a_mused | +1 smol Vulcan

+1 smol Vulcan

The heat on the planet's surface curled around his neck and threatened to choke him. He'd stripped his uniform top off hours ago, wrapping it around his head to shade his eyes even as his skin started frying in the heat of dual suns. They'd been here two days now. Two days of creating lists and doling out vaccinations and hydration in the hottest part of the planets year.

Two days of wondering how many more people they will find alive.

Handing command to Spock had been both the easiest and hardest choice he'd made since resuming their five year mission, and he can't think about it right now as he comes across another group huddled in a medical tent receiving treatment. He taps on his PADD to load the list of survivors they'd been cultivating and quietly begins asking the adults for names.

He doesn't notice the small boy whose dark eyes followed him around the tent at first. But it was hard to ignore when he began passing out pouches of electrolytes and came to him last, alone and quiet. Jim hands a pouch to the child and crouches in front of him, eying the green flush and glassy dark eyes. Pointy ears. Why was a Vulcan in a human colony?

"Has anyone come and checked you out yet?" he asked gently.

"Negative. I was told to wait."

Bones was clear across the tent holding his tricorder above the head of an elderly woman and scowling, which, could honestly mean anything, until he saw the quick flash of the vaccination hypo hit the ladies neck and Bones' brow furrowed.

"Let's change that." Jim unwinds his makeshift turbin and shakes out his shirt before slipping it back on to hide the burns. Sunburns were the last problem on this planet. "Follow me."

He doesn't take the kids hand, doesn't even touch him on the back to get him moving, just trusts that the boy will move when he does and stay close enough to not misplace him. He saunters over to the cluster of beds McCoy was checking on.

"Bones!"

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Jim lifts a chip and holds it eye level, rolling it between his finger and thumb. He doesn't eat it. The slick saltiness of it makes his stomach roll. As a concession he tears a small corner off the sandwich, one with barely any jam or peanut butter on it and popped it into his mouth, simply letting the bread dissolve on his tongue.

"Next time I say I'll be fine helping?" he says, "Pull rank on me."

"I'm pulling rank on you now." He says easily, "Clean your plate, you're off duty until you gain the weight back you lost planetside." He says seriously, all CMO and no jokes. But he does kiss the top of Jim's head.

Savel takes a bite of his sandwich and looks a Leonard. "I prefer the red jam this one isn't as good..." He says but he takes another bite wrinkling his nose a little.

"Good to know kiddo." Bones smiles easily, "I'll remember the next time we have sandwiches." He says easily working at his own lunch.

"You say that like I lost a lot." Look. He's eating. He tears another piece of bread crust off and puts it in his mouth. They might be waiting on that plate clearing for a while. "I've done worse."

He's had more sleepless nights as well. Jim shrugs.

"15, of mostly muscle, darlin'... not like you had a lot to shed to start with." He gives Jim a warm look. "What should we do tonight? I'm off in a couple of hours, on call but we can do something relaxing in quarters." He says easily.

"Can we read again tonight?" Savel asks looking at Bones.

"Yeah." Leonard nods.

Jim rolls his shoulders back and tosses a bit of bread in the air and catches it in his mouth. This. This he can do. Let people move around him and make noises at him and generally ignore him. He can work with that because he's not sure what he's got left to work with.

And it's not fair.

It's not fair because he knows Bones was down there just as long as he was, sweating and cursing and failing and regretting that they hadn't gotten there faster as he had. All those lives lost because even at warp they couldn't cross a quadrant fast enough to save everyone.

And Jim doesn't have enough of himself to give to help.

"What'd you read last night?" he asks.

"We read The Giving Tree." Savel says, "I liked it..." the boy says finishing half of the sandwich and the protein drink and makes a face. "I think I am full..." He stops not sure what to call the man taking care of him.

He nods, "You did a good job, kiddo." He chuckles it's hard to go from no food to regular meals again.

"I'm thinking when we get back earthside we take a nice holiday." He says sipping from his coffee mug, giving Jim a warm look.

"That's pretty deep reading for bedtime."

Nothing like being taught how to only give so much of yourself or else someone might take advantage of you in a children's book. Jim rests his cheek on his hand, wondering if Bones had read that intentionally to Savel solely to be able to bring it up to Jim now.

