Archive of Our Own

“Sheriff Pike! There’s trouble at the saloon,” a man blurted, stumbling over the words in excitement. He was bursting back out the jailhouse doors before Pike could ask for more information, so the sheriff just followed him.

“Trouble,” Pike drawled sarcastically when he saw the saloon. As usual, trouble at the saloon meant a few boys got into a scuffle over something or another. Except this time, a wiry young boy was beating the tar out of the two who’d ganged up at him, and it looked like he’d already knocked out a third man. It was possible that the unconscious one was the wiry kid’s friend, but Sheriff Pike knew better, because he knew exactly who drank with who and who would punch who when things went sour.

Pike separated the three of them, had a few talks with most of the saloon patrons, and walked the wiry kid – who was unanimously declared the instigator – to the jailhouse.

“Kid, when are you gonna learn to stop making such a fuss?” Sheriff Pike asked in exasperation.

The most frequent guest of his two-cell town jail grinned at him, showing off a bloodied mouth. “When it stops being so much fun.”

“You better not have lost any teeth. I don’t think your admirers would like you so much with gaps like that in your pretty mouth.”

“You might be surprised.”

“Would you at least hold off on the serious fights until we’ve got a proper doctor in town?” Pike asked.

“But if I said I’d wait, then you’d have incentive not to get one,” the kid laughed. Pike rolled his eyes and closed the cell door.

Enterprise, Nevada was a dusty place not really deserving the designation “town.” A few dozen one- and two-story buildings lined each side of the single, wide road. It was a stop on the way to bigger places, with a tiny, rarely inhabited boarding house above a more frequently used saloon.

All kinds of people lived in Enterprise, though no matter what they had been, most were ranchers now, or shopkeepers of some kind. Even the sheriff job was only a part-time one. The only other type of job meant working in Miss Gaila’s cathouse.

The one thing Enterprise didn’t have was a doctor, but Sheriff Pike aimed to fix that. An old friend of his had mentioned a down-on-his-luck doctor reeling from a nasty divorce and looking to get away – far away. Pike sent the offer immediately.

We can’t pay much and there’s no place for you to live yet, not properly, but someone will put you up until your place is built and you’ll never starve here.

He didn’t mention that the doctor’s drinks would probably be bought for him most of the time and that they’d lost a boy to infection after what should have been a minor scrape.

The work’s not too hard or too often, but the settlement’s at a size where there are scuffles now and again and people get sick sometimes. So if you’d like to come up for a month or two to try us on for size, I’m sure there’ll be something for you to do at least once a week.

The natives seemed to like them well enough, and when they were desperate the settlers begged for help with this injury or that sickness, because sometimes those “medicine bags” did work. They traded meat and furs and a drink or two and got along fine as long as everyone stayed fairly separate. The Indians did their trading from the porch of most establishments, but since the townsfolk didn’t have the faintest clue where the Indians lived, this seemed fair enough to everyone. Most of the people in Enterprise had never once seen an Indian woman, or a male under the age of twenty, but they must exist.

The doctor, Leonard Horatio McCoy, hadn’t sent anything back after almost two weeks, and Pike was a little concerned. Then, an abrupt, almost rude letter arrived, the essence being:

I’ll come. Be around about a week or so after this gets there, most like.

The handwriting was messy and nigh on illegible, but Pike thought that was fairly typical of doctors. He put the letter out of his mind and concentrated on figuring out what the hell he would do with the two boys in his holding cells that couldn’t seem to stop picking at each other.

A week later, a scruffy, dirt-stained man with dark hair and wild eyes half-fell out of his carriage, looking queasy. Pike went to see if the man needed help.

“Somebody call for a doctor?” the scruffy man asked blearily. “God I hate carriages.”

“Dr. McCoy?” Pike asked, not quite believing this man, who seemed to be falling-down drunk, was the one his friend had described as “the most brilliant surgeon I’ve ever met, a little rough with his words but never with his hands.”

McCoy’s eyes flicked over him measuringly and caught on the glint of metal. “Sheriff Pike?” he asked back.

“That’s me.”

“Then Dr. McCoy Ah am,” McCoy half-smiled, and it was not a nice or charming or welcoming expression but it was damned sexy and slightly dangerous looking, and Pike was just glad that Gaila wasn’t around to get her hooks in this one, because the Southern accent wouldn’t deter her any, quadroon or not.

“I’d say it’s a pleasure, but to be frank, I’m not sure it is. You been drinkin’, McCoy?”

McCoy waggled a hipflask at him. “’s good bourbon,” he said neutrally. “Needed it for the road. Carriages are dangerous contraptions, you know, but Ah haven’t ridden a horse in years and got no desire to start now with a trunkful a’ luggage.” The driver had pulled out a steamer trunk and seemed to be looking to Pike for the okay to leave.

“Well, we’ll set you up in the boardinghouse for now,” Pike said reluctantly. It was the closest building, and that trunk looked damn heavy, but it was also above a whole room full of liquor.

A day later, Pike was pleased to discover his concern was needless. McCoy had bathed and shaved and all in all cleaned up handsomely. He didn’t pull the hipflask out once during their meeting to discuss arrangements.

Regardless of whether the doctor would stay, Pike decided to have the boys build a new house on the lane. Nothing big or fancy, just a bedroom, study/sitting room, and kitchen, with maybe another room to even it out, something that could be a workroom or a spare bedroom. Even if McCoy didn’t take the job, Enterprise would need a doctor eventually, and they might as well have a place to put one.

In the mean-time, McCoy would be roving a bit, staying where there were spare beds or couches and living with many people so he could meet them all quickly and get to know them better. McCoy did not particularly like this plan, but he did not protest, either.

Pike volunteered to be the first host, because his wife was always telling him to bring her more company for evening meals and his house wasn’t far from the saloon, either.

It took the two men serious effort to get the steamer trunk to Pike’s house. McCoy huffed and puffed a bit more than Pike did, but seemed to be in overall good shape.

“What all you got in here, anyway?” Pike asked when they got to the house.

“Clothes. A few things from my father. And medicine, medical supplies. That’s all, really,” McCoy answered quietly. When it’s open the next morning while McCoy changed, Pike saw the man was being a little misleading. Priority order implied the thing he had least of were medical supplies, when in fact they took up three-fourths of the trunk. Also, there was a small picture of a cheerful little girl in an oval, silver frame.

McCoy found Pike staring at that picture and cleared his throat. “My daughter,” he said, voice filled with regret and pain and loss so profound that Pike wondered for the first time what had caused the divorce. He wondered if the cheerful little girl was still alive and happy somewhere.

But they were men and practically strangers, so they couldn’t discuss this yet. The clothes and personal items were moved to a small canvas bag that Pike has had since his army days, and the trunk was again carried by huffing and puffing men, this time to the doctor’s office where McCoy was supposed to set up shop. It wasn’t a proper doctor’s office, but there was a spare room in the jailhouse and since most of the medical traffic ended up in the cells anyway, it was good placement.

Hardly a day passed before someone got hurt, as Pike had pretty much expected. Everyone knew the man’s name already and so it was little wonder that they knew where to go. As it happened, Nyota Uhura was the first one hurt, and she came in with a dark purple bruise on her beautiful chocolate brown skin that made Pike’s blood boil to see.

McCoy treated her gently, professionally, holding her face this way and that, before saying, “If your man did this to you, you’d better leave him ‘fore I break my oaths.”

Nyota smiled, showing all her lovely white teeth. “My Spock wouldn’t dream of it. One of the children was having a fit.”

Now McCoy was professionally curious. “A fit? Do they happen often?”

“Just temper, not a seizure,” she reassured him. “Sorry, I should have been clearer.”

“No, darlin’, I just always jump to the medical explanation.”

“Miss Uhura is our schoolteacher. A lot of places probably wouldn’t approve, considering she’s courting, but she’s done well by us and we do well by her.” It hadn’t occurred to Pike to be worried, before, but now that he thought about it, McCoy was a southern gentleman and Uhura was the child of escaped slaves. The Civil War might be over, but the hostilities weren’t.

“Ah always thought that rule was silly. Mah favorite teacher in primary school was fired for gettin’ engaged, like that ain’t somethin’ that deserves congratulations,” McCoy rolled his eyes, and Pike is relieved to find, again, that he had no need for concern.

“You have a charming accent,” Uhura smiled. “Where are you from?”

“Not far from Atlanta, ma’am.”

And didn’t that beat all – a good old Southern boy calling the child of slaves “ma’am.” McCoy pulled a jar out of his well-stocked drawers and started to rub a cream into the bruise.

“My parents escaped from a plantation ‘not far from Atlanta.’” Her eyes lit up, and she kissed him on the cheek. “You’re Dr. Horatio D. McCoy’s son, aren’t you? The abolitionist?”

