All I Got Left Is My Bones

Nor was she a smoker, or a dancer, or a singer – hell, she wasn’t much of anything nowadays. When piles of overdue papers began to slowly stack themselves upon her desk, she was rushing to get them done. Somehow neither Spock nor Bones had mentioned to her the lack of reports she was sending in, and thanks to a suddenly-planned shore leave, she was granted a chance to get her mind straight before she wrote something crazy on a field synopsis.

Now that she was back on Earth, though, she was actually beginning to wonder when the last time was that she had soil under her boots.

Under normal circumstances, she’d be on the Enterprise, dancing carelessly with the rest of her crewmates, but down here, back on Earth – that was a whole new territory for her. The rest of the crew had gone off God knows where (although that wasn’t a complaint), and now that she was alone for a change, the first thing that came to mind was a bar. And so, she set off on her journey.

Leonard McCoy, however, was the last person she had thought of to be there.

The only reason she’d recognized him was from his ruffled hair (and a very hint of an accent as she passed by his chair), and she wasted no time sliding into the seat next to him.

It would've been nice to blame the whiskey, but Bones didn't think he was that drunk yet. Yet. And truth was, he had enough going on in his head, there was a good chance something had to get pushed out. Wasn't like he was planning on needing to play the name game that night; not a whole hell of a lot of the crew made it out this far, and definitely not to a place like this. Not enough thumping obnoxious music and bright flashing lights. 

For a minute, he toyed with the idea of ignoring her. Just flat out sticking his head in the sand - or, hell, another round or two - and pretending she wasn't there. But he'd no sooner thought it than he could hear his mama's voice in his ear tearing him a new one, and he let out a sigh. 

"No," he said, and paused long enough to swallow another shot. "It's not." But then, freedom had a different meaning for some people than others. 

Jim didn’t have to look at Bones to know he knew of his presence. Crystal blue eyes stared over the Georgia man, watching him, almost waiting for a response to come out of his mouth but there was nothing for a long time. He leaned on his palm, continuing to watch him as if that would persuade something.

The scowl on his face as he stared down at the bourbon made Jim assume he had some type of averse to it, something that made him dislike it. That didn’t really make sense to him because he knew Bones liked bourbon..but he decided it was probably because it wasn’t dulling his mind. Why he wanted his mind to be dulled? Jim didn’t know yet.

Jim watched his brown eyes look up across the bar, scanning the various bottles and his own shot glasses, still taking his sweet time to speak to the man beside him. However, even though Jim was growing impatient, he didn’t do anything about it. He just watched, knowing Bones wouldn’t want to be rushed. He’d just get more and more irritated.

The bartender returned, making their silent conversation even more silent, the distance with it now the only thing going on. There wasn’t much, quite honestly. Maybe he should’ve just left him alone and Bones would come to him when he wanted. Whenever that would be.

Bones took a breath and chased it with another gulp of whiskey, hissing at the burn. The whiskey he was drinking was smooth the same way the teeth of a rusted saw were smooth - read: not a damn bit - but he was starting to get used to it. Still didn't burn as bad as that flaming whip of a tongue Joss could crack when she really wanted to. 

He didn't have any talent for it, himself. Part of him was glad for it. Unfortunately, that wasn't the same part that seemed to be sitting in the wheelhouse that evening. "And why were you lookin' for me?" he pressed. 

On the one hand, he was genuinely curious. He reasoned if it was something serious, Jim wouldn't be taking his sweet time sitting down and shooting the breeze at him. But then, it was Jim, so who the hell knew? Six shots ago, he might've tried taking a guess at it. But he was starting to get the feeling the devil's water he'd been knocking down was a little more devil and a little less water than he'd originally thought.

Bones hadn’t been around for awhile, and frankly, Jim had missed his company. He’d been actually avoiding Jim and that was something that Leonard McCoy did not do, especially when it came to checking up on his physicals. It’d been over a month since Jim’s last physical.

To say the least, he knew something was wrong.

He had searched everywhere at this point, all the while trying to think of something that could cause Bones to just disappear off the face of the Earth like this. After coming up blank-minded, Jim realized he hadn’t checked the bar yet.

He made his way to the bar as fast as he could, pushing open the door and immediately setting his eyes on Bones. To say the least, he wasn’t even remotely surprised when he saw Bones sitting at the bar, glass of bourbon in hand. Damn…

Bones knew who it was without looking up. Maybe it was just a side-effect of spending so much time with the man, first at the academy, and then on the Enterprise, but Bones could near enough sense him whenever he was nearby. 

Seemed the alcohol hadn't done much to dull that, either. He scowled down at it. What the hell good was it if it couldn't even dim the lights a little, so to speak. He'd had rotgut out of a jar that'd done worlds better than this swill. Not that it was top of the bar stuff he was drinking, but still - it was the principle of the thing. 

He kept his eyes on the empty line of shot glasses in front of him, and even he wasn't sure if he was doing it to avoid looking at Jim, to try and will some whiskey back into them, or else just because he didn't have the umph to look anyplace else. Lord help him. 

The bartender couldn't have come at an any better time. It saved Bones having to reply to Jim's 'not quite a question, but an observation with inquisitive undertones' that was just as bad, if not worse. He knocked back a shot, and tried to decide what'd be the best way to tell Jim to make like a fly without making an ass out of himself. Or hell, if he even wanted to. 

         "Get off’a me! Ow, fuck, can’t you see that’s broken?! Lenny! Lenny!"

He struggles against medical bay security, wincing as a guard tugs on his broken wrist, then as another tramples his sprained ankle and jostles his dislocated shoulder.

The mission was shit; he lost Christoff, Canders, Beaumont, Lesile— all to those Klingon bastards who apparently have no concept of treaty.  Tobias needs to see Leonard— it’s a natural instinct borne of years of running to his medically-inclined big brother when things grew tough. 

Bones is in his office writing up the latest sickbay inventory requests for their next shore leave when he hears it. Shouting. A familiar voice. A voice he'd know anywhere, in his sleep and half-deaf.

He comes out of his office, legs carrying him paces faster than even his usual rush can account for. "The hell's goin' on here?" he barks out, because now that he's out in the medbay, he can hear and see commotion that's got no place being in his medbay. There are people bustling around. Security officers runnin' around like chickens with their heads cut off without a lick of sense to what they're doing.

He ends up shoving one out of the way, or at least giving him a good guiding push in the right direction - that is, out of his way - as he strides through the medbay like a man possessed. That voice. It's ignited all sorts of tempers in Bones' chest, but mostly, it's that fierce protective urge that drives him madder than anything else.

That's when he sees him. Amidst all the chaos, the bustle of bodies, there he is: Tobias. And looking worse for wear, he might add.

He's moving before he registers that he should, pushing guys out of the way until he's the only one that's got his hands on his little brother, holding him up and steadying him all at once. "Jesus H. Christ, Toby," he breathes, "the hell happened to you?" Because there are a lot of questions he ought to be asking, but they all fall to the wayside until he gets the answer to that one.

"Hello. Do you need something?"

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outofslights: I gotta stop doin’ this shit….