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It began with an elderly man lying in a hospital, medicated so heavily that he couldn’t feel anything – not the spasms and convulsions his body was thrown into, not the disease devouring his body from the inside-out. Many lines had been carved into his face over the years, from laughter and smiling and squinting. His expression was then blank. The elderly man lay on the biobed, still.
Leonard McCoy pitied his father. He stood at the man’s bedside and held his soft, wrinkled hands, cursing himself – he was a doctor, damnit! There had to be something he could do! Day after day, month after month, Leonard watched his father wither away, fading further into unconsciousness.
“I could do it, you know,” Leonard murmured to his father quietly one afternoon, when he could have sworn he saw the man’s eyes follow him. It sparked a mad, irrational hope within him. “If you wanted me to.”
He sat patiently; he expected a response, but all that sounded in the hospital room was the monitoring screen amplifying his father’s weak heartbeat.
Leonard McCoy looked over his father one last time. The man was peaceful, but not asleep. The screen monitoring his father’s vitals silenced. Leonard slipped from the room, tears swelling in his eyes. It began when he helped his father die.
xXx
When Jim Kirk came to, he found himself bound to a chair in a windowless room. The ropes dug into his thighs, his ankles, his wrists. It cut like a knife to his bone. His head reeled and his breath hissed up his throat. Jim was slicked with cold sweat and blood.
The darkness suffocated him. His mind was flooded with foggy, broken memories. Jim remembered stumbling out of the bar, tripping over his own feet, grasping the man’s hand. It was broad and warm and enveloped Jim’s own. Outside, beneath the streetlamps, he could properly see the man’s face. He was knocked unconscious. Jim couldn’t breathe.
He writhed against his constraints. The ropes sliced into his flesh and Jim grunted in agony, biting back a scream. He stilled again, head lolling to one side. He listened to his heart thundering in his chest.
Beyond his pulse, Jim could hear what sounded like nails scraping against the stone walls and heavy footsteps. His heart jumped into his throat and he struggled to swallow it back into his chest. Jim pressed back into the chair, tensely, bracing himself for the worst.
Harsh blue light illuminated the room at the flick of a switch. Jim gasped. He felt relieved of the darkness, like he could finally breathe. A tarnished silver trolley sat in the corner, carrying rusty tools – Jim spied a scalpel and multiple knives and needles of all sorts. He wiped his cheek against his shoulder exhaustedly, watching the fabric of his shirt stain with sweat. A dark figure stood in the doorway, tall and domineering.
“Jim,” crooned the man venomously. Jim struggled to so much as lift his head. “How are you doing?”
The footsteps proceeded into the room, into the light. The man was dressed so casually in black pants and a white button-down. His sleeves were rolled to his elbows and his hands were dripping with blood. Jim felt instantly sick. He began heaving and sputtering, globs of spit and bile dribbled from his mouth. The man grinned down at him.
Jim reared backwards, kicking the chair back on two legs. His body jerked uncontrollably and he screamed at each new cut into his skin. The man caught him before he toppled over, straightening the chair. He placed two fingers beneath Jim’s chin and held his face up to the light.
Jim stared death in the face. He was tempted to spit.
“It hurts, I know,” murmured the man. He ran his hands down Jim’s thighs, resting them over the ropes. “I could loosen them for you.”
Jim was not about to beg. He wouldn’t give the man the satisfaction.
The man moved behind him. Jim threw his head in either direction, struggling to watch him. The man loosened each of the knots binding Jim to the chair. Jim slumped forward, still bound, but allowed room to shift.
“Leonard McCoy,” said the man. He smirked and leaned in close to Jim, practically on his lap. Jim tried helplessly to shimmy away. Leonard ran his hands across Jim’s chest.
“I want to know what you're doing,” demanded Jim hoarsely. His voice was raw and his mouth tasted like blood. Everything was bloody. He sneered, “Leonard McCoy.”
“I’m doing what I love, kid.” Leonard glanced back over his shoulder. Jim followed his gaze. Leonard was looking at the trolley. Jim was sick again. “No, no, no. Can’t have that.” Leonard wiped Jim’s chin with his t-shirt.
Jim was powerless as he watched Leonard McCoy saunter away towards the trolley. He poured over his instruments for a long moment. Jim’s heart raced and his stomach worked itself into knots. His legs were numb and weighted him to the chair like lead. Leonard McCoy selected a scalpel from the cart and returned his attention to Jim.