Suddenly, years melted off of McCoy’s face as he smiled back to the girl. “Yes’m, that was Pops. Always raisin’ hell. Best damn doctor in the county, too, so they couldn’t do a damn thing about it. Now let me think. He never wrote down a single name, but he’d describe some of his ‘refugees’ with words and a sketch here and there. Now these are Little Lark’s eyes, I’m sure, and that looks like Silver-tongue’s mouth. I don’t suppose you have his gift for languages and her gift for music? Little Lark sang me a few lullabies ‘fore Pops got them transport up to Chattanooga, and from there I know they were headed up to Massachusetts.”

“Miss Uhura does have a lovely singing voice,” Pike put in.

Since this conversation was clearly audible to the rest of the jail-house, young Johnny called out from lockup, “Please sing, Miss Uhura, please?”

Uhura laughed but indulged them, and McCoy gently rubbed the last of the cream into her bruise. He handed over a pot of the stuff. “Ev’ry night for a week, an’ a cold cloth to bring down the swellin’. Bring back what’s left of that stuff, I have a feeling I’ll need the supplies.”

“Yes, doctor.”

“Miss Uhura, I’d be much obliged if you called me Leonard,” McCoy said, almost shyly.

“Of course, Leonard. If you’d call me Nyota, then.”

He kissed her hand, because it seemed the right thing to do and he was a little too flustered to think of anything else to say. She giggled a little and left, with the jar in her hand and a swing in her step. Johnny wolf-whistled loudly.

“Shut it, boy!” Pike yelled. He turned to McCoy. “Well, I’m fair impressed, McCoy. An abolitionist’s son?”

“Lucky for me I was still a boy in the war, and lucky for Pops they needed his hands on a scalpel, not a gun. It wasn’t a choice that impressed me as a child, when everyone heaped scorn on the whole family for not going along with the ‘ways of the world.’ But Pops taught me what’s right ain’t what’s easy most times. I should’ve known…marrying Jocelyn was easy. Coming here…” he paused. “I’m not sure yet, but I think it was right.”

“I think you’ll fit right in at Enterprise. And now that I know you won’t have a problem with colored folk, I should probably warn you about someone you’ll need to make house-calls for, and often.”

McCoy nodded.

“I don’t suppose you noticed the red building two doors left of the saloon?”

McCoy groaned. “The cathouse. Damn. I knew I forgot something, I didn’t bring much in the way of treatments for, well, intimate diseases.”

“To be honest, there isn’t much of that here, that I’ve heard of anyway. The girls assure me they’re all clean, but most people would feel safer if someone confirmed it. The main concern at Gaila’s is if a patron gets rowdy and one of the girls gets hurt. Not to say they can’t take care of themselves – I don’t know who taught her, but Gaila and every one of ‘em can throw a man out the window if need be – but sometimes they’re caught off guard.”

“That’s easy enough, then. If I do go makin’…house calls. Am I gonna need to worry about a lotta talk goin’ around town?” he asked.

“Don’t worry about it. People might talk, but none of ‘em will think any less of you, and anyway Gaila will spread it around that you’re just doing your doctorly duties.”

People did talk, but even with the mention of regular visits to the cathouse, it was noted that he went with his medical supplies and such a harried expression that he couldn’t possibly be enjoying himself. The easy friendship with Miss Uhura surprised a few people because of their backgrounds and because Uhura had never allowed anyone other than Spock to call her by first name. She was polite but distant, and bristled at anyone who tried to act superior to her. McCoy never tried, which probably helped. If anything, he acted like she was a rich lady he was looking to woo.

This line of thought led to a confrontation, such as it was, with Mr. Spock Vulcan, the local attorney.

“Doctor, it has been brought to my attention that you are courting a woman of my interest.”

McCoy blinked. He had been sitting in the cramped medical office, reading a book and minding his own business when this stuffy young man with an odd haircut and oddly heavy clothes for a man living in the desert, appeared and lobbed an oddly cordial accusation at him.

“D’ you mean Nyota?”

This brought about such twitching in Mr. Vulcan’s face that McCoy thought for a minute he was going to start seizing.

“Yes,” was hissed through gritted teeth.

“We just found out our parents had…well, that our parents were friends. I just got divorced, Mr. Vulcan, I’m not looking for love right now, for sure, an’ even if’n I was, I wouldn’t pick someone already being wooed.” He smiled mischievously. “Though, she’s a lovely woman and all, and I might should mention she didn’t mention being wooed. Maybe you ought to go pull this caveman act to her face and see how she likes being treated like a possession.” The word was laced with double meaning and made the lawyer’s posture snap into statuesque rigidity.

Then Spock calmed. “Your explanation is logical. And your suggestion…pointed. My behavior would not please her.” He deflated a little. “I apologize.”

“Yeah, well, keep in mind I’m her friend, not her paramour. That’s your job. And actually, she has talked you up plenty. Every other conversation is mostly about you, and you come up every time we talk.” McCoy held out a hand. “You don’t have anything to worry about, Vulcan. Your girl won’t stray and I wouldn’t bite even if’n she tried, not until I’ve put at least a few more years distance between me ‘n the ex-wife.”

Spock nodded abruptly, and hesitantly took the offered hand. They shook.

“How are your hands this cold in an infernal place like this?” McCoy asked.

“My father’s family does not regulate body heat well, or so I’m told. Father’s family is also from the arid Arabic nations, so I am predisposed to such climates.”

“That makes sense, I suppose,” McCoy allowed gruffly. “Now, do you have a medical reason for being here, or are you going to show yourself out now?”

“I have discussed everything I planned on mentioning,” Spock said stiffly, and then left.

McCoy rolled his eyes and muttered something about cold-blooded lawyers.

As hard as it was to believe, McCoy had been living in Enterprise for nearly a month and a half. After staying with Pike, he was sent to Montgomery Scott, the man in charge of building his house. They shared a few drinks now and again but otherwise had little interaction, composed mainly of “Scotty” trying to get his dog Keenser to stop humping McCoy’s leg.

Next on the list was the Sulus, an Asian family of five. The oldest child and only boy, Hikaru, had sprained his wrist trick-riding a few days into McCoy’s stay, and their gratitude meant that the doctor had a few hearty meals he couldn’t make heads or tails of and a comfortable, body-length floor cushion of sorts to sleep on. They called it a “foo-tawn,” whatever the hell that meant.

While he was there, he also ended up taking care of little Nariko’s fever, and staying almost a week and a half extra as a result, nursing her back to health.

The Chekovs, a small family of Russian Jews, were close friends with the Sulus. The seventeen-year-old boy, Pavel, idolized Hikaru and followed him around to the point of obsession. Most of the townsfolk thought this was kind of cute, harmless hero-worship. When Pavel sprained his ankle wrestling with Hikaru, McCoy scolded the older boy to find safer activities to engage in with his friend. He also mentioned quietly that if they didn’t want people catching on, maybe Hikaru shouldn’t bite so high on Pavel’s chest.

Spock volunteered to host him for a few days. It was by far the most silent and boring few days he’d ever experienced, except the last one, where the quiet got to him and he ended up shouting at the lawyer just to hear something. Spock debated back so rationally it was almost more infuriating, but McCoy caught a hint of a spark in his eye. It made sense almost immediately. Spock had gone to a fancy law school and been on the debate team and everything, most likely. The most he got to do in this one-saloon town was write up paperwork and maybe, every few months, go to court for one of the drunken brawlers. He probably missed having proper arguments the way McCoy missed having a proper hospital and nursing staff, though any kind of medical staff would just get underfoot here.

The local baker, the owner of the saloon/boardinghouse, and two other shopkeepers all put him up uneventfully before the seventh week was out, and then all that was left were the ranchers.

This required taking a horse or a cart out of town. McCoy wasn’t sure which he was dreading more, when the decision was made for him. A stable-hand at one of the ranches had been badly hurt, and they were afraid to move him. In case it was possible, McCoy and Pike were taking a cart out with some bedding at the bottom and supplies on the sides. The sun was setting.

Pike had to keep McCoy talking to ensure the man didn’t reach for his hipflask. He wondered where the fear had come from. Cart malfunctions were relatively common, but painful accidents were not.

“Doctor!” someone greeted them with relief. “He’s still in the barn, but we got him blankets and we tried to clean the wounds where we could – clean rags wet with water that’d been boiled, just like you told Billy’s momma,” the hired hand explained in a tumble of words.

“Good,” McCoy said curtly, practically throwing himself from the cart. “Pike, take it in after us, I dunno what I’ll need yet.”

There was a small heap of blankets on the hay-covered dirt. The stable-boy was young, with light brown hair bleached nearly blond by the sun. His blue eyes were wild, and three other young men were holding him down to keep him from making his wounds worse. Since he was pressed face-down in the hay and half-blind with pain, McCoy wasn’t surprised that he was panicking. He knelt down and looked the kid in the eyes.

“Son, I need you to calm down,” he said as reasonably as he knew how. “I’m gonna fix you up right as rain, but I need you to calm down first. Now, one of these three young men is going to let go, and I want you to stop struggling. When you do that for me, another one will let go. And if you stay still, then all three of them will leave. Okay?” He touched the boy’s face gently.

