Falling is like this.

There’s a pretty much universal consensus that James T. Kirk won’t die of old age. He might die of some sort of disease, but chances are it’s going to be venereal and possibly something that humans weren’t supposed to contract. Jim Kirk is special that way.

But it’s infinitely more probable that he’ll piss off one newly encountered race too many, and get shot for his trouble, or cut into little pieces to be put on spikes around a strangely medieval in design citadel.

Or he’ll hit on Uhura at an unfortunate moment, and for Jim Kirk any and every moment would be an unfortunate one.

Or maybe, just maybe, he’ll be mercilessly murdered by his own CMO, and she’ll even get away with it; she’s a doctor, she knows how to get rid of a body.

“Would you just fucking stand still?” she asks irritably, and wishes she could jab him with the hypo once more, but they’re two hours away from their next stop, and the captain is supposed to be in the landing party, especially on diplomatic missions.

“Well, I would, but it stings like hell, what’s in it, acid?” he whines, and she rolls her eyes.

“Don’t tempt me.”

The Hippocratic Oath should have a clause attached to the ‘do no harm’ part; ‘except for Captain Jim Kirk and other fucking stubborn bastards who insisted on getting themselves injured on every single goddamned mission’.

“I could try, but once I have been told I’m very tempting, on more than one occasion,” Jim said smugly, and that was another reason why he was the most likely to end with his limbs torn out and his head on a sharp spike, he fucking didn’t know when to stop.

She’s pretty certain he doesn’t really mean it, just like he wouldn’t follow up on any propositions he makes to Uhura or Spock. With Nyota, it’s almost a hobby and an old habit, and he may masochistically enjoy the daggers she shoots at him (usually metaphorically, save for that incident with the plant that lowered everyone’s inhibitions on that godawful planet). With Spock, well, Jim is very easily amused sometimes, and he keeps on trying for that puzzled look and the raised eyebrow.

He flirts with Lena, too, but he means it even less. Most of the time, it’s a great relief.

“Who tells you that, Scotty? He’ll say anything to get you to sign off on his requests for parts, you should know that by now.” She cleans out the last scratch biting her lip from making any further comments. “Who brings a phaser to a swordfight and then doesn’t use it?” she asks. So much for not saying anything.

Jim shrugs, hands spread and palms up in the typical ‘who? me?’ gesture. “Got us the crystals, didn’t I?”

He did. Apparently, what she called brash stupidity and apparent brain malfunction, the race of medieval idiots called bravery and chivalry and other stupid shit.

Could have taken that research position, and a cosy lab on some pleasant planet, but no, she had to meet Jim Kirk and get convinced that flying at the speed of light in tin deathtraps was a valid lifestyle choice.

“Yes, you did,” she admits, sighing. She wishes the natives of the planets they visit would not validate Jim and his apparent death wish. “You’re cleared for duty, but if I see you here after the mission with a single contusion or even the mildest injury, I’m going to push that hypo somewhere you really wouldn’t want it,” she threatens, and it’s only slightly idle.

“When you say it like that, it sounds kind of hot, Bones,” he offers, hopping off the bio-bed and putting on his shirt.

“Out of my sickbay,” she mutters, turning to make notes on his chart. There is something about most of the conversations with Jim that makes her want to break out the good bourbon; it has been like that since they met.

She was only just sobering up from the night before when they met on that shuttle, and drunk again by the time they landed, which didn’t help her aviophobia much, but somehow it seemed to earn her her first, and as it turned out, best, friend in the academy. It was also the first good thing in her life in a long while, amazingly.

It lasted partly because they were both quite fucked up in various and interesting ways, and because Jim Kirk seemed to know when to shut up (occasionally) and when to bring her take-out food when she’s been working on a research project, and when to drag her down to a bar and buy the first round. He also hit on her shamelessly, but gracefully took no for an answer, and moved on to hitting on someone else, until next time.

At least, until about six months into their weird friendship. He still flirted with her, but stopped actively trying to get her to sleep with him, soon after that one time when she bailed on her first date since her asshole husband. She drove for half an hour to pick Kirk up from the bar, convince the owner not to call the campus security, and haul his drunk ass home and patch him up, fussing and insulting him at the same time.

“And if you ever do something like this again, I’m letting them arrest you, and I’m going to watch and mock as you try to explain this one to Pike,” she ranted, paying less attention to what she was saying and more to how much painkillers she was going to give him, because it was beneath Jim Kirk to give anyone a real account of his injuries and level of pain he was feeling, so she had to go on an estimation.

She stopped when she noticed his eyes closed sometime during her rant, and sighed loudly, standing up to get a blanket.

“Lena,” he said, catching her wrist, eyes still closed, as if the light hurt. It probably did. “Thanks.”

She wasn’t exactly sure what to say to that, so she gently eased her hand away. “Don’t do that ever again, asshole,” she told him, and he didn’t promise he wouldn’t. They both knew he’d be lying anyway.

Since then, he apparently decided that fucking her wouldn’t be worth fucking up the friendship, which was fine with her. Mostly.

And sure, somewhere during the last three years, between suicidal missions and fast track promotions, she might have went and fallen in love with the asshole, which was just priceless and fucking annoying.

This is precisely why she panics that little bit more than she should seven hours later, when the landing party comes back, and Spock escorts protesting Kirk to the sickbay. Normally, Kirk would try and run to the bridge, correctly assuming that Spock would not undermine his authority in the crew’s presence unless completely necessary, but this time his plan is foiled by the fact that he can’t move all that fast, what with his leg looking as if it was mauled by a tiger.

