Work Text:
"And I say...There is still the silence...there is still the memory...."
There was blood on the hands of Leonard McCoy. Thick, hot, green blood. It slid through his fingers, soaked his coat through, gripped his skin like a punishment he wouldn’t be free of: **do something, do it now, save him. **
Spock lay semiconscious in the dirt, his chest barely moving as if even the act of breathing had become too much of an effort for him. A simple mission. That’s what they’d been told. Routine scan. No threats. Nothing dangerous. And now they were in red dust and shattered rock, and Spock was dying here.
McCoy slapped a bio-compression pack to the torn side of Spock’s abdomen in an effort to stem the bleeding. The portable regenerator was doing little to help. He was throwing out all his tricks, everything he’d been trained to do, and it wasn’t enough.
“Motherfuckers,” he cursed, his voice coming out sputtered with terror and anger. “You’re not dying here. Not like this!”
With his knees on the other side and one arm around Spock, as if he could hold him to life, kneel him there against his chest. Jim was ashen, his lips pursed shut, and—his eyes, usually burning with fire and defiance, were completely vacant.
Spock’s lips parted. His was a voice of air, no more than a whisper.
“Leonard…”
McCoy leaned over, his scanner shaking in his hand, struggling to concentrate.
“I’m here. Don’t talk. Save your strength!”
"Spock, I’m – " "No..." Spock’s gaze darted to Jim. “Jim…”
Kirk leaned in, their foreheads touching. His hands were cradling Spock’s face, shaking but slow and gentle, like in some way even now he couldn’t stop loving him with all his heart.
“I’m here,” Kirk whispered. “Right here. I’ve got you.”
“When I die…”
“Don’t.” Kirk interrupted him, voice cutting, breaking. “Don’t say that!”
But Spock didn’t stop. He never did.
“Take care of Leonard. Don’t let him be alone.”
McCoy froze.
His heart cracked wide in his chest, as if someone had punched a fist right into it. He couldn’t bear to look at either of them.
Spock was addressing Kirk, but it was McCoy who took his words like a knife.
“He’s pretending not to be interested,” Spock said softly. “But he feels… everything.”
The monitor beeped again. Slower. Weaker. Fading.
McCoy shook himself out of it and reached for the regenerator, pressing it more firmly to the wound as blood, now slimed over by his hands, welled through the cloth. His voice trembled.
"You keep your mouth shut you green-blooded son of a bitch," he growled. “You’re not going out like this. You hear me?”
Spock gave a cough, and green rose to his lips.
McCoy’s hands shook. His eyes blurred. He wasn’t sure if it was sweat, dirt or the tears now streaming down his face.
“Don’t even think about quitting,” he said under his breath. “Don’t you leave me.”
Jim said nothing. His expression was shattered. He’d just been stroking Spock’s hair, and he was heaving, his eyes wide as he stared at the man bleeding to death in his arms.
“You knew, didn’t you?” McCoy mumbled, his voice heavy and rough. “You both knew. Damn you.”
He no longer knew who he was talking to. Spock, Kirk, the universe. Himself.
“And I love him too,” he murmured. “I’ve been loving him all this damn time.”
Kirk looked up at him slowly. He didn’t look surprised.
The transporter whine started to grew up from the hollow beneath them.
“Enterprise, now!” Kirk yelled into his comm. “Lock on! He’s crashing!”
"Wait," Uhura's voice was choppy and far away. “Come in — nearly have — signal — interference — “
“Spock, listen to me,” McCoy said, putting his face nearby. “You don’t get to go. Not until I tell you—hell, not until you *feel* it. I’m here. I love you. And I’m not letting you go.”
Light swallowed them.
----------
Sickbay was chaos.
McCoy never stopped moving for a second. He barked orders, pushed nurses out of the way, connected lines, smacked cardiac stabilizers on Spock’s chest. He didn’t see the blood on his face, or feel the ache in his back, or think about the fact that his hands wouldn’t stop shaking. All he could see was Spock. Pale, unmoving. Slipping.
He didn’t even hear Kirk follow him any longer. Only the hum of the monitors. The beeping. The silence between them.
Spock was not breathing on his own.
“Move,” McCoy muttered and thrust a hypo into his neck. “Come on, Spock. You don’t get to leave us. Not like this. Not after all this time.”
He worked without rest. Without thought. Just raw instinct. Just desperation.
When the readings finally steadied, when Spock's chest rose again, even and quiet and solid, McCoy staggered back and pressed himself against the wall. His chest heaved as if he’d been the one struggling for his life.
He was shaking.
Kirk came closer, and took his place at his side without speaking. His face was smeared with dirt, hands bloodied and tears not yet dried. He didn’t look a day older, but he looked as if he’d aged years in an hour.
McCoy didn’t speak.
He couldn’t.
And then Kirk murmured, softly, “He told me to look after you.”
McCoy’s eyes burned. He didn't take his eyes off Spock.
“He thought that he was going to die,” he said softly. “And he spent his dying breaths to insure I would not be alone.”
“You would not have been,” Kirk said. “Never.”
McCoy laughed. It cracked like broken glass.
“I didn’t think I mattered. Not like that.”
“You matter,” Kirk said. “To him. To me.”
McCoy swiveled and met his eyes, brimming over. “You knew?”
Kirk nodded. “Yeah. I think… I think we all did. We just didn’t say it.”
McCoy dropped onto the closed bench at the far wall. His whole body hurt. His heart ached.
“I was so frightened,” he whispered. “I thought — I thought I was going to lose him without ever telling him.”
Kirk sat beside him. Their shoulders touched. Warm. Steady.
“I believe he already knew,” Kirk said quietly.
They turned to Spock then, both of them. Pale. Still. But alive.
McCoy wiped at his face. Futile — he was still crying, and he didn’t give a damn. Now the tears flowed as easily as the blood had, and this time he allowed them to.
“I love him,” McCoy said. “And I love you too.”
Kirk stretched out, took his hand. Held it tight.
“We love you back,” he said. “It was never only me and you.”
McCoy looked at him. And for the first time in ages, he felt it.
He gazed again at Spock, unconscious but still breathing. Gorgeous and shattered and alive.
Maybe they could fix this.
Perhaps they could fix *each other. *