fic: if you say so.
prompt and summary: #33 - CUPID // jim's so busy trying to set up bones with somebody that he completely manages to miss the fact that bones is interested in him.
point of view: jim.
opposite point of view: circle yes or no by brighteyed_jill --adorable and hilarious. go check it out!
rating: pg-13
warnings: your teeth may rot?
word count: 4,563
author’s note: written for the jim and bones Sweetheart’s Challenge at jim_and_bones.
- -
She’s absolutely fucking perfect.
Jim sees her talking to Scotty in the mess one day after his shift. She’s tall, thin, broad shouldered in a way that should be manly but somehow isn’t. And she’s gesturing angrily; Jim can’t distinguish the words but the tone is clear. And Scotty, sassy and unmovable Scotty, looks like he might be cringing. Maybe. Definitely.
There’s an opportunity here, Jim knows. What he should do is get up and sidle over there, introduce himself (needlessly, he’s the captain). Find out something about her. But Bones is sitting directly in front of him and Jim knows what would happen if he did get up. Normally the threat of imminent violence from the Bones quarter isn’t enough to stop him from flirting insatiably with anyone, but today Bones seems sort of peaceful and Jim doesn’t really want to wind up on the receiving end of whatever hidden rage is actually going on down there.
So instead, he reaches his fork across the table and snags Bones’s last piece of sushi.
“Motherfucker!” Bones growls, kicking him in the shins. Jim just laughs around his mouthful and kicks back.
Eventually, after Jim has spit out half the sushi from laughing too hard, and Bones is completely red in the face, things calm down. “Why do I put up with you?” asks Bones, but the tip of his boot drags down the back of Jim’s calf briefly anyway, which makes Jim shiver.
Which is why he needs to talk to that girl. Stat.
“Dunno, Bones,” he responds, like nothing’s going on, “’Cause I’m awesome?”
There’s an eyebrow ascending on the other side of the table, so he tucks his feet under his chair and says, “Anyway. Space has been fucking boring lately.” They’re heading towards a planet several billion light-years from their previous stop, and it’s going to take them another week before they get there. And Jim has only so much to do when they’re not being shot at by angry Klingons or transporting pretty pretty princesses from one galaxy to another. He’s bored. Really fucking so.
“Sorry you can’t always show off your gold-grade captaining skills,” Bones grunts, stuffing more salad into his mouth. He’s got a whole bunch of food spread out in front of him, which Jim is mostly just picking from, instead of eating the hamburger he’s got on his own plate. It’s mostly replicated, anyway. “You could try doing some paperwork for once. Or, you know, finally sorting out that issue with my comm unit?”
Generally, technological glitches are sent to Engineering to deal with. Generally, technological glitches involve switched passwords or blanked-out screens. Generally, technological glitches don’t involve Jim Kirk voiceovers for every computer voice response in one’s quarters and his smiling face on the background of one’s comm units and PADDs, no matter how many different attempts Scotty makes at fixing the problem.
Jim totally has no idea who the culprit is.
“I have no idea who the culprit is, Bones,” he says, twiddling his thumbs on top of the table. Bones just rolls his eyes and shoves his plates on top of one another, standing up.
“Well, when you figure it out, let me know. I’ve got better things to do than stare at your ugly mug all day.”
Following him, Jim pulls his plate away from the table and jogs to catch up. He smirks sideways at his friend and says, “Yeah, boring things. Ugly things.”
Bones glowers at him. “No, keeping the crew from falling apart at the seams.”
“Well, you’ve done a fabulous job,” Jim tells him, truthfully, slinging an arm across his shoulders-he’s free for a few hours, so he’s decided he’ll annoy Bones until he can get him to bitch him out about something. It’s about the funniest thing he’s ever seen and he does the best he can, all the time, to irk Bones into crazy ranting. As his best friend, it’s Jim’s duty. Or something. He’d feel guilty about it if he didn’t have a theory that Bones used anger to de-stress.
“Thanks, Jim,” Bones says sarcastically, “Now that I’ve had confirmation that my captain believes in me, I can go on!” But he doesn’t shrug out from under Jim’s weight like he sometimes does when he’s actually upset, so Jim counts it as a win.
“Hey, listen. Would you ever consider going on a date?”
They round the corner and Bones nearly collides with an ensign, who stammers an apology and darts off before he can get the full brunt of Bones’s growly face. Naturally, he turns it on Jim. “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard,” he says, but for some strange reason his face turns bright red.
“I mean,” Jim amends, quickly, realizing where he’s gone wrong, “I mean, like a blind date. I’ve found the perfect girl for you.”
Bones does step away, this time. He won’t look at Jim, either.
“C’mon,” Jim wheedles, nudging him with an elbow.
“Damnit, Jim, I’m already-“
“You’re already into someone else? Oh my god, Bones, what a joke, what a joke. You never spend any of your free time with anyone. Well, except me, but that doesn’t count.” Bones is on his way to turning so red he blends in with the group of red-shirts walking by. He looks more angry than Jim has seen in awhile, so, with his own personal safety in mind, he says, “Anyway, think about, will you?” and heads off toward Engineering.
Later, when he’s wrestled the identity of hot-and-perfect-for-Bones out of a not very reluctant Scotty, and he’s sitting in his rooms planning, he thinks, very briefly, about Bones’s flushed face.
- -
Her name is Jesscik Ng!n, and despite the origin of her name, she’s from Tallahassee. Which means Jim probably shouldn’t like her, but he does. She’s sassy and witty and makes Jim feel like an idiot when he proposes his idea.
“A blind date.” She’s looking at him the way Bones does when he’s really not sure if he should even consider taking Jim seriously. “On a spaceship?”
What good is being captain if no one takes you seriously? “Yes, lieutenant,” he says, “A blind date. Tomorrow.”
Jesscik closes her eyes for a second, and then opens them. “Fine. Okay. Where am I meeting him?”
“Rec room five.”
- -
“No fucking way, Jim,” Bones says, halfheartedly.
