Title: Biobed Built for Two
Author:
crazywriter10Pairing: Kirk/McCoy
Rating: PG-13
Warning: Cuddling, and probably sweet enough to cause cavities.
Disclaimer: Not. Mine.
Word Count: ~1,500
Summary: One can't sleep without the other. And Sickbay needs a biobed built for two.
Author Note: Most of you are probably wondering where the hell I've been, and where an update has been. I'm workin' on it. Enjoy this nugget, though.
Jim had found, over time and after he and Bones had stopped dancing around each other and finally, as Scotty put it, Shacked up together, that he couldn’t sleep well by himself. He tossed, he turned, the bed was too big, too cold - whatever the ailment was for that night, it was all he could do to get his eyes to shut and his brain to quit enough to get a few solid hours. And by few, it was more like two. If he was lucky.
The last mission had been a disaster. Not of epic proportions, like they had been in the past, but enough of a pear-shape in the end to put the two ensigns and the CMO in sickbay. Jim had managed the rockslide rather well, considering his luck, coming out of it with nothing more than a colorful array of bruises and scrapes.
Bones, on the other hand, had managed to well and truly attempt to shatter his left leg. Particularly from knee to ankle. Coupled with a broken arm, he was prisoner in his own sickbay for at least another day and a half since he had at least three more sessions with the osteo-regens, not the mention follow-ups and physical therapy. His own staff was keeping him pretty well drugged, but when they weaned him off of the stronger stuff, he’d start to drive them up the wall. Bones didn’t take well to being a patient. And it didn’t help that he slept badly without Jim.
So, long story short, Jim had been kicked out of sickbay by a slightly irritated Christine Chapel, told to get some sleep in his own bed (which she damn well knew wasn’t entirely his anymore) and not to come back until morning.
Growling in frustration, Jim rolled over, pulling Bones’ pillow closer to his chest and inhaling. A look at the chrono showed 0240, ship’s time, to which Jim’s supple and slightly sluggish mind supplied, It’s morning.
And really, he wasn’t going to be able to sleep without Bones somewhere in the vicinity. The preferable spot would be tucked against Jim’s chest, but he wasn’t picky. He’d take what he could get, even if it meant an aching neck for the next day and a half from sleeping bent over in a chair so his head could be by Bones’ hand on the biobed.
With some muttered curses, Jim slipped on Bones’ Ole Miss t-shirt and a pair of running shorts that he was mildly sure were clean, and proceeded to pad barefoot down the corridors. He probably looked like hell, and for that he was grateful not to run into anybody.
Sickbay was quiet. Neither M’Benga nor Chapel were in sight (and Jim was wonderfully happy about that because he had no doubt that Christine would send him packing again) and Bones was the only occupant. And from the way his head was tossing agitatedly back and forth across the pillow, he was either in pain or he couldn’t sleep.
“Bones,” Jim whispered, coming up on the side of the bed that the regens weren’t on and tangling their fingers together. “What’s wrong? You in pain?”
“Jim?” Bones focused his hazel eyes on Jim’s blue ones and sighed in contentment. And then frowned. “I thought Christine threw you out?”
“Well, yeah,” he said, using his free hand to rub the back of his neck. “But I kind of…can’t sleep.”
Bones went to push himself up into a sitting position with a grunt. Jim gently but firmly pushed him back down. “What are you doing?”
“Get you somethin’ to help you sleep.”
Oh yeah. Bones was tired because his drawl was coming through loud and clear and definitely Georgian.
“I don’t need drugs, Bones.” Jim looked at Bones’ leg, the one that wasn’t under the blanket, covered in regens. “I don’t sleep when you’re not there.” The omission was soft, and Bones could see the underlying exhaustion that was starting to tug at Jim’s frame.
Slowly, Bones shifted more onto his right side, careful of his leg.
Jim inquired as to what he was doing and got Bones’ don’t be an idiot look in return. Bones actually had to pat the space that he’d made for Jim to get enough of a clue that he was supposed to climb up beside him.