“Kirk, I’m letting go,” the guy holding his waist said clearly. His hands went vertically upwards, hovering about two inches over Kirk’s shirt. Kirk took a few heavy breaths, but stilled. He trembled slightly, though. He looked at McCoy with pleading eyes, and the doctor nodded to the boy holding down Kirk’s feet.

“Kirk, I’m letting go,” that one repeated. The repetition seemed to help, too, and McCoy was grateful for it. Kirk hadn’t taken his eyes off of McCoy’s, so McCoy didn’t dare look away.

“Good man,” McCoy smiled at Kirk. “Now the third.”

Again the ritual.

“Can you be calm while I work on you, Kirk?”

He got a wary nod in answer.

“Alright, men, thanks for your help,” he told the stable-hands.

All but the one who led him to the barn left, and that one leaned in to murmur, “You can’t be left alone with him, doctor. He’s violent at the best of times.”

McCoy ignored him and did his job. The broken leg was set with help from Pike, who Kirk seemed to recognize and trust somewhat. Then he turned to the injury that had everyone worried, something that could only be a knife-wound, and not even an inch off of the spine. Mercifully, Kirk passed out while McCoy was digging grime out of the wound site.

“Who did this?” Pike asked the stable-hand in a soft, but unmistakably dangerous voice.

“One of them drifter men, don’t know his name. Prize kicked his brains out, though.”

“What?” McCoy barked.

“The fella who stabbed Kirk – Kirk’s horse killed him.”

“Tell me no one touched that horse, please,” Pike begged. McCoy was stunned, so Pike explained. “That horse is just about the only thing in this world that Kirk loves. If it got hurt, I think he’d just plain go crazy. He’s already lain with more people than two or three of Gaila’s girls combined, he drinks whenever he has the time and money, and he gets in fights when he can’t afford that but doesn’t want a woman’s soft touch.”

“Prize is stabled. They might have to put him down, though, or at least geld the beast. He’s more violent than Kirk.”

Kirk woke up and they shut their mouths. McCoy managed a gentle smile for his patient when he asked, “Can you move your toes, kid?”

Pike nodded to confirm wiggling. Luckily, Kirk was barefoot; an odd thing to be while one was fighting in a stable, but McCoy wasn’t going to question it.

“That’s good, Kirk,” McCoy said. “It’ll probably take you a few weeks to recover from that leg injury, though.”

A girl peeked through the door. “Um, doctor? Mr. Robau wanted me to say…well, to ask if you’d take Kirk with you. Not, not permanent-like,” she rushed to reassured Kirk or the doctor, neither was sure, “but until his leg’s healed up. None of us have the time to take care of him, and anyway the only sleep-space we’ve got for him is in the bunkhouse. And, Kirk, Mr. Robau wanted me to tell you that when you’re better, the job will be waiting. And we’ll take care of Prize while you’re gone. If you’re goin’?” She looked nervously at McCoy.

“It’s fine with me, kid. You got a problem with livin’ with a crotchety old doctor?”

Pike stepped in briefly to say, “You could probably go ahead and move into that house now, McCoy. Scotty has the bare bones of it finished.”

“Even better,” McCoy sighed. “No shipping around to ranchers.”

“I… dun mind,” Kirk slurred, mouth dripping blood. McCoy frowned and held his mouth open.

“Dammit, bring me one of those lanterns,” he gestured. The girl fetched one and brought it in a hurry. It took a bit of work to see by the weak light, but finally he shook his head. “You’ve bitten your tongue pretty badly,” he told Kirk. “Try not to talk too much.”

The stable-boy laughed, and Kirk glared at him.

“What?” McCoy asked, turning a glare of his own on the kid.

“Kirk doesn’t know how to keep his mouth shut,” the boy grinned in a self-satisfied way.

McCoy stood and grabbed the kid by the ear. “Do not harass my patients, moron. I an’ Pike are going to get Kirk here to the cart and then we’re going back into town. I don’t want to see your face unless it’s bloody or covered in pustules.”

It didn’t take much persuasion to get Pike to help him carry Kirk. There seemed to be a kind of odd affection between the two, as though Pike were a fond but put-upon uncle and Kirk a fuckup nephew.

“You both can stay with us tonight,” Pike said firmly, once they were on the road and McCoy concentrating on Kirk so he wouldn’t focus on how little he liked or trusted the rickety cart. “’Til we can get some bedding in the new place.”

“Thanks, sheriff,” McCoy said. He’d prefer putting Kirk in a nice soft bed, or even a decent couch, to leaving the poor boy on the floor. And floor was about all he had to offer yet in the house Scotty was building him.

Getting Kirk settled in the sheriff’s house took a while. His soft, involuntary whimpers were the only clue to his discomfort, and McCoy was fairly sure he wouldn’t have spoken up even if he were in great pain. So McCoy had to guess at what was wrong and suffer more quiet whines if he was incorrect. Eventually, he found a position that was comfortable enough for Kirk to fall asleep in.

Pike took him to the kitchen for a nightcap.

“What’s his full name?” was the first question out of McCoy’s mouth, and it made Pike sigh into his tumbler of whiskey.

“No one knows what his mother named him, to be honest. His father, George Kirk, had a small ranch pretty far out of town, but he died somehow the same day Kirk was born. His mother, Winona, kept to herself with the baby after that. Married again, some fella she’d known when she was younger, but something happened. They didn’t come into town like usual. It was a few months before people figured there was cause to worry. The ranch was leveled; Winona and the stepfather’s bodies were burnt beyond recognition. The boy was running naked in the field with the horses. He had some problems related to exposure, a bit sun-burnt and probably dehydrated. I was still a young man at the time, only newly married, and I was one of the people tasked with collecting eight-year-old Kirk and separating him from the herd.

“The horses were…surprisingly protective. They must’ve adopted him or something.” Pike took a long drink to finish off his glass, and then poured some more. “He bit and kicked and screamed like hell the first few days. My wife and I did our best to civilize him, get him wearing clothes again, but to be frank: he’s half mad and full wild. Never told anyone his first name, he’s worse than Uhura about it. I’m not sure he knows what it is. It took more than a week before he’d answer to Kirk, and he refuses anything else these days. He talks plenty now, reads a lot, too. But he can’t sit still. He always needs to fight or run or do something – or someone. On the other hand, he’s God’s gifts to horses. He can get ‘em to do anything for him, though it doesn’t always mean they’ll take a rider other than him. Prize was the colt of his father’s stud. The Kirk horses went to the Robau ranch, just like Kirk did after he was old enough and fidgety enough to need the work. George and Rick Robau were close. Kirk sleeps in the stable, there, probably in the same stall as Prize. If a man could have a horse for a brother…”

“Would Kirk ever try to make his own ranch, take the horses back?”

Pike shrugged. “The kid’s a mess. He’s intelligent, for all he missed out on most of his formal schooling. He’s read every book people let him touch and he’s got a gift for translating the written word into practical knowledge. He’s the closest thing we have to a veterinarian, after he read a few animal anatomy and medicine books. If we’d gotten desperate enough, we might’ve just shoved some medical textbooks at him, though to be honest I don’t know if he’d treat people with the same kind of care he gives animals. He doesn’t…he doesn’t have any kind of belief in human goodness. I suppose that’s the real problem. He expects the worst out of people and often provokes them into giving him their worst. Even Miss Uhura thinks he’s a useless pretty boy, since he doesn’t like letting on he’s smart and she’s never had an animal she needed him to fix.”

“But you know him.”

The sheriff snorted. “As well as anyone else, I suppose. Maybe a little better. Even when he was a kid, he’d disappear for weeks and turn up decently fed, poorly hydrated, and mostly naked. Sometimes I think he has sex so much as an excuse to be naked more often. I also think when he disappears for real lengths of time; he goes to stay with the Indians. The ones who come in town seem pretty friendly to him, from what I’ve heard and what I’ve seen.”

“You like him, even if you don’t know him,” McCoy said neutrally.

“Well, I never did have any kids. The missus can’t, or maybe I can’t, but it never mattered much to us ‘til we got Kirk. I’m not sure if he was more son or pet in the first year, but afterwards…I would’ve outright adopted him if I’d thought he wouldn’t object. He was fiercely loyal to his father’s memory, and I encouraged that where I could, because George was a good man, from what I remembered of my own childhood and adolescence.”

“Maybe you should’ve asked him anyway,” McCoy said. “Seems to me a child like that would have all kinds of fears and uncertainties. Probably every day he spent in your house he was worried it would be the last.”

Pike looked sick with that thought.

“Apologies, if you have any, can wait until he wakes up again. In the mean time, I’m going to set up my own bed before I get too drunk to see straight.”

If a conversation occurred between Kirk and Pike, it happened before McCoy woke up. Regardless, Kirk was calm and chatty that morning, all warnings about his tongue forgotten. McCoy rolled out of bed and commenced checking on his patient before he bothered with breakfast, to the amusement of the rest of the house.