Jim’s been off shift for an hour or so, and he’s managed to hack into Bones’s quarters even though the code’s been changed again. He’s currently sitting on Bones’s bed and grinning in a way he knows will either get Bones to quirk a smile reluctantly back or deck him. “Bones, she’s hot. And smart,” he continues, when Bones opens his mouth to retort. “She works down in the labs.”
“This is Starfleet. Everyone’s fucking smart. Even the maintenance crew.”
“Yeah, well, this one’s a certified genius. Not, you know, Chekov-level, or anything. But close. And she doesn’t take shit from anybody. I followed her around today, so I know.”
Bones looks incredulous. “You followed-Jim, go away. I’ve got plans. They involve being asleep.”
“Bo-ring.”
“Jim, seriously, go away.”
“Not until you agree to go on a date with your perfect match!”
Bones freezes, looks away. Huh. Then he sort of swallows and says, finally, “Okay. Alright. Fine. Fine.”
Jim may have just fist-pumped, but the world will never know.
- -
The next day, once his shift is over, Jim flies down to Engineering, where, behind Scotty’s desk (and under a box, which is buried under a stack of piping) he unearths a checked blanket. He waves it at Scotty on his way out, just to see the Scot turn red.
On his way to the kitchens he runs into Christine Chapel, who actually grabs his arm and pulls him into an empty observation deck. He’s about to remind her who’s captain here and who isn’t when she says, eyes narrowed, “You’d better not be messing around with him this time, Captain.”
He crosses his arms, or tries to, but the picnic blanket gets in the way. “Care to clarify, lieutenant?”
“Doctor McCoy,” she says, like she’s surprised and disappointed he has to ask, “Just don’t dick him around, okay?”
Before he can make some well-timed and appropriate retort, like what? she’s gone.
He shakes his head at the stars and then continues on his way, wanting to sit and try to figure out what exactly Bones’s head nurse was just trying to say, but knowing he doesn’t have the time. He’s got a date to plan for his best friend.
- -
He corners Bones, later. After the date.
“How’d it go?”
Bones doesn’t look happy, but he doesn’t look grumpy, so it’s hard to tell what he’s actually feeling. Jim doesn’t actually think it’s possible for Bones to look happy, anyway, so he’s not too concerned. He does get a little worried when Bones sighs and says, without vehemence, “If you’re going to make me go on dates with other-with people-look, I don’t want-“
He throws his hands up in the air in the universal hey, man, no harm gesture. “Okay, okay, Bones, I get it. Your love life is personal. I’ll stop trying to get in its mighty warpath.”
Teasing Bones is unsurprisingly no fun when he doesn’t retaliate, so Jim ends up kind of sitting there awkwardly while Bones putters around his office and goes through forms and files and shit that Jim knows he doesn’t actually need to be doing. Not when he could be having a nice long conversation about his date. With his best friend.
He sits there for as long as he can, kicking at the rungs of his chair, until-“Jim, if you don’t have anything else to say, beat it. I’ve got work to do.”
Jim eyes Bones for a second. “So did you ask her on another date?”
“Jim! Out!”
- -
A few days later, Jim crashes into his quarters, barely awake enough to wait for the door to slide all the way open. He hasn’t left the bridge in over twenty-four hours, too caught up in first the trade negotiations they’d done via vidscreen and then the ensuing battlefire when things had gone south. But now that they’re far enough away and Uhura has managed to calm the natives down with her xenolinguistic badassery, Jim’s got eight hours to himself and he knows exactly what he’s going to do with them.
He sheds his uniform before he even gets near the bed, too tired to do much more than strip down to his boxers and flop on top of the covers.
Which smell-not right.
Actually, the sheets smell awesome, like those biscuits Bones eats sometimes in the mess.
But it doesn’t smell like his own bed.
Jim rolls onto his back and blinks at the nightstand. And then at the rest of the room, which, as it turns out, is Bones’s. The sense of disorientation that washes over him at this realization is quelled almost instantly by the biggest yawn ever. So instead of freaking out, he rolls back onto his side and closes his eyes.
- -
When he sleeps almost the whole eight hours of his break without being awoken by a grumpy doctor, Jim realizes that Bones didn’t come home at all. Which means he spent the whole of his break in Sickbay, which Jim has told him several times to not. do. He has half an hour before shift so instead of using that time to wake up slowly and roll into his clothes, he ignores the warm sanctuary of Bones’s bed and books it down to Sickbay.
Where Bones is not.
If Chapel knows where Bones is, she isn’t telling. “He’s not on duty, sir,” she tells him, matter-of-factly, “So it’s really none of my business.” And none of yours, she seems to be trying to beam into his brain. So he thanks her ever-so-politely and heads to a terminal.
“Computer. Location of Bones.” Then he shakes his head, corrects himself. “Computer. Location of Doctor McCoy.”
Bones is in the mess, which is convenient because Jim is just remembering now that he hasn’t eaten since before duty-a whole day ago. So he heads toward the turbolift.
The mess is busy, filled with crewmembers getting a quick breakfast before heading to shift. It takes Jim a while to locate Bones, because he’s looking for someone hunched over their cereal, probably exhausted. What he finds, however, is a Bones who is sitting across from a very rumpled, very glowing looking Jesscik Ng!n, grinning and saying something that involves gesticulating wildly with a fork.
That dog.
Jim doesn’t stay, after that, just grabs a bagel and heads toward the bridge, figuring he’ll get there early and get some paperwork done. But as he’s standing in the lift, he finds himself pushing the stop button mid-floor. The image of Bones, smiling, leaning toward Jesscik, pushing a hand through his hair like she’s already seen him with sleep-or, god, sex-ruffled hair-won’t stop playing and replaying in his head.
They’ve always told each other everything, is the thing. They share things fifty-fifty: fifty percent drunk confessions, fifty percent valley girl gossiping. And Jim is fairly confident-has been completely confident, until now-that he knows everything there is to know about Bones.
Apparently, Bones is keeping things from him. Sex things. And while Jim knows there’s a significant distance between how willing Bones is to share his sex life and how willing Jim is, Bones has never been so non-forthcoming as to completely shut Jim out.
