A/N: I know you all signed up for a hurt/torture story, but I'm giving a gore/blood warning for this chapter anyway.

As the guard opened the door, McCoy took in a deep breath and closed his eyes against his headache. And dreaded the second he would have to open his eyes.

His dread was not misplaced.

Once the door opened, a wave of both heat and the smell of blood overcame Bones. If the Ixionian guard had not put his giant hand on Bones' shoulder, the doctor would most certainly have collapsed. What with the lack of food and sleep, the smell was too much. And he still hadn't even seen what he was truly dreading.

The room wasn't small by human standards, but it was small by Ixionian standards. Especially when there were three of them in the room. One of whom was the Leader, who Bones recognized from dinner. Bones noticed him first and was about to yell rather rude things at the alien (because anger is easier) when his eyes fell on the chair in the center of the room. And everything died away.

In a much too large chair slumped a much too small young man, with much too pale skin and a much too red left arm. Much, much too red. Bones, despite being a smart man and a doctor, knew what this meant, but he refused to accept that as an answer. It was too much. It was too- it was too much-

"What..." McCoy chocked on his own voice. "... did you do?"

"We were attempting to remove some of the outer shell to reach the soft underbelly of the spy. It is the part that is most susceptible to pain." It took the doctor much longer to process those two sentences than it should have. Spy... Chekov. Chekov was the "spy". Right. They all were being accused of that. But... Outer shell...

The Ixionians- they had thick skin. Maybe that was what the torturer had meant by outer shell? And they had had no contact with other species in whoever the hell knew how long- So they would probably assume biology of other species would be similar. And they didn't have a ton of time to exchange information with their "guests" before their "guests" were accused of spying. By someone from Star Fleet. An outer shell...

Humans, obviously, did not have an outer shell. They had skin. This meant-

The torturers... they had skinned Chekov.

Bones forced himself to look at what he was avoiding. Chekov's entire left arm from the wrist to halfway up his bicep was skinned. And- poorly done at that. It was shredded and bits of muscle were showing.

Turning just in time, the doctor managed not to dry heave on the poor kid. When he was done, he glared up at the Ixionians in what he knew was the perfect amount of loathing and rage; even the Leader looked uncertain.

"Humans. Don't. Have. Outer. Shells." That was all he managed through clenched teeth. Anger and his gag reflex allowed for no further words.

There was dead silence until a timid voice asked, "What is this liquid that flows from his arm?"

When he was sure he could speak, Bones managed to grit out, "It's called blood. It's needed in a human's body to live. It's never supposed to be outside of the body."

The torturers and Leader exchanged glances. A soft and, to Bones at least, almost beautiful noise escaped from the figure slumped in the chair. Chocking back tears, Bones launched himself at the figure before any of the Ixionians could move. He ripped off his shirt and wrapped it as tightly as he dared onto Chekov's arm. The ensign didn't do much more than groan for a moment before falling completely still and silent again. Bones swallowed back the bile that hovered ever diligently in the back of his throat. They needed to get out of here. Chekov was losing too much blood, and Bones didn't get a chance to see if any of the kid's veins or arteries were nicked. The fact that he barely flinched when Bones wrapped his arm was a horrible enough sign.

"Please," Bones begged, his voice nearly devoid of hope; they hadn't believed him and his crew so far, why would they now? "Please, let me help him. He needs to go back to our ship. I have the tools there to help him. He won't- he won't make it much longer like this."

The Ixionians once more exchanged looks. McCoy wanted nothing more than to yell at them to stop doing that and say something, dammit.

"You are not spies? Truly, you are not?" The Leader was serious, but Bones let out an incredulous (and slightly manic) laugh.

"Of course we're not spies! Wouldn't we have confessed by now? Wouldn't he-" the doctor jabbed his injured head unwisely in Chekov's direction, as both hands were attempting to stem the blood flow, "-have confessed by now?! He's a KID for Pete's sake! Kid's don't usually hold out under torture for this long if they're lying!"

Here, the Leader started to look both horrified and angry. "A child? This is a man. You are a child."

Incredulity fueled his anger as Bones nearly shouted, "I am a grown human! This young man is a teenager! He is a few years away from being a fully developed human adult! Human's look more youthful-" He knew he was too angry to properly explain human biology, but Chekov was losing time and, apparently, the Ixionians needed all of their inquiries answered before they would let him help his crew mate. So, with as much patience as he could muster with a splitting headache and nerves kicked up to an eleven, Bones took a deep breath.