The day was mostly spent shifting Kirk and McCoy to the mostly-built house. McCoy honestly wasn’t sure what was left, other than paint or wallpaper, maybe. It had walls, it had windows and doors, it had floors and ceilings, and presumably the roof was sealed. It even had some coarse furniture now, a proper bedstead and a cot, smaller but still comfortable enough. Both were in the same room, which was convenient, as Kirk would probably require his full attention. McCoy finally had space to unpack the books that had been shipped in several crates earlier that month, as the study had a few rough sets of shelves. There was even a plain desk, sturdy but not much to look at. The kitchen had an oven and hardly anything else, but a table and three or four chairs would be coming along soon, Scotty said. The other room he’d decided would be a sort of parlor, but decorating could wait for when he didn’t have live-in patients.

In his spare time, Scotty had whipped up a chair with wheels on it “so the young’un isn’t cooped up all the time.” At McCoy’s direction, he was even able to add a support that would keep the broken leg slightly elevated, and there were handles so the chair could be pushed about easily. It wasn’t the prettiest wheelchair McCoy had ever seen, but it got the job done.

What Kirk jokingly called his “captivity” went relatively smoothly, all things considered. McCoy had never been a hospice doctor, but he was wholly unembarrassed about bodily functions. Kirk, perhaps as an additional effect of his months living wild, was similarly uninhibited. Trips to the outhouse were awkward only because the shack was small and smelly, and Kirk still couldn’t maneuver very well. For the most part, Kirk placidly went along with McCoy’s direction, and steadily worked his way through McCoy’s modest library of books. He was never more than ten feet from the doctor, unless McCoy was making a solitary visit to the necessary. At the jailhouse/doctor’s office, Kirk talked to Pike or McCoy or the most recent inmate.

Surprisingly, this active twenty-something everyone had called wild and mad was McCoy’s best patient to date. He didn’t talk about the past unless it was some stunning escapade in which he narrowly escaped death, but that was all right. McCoy was uninterested in talking about his past, too, though he had explained about his daughter once, when Kirk asked who he wrote letters to all the time.

“I wish I’d had more time to know my father,” Kirk had said after that, and then gone into a harrowing and lengthy story about taking Prize’s sire out for a run when his stepfather wasn’t paying attention.

McCoy got to liking this patient, shared a drink now and again when Kirk whined enough about his leg or his back. When the cast was ready to come off, McCoy sawed away and told Kirk they’d have to meet regularly still, to make sure the leg held up.

Kirk smiled and leaned in real close to whisper, “My name’s Jim.”

It was a deep trust, that name was. McCoy had nodded and said back, “I won’t call you it in public, if you mind.”

“I don’t mind.”

And really, he didn’t. He didn’t even mind other people calling him that, though the whole town knew the Doctor was the only one he’d told. Robau took him back in and Jim’s riding improved along with his leg. His horsemanship never suffered.

“’Ey Sawbones,” Jim called out as Prize trotted up the street after McCoy.

“What fool thing did you just call me?” McCoy asked with the air of a man who was being tested by God and didn’t much like it.

“Sawbones. It was in some dime novel I read a while back. What, you don’t like it?”

“I don’t amputate often enough for it to be appropriate.”

“Bones, then. I could just call you Bones.”

“You could just call me McCoy or Len, like everyone else.”

“Don’t be like that, Bones,” Jim laughed. “I’m giving you a name, a special one just for you. Smile more; it makes your eyes look greener.”

He trotted off on Prize and McCoy found himself the bearer of a new name. This name was special, though, just like Jim said, because no matter how many times Jim called him that and no matter how many people heard, no else even tried to use it on him. McCoy had asked Pike why once, in confusion.

“A few weeks ago, Murdock did try to call you that, but not to your face. Kirk heard. You saw what he did; Murdock just said it was a riding accident so you wouldn’t get mad at Jim. It did look more like a horse had thrown him than he’d gotten into a fight.”

“All that over a name?”

“I’d say it’s a part of his crazy, but his father was the same way. He called Winona ‘dancing bean.’ A man tried to do the same once and George near about killed him. Winona may have told Jim the story before she died, but maybe he’s just that way. A strange kind of possessiveness, or maybe that they just have a strange kind of pet name.”

“Pet name? What, Pike, it’s not like we’re lovers or anything. Winona was George Kirk’s wife. I’m just an old country doctor.”

“I’m not entirely sure Kirk knows that. He never tried to go out to get laid while he was in the chair.”

“No, of course not, but – ”

“He also hasn’t tried to since he got out of the chair,” Pike said pointedly. “And before he met you, Jim Kirk hadn’t been celibate for two consecutive weeks since he turned seventeen, much less two consecutive months.”

McCoy took a deliberate breath, and then another. “You’re – really? You’re kiddin’, right?”

“Son, I wish I was. That boy has it bad for you and I don’t think he’d know love if it kicked him in the gut. Also, you’re pretty damn fragile your own self, don’t think the whole town doesn’t know.”

With a frustrated sort of sigh, McCoy downed his usual “Tuesday evening scotch with Pike.” Without trying or meaning to, McCoy had formed numerous rituals with the townspeople, up to and including plying Jim with alcohol any time he wanted the boy to submit to an examination. He wished there was a kind of gun that would painlessly knock someone out for a little while, just so he wouldn’t have to deal with people while he treated them. Especially Jim. Now that he wasn’t chair-bound, Jim was every inch the recalcitrant patient McCoy had been built up to anticipate.

“He doesn’t know what he’s feeling, but he does know he wants your attention. He probably also realized that nothing gets him harder than thinking about you.”

“Sir, could you please stop talking about Jim Kirk getting a stiffy from the thought of me?” McCoy grimaced.

Pike laughed. “All right, doc. But you got to promise me you’re gonna do somethin’ about this. Kirk’ll go stir-crazy otherwise. Get in more fights, or just do somethin’ suicidally dumb.”

McCoy sighed.

+

Usually the natives treated their own injured, but once or twice the hurt was bad enough or the patient near enough that McCoy got called in. It was a good thing he was gentle with them. They liked him, for some strange reason – maybe because of Jim.

Pike was damn glad they liked the doc, right now. It meant they had that many more hands when McCoy went missing. Jim rode off for a while and came back with about thirty Indians on horseback, mostly friends and relatives of the one McCoy had saved from almost certain death with an operation that the natives didn’t have knowledge of.

A few of them had bad news for the citizens of Enterprise. McCoy had been on his way to one of the ranches to check up on a pregnant woman when he’d gone missing. The natives had seen Nero’s gang in the area not long before that. On the one hand, Nero’s gang known for its ruthlessness; on the other hand, they’d have need of a doctor. Nero’s second, Ayel, had been wounded the last time they robbed a caravan, or so the rumors said. If they decided the doc was more use to them alive, the good people of Enterprise would have more time to rescue him.

Unfortunately, they didn’t know how badly Ayel had been injured, if he was even still alive. If there was no immediate use for the doctor, Pike suspected Nero’s gang would just kill him.

He rather thought Jim wouldn’t take that very well.

+

McCoy came around with a groan. His head ached, and he felt like he’d been dragged all over Creation.

“Sleeping beauty’s up,” someone yelled, which didn’t help his head. He squinted against the sunset.

“Upsy-daisy, docsy,” a man with a round, tattooed face and a stupid grin told him, pulling him to his feet.

“Awww, let him be,” someone else groused. The man who pulled him up ignored the protest and tugged McCoy away from the little campfire and into a primitive tent. A thin, also tattooed, man was shivering under a blanket inside, though the summer evening was still quite warm.

A more sturdily built fellow, with his own facial tattoos, was staring down at the sick one as he switched the cloths on the thinner man’s forehead.

“Commander Nero, the doctor’s awake.”

The sturdy one glowered at him. “This is Ayel. Heal him or you die.”

McCoy swallowed.

+

Nearly four days after the doctor’s capture, his would-be rescuers had only that afternoon determined where Nero was camped. A hundred or so young men on and off horseback did not make for a quiet ambush. Sheriff Pike led the charge into Nero’s camp, with Jim at his right.

Prize reared to kick Nero away, and he stumbled back holding his head. Jim, lips pulled back in an inhuman snarl, shot Nero in the chest before leaping off Prize and searching the tent Nero had emerged from.

McCoy’s glare was barely visible in the low lamplight. He was tied to a chair. It sparked a memory of Jim’s own time spent chair-bound, and he pulled out his knife to set the man free. He accidentally kicked the lamp and suddenly the tent was catching fire. He hurried to slice through the knots, and it was McCoy who dragged him from the accidental oven. Jim was shivering in the grips of another memory, of yelling and fire and death. It took Prize licking his face for Jim to come to his senses and pull the protesting McCoy up in the saddle.

“Just hold onto me and shut your eyes,” Jim yelled. Prize fell back into a gallop easily, and Jim steered them away from Nero’s camp.

“It’s not exactly how I intended to get you behind me, but it’ll have to do,” Jim quipped shakily, once he’d mounted in front of McCoy and taken the reins.

“Oughtn’t you tell Pike you got me?” McCOy grumbled into Jim’s ear.

“Well, yes and no,” Jim answered cheerfully. “Pike’s been meaning to get around to arresting Nero’s crew for months now, but didn’t have the manpower ‘til he deputized this here mob. If they’re told they got their doc back, they may lose interest in serving due course of justice. But let’s get you out of here while we still can.” He whistled loudly, something piercing and obnoxious.