Then again, it’s only 0800. He’ll give Bones a few hours before he really gets offended.
- -
Sure enough, when he corners Bones in Sickbay during a break, Bones just looks up wearily at him from the hyposprays he’s organizing and says, “Yeah, I slept with her.”
“Wow,” Jim says, impressed. “That was easy.”
For a second it looks like Bones is going to ignore him, but then he huffs a breath out and closes his eyes. “Figured I should get it over with; you’d nag me until I told you, anyway.”
“Damn straight, man,” Jim tells him, satisfied, clapping Bones on the back, which dislodges a few of the ‘sprays on the tray. “Whoops.”
Disappointingly, there is no grumpy reaction from his best friend, just a bit of a resigned sigh. Jim sobers, worried.
“Bones, man, what’s up?”
“Nothing, Jim.” Bones stands up, waves to Geoff M’Benga, who says something quietly to his patient and comes over. “Geoff. I need you to check on the strain of xenolupus they’re working on down in the labs.” He rolls his eyes toward Jim. “I was going to do it myself but now I’ve got my own personal parasite to deal with.”
“You got it, boss,” says M’Benga,
Jim bridles. “Your own personal parasite? Your own personal cupid, you mean.”
“Complete with diapers, yeah,” Bones agrees.
- -
Despite Bones’s new dating status, they still get together at the end of the week after shift for drinking-and-watching-holovids. Jim needles his friend about Jesscik, but Bones stays mostly tight-lipped, preferring instead to down a lot of bourbon and then sink into a loose-limbed haze of ignoring Jim.
After awhile, realizing his interrogation tactics are completely failing him, Jim tries another approach. He leans sideways against Bones’s arm and lets his head fall back against his shoulder. “If you don’t tell me I’m going to just fall asleep on top of you,” he tells him, face tilted towards Bones’s. “I’m serious, Bones. You’ll be at the mercy of all seven tons of muscle on my body. And I drool.”
“Oh, god, get off.” Bones shoves at him halfheartedly, his face scrunched up into a scowl
Jim retaliates by twisting sideways so his chest is pressed against his friend’s side, throwing one leg over. “Just tell me!”
“No,” insists Bones, pinching just above Jim’s knee, flopping at him with his elbows. “Get off!”
Jim knows he’s winning, so instead of pinching back he just rolls on top of Bones, blocking his view of the vidscreen. He pins Bones back against the wall with his forearms and says, “Cry uncle.”
Bones glares at him. “Fuck you, Jim.” He’s red in the face from the alcohol and the brief tussling, and he’s not actually looking at Jim, just staring at some point above his left shoulder. Pausing above him, Jim watches Bones for a second, strangely short of breath.
The atmosphere shifts, without warning, from playful to awkward. Jim pulls himself off and ignores his own quickened heartbeat. “I’ll tell you who hacked your accounts if you tell me how she is in the sack…?”
“A lady doesn’t kiss and tell,” Bones says primly, which earns him another elbow to the ribs. But Jim’s walking down a fine line here, so he doesn’t do anything more than that, just sits back and trains his eyes on the holovid.
If the rest of the evening is awkward, neither one of them mentions it.
- -
When Chekov starts hanging red hearts in the mess hall, Jim pulls him aside to thank him for joining him in his quest to get Bones a girlfriend.
“What are you talking about, Keptin?” Chekov asks, “I am hanging Valentine’s Day decorations.”
Jim freezes. Then he bolts for the ‘lift. “Nice talking to you, Ensign!”
- -
“BONES.”
“WHAT.”
Sometimes he can catch Bones in a state of tranquility and then scare the shit out of him if he’s loud enough. Today is not one of those days. In fact, it almost seems like Bones has been waiting for him to come ambush him. He’s sitting at his desk, leaning back in his chair, by the time Jim gets through Sickbay and to Bones’s office.
“It’s Valentine’s Day tomorrow.” He wiggles his eyebrows.
“So?"
“So,” Jim elaborates, lilting his voice up, “You should take Jesscik on a date.”
Bones smirks. “Already got one planned, Jim.”
“I’m so proud,” Jim tells him, wanting to clap him on the back but settling instead against the door pane, “What’s the plan?”
Is that a blush? “We’re, uh, having dinner in my quarters.”
“Candlelit? You know that’s not allowed on a spaceship.” He throws Bones a grin but it feels fake. He’s struck with wondering what Bones would look like across a candlelit table and shakes his head. “Just turn the lights down low,” he advises, winking.
“Got it.” Bones rolls his eyes. Then he eyeballs Jim. “You got plans for Valentine’s?”
“Nah, I don’t feel comfortable dating below rank.” Anyone other than Bones would probably think he’s being a dick, but Bones just nods and looks at him searchingly in a way that Jim doesn’t understand.
After a moment, Bones stands up and tucks a few PADDs under his arm. “Want to go do paperwork in my quarters?”
- -
For whatever reason, Jim’s on edge all of the next day. Normally, public displays of affection bring out the twelve-year-old in him and generally wind up with a blushing couple and a giggling Jim. Today, however, he mostly just watches them glumly. When he catches Spock reaching for Uhura’s hand-Spock! PDA! What the all-out fuck?!-he inexplicably finds himself wanting to bang his head against the wall.
Instead, he lets them be impressed with his tact by not saying anything and pretending he didn’t notice.
Bones comms him halfway through beta shift. I think I fucked up the chicken.
The Enterprise is in a very peaceable warp, so Jim can afford a little distraction. ur cooking?!
Okay I’m not going to talk to you if you abbreviate words.
u commed me asshole.
Bones doesn’t respond. Jim caves and says, sorry. i cant believe you’re cooking.
…me neither. When you get off shift can you come help.
bones i don’t think i would be much help.
Please?
ok fine just because you asked. ;)
He grins at himself, which attracts Spock’s attention. “Captain?”
”Nothing, Spock,” he says, “Nothing at all.”
