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Language:
English
Series:
Part 1 of The Cupid Chronicles
Stats:
Published:
2019-07-24
Completed:
2019-07-26
Words:
2,842
Chapters:
3/3
Comments:
63
Kudos:
291
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15
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2,941

Eros Unbound

Summary:

Jim was hollering and Uhura was pleading and as a particularly ugly alien tossed him over the cliff edge Leonard McCoy had just a split-second to make the decision of whether to live or die.

He chose to live.

Spectacularly.

With a burst of golden light and white feathers.

Chapter Text

To say the negotiation wasn’t going well would be an understatement.

Five hours on the godforsaken rock and all they’d accomplished was pissing off the locals.

They’d beamed down with a security detail, but no phasers, and for once Leonard caught himself wishing Jim had ignored the rules. Three hours in it had become clear the Anrovian leadership had ignored the “no weapons” clause in the terms set out for the talks.

Four hours in it became clear they were pathologically xenophobic, and the mission was likely to be a bust.

Five hours in and Jim and Uhura were still trying their best, calmly sitting at the outdoor negotiating table. The rest of the team had been separated, the security detail, Spock, and Leonard himself surrounded by armed guards. It had been hours since he’d been asked to weigh in— initially they’d hoped access to Federation med tech could be a key negotiating point, but that was part of a larger plan that was left in tatters. At least the scenery was pretty: the outdoor amphitheater was cut into a spectacular cliffside. Subtly stretching legs that were beginning to ache from standing in once place for so long, Leonard tried to enjoy the sun on his face and mentally wager how long Jim was likely to keep flogging a dead horse before giving in and admitting defeat.

Abruptly, the Anrovian negotiator raised his voice and bellowed, “You do not think we are serious, Captain? Allow us to make a demonstration.”

Leonard’s eyes flew open as something gripped his wrist and yanked with superhuman strength. Jim was hollering and Uhura was pleading and as a particularly ugly alien tossed him over the cliff edge Leonard McCoy had just a split-second to make the decision of whether to live or die.

He chose to live.

Spectacularly.

With a burst of golden light and white feathers.

It had been so long since he’d stretched his wings, much less willed them into existence, that he fell a hundred feet before being able to recover. Flying. The visceral rush of it, the feeling of air holding him up; it was all he could do to not let out a whoop. It had been far too long.

Striking upwards, Leonard crested the cliff edge in five hard beats of his wings to find utter pandemonium. Uhura had her arms around Jim, as if she were trying to hold him back from tearing the Anrovian leader apart with his bare hands. One redshirt from security was bleeding on the ground, while another grappled with a sentry. Spock appeared to have nerve-pinched a further two into submission.

The Anrovian guards had lances, which was somehow fitting; the fluid motions of darting and ducking that kind of weaponry came back quickly and Leonard fought his way back to his friend’s side with a cry of, “Jim!”

The captain wheeled around, white-faced and wide-eyed as he yelled, “Bones!”

Before they could say anything more, the sparks and whorls of light from the transporter took hold and Leonard found himself rematerializing on the Enterprise with the rest of the away team.

Jim was panting, staring at where Leonard’s wings emerged from the tatters of his uniform shirt. He blinked, seeming to remember himself and recognize where he was, then barked, “My ready room, McCoy, now!”

Trailing Jim through the corridors, Leonard couldn’t be bothered to muster the energy to hide his wings. The secret was out anyway.

Jim didn’t look back the whole way there, but as soon as the door closed behind them he rounded on Leonard, jaw tense and eyes a little wild as he demanded, “Are you a mutant?”

“Mutant?” Leonard scoffed in surprise, “You’ve been reading too many comic books, kid.”

“What the hell, Bones? Wings?” Suddenly fearful as another possibility occurred to him, Jim gasped, “Wait, did they do something to you? Did they—”

“No.” Leonard scrubbed a hand through his hair, “No, they didn’t do this to me.” What a cluserfuck his day was becoming, “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I was trying to just live a normal life; blend in.” So much for that.

Jim’s jaw closed with a click, then he more softly stated, “You have wings.”

“I have wings,” Leonard confirmed. “I always have.”

“Anything else you need to tell me?”

“My name isn’t Leonard.” When Jim just crossed his arms across his chest, the doctor confessed, “It’s Eros.”

“Eros?” Jim frowned, “Wait, like Cupid?”

“Not like, Jim. Quite literally.” Jim’s gaze flitted down to Leonard’s waist, as if expecting to find a toga or a diaper or something. Exasperated, he barked, “My eyes are up here.”

Jim’s gaze flicked back to Leonard’s face and something else seemed to occur to him as he blurted out, “Oh my God, Bones, the jaded old man routine makes a lot more sense. What are you, like a thousand years old?”

“More like four.”

Four thousand years old. Jim could scarcely wrap his head around that. “So you’re immortal?” The pitch of Jim’s voice was increasing until there was almost a squeaky-rasp to it as he asked, “How did I not know this? Wait, can you even be killed?”

Leonard shook his head. “I’m mortal, Jim. For the first time in my life I’m pretty much human. I just happen to have wings.”

“First time? How did that happen?”

“It was a hell of a divorce, remember?”

“Wait, you were actually married? Gods,” Jim waved a hand between them, “do that?”

“Unfortunately. And she did get the whole damn planet. Jocelyn got the bow and arrow too, but I guess the wings fall under ‘my bones’— which were the actual terms of the divorce, I’ll have you know. Damned harpy.”

Jim’s eyes were wide, as if he was still trying to process everything. Eventually, he gave himself a little shake and said, “The senior staff will be wondering what’s going on— we’ll have to tell them.”

Leonard nodded his acquiescence, steeling himself for what he hoped would be a fairly civil conversation.

Jim’s version of telling them was to stride into the conference room and announce, “Turns out Bones has been holding out on us!”

Jim made a little ushering motion and Leonard reluctantly stepped up to the table. “I’m mortal now and pretty much human aside from the wings, but I wasn’t always. A long time ago I was worshipped as a god on Earth— in ancient Greece.” He licked his lips. “My name was Eros.”

In the sudden silence following his confession, Jim’s voice was equal parts delighted and dripping juvenile innuendo as he asserted, “Bones here was the god of love.”

Chekov was looking at Leonard like a particularly puzzling calculation as he began to ask, “But wasn’t Eros specifically…” He trailed off at the quelling look from the doctor.

The question wasn’t stopped quickly enough, as Jim perked up and looked between them as he asked, “What?”

Chekov flushed pink and it was clear nothing would compel him to finish the sentence now that he was the center of attention. Leonard rolled his eyes and fixed Jim with a glare as he explained, “The ancient Greeks had words for different kinds of love between individuals: fraternal, familial, dutiful... I was specifically the god of erotic love.”

Jim made a choking noise, as if some saliva had gone down the wrong way.

Uhura managed to simultaneously appear both impressed and skeptical.

Spock’s eyebrow was reaching new heights.

And if Sulu’s smirk got any bigger his face was liable to get stuck that way.

Leonard sighed. It was going to be a long day.