Just like Jim, McCoy thought wryly. Almost three minutes went by without disaster, and he cautiously opened his eyes – though he didn’t loosen his grip on Jim’s waist.

The natives were the ones who seemed to understand, lashing out harder at the outlaws and knocking them unconscious. McCoy and Jim were too far away to tell what the townies got up to after Jim’s signal.

McCoy could see lights. “I thought we were farther than this from the village,” he scowled.

“From Enterprise? We are. This is Numu country – that’s one of the reasons they were eager to rescue you and attack the Romanians. Nero hits them harder and oftener than the townsfolk.”

A few native women greeted them, favoring Jim with sly smiles. They called out to him, but McCoy’ didn’t know the word they used.

“You can let go of me now,” Jim laughed, his voice teasing. McCoy cleared his throat, blushing. The horse had come to a full stop and he hadn’t even noticed.

Jim slid down with no trouble and held out a hand for McCoy to brace on. The doctor was proud about a lot of things, but he was uninterested in falling on his ass in front of Jim and a passel of strangers; he took the arm and only stumbled a little.

“You bring the white healer,” a young woman murmured.

“So you succeeded – Nero’s bandits are gone?” another asked hopefully.

Jim smiled. “They won’t bother you again.”

An elder man, his long hair all a steely grey, approached them. He greeted Jim quietly in the native tongue, with an affectionate touch on Jim’s shoulders, before he turned to McCoy. His voice rumbled deeply in English, rougher and less lyrical than in his own language.

“You are the town’s doctor. It is good that we meet at last.” He said again that name McCoy couldn’t understand – “has spoken well of you since you cared for him.”

“Was just my job,” McCoy grumbled at his shoes.

The old man laughed with a low sound that bubbled up from his belly. “Perhaps. But he does not typically confuse professional for personal. And he is a good judge of character. Of yours, he said little, but what he did say was telling – and very positive.”

“Well,” McCoy harrumphed. He shifted his weight. “Jim, folk’ll be injured in that attack.” He was clearly troubled by the thought that he was avoiding his duty, and it made Jim and the old man smile at each other.

“Enterprise survived without a doctor for years. Uhura and some other townies are pretty good at patching up cuts and bruises. And you deserve a rest – kidnapping doesn’t count as a ‘break’ from work,” he held up a hand to stop that protest. He didn’t need to hear Bones say it to know what the man was thinking; only Bones could go months without a break from doctoring, get abducted, and actually try to call that a “break.”

“Your people can do without you – our people are celebrating the end of that bandit’s reign of terror,” the old man said. He smirked at Jim. “Though, perhaps – ” there was that name again. McCoy should learn how to pronounce it, at least – “would prefer a more private celebration?”

Jim’s tanned face flushed red, and the old man laughed. It dawned on McCoy that had they not met, Jim would have taken a native girl or three to bed after an event like this. He snuck a look at Jim.

“Of course we’ll eat with you,” Jim said, all mock indignant, to cover for his embarrassment.

McCoy didn’t recognize much of the food, but it was good and filling and that was all that really mattered, after some four days of being fed only when some bandit or another remembered that doctors needed to eat, too. Then the natives pushed both of them towards a small dwelling with a single bed pallet. McCoy raised an eyebrow at Jim, who flushed even as he shrugged, attempting nonchalance.

“We’ll be here for a while…you should take off your shoes,” Jim started, unlacing his own. “They think we’re in a committed relationship. It was…easier than explaining the real reason why I talked about you so much,” he mumbled sheepishly.

“Which is?” McCoy prompted.

“Bones, you’re not stupid. I’ve never been so interested in one person in my entire life. I’ve only been with a few men of the people here, but I know how it works and I want that with you – I want a lot more than that with you.” He licked his lips, as though trying to collect the words he wanted on his tongue. “I’ve been happier just being your friend than I have been… since before I can remember. I never thought I’d get to a point where sex was secondary to a relationship but – damn, Bones, it doesn’t mean I don’t want.”

“I’m not stopping you, go ‘have,’” McCoy gestured grumpily.

“You still don’t get it,” Jim shook his head. “I don’t want it with other people any more. That’s the thing that’s scaring me, that’s why I haven’t been at my usual habits. I’d rather argue with you than have incredible sex with Gaila. But when I look at you – oh God, there are so many better things I can think to do with you than argue.” His eyes were heated and he looked like a starving man staring at his first meal in days.

McCoy swallowed.

“I – damn, kid. The divorce, losing my daughter, it tore me to shreds. I don’t think you know what you’re getting into. And I don’t think I want to stop you. But there’s… I need to know that you understand functioning human relationships instead of just… herd dynamics.”

Jim’s eyes narrowed. “Hold on. What are you talking about?”

McCoy frowned. “The Sheriff said some things about how your childhood went that… worry me a touch. I just want to know for myself that you’re aware of what I’d expect in a relationship.”

“Pike told you I was raised by horses?” Jim laughed. “Oh, man. People are so dumb sometimes.”

“Wait, what? Then what happened to you?” McCoy frowned.

“A man of the Numu – what whites call Indians – saw the fire at the ranch from where he was hunting. The Numu didn’t want anyone to think they’d stolen the Kirk horses, but they also didn’t want to have to explain what happened. Even when the Numu were taking care of me, I didn’t talk except to ask to see the horses.” Jim shrugged. “I just happened to be visiting the old ranch when the search party came up.”

“Seems an awful lot of coincidence,” McCoy said skeptically.

Jim waggled his fingers and his eyebrows, grinning. “Well, maybe it wasn’t a coincidence. I just know that in this place, people leave you alone if you let on that’s what you want.” He toyed with the glass. “…Frank didn’t just let on. He kept us in that house like you’d keep a horse in a barn – except I’d never keep a horse in a barn for as long as I was kept in that house. So when I got out, I wanted to meet people, to reach out to new and strange life and hold it in my hands.” His expression had a childish sort of wonderment, which fell into a pinched brow and concern. “The Numu understood, to a point. Pike and the rest – for all the Pikes seemed to care; they thought I was some sort of savage, pushing me away even as they were pushing me to conform.”

“Why not just stay with the Numu, then?” McCoy asked.

“That’s not who I am. I can’t explain it much better than that. Besides – if I’d stayed with them, I’d never have met you. You were the first white who didn’t treat me like an animal,” Jim smiled.

“Jim…” McCoy frowned. Jim poked him in the nose.

“You should smile more often, otherwise you’ll get your face stuck like that.”

McCoy gave an aggrieved sigh, obviously prepared to launch into a rant about how none of that was proven, just an old wives’ tale meant to keep kids from sticking out their tongues. Jim cut him off with a soft kiss on the cheek. McCoy’s slack expression was well worth putting himself out on a limb.

“Just relax for once,” Jim smiled. “Really. The world won’t fall apart, no one’s going to die on you, all that matters is here and now and that I – I love you, okay? So calm down.”

Jim’s hand was on his face, Jim’s lips were on his cheek, Jim’s smell was in his nose. McCoy had never really been able to resist Jim’s plots and plans of any kind. And apparently his token resistance was even briefer against determined seduction.

Kissing, McCoy had always thought, was like a handshake – it could have many qualities, even seem like the person performing, but it usually felt like a performance; it was more a ritual about going through the motions of kissing correctly rather than a genuine expression of affection and love. Perhaps, he reflected, kisses had felt like rituals because he thought of them as rituals. Jim was the opposite of everything Leonard H. McCoy had been brought up to want in a partner. And his kisses lit a fire under McCoy that the doctor had never experienced before.

Jim’s hands moved to the front of McCoy’s ragged and filthy vest, the same ratty pinstripes he’d been wearing when he was nabbed. With that out of the way, suspenders shrugged off, Jim made quick work of the shirt and had Bones half out of his trousers before the man’s brain caught up enough that he thought to reciprocate.

Fortunately, Jim’s un-tucked shirt and belted trousers came off even easier.

Jim grabbed Bones’ hands to stop him. “You’re sure about this?” he asked, voice shaky.

Bones kissed him. “I came to Enterprise a husk of a man, only skilled hands and a pathetic expression. You brought me back to life. I thought I had the storybook romance love before, so I can’t promise I’ll say the words. But you are, without a doubt, my Jim.” He leaned in for a kiss.

Jim grinned and pushed him toward the pallet. “Now if I know my helpful hosts – and I do – then there should be…” Jim glanced around before laughing and waggling a tube of something at Bones. “Now don’t go getting the idea this is how it’ll be every time, but seeing as I don’t want to spend a lot of time on this…” he squirted out some sort of oily gel and coated his fingers.

McCoy had understood the mechanics, to a point, from common sense and guesswork. But seeing Jim’s fingers disappear into that tight hole drove the point home. He groaned and realized he’d been stroking his cock while he watched. He held the base tight to take the edge off.

There was that flirty grin again. It vanished as Jim made a somewhat annoyed face while he removed his fingers. He shoved Bones back down onto the bedding, straddling the doctor’s lap.

