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In retrospect it wasn't something he regretted but at the time his C24-reinforced heart had pounded hard enough to make him twitch towards his tricorder reflexively, and - as Jim's brow furrowed and his metaphorical ears perked up - he found he couldn't think of anything useful to say to derail him, only words vile enough to make Scotty proud.
"I didn't know you had a sister, Bones!"
It had been a long time since he'd let his guard down long enough for something like that to slip through. Certainly it had been a long time since he'd wanted to, and a long time since he hadn't instigated a divorce, or a betrayal, and then simply disappeared into the night to discourage anyone from looking for him. It was simply harder to field their questions and see the fear warring with confusion in their eyes (if not outright disbelief), than to break contact. Harder to watch them try to catalogue him when he couldn't even catalogue himself, not even after hundreds of years.
Jim's eyes were wide and unblinking as he listened to the reluctant explanations, and his questions were simple and direct. Brief even, for Jim. He recognised Jim's Captain voice, the calmest version usually kept for troublesome dignitaries, and it itched somehow like being placated and respected all at once.
He resisted the urge to check his pulse or reach for the bourbon when the questions finally stopped and tried to wait patiently, as though patience with personal situations wasn't something he left behind in the first century after Olduvai.
"No wonder you're such a cranky bastard," Jim said after a long pause, and bumped their shoulders together, and that was that.
They didn't speak about it much after that. Occasionally John let an anecdote about his first life drop into their conversation when they were alone, but Jim never pushed it further and John was more comfortable letting it be. He'd forgotten the substance of what it was like to have someone truly know you without needing to examine you, hadn't felt the same sort of acceptance from anyone since his sister. Once he even let himself curse her memory for asking him to pull away from people to protect himself, once he no longer had her to help him cling to his humanity, to remind others than he wasn't just a science experiment.
Sometimes he even wished he'd told Jim earlier, so he could've had the feeling back earlier.
But still he can't let go of his guard, and finally one day it happens: John and Leonard blur in his mind when he's not alone with Jim. It's a tiny, almost inconsequential mistake but it wasn't one he'd made in a very long time. Not since the day he'd watched Sam's funeral from a distance and then never looked back to his old connections, just like he had promised her.
An away mission gone wrong had left them trapped in an old, disused building on a planet sparsely populated by vaguely hostile inhabitants, waiting yet again for Scotty to fix the transporters. In centuries of life, John had never met anyone so brilliant and yet so incapable of preventing the same mishap from happening over and over.
But then, as Jim was fond of getting in as a gentle dig when he could, Leonard McCoy was meant to be scared of some things and fear was meant to make people cranky. John just never admitted to him that even genetically immortal humans had something to dread when technology was pulling their molecules apart, so instead he separated himself from the rest of team and focused on not feeling trapped.
Jim was too busy observing the locals from a ridiculous perch he'd found himself at the top of the building - like some strange cross between a watchdog and a curious bird with all its prettiest feathers displayed - to realise John was at loose ends. The other members of the team were drifting in and out of the few rooms which had walls still intact enough to hide them from local eyes, examining objects and taking scans while they exclaimed at each other about native cultures in hushed voices. But there wasn't anything even vaguely medical in the building, so John had settled himself down in a corner to pretend he wasn't worried.
"If I may, Doctor?" Spock said, making John startle. "I am curious as to the significance of the letters W, R, and D?"
"What are you on about, man?" John grumbled, and only just refrained from dropping the artefact like it was on fire - because that's what a guilty man would do - and glared up at Spock.
"You were tracing those letters against the floor with the wooden implement in your right hand."
John blinked in surprise for a second before hurriedly covering it with a scowl, but his C24-enhanced vision wouldn't let him ignore the flicker of movement at the edge of Spock's left eyebrow, and looked at his own hand.
There was a piece of wood in his hand, which he hadn't realised he'd picked up. It was long and thin, about the length of his hand, and carefully carved with swirling shapes that tapered the wood into a point at either end. It was about the same shape and weight as pens were during his youth, and he weighed it thoughtfully while he opened his mouth, ready to blast Spock for bothering him.
"I don't know what you're talking about, don't you have something better to-" John started indignantly, with the word hobgoblin ready on his lips for extra distraction, when they were interrupted by a shout.
By the time Spock reached the door John was already up and immediately behind him, letting his extra speed show through just a fraction, and then more than a fraction when the shout was followed by a lengthy scream.
They reached the source of the cries as they were choked off, and just in time to see Jim enter from the other side of the room, All three of them falter backward a step as they take in the scene. There was a male science officer - likely the source of the last scream, John assessed - on the ground, but he wasn't moving, and the security officer who'd been with him lies crumbled half-under him with her neck clearly broken and her phaser thrown clear of her hand.
