This was meant to be a one-shot because I don't trust myself enough to update regularly, what with all my revision and coursework and revision... This is my first attempt at anything other than a one-shot, so read with extreme caution. You have been warned.
Swearing ahead!
"There is no witness so dreadful, no accuser so terrible as the conscience that dwells in the heart of every man." -Polybius
The medical bay was unnaturally, disturbingly quiet and the nurses scurried to and from the occupied cubicles, heads hung low, fists clenched and eyes red.
Bones sat opposite 'Cupcake', but the burly officer, Brett was his name, had a hollow stare that wasn't focused on the doctor or anything for that matter. He simply looked down at his scarred, mangled hands. White marks littered his skin, cuts the shapes of cresent moons and scratches on both hands that seemed to loop around his wrists. His hands weren't even shaking.
"Brett. Brett Simmons." Bones leaned closer to the other man, taking in the greasiness of his dark hair so that it was slick and pushed away from his forehead. The deep set circles beneath his tired eyes seemed to curve downwards across his entire face, this dark shadow concealing all that he was from the harsh electric light of the medical bay.
"Brett, I need you to look at me." Bones spoke softly, like he was talking to a child, not the grown man before him. He remembered how Simmons used to be. So full of attitude, of energy, of life. Jim still called the man 'Cupcake' and Brett now chuckled, rather than decking the captain. He used to anyway. "Brett."
Brett's lips twitched, his left little finger curled and uncurled but his gaze remained firmly fixed on his hands. Bones debated sending the man to his own dorm, but unlike Jim, this man was completely gone. He wasn't there. There was nothing to suggest he was even human, he was little more than a shell of some living thing, stuck between death and life.
But there was one thing you could feel, one thing you knew, sat next to Brett.
He wanted death. He welcomed it.
Leonard tried again and again and this went on for nearly an hour.
Brett didn't speak, he didn't eat, and he didn't sleep. The nurses had to hold him down and force mashed-up food down his throat, not that Cupcake resisted. He wouldn't even swallow.
Damn, he barely breathed.
What the hell had happened down there? What could have been so terrible, so horrific, that it'd do this to a man? A man like Brett?
"Brett, look at me! Look at me, for fucks sake! Just look at me! Just do something!" Bones didn't realise he was shouting, screaming at the man until Nurse Chapel rushed into the small, curtained off corner of sick bay, eyes wide and quivering lips tightly shut.
But she in her face, she understood.
"Doctor McCoy," Her tone was soft and she took Bones gently by the hand, tugging him backwards and out of the space before he did something he'd regret.
Brett still hadn't moved.
"What are you doing, Doctor?"
"He ain't talkin', he ain't-"
"Shouting isn't going to help."
"It might, Goddammit!" His southern drawl was laced heavily in every word, more so than usual like it always was when he was hurting. He took a steadying breath and glanced down at the middle aged nurse who was still holding his hand tightly between her own pales ones.
Her finger nails were short and bleeding, like they'd been gnawed on. A habit that only made itself known in Nurse Chapel when she was desperate.
"I know you're upset, Leonard. We all are." She bit her lip nervously, bit at it until it was blood red, "but this isn't helping anyone, least of all Brett. You worried about Jim, I know. You're his friend, but you need to calm down. Anyway, Admiral Pike is here."
"Already?" McCoy glanced down at his watch and shrugged. Time had gone by quickly.
"He took the fastest shuttle. Don't ask me how he got here so fast. Nothing that man does would surprise me." Her chapped lips turned upwards at the corners, but even Nurse Chapel, the medical bays own Lady With The Lamp, couldn't smile.
Jim felt sick, like something was forcing its way up his throat. There was that noise again, that deep, metallic hum that was so quiet, he wasn't sure it was even there. In a strange way, it was like someone was screaming inside his head. A strangled, choked cry of something so painful, whoever it was couldn't even ask for help. They could only scream.
There wasn't an inch of James that didn't hurt at that moment but he still couldn't move.
He just lay still, back to the door, fingers clawing gently at the soft blankets beneath him, his lips slightly parted.
It didn't sound like his voice; it was distant and no more than a whisper. Jim didn't even realise he was speaking. To who? He wasn't sure. It certainley wasn't himself.
"Human number seventeen thousand, three hundred and forty-two, step forward immediately."
There was that face again. Slashed, ashen and bloody and she was sobbing into a handful of her red hair. It didn't used to be that red, the colour of crimson, thick and sticky. It used to be as gold as ripened wheat on a summers day.
"Step forward immediately, Human seventeen thousand, three hundred and forty-two. Step forward, now. The Su'ille are waiting."
I'm not really sure where I'm going with this...Dam writers block! I don't have many ideas about what could have happened to Jim, so any feedback would be appreciated!
