April 2255
"Don't leave your boots there, you'll trip over them," Jim says absently, and McCoy gives the general vicinity of the kitchen the finger as he continues into his bathroom, intent on just getting a shower as soon as possible because some drunkard threw up on him in a startlingly similar way to his first encounter with Jim.
The sonic shower than Jim had made him install is far more efficient that the old water one that he used to have, and he's clean and out within five minutes – he actually far prefers it to his previous shower but he's not going to tell Jim that any time soon, because he'll just laugh and get smug.
"What's for dinner?" he asks as he walks back into the kitchen, pulling a spare t-shirt over his head, and jumps as Jim's cold hands grab at his bare waist and pull him into an embrace.
"Tenderloin sandwiches on the table. I'm running out of food, we need to go shopping," he says absently as McCoy's head pops out of the top of his t-shirt. "Rough day at work?"
"Business as usual, really," he replies tiredly, giving Jim a quick kiss before moving away to get a glass of water. "Drunkards, pregnant teens and old Mrs Campbell. Just more of them than normal."
"Mrs Campbell been cloning herself?"
"Your wit astounds me, kid," McCoy grumbles as he sits down and picks up a sandwich. "What about you, been busy?"
"Bored, more like. Went to see Mom, she says hi. Helped out on the farm but that's about all."
"This is why you need to get a real job, so you're not bored all the time. How was she anyway?"
"Fine. What journals have we got for tonight?"
It's kind of endearing, really, that Jim's as eager to learn about the new advances in medicine as he is, but then Jim is a genius and needs to get his intake of information from somewhere. The weird thing is how he devours the knowledge and goes through all of McCoy's old PADDs to check for more.
"Gene therapy. I've actually done some investigating and managed to get myself signed up for a course of it later on in the year."
"What exactly is it?" Jim asks around a mouthful of pork.
"Gene manipulation. They'll take out the ones that have caused my eyes to give up, replace them with healthy ones, and if I'm lucky, I'll get my eyesight back in a year or so."
"If you're lucky?" Jim repeats, and McCoy imagines that he sees Jim's eyebrows shoot up into his hairline. "Don't they know if it'll actually work?"
"They need test subjects."
"Bones –"
"Jim, if I wait and it turns out to work then I'll never get my eyesight back because the operation will be fucking expensive and disability allowances only go so far you know, specially when you're paying child support on top of your own rent and living expenses," McCoy snaps, reaching for another sandwich.
"Here," Jim grunts as he places one in his hand. "But what if it goes wrong? What if it doesn't work?"
"What have I got to lose? My eyesight?" McCoy asks sarcastically, and he hears the sigh of frustration from Jim and knows that he's being an immature dick, but doesn't really care.
"I just want to know that you've thought about this properly. I mean you're the one that's meant to be medically trained so I guess you know better, but what if they're not targeting the right genes? What if it doesn't give you your sight back but somehow messes you up so you can't walk? Or can't hear? Then what're you going to do?"
"There's risks in any medical procedure."
"But a hell of a lot more in this one than most, am I right?"
"What's your problem, Jim?" McCoy says tiredly, resting his elbows on the table and leaning over slightly. "I thought you'd be up for this, I thought you'd want it."
Jim's silent and breathing heavily for a moment before he stands suddenly, the screech of the chair on the old wooden floor startling McCoy.
"So that's what this is about?" Jim asks as he paces, and McCoy scowls because dammit it's not, not really, but he knows that when he tells himself that he's kind of lying a bit too. Plus Jim sounds almost hurt which is ridiculous because he's got no fucking right to be.
"You're making my problems about you again," he says sourly instead of answering properly, and Jim stops pacing to stand directly behind him and lean in towards his ear.
"No, you're making this about me," he growls, his breath hot against McCoy's cheek, and he twitches away. "You really think that I want you to do this that badly?"
"It had crossed my mind," he admits stiffly, and then Jim whirls away and McCoy can practically feel the frustration emanating from Jim's body.
"Then your mind needs looking at because if you honestly think that I want any part of you to change, Leonard. I am falling for the cranky, divorced, blind guy that works at the clinic on Towncrest Drive. If you weren't blind, you wouldn't be that guy."
"I didn't say that you're the deciding factor."
"But it's a part of it, right? So take what you think I want of the equation, then put in what I actually want and then weigh up your pros and cons again, and tell me if it's still worth the risk."
