next time, i'll be braver

the first time spock asks him, he asks him, too, to keep it from kirk.

mccoy does.

spock deteriorates rapidly: in the course of seven days he's forgetting things he should remember - he's forgetting things he's known his entire life.

spock asks again, asks him to swear to it, that when all hope is gone, mccoy will respect spock enough to let him choose his own end.

later that day, kirk shoves mccoy back into a wall, his hands fisted in mccoy's shirt, and snarls there's always hope, bones!

david mccoy passed away quietly, and easily, and bloodlessly.

so why, mccoy thinks, after kirk storms out of sickbay, after mccoy stumbles into the bathroom and his body uselessly tries to throw up the meals he's been skipping more often than not, why does mccoy still sometimes see his father's blood on his hands?

there's not always hope. there are no-win scenarios. mccoy is a doctor, and these are facts that have been beaten into him by med school, by residency, by every patient he's lost on the table, by every patient lost before he could even get to them.

spock is suffering, and he won't say it, but spock's also terrified.

(with enough time, with his reasoning and intellect and memory all heading into the shredder, maybe spock will say it. maybe that would be enough to convince kirk. but how can mccoy let it get to that point, when spock so specifically asked him not to?)

he's left with two impossible choices, with a riddle of a disease he has no idea how to solve, with too little time and too much on his shoulders and two people he loves too well to let down. but he will, he thinks. he can't make both of them happy.

[this is too similar in emotions to the operation annihilate one i'm eventually going to write so i doubt i'll ever write this, but it could go one of a few different ways:

mccoy does find a cure, and he also has a breakdown, and in the ruins of it he finally tells spock and kirk what happened with his dad, and spock, lowkey furious with kirk, makes kirk swear to respect spock's wishes if anything like that happens again.

there is no cure, and mccoy agrees to help spock die on his terms, and kirk, so angry at his helplessness, refuses to be a part of it. spock puts his katra in mccoy, and eventually they find a way to bring him back. kirk is determined to learn nothing from this, because they did eventually find a way. it remains a sore spot between them, but they get through it.

there is no cure, and mccoy has a breakdown and tells kirk what happened with his father, and kirk, confronted with mccoy falling apart, runs headlong into the realization of what he's doing to spock and mccoy, and he makes peace with both of them before spock dies. spock still puts his katra in mccoy. dealer's choice on if he comes back.

there is no cure, and mccoy tries to honor spock's choices, but kirk finds out and bans him from sickbay, and overrides spock's wishes. spock's illness continues, until he is a stranger. kirk haunts sickbay like a wraith. mccoy resigns his commission in protest. spock, fully out of his mind, puts his katra in kirk in a way that is damaging to both of them. five months later kirk shows up at mccoy's door, suffering from the effects. mccoy helps him, and they probably find a way to bring spock back, but it is a very, very long road to recovery for all three of them re: trust.

there is no cure. they put spock's body in cryo instead of letting it die, and spock jumps into mccoy's mind, and they keep working until they eventually do find a cure like a year later. mccoy tries to initially keep this from kirk because lmao starfleet regs, but it does not work. kirk is initially furious that he was kept in the dark, but also so insistent that he always knew they'd find a way. and they do find a way.

same as 5 except while they do find a way to eventually save spock, the longterm implications of mccoy being a katra carrier without proper preparation causes unexpected repercussions. they bring spock back, but mccoy is dying. kirk stays in sickbay most nights, tracing designs on the back of mccoy's hands. spock tries to abscond with mccoy to vulcan, hoping that the healers there will have a solution. mccoy, who has always known that death is a part of life, refuses.

same as 6, except kirk and spock override mccoy's wishes, and bring him to vulcan. the healers do figure out a way to save him, but all three of them are kicked out of starfleet for going awol. (they probably eventually get pulled back in as starfleet's big damn heroes, but right now they face repercussions.) mccoy is furious with them for not respecting his wishes, and walks away.

same as 7, except mccoy thinks of his dad. thinks of his dad begging him. thinks of the way mccoy had let his father suffer for so many nights after he asked, because he couldn't let him go. thinks of when he finally, finally bowed to his father's wishes, there ended up being a cure. thinks about loving someone, and about what we owe to ourselves, and what we owe to each other. thinks about spock's wishes, and thinks about kirk's fears. he can't condone it, but he can understand it. or maybe he can condone it. maybe there's not a simple yes or no answer. maybe this is where they'll always end up, at this crossroads, trying to decide between letting the one you love go, or fighting even longer against their wishes.