly what he was going for in the first place. Sated for the moment, McCoy is content simply to lie there until the urge to finish what he’d started motivates him to stand again.

A body falling heavily to the floor just beside him gives McCoy a jolt. The meathead he’d picked a fight with is out cold and his grunts had apparently run off. A man with blonde hair and blinding blue eyes is looking down at him sympathetically.

No, wait, that isn’t sympathy. That’s pity.

“You again.” McCoy grunts and attempts to pull himself up again, shoving firmly at the stranger who tries to help him. This isn’t the first time this knight in shining whatever has swooped in to scrape McCoy off the floor. “You just don’t know when to quit, do you?” Blondie furrows his brows and persists, grabbing McCoy under the arm to pull him upright.

“I hate to see you do this to yourself.” He says. How poetic.

McCoy actually starts to laugh, despite his ribs protesting. “Why should you give a rat’s ass?”

The man actually looks hurt. “You know why.”

And he’s right. McCoy remembers, despite previous attempts to forget every word of that fucking conversation. Yes, he’s seen this guy many times before. Between surgeries, at lunch breaks, during late nights at the office. McCoy saved his life once, been elbow deep in his chest to put him back together again after he’d– No, no time to think about that right now. He’s not a surgeon anymore.

McCoy knows this man very well.

“Goddamn it, Jim, you don’t owe me a fuckin’ thing, alright? You’ve saved my ass enough times. We’re even, now, so stop showing your face around here!“ McCoy bares his teeth as he snarls every word and shoves a mug of beer off the counter just to hear it shatter. Jim doesn’t back up or look scared, doesn’t even flinch. Instead he stares at McCoy with such an intensity that he stops dead in his tracks.

“You’re coming home with me, Bones. Whether you like it or not.”

Then Jim is reaching forward and curling his fingers tightly around McCoy’s wrist and somehow drinking himself into oblivion doesn’t seem worth it anymore. With that single action McCoy feels all the fight leave his body. How is it so easy for Jim to make him forget about the hell he’d faced not hours before? The only thing McCoy can focus on now is the heat of Jim’s hand burning into his abused body, melting away the tension that he wants to torture himself with. A slight tug is all it takes to edge him towards the door.

This time, he’ll go willingly into Jim’s embrace. And maybe it won’t be the last.