Leonard McCoy ran the blunt edge of the blade down Jim’s cheek. His breath caught in his throat. “Number four,” he whispered as he slipped the scalpel inside the neck of Jim’s t-shirt. Leonard McCoy cut away the stained rag of a shirt. “You will be number four.”
“Jim Kirk,” said Jim in protest. He wanted to be thought of as a person, not a number. The damp chill of the room bit Jim’s exposed chest.
“I know.” Leonard McCoy’s eyes gleamed madly. “Jim Kirk,” he drawled, his voice thick with his southern accent. He squeezed Jim’s thighs, holding the scalpel between his teeth. Jim bit down onto his lip to keep from screaming. “You were very hands-on last night.”
Jim threw his head back. The burn faded from his legs. He ground his teeth together and struggled against the ropes. “Last night,” he babbled. “Last night…?”
Last night was a blur. The bass line of whatever shitty pop song and cheap beer drowned out Jim’s memories. He meant to enjoy himself – and that meant grinding against the handsome man who had offered to buy him a drink and pulled him into the corner to hold him against the wall. Last night was muddled.
“What’s going on?” Jim rasped. His head hung limply over his chest and he dared to meet Leonard McCoy’s gaze.
The blade caught the light as Leonard McCoy twirled it in his fingers. “First it’s the clothes,” he murmured, yanking the shreds of Jim’s shirts away from his body. He dropped the damp cloth at his feet. “After that, the flesh comes off. Then maybe, if I’m up to it, I’ll go for your soul.”
Jim shuddered. His chair teetered, threatening to topple over. Leonard McCoy pressed the scalpel against the underside of his chin. Jim looked up at him with exhausted, pleading eyes. “Please. Please. Please…”
With a deft flick of his wrist, Leonard McCoy sliced through a belt loop on Jim’s jeans. As if stitch by stitch, Jim’s pants were soon in a shredded pile atop his feet. His bare legs quivered. Jim thrashed weakly against the ropes.
“Stop writhing like an unfed lapdog,” cursed Leonard McCoy, placing the scalpel beneath Jim’s chin again. He settled onto Jim’s lap, his hips pressed firmly against Jim’s to hold him to the chair. The lights flickered. “Darlin’, you’ll get damaged. Even the slightest error in the first incision…” He met Jim’s defiant gaze. “I don’t want to ruin your pretty face.”
Jim felt blood began trickling down his neck as the scalpel pressed into his flesh. His heartbeat rose in his throat – he choked on his own pulse, it poured out through his wound. Jim blinked away the tears swelling in his eyes.
Leonard McCoy shifted against him. He ground against Jim’s stomach and slung one arm around Jim’s neck. He pressed his warm fingers over his pulse and felt the thunder beneath Jim’s skin. Jim hacked and spit into Leonard McCoy’s face. He jerked against his constraints violently. It was all he could do to defend himself.
Jim felt like he was drifting. His vision was hazy. It felt like he was beginning to slowly wake from a nightmare.
Leonard McCoy scowled and wiped his cheek. “I told you to keep still,” he growled. Jim noticed that his hand was shaking; Leonard McCoy lowered the scalpel, resting the blade against Jim’s collar bone. “I don’t have to keep this clean. Hold still and this won’t be the mess you're making it into.”
Jim tried to steady himself. He gulped down air until his lungs felt like they were about to burst; he didn’t exhale until the nausea passed. This was like a bad horror movie – he got drunk at a bar and his cute date is trying to skin him alive. Jim rolled his eyes at the thought of the blue room being a basement. He coughed, cautious of the blade against his throat.
Blood trickled from the incision under his chin down his throat; droplets pooled on the scalpel blade and ran down his chest. Leonard McCoy’s white shirt was stained dark red as he held himself closer to Jim.
“What the hell,” muttered Jim. He didn’t try to make sense of everything. He was nearing the point where he just wanted it to be over – what did he have to go back to? School? Friday night drinking and Saturday morning hangovers? A brother that called him twice a year – his birthday and the holidays – and a mother that he had a distaste for? Jim stared up at his captor, eyes on fire, and contemplated daring him to follow through with his threats.
Leonard McCoy was too close for comfort. His face hovered just above Jim’s, their noses brushed together. Jim felt the other’s breath on his lips. “The three smallest bones in the human body are inside of the ear,” he said, softly moving the blade up Jim’s throat and behind his ear. “I’d love to have a look at them, Jim.”
A thin line of blood appeared along the blade’s path. Jim gulped. It stung, almost like a paper cut.
“The other three squirmed too much,” noted Leonard McCoy, gaze fixed on Jim’s ear. “Even the best surgeon couldn’t have maintained precision. I slit their throats as punishment.”
