Huge thanks to Kira for the speedy beta on this one :D Much appreciated!

And I promise I was working on Plant Life when a single line of dialogue from that sparked this whole thing off!

The X-Files is the only reason I know what a Y incision is!

McCoy and Jim compete over who can diagnose a cause of death quickest, but even when he's drunk Jim's a genius.

Autopsy

McCoy was just about to start making notes on the second video he had to watch for class when the door chimed. He mentally checked the day: Wednesday. Jim wouldn't attempt to drag him to a bar until the wee hours of the morning...

“Hey, Bones, wanna go get drunk?”

The kid was wearing scruffy jeans, a black t-shirt and a massive grin.

“You're bored,” McCoy surmised.

“Very.”

“Go find someone else. I've got a stack of autopsies to get through and I wanna get perfect scores.”

“Why?”

“Because I'm a doctor damnit, not a med student.”

Jim sauntered into the room. “Do you need help?”

“Believe it or not, Jim, there are things in life I can actually do better than you.”

“Oh?” Jim was staring at the screen, not bothered at the sight of a cracked chest and exposed organs paused there. “That's Raimes Syndrome. Look at the discoloration of the lungs.” He waved his finger over the screen like a weatherman waves a hand over a map. “Pretty early stages though. Not easy to...”

McCoy looked at the screen, made the same diagnosis, and stared at Jim as though he'd grown an extra head. “How do you do that?”

Jim shrugged. “I read.”

“Read what? Medical journals?”

“It passes my spare time.”

“What spare time? When are you not sleeping, drinking or flirting?”

Jim grinned. “When I'm reading medical journals.”

McCoy rolled his eyes and threw up his hands. He wasn't winning this one.

“So,” Jim said, throwing himself onto McCoy's bed and toeing off his sneakers. “Next?”

Three videos and successful diagnoses later, Jim was back on his feet and heading for the door. “I'll be back.”

Fifteen minutes later, he returned with popcorn and a six-pack of Bud Classic. “Okay, next.”

“Jim, I'm not drinking tonight.”

“Who said any of these were for you?” Jim pulled the ring and slurped the froth. “Come on, next.”

The next footage started at the very beginning and, McCoy noted, the Y-incision made Jim a little nauseous.

“Bones, this shit is nasty.”

“I'm not making you watch it.”

“Skip to the good bit.”

“This is the good bit. Good surgery's like art Jim...”

“This is an autopsy Bones, not an art class. Get to the gore!”

“What, watching ribs being spread making you queasy?”

“No, but I can already tell the guy's dead from Bone Rot...”

“Bone Rot?”

“Yeah, look at the holes! Totally porous.”

He was right. McCoy skipped to the next one.

Jim popped another piece of popcorn in his mouth before washing it down with the beer. “Let's race this time: see who can make the call first.”

“Jim...”

“What?” He smirked. “Afraid I'll beat you?”

“Kid, didn't anybody ever teach you not to take on someone at their own game?”

“They mighta tried. I probably ignored 'em. And be honest Bones, I'm kicking your ass right now.” Jim drained the can and opened another. “So, you ready?”

McCoy played the video. Jim studied it intently, chewing popcorn. McCoy tuned him out, noting all kinds of medical nuances that would hopefully lead him to the correct diagnosis. If the skin was that particular hue and yes, yes, the heart had shrunk and couldn't cope with the blood flow...

“Purley's Disease.”

McCoy won by a breath.

“You're damn lucky I was swallowing beer,” Jim said.

“Sorry, Jim, was that the sound of you being a bad loser?”

“Next!”

Over the next five videos they were neck and neck and getting louder with each shouted disease. Jim eventually convinced McCoy one beer wouldn't hurt, and when one turned to two and they'd shared out the six pack (with a 4:2 ratio, but whatever), McCoy dug into his whiskey stash. With no shot glasses, they took turns swigging from the bottle.

McCoy was pretty sure Jim was passing from tipsy to drunk when he diagnosed the latest body with Zombification, which was totally impossible. But, then, to McCoy's ever lasting shock (and Jim's gleeful laughter), the body got up off the slab and could only be subdued by several phaser shots to the head.

“That's a fake. It's gotta be a joke.”

“Naw. I bet there's a damn planet of zombies out there,” Jim said, waving a wild hand at the ceiling. McCoy knew what he meant. “Imagine that. A planet of zombies. Fuckin' epic.” He finished off the last few popcorn remnants. “We're gonna go find that one day.”