“Wait, no, Bones - ”
“Shut up and get up here.”
Which took the wind out of Jim’s already limp sails and he climbed dutifully and carefully onto the biobed, stretching out beside Bones. It was a tight squeeze - tighter than they had to sleep when they were in Jim’s bed - but they managed it, hip to hip, with Bones’ left leg slung delicately onto Jim’s, chest to chest, and Bones breathing in the scent of Jim’s neck while Jim’s exhalations stirred Bones’ hair.
“You really need to invest in a double bed for this place,” Jim murmured, hand pressed possessively into the little hollow at the base of his partner’s spine.
“Damn it Jim, it’s a biobed, not a bicycle,” Bones muttered. “It’s not built for two.”
“I can go…”
“You move and I will find every vaccine in the known and unknown universe to give you.” Not that he knew Jim was going to actually get up, but he had to keep up appearances. Somewhat. Not really, considering he could be a big mushball around Jim, if he wanted.
“I love you, too, Bones.”
Jim could have swore he had only just recently closed his eyes when he heard Chapel’s semi-outraged voice say, incredibly loudly, at that, “What are you two doing?”
Bones was still under, surprisingly, and hadn’t moved an inch even though, if Jim had to guess, it was probably close to a shift change which meant they’d been sleeping for about five hours, give or take a couple of minutes. He turned his head slightly to look at Chapel, standing with her hands on his hips at the foot of the biobed, M’Benga off in the background and simply watching.
“Was sleepin’,” Jim muttered. “He still out?”
“Yes,” she said, checking the readouts on her patient. Or trying to, at least. With the Captain in the bed as well the readings were odd, to say the least. She supposed that she could use a tricorder just as well, though that would defeat the purpose of the biobed, and her boss was sleeping better than he had since they’d originally knocked him out to start the process of resetting his leg. Oh, nothing was ever textbook with Jim Kirk and Leonard McCoy, including their sickbay time.
She took her time with the tricorder, wordlessly confirming that McCoy was still on the track he should be, and that none of the regens had moved during the night (since the Captain had crawled up on the bed with him) and even ran it over the Captain, just to make him grumble. Chapel finished with a hypo to dull the pain and started the next regen session.
It was an odd sensation for Jim; the regens were working and he could feel the minute movement as they did their job through his close contact with Bones. Bones flinched, burying his face further into Jim’s neck but never woke completely.
Jim settled his cheek against Bones’ grimy hair and closed his eyes again.
“Captain?”
M’Benga. Jim picked his head up slightly and blinked.
“Commander Spock wishes to inform you that he ‘has the bridge and not to cause yourself unnecessary stress in you and Doctor McCoy’s recovery.’”
Which was Vulcan for I’ll hold down the fort.
Jim smiled and put his head back down. “Oh. Hey, Geoff?”
“Yes, Captain?”
“Will you make sure a requisition form gets to my desk? They have to make these things big enough for two.”
M’Benga hid his chuckle. “Yes, Captain.”
* * *
One Month Later
Bones was looking over incident reports from Engineering (they were getting a little clumsy again, and Scotty wasn’t helping) and literally ran into something on the way from his office to the cabinet to check on the number of anti-inflammatories they had in stock before or whether they needed to pull a U-turn and head back to the last Starbase for a quick supply run.
Absently rubbing his hip, he stepped back and took a good look at what he’d run into. It…Well, it looked an awful lot like a biobed. Only bigger. And he couldn’t remember ordering it.
“Chapel?” he called. She came up beside him. “What is this?”
“The biobed built for two, sir,” she said, surprisingly straight-faced.
Bones gaped. “Biobed built for two?”
Chapel smiled. “Yup. Captain requested it.”
He held the padd in one hand and buried his face in the other. “You’re kidding, right? Jim didn’t order a ‘biobed built for two,’ did he?”
She wisely said nothing, inching away from her boss and barely containing her laughter. It came out with a snort though, once she heard him mutter, “Damn it, Jim…”
end