Crouched over them is a humanoid figure. It's nothing like the humanoid species Enterprise identified from orbit John notes as he takes in large teeth and an incomprehensible mess of facial features, but then the edges of the figure seem to shimmer. Spock begins to step in front of John, but John's already gauging the distance between all of them, watching those claws grow longer, the body larger, and those long legs tense. Jim's closer to it than they are. He's reaching for his phaser too, but there's no time-
He shoves Spock heedlessly to the side and runs, pushing his legs as fast as they can take him, which is fast - thank god, is all he can think before he's lost in the movement - because he still barely makes it. He grabs the creature by something approximating it's wrist, halting it an unacceptably short distance from Jim's shocked face. They stand facing each other for a moment, eye to eye, before he twists toward the creature and drives his shoulder into it, using the momentum to force it back across the room and away from Jim and Spock.
It's strong, whatever it is, and it's fast. Almost as fast as John. It fights hard, and rough, and by the time the first onslaught begins to let up he's starting to wonder if it has the advantage on him. It reminds him of inhuman foes, for all that it remains in a vaguely humanoid form as it's body flows through change after change. Limbs lengthen and grow sharp edges, and then retract as joints bend backward, as they each force forward and retreat and it tries to work past him. But eventually it does relent, and retreats into the rest of the building.
He looks around long enough to ascertain that Jim is helping a dazed Spock to his feet while comming the ship frantically. He hears the frantic Bones as he follows the creature out into the hall, and it makes him hesitate: drop back, stay closer, guard. Don't hunt.
It's been a long time since he's had something to guard.
They get no warning when the beam-up finally happens, and as they rematerialise part of him thinks 'finally' and part of him thinks 'too late.'
"I'll be in my quarters," he tells Jim in a low, brusque tone, and then charges past the curious faces waiting around the transporter pad. He doesn't look at Spock as he leaves.
"God, you're shaking," Jim says from behind him half an hour later.
John snaps upright reflexively from where he was hunched over his bathroom sink, body immediately taught and hands raised.
"I didn't notice you come in," he says, but Jim shushes him, voice quiet like it was an afterthought, and steps between his arms to smooth his hands across John's shoulders. He digs his fingers into the muscles as he goes, and John lets the pressure drop his arms down again, until his hands brush Jim's hips.
"Spock says whatever it was, it must have had some kind of metamorphic ability."
John's chin snaps up at the name. "Is Spock okay?"
"He's fine," Jim says, and leans forward, pulling John into a tight embrace. "A bit of a bump on the head, but Chapel has your Sickbay well in hand for you, Bones. You don't need to worry about a thing."
"I shouldn't have pushed him so hard," John groans, but he relaxes into Jim's hold reluctantly, and lets him walk them backwards until they hit the bed.
He hesitates while Jim makes himself comfortable and then tugs at his arm, but only for a moment, then he shakes his head and mumbles to himself. How much closer can they get when Jim knows, and accepts, Olduvai, he reminds himself but still resists the pull. Then Jim chuckles at his grumbling and tugs harder, so he lets himself be pulled down.
Arranging his arms around Jim as he nestles his head into John's neck, John bites his lip and sighs.
"It'll be okay, Bones."
They lie there for a long time in silence, nothing but the humming of the ship and the occasional pounding of feet outside the door to disturb them. When John tenses up Jim rearranges himself closer, presses his lips against John's collarbone, and plays with the sleeve of his shirt until he relaxes. When he finds himself drifting, Jim puts a thumb to his chin to tilt his face down and kisses him properly, with a hand in his hair and the other on his shoulder.
Eventually they speak, but it takes hours, and it's Jim who initiates it.
"Spock said you were talking about something trivial when the attack happened."
John feels his jaw clench.
"It was stupid, we shouldn't have been distracted-" he starts, but Jim placedshis hand over John's mouth and rolls his eyes. "Superpowers doesn't make you responsible for everything, Bones."
John sucks in a sharp breath. "They aren't-"
"They so are, and besides, did you think that being distracted was the only reason Spock wasn't doing research with the rest of the team?"
John opened his mouth, but Jim just raised his hand threateningly.
"So. What did the letters mean?"
"It was a retro thing when I was growing up. My sister and I made jewellery up with it when we were little. There wasn't always much to do when your parents took you to live on an archaeological dig offworld, so Sam got us stringing together little lettered beads. It's a joke, you ask 'what would someone do', and you use the name of someone appropriate to the situation you're talking about."
"And the R stands for…," Jim says, trailing off without making it a question, letting John decide whether he wants to divulge.
"Reaper," John sighs. "It was my callsign. It was this stupid thing Sam used to do, after Olduvai happened. When I was worrying about something, she liked to remind me that I had gotten us out of Olduvai, so she'd asked me what Reaper would do about it."
Jim hums thoughtfully, and drops his head back on John's chest.
"You can't even find information on it in the historical databases now, it was just a silly little trend that didn't even rate a footnote."
"I like it," Jim mumbles into John's shirt. "Maybe they can make merchandise using the names of all the bridge crew. Starfleet keeps bugging me about keeping up our very popular appearance."
John can't find anything to say to that, so he just lies there and stares at the ceiling, accommodating Jim's figeting as he settles more firmly against John's side. But after a little while his chest starts to shake. Jim looks up, face tense, but it's laughter that bubbles up out of him, not tears. Just deep, slightly hysterical, laughter. Jim tightens his arm around John's middle, rests his chin on John's shoulder, and simply watches him with a smile on his face while he laughs until it feels like his ribs should be aching.