- -
He’s stepping off of the bridge after shift when Jessick Ng!n catches up to him. “Captain, a word?”
Surprised, he follows her into his ready room, reminded again how perfect she is for Bones, congratulating himself on a matchmaking scheme gone right. Generally whenever he tries to set people up with one another, things go south, which is totally not his fault. This seems to be going great.
So great, in fact, that she’s singling Jim out. Which-oh god, oh god, she’s going to ask Jim for his permission to marry Bones. No, no, it’s too early in their relationship-Bones is still recovering from a broken marriage-you can’t bring babies on a spaceship-Bones is too much of a good man to not retire from the ‘fleet and raise a family of little Bones-babies on some planet somewhere-and Jim needs Bones here, needs him as his CMO, as his friend, as-
“You can’t marry Bones,” he blurts, startling Ng!n.
She narrows her eyes questioningly. “What?”
Oops. “Nothing. What did you need to talk to me about?”
Ng!n squares her shoulders. “You need to stop pushing Leonard at me.”
It’s his turn: “What?”
“You need to stop pushing Leonard at me,” she repeats, looking him square in the eye, “He’s not interested. And, before you try to disagree with me, we’ve talked about it. I’m not upset-Leonard’s not really my type.”
Bones is everybody’s type, Jim thinks, irrationally. “I’m pretty sure-“
Ng!n tucks her hair behind her ear. “Look, Captain. I’m probably not supposed to be saying this, but he’s in love with someone else. And you-your constant efforts to push him towards dating me, while I’m sure you mean well, are actually hurting him.”
Jim stares at her, not sure what to say. Then, because he’s an asshole, he says, “Who is it? Anyone I know?”
She shakes her head, backing towards the door. “You’ll have to take that up with him,” she tells him, and then salutes. “Captain.”
Before he can say anything, she’s gone.
- -
The lights in Bones’s quarters are at fifty percent when he gets there, and Bones is hovering over a dinner spread that’s, frankly, kind of scary looking. Jim grins at him despite how strangely nervous he is and asks, “What’d you make?”
Bones throws his hands in the air. “No fucking clue, at this point,” he tells him, exasperated. Then he glances at the clock. “She’s late
Jim takes a breath. “She’s not coming.”
There’s a beat, and then Bones exhales loudly. “What do you mean?”
“She’s, uh,” begins Jim, pacing forward, “She cornered me just now-Bones, if you were into someone else, why didn’t you just say so?”
Even in the reduced lighting Bones can’t quite hide the way he startles at that, the immediate way his face and neck flare up red. To his credit, he doesn’t stammer, which Jim was kind of expecting. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Oh, come on.”
“Fine, okay.” Bones slumps into one of the chairs at the table, staring down at the slightly burnt, weird-looking meat. “Yeah, I’m not interested in Jess. Thanks, though. I guess. For the effort.”
Sitting down across from Bones, Jim asks, “You gonna tell me who it is?”
“No. No, I’m not.”
Jim leans forward, props his elbows on the table, wiggles his fingers in Bones’s direction. “If you don’t tell me I’ll pinch you again.”
Bones glares at him. “Don’t even think about it.” He stands up and heads to where he usually keeps his alcohol, pulls the bourbon out. Jim hops up and attacks him from behind, pinching his side and laughing when Bones almost drops the bottle.
“Fuck!” Bones yells, putting the bottle down and whirling on Jim, smacking him upside the head with an open palm. Jim grins and tries to get his hands on his friend’s torso so he can tickle the hell out of him but Bones gets in the way, spreads his palms flat over Jim’s chest and then curls his fingers into the fabric of his uniform, tugging him close.
“You can’t leave damn well enough alone, can you, you asshole?” His breath hits Jim’s mouth in puffs of air, taunting him, because he can’t seem to figure out how to breathe right. Bones has crazy eyes, a look Jim loves, but it’s hard to really appreciate them when he’s so close and Jim’s busy memorizing the dry hairline cracks in Bones’s lips.
“You know me,” he says, faintly, “I push-“
“Shut up,” Bones mutters, his voice rough and lower than usual, and then he pushes Jim backwards until he’s pressed between the wall and Bones’s solid body. “Fuck, you’re so-“
Jim kisses him.
Bones makes a surprised noise and freezes, but then he kind of melts against him, sagging forward against Jim’s mouth, his own opening up under Jim’s questioning tongue. Jim wraps his arms around Bones’s back, wanting closer, thinking nothing but fuck yes fuck yes fuck yes until Bones pulls back and wrestles his way out of Jim’s hold. Wait, what?
“Hey, wait-“ He reaches out for Bones without thinking, tucking his hands into Bones’s hair and kissing him again. He doesn’t even go for tongue this time, just presses close and tries to stay attached. Bones’s hands flutter at his hips for a moment before finally settling, and Jim laughs against his mouth, delighted.
“Happy Valentine’s Day, you asshole,” Bones whispers, kissing just behind Jim’s ear, and god help him, Jim full-body shivers. They stay wrapped around each other for another moment.
When they finally pull apart, Jim casts a disparaging eye at the food on the table. “You’re not going to make me eat this stuff, are you, Bones?”
“Insufferable,” Bones mutters, and pretends he hasn’t taken Jim by the hand when he heads toward the door. “C’mon, let’s go see what they’re making in the mess.”
- -
Later, when they’re curled around each other like fucking puppies, Bones props his head up on Jim’s shoulder and says, “Jim, you do realize you don’t make any fucking sense, right?”
Jim’s a little too boneless to do much more than hum a question mark. Bones snorts and drops his head back down onto the pillow, nosing against the soft hair at the base of Jim’s neck. “First you set me up on a blind date, and then try to make out with me. No fucking sense.”
“Try? I kissed you senseless.”
Bones’s laugh nearly startles Jim, and then he wants to die with how adorable its ensuing huffs of air against the back of his neck are. So he rolls over in Bones’s arms and kisses him again, just because he can.
He’ll have to send Jesscik Ng!n a fruit basket, but at the moment he’s too fucking happy to do much more than try to crawl into Bones through his mouth.
