Whumptober, Day 11 “Hypothermia”
“Jim?”
“Yeah, Bones?”
“I’m c-cold.”
“I know.” Jim nestled closer and prayed, pleaded, to any of the powers that be for the signal to come through and for them to be transported onto the ship already. It had been four hours since he heard from anyone. Three hours since his comm shut down completely.
He’d been warned, of course, that going down to the surface of Luxper might be a one-way-trip, that it was too risky to beam to a planet with signal interference when there was no way of knowing if Bones was alive.
“You s-shouldn’t have c-ccome.” Bones said, as if he snatched the thought out of Jim’s head.
“Shh.” Jim pressed closer as a gust of biting wind slammed into his back. Luxper had no structures or shelter. They had been holding Bones in the middle of a field and they disintegrated when Jim showed up, phaser pointed, ready to call backup.
They wouldn’t last too much longer this way. Jim wasn’t freezing yet but he would be--he had given Bones every piece of clothing he could and on top of that the heat blankets he’d found in the medical pack M’Benga had given him before he transported down.
“You remember my survival eval?” Jim asked, rubbing his hands down the crinkly surface of the heat blanket that was wrapped around Bones like a burrito.
“‘Course I do. Idiot.” Bones said, sounding more like himself since Jim landed here.
Jim couldn’t help but grin. They’d both managed to skirt disaster for three years at the Academy, despite the odds of them washing out stacked damn high against them and the near misses of Jim getting caught with some of his less reputable antics. All it took was a dumbass instructor who should have been in the academy himself and Bones mean streak of a protective instinct to get them both on suspension.
“Reminds me of this.” Jim said. “Though we got bailed out pretty quickly.”
“Barely. You nearly lost a foot.”
“You’re being dramatic. Only woulda been a few toes.” Jim remembered Bones slapping him awake, first bullying him, then cajoling, then begging. Both their lips had turned blue and Jim had been blessedly warm when rescue came.
“Thanks to me.” Bones coughed.
“So there’s no one else I’d wanna stay frozen too.” Jim said. “Again.”
Jim lost some skin and it took two weeks to fix. But Bones had lost more and still had scars on his shoulder from where they were stuck together. Jim spent a lot of time kissing those marks.
“What’d you say to me then, Bones?”
“For every few minutes I stay awake, I’d tell you something.”
“Tease.”
It was the first time Bones had told him he loved him. When he woke up under unforgiving Medbay lights he thought he’d dreamt it in a hypothermic hallucination.
But then Bones had kissed him in their quarters when he was released from the hospital (he’d discharged himself against orders early).
“Hey, Bones?”
“Yeah?”
“For every few minutes you stay awake, I’ll ask you something?”
Bones shuddered. “That right?”
It was an unconventional way to propose but Jim figured they were unconventional anyway.