“ Hypo time?” Kirk asks cheerfully, his voice slurred together due to the pain he’s trying not to show.

“You bet your ass, you fucker,” she tells him, jabbing it into his neck viciously. “Christine,” she turns to Chapel, unnecessarily, because the woman is already taking care of the remnants of Kirk’s pants and cleaning out the wound area. Lena turns to glare at Spock. “What the fuck happened? And you better give me the full version, or I swear, I’ll make your next physical check very painful.”

She’s pretty sure she knows what happened already, which was James T. Kirk unleashing his full potential of pissing off all sentient beings. Only this time it extended to the wild life, which was actually kind of impressive.

“I should…” Spock starts and she waves him off dismissively.

“I’m sure you’re indispensable on the bridge,” she mutters, which is as nice of a way to say ‘get the fuck out of my way’ as she can manage under the circumstances. Admittedly, it’s much more polite than she usually does around Spock, but she’s slightly distracted by panicking.

“Doctor McCoy,” Chapel says, and the instincts kick in, and she brushes her hair away, leaving a smudge of blood on her forehead, and sets to work.

As she’s patching him up, she makes some decisions. One, James Kirk is never going off the ship again, so he doesn’t get killed. Two, she’s going to kill Kirk herself, possibly beating him to death with her tricorder. Three, she’s falling out of love with this fucker any minute now, for her own mental health.

“I feel blissfully empty,” Kirk says when he wakes up, two hours later.

She gives him a hard look and checks the vitals. As always with Kirk, better than they have any right to be. “If you mean your head, then I can easily believe that,” she agrees and punches his shoulder, which, considering his latest and previous injuries, might just be the only unharmed part of his body “What the fuck were you thinking?”

“Mostly, I was thinking, woah, that’s a big kitty,” he smiles widely. “What I meant is, I do not have anything wedged where it shouldn’t be,” he explains and she rolls her eyes.

“Would you want to?” she asks through the clenched teeth, and his grin grows even wider, and she knows that any second now he’s going to wiggle his eyebrows suggestively, or lick his lips, and say something greatly inappropriate, and she has no time or patience to deal with this now. “Don’t even.”

“Aww, Bones, I was just going to say that while I appreciate the offer, we should wait with fun and games until I’m, well, if not 100% then at least with the functioning 50% south of my belt.”

She’s pretty sure that hitting him now would be a violation of the oath, so she does the next most idiotic thing (or is that the first idiotic thing) and kisses him.

And then jabs him with the hypospray full of a sedative, just as he starts to respond.

She leaves him in the capable hands of Nurse Chapel and then hides in her quarters for a while, contemplating one more disadvantage of the fucking flying death trap of a spaceship; it’s incredibly difficult to get off it in the middle of nowhere.

With her luck, the chances of the painkillers and sedatives fucking up what was left of Kirk’s brain enough for him to not remember the kiss were really slim. She turns out to be right about that.

Kirk knocks on the doors, mostly for show, and then enters the captain’s code anyway and strides in. Or, strides as much as the crutches allow.

“Don’t ever leave me alone with Nurse Chapel,” he tells her from the doorway. “She’s scary. Lovely and charming,” he adds loudly, as if she could hear him all the way from the medical, “but scary.”

“Not scary enough, apparently,” she mutters, gesturing at his presence. “Damnit, Jim, you should be resting.”

He pointedly sits down on her bed and leans against the headboard. “Resting now. Per doctor’s orders.”

“In your own room. Or better yet, the sickbay. Do I have to tie you down for you to get some rest?” Wrong phrasing, she realizes that the moment he smiles winningly. “Smart-ass remarks will get you sedated again.”

“You’re damn too trigger-happy with that thing. Shouldn’t there be rules against something like that?” he mutters, then slowly allows the smile to fade, and now he looks just tired and as if he really felt all the injuries. “Lena.”

She really, really hates it when he calls her that. She thought she hated the stupid nickname he picked out for her five minutes into their acquaintance, but no, she hates the way he says her name more.

“Kirk, for once in your life try and shut the fuck up when you should,” she pleads, and he shakes his head slowly.

“You had to pick up the worst possible moment, didn’t you?” he asks. “Because it had to be after you pumped me enough drugs I won’t be able to get it up for a week?”

The problem here is, he’s smiling, and it’s not the cocky smug smile that makes her want to punch him.

“You may not appreciate it, but I’m sure the entire crew will thank me,” she says breezily, and gets a quick glare in return, before the smile is back.

“Is that Dr McCoy way of saying you’d want me for yourself? You just have to ask.”

It sounds like a typical Kirk line, and she can take it as that. She knows Jim, he is going to push as far as possible, but not too far, not in this. If she puts her foot down now, looks him in the eye and tells him to fuck off, he will, and probably not mention it again. And she would be fine with that, mostly.

“Just get some rest, Kirk,” she tells him, and if she wasn’t watching him carefully, she would miss it, the quick flash of regret. “We can talk about it tomorrow,” she allows, and he catches her eye, smile returning to his expression.

“Provided you give up that hypo first,” he mutters, lowering himself on the bed. “That’s some strong shit you already gave me.”

“Kirk. I said rest,” she points out, and he shrugs, turning to the side and bending his arm to rest his head on it.

“Your bed is already here,” he points out, and she has to admit, the fucker makes a good point, however annoying that is.

“Fine,” she mutters and lies beside him. “You’re lucky I know you don’t snore, or you would be out already.”

Maybe she’s not killing him just yet, but she doesn’t retire the idea completely. It’s James Kirk, they’re bound to fuck it up somehow. Probably.