Jim startled awake to his head pounding, which was never a good sign. He grimaced in pain as he brought his hand up to his head to check for an injury, however it was hard to tell if there was- or had been any blood considering he was completely drenched top to bottom from torrential rainfall and it didn't look like it was going to let up anytime soon. He let out a small sigh as he pulled at his collar trying to loosen it up, it was disgustingly humid and the air was thick and hard to breathe. He tried to sit up to better orientate himself but instead sharply drew a breath as a shooting pain from his ribs struck him, defeated he laid back onto the wet mud covered ground and reached for his comm, only to find it missing from his belt. Ugh why did he have the worst god damn luck in the world.

This is not how he'd imagined his day going this morning, this was meant to be a simple diplomat mission to meet the with ambassador of the alien species Salvuru. The federation had insisted on sending their flagship to create good relations with the newly discovered species and whilst Jim didn't particularly like the Enterprise being used for such missions, since it was clearly only for the publicity, it was unfortunately part of the job. But of course a simple mission like this would end up going wrong in all ways possible for him.

Firstly the transporters experienced some kind of malfunction so they'd had to take a shuttle-pod, which put them a couple of hours behind schedule because of course this planet would have dangerous atmospheric layers which were constantly changing and needed to be manually accounted for, which by the way apparently turned out great and then the fact that he'd basically had to beg bones to get onto the shuttle because of his aviophobia and why he had to come you might ask? Because the Salvuru held "healers" in high regard and had insisted on meeting Enterprise's chief medical officer, much to delight of bones who had argued "I'm a doctor not a diplomat!" Speaking of bones- A surge of panic ran through him, where was he?

He tried to look around but he couldn't see much from his position on the ground and the constant shower of rain against his face wasn't helping. What was left of the shuttle-pod appeared to be a few meters away, but he couldn't see if bones was over there, he could only hope that the man wasn't dead. His attention was drawn back to the fact that he was unbearably hot, like worse than the middle of summer in Georgia kinda hot, he was surprised the rain didn't evaporate immediately upon contact with his skin. Realizing how thirsty he actually was he opened his mouth to let the cool drops embrace his tongue, god he probably looked pathetic like this. If bones was here he'd probably get mad at him for drinking the rain without testing if it was safe, which led to his next concern; maybe it was the heat or the possibly toxic rain but his vision was fading and he was starting to feel light-headed. It might actually be less embarrassing if they find him unconscious, the famous Captain James T. Kirk found stranded in a filthy muddy puddle because of a couple of broken ribs, yeah that did not sound like something he wanted anyone to find out.

His thoughts were interrupted by a harsh coughing somewhere to his right side, he strained his neck to get a better look but could only make out a hazy blue figure climbing out of what he recognized as the tail end of their shuttle-pod. It must be bones! He let out a sigh of relief and thanked the gods for keeping his best friend alive, at least he had some luck left on his side.

"Bones!" He croaked out, his throat was dry and hurting but he had to alert the man where he was, luckily McCoy seemed to have already spotted him as he heard the squelch of his boots in the mud heading towards him.

"Jesus Jim, are you okay?"

Bones quickly knelt down besides him and began checking him over, apparently the medical tri-corder was also lost in the crash as he was opting to run his fingers expertly over his body, checking for injuries, if he wasn't hanging on to his consciousness by a thread he might have made a joke about being felt up. Bones ran his fingers across his ribs causing him to winch in pain, the doctor mumbled out soft apologies in response.

His eyelids were beginning to feel incredibly heavy but he forced them to stay open, he had to see if bones was alright, his vision was blurry but he could make out bone's concerned face filled with worry looming over him, as far as he could tell bones was fine. Unless he has internal bleeding. The thought was completely irrational but it gave him anxiety, he tightly grabbed ahold of bone's wrist. "Bleeding?"

"You're not bleeding Jim, just a couple of cracked ribs as far as I can tell without my tri-corder"

Jim shook his head, it was getting hard to form words, he was so damn tired. Bones gave him a look of concern before somehow managing to comprehend what he was trying to say, god if anyone could understand him it was bones, how did he always seem to know what he wanted to say? Maybe it was a doctor thing? But the doctors back on Tarsus IV when he was a child never understood him, always poking and prodding him even though it hurt…. Bones wasn't like that, he was gentle and caring, he was almost sure it was a divine mistake that he had ended up friends with him, he didn't deserve this kindness from anyone.

"If you're asking about me, I'm fine. Well as fine as someone with aviophobia who was just in a shuttle crash could be. Worry about yourself first for once!"

After hearing those words he stopped fighting to keep his eyes open and relaxed a little, bones was fine if he had energy to complain. He felt the older man's hand brush away the hair that had become plastered to his face from the rain, his cool touch felt nice against his clammy skin. He was greeted with a disapproving tut from bones as the calloused hand was placed against his forehead.

"You're burning up Jim, try stay awake for me"

He could hear Bone's voice was filled with worry and he hated that. He hated when people were worried about him, he didn't want anyone to care, it was a sentiment from his childhood that still haunted him even into adulthood. Despite his grievances he tried to stay awake for bone's sake, however despite his resistance he found himself succumb to falling into an eternal pit of darkness, his entire body began to grow numb and distant. The sound of the pounding rain was starting to be drowned out by a low ringing noise in his ears, he could hear bone's voice but it sounded extremely far away, it was almost a whisper and the words were incomprehensible to his feverish mind.