"I don't want to be blind for the rest of my life!" McCoy spits as he stares dead ahead and clenches his fists on the table. He's not sure if there's any sandwiches left, and he's not sure why he's even bothered.
"And I don't want you to die because of some stupid therapy that might not even work and might go completely wrong. Did you stop to consider what effect it'd have on people if the procedure went to shit, or were you just thinking about yourself?"
"I fucking deserve to be selfish for once!" McCoy shouts, standing from his seat and whirling around to where he last heard Jim, and then the world twists underneath him as he falls over the fucking boots that he kicked off and didn't move when Jim fucking Kirk told him to.
He throws out an arm to break his fall but misses, and then his head hits something seriously fucking hard and his vision explodes with a whiteness that's almost comforting, then nothing.
And then Jim's hands on his skin, one under his neck and the other around his back, and ow shitting fuck that hurts and a wet trail's making its way down across his forehead and nose and into his eye socket.
"Bones? Can you hear me?" Jim's saying frantically, hauling him up and Jesus is the man carrying him? McCoy grunts as he's laid down on the couch and even that's kind of painful, and wait, Jim shouldn't have moved him, he might have a neck injury.
"You shouldn't have moved me, you moron. I could have broken my neck," he snaps, and Jim lets go of him immediately and jerks away as if he's been burned.
"Fuck you, McCoy," he sputters furiously, and McCoy has no idea why he just said that.
"Jim," he begins, rolling over and pushing himself up despite the vicious pain shooting across the front of his head, and promptly throws up on the floor.
"Dammit, Bones," Jim mutters, and then he's back crouching beside him and pressing a glass of water into his hand that he takes gratefully, and Jim's hand is resting on his chest as he lays his head back against the couch arm.
"Thanks," he groans as he presses a hand to his temple, and Jim pulls it away to poke at the broken skin.
"I need to clean that up and get you to the clinic or hospital or something."
"It's a mild head injury, I'll be fine," McCoy counters, but this time he doesn't try and move when Jim stands up and starts going through his stuff for alcohol and pads. "Seriously Jim, I just need to lie down for a sec."
"Which you wouldn't even need to do in the first place if you hadn't left your boots in the middle of the kitchen."
"Which wouldn't have mattered if I could see," McCoy retorts, then hisses as Jim dabs at his forehead with the alcohol-soaked pad without warning. Maybe he deserves it, he's not sure. "I saw a flash of light, Jim."
"It was just white noise, Bones. You know that," Jim says firmly. "It was just your brain having a spasm."
McCoy presses his head back and scowls, because it's true and he's more frustrated with himself than Jim if he's completely honest.
"I just want to be able to see," he says and knows that he sound pathetic and weak, but Jim's seen him worse. He kind of doesn't care.
"And you know that I'm totally up for that but not if you're going to risk killing yourself to get it," Jim replies softly, finishing up cleaning his head and tilting McCoy's face towards him. "I want you to be able to see, I really do. But I also want you alive. Is that too much to ask?"
"It is when it's not your choice to make."
Jim sighs and releases him, and McCoy can hear his joints crack into place as he straightens up and steps away.
"I'm going out. I'm not fighting about this," he says flatly, and McCoy pushes himself up into a sitting position despite the throbbing pain in his head that tells him to stay lying down.
"Where're you gonna go?"
"I don't know, okay? Just… out."
McCoy doesn't stop him as he walks out of the door.
He lays there on the couch for half an hour or so, head tilted back and aimed at the ceiling, lights turned off nearly twenty minutes ago to save on electric as per usual. Jim's right of course, in his own way, but he just can't understand this no matter how hard he tries. And he does want to understand, McCoy knows that, but until he's been blind and desperate to see something he'll never get it.
He's dozing off as he hears the door click open down the hall, and footsteps into his bedroom. It's a good thing actually, because in all likelihood he's got concussion and he really shouldn't be sleeping with that. He waits until the footsteps come closer before speaking.
"Can we talk about this?" he asks quietly and the footsteps freeze just inside the door. There's something off about the sound of them, something that McCoy can't quite place, and he sighs as he gets no response. "Jim, please."
"The fuck, man?"
And that makes McCoy sit up quickly, fumbling for his comm, because that is most definitely not Jim's voice and he's half upright with his head spinning when the lights are commanded to full and there's something cold and hard pressed between his shoulder blades.
