there was a snippet from the Vulcan Detective AU posted
So I guess I kind of owe 
leupagus =w=
It's winter before they - Bones and Jim and somehow Spock - can make it back to Earth, let alone Portland to go through Sakel's things. It's only because Pike spoils Spock constantly and shamelessly that they really manage it, and Spock refuses flatly to say what he did to convince Pike to let them have shore leave. (Jim carefully does not ask, because frankly if leaning into Pike and looking at him under his eyelashes got him to do shit, he would be a constant fixture on Pike's fucking wheelchair, and probably calling him Daddy while he was at it. And that leads to a discussion about Pike and his feelings for him that he'd really rather not have, ever.) Spock says it's for the crew, since most of them are Earth-human and want to spend various holidays with their families.
Jim kind of thinks it's for Spock himself, when it's pared down to the essentials; this is the first winter without his mother, and Jim knows that Spock's having a hard time with it.
Both he and Spock spent Christmas with Pike. The invitation had come just in time to save Jim from the equally terrifying and terrible options of a) butting in on Bones and his Christmas with Jojo, b) actually accepting Uhura's, Sulu's, Scotty's, or God forbid, Chekov's kindly invitations, or c) most terrifying of all, one of the invitations from the Kelvin crew.
Jim loves Christmas and all, but Uhura's family's name is Legion and Chekov is basically the tiniest, cutest version of an entire family of adorable crazy Russian geniuses, which is like so scary that even Spock looks vaguely unnerved. And Sulu had approximately fifteen million nieces and nephews, and Jim wasn't really prepared to deal with that many people under the age of eight.
So it's no surprise that Jim leaps at the comm to accept Pike's invitation, but he's a little surprised when Spock almost elbows his ribs in to get to the comm first. "What about Uhura?" he hisses.
Spock gives him the Oh My God You're My Commanding Officer Why? look and says, "What about her, Captain?"
"Aren't you guys, like," Jim isn't going to say banging, he is a grown up and allegedly bigger than that, he really truly is, "close?"
Spock gives him another Look, and says, "I am afraid I am unsure of what you mean to imply, sir."
"You aren't going to spend Christmas with your girlfriend's family?" clarifies Jim. "Because I hear that's a good way to get dumped."
Spock says, "That would first assume Nyota was, as you put it, my 'girlfriend', which is technically accurate as she is a 'girl' and also my friend, but we are no longer involved in the sort of --"
"What?" howls Jim.
Which is how Jim ends up spending two weeks driving Bones crazy worrying alternately about his first officer and his senior comms officer, and if he should hate one of them for breaking up with the other, and if so, which one. Bones eventually smacks him and tells him a story about how, in the real world, Jimmy, sometimes people decide not to fuck any more and still remain in a special relationship, that we like to call 'friends'.
In Jim's defense, not one of his exes has remained friends with him, with the possible exception of Gaila, and even then, his exes were not as close to him as Spock and Uhura were to each other. He thinks if someone like Spock or Uhura broke up with him, he would spend the rest of his life, or at least months of it, avoiding everything and everybody that reminded him of them. He tries to explain this to Bones, in a muddled sort of way when he's had the better part of a bottle of one of Bones' more suspicious and probably illegal liquids, but Bones only ruffles his hair hard and says, "It's okay, Jimmy. Not everybody is screwed up as much as us."
Which basically is the most depressing yet comforting thing Jim has ever heard.
But it's nice spending time with Pike, who is admitting nothing but moping as usual since his former XO and current life partner is on the Yorktown being awesomer than most of the galaxy instead of being in Mojave with him and Jim and Spock. She's not happy about it either, but she comms on Christmas day and they manage to have a good time anyway. Jim does his best to distract him, and when he and Spock leave Pike with manly hugs and solemn ta'als at SFO, he's smiling and looking better than he did when they arrived.
Bones meets them at the transporter gate of PDX with, "I got a comm from Boyce. His compliments, and would you assholes please stop egging on his captain."
"Hey," says Jim.
"The Admiral is perfectly capable of making his own decisions without our input," says Spock.
"Yeah, you all are just lucky his serotonin and dopamine levels went up and stayed up," says Bones darkly. "And don't think I didn't hear about the Academy fountain goin' festive colors and know who did it, because I was born before yesterday."
Spock looks blank. Jim tries to look innocent. Bones gives them the Daddy Glare but swings his duffel over his shoulder.
Winter in Portland is nominally less foggy than San Francisco but as damp and a hell of a lot colder. When they walk out of the exit to the light rail trains, it's raining, a drizzling mist that isn't hard but soaks through clothing and flesh to sink into your bones.
"Fuck, I could be in Georgia," says Bones unhappily, as they wait for the train to arrive.
"No, you couldn't," says Jim. "You've been looking forward to this all year."
Bones snorts, but doesn't deny it. Jim spent three months of the first cruise arguing over subspace radio with the committee in charge of Sakel's memorial - the least terrifying of their ideas had been a shattered glass mosaic of Vulcan - and then Bones had come in one day while he was pulling his hair out. Bones loves the committee in charge of Sakel's memorial. He loves them so much he comms them at least once a week and explains in short words and simple sentences how much they need to improve themselves and their taste in public art. Jim had passed the responsibility over to him gratefully. Now all of Portland, at least the part of it who read the Oregonian's society page and the passive-aggressive remarks about "Dr Leonard McCoy, Captain James Kirk's Starfleet Academy roommate", thinks they're fucking, but Jim doesn't even care.
