Title: McCoy and the Looking Glass
Summary: Filled for this prompt on the st_xi_kink_meme: . ?thread=14318212
Pairing: McCoy/Kirk Friendship, McCoy/Chekov Frienship
Rating: T
Warning: Violence, implied rape,

They should be leaving Chekov to die.

This was Jim Kirk's only thought as he watched on the main screen as his ship gained speed on the Klingon vessel in front of them. Chekov wasn't worth the time it was taking them to follow the ship (off of the route that was ordered by the Empress herself), and the entire bridge knew it. Spock had given him that aggravating twitch of his eyebrow, Uhura had scoffed, and Sulu had narrowed his eyes at him, as though challenging him.

Jim only hoped the new guy knew what he was doing.

Leonard H. McCoy had been dead for almost a year now. He had been a damn fine doctor, one of the best in the fleet, but he had what not many had in this world: a soft heart. The man was brilliant in everything he did, sure, but it didn't make up for his weakness. He couldn't stomach torturing a patient (no matter what the bastard had done), he couldn't kill a man to save his life (literally), and over all, the man was stupid. He had had the scar across his face to prove it.

Sadly the man had died a pathetic death too; but only Jim Kirk and Spock knew that. Dispite everything, McCoy had saved his ass more times than he should have. The man had done it out of friendship. Not because he needed Kirk, but because he thought of him as a friend. Some small part of Jim had felt it too, which is why the official death records of one Leonard McCoy don't match the memories in his brain. But that was enough of that.

It was about eight months ago that Leonard McCoy had been shoved back into Jim's life, and he would be damned if it hadn't scared the shit out of him when he saw the gruff doctor pacing irritably in the brig.

"Who the hell are you?" Jim had growled at him when he had dismissed all the other ensigns from the room, pinned the man to the wall and pressed a dagger into his neck until it drew blood. The man had sputtered indignantly and looked at him with a look of pure and unadultered shock. Like he had never been threatened with a knife before.

"Jim…J-Jim it's me! McCoy!"

It just made him more angry that this ghost had said him name. He had always been "Captain Kirk," nothing more, nothing less. And to hear it now, was just something he hadn't been able to handle. It had taken a broken nose, three cracked ribs, and a fractured wrist before Jim had finally began to believe that the Doctor was not from this world.

This McCoy had mumbled and grumbled something about a transporter incident, and suddenly ending up in a transporter room surrounded by people he recognized, but were off, and being hauled away to the brig for being KIA. And when had finished his explaination, he had looked up at Jim with hard eyes, demanding an explaination. Jim had never seen those eyes on McCoy's face. That was what tipped him off to believing the man. He was too rough, too worn down to be his McCoy. No, the old McCoy.

Jim had left the man alone while he searched for a way to get this ghost doctor to his own world. He hadn't thought he would be able to handle dealing with the man again, but it had turned out he wasn't going to be dealing with the same man at all.

After a week of nothing, Jim called off the research in fizing the tranporter malfunction.

"And how am I suppose to get back home now, Kirk?!" McCoy had screamed at him when he had found out. He had stopped calling him Jim when he found out that he was not in his world anymore. He said they weren't the same person, and so he refused to call them by the same name. It was another thing Jim was not use to. McCoy had always been very docile and timid and overall submissive in nature. This McCoy just kept on intriguing him.

"You aren't," Jim had stated simply, continuing to mindlessly do his paperwork. He never saw the hand that lashed out and snatched away his PADD, smashing it into a nearby wall. He had stared furiously at the seething doctor, when all of a sudden, it occurred to him.

"Why the hell are you laughing, you pompous prick?" McCoy had hissed, his voice dangerously low when the laughed bubbled up from his throat. He merely smiled at the doctor.

"I'm not wasting my time and resources trying to send you back to a place I don't know that we can reach. You're in my world now McCoy, and you're going to live in it and like it." He had said, the same insane smile stretched out on his face. McCoy had growled at him then, and done something that completely knocked him off guard; he had punched him square in the jaw. It wasn't a good punch at all, but what could you expect from a doctor?

Jim had the man pinned against his desk in a matter of seconds.

"McCoy, I'm going to give you a warning because you're new to the game. But if you ever do that again, it'll be a good long while in the agony booth for you." He didn't ask the doctor if he understood, in fact, he looked forward to teaching the doctor the game the hard way.

It had taken a total of three weeks before he promoted McCoy to head of Medbay. Puri had thrown a bitch fit at the demotion, but it was crucial for many reasons. One, he needed to show to McCoy that his life was always on the line in this world, and it was either fight and survive, or roll over and die. Second, he needed a reason to kill Puri. It all worked out in the end.

Long story short, McCoy almost died, but Puri was officially out of the way. HE was shocked that the man actually killed Puri, but the man had been sloppy and hadn't been expecting this McCoy to know any kind of hand-to-hand combat, and frankly, neither had Jim. He had selected Nurse Chapel to watch over the doctor, fully aware of the crush she had had on the old McCoy, so he figured she would be safe.

Three months later, he was training McCoy how to survive on the Enterprise. Checking food, suing your periphial vision, the wonder that was concealed weapons, and best of all, how to torture someone. He is ashamed to say that he thought that this McCoy wouldn't have a problem with it, since he was proving to be the old McCoy's opposite. He was wrong.

"Good God man, you want me to do what?! I'm a doctor, not a psychotic nutcase!"

