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Anomalies were a reality of their world. The theory behind them varied from culture to culture, some believed they were a punishment, others a blessing, some thought they were nothing at all. But no matter the belief, the scientific explanation, or the propaganda, the reality was that Anomalies happened. Hair colors changed, people found themselves suddenly ten years younger, missing months of their lives, or 5000 miles away from where they had been standing not seconds before. There were no warnings, no common factors, just the Anomalies and their consequences.
And, until a few hours ago, Leonard McCoy viewed Anomalies as something that happened to other people.
He had been rushing home from the clinic after a long day made longer by the fact that he knew his boyfriend was waiting for him. Jim had planned this dinner for them weeks ago and Len knew that the table would already be set, dinner would be waiting in the oven to keep it warm, and a bottle of wine would be open and sitting on the counter. He also knew that the blond he had spent the three years of his life with would be sitting on the edge of the counter, feet knocking against the cabinets nervously. It was their anniversary and Len had gotten caught up at work.
He knew that their relationship was strong. After knowing each other for the last five years and dating for the last three it had to be. Both of them were too stubborn and headstrong to have lasted this long if they weren’t willing to put the work in. Yet, knowing Jim as well as he did, Len knew that there would be a small niggling worry in the back of Jim’s head, telling him that Len didn’t think he was worth coming home to. Jim had always been worried about Len packing up and finding someone better, someone more set on the path through life, someone his own age. Len had kissed countless nights worth of affirmations and love into Jim’s skin to assure him otherwise. All the while trying to quiet the voice at the back of his own head that told him Jim would find someone who could move and grow with him, not the doctor that had already dedicated his life to one cause that would keep him here for decades to come. Six years didn’t seem like it should make a difference, and yet 21 and 27 seemed worlds apart, especially when Jim hadn’t even been legal when they met.
Len had all this on his mind and a little more when he suddenly found himself on his back blinking up at the bright morning sky of San Francisco when he had most certainly been walking in the early evening. There had been no pressure, no push, nothing, just Len taking a step and then suddenly he was on his back. He pushed himself to a sitting position and groaned. He felt stiff, as if his body hadn’t moved in hours. He was overcome by the thought that he might have been attacked, that somehow he had ended up spending the night sprawled on the sidewalk in front of his building and Jim was worrying himself sick up in their apartment.
Slowly pushing himself to his feet, Len checked himself over for any clues that showed he’d been mugged or knocked out. No blood, no pain other than the strange stiff aching, and his wallet was still in his pocket. Not a mugging then. He was physically fine. An Anomaly. Len would bet his damned medical license on it.
Still feeling a little out of it, Len shuffled into the building and beelined for the door marked 203. He tried to think of what he was going to tell Jim, how he was going to explain being gone all night without so much as a word. With a curse he fumbled with the key. Finally the key managed to enter the slot and Len turned it with more force than necessary, only to find it wouldn’t budge.
His blood ran cold. An Anomaly. What if he hadn’t only been gone a night?
He tried the key again, rocking it back and forth as he felt the panic rising in his chest. The key didn’t work and if the key didn’t work exactly how long had he been gone? Len was about to try another key out of pure desperation when the door swung open.
Standing the doorway was a man who was most certainly not Jim. The man was just slightly taller, leaner, and had a shock of black hair that was miles away from the golden blond of Jim’s.
“Uh, can I help you?” The stranger was eyeing Len up and down, obviously concerned about the frantic looking man who was trying to get into his apartment. Len swallowed thickly and glanced past him. The apartment was the right color, but all the furniture was wrong, nothing was in the right place.
“I …” Len took a deep breath and steadied himself on the door frame. The guy took a hesitant step forward, looking ready to catch Len if he fell forward. “I used to live here…”
The other man looked skeptical. “Listen, I know the guy who bought the place new. Are you on something? Do I need to call the hospital for you?” Len closed his eyes and shook his head quickly.
“Do you know where he is?”