"Human children have less wrinkles on their faces. They are usually smaller than the adults, which is also true for the Ixionians, right? Several of his internal organs are not yet fully developed, as well. He isn't finished growing. When we get older, we obtain wrinkles, which, as I understand, is different for the Ixionians." Bones could have kicked himself. Why didn't any of them think that maybe their captors had taken Chekov, not because he was the youngest, but because, according to their own biology, he looked like the oldest? Ixionians, from what Bones had learned from his brief dive into their biology, was that they were born with flabs upon flabs of skin that they eventually grew into. And that eventually hardened. Chekov had no wrinkles, being a mere 19. It made sense, in a terrible, terrible way. They wanted to hurt the oldest, not the youngest. To top it all off, they also were trying to reach a more vulnerable part of his body, under the skin; a place that wouldn't kill their people if tampered with, but would certianly hurt more than their thick outher shell allowed. But they couldn't know that humans didn't have thick skin like they did. If they hadn't accused them all of being spies, and if they hadn't almost killed Chekov, Bones would have pitied their mistake.

"If what you say is true-"

"It is," Bones nearly spat.

"-then a grave error has been made." The Leader looked finally, finally, ready to listen. "We have been tricked, I fear. Nex'lia," here the Leader turned to the guard that had retrieved Bones from his cell, "please get the other two and bring them here. And have your partner bring their things." The guard did exactly as he was asked, with no small amounts of haste, much to Bones' relief.

The poor doctor was ready to both cry and swear. In a moment of clarity, he yanked his hypo from his pocket and jabbed it into Chekov's uninjured arm. It would do nothing for the pain and for healing, but it would protect against a majority of infections.

"What was that?" One of the torturers had asked. He didn't seem particularly hostile, but he wasn't exuding fluff, either.

"Hypo," Bones grunted. "Keeps infections away. When blood and the inside of our body is exposed to the air, things toxic to our bodies could get in and-"

"We know what infections are," snapped one of the other torturers. Bones recognized him as one of the Ixionians at the dinner who had been a little cooler towards their guests. He felt no love lost as he snarled a reply.

"Well you certainly didn't know what anything else pertaining to humans were."

The remaining Ixionians looked away at that. He didn't feel sorry. They couldn't really have know, but still.

The door opened after a few more minutes, in which Bones steady lost the little remaining hope he had. But when he saw Jim and Spock stumble in on weak legs, gripping their wrists, he managed to stave off desperation for a few more moments.

"Jim, thank God. Call Scotty. We need to get on the ship, now."

"What's- Chekov-"

"Jim! Scotty, NOW."

Briefly letting his mask slip, the captain was just as quick to replace it and take his communicator from the open hand of the guard, Nex'lia.

"Kirk to Scotty, Scotty come in."

A few brief moments before, "Jim, you're a wee bit early there, every-"

"Scotty, I need you to listen to me very carefully. We need you to beam us up. If it comes down to it, Chekov and Bones need to go first, understand?"

"Aye, captain." Something in Kirk's voice and the timeline of their trip sobered the chief engineer up immediately.

"Spock, get over here." Without question, Spock moved to Bones side. Almost as if he knew what the doctor was about to ask, he gripped Chekov's makeshift bandage to help stem the bleeding. Bones nodded, let go, and plucked the communicator from Jim's hand. His friend didn't even flinch.

"Scotty, this is Bones. I need you to get nurse Chapel on the line. She needs to prep the med bay."

"Of course." The line went quiet for a very tense minute. Then Bones heard his assistant's beautiful voice.

"Doctor McCoy, what do you need?"

Quick and to the point, that Chapel. He knew there was a good reason he kept her around. Bones quickly rattled off medical equipment and tools as well as hypos and their medicines that he knew they would need at a speed that seemed inhuman. His assistant only interrupted to ask clarifying questions, otherwise keeping right up with his efficiency. Once he was done, she rattled everything back to him at the same inhuman speed.

"Yes, that's it. Go! Scotty, beam us the hell up." Bones didn't need to see the inside of the Enterprise to know Chapel had taken off like a bullet. Fun and soft when she was allowed to be, but grounded and hard when she needed to be.

The initial feeling of his stomach disappearing was something Bones would probably never get used to, but he was too focused on re-gripping Chekov's arm as he and Spock both realized Spock and Kirk weren't coming up this first trip.

McCoy made eye contact with Jim who had a hard look in his eye. The two friends nodded at one another before the doctor and his patient disappeared into particles.

When McCoy appeared kneeling with Chekov on the Enterprise he was not surprised to find a med team on stand-by with a bed; Chapel was prepping the med bay for their arrival. Trying very hard to ignore Scotty as he quietly exclaimed his sorrow at the sight of his young friend, Bones immediately snapped into action.

"Get him on the bed. We need to run."

A/N: Hello! I hope you all have been keeping safe and healthy. I made you a promise, so here I am! (so, so late...) If all goes according to my original plan for this story, there should be maybe 2-3 chapters left? But! I will not abandon this. I'm gonna finish it, even if it kills Chek-I mean me. Even if it kills me.

Stay safe, stay sane, stay healthy (physically, emotionally, mentally)!

-I Am A Different Maker (and so are you)