“God, Jim,” Bones whimpered appreciatively as Jim sank down on his cock.

“Ohhhh, that’s good,” Jim hummed. He flexed his hips experimentally, and Bones saw stars. Then Jim started to ride him, so slowly at first that Bones thought he’d die of frustration. The pace picked up, of course, since Jim was as impatient as a child about most things. Jim came with a strangled cry, Bones’ hand over the younger man’s mouth. Bones came with Jim lying on top of him, using muscles Bones could name but had never seen in order to milk Bones to completion.

Jim kissed him leisurely as he rolled off, intending to pull away, but Bones clumsily wrapped an arm around Jim’s waist and tugged him close.

“What are we gonna do about this, kid?” Bones asked quietly.

“Hopefully we’ll do it more often,” Jim grinned.

Bones pinched Jim’s leg. “You know what I mean. Enterprise is a good little town about a lot of things, but this isn’t something folk talk about.”

“What makes you think people will know?”

“Jim, Pike already knows. You haven’t been sleeping around, you gave me a nickname, you talk about me when you aren’t with me… and Pike might know you the best, but the townsfolk aren’t stupid and you aren’t subtle.”

“Pike knows?” Jim frowned. “Wait, how do you know? Why do you know Pike knows?”

“One question at a time, kid. Yes, Pike knows. He told me. He basically said I had better not break your heart, actually, which makes me think he doesn’t care that we’re… but other people might. So what are we going to do about it, Jim?”

“Okay, like I said – it doesn’t matter. If they have a problem, it’s their problem, not mine, not ours.”

Bones blinked. “You did not say that,” he protests.

Jim stared it him. “Yeah I did.”

“No, you said people wouldn’t find out.”

“I could have sworn I… are you sure?”

Bones made a disbelieving expression.

“Okay, you’re sure,” Jim rolled his eyes. “Maybe I didn’t say that, but I do think it. Which totally counts, by the way. If it becomes a problem for us; we leave. Very simple. It won’t matter if we fall apart, we’ll get treated the same as two separate homosexuals as we were when we were a… a couple,” Jim hesitated over the word. “I’m not saying we should advertise it, but I know some people will still treat us the same – if only when no one else is watching.”

“Pavel and Hikaru, you mean,” Bones said. “And I can’t believe their parents don’t at least suspect something, so maybe them.”

“Well, Gaila for sure, and Christine is her lover. I didn’t know Pavel and Hikaru were… are they really?” he asked, startled. “But Pavel’s so…”

“He’s almost eighteen,” Bones shrugged.

“I was going to say ‘disturbingly cute,’ but ‘young’ works too, yes. Though he and Hikaru are what, three, four years apart? That’s not bad.”

“I guess. But shouldn’t we be honest about this? I mean, it’s not like not-so-discreet one night stands of years gone by. And I’m still not sure I should be… I mean, I was married hardly half a year ago, I’ll never be able to explain this to my daughter, I’ve…” he paused. “This is one of the things that ended my marriage. And it’s one of the reasons why my wife was able to get custody; she threatened to tell the judge I was a pervert.”

“Aren’t you a virgin, though? I mean, to male sex at least.”

“Jim, you really have no shame,” Bones sighed. “I would never cheat on my wife. But I wasn’t interested in her and she could tell that I would rather look at men than women. I grew up thinking I was filthy and sinful and wrong. I still think that sometimes, but I’ve seen depths of inhumanity from so-called ‘Good Christians’ that make me question the definition of the term.

“Slavery is one of those things, but that nearly pales in comparison to the life the black lives in Georgia these days. A slave was fed and clothed at the expense of the master. A black sharecropper is paid less and charged more than white sharecroppers, and they are hated and abused. The black is a citizen under the law, but in society they aren’t even a third class citizen; they’re treated worse than dirt.”

Bones visibly collected himself. “Skin color can’t really change, of course. But Christians believe enough prayer will ‘change’ a homosexual. For most of my life, I believed that. I thought if I was good and charitable and settled down with a woman and started a family, that I’d be forgiven for this defect, that it could be corrected like a broken leg. But it can’t. The desires never left, or even waned, and my wife was a nice woman I felt nothing more than friendship for. And that friendship didn’t survive me trying to work so often I could avoid needing to romance her, or sleep with her more often than absolutely necessary.”

Jim kissed his cheek, and then up his jawbone. Licking Bones’ ear, he said, “You don’t need to worry about that, okay? Christianity isn’t the only religion, first of all. The Numu believe that men who prefer men and women who prefer women are as natural as men who prefer women, if less common. It’s not like you’re hurting anyone. What does it matter who you love as long as you love?”

“How can you say things like that?” Bones asked softly.

“Because I know what loveless sex feels like. It’s hot and great, but it’s like scratching a bug bite. It feels great at the time, but doesn’t do much for the real itch. Humans, like any pack animal, crave intimacy and the reassurance that people care. Sex is only a shadow of intimacy and it’s rarely about caring, more about shallow wants and desires. Making love… what we just did,” Jim blushed, “that’s aloe. It heals. And it feels great, not just for a little while.”

“You can be surprisingly sweet,” Bones murmured, pulling Jim into a kiss. “I think… I think we can do this.”

“First, though, you need to sleep. You’ll have patients in the morning; it’s far too dark to ride to Enterprise right now.” Jim nuzzled into Bones’ chest, their arms intertwined.

+

Getting dragged onto a horse in the night and galloping away from burning tents and a full-on shootout was one thing. In the heat of battle, Bones barely had time to be scared of the animal.

With the light of day – or at least the dawn – Prize looked much bigger and much meaner. Jim kissing his neck was nice, but it didn’t really help.

“Can’t I just walk?” he asked weakly.

“One of these days, you’re going to tell me why you’re scared of horses,” Jim murmured. “Until then, I’ll do the steering, you just sit behind me, hold on tight, and try not to let your hands wander too much,” he winked.

“Jeez, kid, don’t you have any shame?”

“Nope, proud to say I grew out of it,” Jim laughed. “Now do you want me to get on first, or help you up?”

“You get on first,” Bones said, still staring at the great beast of a stallion.

Jim, of course, swung up into the saddle with easy grace and a wide grin. Prize swished his tail, and Bones edged back.

Jim pulled his foot out in front of the left stirrup and held out a hand to Bones. “Put your foot in the stirrup and hold my hand in your left, the back of the saddle with your right.”

“I know how to get on a damn horse,” Bones grumbled, but he did as he was told and settled in – miraculously, with no real incident. Prize shifted his weight and Bones held his breath.

“He’s not gonna throw me, so he’s not gonna throw you,” Jim pointed out. “Just don’t do anything stupid, hold on tight and try not to move around too much. Okay?”

Bones did not bury his head in Jim’s shoulder, though Jim later insisted he did and Bones did have the urge to do that. He clung rather hard to Jim’s waist for the whole ride, some twenty minutes at a steady pace.

“Where the hell have you two been?” Pike asked gruffly. “The Olson boy was whining all night long about his arm, I poured half a bottle of damn good scotch down him before he shut up.”

“Why do you still call him the Olson boy? He’s thirty-seven,” Jim snarked back. “We got lost in the dark,” he lied without even doing Pike the courtesy of pretending that he was telling the truth.

“Yeah, sure. If anyone asks why you’re walking funny, you’re not used to riding horses, so I guess you’ll be fine,” he said to Bones, who flushed red.

Jim laughed. “Oh, Pike. There are so many delightful things you can experience with a man that knows what he’s doing, and I assure you… I knew what I was doing. But if anyone would be walking funny, it would be me.” He helped Bones down and tethered Prize to the jailhouse.

Bones went in to see all his patients. Someone had thoughtfully rescued his medical bag when the Romanian gang was raided, so after getting cussed at and spat on while walking past the two overcrowded cells, he was pleased to find things rather well in hand. Christine Chapel, also a relatively new arrival to Enterprise, had years of training as a nun to be a nurse. When she left the sisterhood, she brought her skills to her new home, but had few tools. She also didn’t have the kind of schooling that could handle bigger emergencies.

“Leonard,” she smiled. “I didn’t want to set Olson’s leg until you got back, so I’m afraid he’s been in some discomfort. He managed to get some sleep, though.”

“I heard Pike was liquoring him up,” Bones grinned wryly. “How are all the rest?”

“Olson’s the worst off that – that made it back,” she answered, quiet in respect for the dead. “Only two of the men were killed in the attack, one of Robau’s hostlers, Kenny Anderson, and the Sulu’s shop boy, Quigley Pritchett. Mostly these ones just have scrapes and bruises. The, um, the ones that… the Romulans that made it to the jailhouse are a little worse off,” she said. “I think the boys were a little displeased about the whole thing and, well, they might have been a little rough. But Sheriff Pike won’t let me in the cell to tend to them, so they haven’t been seen to.”

Bones nodded. “I’ll get to them after I take care of our people. None of them seem in real trouble, right? Nothing festering or hanging off or anything?”

