A Rope Ends It

Summary: The moment Jim saw his Chief Medical Officer, he suspected he'd reached the end of their lucky streaks. Kirk/McCoy established. Slash. Deathfic. Profanity.

Response to st_xi_kink prompt:"Crew is on some mission in anti-Federation enemies' territory (feel free to have it be Klingons, Romulans, I don't care). Kirk and co are sabotaging things. Something goes wrong and McCoy gets trapped under something. They can't get him out, can't beam him out, and enough of him is trapped that they can't just saw off a leg or something. The army that's coming is just too big, and McCoy and everyone *knows* he will break under torture and spill important secrets. So McCoy asks Kirk to put a phaser shot through him. Kirk does. Crew escapes, leaving the body there."

The title comes from the anagram of "Desperation" so rearrange the letters and you get "a rope ends it".

The moment Jim saw his Chief Medical Officer, he suspected he'd reached the end of their lucky streaks. And they had been very lucky. But as all things do, it runs out. Jim just hoped against all hope that this time, they could somehow cheat death again. For all his optimism, bravado and Deus ex Machinas, it was still gonna take a fucking miracle of all motherfucking miracles for them too pull this one off. Still he wasn't Captain Jim "I am un-fucking-believable" Kirk for nothing.

Jim jogged up to the remains of the Romulan Runic Shrine, shaking his head. Fuck. This wasn't supposed to happen. Bones was supposed to be at the sidelines, ensconced safely in the catacomb-like network etched inside the valley. Safe. They had banked on the Romulan's deep respect for their sacred places. Apparently their hatred and paranoia of enemy invasion was greater than their divinity. Now his lover was trapped by a piece of the collapsing shrine, something that looked like a massive rune. Only his arm gripping a tricorder identified him in the mess. He must have tried to scan himself, Jim thought. He looked at the readings, dismayed. Jim was no doctor but he could see that the vital signs were flashing a bright red and it was not good. No, he told himself, I must not be emotionally compromised.

"Shit, Bones, we have to get you out of here," Jim said urgently, using his hands to dig through the rubble. It was a frantic flurry but he had to see that Bones was still alive. To see his lover's face and reassuring smile. He grunted as he shifted some sort of golden pinning down McCoy's arms. "Bones!" Jim said tapping his friend's cheek.

Bones spluttered, his eyelids fluttering. "Mmm?" At least he said something that sounded vaguely like 'Jim'.

"Hold on, ok, Bones," Jim said. "Spock! I've found him. I'm going to need help. Where are you?"

"Receiving at South-East entrance of the Marketplace approximately 1.5 kilometres away. Please state your location, Captain."

"We're at the Shrine. North entrance of the Eserian Caverns. Watch out for the rubble. Hurry. Kirk out." Without skipping a beat, Jim went back to trying to free Bones. He managed to shift one of the blocks near his lover's head slightly so he could see his face better. "How do you feel?"

"It's worse than that hangover last time from all that Romulan ale," Bones moaned. "I don't think I can feel my legs. But I've seen the readings. I think I'm-"

Jim just distracted him by snapping his fingers in front of Bones face. "Look at me," he said. "How many fingers?" Retrieving the penlight from the spilt bag by his lover's side, Jim shone the light into Bones eyes. "I think you have a concussion."

Bones rolled his eyes. "No shit, Jim. Gimme some of the hypospray in my left pocket. My head is killing me."

Jim hears a rumble as the in the distance and the caverns shook a little more but he takes no notice. As Jim reached across his friend, he smiled lewdly. "Is that a hypospray or are you just happy to see me?" He injected it into his lover's neck as gently as possible. As Bones sighed in his brief respite, Jim thought of ways to get his friend out of there. Jim tucks his phaser into his belt, not wise in the book of defence but he needs both his hands for this job. Though the block of concrete was clearly too heavy and too big, Jim strained against it anyway.

"Fuck, this is too heavy."

"That would be a logical conclusion," Spock said from behind him. A tenseness flickered in his eyes, breaking his usual calm facade. He sounded slightly breathless.

"Good. You're here. Any chance we can get him beamed out like this?" Jim said, crouching next to the concrete block, grunting.

"Not without beaming out approximately 27.65% of the Romulan temple-"

"I don't care if I have to beam the whole thing up!"

Spock raised an eyebrow at his Captain's emotional outburst but continued without missing a beat, "But the fact remains that we are still being pursued by the enemy. Ensign Chekov has reported signals being jammed in this area and Lieutenant Sulu is busy evading fire on the Enterprise."

"So short answer: No, we're fucked."

Though it was not the wording Spock would have chosen, the modality was precise. Spock nodded solemnly. "I will ask how long they can continue resisting the enemy," he said with a slight exhale sounding suspiciously like a very human sigh. Then he walked out towards the open air a bit.

"Thank you, Spock," Jim said gratefully. He knew how much it cost Spock to cater to the human and irrational whims. To Bones, he said, "We're going to get you out of there, I promise."

"Jim," Bones croaked. "I'm dead. Look at me, I can't even save myself." He tried to insert a bit of the nagging tone at the end. Feebly, he reached for Jim's hand with his own mangled one.

"No, no, NO! I won't leave you behind. We'll get you out of here. Just hold on."

A mortar shatters the ground near them, stirring dust and rubble in the air again. Jim doesn't even cringe.