Underhanded bastard.

"I can't tell if that was meant to be a pun about the upcoming holiday or an actual suggestion for a trip."

"An actual trip darlin', gotta place out in Georgia... get away for a couple of weeks."

Savel looks at them and blinks, "Would I come with you." He asks sounding hopeful for a Vulcan, and maybe a little needy.

"If you want to, and if we can arrange it." Bones smiles, "We got time before we get back to earth get all of that ironed out."

Savel nods and goes back to looking at the picture book on his PADD.

Bones sighs looking at Jim, and gets up leaving his office for a moment, he comes back with a medical IV bottle, labeled nutrient supplement.

"You either eat half of that and let me give you an IV or it's gonna be the tube," he says softly pushing his fingers through Jim's hair. "Because that has to go in your grey file, and I don't want that, darlin'. Then you can go to our quarters and get some sleep."

Jim leans into those steady fingers. His evals have some of the biggest red-flagged nightmare fuel to keep a psychologist up for days, if Starfleet wanted him gone they would have thrown his ass out after what happened with Marcus, or probably before if half that file wasn't buried under ten thousand layers of bureaucratic red tape. He sighs, prying open his sandwich and then folding the separated pieces of bread into halves. He opts for the jelly side. Only because he knows it won't stick to the roof of his mouth when he swallows it down in three neat bites.

Bones kisses the top of Jim's head. "You're gonna make your self sicker eating that fast, not like I gave you a time limit." He says gently setting up the IV.

"What is wrong with his sandwich?" Savel asks sounding more like a child than he has.

"Sometimes Jim's tummy can't handle food after a mission, this is just some medicine to help." It's not the truth but it's not a lie, Spock would be proud.

He moves Savel to the floor by his desk and puts down some coloring paper and crayons. and tugs the couch in his office into an almost flat surface to lay on, with a spot for Jim to just recline a little if he wants to.

But he helps his husband... not the captain right now... move there and get a little comfortable. "Rest, Jim. That's gonna take about an hour."

Jim watches with the same kind of morbid intensity he'd eaten his meal, tracking every delicate movement as his skin was pressed and taped into the IV. The cool burst of fluid raised goosebumps up his arm.

He glances up, never quite meeting Bones eyes. "Never thought I'd miss you bruising my neck with a hypo before."

"I'm not that rough, the only time I was, was because you were in anaphylactic shock and about to drop dead, and trying to run away from me." He quips back giving Jim a soft kiss.

He moves over to his desk and picks up his medical padd, "Savel wanna keep my silly Husband comfortable while I make the rounds. I'll be back soon." He says giving both of them a warm look.

Jim keeps himself from grabbing Bones by the belt to keep him right there in that room where he should be in Jim's direct line of sight and no where other so he knows he's safe and alive and maybe even possibly okay, that's a remote possibility Jim is holding on to because of the three people in the room, one of them has to be something like okay and everyone and their pet tribble can see it's not the emotionally compromised baby Vulcan or the vegetable on the sofa.

"I like keeping you on your toes."

He tries to work up some kind of offense when for a moment Savel stares at him devoid of emotion before nodding his compliance, but he can't.

He just. He can't. He can barely work up the needed emotions to properly sulk at being abandoned to the tender mercies of a grieving four year old.

"I'm only mildly silly," he says once Bones is out of the room. "I'm mostly boring. Talk to me about your drawing."

Savel holds up the picture, it looks like the trees from The Lorax and there are to stick fingers a man and female vulcan. "My father would read to me from a book with odd looking trees, but I can't remember the name. I asked why he read me illogical things, but my mother said the book was very logical if you paid attention..."

He puts the picture down and comes over to Jim looking for a little comfort, but also Leonard had asked him to watch over Jim... but really the four-year-old just wants a grown-up who is safe.

He climbs up on the man's chest, and lay down, listening to the man's heart beat.

Jim is startled, but maybe he shouldn't be. He wraps one arm loosely around the kid, baby really, and presses his hand to the center of Savel's back, fingers spread wide.

"I grieve with thee," he murmurs in passable Vulcan. The IV tugs at his arm and he ignores it. They were so screwed.