“If you’re looking for someone I can call them for you.” He had no idea why this stranger was being so nice to him, he obviously just believed Len was strung out and confused. The idea made Len second guess himself. Maybe he was in the wrong part of town, maybe he had been drugged. He looked to the doorjamb that he still had his hand braced against. Just above his fingers was a carving of a star, gouged into the wood with a pocket knife and painted in a deep blue. The tiny mark that Jim left each place he had lived, a tradition that Jim’s mother had started years before Jim had been born. No, this was the right place.
“Do you know where Jim is?” He turned back to the man who now lived in their home. “Where did he go?”
The guy shuffled uneasily. “You know Jim?”
Len nodded slowly, trying to ignore the tight knot in his stomach was telling him Jim was hundreds of miles away. “I just..I just need to talk to him.”
“Well…” the man sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. “You can find him on campus. You know where the college is?” Again Len nodded, of course Jim was at the college. The kid practically lived there with the class load he always took on. “He’ll be in room 315 until four o’clock. It’s only three right now, so you have time to catch him.”
Len nearly hugged the man in relief. “Thank you.” He tried to pour the gratitude he felt into those two words. The other man nodded and closed the door slowly, as if he was unsure he should really let Len out of his sight, but Len was already rushing back out of the building and towards the campus, room 315 and, hopefully, Jim.
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The college hadn’t changed too dramatically overall, but there were things Len certainly didn’t recognize. Namely the large central building that held a plaque dedicating it to the sciences by one J.T. Kirk in the name of C. Pike. Len’s heart stuttered uncomfortably. Every wrong turn, every new building, every empty lot was pointing to Len having been gone for years. Years of his life, gone. Years he was supposed to have spent with the man behind the door of room 315.
Raising a shaky arm, Len knocked on the door, trying ignore the white block letters on the glass that stated J.T. Kirk Ph.D occupied the office. There was some shuffling, the sound of a stack of papers hitting the ground, a very familiar curse. Len’s heart clenched when the doorknob turned and the door flew open.
“Sorry. Office hours are over early today I–” Jim stopped short with a sharp intake of breath. Len swallowed hard and took in the image of the man in front of him.
Jim was older. Much older. The crinkles that had always appeared at the edges of his eyes when he grinned or laughed were there even though Jim’s face was slack in shock. There were lines starting to show in parenthesis around his mouth and gray was edging back from his temples. Len knew it matched the gray in Jim’s beard even though he was currently clean shaven. Even at twenty one Jim had been going gray, now though, it fit his face. The thought made Len’s stomach flip. Jim was older, but even stranger, Jim was older than him.
The only things that hadn’t changed were Jim’s eyes. They were still that earth-stopping blue. They narrowed in confusion and pain as long seconds passed.
“Bones?” Jim’s mouth twisted in disbelief. “Bones.” Len tried to swallow past the painful dryness of his throat, he opened his mouth and closed it again. He didn’t know what to say. Everything was so wrong, so out of place. Less than two hours ago he’d been a doctor at the very start of his promising career, living with the love of his life, and reveling in sharing that life with such a passionate young man. Now–now he was the consequence of an Anomaly and the man he had given his entire heart to was staring like at Len like he had just shattered his world apart.
“Jim, I don’t…” Len licked his lips and took a shuddering breath. “Oh, god.” Jim hadn’t moved since he opened the door, but he lunged to catch Len, who pitched forward as his legs finally gave out under the reality settling on his shoulders. “Oh, god. No.”
---------------
Len sat on the lumpy couch of Jim’s office with his head in his hands. Jim shifted at his desk uncomfortably, staring at the mug of tea he wrapped his fingers around. The silence in the room was deafening, pressing in on Len like it was trying to suffocate him. Finally, he spoke.
“How long was I gone?” He looked up at Jim, trying to keep his gaze and voice steady. “How long has it been?”
Jim cleared his throat and refused to meet Len’s eyes. “Maybe we should just–”
“How long, Jim?”
Jim winced and bit his lip nervously. He sighed and finally looked Len in the eyes.