Jim groaned, head rolling back on his shoulders. He was crying now. “Oh god,” he moaned, breath thick and lips slicked with blood. Jim was terrified.
Leonard McCoy’s lips moved lightly against Jim’s as he spoke – but Jim didn’t hear the words. He was lost in remembering how good the same lips felt against his neck the night before. Leonard McCoy carved quick crescent shapes into the soft flesh behind Jim’s ear, smiling to himself.
Jim was desperate. He kissed him hard on the mouth. He kissed him hard until he tore his gaze away from his ear and brought it to his face. Jim was thankful his stomach was empty.
“Oh.” Leonard McCoy had not been expecting that. He looked at Jim, suspecting either Stockholm syndrome or an ill-planned attempt to distract him. Possibly both. He moved the scalpel back against Jim’s throat without breaking skin. He thought for a moment, scratching tick marks into Jim’s collar bone effortlessly. Beads of blood began to dribble from each cut. “Oh.”
Jim waited expectantly for the blade to slice too deep, he waited for the end. But Leonard McCoy was intent on drawing this out, doing just enough to seem threatening but never enough to kill him. Jim was drained.
Leonard McCoy climbed off Jim’s lap. He threw the scalpel at the trolley and turned off the lights as he stormed from the room, leaving Jim bleeding in the dark.
xXx
Leonard McCoy talked about bones a lot. He asked Jim if he’d ever broken any on numerous occasions. He’d noticed that Jim’s nose had been broken so many times that he had learned to reset it himself – no fuss, no hospital bills showing up three weeks later. Leonard McCoy insisted that his nose was crooked, unprofessionally healed, but Jim was too out of it to care.
“Bones,” slurred Jim when Leonard McCoy turned on the lights. The basement cell was flooded with harsh blue. “Bones.” His tongue was numb and his throat raw from screaming, speaking felt alien to him.
Jim didn’t know how long he had been kept captive. At that point, it could have been hours or it could have been days and he wouldn’t have noticed a difference.
Leonard McCoy turned his back to Jim. His broad shoulders curled forward sleepily as he selected his blade from the trolley. The scalpel he chose was crusted with Jim’s blood. “Bones?” he echoed. He raised his eyebrows. “Yes?”
xXx
“What the fuck is going on?” Sam demanded. He barged into his mother’s house, slamming the front door behind him. He clutched a newspaper in his hand in one hand with a white-knuckled grip. He stomped through the halls, fuming. He found his mother in the kitchen.
Winona Kirk sat at the kitchen table, wireless phone in one hand and an untouched mug of tea in the other. Her eyes were sunken in dark circles and her lips were pressed into a thin line. She looked at him, shaking with stress.
Sam threw the newspaper onto the table. “He’s been missing since last Friday?” he demanded. “He’s been missing for three days and you didn’t think to call me? I had to find out through the goddamn paper!” Sam gestured wildly at the newspaper.
Winona stuttered. She shrank into her chair and stared down into her mug. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’ve spent all that time with the police. I’ve been hunting him down myself because those idiots can’t do it themselves.”
Sam sank into the chair across from his mother. “Three days,” he muttered to himself. “Three goddamned days.” He drummed his fingers on the table impatiently.
His mother rubbed her eyes tiredly. “He was out at the bar,” she said. “They think they did it to himself. They don’t take anything seriously anymore.”
“There were three others,” said Sam. He pointed to the newspaper. “Three others in six months. All of them were taken from bars across the state and found in pieces across the state.” His voice caught in his throat. He couldn’t finish.
“Don’t tell me that!” roared Winona. She flew out of her seat, knocking over her mug of tea. She glanced to the clock and stormed upstairs. “I’ve got a meeting at the police station.” The tea spilled across the table and dripped onto the floor.
xXx
Bones ground against Jim’s hips. He reached around to the back of the chair to unweave the knots. No blades involved. Bones smirked as the ropes slipped from around Jim’s wrists.
Jim cracked his knuckles cautiously. Slowly, he began to wring out days of stiffness from his joints. Jim watched Bones, certain that this wouldn’t be his end, but fearing what he was about to do.
His chest rose and fell violently with every breath, the torn flesh bloody and bruised and dead. He looked like he was decaying.
Bones dragged the ropes over Jim’s beaten chest, smiling as he screamed. He wiped the tears from Jim’s eyes and tossed the ropes over his shoulder. “I could do it, you know. If you wanted me to.”
Jim hung his head, resting his forehead against Bones’ shoulder. He couldn’t see straight, let alone think straight. Jim clung to the idea that someone was going to find him. “No,” he breathed, “no, no, no.”
