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Language:
English
Series:
Part 2 of The Cupid Chronicles
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Published:
2019-07-29
Completed:
2019-08-06
Words:
3,564
Chapters:
2/2
Comments:
35
Kudos:
180
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5
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1,862

Odes, Epics, and Other Signs of Esteem

Summary:

He thought he was taking mortality in stride.

He wasn’t.

Chapter Text

Leonard McCoy couldn’t believe he was going to get out of this with a slap on the wrist and surprisingly minimal paperwork. In fact, it had been almost insulting how quickly Spock had rustled up the correct form, as if Starfleet had experience with officers needing to change their file from human to mortal ex-god, as evidenced by the existence of form 106.2b Declaration of Change of Species Designation.

The senior staff were taking it well enough, he supposed. It had been a few weeks and they were still occasionally regarding him like a science experiment, but otherwise called him Leonard or Doctor McCoy and made space for him to join them for meals.

If they’d tried to call him Eros, or, even worse, Cupid...

Jim on the other hand was taking it wholly in stride in a very Kirk-like fashion. His earlier insecurity seemed to have melted away after just one night together. That way Jim walked with his pelvis leading said it all, legs swaggering out to the side as if he had a sign pointing to him saying, lover of the god of erotic arts, right here. Leonard had caught him preening in the mess hall when they had showed up for breakfast obviously together. There’d been a hush in the conversation, then a muted surge of what was clearly gossip and Jim had briefly placed a possessive hand on his shoulder and winked before strutting over to the coffee dispenser.

That night, in bed together, exhilarated that Starfleet’s official response had come back: acceptance of the form, an update to Leonard’s file, and orders for Jim to proceed with another diplomatic mission, Leonard traced a finger down the younger man’s bare belly and murmured, “Abs like these have turned the tide in wars.”

Jim laced his fingers together behind his head and grinned, the better to display his physique. Leonard rolled his eyes fondly. Turned the tide of wars yes, but not in the way Jim was thinking. Starfleet kept Jim fighting fit, but he didn’t have the build of an Achilles, Hercules or Hector— those men couldn’t get their arms to sit naturally at their sides. No, Adonis, Paris… Patroclus. A seasoned fighter to be sure, but classically handsome and not overly muscle-bound. The perfect balance, so far as Leonard was concerned.

And someday one will say, one of the men to come
Steering his oar-swept ship across the wine-dark sea
'there's the mound of a man who died in the old days,
one of the brave whom glorious Hector killed.'
So they will say, someday, and my fame will never die.

Never, not the fate for his Jim. Leonard had promised that to himself when he’d smuggled the younger man onto the Enterprise. Jim wasn’t going to be a forgotten footnote in some history of Starfleet, dead far too young. He shivered; surging upwards to press a kiss to Jim’s lips.

It shouldn’t have been a surprise that their next diplomatic mission didn’t go any more to plan than the previous one. The twin suns were low in the sky as Jim’s security detail circled around them, phasers at the ready. Civil war. Leonard brushed a bead of sweat back from his forehead before it could reach his eyes. They’d beamed down into a goddamn civil war.

Now they were outgunned and outflanked; the rebel faction having surrounded them after launching an assault on the palace complex in the capital city.

So on they fought like a swirl of living fire -
You could not say if the sun and moon still stood secure,
So dense the battle-haze that engulfed the brave
Who stood their ground to defend Patroclus' body.

Sunlight glinted off something metallic and Leonard just knew what that heralded— perhaps even more so than the Enterprise’s security officers. The red-shirted kids were focused on the immediate threats: dusty rebels brandishing knives and short-range projectile weapons closing in on Jim. He didn’t think, just moved, diving forwards and shoving the younger man with all his strength as a sharp rat-tat-tat echoed off the stone buildings

Jim was yelling, but the words were somehow indistinct as Lieutenant Anders took his captain by the arm and forcibly dragged him out of the square and deeper into the citadel.

Leonard rolled over on the ground and dirt clung to his hair. Jim was safe, but Leonard was bleeding very human blood into the dusty road. He could hear the words recounted so many times before:

Come, Friend, you too must die. Why moan about it so?
Even Patroclus died, a far, far better man than you.
And look, you see how handsome and powerful I am?
The son of a great man, the mother who gave me life--
A deathless goddess. But even for me, I tell you,
Death and the strong force of fate are waiting.
There will come a dawn or sunset or high noon
When a man will take my life in battle too--
flinging a spear perhaps
Or whipping a deadly arrow off his bow.

The pain that had been biting hot was quickly dimming to a muted roar, fading along with the rest of his senses as shock took over. Someone grabbed him and he was lifted into the air with a sickening jerk. A flash of red and black then blue and he realized Spock and one of the security ensigns must be carrying him. Leonard gasped, swallowing down bile as the bright sunlight was replaced by shadow and the suffocating heat of one of the back alleys. The motion seemed endless, until they rounded a sharp corner and the world tilted sideways then rolled as he was lowered onto the ground.

Leonard glanced down and a hysterical giggle rose in his throat. Blood, blood, blood… it shouldn’t have been a novelty because he was a doctor, dammit, but this was his blood staining the front of his uniform and dripping onto the dun colored cobblestones.

“Bones!” Blue eyes wide, Jim crashed to his knees and made a grab for Leonard’s lax hand. “Are you okay?”

The giggle escaped then, because, shit, did he look like he was alright? The worried frown on Jim’s face deepened in response and Leonard tried to say something more appropriate, but his tongue didn’t want to cooperate.

“Spock,” Jim turned his head to yell, “Get us out of here!”

The Vulcan barely looked up from where he was doing something complicated with a communicator and Lieutenant Anders— Leonard dimly remembered the pre-mission briefing including warnings about beam-out windows and atmospheric interference.

“What do I need to do?” Leonard vaguely registered Jim’s words, but his swirling thoughts didn’t settle until the younger man tapped his cheek and repeated, “Bones! What do I need to do?”

Do? Leonard frowned, then focused on his body only to be confronted by a wave of pain that made him groan aloud, plaintive and shocked at the intensity of it. Jim’s tenuous grip on composure seemed to waver at the sound, hand fisting in the fabric of Leonard’s sleeve.

“Captain?” Ensign Peters was suddenly crouching beside them. “Can you tear his shirt open so we can get at that chest wound?” Jim could, of course, gripping and ripping the uniform in half before Leonard could take a breath to prepare himself.

Leonard’s vision tunneled into a grey cone of pain as he realized they were treating him for a sucking chest wound. Another point of pressure on his shoulder felt like a hot iron and he choked, gasped, and the echo of rat-tat-tat in his ears made Leonard release a sob that there could be three bullet wounds in him. The world lurched again as they sat him up and he was leaned against something firm but yielding. Gold. Jim.

“Easy, Bones, easy,” Jim’s voice, almost panting. “I’ve got you.”

Forehead tucked against Jim’s sweaty cheek, Leonard only let out a whimper.