TITLE: WHIPPED LIKE WHIP CREAM
PAIRING: McChekov
RATING: PG
SUMMARY: prompt #4 "back into the dog house" for STAR TREK SHIP WARS.
Jim finds out how whipped his best friend is for his cradle snatching boyfriend
“Yeah, yeah, don’t worry about it! I know where Bones keeps his secret stash- he bought a crate of real Kentucky bourbon last shore leave,” Leo heard Jim’s voice outside in the sickbay, shameless and loud.
“But don’t you think he’ll notice that a whole bottle is gone?” A worried and more hushed voice asked Jim which Leo recognized as Sulu’s. Two footsteps echoed closer towards Leo’s office door, after a couple of beeping noises on the number pad the office door swooshed open.
“Don’t worry about it- as long as he doesn’t actually catch us stealing his bourbon it’s going to be-,” Jim stopped mid sentence, halted when the lights flickered on in Leonard’s office. Sulu ran straight into Jim, a soft ouch mumbled into his back.
“Bones! Wha- what are you doing here?” Jim asked nervously at his friend. Leo was sitting in his office sofa, the expression on his face dark, clearly showing Jim he wasn’t amused.
“It’s my office, Jim, can’t I be here?” Leo grumbled to his best friend then looked over to the pilot who was trying to hide behind Jim’s back but clearly failing miserably.
“Hello, Sulu,” Leo said, raising an eyebrow.
“Um… Hello, Doctor,” Sulu responded nervously to Leo.
“What I mean is what are you doing here at 0100, instead of in your quarters with Chekov?” Jim asked as he stepped further into Leo’s office. Leo saw at the corner of his eye Sulu trying to slowly turn around and make a run for it, but Jim turned and gripped the back of Sulu’s gold jersey and dragging him farther into Leo’s office.
“Is there something wrong with sitting in ones office with the lights turned off?” Leo asked, wishing Jim would just walk away leaving him to his misery, but as he glanced at the two by the door there was no such luck.
“Umm… Yeah, Bones. As I said, you’re creepily sitting in your office at one in the morning, and not with your cute boy friend in your own room,” Jim said then observed Leo’s surroundings. Pillow and unused blanket lay on one end of the sofa, and Leo’s stance was sulking or brooding; arms crossed, and legs propped up onto the coffee table, and eye brows fully connecting to each other making the scowl of a lifetime.
“Oh God… have you been sent to the dog house?!” Jim exclaimed at his best friend. Leo looked up at Jim with his brows still knitted together then looked back onto his lap in somewhat ashamed.
“God you are!” Jim exclaimed slightly excited, but quieted down as Leo’s expression darkened.
“I left him hanging for the fifth time this week- it’s completely my fault,” Leo said as he gave up his tense brooding stance, slinking farther into the chair. His ran his hand over his tired face and looked at the two men.
“We were supposed to have dinner and I forgot… again. Then we got into a fight, I might have said something along the lines that navigators don’t have it nearly as bad as a CMO. He didn’t have papers to fill and admirals to report to- and he… kicked me out,” Leo muttered recalling how his Russian lover glared at him with dangerously stormy eyes that had tears of anger brimming around the edges.
He remembered how Pavel had thrown a pillow from their bed, he was sitting on at the time Leo had said those words.
“Get out!” Pavel yelled, his Slavic accent thicker now that he was angry. He placed two hands onto Leo’s broad chest and pushing him towards the door. Pavel struggled slightly as Leo held his stance.
"But this is my room!"
"I don't care! You don't care about me!" Pavel yelled slightly childishly, but Leo heard the genuine hurt in his voice.
“But Pasha, I’m sorry! I didn’t mean it.”
“I don’t care! Get out! I hate you right now!” Pavel yelled again doubling his efforts to get Leo towards the door.
“Pavel! Pasha!”
“No! I’m- I’m so angry at you right now! Go sleep somewhere else!” Pavel exclaimed with a bit of difficulty as he finally managed to push Leo out the sliding doors. The doors slid closed, Leo could hear Pavel reprogramming the lock so that Leo couldn’t get back in.
“Pasha…”
“No!”
Leo sighed at the memory and looked over at the two men standing in front of him, their expressions of disbelief matching.
“Wow…” Jim said.
“Yea… Pavel is hard to get angry, but once he’s angry he can be pretty scary,” Sulu said giving a sympathetic look to the doctor, “but I don’t think what you said to Pavel was really fair, doc. I mean he has a lot of stress on his job too- he has to make sure at almost all times of the day that we’re on course, nothings headed toward us- calculate ridiculous algorithms and warp theory factors and what not.”
“Yeah, I know. I shouldn’t have said what I said,” Leo grumbled as he shifted uncomfortably on his sofa and crossed his arms a little tighter around his body.
“Why don’t you go apologize, Bones? I mean… I don’t think Pavel’s a flowers and chocolates kind of guy, but he’s usually reasonable. Just go apologize,” Jim advised.