"Get the hell out of my apartment," he growls, freezing in place even as adrenaline courses through his body, and then there's the sound of another set of feet running up the stairs and to his front door.
"What shit are you pulling, sitting here with the lights off?" the man behind him demands while the other person runs through his apartment, and McCoy grits his teeth as a mixture of terror and fury wash through him. He has no idea if what's pressing into his back is actually a phaser or old-fashioned gun or something equally debilitating but he doesn't particularly feel like testing it out.
"I was trying to sleep," he says with his teeth gritted, and it's half the truth.
"Put your hands up on your head. Now," the guy demands and McCoy complies, his comm trapped beneath his left thigh where he'd rolled onto it in his haste to get upright. "And you stay where the fuck you are, you hear me?"
"There's nothing worth stealing here," McCoy says shortly as he links his fingers together behind his throbbing head, hands shaking. "I can tell you that now."
"Yeah, well we'll be the judge of that," the guy snaps in response, stepping away from him, and McCoy reckons he can't be old. Probably about the same age as Jim, maybe a bit younger, and he finds himself wishing that Jim were here right now. "Jeez, he's puked all over the floor..."
"Hey man, check it out," comes a grunt from the other side of the lounge – the other person, another guy – and then there's a harsh bark of laughter and he can hear them moving around, tracking their movements with twitches of his head. Suddenly one of them's in front of him, and the air's moving in a way that means there's probably a hand being waved in front of his face.
"Shit, you're blind as a fucking bat, aren't you?" the first youth cackles gleefully, poking McCoy in the chest, and he jerks backwards. "Jesus your eyes are freaky, all blank and shit."
"Well at least you don't have to worry about me picking you out of a police line-up," McCoy says a little sardonically, and there's a huff of laughter from the second guy.
"We're not taking chances, old man," he scoffs, and then there's another explosion of pain at his temple and another flash of light that McCoy tries and fails to cling to as he slips once again from consciousness.
He doesn't know how long he's been when he comes to, his left cheek wet with blood and vicious pains lancing through his skull. The apartment's quiet though, which means the robbers must have left, but it also means that Jim's not here, and McCoy's chest tightens.
He hauls himself from the couch where he'd collapsed, one hand clutching his comm and the other patting around himself. It lands on his cane and feels for the end of it, wincing when it he finds it sticky and warm. So this is what they used to knock him out, how charming.
The trip to the bathroom turns out to be harder than expected, not least because his head is threatening to explode but because there's obstacles all over the floor and he has a feeling that if he could see what it was, he'd be bemoaning the state of his furniture. But he can't, so he just soldiers on and stumbles into the bathroom, opening the med cabinet and selecting a really fucking strong painkiller that he normally wouldn't have even considered using on himself for something like a headache. But he reasons that these are extenuating circumstances as he jabs it into his neck with trembling fingers, and he can feel the ache easing immediately as he comms Jim.
"What is it?" Jim asks tiredly after a few seconds, his voice strangely muffled as though he's standing somewhere with a strong wind, and McCoy's never been so relieved to hear his voice. He swallows a few times before answering.
"You said I could comm you if I had any trouble," he says quietly, his voice shaking far more than he would ever admit to. "I need you."
"I'll be right there," Jim says quickly and ends the communication. McCoy pauses for a few seconds before lowering his hand and sitting hard on the toilet seat, cradling his comm in his hands as the pain in his head lessens every second. He'd been stupid to think that he could manage on his own – he'd been lucky to last this long, and that was with Jim's helping hand for the past few months. And now he has no idea what they'd even taken, if they'd left any credits or any of his slightly more valuable belongings. What they'd decided to trash, if he had anything left at all that wasn't destroyed. God, he hopes his PADDs with recordings of Jo on are still intact.
The front door bangs open and McCoy flinches, nearly falling off his seat, but it isn't them again. No, this time there's no mistaking those footsteps and the familiarity with which they move around his apartment.
"Jesus..." Jim mutters from the other room, and then raises his voice frantically. "Bones!"
"I'm in the bathroom," he says quietly, still lightly grasping the comm in his hands, and there's a crashing sort of noise as Jim rushes in and stops directly in front of him. His breathing is heavy enough that McCoy can hear it, and he wonders just where Jim was when he commed him.