Happy Valentine’s Day, indeed.
point of view: jim.
opposite point of view: circle yes or no by brighteyed_jill --adorable and hilarious. go check it out!
rating: pg-13
warnings: your teeth may rot?
word count: 4,563
author’s note: written for the jim and bones Sweetheart’s Challenge at jim_and_bones.
- -
She’s absolutely fucking perfect.
Jim sees her talking to Scotty in the mess one day after his shift. She’s tall, thin, broad shouldered in a way that should be manly but somehow isn’t. And she’s gesturing angrily; Jim can’t distinguish the words but the tone is clear. And Scotty, sassy and unmovable Scotty, looks like he might be cringing. Maybe. Definitely.
There’s an opportunity here, Jim knows. What he should do is get up and sidle over there, introduce himself (needlessly, he’s the captain). Find out something about her. But Bones is sitting directly in front of him and Jim knows what would happen if he did get up. Normally the threat of imminent violence from the Bones quarter isn’t enough to stop him from flirting insatiably with anyone, but today Bones seems sort of peaceful and Jim doesn’t really want to wind up on the receiving end of whatever hidden rage is actually going on down there.
So instead, he reaches his fork across the table and snags Bones’s last piece of sushi.
“Motherfucker!” Bones growls, kicking him in the shins. Jim just laughs around his mouthful and kicks back.
Eventually, after Jim has spit out half the sushi from laughing too hard, and Bones is completely red in the face, things calm down. “Why do I put up with you?” asks Bones, but the tip of his boot drags down the back of Jim’s calf briefly anyway, which makes Jim shiver.
Which is why he needs to talk to that girl. Stat.
“Dunno, Bones,” he responds, like nothing’s going on, “’Cause I’m awesome?”
There’s an eyebrow ascending on the other side of the table, so he tucks his feet under his chair and says, “Anyway. Space has been fucking boring lately.” They’re heading towards a planet several billion light-years from their previous stop, and it’s going to take them another week before they get there. And Jim has only so much to do when they’re not being shot at by angry Klingons or transporting pretty pretty princesses from one galaxy to another. He’s bored. Really fucking so.
“Sorry you can’t always show off your gold-grade captaining skills,” Bones grunts, stuffing more salad into his mouth. He’s got a whole bunch of food spread out in front of him, which Jim is mostly just picking from, instead of eating the hamburger he’s got on his own plate. It’s mostly replicated, anyway. “You could try doing some paperwork for once. Or, you know, finally sorting out that issue with my comm unit?”
Generally, technological glitches are sent to Engineering to deal with. Generally, technological glitches involve switched passwords or blanked-out screens. Generally, technological glitches don’t involve Jim Kirk voiceovers for every computer voice response in one’s quarters and his smiling face on the background of one’s comm units and PADDs, no matter how many different attempts Scotty makes at fixing the problem.
Jim totally has no idea who the culprit is.
“I have no idea who the culprit is, Bones,” he says, twiddling his thumbs on top of the table. Bones just rolls his eyes and shoves his plates on top of one another, standing up.
“Well, when you figure it out, let me know. I’ve got better things to do than stare at your ugly mug all day.”
Following him, Jim pulls his plate away from the table and jogs to catch up. He smirks sideways at his friend and says, “Yeah, boring things. Ugly things.”
Bones glowers at him. “No, keeping the crew from falling apart at the seams.”
“Well, you’ve done a fabulous job,” Jim tells him, truthfully, slinging an arm across his shoulders-he’s free for a few hours, so he’s decided he’ll annoy Bones until he can get him to bitch him out about something. It’s about the funniest thing he’s ever seen and he does the best he can, all the time, to irk Bones into crazy ranting. As his best friend, it’s Jim’s duty. Or something. He’d feel guilty about it if he didn’t have a theory that Bones used anger to de-stress.
“Thanks, Jim,” Bones says sarcastically, “Now that I’ve had confirmation that my captain believes in me, I can go on!” But he doesn’t shrug out from under Jim’s weight like he sometimes does when he’s actually upset, so Jim counts it as a win.
“Hey, listen. Would you ever consider going on a date?”
They round the corner and Bones nearly collides with an ensign, who stammers an apology and darts off before he can get the full brunt of Bones’s growly face. Naturally, he turns it on Jim. “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard,” he says, but for some strange reason his face turns bright red.
“I mean,” Jim amends, quickly, realizing where he’s gone wrong, “I mean, like a blind date. I’ve found the perfect girl for you.”
Bones does step away, this time. He won’t look at Jim, either.
“C’mon,” Jim wheedles, nudging him with an elbow.
“Damnit, Jim, I’m already-“
“You’re already into someone else? Oh my god, Bones, what a joke, what a joke. You never spend any of your free time with anyone. Well, except me, but that doesn’t count.” Bones is on his way to turning so red he blends in with the group of red-shirts walking by. He looks more angry than Jim has seen in awhile, so, with his own personal safety in mind, he says, “Anyway, think about, will you?” and heads off toward Engineering.
Later, when he’s wrestled the identity of hot-and-perfect-for-Bones out of a not very reluctant Scotty, and he’s sitting in his rooms planning, he thinks, very briefly, about Bones’s flushed face.
- -
Her name is Jesscik Ng!n, and despite the origin of her name, she’s from Tallahassee. Which means Jim probably shouldn’t like her, but he does. She’s sassy and witty and makes Jim feel like an idiot when he proposes his idea.
“A blind date.” She’s looking at him the way Bones does when he’s really not sure if he should even consider taking Jim seriously. “On a spaceship?”
What good is being captain if no one takes you seriously? “Yes, lieutenant,” he says, “A blind date. Tomorrow.”
Jesscik closes her eyes for a second, and then opens them. “Fine. Okay. Where am I meeting him?”
“Rec room five.”
- -
“No fucking way, Jim,” Bones says, halfheartedly.