“Fifteen years.” The previous silence was replaced by a roar of white noise as Len tried to breathe. The room was spinning, forcing him to drop his head back into his hands with a groan. Fifteen years. He had been gone for almost two decades.
This was so much worse than the stories Len had grown up reading. In those, people were placed so far out of their time that they had nothing left. Hundreds or even thousands of years separated them from their families, their jobs, their lives. A clean break into a new life, heartbreaking yes, but merciful. This was painfully cruel, being able to see his life move on without him. What had happened to his mother? What had his friends thought? What had Jim thought?
“I’m so sorry,” he choked out, still too stunned to do anything but sit and try to wrap his head around everything. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to leave.”
“I know.” Jim’s voice was soft and patient, nothing like the comforting tones Jim had used on him before. It was the voice of someone who had grown up to become a teacher and a mentor. It was the voice of a stranger.
Len’s heart squeezed painfully. It was all too much. Len didn’t even know what to do with himself and Jim was sitting at his desk watching him fall apart. Of course Jim had fifteen years to come to terms with Len’s disappearance. Len hadn’t even had a day. He looked at Jim again, feeling so young and exposed under those patient eyes.
“What am I going to do?”
“I…” Jim glanced down at his hands again and took a deep breath. “I don’t know, Bones.” The name sounded forced. Apparently, Jim wasn’t used to using it anymore. “I have to admit, I didn’t expect you to ever show up again. Especially not like…” Jim gestured to Len vaguely, seeming to have just as hard a time with the age difference as Len. “There...shit.” Jim set his mug on the desk and rubbed his face roughly. “There’s no easy way to do any of this, is there?”
Len shook his head with a heavy sigh. “Please, just...Just tell me?”
Jim swallowed hard, but nodded. “We called the police, obviously they never found you. A few people thought you left I...I don’t really talk to them anymore.” Jim rubbed his hands together nervously, looking like he was trying to build the courage to say what he had to. “Your mom–” Jim’s voice broke and Len’s stomach dropped out. Elanora had always been terribly fond of Jim, taking him in like her own, especially when Jim’s dad had fallen victim to an Anomaly of his own.
“How?”
“Cancer. She fought it for about six years, but…” Jim shrugged lamely. “She never thought you left. A few of us knew that you wouldn’t, couldn’t just…” Each word was a struggle for them both. Len needed to hear what he had missed, Jim was fighting to say what Len had no doubt he had fought to ignore for years. “Ny, Scotty, Christine. I mean, they all knew you so well, none of them could even begin to believe that you’d just up and leave without a word.”
The names that were conspicuous by their absence hurt, but the fact that Jim hadn’t said where he stood on the matter made Len’s gut twist.
“Did you…?”
Jim avoided Len’s eyes again and it made the doctor’s heart ache. “I didn’t at first, but after a few years it got...Bones you were just gone. I didn’t want to think that you’d just disappear on me like that, but it got so hard to convince myself that you hadn’t just found an out and took it. It was our anniversary, I was–” Jim’s voice caught and he cleared his throat roughly. “Spock talked me down, reminded me how much you had cared. You’d be surprised how offended he got the first time someone suggested that you had cut and run.”
Len was surprised. He and Spock had never gotten along and Len had always suspected that Spock disapproved of their relationship. Finding out differently made the entire situation a little harder to swallow, but at the same time it was a relief to know that even Jim’s best friend was convinced that Len wouldn’t abandon him like that.
Jim was still avoiding looking at him for too long. The amount of time he was spending looking at his hands or playing with the mug of tea was becoming painfully obvious. Len wasn’t used to seeing Jim like this. It was completely unsettling.
“That weird, huh?” Len tried to keep his tone light, but he knew it fell short. Jim looked relieved by the effort anyway and gave him a crooked smile that made the knot in Len’s chest loosen. There. That smile was all Jim Kirk and so familiar even in the aged face.