"Bones," he says again, quieter and less frantic but just as worried, and McCoy stands up unsteadily. He reaches out and Jim grabs at him, pulling him into a fiercely tight embrace that nearly winds him but he doesn't let go. He knows that he's still shaking and he knows that Jim can feel it but he doesn't care, just presses his face into Jim's neck as Jim's arms wrap around his back, holding him up and close against his body.
"You okay?" Jim murmurs against his ear and McCoy nods as he clutches at Jim's shirt.
"Gave myself a hypospray, but I could do with a regenerator running over my head," he admits, and Jim releases him only to take hold of his face and run his fingers over it, pausing at the new gash on the left-hand side and tracing it gently. McCoy can feel it but it doesn't hurt, and he's so wrung out that he just leans into Jim's touch and closes his eyes.
"What the hell happened?" Jim asks quietly, hands still bracketing his face, and McCoy sighs.
"A pair of burglars broke in, caught me unawares. Knocked me out, and when I came to they were gone and they'd trashed the place. I don't even know what the damage is."
"Pretty extensive," Jim spits, resting on hand on McCoy's shoulder but otherwise releasing him as he steps back. "Hey, is that blood on your cane?"
"I told you, they knocked me out."
"I'll fucking kill them. You called the police yet?"
"No. Just you."
Jim's grip tightens on his shoulder and McCoy feels kind of bad, landing all of this shit on him, but he didn't know what else to do. He feels completely helpless and not for the first time he realizes just how good an idea it had been for him to leave Jocelyn and Joanna. Jesus, if he'd been within Jo when this had happened...
"Yeah, I'd like to report a burglary," Jim's saying a few feet away, and McCoy shakes his head slightly to clear it. "127 Sycamore Street, Apartment 3F... yeah, I could do with a medic... no, it's Leonard McCoy... okay, thanks."
"They sending someone?" McCoy asks as he sits back down on the toilet seat and Jim presses against him, hip to his shoulder in a strangely comforting sort of way.
"They'll be here as soon as they can, and they're bringing a medic," he says, one hand coming to thread through his hair. "I'm sorry, Bones, I shouldn't have walked out. I mean, if I'd been here..."
"If I hadn't made you walk out, you mean?" McCoy asks sharply, but immediately relaxes as insistent fingers knead at his scalp. "It's not your fault, Jim."
"But still..."
"It happened. I'm okay. A bit bruised and still kinda shaky but I'll be fine. Now tell me what the damage is."
"I didn't get a proper look, I was more worried about you," Jim admits with a shrug that McCoy feels against his body. "Pretty bad, though. Looks like they took anything worth taking and just trashed the rest out of spite. How many were there?"
"Just two, I think. Young kids, younger than you I reckon. And one of them had a phaser or something like, or felt like it anyway."
"They pulled a phaser on you?" Jim repeats, sounding shocked, and this time it's McCoy's turn to shrug as Jim's hand stills against his neck.
"Like I said, felt like it. He pushed something between my shoulder blades and I wasn't taking any chances."
Jim goes silent for a minute or two, apparently just content to hold onto McCoy with one hand as they wait. It's a strange quiet in the apartment, an unnatural one that makes McCoy slightly uneasy as he leans his head into the slight dip at Jim's waist.
"Hey," Jim suddenly says quietly, his fingers slipping under McCoy's shirt at his neck and sliding against warm skin. "Didn't I tell you this was the worst part of town to live in?"
"Yeah, kid," McCoy sighs, closing his eyes and not even managing a scowl or a smile or something in between. "You told me."
By the time the police and medics have come and gone, McCoy's just tired.
He'd been patched up within seconds, the medics pointedly ignoring his claims that he didn't need looking at and he was just fine, the right medication pumping through his veins and his skin smooth and unmarked. The police had catalogued the damage, done a scan for foreign DNA or trace left from the robbers, but found barely any – and with no visual description to go on, there was little that they could do. They'd finally left after two hours of scouring his flat, and he'd gone through meticulously with Jim to work out what they'd stolen and try and put back upright that which was undamaged.
McCoy didn't even have it in himself to complain as Jim packed him up a duffel bag and threw in his remaining medical journals and the thankfully intact PADDs of Jo, and bundled him into a taxi. He just leaned into him as they walked up the steps to Jim's apartment, and was fast asleep within seconds of lowering his head onto Jim's pillow.
May 2255
Jim's even more hyperactive than normal when they arrive in Miami on the back of his bike, the hot spring summer beating down on their necks.
