Cut Your Little Heart Out

Warnings: AU, Character death, zombies, misuse of commas and the English language

Disclaimer: I don't own Star Trek XI or any of its related franchises. I'm just having some fun.

A/N: Not beta'd so any and all mistakes are the result of lazy proofreading. This is a modern day zombie!AU. I've been trying to write a zombie fic for over a year now and it took a few hours of playing Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare to inspire me to finally write it. I'm sure zombie fics are cliche by now but...yeah. That's okay.

It starts with a bite, a seemingly small wound on the inside of Jim's elbow that broke the skin and left behind a red, swollen, perfect indentation of human teeth. The mouth is a filthy, filthy place and McCoy rants and rants about bacteria, about diseases, about death and everything under the sun that could be transmitted from something as innocent as a bite. He rants until he's out of breath and there's nothing he can do but look at Jim and press his fingers against this too white bandage wrapped around too pale skin.

"It's not a big deal," Jim says but there's a bead of sweat rolling down the side of his face and his eyes are fever bright in a way that makes McCoy shift in his chair, press his fingers just a bit harder to the covered flesh.

McCoy wipes the sweat away with his thumb and tries to ignore the heat radiating beneath his palm. "Probably not but get some rest." He shoves a few pills into Jim's hands, an antibiotic he keeps in the medicine cabinet just for his accident prone and highly allergic to everything boyfriend. "And stay away from the crazies at the bus stop."

Jim grins, a lopsided smile that lights up his face like a Christmas tree, only a few bulbs seem to be missing and maybe a few are burnt out too. It's not the same, there's something missing, but Jim still leans in and presses a kiss to the corner of McCoy's mouth. "Yes, Dr. McCoy. Anything you say, Dr. McCoy." He gives this stupid little salute that makes McCoy's eyes roll so far into the back of his head, it hurts.

Jim disappears into the bedroom and McCoy is left sitting at the kitchen table alone.

It's sometime around four am and Jim's temperature is so high that the thermometer pressed to his forehead can't record a reading. He's flushed and sweat is pouring down his face, soaking his clothes, the sheets, and McCoy can't wipe it away fast enough.

Jim's moaning and it's this horrible, awful sound that twists McCoy's heart right in his chest. It's the sound of excruciating pain and it's foreign and gut-wrenching spilling from Jim's lips.

"It was only a bite," McCoy mutters, to himself, to Jim, and the words hang hollowly in the bedroom. There's a protocol to follow here, one that has been engrained in his mind since his first year of medical school. This is no longer something McCoy can take care of with pills and Band-Aids.

His fingers are slippery, damp, from the sweat dripping off Jim's forehead and it's hard for McCoy to get a grip on his cell phone. It slides in his hands and maybe some of this is nerves but he manages to press the right keys. He gets a busy signal, over and over again. 911 is too busy to help him, to help Jim.

Jim is wheezing now, laboring to breathe, and combined with the moaning, McCoy wants to cover his ears and close his eyes because this can't be happening. Not from a goddamn bite.

McCoy throws the phone down and gathers Jim into his arms. "We've got to get your temperature down, kid." This is the best he can do until he can reach help, until Jim's body temperature is back within normal limits. He doesn't have the equipment, the medications, or the tests to do anything else. He's fucking helpless and there's a man squirming in his arms, skin so hot McCoy almost can't stand to hold him.

He takes Jim into the bathroom and places him in the tub, turning the cold tap on full blast. The water starts to flood around Jim's body, pooling around his ankles and gently spilling over his thighs. McCoy places a cool washcloth on his head and runs his fingers through Jim's dark, soaked hair because this is all he can do.

Jim reaches a hand out of the icy water toward McCoy, rivets of water cascading down his arm, dripping back into the tub. "Bones," he's saying but it's muffled, slurred, and it sounds nothing like the familiar nickname.

McCoy takes the hand, twines their fingers together until he can't tell which digits belong to him and which belong to Jim. "Shut up, idiot. You've got to save your energy." His tone is rough around the edges but the words are empty, missing the usual heat behind them.

Jim lays there, in this bathtub that's filled to the rim, spilling over the edges, and his chest is heaving, his mouth hangs open, and his lips as blue as his eyes. His fingers go slack in McCoy's hand. He stops breathing.

There is water everywhere – on the floor, soaked into the rug, streaking down McCoy's face. His fingers are now wrinkled, pruned, but it doesn't matter and he doesn't care because his hands are pressed against the thin, wet fabric of Jim's shirt. He rhythmically pumps his hands, over and over again, but this isn't working. Nothing is working and Jim is cold, clammy and lifeless on the bathroom floor.