Jim’s been off shift for an hour or so, and he’s managed to hack into Bones’s quarters even though the code’s been changed again. He’s currently sitting on Bones’s bed and grinning in a way he knows will either get Bones to quirk a smile reluctantly back or deck him. “Bones, she’s hot. And smart,” he continues, when Bones opens his mouth to retort. “She works down in the labs.”
“This is Starfleet. Everyone’s fucking smart. Even the maintenance crew.”
“Yeah, well, this one’s a certified genius. Not, you know, Chekov-level, or anything. But close. And she doesn’t take shit from anybody. I followed her around today, so I know.”
Bones looks incredulous. “You followed-Jim, go away. I’ve got plans. They involve being asleep.”
“Bo-ring.”
“Jim, seriously, go away.”
“Not until you agree to go on a date with your perfect match!”
Bones freezes, looks away. Huh. Then he sort of swallows and says, finally, “Okay. Alright. Fine. Fine.”
Jim may have just fist-pumped, but the world will never know.
- -
The next day, once his shift is over, Jim flies down to Engineering, where, behind Scotty’s desk (and under a box, which is buried under a stack of piping) he unearths a checked blanket. He waves it at Scotty on his way out, just to see the Scot turn red.
On his way to the kitchens he runs into Christine Chapel, who actually grabs his arm and pulls him into an empty observation deck. He’s about to remind her who’s captain here and who isn’t when she says, eyes narrowed, “You’d better not be messing around with him this time, Captain.”
He crosses his arms, or tries to, but the picnic blanket gets in the way. “Care to clarify, lieutenant?”
“Doctor McCoy,” she says, like she’s surprised and disappointed he has to ask, “Just don’t dick him around, okay?”
Before he can make some well-timed and appropriate retort, like what? she’s gone.
He shakes his head at the stars and then continues on his way, wanting to sit and try to figure out what exactly Bones’s head nurse was just trying to say, but knowing he doesn’t have the time. He’s got a date to plan for his best friend.
- -
He corners Bones, later. After the date.
“How’d it go?”
Bones doesn’t look happy, but he doesn’t look grumpy, so it’s hard to tell what he’s actually feeling. Jim doesn’t actually think it’s possible for Bones to look happy, anyway, so he’s not too concerned. He does get a little worried when Bones sighs and says, without vehemence, “If you’re going to make me go on dates with other-with people-look, I don’t want-“
He throws his hands up in the air in the universal hey, man, no harm gesture. “Okay, okay, Bones, I get it. Your love life is personal. I’ll stop trying to get in its mighty warpath.”
Teasing Bones is unsurprisingly no fun when he doesn’t retaliate, so Jim ends up kind of sitting there awkwardly while Bones putters around his office and goes through forms and files and shit that Jim knows he doesn’t actually need to be doing. Not when he could be having a nice long conversation about his date. With his best friend.
He sits there for as long as he can, kicking at the rungs of his chair, until-“Jim, if you don’t have anything else to say, beat it. I’ve got work to do.”
Jim eyes Bones for a second. “So did you ask her on another date?”
“Jim! Out!”
- -
A few days later, Jim crashes into his quarters, barely awake enough to wait for the door to slide all the way open. He hasn’t left the bridge in over twenty-four hours, too caught up in first the trade negotiations they’d done via vidscreen and then the ensuing battlefire when things had gone south. But now that they’re far enough away and Uhura has managed to calm the natives down with her xenolinguistic badassery, Jim’s got eight hours to himself and he knows exactly what he’s going to do with them.
He sheds his uniform before he even gets near the bed, too tired to do much more than strip down to his boxers and flop on top of the covers.
Which smell-not right.
Actually, the sheets smell awesome, like those biscuits Bones eats sometimes in the mess.
But it doesn’t smell like his own bed.
Jim rolls onto his back and blinks at the nightstand. And then at the rest of the room, which, as it turns out, is Bones’s. The sense of disorientation that washes over him at this realization is quelled almost instantly by the biggest yawn ever. So instead of freaking out, he rolls back onto his side and closes his eyes.
- -
When he sleeps almost the whole eight hours of his break without being awoken by a grumpy doctor, Jim realizes that Bones didn’t come home at all. Which means he spent the whole of his break in Sickbay, which Jim has told him several times to not. do. He has half an hour before shift so instead of using that time to wake up slowly and roll into his clothes, he ignores the warm sanctuary of Bones’s bed and books it down to Sickbay.
Where Bones is not.
If Chapel knows where Bones is, she isn’t telling. “He’s not on duty, sir,” she tells him, matter-of-factly, “So it’s really none of my business.” And none of yours, she seems to be trying to beam into his brain. So he thanks her ever-so-politely and heads to a terminal.
“Computer. Location of Bones.” Then he shakes his head, corrects himself. “Computer. Location of Doctor McCoy.”
Bones is in the mess, which is convenient because Jim is just remembering now that he hasn’t eaten since before duty-a whole day ago. So he heads toward the turbolift.
The mess is busy, filled with crewmembers getting a quick breakfast before heading to shift. It takes Jim a while to locate Bones, because he’s looking for someone hunched over their cereal, probably exhausted. What he finds, however, is a Bones who is sitting across from a very rumpled, very glowing looking Jesscik Ng!n, grinning and saying something that involves gesticulating wildly with a fork.
That dog.
Jim doesn’t stay, after that, just grabs a bagel and heads toward the bridge, figuring he’ll get there early and get some paperwork done. But as he’s standing in the lift, he finds himself pushing the stop button mid-floor. The image of Bones, smiling, leaning toward Jesscik, pushing a hand through his hair like she’s already seen him with sleep-or, god, sex-ruffled hair-won’t stop playing and replaying in his head.
They’ve always told each other everything, is the thing. They share things fifty-fifty: fifty percent drunk confessions, fifty percent valley girl gossiping. And Jim is fairly confident-has been completely confident, until now-that he knows everything there is to know about Bones.
Apparently, Bones is keeping things from him. Sex things. And while Jim knows there’s a significant distance between how willing Bones is to share his sex life and how willing Jim is, Bones has never been so non-forthcoming as to completely shut Jim out.