Christine shook her head. “I gave them some clean water and bandages to tend themselves, and they may have some things broken, also, but I didn’t see any head wounds or anything that can’t survive another hour or two without you.”

Slowly, Bones moved from man to man as he treated the townsfolk, straightening and binding limbs, checking bandages and recommending care. Jim and Pike were waiting in the jail half of the building, talking quietly.

“We take them out one at a time,” Jim said in a low voice. “I’ll have a gun on the rest, and Pike will be in charge of the door. You get to carry the wounded, or for the ones that are bad off, their mates can push them out the door. Any sudden moves from those bastards and I can guarantee your services will be needed.”

“Jim, keep a cool head,” Bones sighed.

The prisoner exchange, as it were, went off relatively well. There were snarling and insults, of course, but for the most part the wounded wanted to be treated and their gang-mates wanted them healed. Ayel came quietly and with dignity.

As they sat in the infirmary, Jim standing watch with a threatening hand on his gun, Ayel looked at Bones with deadened eyes and said, “You are once more tending a dying man.”

“You didn’t die the last time,” Bones blinked at him, bewildered.

“I should have. And you should have let me. Without my captain, I am nothing. He was the last link I had to those I loved, just as I was his. You should have let me die.”

Those words chilled both the Americans.

“Ayel, there’s… good Lord,” Bones murmured, shaking his head.

“If I live, I go to prison, to a little hole somewhere. Or they just hang me. Why are you wasting medicine on a dying man?”

“It’s my goddamn job,” Bones snapped. “It’s what I do. It’s what I am. Until you stop breathing, your heart stops beating, and there is absolutely no way for me to bring you back, I will do my damnedest to keep you on God’s green Earth. Because no matter what you think, a person is never truly alone. Maybe it’s not a person that loves them, but a dog, a cat, a horse – hell, a plant – someone or something will notice a difference in the world because that person is not in it. So you shut your mouth and let me do my job.”

Ayel’s mouth twitched. “You are a determined man. I see why that posse came to get you back.”

After that, there was no more trouble. Nero might be gone, but Ayel had some power still over his captain’s men.

Time passed; the house that Scotty built was finished and furnished. Jim was slowly moving more of his meager belongings into Bones’ house. People healed from the raid. New outlaws turned up, since, as Pike put it, “It’s hardly a law if people never get on the wrong side of it.”

Bones didn’t even notice it had been a year since his arrival. Everyone else did.

Nyota came into the infirmary, kissed his cheek, and pulled him out the door without a word. Enterprise was too small to have a town hall, but there was a pavilion at the end of the only street in the town, and picnic tables and a few rustic structures made it the closest thing Enterprise had to a real gathering place. Even the closest church was in the next town over.

Bones was somewhat astonished to realize that the entire town, two dozen natives, and nearly all the ranchers and hostlers had come to congregate at the pavilion, with large platters and bowls holding a variety of food he hadn’t seen since the last time he went to a church potluck.

“The man of the hour!” Pike shouted, raising a glass. Clearly not his first glass.

“What?”

“You ninny, you’ve been our doctor for a year as of today!” Pike grinned. “So we’re having ourselves a little celebration for you. My wife made the cake.”

The Numu seemed to slip between the townspeople like sand through a child’s fingers. There was almost no interaction between the two groups. All these natives, Bones had met and tended to personally, except for the old man, who smiled knowingly at Bones but said nothing.

One of the younger men, who had broken his leg in three pieces a few months before, tugged on his shirt before leaning next to Bones’ ear to whisper, “Your heart is waiting for you.”

Bones just stared at him. The native pressed a drink into his hand and nodded to one end of the pavilion, smiling mysteriously.

Jim was leaning against a post. Bones pushed through the crowd as politely as possible.

“You don’t look like you’re having much fun,” Jim said blandly.

“Neither do you.”

Jim smiled, but his eyes were sad. “It’s not my party, Bones.”

“Yeah, but it means only a few months until it’s been a year since we met,” Bones said awkwardly. “Would you rather celebrate that?”

“Bones, I’d rather drag you out of here, go to your place and lock the door behind me. Then strip off all your clothes and fuck you senseless. And I’m trying very hard to not do that because this is something that should be important to you, and because you’re still so damn terrified of people finding out. Do you really care what they think about you? And if you do care, do you really think they don’t care about you? That they won’t care no matter what?”

“Caring about someone and thinking that they’re wrong or sinful are separate things,” Bones said.

“Well… damn it Bones, what am I supposed to say? I don’t like parties, I don’t like this stupid starchy shirt, and I don’t want to be here. I don’t even like most of these people, because they still look at me and think I’m a wild animal, that doesn’t bathe or something and dances naked with ‘injuns.’ Pike made me come and made me wear these damn clothes because I still can’t refuse the man who took me in, even if I hate him sometimes because he looks at me like I’m crazy, but I’m the crazy he took into his house, so he feels like he can’t tell me what he really feels.”

“Jim. Pike loves you like a son. Crazy or not, though to be honest, if you quit getting into so many damn fights, maybe he wouldn’t think you were looking to get yourself killed.”

“I’m not – you don’t think that, do you? I fight because I like it.”

“Of course I don’t think that, but you’ve explained this to me and I know what activity does to the human brain, and what testosterone does to the male brain. I understand. I don’t think you ever tried to explain it to Pike.”

“Well, maybe not. But… do you get why I don’t want to be here, at least?”

“Jim, I don’t like parties either. I like surprise parties even less. And considering what a damn wreck I was when I got to Enterprise, I don’t think it’s much to celebrate. But eat some food, talk to the people you like, and in an hour or so, beg off. I’ll try to follow you as quickly as I can without looking like a sore guest.”

Jim smiled, and this time his eyes sparked. “I really want to kiss you right now.”

“Yeah, well, we’ve discussed why that’s a bad plan.”

And just like that, the light went out. “No, you’ve talked and I’ve smiled and nodded. I know it’s not ‘done,’ but Enterprise is a good place. We’ve never had any real trouble here, except the saloon fights. And, hell, I start most of those for fun.”

Bones rolled his eyes. “You do like to keep me in work.”

“My point is, maybe it’s time. Or we could wait until our anniversary… when we met, or the day after you were rescued… I don’t care. But I want to be able to really live with you without having to get ‘so drunk I can’t ride’ first.”

“What about your job at Robau’s ranch?”

“I’ve been thinking about that. I can just train horses working from in town. Scotty can build a small stable for Prize off the back of your property. I mean, stop me if this isn’t appealing to you, but I… I kind of hope it does.”

“When you get to the house, I want you to take all your clothes off and lie down on the bed and stretch yourself until I get home. But if you come, I’m going to make sure you regret it,” Bones said, a smile slowly spreading across his face.

Jim grinned back.

“I’ll think about the rest, okay? I’m not used to… this,” he waved between them, “still. But I should know by the anniversary of the time you broke your leg.”

“See to it that you do.”

Bones kept half an eye on Jim and knew exactly when he slipped away. It was nearly dark before he got the same chance, an hour and a half later.

The front door was unlocked, and a trail of clothes led to the bedroom. The hated shirt had apparently been unbuttoned before Jim even walked into the house, since Bones stepped on it when he crossed the threshold. He went to the bedroom and there was Jim, as ordered, teasing himself and working fingers awkwardly into his ass.

Bones leaned against the wall to enjoy that view for a few moments before Jim noticed him, flushing red and putting both hands on the bedspread.

“I’d say don’t stop on my account, but I have distinctly different plans for you tonight… so we’ll save watching you pleasure yourself for some other day.”

“Bones,” Jim scowled. “Don’t talk. Just come and fuck me already, I’ve been waiting forever.”

“You,” Bones started, stalking toward the bed and shrugging off his braces, “are just like,” he continued climbing onto the mattress, “a little. Kid.” He kissed Jim hard on the mouth. “Only sometimes, though, thank God, but about the strangest damn things.”

“So I’m impatient. I like to live in the moment, and you have delayed this moment, cruelly denying me of the ability to live in it,” Jim teased.

“Oh shut your mouth,” Bones growled, amusement dancing in his eyes. “Or at least do something else with it.” More kisses followed, and Bones’ hand trailed down Jim’s chest.

“You’re wearing too many damn clothes,” Jim pouted. Bones bit his lip gently.

“Sorry about that.” He undid the top button and pulled the whole shirt over his head. Jim was working eagerly at the fastenings of Bones’ trousers, to point that the doctor had to pull back in order to tug them down. A pillow and some fumbling rearrangement of limbs later, and Jim’s ankles were hooked behind Bones’ back while he clutched at the sheets and moaned beautifully.

Once was rarely enough for Jim, though, and Bones was interested in fairness and equality in power dynamics of relationships. So Jim spread him tenderly and then fucked him raw.

Jim fell asleep there and Bones couldn’t find it in him to wake the younger man. For one thing, his bed was a hell of a lot more comfortable than the ones in Robau’s bunkhouse, or whatever straw mess Jim slept on in the stables. And that was a terrific way to get diseases, come to think of it, and Jim was lucky he hadn’t died of something before now.