"I hope you brought plenty of sun block, old man," Jim murmurs, taking hold of his wrist as they approach the shuttle. "Freckled skin burns really fucking easily."
"The only freckles I have are on my back," McCoy points out flatly, hoisting his bag higher onto his shoulder, and Jim's grip tightens on his wrist.
"Yeah, I know. But your daughter has them all over."
"What… oh, hell, no," he barks as he realizes what Jim means, but it's too late – there's a shriek and then a small body throws itself at him, thin arms wrapped around his waist and fragile head pressed into his stomach.
"Len!" Jo shouts, letting go of him to probably grab Jim. "Uncle Jim!"
"Hey, kiddo!" Jim exclaims, and McCoy has to bite his tongue really fucking hard not to shout and ask him what the hell he's doing. "It was good of you to let us take her for a few days."
"I trust you," Jocelyn says, and McCoy wonders how the hell Jim managed to wangle this one, because Jocelyn's been quite happy keeping him out of their lives altogether and now she's letting him take his daughter on holiday?
"Jim, I need a word," he says in clipped tones, reaching somewhere to his left with his free hand, and Jim takes hold of his elbow and steers him a few feet away. And apparently Jim knows exactly how he'll react.
"Bones, just let me –"
"What the hell were you thinking?" McCoy hisses, turning to face him. "Why didn't you fucking tell me?"
"Because you would have said no. It's just five days," Jim wheedles, taking hold of his upper arms and not letting go when McCoy attempts to shrug him off. "Come on, what's the problem?"
"It's just not a good idea."
"No, it's a brilliant idea. And Jocelyn's using the opportunity to go Eurasia with Clay, so it's too late to get a babysitter. Not much choice really. Now they're waiting, come on."
"Bad idea," McCoy repeats, a little weakly, but he allows Jim to drag him back to his daughter anyway.
It actually turns out to be quite a good idea.
McCoy's not sure how long Jim's been planning this but he's pretty much got a timetable for the break – and most of the activities that he's organized seem to be focused on Joanna. On the first day, after getting their gear unpacked, they go to the MetroZoo. It's one of the few zoos in the world to keep only terran animals, and Jo loves it and wants to go back every day that they're there. At one point when they're wandering around, Jim suddenly grabs his hand and yanks him to the side and he nearly trips over a small child that's running around. He's about to shout at Jim when his hand comes into contact with something warm and solid and soft, and Jo tells him that he's stroking a Bengal tiger, and isn't her fur soft?
Mid-afternoon on the second day, Jim takes them on a shuttle to the Miami Science Museum. It's the usual deal, designed for children with just enough intelligence to keep the adults amused. Jim shows Jo around all of the exhibits and goes into much more detail with each concept than the museum does, but explains everything in a way that his daughter can understand. And she does understand, and she keeps up with Jim all the way through and McCoy's pretty sure he's going to have a genius for a daughter.
So, quite a good idea, overall, McCoy decides as he stretches out on the sun bed out the back of Sam and Aurelan's house. When they'd first arrived, Jim had taken him on a tour of the house, making sure he knew where the edges of the pool were so he didn't fall in at any point and injure himself. McCoy had pointed out that he could swim, and Jim had pointed out that if he fell in and cracked his head on the concrete sides, he wouldn't be able to swim at all.
Also, Jim can cook, and he can cook well. That's always a bonus.
"Hey," Jim says cheerfully, rousing McCoy from the light doze that he'd managed to slip in to. "How long have you been out here? You got any sun block on?"
"If I burn I can run a regenerator over it, and skin cancer's not been an issue for the last fifty years, unless you'd forgotten. What's Jo doing?" McCoy murmurs sleepily as he adjusts his head on his arms, listening to the pop of the sun block bottle.
"She's on the comm to Jocelyn," Jim says, and then his hands are smoothing down McCoy's back in wide strokes, cool cream beneath his palms, and McCoy rumbles contentedly. There's a certain soothing sense to the repetition of Jim's hands on his skin, rubbing in the sun block as they curve around his ribs and down to his waist, dipping under the waistband of his trunks and then up his spine and over his shoulders in firm presses, sliding down his biceps and back up again in a fluid, smooth motion.
"You should get a job as a masseur," he mumbles into his forearms, relaxing under Jim's touch. "You'd make millions."