"This place is going down. You have to go," Bones said gently in his gruff voice. Without me.

"I...I can't leave you here." Jim felt his voice choke and not from the dust around them.

"You have to."

"It is unfortunate but it would be the most logical choice, Captain," Spock interjected. "I estimate that we have 10 minutes or less before the structure is completely destabilised."

"FUCK LOGICAL!" Jim yelled. "Fuck it all!" He strained harder again the block of concrete before the lump in his throat steals his voice. "'M sorry, Spock."

"You are emotionally distressed." Spock catches Kirk's grateful glance at his blunt but truthful excuse. Then with the briefest hesitation Spock said, "Let me help you." He has already calculated that with the entire strength of the bridge crew, they would not be able to shift this block of concrete but he knows that sometimes science neglects to take into account adrenaline charges and... grief. If this is what his captain needs, Spock would not deny him this.

Running a hand through his sweat soaked hair, Jim seemed to come to his senses with a heavy heart. "It's ok, Spock," Jim said. "I've got it." He met his First Officer's gaze. "Can you give us a minute?"

Spock nodded his head and went to stand guard at the entrance to protect his captain.

"Bones?"

"Right here, Cap'n, not going anywhere," Bones said with a smirk before coughing. He knows he hasn't got long. "Listen Jim..." Some blood runs down from the corner of his mouth as he forced out his next words.

The rumbling shook the caverns like an overturned pepper shaker. Jim had to lean close to Bones to hear his voice. He puts his hand on his lover's cheek and he can feel the stubble there.

"I'm not gonna make it outta here. Do it." Bones tugged weakly at the phaser at Jim's belt and dislodged it. It clattered ominously on the group, echoing.

"What?! No, Bones, I-"

"Jim," his lover rasped insistently. He turned his face away, it would show too much. It took effort to curl his fingers around the phaser and press into Jim's free hand. "Take it. Take me out. It's this or you leave me here to drown in my own blood, bleeding out on this godforsaken place. Or I'll get captured, they'll...they'll torture me. I'm gonna break. Hell, I'm already half broken. You have to."

Jim took the phaser numbly and blinked away the itch in his eyes. "I can't. I can't do this to you. I promised I'd get you out..." Jim cupped his lover's cheek. "I love you."

"I know." Bones smiled crookedly followed by a painful, wet cough. "Do it. For me."

As if reading his lover's mind, Jim leant down to kiss Bones. He licked the blood away from Bones mouth and kissed him as passionately as he could. He could taste regretsorrowloyaltytrust mingled with sweat, blood and tears. As their tongues tangled in a heated embrace, Jim wished that this moment, this kiss, this love would never end even as the world fell to pieces around him. When he had to break off, he was left gasping, cold and empty. The pool of wetness around Bones' lower half was spreading.

Bones leaned upwards as far as he could despite the pain. He whispered into his Captain's ear. "Take care of yourself now...or I'll haunt your ass."

With his sensitive Vulcan hearing, Spock could hear the intimate declarations of love which was completely inappropriate by Vulcan logic. And yet his human side told him that is was completely appropriate in the situation. Still, the Commander knew that he was witnessing something very private and he did his best to give his Captain and Chief Medical Officer the privacy they deserved. He ran through the calculations. The Captain would be in mortal peril in 2 minutes and 44 seconds if they did not evacuate from the area. Perhaps Lieutenant Sulu could beam them up from the side of the marketplace...

Jim laid his cheek next to his Medical Officer's, closing his eyes and savouring every second. He doesn't care. He doesn't want to do this. It shouldn't be up to him. He should not have to hold his lover's life in his hands.

"Now," Bones urged with the next shake of the caverns, then he closes his eyes waiting. Waiting.

Jim brushed his lips gently on the fine creases on his love's forehead and then before he lost his nerve, he pulled the trigger.

*

Jim doesn't remember what happened next. Spock must have dragged them out of there before the caverns went down. He doesn't remember debriefing the crew. He doesn't remember handing the conn over to Spock. He doesn't remember shutting the door to the Med Bay.

*

The next thing Jim does remember is the numbness. He's patching up the long gash on his left arm and he's doing a shoddy job at it. He's not sealing the cut properly, he's just smearing the blood up and down his arm. He's bleeding everywhere but strangely his arm is numb and it doesn't hurt at all. He remembers the terrible pain. It's in his chest. It's tight and it feels like someone has taken his heart and squeezed. It feels like he can't breath and he doesn't know how his heart is still beating. He's never been good at the medical stuff. Bones would know. Bones would-

"OW! Bones, you evil sonuvabitch, I was sleeping!"

"You were. Some of us have to get up for our jobs you know."

"No part of your job says torture the Captain. That was totally unnecessary."

"Don't be a pansy, Jim. It was just a hypospray. I'm a doctor, not your guardian angel. I'll have you know it is completely necessary. Did you know you can get seven different kinds of jungle fevers from Romulan? Or if you decide to be completely stupid and drink something spiked with tribal voodoo? Knowing you, you'd make it through an earthquake, a planet revolting, being taken hostage, torture, being offered as a human sacrifice only to die from an allergy from alien pollen. Someone's gotta take care of you. You can thank me for it later."

"How about now? Our mission is in five hours. We could..."

"Jim, you're unbelievable. You better not ruin this shirt or I'll have nothing to wear on the mission."

All criticism welcome.