“You’re still 27. It’s pretty weird.” Jim leaned back in his chair and folded his hands over his stomach absently. “I was always the younger one and now...I mean, Jesus, Bones, you look exactly like I remember you. Exactly. I know I’m not exactly old, but seeing you like this is so fucking bizarre.” Something had shifted and Len was talking to a 21-year-old Jim again. Maybe it was the only way Jim knew how to talk to him, maybe it was Jim letting his guard down. Either way, it was an immense relief. Jim was making up for all the avoidance now by starring Len down in the kind of intensity that had attracted Len to him in the first place. A shiver ran up Len’s spine and he tried to play it off on the stress, but the truth was that it always happened when Jim looked at him like that. If the situation hadn’t been so painful, he probably would have laughed at the fact that he now had physical proof of what he had been telling Jim for years. You’re the most ridiculously attractive person I’ve ever met, Darlin’. That isn’t going to change.
Then again, this wasn’t the insecure, barely-a-man, Jim that Len had coaxed out of his shell. This was the grown-up, confident Jim Kirk that had always been just beneath the surface of all those fears and insecurities. This was Doctor James T. Kirk, established and strong in ways Len had only dreamed he would be. It made his heart pound in pride and fear at the same time.
“Is there...I mean I can’t expect that you waited and I…” It was such an awkward question. They couldn’t be done and over with, less than five hours ago they had been ready to celebrate their anniversary. Jim’s wince reminded Len that it hadn’t been five hours ago for Jim, it had been fifteen years ago.
“Honestly? I never found anyone I wanted to stick around.” Len wanted to ask. He knew he had no right to feel betrayed by the fact that Jim had found love, no matter how brief, somewhere else. But everything was still so close for him and he couldn’t keep the emotion in check. He changed the subject quickly, not wanting to know where Jim’s romantic life was right now. The thought of having to smile and congratulate the man on a budding relationship made something ugly and bitter rise up in his throat.
“So a Ph.D, huh? I always told you you’d get it, kid.” Len startled at Jim’s laugh. It was bright and loud, just like Len had heard the morning before he left for the clinic. “What?”
“Kid? Bones, I’m nine years older than you now!” Jim started to laugh again, dropping his head to the desk and covering his head with his arms as his shoulders shook. Len couldn’t fight back the chuckle that rose in his chest when he saw Jim fall into his usually laughing pose. Maybe things hadn’t changed too much, maybe there was still a place for him here, even if it wasn’t as Jim’s boyfriend.
Jim finally got himself under control and looked up at Len with a grin. “I’ve missed you so much, Bones.” Len’s heart clenched for the upteenth time. Jim suddenly looked very shy. “You don’t have a place to stay do you?”
He swallowed hard. “No. I don’t. I just...our apartment apparently isn’t...ours anymore.”
“Yeah,” Jim nodded and frowned. “I was there for awhile, but Ny convinced me to move out once I had enough money saved up. It wasn’t exactly healthy for me to stay. The guy staying there now is my TA, Sulu. He needed a place to stay and I never really could bring myself to sell the place.” Jim licked his lips and leaned forward again. “You could stay with me. I know it’ll be weird, but it’s better than a hotel in a city you don’t know anymore.”
Len couldn’t help but think that he didn’t really know the man offering him a place to stay anymore either, but that wasn’t why he hesitated.
“I won’t be intruding on anything right?” When Jim looked confused he continued. “I mean, you don’t have someone…”
Jim’s eyes went wide and he shook his head quickly. “Oh. Oh no. I mean, like I said, I never really found anyone I wanted to stick around. It would just be us.” Len bit the inside of his lip and nodded slowly.
“Okay.”
---------------
The first touch had been awkward to say the least. Len had reached out and put a hand on the back of Jim’s neck absently, a gesture he did so many times a day that it was almost automatic. Jim had jumped a foot.
“Sorry! I’m sorry. I’m just not used to–”
Len cut him off with a quick shake of his head. “Its okay. I just...I forgot, I’m sorry.”