...someday I will stop making jokes about how everybody thinks Bones and Jim are fucking and how they're really, really not, but today is apparently not that day.
leupagus =w=
It's winter before they - Bones and Jim and somehow Spock - can make it back to Earth, let alone Portland to go through Sakel's things. It's only because Pike spoils Spock constantly and shamelessly that they really manage it, and Spock refuses flatly to say what he did to convince Pike to let them have shore leave. (Jim carefully does not ask, because frankly if leaning into Pike and looking at him under his eyelashes got him to do shit, he would be a constant fixture on Pike's fucking wheelchair, and probably calling him Daddy while he was at it. And that leads to a discussion about Pike and his feelings for him that he'd really rather not have, ever.) Spock says it's for the crew, since most of them are Earth-human and want to spend various holidays with their families.
Jim kind of thinks it's for Spock himself, when it's pared down to the essentials; this is the first winter without his mother, and Jim knows that Spock's having a hard time with it.
Both he and Spock spent Christmas with Pike. The invitation had come just in time to save Jim from the equally terrifying and terrible options of a) butting in on Bones and his Christmas with Jojo, b) actually accepting Uhura's, Sulu's, Scotty's, or God forbid, Chekov's kindly invitations, or c) most terrifying of all, one of the invitations from the Kelvin crew.
Jim loves Christmas and all, but Uhura's family's name is Legion and Chekov is basically the tiniest, cutest version of an entire family of adorable crazy Russian geniuses, which is like so scary that even Spock looks vaguely unnerved. And Sulu had approximately fifteen million nieces and nephews, and Jim wasn't really prepared to deal with that many people under the age of eight.
So it's no surprise that Jim leaps at the comm to accept Pike's invitation, but he's a little surprised when Spock almost elbows his ribs in to get to the comm first. "What about Uhura?" he hisses.
Spock gives him the Oh My God You're My Commanding Officer Why? look and says, "What about her, Captain?"
"Aren't you guys, like," Jim isn't going to say banging, he is a grown up and allegedly bigger than that, he really truly is, "close?"
Spock gives him another Look, and says, "I am afraid I am unsure of what you mean to imply, sir."
"You aren't going to spend Christmas with your girlfriend's family?" clarifies Jim. "Because I hear that's a good way to get dumped."
Spock says, "That would first assume Nyota was, as you put it, my 'girlfriend', which is technically accurate as she is a 'girl' and also my friend, but we are no longer involved in the sort of --"
"What?" howls Jim.
Which is how Jim ends up spending two weeks driving Bones crazy worrying alternately about his first officer and his senior comms officer, and if he should hate one of them for breaking up with the other, and if so, which one. Bones eventually smacks him and tells him a story about how, in the real world, Jimmy, sometimes people decide not to fuck any more and still remain in a special relationship, that we like to call 'friends'.
In Jim's defense, not one of his exes has remained friends with him, with the possible exception of Gaila, and even then, his exes were not as close to him as Spock and Uhura were to each other. He thinks if someone like Spock or Uhura broke up with him, he would spend the rest of his life, or at least months of it, avoiding everything and everybody that reminded him of them. He tries to explain this to Bones, in a muddled sort of way when he's had the better part of a bottle of one of Bones' more suspicious and probably illegal liquids, but Bones only ruffles his hair hard and says, "It's okay, Jimmy. Not everybody is screwed up as much as us."
Which basically is the most depressing yet comforting thing Jim has ever heard.
But it's nice spending time with Pike, who is admitting nothing but moping as usual since his former XO and current life partner is on the Yorktown being awesomer than most of the galaxy instead of being in Mojave with him and Jim and Spock. She's not happy about it either, but she comms on Christmas day and they manage to have a good time anyway. Jim does his best to distract him, and when he and Spock leave Pike with manly hugs and solemn ta'als at SFO, he's smiling and looking better than he did when they arrived.
Bones meets them at the transporter gate of PDX with, "I got a comm from Boyce. His compliments, and would you assholes please stop egging on his captain."
"Hey," says Jim.
"The Admiral is perfectly capable of making his own decisions without our input," says Spock.
"Yeah, you all are just lucky his serotonin and dopamine levels went up and stayed up," says Bones darkly. "And don't think I didn't hear about the Academy fountain goin' festive colors and know who did it, because I was born before yesterday."
Spock looks blank. Jim tries to look innocent. Bones gives them the Daddy Glare but swings his duffel over his shoulder.
Winter in Portland is nominally less foggy than San Francisco but as damp and a hell of a lot colder. When they walk out of the exit to the light rail trains, it's raining, a drizzling mist that isn't hard but soaks through clothing and flesh to sink into your bones.
"Fuck, I could be in Georgia," says Bones unhappily, as they wait for the train to arrive.
"No, you couldn't," says Jim. "You've been looking forward to this all year."
Bones snorts, but doesn't deny it. Jim spent three months of the first cruise arguing over subspace radio with the committee in charge of Sakel's memorial - the least terrifying of their ideas had been a shattered glass mosaic of Vulcan - and then Bones had come in one day while he was pulling his hair out. Bones loves the committee in charge of Sakel's memorial. He loves them so much he comms them at least once a week and explains in short words and simple sentences how much they need to improve themselves and their taste in public art. Jim had passed the responsibility over to him gratefully. Now all of Portland, at least the part of it who read the Oregonian's society page and the passive-aggressive remarks about "Dr Leonard McCoy, Captain James Kirk's Starfleet Academy roommate", thinks they're fucking, but Jim doesn't even care.
...someday I will stop making jokes about how everybody thinks Bones and Jim are fucking and how they're really, really not, but today is apparently not that day.