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It’s not until he’s actually gone that it really sinks in. The harsh, cold marble seems to make it all real like he never did. Jim rests his head on the headstone and lets hot tears slide down his face and freeze on his cheeks. The snow seeps through the knees of his nice pants and he can’t be bothered to care, not really.
He’s gone now and it just doesn’t seem right. He was the doctor always warning Jim to be careful, to eat right, stay alive because neither of them could bear to lose the other.
He’s gone, though.
No more warnings to be safe, to eat his salad, to wear his helmet when he rides too fast on his black motorcycle. Now Jim is all alone and he has to figure out a way to stay on the ground without his anchor. Jim never was good at staying sane on his own.
Leonard McCoy met Jim when he was broken and bleeding in an emergency room with a cop in the corner waiting for him to get patched up so he could get hauled in. His eyes had flashed and he’d told the cop to go away because Jim would die if his heart rate got too high from nerves.
That was the first time he saved Jim.
Leo found Jim two weeks later at a bar. He was smiling in a way that only good alcohol could make a person do. He pointed and said “Hey, I recognize you. You got arrested, didn’t you?”
It really takes no time for Jim to fall into him. It takes no time at all for the two of them to crash into each other at the speed of sound and make something that isn’t broken, isn’t bruised, isn’t dangerous. It feels safe and it makes Jim stop breathing for a while.
He wishes he could have saved him.
Jim jumps on his bike and rides. He picks a direction and doesn’t pay attention to where he’s going until the sign that says “Welcome to Nebraska” is in his face and words that were spoken to him years ago echo in his mind.
“You can’t run from your problems, then all you are is sad and miles away from the people you love, Jimmy.”
He’s never really been very good at ignoring Leo, but he keeps driving because all he can think in response is, ‘Yeah, but you’re already six feet under. It doesn’t matter how far I go, you can’t follow.’
He remembers when Leo finally told him. It was a sunday afternoon and Jim was holding him in his arms loosely. His sunglasses were falling down his nose in the sunshine that would surely burn him soon. “I’m dying, Jim.”
“Aren’t we all, Bones?”
“No, Jim. It’s cancer. Six months.”
“Oh.”
That’s all they say about it for a long time.
Soon, though, Jim started yelling more and more because he didn’t know what else to do. He thought that maybe if he didn’t love him anymore, it wouldn’t hurt as much. He thought that maybe he could make Leo leave him so he didn’t have to see Jim die along with him.
Of course, he could never do that. He needed Leo like he needed air. Like he needed blood pounding through his veins, like he needed smiles on cloudy days.
Like he needs his Bones right now.
He keeps riding until the sun has risen and set three times and he can’t ride anymore because there’s an ocean in the way. He looks over the cliffside and wonders what it would feel like to plummet down and not think about what he’s lost.
“Come on, kid. You know you don’t want that.”
He turns around and goes to an address that he’d never forget.
“He’s gone, Chris.” The sight of Pike makes him almost smile. He can’t quite manage it, though.
“I know, Jim.”
Jim falls apart over the next few days and Chris stays on the edge of it all. He makes sure Jim eats, drinks water, and showers enough to keep being human, really.
Jim doesn’t feel human, but he figures he’s too tired to fight it.
Because Leo is gone.
He remembers the last days too well. Leo had begun to forget about a month before it happened. He never forgot Jim, though. Until he did. He woke up and his first words were, “Who are you?”
Jim had to leave the room really quickly after that and it took Leo about an hour to come out and meet Jim again. “God, Kid. I’m so sorry. I-I don’t know what happened there.”
He gets really bad really fast after that. Jim still remembers when he collapsed for the last time and they had to take him to the hospital.
“I’m afraid this is it, Jimmy. I’m so sorry.”
It was terrifying because it was far too soon. They were going to travel, were going to make love one last time, they had always wanted to have children. That dream had been thrown away six months ago.
“Jim, you need to promise me you’ll be okay. Don’t destroy yourself. I’m still here.” Leo’s last words were accompanied by a weak hand on Jim’s chest and they both knew that it was the end. Neither of them could cry, though, because for some reason, it didn’t feel real.
It didn’t feel real until Jim was kneeling by the grave and he realized that, no, Leo would not be coming back again.
It doesn’t feel like he’ll ever move on until he realizes that Leo would hate this version of him and at first he doesn’t care because he’ll never find out, but he promised. He promised he’d be okay.
Jim’s never thought of himself as a liar.