Title: Forewarned is Forearmed (#16, J ‘N B Series)
Author: klmeri
Fandom: Star Trek AOS, references to other fandoms
Pairing: Kirk/McCoy
Summary: Comment!fic inspired by this picture post at jim-and-bones; Jim never realized how crazy his life with Bones could be until he began reading about it.
A/N: Writers can laugh at themselves, too. :)
Previous Parts: Another Day, Another Dollar, and a Daily Show? | Fight the Good Fight | Don’t Touch the Rock | A Tear Worth Gold | Another Day, Another Dollar, Part 2 | Pirates Read Too | The Case of the Mondays | Today’s Topic – Helmets! | The Case of the Mondays, Part 2 | Marked | Awesome Ideas Come from Awesome Brains | In the Keeping of a Spirit | The Case of the Mondays, Part 3 | The Case of the Mondays, Part 4 | The Case of the Mondays, Part 5

Bones in shadow.

Jim stilled, licked his lips nervously as his heart made a dull thud in his chest.

“Jim,” the shadow said, “I have to tell you something.”

Oh. This could not be good. His mind ran through the possibilities, caught on the first big whoamygoditcan’tbe! and his mouth, unsurprisingly, blurted it out. “You’re… not Bones. You’re a dimensional space-time traveler. Called, like, the Traveler.”

The shadow drawled, “Huh?”

The Captain muttered a quiet thank you, but he had to ask, unable to shake his wariness, “What about a—a mutant?”

“Mutant?” came the flat response.

“Inhuman reflexes, superior strength, the ability to regenerate cells, never dying…” He sucked in a sharp breath. “Oh God, Bones, are you a vampire?”

“Damn it, Jim,” the shadow snarled, now greatly annoyed. “What’s the matter with you? I wanted to say—”

Jim disregarded the idea Bones could become a millenia-old disembodied head in a giant jar, though the letters YANA flashed in his mind’s eye, and his forehead began to bead with sweat for all of his rapid-fire thinking. “No, that’s not it, right? Too easy. Wouldn’t make you any weirder than Old Spock jumping into our universe.”

“Who?”

If it wasn’t an identity issue, then… Jim shifted uncomfortably. “You’re in love with Admiral Pike.”

Pike. Jim’s mentor, now dominating a big steel hover-chair which did nothing to diminish Pike’s good looks… At the shadow’s silence (which was incredulous, not that Jim sensed this through his self-absorbed panic), Kirk’s brain continued its dramatic leaps.

Mouth dry, he choked, “Is it Spock, Bones? You’re with Spock.” Jim groaned and put a hand to his face, voice still strangled. “I’m sure we could, ah, work something out…”

The Bones shadow stepped forward and a measure of the overhead light in the Captain’s quarters revealed the plane of his jaw, a smooth cheek, an eye twitch.

“Jim…” A warning to listen. “I just—”

Jim looked over the normally flat parts of Bones still hidden in shadow and his hands spasmed in their hard grips on his knees.

“You’re pregnant!” he gasped.

“What? No!”

“You’re a girl!”

“NO!”

“A girl-turned-boy-turning-cephalopod—”

“For Christ’s sake!” growled the doctor as he stalked towards Kirk at the opposite end of the room. “Would you shut up already, kid?”

“But, Bones, I can handle the truth! I swear, I—mmmpphh…”

When Bones finally stopped kissing him and pulled back, Jim listened in a half-daze as the man said, “I love you, you idiot. That’s all I wanted to say.” Now the doctor eyed Jim warily. “Have you been knocking back Scotty’s hooch in-between shifts again?”

Jim blinked then almost blushed. His “No” was rather weak.

But that hooch was quite good, even if Bones wasn’t overly fond of the sloppy drunken sex Jim liked to indulge after a sip or two of the potent alcohol. (Of course, when Jim was too uncoordinated to aim his dick… well, he could understand Bones’ attitude.)

Bones pushed at him, saying, “What’s that?” with a frown in his voice and an eyebrow steadily climbing up his forehead.

Jim reeled in his wandering thoughts to realize Bones was looking over his shoulder at the lazy glow originating from the desk behind them.

And Jim freaked out.

He almost beheaded the computer terminal in his overzealous effort to shut off its screen. Turning back to Bones, Jim smiled sheepishly.

“Nothing, Bones—it was nothing. Just… bed-time reading of, er, report-y stuff. Yeah, that’s right! A report from Spock!” he said brightly.

Bones considered him for a long moment (could he sense the lie?) before shrugging. “You had dinner?”

Jim shook his head. “What’s on the replicator menu?” he asked while he went looking for one of his errant boots and Bones searched for the other.

“The same cardboard crap,” complained McCoy, handing Jim the left boot to a pair.

As the man continued to grumble about the starship’s lackluster dining options, Jim breathed a sigh of relief.

The next time he gets an anonymous link from an anonymous sender, he will ignore it. Yet he cannot help but wonder, not just who was behind the linked story archive, but who wrote all of those… fan fictions.

Jim’s eyes skipped to the back of Bones’ dark-haired head as the result of hours of reading crowded his mind again.

All things—and events—considered, their universe isn’t exactly known for its sedate condition. Some of those fictions could be possible.

“Bones,” he said, interrupting his lover’s rant, “what are the chances of us encountering evil mirrored versions of ourselves?”

Bones answered thoughtfully, “Given our luck? Pretty damn likely.”

“Yeah,” he muttered, “that’s what I thought, too.”

He tugged on his other boot, let Bones take the lead on the way to the mess hall, and pretended he wasn’t following possibly the universe’s only blood-sucking alien-cowgirl-pregnant-with-a-half-Vulcan’s-baby Bones. (Unless there were two of them, at which point Jim’s brain almost fizzled from sheer overload and died.)

Yet, he thought, even if he was following that kind of Bones, it wouldn’t matter much. If Bones loved Jim, and Jim loved Bones, nothing could keep them apart.

…

Except maybe a zombie apocalypse?

…

Or somebody named Q?

Hmm, Jim decided, he might have to research that archive some more. Forewarned is forearmed, after all.

-Fini

The Case of the Mondays, Part 6

Related Posts:

• Another Day, Another Dollar, Part 4 (#40, J ‘N B Series) (40/40) – from March 29, 2013
• The Light In Which We’re Cast (#39, J ‘N B Series) – from March 20, 2013
• Playing Life to Win (#38, J ‘N B Series) – from March 14, 2013
• An Intergalactic Fandom (#37, J ‘N B Series) – from January 15, 2013
• We Fight to Win (#36, J ‘N B Series) – from January 4, 2013