McCoy's been performing CPR for over an hour now and it's time to give up. He would have called it a long time ago if there was a different person underneath his hands. He presses one final kiss to Jim's lips, hoping this breath of air will revive him, will make him open up those baby blues and grin crookedly up at McCoy like this whole thing was a huge joke. But Jim just lays there and McCoy sinks back against the bathtub, his legs splayed out in front of him, his hands uselessly resting in his lap.

He closes his eyes and everything is so goddamn wet. His face is moist and there are drops dripping down onto his lips, clinging to his chin and sliding down his neck. He wants to wipe them away but he can't move, can't think and this is going to be the rest of his life.

He sits there, his ragged breathing filling his eardrums, and there is one heart beating in this room, one set of lungs filling with air, one hand wrapping around his leg. McCoy jerks back, his head slamming hard against the rim of the tub. His eyes shoot open and there's Jim in front of him, reaching out to him, looking right at him and maybe all of this was a bad dream.

McCoy swallows hard and the pain in the back of his skull is nothing but a dull distraction. He wants to rub at his eyes, pinch himself, because this isn't right. "Jim?" He pitches forward, rests on his knees and his hands are all over, gripping at Jim's face, pressing against Jim's wrist, his neck, his thigh, trying to find a pulse, a rhythm beneath his fingers that will validate this miracle. He finds nothing and he doesn't care.

"Holy fuck, Jim." McCoy is staring at Jim like he hasn't seen him for years. He can't look away and he can't help but notice the way Jim's upper lip is lifted into a snarl, the way his eyes are red, bloodshot. He can't ignore the stream of blood trailing from Jim's nostril and he reaches out to wipe it away.

That's when Jim growls and lunges for McCoy's throat.

McCoy is perched on the roof of the house, a heavy, awkward shotgun cradled in his arms. This was his father's gun, stored in the shed and forgotten about for the past five years and now it's in McCoy's hands and he can't remember how to handle it. His hands are shaking, his heart thumping louder and harder than it ever has, and he can't tell if the safety is off, if there are bullets in the magazine.

It's hard to concentrate with blood rushing through his ears and that god-awful moaning coming from somewhere beneath his bare feet. The noise is harsher than before, almost deafening now, and sounds like pure pain. It's an otherworldly moan that makes McCoy's hands tighten on the gun, hold it just a bit closer.

He stands on the edge of the roof, just close enough to peer down below, and there's Jim with his empty eyes, shuffling back and forth by the ladder McCoy hasn't bothered to kick down yet. Maybe it has to do with a lack of fine motor skills (or maybe a lack of a sinus rhythm) but Jim doesn't seem to be able to quite figure out how to climb the ladder. He stares at it, moans, stumbles into it, but doesn't touch it. And McCoy lets it stand.

The sun is starting to rise beyond the horizon and as the sky explodes with pinks and oranges, McCoy wonders if he's going to wake up soon, if this is going to be over and Jim is going to roll over and knee him in the kidneys like he does every morning. McCoy will grumble into his pillow about how it's too early, how he needs some goddamn coffee and Jim will sneak off to start a pot.

But there's this gleam shining off the bandage covering Jim's arm and he knows he's not going to get coffee this morning and there are only two ways off this roof.

The shotgun is beginning to weigh McCoy down, making his arms tired, and it feels like he's holding a thousand bricks. He fumbles with it, almost lets it slip out of his hands but he manages to hold on to the only protection he has. The gun is the only thing keeping his heart beating, his lungs functioning. It's the only thing that's going to prevent Jim from taking a chunk out of him.

Jim's body is changing with every minute that ticks by. His skin is becoming a pale, discolored, mottled mess and he looks like a walking bruise. There are blisters, from what McCoy can see, on his lips, on his cheeks, and cellular breakdown is a nasty thing to watch.

He looks nothing like the Jim McCoy knows; nothing like the man he's known for years and was planning to spend forever with. He's a shell, a hollow, lifeless husk but he's still Jim, somewhere in there, biologically. And McCoy can't shoot him. The gun is useless.

He keeps his eyes on Jim though, watches every step he takes, every change in his body. And there's this moment when it almost looks like Jim's eyes light up, for just a second, and his hand wraps around the bottom rung of the ladder. Leave it to Jim to be a fucking undead genius.

It's only a matter of time now, before Jim climbs up the ladder, before he sinks his teeth into McCoy's body and tears and tears until they become the same. Maybe this is how they're going to spend eternity and this is okay, strangely okay, because they'll be together and that's better than any future McCoy can think of.

McCoy sinks to his knees and lets the gun fall from his shaking fingers. He closes his eyes and waits.