Then again, it’s only 0800. He’ll give Bones a few hours before he really gets offended.
- -
Sure enough, when he corners Bones in Sickbay during a break, Bones just looks up wearily at him from the hyposprays he’s organizing and says, “Yeah, I slept with her.”
“Wow,” Jim says, impressed. “That was easy.”
For a second it looks like Bones is going to ignore him, but then he huffs a breath out and closes his eyes. “Figured I should get it over with; you’d nag me until I told you, anyway.”
“Damn straight, man,” Jim tells him, satisfied, clapping Bones on the back, which dislodges a few of the ‘sprays on the tray. “Whoops.”
Disappointingly, there is no grumpy reaction from his best friend, just a bit of a resigned sigh. Jim sobers, worried.
“Bones, man, what’s up?”
“Nothing, Jim.” Bones stands up, waves to Geoff M’Benga, who says something quietly to his patient and comes over. “Geoff. I need you to check on the strain of xenolupus they’re working on down in the labs.” He rolls his eyes toward Jim. “I was going to do it myself but now I’ve got my own personal parasite to deal with.”
“You got it, boss,” says M’Benga,
Jim bridles. “Your own personal parasite? Your own personal cupid, you mean.”
“Complete with diapers, yeah,” Bones agrees.
- -
Despite Bones’s new dating status, they still get together at the end of the week after shift for drinking-and-watching-holovids. Jim needles his friend about Jesscik, but Bones stays mostly tight-lipped, preferring instead to down a lot of bourbon and then sink into a loose-limbed haze of ignoring Jim.
After awhile, realizing his interrogation tactics are completely failing him, Jim tries another approach. He leans sideways against Bones’s arm and lets his head fall back against his shoulder. “If you don’t tell me I’m going to just fall asleep on top of you,” he tells him, face tilted towards Bones’s. “I’m serious, Bones. You’ll be at the mercy of all seven tons of muscle on my body. And I drool.”
“Oh, god, get off.” Bones shoves at him halfheartedly, his face scrunched up into a scowl
Jim retaliates by twisting sideways so his chest is pressed against his friend’s side, throwing one leg over. “Just tell me!”
“No,” insists Bones, pinching just above Jim’s knee, flopping at him with his elbows. “Get off!”
Jim knows he’s winning, so instead of pinching back he just rolls on top of Bones, blocking his view of the vidscreen. He pins Bones back against the wall with his forearms and says, “Cry uncle.”
Bones glares at him. “Fuck you, Jim.” He’s red in the face from the alcohol and the brief tussling, and he’s not actually looking at Jim, just staring at some point above his left shoulder. Pausing above him, Jim watches Bones for a second, strangely short of breath.
The atmosphere shifts, without warning, from playful to awkward. Jim pulls himself off and ignores his own quickened heartbeat. “I’ll tell you who hacked your accounts if you tell me how she is in the sack…?”
“A lady doesn’t kiss and tell,” Bones says primly, which earns him another elbow to the ribs. But Jim’s walking down a fine line here, so he doesn’t do anything more than that, just sits back and trains his eyes on the holovid.
If the rest of the evening is awkward, neither one of them mentions it.
- -
When Chekov starts hanging red hearts in the mess hall, Jim pulls him aside to thank him for joining him in his quest to get Bones a girlfriend.
“What are you talking about, Keptin?” Chekov asks, “I am hanging Valentine’s Day decorations.”
Jim freezes. Then he bolts for the ‘lift. “Nice talking to you, Ensign!”
- -
“BONES.”
“WHAT.”
Sometimes he can catch Bones in a state of tranquility and then scare the shit out of him if he’s loud enough. Today is not one of those days. In fact, it almost seems like Bones has been waiting for him to come ambush him. He’s sitting at his desk, leaning back in his chair, by the time Jim gets through Sickbay and to Bones’s office.
“It’s Valentine’s Day tomorrow.” He wiggles his eyebrows.
“So?"
“So,” Jim elaborates, lilting his voice up, “You should take Jesscik on a date.”
Bones smirks. “Already got one planned, Jim.”
“I’m so proud,” Jim tells him, wanting to clap him on the back but settling instead against the door pane, “What’s the plan?”
Is that a blush? “We’re, uh, having dinner in my quarters.”
“Candlelit? You know that’s not allowed on a spaceship.” He throws Bones a grin but it feels fake. He’s struck with wondering what Bones would look like across a candlelit table and shakes his head. “Just turn the lights down low,” he advises, winking.
“Got it.” Bones rolls his eyes. Then he eyeballs Jim. “You got plans for Valentine’s?”
“Nah, I don’t feel comfortable dating below rank.” Anyone other than Bones would probably think he’s being a dick, but Bones just nods and looks at him searchingly in a way that Jim doesn’t understand.
After a moment, Bones stands up and tucks a few PADDs under his arm. “Want to go do paperwork in my quarters?”
- -
For whatever reason, Jim’s on edge all of the next day. Normally, public displays of affection bring out the twelve-year-old in him and generally wind up with a blushing couple and a giggling Jim. Today, however, he mostly just watches them glumly. When he catches Spock reaching for Uhura’s hand-Spock! PDA! What the all-out fuck?!-he inexplicably finds himself wanting to bang his head against the wall.
Instead, he lets them be impressed with his tact by not saying anything and pretending he didn’t notice.
Bones comms him halfway through beta shift. I think I fucked up the chicken.
The Enterprise is in a very peaceable warp, so Jim can afford a little distraction. ur cooking?!
Okay I’m not going to talk to you if you abbreviate words.
u commed me asshole.
Bones doesn’t respond. Jim caves and says, sorry. i cant believe you’re cooking.
…me neither. When you get off shift can you come help.
bones i don’t think i would be much help.
Please?
ok fine just because you asked. ;)
He grins at himself, which attracts Spock’s attention. “Captain?”
”Nothing, Spock,” he says, “Nothing at all.”
- -
He’s stepping off of the bridge after shift when Jessick Ng!n catches up to him. “Captain, a word?”
