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It was the tone that made him sure.
It was the tone of voice, and the fact that it was Scotty: a man so light-hearted it almost made Leonard jealous, sounding like the stars had stopped shining and gravity had sent him reeling out toward the dark.
He hadn’t been wrong, to think that.
And as he takes in what’s in front of him: Scotty with his arm around Uhura, Spock with his hand pressed up against a stark pane of glass that Leonard knows, knows holds back something dangerous and precious, keeps safe the world and damns it all at once—as he sees what he cannot see, what his heart is railing in his chest to be spared from, he wonders if he couldn’t have moved quicker, sprinted just a bit faster from sickbay: if only he’d dropped his instruments rather than handing them off, if he’d been closer, if he’d gone to the Bridge instead of overseeing the transfer of the cryotubes personally, if he’d not stewed those extra moments in self-righteous vindication at the sheer fuckery that had unfolded, that Khan had unleashed: that had proven Leonard right, because this was a goddamn asinine idea from the very start, and when it was over, when it was over he was tying James Kirk to a biobed and running scans on his sorry hide until the man was flirting with normal levels of everything, everything, and every part of him was healthy and whole, safe and sound and his. Leonard’s.
Like it ought to be.
But he takes in what’s in front of him, sees the end of days unfold as Jim’s paws against the glass, as a tear trails down Spock’s cheek, and if Leonard didn’t know any better, if he didn’t understand the world and fairness and feeling and loss as he does, he’d think this was punishment. He’d think this was hell.
He’s on his knees, he’s next to Spock in an instant; Jim’s eyes are losing focus, and Leonard can read the symptoms in his eyes, his face, his frame: ataxia as he tries to match his hand to Leonard’s now where it presses to the right of Spock’s; tremor in the fingers from the knuckles, from the wrist; vomit pooled next to him, the crusting of it at the corner of his lips, and no, no.
No.
“You stupid, fucking,” Leonard can’t finish the thought for the rush of blood interrupting; he can’t say the words for the way his heart’s twisting, thrashing in his chest, pulse lancing at his throat.
“Bone,” Jim shapes the word with his lips, his eyes blinking slow, lidded heavy—he shapes the word, but it only comes out as a moan as Jim’s mouth works around his tongue: the pain, the way the world has to be shifting and falling and caving in: “Hmm,” he keens, and if Leonard were a less observant man, he might think it a considering hum, but no, he can see it, the way Jim’s consciousness is lagging, the way his coordination starts to give.
“Bones.” Jim says it, finally manages, and the man’s always been a stubborn sonuvabitch, true, but Leonard’s not expecting it. He’s not expecting it, and it chokes him, it makes his blood flash cold and his eyes burn with the weight, with the way that everything in this universe dies and he knows it.
He knows it.
“What the hell were you thinking?” Leonard demands, dredges out in broken shards of speech, ill-fitted and wavering. “Were you thinking?”
Jim blinks, and his fingers spasm against the glass, and Leonard imagines for a moment that he can feel it, and god—what he’d give to feel that hand in his own just now, just one more time.
“Did you,” Jim struggles, his chest heaving and his expression contorting with the way it all starts to sag, all starts to give way, and Leonard can guess at how long they’ve got left, he can guess.
He doesn’t want to.
“Did you think,” Jim rasps, wrenching Leonard back into the moment, this moment, and none of the ones that come after; “that I could let you die?”
And fuck all, just; just fuck all, but Leonard fell in love with a moron with a savior complex, a hero with a heart of gold.
“Jim,” he exhales, because it’s starting to sink in, and Leonard thinks that glass is too thick, too thin: there’s a burning in his cells, in his bones because it’s ending, by god, it’s ending and he can’t take it, he won’t, he, he’s— “Goddamnit, Jim.”
And that bastard, that fucking beautiful bastard: he smirks, and it looks painful, and he pants, and it looks desperate.
“Mmm glad you’re,” Jim slurs, breaks off; “you’re,” and Leonard is mesmerized, sickened by the shallow vibrating of those ribs, up and down, getting nothing, near the close.
“Not so scary now,” Jim tells him, and that’s a godforsaken lie, because Leonard is nothing short of terrified.
And really, he’s nothing short of dying himself, if he’s honest. Shriveling from the inside. Bleeding out from the heart for all that it matters, for all that anything is true.
“You’re,” Jim wheezes, shakes, “you’ve been,” and Leonard wants to reach out, wants to hold him and fight for him, to save him like he saves everyone else because Jim deserves it.
Leonard needs him.
“All that I thought I couldn’t,” Jim breathes out, frail and flimsy and yet the words, and the other words that they imply: they’re diamond, they’re lead, and they settle and sink and Leonard will fall, he won’t come back from this, he’ll never stand tall again, he’ll never breathe full again, he won’t.
“You,” Jim falters, stammers: “you have,” he breathes, and Leonard can see that it’s harder now, it’s a fight now, an active battle rather than a simple trial: “you are, I—”
“Shh, Jim,” Leonard urges, pleads, and he hadn’t realized he’d pressed so close to the glass until he notices the streaking, the wetness from his eyes, on his cheeks, smeared against the surface. “Stop,” he begs, his hand shifting on the glass for the sweat in his palm; “Just, hold on,” Leonard’s eyes dart to the readout, and there are only minutes left, just minutes; “The sequence is almost finished, we can get you out—”
“Bones.” It’s so clear, this time, even if it’s too quiet. Jim’s eyes are closed, and Leonard realizes he hadn’t looked at them close enough, hadn’t soaked them deep enough into his marrow, and he needs that, he needs those eyes, he needs to drink them and breathe them and fuck, fuck, he can’t swallow and his lungs are broken and this is his end, this is his demise, he is—
“Thank you,” Jim mouths, and those eyes slide open just a bit, just enough to bore into him, and no, no, Leonard needs more, it isn’t enough, it isn’t fair and it isn’t right and he’s drowning, and it’s worse, it’s so much worse than any nightmare, any fear of falling, it’s—
The hand pressed against the glass across from his palm slides away, gentle; those eyes slip closed, and Leonard can’t look at that chest and watch it still, he can’t.
He’s gone.