"Yours is the only back I want to manhandle," Jim says after a moment, then leans forward over him to press a light kiss to the back of his neck. "I'm gonna get some pop, you want anything?"
"It's called soda," McCoy reminds him. "And no, I'm good thanks."
He listens to Jim move back into the house, pouring himself a glass and getting some ice from the freezer, and tries to ignore the erection that's pressing into the sun bed beneath him.
"Hey Len, you coming swimming?" Jo asks as she approaches him, and he shifts uncomfortably before shaking his head.
"Not right now, sweetheart," he says, listening to her dip her toes in the water to test it. "How's your mom?"
"Having fun, but not as much fun as me, I don't reckon. Come on in!"
"Yeah, Bones, come on in!" Jim teases as he returns from the kitchen, and McCoy shifts as he sits down on the sun bed beside him. "I bet it's gorgeous."
"Freezing, more like," he mutters, the bottom of Jim's back pressing against his hip. "Plus I have an enormous hard-on right now and that isn't something that she needs to see."
Jim nearly pisses himself laughing at that, and McCoy tries to scowl at him but it's not too easy, and he doesn't quite manage it. Instead he allows Jim to tease him until he knows that Jo's gone back into the house to change into her bathing suit, and he stands up and heads for the pool.
He gets in as far as his groin and his erection pretty much completely disappears, his balls retreating into his body with a speed that probably means they won't be reappearing any time soon.
He hears the whoop from behind and the thudding of feet, but he doesn't process the two and realize exactly what they mean until they both stop and it's just a little too late to get out of the way. Jim lands about two feet from him with the force of a small horse, and McCoy is left soaked and shivering and cursing a blue streak ten parsecs wide as Jim swims away.
He decides that now it doesn't matter if his balls ever decide to drop back down again because Jim definitely isn't getting any action tonight.
June 2255
Their third major argument starts with Jim discovering a half-completed application for experimental gene therapy on McCoy's PADD, and culminates with Jim slamming the front door and McCoy nursing a headache as he slumps against the door frame.
Sometimes, he's not entirely sure if it's all worth the hassle.
The headache's pretty much gone by the time he feels Jim climb into bed with him smelling faintly of fuel and alcohol and something else, the movement waking him from the light doze that he'd drifted into, and he rolls onto his side to face him.
"Hey," he murmurs sleepily, reaching out for him, and Jim leans into his touch. That's got to be a good sign.
"I didn't mean to wake you."
"You know me, I was just dozing. Where did you go?"
"Storm Lake."
"What? Jesus Jim, that's gotta be two hundred miles away," he mutters, rolling back over, and Jim follows him and settles against his chest. "What in hell made you want to go there?"
"Just wanted to get away from the city," Jim replies with a shrug, and now McCoy can actually feel the tension thrumming through Jim's body to he lifts a hand to his hair and strokes through it, pulling him in closer.
"Get away from me, you mean," he says drily, and Jim shakes his head.
"Nah, I was over that. It's your choice and you can make it without my help, I get it. I was just pissed that you didn't tell me that you were going ahead with it."
"I won't make that mistake again, in that case."
"You'd better not," Jim murmurs and shifts to kiss him, pressing skin to skin and slipping his tongue between McCoy's unprepared lips and McCoy pulls him closer, one hand still gripping his hair, and it's when he's this close that he realizes what the smell was that came into bed with him.
"Why can I taste blood in your mouth?" he asks accusingly as he pulls away, moving his hand to run his fingers over Jim's face. "You been fighting again?"
Jim sighs and settles his head back on McCoy's shoulder, dropping a gentle kiss to the skin there that kind of tickles as McCoy prods at his face.
"Yeah, some dickhead cadets from Starfleet were in the bar and couldn't take a joke."
"You're in luck – just bruising and lesions."
"You going to fix them?
"No, I'm going to leave them as a reminder for why you shouldn't get into fights," he says blandly, and pokes what he hopes is Jim's bruised cheek. The grunt he gets for his efforts confirms that his aim is pretty good. "Now, are you going to tell me what happened at Storm Lake that's got you so worked up?"
Jim's quiet for a minute, his breathing slow and steady and McCoy's beginning to think that he's dozed off when he suddenly speaks.
"It was Captain Pike who broke up the fight."
"Pike that wrote the dissertation on the Kelvin?"
"The very same," Jim murmurs, and pauses again as though he's trying to work out the best way to put his thoughts into words. "He wants me to join Starfleet."