“No, we're not.”

“Sure we are! It's space, Bones. Everything's out there!”

“Everything, huh?”

“Sure, why not?”

McCoy laughed. He couldn't help it as he reached out to pat Jim's head. “You're a delusional drunk, y'know that?”

“And that guy died of Lung Worm. Nasty.”

McCoy gave the bottle of whiskey to Jim. “Drink up.”

By the time they reached the last video, McCoy was prepared to admit to himself that the only reason Jim had stopped beating him was thanks to all the alcohol numbing his brain. The kid had been slowly slumping further back onto McCoy's bed for the past hour, his eyes barely open, held at half-mast in that desperate I'm not drunk in the tiniest littlest bit mom, promise! act people adopted to reflect feigned sobriety.

“Last one, Jim,” McCoy prompted.

“S'not.”

“Huh?”

“S'not the last one. There'll never be a last one 'til there's no one left alive anywhere in the whole universe... or 'til the only people left dunno how to do one...”

“Right...” Apparently, Jim was a thoughtful drunk, too.

“Or, if everyone dies in space 'cause then there's no bodies...”

Oh, shit. McCoy knew where that train of thought was going.

“Jim?”

It took him a few moments to come out of his thoughts. “Huh?”

“Last video. You ready to lose?”

“Lose? Wha? We're totally even. This... this...” He narrowed his eyes to make them focus on the screen, which, given the amount of alcohol swimming in his system, was probably a lost cause. “This is the decider!”

“The decider was about eight rounds ago.”

“Wasn't.”

“Was. Parz Disease, remember? You nearly hurled.”

“Did not.”

“Yeah, you did.”

“You're a lying liar who lies.” Jim forced himself into a better sitting position. “Play it.”

McCoy did.

“Easy. Tha's easy. Lookit the blood. Hyzpa.”

McCoy choked on laughter. “Sorry, what was that?”

“Hyzpa.”

“That's not a real word, Jim.”

“Sure it is! Sure it... uh,” he paused. “Nope, s'word.”

Two minutes later, McCoy was completely and utterly stunned to discover Hyzpa was not only a word but most definitely the diagnosis for this particular cause of death.

Hyzpa, a pulmonary disease originating on the planet Hyzap believed to have killed eight tenths of the population...

“How the hell do you know that?”

Jim was flat on his back again. “The Kelvin went there.”

McCoy cursed. How did Jim swing back to those thoughts?

“Last mission, before...”

“Thanks for your help, Jim. I owe...”

“If I die, Bones, would you do the autopsy?”

“What?” Good Lord, what had he triggered?

“Would you?”

“No.”

“No?” Jim tried to sit up but quickly gave up. “You wouldn't?”

“No, 'cause there's no way a kid like you will be out-lived by an old bastard like me.”

“Bones,” Jim chided. “You're not old.”

“True, but I'm older than you and that means I'll die before you.” A childish belief, but Jim was drunk and McCoy was tired and not in the mood to wind his way through the myriad paths of Jim's thought processes.

“Buuuullshiiiiit.”

“Damnit, are you ever not a smartass?”

“No' even when I'm drunk.”

“At least you're admitting it.”

“Still, kicked your ass.”

“Did not.”

Jim gave the ceiling a sloppy grin. “Did.”

“Did not, Jim.”

Jim didn't respond. He was out for the count. McCoy used the lull to fill in the report due tomorrow on the autopsies (and no one would ever have to know a few of the answers were only there courtesy of a drunk Jim Kirk) and toss the cans in the recycling bin. His now half-empty bottle (because any bottle of Leonard McCoy's that wasn't full was always half-empty) of whiskey was tucked back into the depths of his closet.

Room tidy, McCoy retreated to the shower. Done in five minutes, he padded back out into his room in sweats; San Francisco's nights were cold at this time of year and Jim had hogged the covers.

“I think I stole your bed,” the kid commented as McCoy settled on the empty side and ordered the lights off.

“Don't worry about it.”

“What if people talk?”

“And say what?”

“...Dunno. I'm drunk. What am I even talkin' about?”

McCoy laughed. “Go back to sleep, Jim. You're gonna hate yourself in the morning.”

“Nah, I'm gonna hate you 'cause you're gonna stick something in my neck and then I'll like you again 'cause I won't be hungover no more.”

“Shut up and go to sleep.”

Jim flopped noisily onto his stomach. “G'night Bones.”

“Night, Jim.”