It always continued like that, McCoy refusing to torture someone, and it didn't take long before he let it go and promoted Chapel (unofficially of course) to the head torturer. And for six months after that, McCoy had been like some kind of God amongst the crew. He was definitely strict and a hard ass (don't ever be late for your shots), but he also had a gentle hand when he patched you up, something Puri had never had. Jim saw the subtle changes in the crew, but it didn't stop the occasional assassination attempt, which McCoy handled rather valiantly each time it happened, coming away with fewer marks than the other guy, that was for sure.

It wasn't until Joanna went into a coma did all that change.

Jim had found him in the medbay office, drowning away in a bottle of bourbon. The man's eyes were puffy and red, and he didn't even glance up when Jim walked in the room. Jim had figured he would find him like this. After all, a bond with your child was an emotional one, even when you couldn't see them. Jim would never forget the first day he met David.

McCoy had just started to talk. He talked about the Joanna in his world, and his ex-wife, and her new husband. Then he started talking about the report on Joanna that had been sent to him. Jim had settled in the chair across from the desk and just let the man speak. He let McCoy tell him that his daughter had been beaten, raped, and left for dead. He watched McCoy cry and drink, and cry again, then drink at least two more shots before he started asking questions.

Had he known Joanna in this world? Had he and Jocelynn had the same falling out? Was he still force into Starfleet because he had nowhere else to turn? Jim had answered them to the best he could.

The old McCoy had been a happily married man with a beautiful daughter and a beautiful wife and a happy marriage, and the only reason he ended up serving the Empire was because Starfleet needed him, and there were too many people who could easily have hurt him had he not accepted. His wife was forced into a horrible marriage with a horrible man because she didn't have a choice. Now she was dead and his daughter was getting closer to death. This made McCoy cry harder, but Jim pretended not to notice as he poured himself a drink. Or two.

It wasn't until his fifth drink did he start asking questions of his own. Had McCoy been friends with the other Jim Kirk?

"Of course. Stupid kid was a pain in the ass, but he was my best friend," McCoy had answered, sniffling and wiping his nose, the tears coming harder as he realized how much he had lost. He asked about Spock, he asked about the rest of the crew, he asked about how different Starfleet was in his world.

"We were a family," McCoy muttered sadly into his glass. "Watched out for eachother. Protected eachother. Never left someone behind." It was then that McCoy's head clunked on his desk, and without thinking too much about it, Jim dragged McCoy off to his quarters to sleep off his alcohol. He even made sure to leave water and plenty of hyposprays for the obnoxious hangover that was bound to hit him tomorrow.
The next day, Jim had greeted the hung-over McCoy with a very detailed list of people. People that were all linked to what happened to his daughter.

"Apparently there is a man on this ship who doesn't like you McCoy, and his son volunteered to help get you out of the way by targeting your daughter. Now here are a few pieces of information I'm sure you'll figure out what to do with. Have a good day Doctor."

A week later, Kiowa M'Benga was aboard the Enterprise, to claim the body of his father, whom had "mysteriously" died. At the end of the day, Jim noted that two of the emergency pods had been deployed by "accident" as Scotty put it. When McCoy walked into his quarters that night, completely unannounced, Jim had just stared. He had been expecting a demand for an explanation of the Captain's unusual compassionate side (not that Jim had an excuse ready), but he hadn't been expecting the man to say "Thank you," and then take his leave.
The six months after that started a sort-of friendship between the two. It wasn't nearly the same as what they were both use to, but it was something. Something that got them on a first name basis.

"Call me Jim," he had said as McCoy bandaged him up from the last mission that had nearly killed them both.

"Call me Bones," had been the doctors only response, and Jim hadn't asked questions. It was an unsure friendship, and one that Jim knew could cost him dearly.

Which brings us all back to why they were chasing after a Klingon ship to rescue their idiot of a navigator.

Chekov had been the first to openly take a likeness to McCoy. He always would visit the Medbay to see the doctor, once even shoved his arm against one of the boilers in engineering until his skin started to smoke just so he would have a reason to stay in medbay and engage the doctor. Surprisingly enough McCoy had reciprocated somewhat. He seemed to treat the kid like a stupid dog he knew was just going to get caught in another fence by the time the day was out.

Jim thought it was sickening, so when the Klingons had grabbed Chekov on Shoreleave and tried to use him as a bargaining chip, Jim had thrown the kid clear under the bus and ordered the ship to leave him behind. McCoy hadn't liked that idea.
"Jim, you can't tell me that you're actually leaving him?" McCoy had hissed, keeping up with Jim's punishing pace. Jim had given him an exasperated look.

"He was an idiot. You would have saved yours?" Jim liked to inquire as to how McCoy treated his other crew. It proved to be very insightful at times. McCoy had stopped, grabbed his arm and pulled him to a dead hault in the middle of the corridor, Spock frozen at his side like a good loyal Vulcan.

"Your god damn right I would have! He may be young, he may be down right stupid and psychotic at times, but you know what? He's the best damn navigator this whole 'Fleet will ever see. He's plotted courses that saved our asses time and time again, and this is the thanks he gets?

My Chekov got taken by Klingons too. You know what they did to him? Things a boy his age should never even know about, much less go through! When he came into my Sickbay, I watched a part of that boy die, a part that he never got back. Now I don't care how crazy you think this kid is, but I promise you, I will not sit here and let him go through it again!"

Jim watched the fire in McCoy's eyes. He watched as the man's chest heaved, and he somehow knew that this man was serious in wanting to save the boy. Obviously this same event happened before, and something disastrous happened. Something his doctor couldn't handle seeing again.

So Jim had reluctantly ordered Sulu to turn the ship around.

"Captain, the ship is targeting us. What are your orders?"

Jim merely shared a glance with McCoy. Then he sighed and leaned back in his Chair.

"Exterminate them Mr. Sulu."

It was time to save their navigator.