Surprised, he follows her into his ready room, reminded again how perfect she is for Bones, congratulating himself on a matchmaking scheme gone right. Generally whenever he tries to set people up with one another, things go south, which is totally not his fault. This seems to be going great.
So great, in fact, that she’s singling Jim out. Which-oh god, oh god, she’s going to ask Jim for his permission to marry Bones. No, no, it’s too early in their relationship-Bones is still recovering from a broken marriage-you can’t bring babies on a spaceship-Bones is too much of a good man to not retire from the ‘fleet and raise a family of little Bones-babies on some planet somewhere-and Jim needs Bones here, needs him as his CMO, as his friend, as-
“You can’t marry Bones,” he blurts, startling Ng!n.
She narrows her eyes questioningly. “What?”
Oops. “Nothing. What did you need to talk to me about?”
Ng!n squares her shoulders. “You need to stop pushing Leonard at me.”
It’s his turn: “What?”
“You need to stop pushing Leonard at me,” she repeats, looking him square in the eye, “He’s not interested. And, before you try to disagree with me, we’ve talked about it. I’m not upset-Leonard’s not really my type.”
Bones is everybody’s type, Jim thinks, irrationally. “I’m pretty sure-“
Ng!n tucks her hair behind her ear. “Look, Captain. I’m probably not supposed to be saying this, but he’s in love with someone else. And you-your constant efforts to push him towards dating me, while I’m sure you mean well, are actually hurting him.”
Jim stares at her, not sure what to say. Then, because he’s an asshole, he says, “Who is it? Anyone I know?”
She shakes her head, backing towards the door. “You’ll have to take that up with him,” she tells him, and then salutes. “Captain.”
Before he can say anything, she’s gone.
- -
The lights in Bones’s quarters are at fifty percent when he gets there, and Bones is hovering over a dinner spread that’s, frankly, kind of scary looking. Jim grins at him despite how strangely nervous he is and asks, “What’d you make?”
Bones throws his hands in the air. “No fucking clue, at this point,” he tells him, exasperated. Then he glances at the clock. “She’s late
Jim takes a breath. “She’s not coming.”
There’s a beat, and then Bones exhales loudly. “What do you mean?”
“She’s, uh,” begins Jim, pacing forward, “She cornered me just now-Bones, if you were into someone else, why didn’t you just say so?”
Even in the reduced lighting Bones can’t quite hide the way he startles at that, the immediate way his face and neck flare up red. To his credit, he doesn’t stammer, which Jim was kind of expecting. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Oh, come on.”
“Fine, okay.” Bones slumps into one of the chairs at the table, staring down at the slightly burnt, weird-looking meat. “Yeah, I’m not interested in Jess. Thanks, though. I guess. For the effort.”
Sitting down across from Bones, Jim asks, “You gonna tell me who it is?”
“No. No, I’m not.”
Jim leans forward, props his elbows on the table, wiggles his fingers in Bones’s direction. “If you don’t tell me I’ll pinch you again.”
Bones glares at him. “Don’t even think about it.” He stands up and heads to where he usually keeps his alcohol, pulls the bourbon out. Jim hops up and attacks him from behind, pinching his side and laughing when Bones almost drops the bottle.
“Fuck!” Bones yells, putting the bottle down and whirling on Jim, smacking him upside the head with an open palm. Jim grins and tries to get his hands on his friend’s torso so he can tickle the hell out of him but Bones gets in the way, spreads his palms flat over Jim’s chest and then curls his fingers into the fabric of his uniform, tugging him close.
“You can’t leave damn well enough alone, can you, you asshole?” His breath hits Jim’s mouth in puffs of air, taunting him, because he can’t seem to figure out how to breathe right. Bones has crazy eyes, a look Jim loves, but it’s hard to really appreciate them when he’s so close and Jim’s busy memorizing the dry hairline cracks in Bones’s lips.
“You know me,” he says, faintly, “I push-“
“Shut up,” Bones mutters, his voice rough and lower than usual, and then he pushes Jim backwards until he’s pressed between the wall and Bones’s solid body. “Fuck, you’re so-“
Jim kisses him.
Bones makes a surprised noise and freezes, but then he kind of melts against him, sagging forward against Jim’s mouth, his own opening up under Jim’s questioning tongue. Jim wraps his arms around Bones’s back, wanting closer, thinking nothing but fuck yes fuck yes fuck yes until Bones pulls back and wrestles his way out of Jim’s hold. Wait, what?
“Hey, wait-“ He reaches out for Bones without thinking, tucking his hands into Bones’s hair and kissing him again. He doesn’t even go for tongue this time, just presses close and tries to stay attached. Bones’s hands flutter at his hips for a moment before finally settling, and Jim laughs against his mouth, delighted.
“Happy Valentine’s Day, you asshole,” Bones whispers, kissing just behind Jim’s ear, and god help him, Jim full-body shivers. They stay wrapped around each other for another moment.
When they finally pull apart, Jim casts a disparaging eye at the food on the table. “You’re not going to make me eat this stuff, are you, Bones?”
“Insufferable,” Bones mutters, and pretends he hasn’t taken Jim by the hand when he heads toward the door. “C’mon, let’s go see what they’re making in the mess.”
- -
Later, when they’re curled around each other like fucking puppies, Bones props his head up on Jim’s shoulder and says, “Jim, you do realize you don’t make any fucking sense, right?”
Jim’s a little too boneless to do much more than hum a question mark. Bones snorts and drops his head back down onto the pillow, nosing against the soft hair at the base of Jim’s neck. “First you set me up on a blind date, and then try to make out with me. No fucking sense.”
“Try? I kissed you senseless.”
Bones’s laugh nearly startles Jim, and then he wants to die with how adorable its ensuing huffs of air against the back of his neck are. So he rolls over in Bones’s arms and kisses him again, just because he can.
He’ll have to send Jesscik Ng!n a fruit basket, but at the moment he’s too fucking happy to do much more than try to crawl into Bones through his mouth.
Happy Valentine’s Day, indeed.