If he’d had strength in his arms, Jim would have thrown Bones off and beaten him.
xXx
“What are you doing?” Jim managed. Bones had wrapped his torso in gauze and slung his arms under Jim’s to carry him into another room. Jim tried to map out the halls, but he was too exhausted.
Bones laid him across a ratty old couch. The cushions molded to the plain of Jim’s back. “I’m keeping you,” said Bones decidedly. He handed Jim a bottle of water.
Jim blinked. He snatched the water bottle desperately away from Bones’ grasp, but was frustrated to find that he couldn’t open it himself. Bones took it back from him and uncapped it. Water dribbled down Jim’s chin as he gulped it down.
Bones kissed his jaw and then his chin and then his lips. Jim expected him to tear off his face with his teeth.
“Why?” asked Jim. His arms were heavy at his sides, but he wanted to reach up for Bones. The sensation of kisses lingered on his skin. He wanted more water.
“Because I want you.”
Jim’s eyes didn’t ever adjust to the darkness. He shivered against the cold, ripping open wounds and bleeding through his bandages. Bones brought him new gauze and another water bottle. He held Jim as he drank, lips pressed to his forehead.
He blacked out there, in Bones’ arms, scared shitless and sick.
xXx
Jim slept soundly – debilitated and starved – for nearly fifteen hours. No drug-induced comas, no blacking out from the pain. Bones left him on the couch and retreated upstairs. In his slumber, Jim did not notice how the hours passed as days.
xXx
“What the fuck are you doing?” grumbled Jim. His tongue was swollen and bloody in his mouth; he couldn’t shape his words properly. Bones had moved him back into the concrete cell again; he bound him to the chair and kissed him aggressively. Once Bones had worked Jim’s lips open, he’d clamped down on his tongue and ripped ferociously with his teeth. Jim was certain he’d intended to tear it out of his throat.
“Keeping you,” growled Bones. He grabbed a blood-crusted scalpel from the cart and circled Jim’s chair, stalking his prey.
“What?” sighed Jim, too drained to respond to the blade. He had almost trusted Bones not to kill him. Jim hung his head.
Bones thrust the blade into Jim’s gut. He twisted the scalpel, working through the muscle and fat and organs beneath Jim’s skin. The sickening sound of tearing flesh met the air with the sound of Jim wailing. Bones drew the scalpel from Jim’s core and watched the blood spill onto the floor as Jim faded into unconsciousness.
xXx
The house hadn’t been Bones’. He’d arranged for a neighbor to phone the police, saying that he’d heard the screams. The police arrived with the ambulances and fire engines. The entire street was blocked off, barricaded with warning tape and police lights and sirens.
Jim’s case wasn’t widely televised at his family’s request; though, the lobby of the hospital was always swarmed with sleazy reports hoping to catch a glimpse of him. Bones was disappointed by this, he anxiously awaited Jim’s picture printed in the newspapers for all to see – stuffed with tubes and hooked to monitors and utterly mechanical, the product of his handiwork.
One of his insiders called Bones the day Jim was going to be released from the hospital – a month and a half after the incident. Bones appeared eagerly at the front desk, asking to see James Tiberius Kirk, as his personal physician. He’d prepared the records and forms weeks in advance.
“What the hell are you doing here?” demanded Jim. He sat upright in his pristine hospital bed, washed and healed and clothed – the healthiest Bones had ever seen him. He was much too impatient to see what scarring he’d caused beneath Jim’s hospital gown.
“You’ve been released into my care.” Bones’ southern drawl was warm and inviting, his eyes gleamed cold. “We’re going home.”
Jim didn’t protest.
xXx
Bones gripped Jim’s thighs as Jim worked, pouring over an old anatomy textbook of his and the tray of tools. He held Jim against him hungrily. Jim swatted his hands away but Bones didn’t budge.
Over Jim’s shoulder, Bones watched the man writhe in his chair, bound with leather straps rather than rope. That had been Jim’s idea. He wasn’t nearly as beautiful as Jim had been.
Jim checked the textbook one last time and, with Bones’ approval, snatched at the bound man’s arm. He snipped at the flesh stretched over his wrists with rusty forceps. Veins were cut. Jim’s hands were stained with the man’s blood.
Jim smiled as he listened to the man scream.
Bones slid his hands beneath Jim’s shirt, running his fingers over the hardened scar tissue on his stomach. He grinned to himself. “Just like that, darlin',” he muttered against Jim’s neck. “Just like that.”