McCoy can't help it – he laughs.
"They'd throw you out within two weeks, you're not cut out for any sort of military crap," he points out, and Jim shifts against him.
"See, that's what I thought when he said it and pretty much told him to fuck off. But then I really thought about it when I was riding back here, and I think I should try it at least. What've I got to lose?"
"Me, for one," he points out, and Jim squirms, turning his head so that his chin is propped on McCoy's chest and he's most likely looking straight at him.
"I want you to come with me," Jim says, and McCoy imagines that he can see the intense look in eyes that he doesn't even know the color of. "I contacted people, asked around, and they'd accept you despite your disability. You could try and complete your doctorate or something, I don't know. I just want you there."
"Wait, you want me to join Starfleet?" McCoy asks incredulously, and he feels Jim prop himself up on his elbow, his hand still resting over McCoy's chest.
"Yeah, I do. I mean, it's perfect. Pike says I'll be an officer in four years but I can do it with three, and it's something to do with my life instead of knocking around Iowa for fucking ever."
"And where do I fit into this 'perfect' little plan of yours?" McCoy asks sourly, glaring at where he thinks Jim's head is. "Have you considered what a monumentally bad idea it is for me to try and do something like this?"
"How is it a bad idea?" Jim retorts, and dammit but he just sounds confused and hurt and for fuck's sake.
"Maybe because I can't see a fucking thing?" McCoy reminds him a little sharply, sitting up and banging Jim's shoulder with his own in the process. "Besides, if I'm in fucking San Francisco then I can't get the gene therapy."
"Which you know I don't want you to do anyway, not the experimental procedures anyway," Jim says darkly. "But if you're in Starfleet then they'll pay for the treatment, I asked Pike. So you can have it done once it's been tested and we know that it's not going to damage you any further."
"You've got to be fucking kidding me."
"No, you're kidding yourself if you think you've got any reason to stay here," Jim says harshly, grabbing at his wrist, but McCoy twists it from his grip and swings his legs over the edge of the bed, his hands searching out for his clothes.
"I have friends, Jim," he spits. "And responsibility, and a possibility to get my sight back within a year. Plus if I play my cards right, Joanna. None of which I expect you to understand."
There's an odd sound, almost like a growl from behind him, and he feels the bed shift as he pulls on a pair of pants that might or might not be his.
"Just think about it, Bones," Jim says and it's almost pleading, so McCoy half-turns back to him with a scowl as he pulls on a shirt and boots.
"I've thought about it, and I'm saying that I'm staying right here. There's not a chance in hell you're getting me up in space, so just drop it, okay?"
"So what, you're just going to walk out on me?"
"That's exactly what I'm going to do," McCoy snaps, bending to feel for his bag and swinging it over his shoulder. It should bother him that he knows Jim's place well enough that he barely has to touch the walls to orientate himself, but he pushes the thought away and silently fumes as he walks out.
He doesn't slam the door, just closes it with a firm click, and pretends not to hear the frustrated sigh from the other side.
McCoy does, in fact think about it all the way on his angry trudge back to his own apartment, which he hasn't stepped foot in since April and which he probably shouldn't be making alone in the early hours of the morning but by now he's beyond caring. How the hell can Jim accuse him of making irresponsible decisions about his eyesight when two months later, he's going and signing them both up for fucking Starfleet without even discussing it with him.
McCoy grumbles to himself as he navigates across Hollywood Boulevard and wonders why it is that they seem to spend a good half of their time arguing. He never disagreed with Jocelyn this much, that's for sure. And while McCoy knows that he's not completely exempt from the blame, Jim always finds a way to turn a simple discussion into a fucking fight when there's no need to.
But then again, that doesn't mean that Jim's wrong.
"Computer, lights to one hundred percent," he says roughly as he throws a duffel bag at Jim, who wakes with an undignified snort as a duffel bag is thrown into his stomach. "Pack your bags. Now."
"What the hell, Bones!" Jim protests, sounding a bizarre mix of confused and angry and strangely hopeful. "What are you doing?"
"Get your lazy ass out of bed, we've got one hour to be at that shuttle and I have no intention of letting you skip out on the one opportunity you've got to make something of your life. We're going to fucking Starfleet."
"I may throw up on you," he says flatly, and Jim's hand finds his in the darkness of the shuttle.