He knows Bones, knows him better than anyone alive and has seen this before, this careful, selfless giving of himself to take care of someone else. If Bones wasn't so damn careful, they'd have a fucking zoo in the medbay because Bones cannot leave a sick, abandoned being alone.

It's how he got stuck with Jim as a best friend and a husband.

It's how he's already started to include Savel in fucking holiday plans before the kid is even aware of Bones intentions.

Starfleet would be the easy jurisdiction to handle, there are already cases of kids traveling on starships with their parents, Starfleet would be a formality.

The fucking Vulcan High Council though, that was going to need a level of finesse neither Jim nor Bones possess. They would need more than Spock's help.

They would need the help of a much more formidable Vulcan.

Jim sincerely hoped Sarek had been sincere in his offer to help Spock and his crew when and where he could. Because they were going to need a strong voice in their corner if this was going to happen.

And Jim knew without a shadow of a doubt Bones would right for Savel with everything the man had and more.

"Would you like to tell me about them?"

Savel actually sighs and slumps a little, "I do not know." He says he's only four how well does anyone know their parents at four. "I am tired." He says voice breaking a little, just saying it to hide that he might cry again. He hides his face in Jim's neck and closes his eyes.

Bones comes back tapping on his PADD and comes over kisses Jim's forehead and rubs his hand across Savel's neck a little.

"Hey, that's fine, not knowing is fine." Jim keeps his hand right where it was, firm and in place on Savel's back as the child all but curls into him. He tilts his head, chin brushing fine black hair and his gaze flicks up to meet his husbands probably for the first time since they came back on board.

So. Fucking. Screwed.

Bones puts a blanket over the boys, "Try to take a nap." He says fingers carding through Savel's hair. He dims the lights and moves over his desk to work on more things, before his next set of rounds.

A few days later they are all in CMO's Quarters, well his and Jim's quarters, Bones trying to figure out what they should have for dinner, and the conversation he's going to have with Jim after they put Savel to bed.

"What do you guys want for dinner?" He asks looking through the replicator choices for the evening.

Savel's lips purse for a moment, caught up in the application Jim had been showing him, before turning his full attention toward the question and the gurgling in his own stomach.

"Can I...we? I would like vegetable soup."

Jim glances up and then over at Bones and shrugs a shoulder in acceptance. Who was he to argue against that one.

Leonard finds a nice hearty veggie soup with so tofu, gotta get that protein in, and plugs it in, along with the weight drinks for Jim and Savel.

He brings the soup to the small table, and Savel brings over the drinks carefully putting them on the table making a face at his, but it is helping and he doesn't feel ill anymore.

"What were you looking at?" Bones asks with an easy smile.

"A game called Backgammon." Savel sipped his drink and sat, feet dangling inches above the floor. He blinked at Jim who handed him the PADD. Savel turned the screen toward McCoy and restarted the demonstration video.

"We will play after we eat." Savel looked back at Jim rapidly who reached over and ruffled the kids hair before sitting in his own chair and grabbing the drink.

"Bones and I need to talk for a little while but I can set it up so you can play the AI. Maybe by the time we're done, you could even beat me."

"Oh, backgammon is fun... I've played before." He smiles warmly, "I'm sure you'll be beating the pants off Jim and me in no time."

He stirs his soup in the bowl and sips from his mug of tea, "There are a lot of games we can play together, find something for more than two players... maybe Uno."

"I am not sure that is the truth." Savel eyes them both, and Jim hides his smile in his bowl. Savel continues staring at the two of them with an expression of neutral four year old judgement and Jim shakes his head, laughing softly.

"Some of the game is luck, Bones isn't entirely lying."

Bones just shrugs and takes a bite of his soup, smirking a little at the pair. Dinner is nice and they chat Bones settles Savel with some coloring and his padd.

He moves back over to the dinner table and puts two mugs of tea down on the table, "You said we had to talk?" He asks arching an eyebrow, warm and affectionate.

"We've kidnapped a minor," Jim snorts because it's not entirely inaccurate. Savel was going to be on this ship until they reached Earth whether or not he spent the whole time in these quarters. It was the matter of what was going to happen once they reached spacedock where things entered a grey to borderline black area and Jim always wanted to be a pirate, but Bones definitely did not. "I think we need to talk."

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