He stroked Jim’s cheek with a deep affection he couldn’t usually show when Jim was awake. He’d spent so long with just a gruff, argumentative friendship with Jim that physicality that wasn’t sexual felt awkward, like he was crossing the line between Jim his friend and Jim his lover.

It was stupid to say Jim looked younger when he was asleep, since Bones knew from years of hospital work that basically everyone looked younger when they were asleep. Lines smoothed and muscles slackened in peaceful dreams; it gave the appearance of youth even to the elderly. Jim was no different, except through the eyes of a lover. Jim didn’t just look younger; he looked like the closest thing to heaven on Earth that Bones could find.

Bones fell asleep to some of the best dreams he’d had since his daughter was born.

+

The next time Bones saw Jim dressed nicely, starchy shirt and all, it was the anniversary of the day they had met. They had dinner with the Pikes first, because if Pike wasn’t on their side, the whole idea was pointless.

“I can’t really understand why you’re celebrating breaking your leg, Jimmy,” Majel Pike shook her head as she brought out the pot roast.

“It’s got nothing to do with my leg,” Jim said once she sat down. “It’s the day I met Bones. Look, my parents are dead, but you two are the closest thing I had to the real thing. And what with Pike being the sheriff and all, we figured you two should be the first to know…”

“Know what, Jimmy?”

“Bones and I are planning on living in sin from now on,” Jim said blandly, before taking a bite of pot roast and humming appreciatively.

Pike coughed, but Bones speculated he was hiding a smile behind that fist.

“Wh – what do you mean, Jimmy?”

“Sweetie, they’re in love,” Pike explained. “And McCoy sure has calmed Jim down a lot.”

“In love?” Majel looked at Bones first, then Jim. “In love?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Bones said soberly.

“But aren’t you – I mean, but you two… don’t seem – you don’t seem well-suited to each other,” she stumbled to find the right words.

“Because we’re both men?” Bones asked in a nonchalant tone Jim recognized as the one he used right before tearing into a fierce argument.

Jim took another bite of the pot roast.

“Well… yes.”

“There are multiple recorded incidents of homosexual behavior in animals, so if you’re saying it’s not natural, I’m afraid you’re wrong. It’s long been thought that people can’t choose who they love, but they can choose to reveal that love, to act on it. So if you think this is about choosing the devil or some such nonsense, I’m afraid you’re wrong about that, too. And there’s been so little research done in alternative sexualities that drawing verifiable conclusions is almost impossible. If you think it’s a sin, you should read the Bible in its original Greek, if you can. If you can’t, find a scholar, not a priest, to do it for you. I worked my way through it while I was struggling with desires I was taught were reviled by God. You’d be surprised by the things that translations, and politics, presumably, have changed.”

Jim let out a quiet sigh of relief, because Bones had been angry, but he hadn’t raised his voice. Majel always stopped listening when someone raised their voice.

Majel was quiet for a long moment. “You’re a good man, and an honest one, Leonard. And you’re well educated and a brilliant doctor. So I’ll take your word on all that as long as you promise me one thing.”

“Yes, ma’am?”

“You take good care of my Jimmy. I mean it, too – if I find out you’ve hurt him, I’ll have things done to you that would turn your stomach.”

Jim’s eyebrows nearly hit his hairline at that comment, because Majel had never threatened anyone in his hearing, and he was kind of touched that she’d threaten someone on his behalf.

“I take it this is a sign you’re going to start telling more folk,” Pike said, leaning back in his chair. He had finished his meal during Bones’ speech.

“Well, some,” Jim hedged. “We don’t want everyone to find out at once, since we figure we can reason with one or two at a time, help them understand… but if the whole town finds out, folk will turn mad and we get chased out by a mob. I don’t mind leaving with nothing but Bones and Prize, but you all need a doctor and he needs his practice as surely as I need Prize.”

“I’m glad you’re thinking ahead, at least,” Pike nodded. “And you’re right, most of ‘em would be sympathetic so long as you tell them it’s love, be logical. Speaking of logic, you two had better start with Spock and Nyota, maybe Nyota and then the two of ‘em together once she’s come around to it. Nyota considers you a good friend, Leonard, and Jim, you know Spock doesn’t talk to many folk other than the two of you.”

Jim nodded. “We were already planning a few of the first folks, if you’d like to help us plan it out.”

“You boys can work all that out after dinner,” Majel pointed out in a manner that implied an order to drop the subject.

“Yes, ma’am,” Leonard nodded.

“Oh, Leonard, don’t you know by now you can call me ‘Majel’?” she scolded.

“So, what are you going to do about your job at Robau’s?” Pike asked Jim.

Jim shrugged. “I think I might just train all the local horses. Prize can get to almost all the nearby ranches in less than an hour, so it’s easier to live in town if I’m doing that, anyway.”

“Well, you boys have to come to dinner more often… I shudder to think what you’ll eat, without a woman to cook for you. You know, Leonard, maybe you should hire Janice Rand to take care of your house and your meals. She’s a great cook.”

Bones picked at his pot roast before saying, “While I was in medical school, I got a part time job apprenticing under a chef in a gourmet restaurant. I cook all the meals. And – I’m a doctor. We’re trained to be finicky about cleanliness. We don’t really need Janice, Majel. She’s a nice girl, but there wouldn’t be anything left for her to do. The house is so small it takes barely a minute to clean, anyway.”

The table fell silent after that, Pike quietly amused and everyone else awkwardly wishing the entire last conversation hadn’t ever happened; Bones because he didn’t like talking about doing “women’s work,” Majel because she knew she’d accidentally insulted a man she genuinely did like, and Jim because he hated seeing Bones in discomfort.

+

Nyota took some convincing before she believed Jim was actually in love with Bones, but once she allowed that, she said they had her full support. Jim also had to prove he had a brain, something she frowned at him for hiding from her.

“Spock never told you we play chess every week?” he asked, blinking.

“Well, yes, but I thought you were learning chess from him, or something.”

“Uhura, we’ve been playing chess together since Spock came into town. I…” he presented his hands palms up, as if to show he had absolutely no words for this situation.

Still, she was a rather powerful ally to have in town. Spock had taken absolutely no “talking around” – he just looked at them and said, “I was under the impression that you were already courting the doctor. Was I mistaken about the signals?”

Spock with pure logic, Pike with the long arm of the law, and Uhura with her staunch belief in their love, were really all Bones and Jim needed, to the point that their friends more than once did the convincing for them, so it felt less confrontational to the newest addition to the growing circle of citizens who knew why Jim had moved in with Bones.

Bones took an early opportunity to tell Hikaru and Pavel; Pavel had strained his “leg” and Hikaru essentially carried the Russian to the medical office.

“Hikaru, you may as well stay for this,” Bones sighed, rubbing his face. He closed the door and spoke in a low voice, “Look, I know what you two are getting up to and there’s no point bringing someone to the doctor if you don’t tell them where you’re really injured. So tell me what you two are doing and I’ll tell you what you’re doing wrong and how to do it so I don’t see you with any more ‘pulled muscles.’”

A flood of information greeted him, more than he ever wanted to know about his patients’ sex lives, but these were the things he suffered to provide good service.

“You can’t use water as a lubricant, boys. It needs to be something oil or gel-based. I can give you a little, but you need to find your own slick eventually, and while it should be something you can explain easily, you don’t want it to be anything that could be abrasive, stain, or become glue-like, for reasons that are hopefully obvious.”

“But, Doctor… aren’t you going to tell us that it’s – sin, or something?” Hikaru frowned.

“Kid, I’m a lot of things, but not a hypocrite. You never wondered why Jim moved in with me? I would never have known this stuff if not for him.”

Telling Scotty resulted in Bones learning yet more things he didn’t want to know about Scottish sexual practices, particularly those of shepherds. Gaila had just cooed when Jim told her, and Christine flashed a knowing smile at Bones the next day.

“It all makes me realize I had a lot more friends than I thought,” Jim said when most of the town knew, one way or another. Robau in particular had just rolled his eyes and shrugged it off.

“So no more of this ‘I can ride off into the sunset with my horse and Bones and be okay’?” Bones asked, amused.

Jim laughed. “I could probably still do it and be okay, but I realized that I had kind of unrealistically high standards for friendship. And I guess… not everyone sees me as a half-wild animal.”

“No, they don’t,” Bones said. “Though animal in bed, I might agree with.”

“Well, I have heard that before,” Jim teased.

“You’d better not be hearing it from anyone but me anymore,” Bones mock-threatened.

They laughed for a little before Jim started to look troubled, reaching out to touch Bones’ shoulder. “You do know that you’re the most important person in the world to me, right?”

“I do… but I also know I will never be satisfied until I surpass the horse,” Bones smirked, kissing Jim on the nose.

“Hmmm… I guess you’ll have to keep trying to convince me, then. Be warned, though, I don’t really believe you can succeed.”

“You little…” Bones laughed, rolling on top of Jim and kissing him more thoroughly this time.

“Well… it’s a good start, I guess. As an opening argument goes, I’ve heard worse.”

“Wait ‘til you hear my closing statements.”