They fell into an awkward silence as Jim moved around the apartment in his usual evening routine. Len half watched him and half looked around the flat. The blue star had been on the doorjamb just like he had expected, but the inside of the house was more refined and toned-down from what he was used to with Jim. The furniture were sturdy pieces that reminded Len of home and the walls were lined with art and shelves that were much more to his taste than Jim’s.
Each unfamiliar item he found drained a little more energy out of him. He hadn’t really had time to process what had happened–what was happening–and how he was going to move forward from here. Each glance at Jim made him realize what a mistake had been to come back with him.
Jim gestured to the couch and gave him a tired smile. “Want to watch a movie or something?”
“Sure.” They both flopped onto the couch (one much more comfortable than the one in Jim’s office) and Jim turned on the tv and flicked through the channels lazily. It was familiar and completely out of place at the same time. Exhaustion settled into Len’s bones and forced a scared whisper out of him. “I have no idea what to do.”
There was a long pause before Jim set the remote down and sighed. “Me either.” Jim wasn’t looking at him, but Len didn’t need him to, to know the flicker of fear he’d see in Jim’s eyes. “I’d thought about it so many times–what I would do if you ever came back–but now that you’re here…”
Silence filled in the rest of Jim’s sentence. There was so much that could be said and maybe even more that couldn’t. Jim wasn’t the same man anymore. He may have parts of the man Len knew in him, but there was so much more to him now. It played back into all of Len’s fears of Jim not having someone who could grow with him, only now the reality was that Jim had grown without Len altogether. Jim sighed again and rubbed his face tiredly, a habit he had picked up from Len so many years before.
“I can’t expect you to just...I know we can’t just pick up where we left off.” He hoped that Jim would at least want to try, but the age difference between them was even more pronounced now. Len would have to build his life from the ground up while Jim was already settled and successful. “I wouldn’t blame you for not wanting to pick it up at all.” Len was honestly surprised by how steady his own voice was, especially considering that inside he felt like he was shaking apart.
Jim’s head whipped around to look at him, horror written all over his face. “I was going to propose to you!”
Len jerked back at the sudden exclamation, eyes wide in shock. “What?”
“I was going to propose, the night you disappeared.” Jim swallowed roughly and licked his lips. “I was ready to spend the rest of my life with you, Bones. And the thing is, that never changed. Now you show back up and you think I’m not going to jump at a second chance? I know I’m older, I know things are different, but I never stopped loving you. I can’t.”
Without a word, Len reached over and took Jim’s face in his hands, pulling him close and pressing a soft, loving kiss to his lips. Jim stiffened for a heartbeat before grabbing Len’s wrists and pulling him in closer, throwing his entire body into the kiss. They broke apart with a gasp and Jim pressed his forehead to Len’s, keeping his eyes squeezed shut. “Oh fuck, Bones. I’ve missed you so much. I never thought I’d see you again.” His voice was high and desperate and breaking Len’s heart with every word. “Please don’t leave again. We’ll figure this out, just please don’t disappear again.”
Len pulled him in for another kiss before whispering back, finding his voice just as desperate and afraid as Jim’s. “I won’t. I’m here now, I’m not going anywhere.”
They both knew it wasn’t something he could promise, but it was a reassurance that Len would never willingly leave Jim’s side and Jim seemed to take that to heart. He let go of Len’s wrists and all but dragged the other man onto his lap, pressing desperate open mouthed kisses to Len’s jaw and throat. Len groaned and clung to Jim’s shoulders, digging his fingers into the fabric of his shirt to push him back and claim his mouth again.
They spent hours exploring each other. Len pressing his hands and lips to skin that was so familiar and so new, cataloging each new scar and freckle, memorizing Jim all over again. Jim, so much more patient than he had been, was no less playful. He teased and built Len up, opening him slowly and whispering well used professions of love. It was slow and passionate and left both of them breathless, but so much closer. And while it wasn’t perfect, it was life affirming and reassuring. This was still them.
There was still so much to figure out, but Jim and Bones were both strong headed and stubborn, and they were both willing to put in the work. After all, fifteen years was a drop in the bucket compared to the lifetime they would spend together.