“Yeah… I know. I would, it’s just that, I don’t know. It’s hard… he’s so angry at me right now and I’m too mad at myself- I think I should wait till tomorrow when he’s calmed down a little.”
“Bones,” Jim said giving his best friend an unconvinced look, “Seriously dude, just go apologize. He’ll come through.”
“I agree, doc. Pavel will definitely forgive you, and you know what you did wrong so just go and tell him your sorry,” Sulu chimed in.
Leo looked at the two gold shirts and let their encouragements sink in.
“Yeah, you’re probably right,” Leo said as he dropped his legs from the coffee table quickly standing up, “I mean he loves me, I love him- everything will work out if I man up and apologize.”
“Exactly!” Jim said brightly as walked close enough to his friend to give him a pat on the shoulder, “You go make up with your jailbait boyfriend and stop sitting in your office in the dark at one in the morning.”
“Good luck, doctor!” Sulu also brightly said.
“Thanks guys,” Leo greeted and gave a small smile.
“No problem.”
“Yeah, no big.”
The three men stood there and kept smiling. Jim and Sulu smiled wider and wider each second they saw that the doctor wasn’t leaving his office.
“Jim, get out of my office,” Leo said politely, but it was laced way too much with a dangerous tone.
“Right… right,” Jim said, Sulu nodded as they both headed towards the door.
“- and Jim,” Leo called out to his blond friend who turned around from the door way, “When I find one of my bottles of bourbon missing, I’ll know where to look now. So don’t go stealing my booze.”
“Gottcha!” Jim said paling a little at the way Leo was smiling and gesturing to his cabinet full of hypos.
Leo stood outside of his own quarters, locked out.
He knocked and pressed his forehead against the cool metal door.
“Pasha… sweetheart…”
“Go away,” a small voice called out from the other side and it hurt Leo’s heart to hear it nasally and shaking.
“Pasha I’m sorry. I didn’t mean what I said- I had no right to say that my position was less stressful than yours. I mean you do things that I can’t even begin to understand let alone actually attempt. I’m sorry I said those things and I’m sorry I’ve been so absent minded lately. What I should have done was apologize when I was late to our dinner- not give excuses…” Leo said.
There was no response. Leo pressed his ear to his door and heard nothing.
“Pasha?” Leo called out again then a few beeping noises sounded by his door. Leo stepped back as the door whooshed open to reveal his lover standing in front of the door in his black regulated sleep wear with his hair bed ridden and eyes rimmed red.
“Oh Pasha, I am so sorry,” Leo said opening his arms as the lean Russian enclosed him with an embrace.
“I am sorry for making you go away,” Pasha said tearfully, “but I was so angry with you, and I felt so bad making you go sleep somewhere else!”
“No, I’m sorry- I should have been more aware of our promises to meet and how you might have felt when I didn’t show up. You’ve been nothing but understanding and I just go giving half assed excuses- that’s not fair of me,” Leo said, one of his hands cupping the back of Pavel’s head, as soft curly strands entangled around his fingers, and the other hand on the small of his back, bringing the lean, toned body closer to his own.
Pavel said nothing but tightened the embrace he had around the doctor’s neck and nuzzled his face into the crook of it.
“Come on, darlin’, let’s go in and make up- yeah?” Leo asked breaking their embrace apart a little so that Leo could see the dark gray blues he loved so much. Pavel looked up, looking a little brighter as he smiled and reached up for a sweet little kiss.
“Yes- we should make up,” Pavel said against Leo’s lips, which made him smile, he leaned in for a much more promising kiss.
A couple days later, around 1900, Jim walked into Leo’s office. Leo had been organizing his papers and pads in their correct files.
“Finished already?” Jim asked surprised.
“No- Pavel and I decided we should have specific days where we have to meet for dinner- so that we have a strict schedule to meet by,” Leo said as he filed the last of his pads into his drawer.
“Yea?” Jim asked with an amused smile on his lips and an eyebrow arched up.
“Yea,” Leo said looking up and his friend, then looking back down frowning at Jim’s facial expression, “What…”
“What, what?”
“Why are you looking at me like a cat that got the cream?” Leo asked as he stood from his desk and walked over to small mirror on the wall, taking his hand and combing it through his hair. Jim smile got wider.
“Oh nothing,” Jim sang out. Leo scowled at his best friend but from his hip, his communicator beeped out. Leo reached for the device, flipping it open.
“Hello?”
“Leo? Are we still having dinner?” Pavel’s voice rang out from the small hand held device.
“Yea, darlin’, I’m headed out right now,” Leo said.
“Okay! Just making sure!” Pavel cheerfully said, a beep ending their conversation. Leo placed his communicator back onto his belt and looked up at his friend who had a smile so wide that Starfleet could use his teeth as a tractor beam reflector.
“What, Jim! Just spit it out, man!”
“Dude. You. Are. So. Whipped!” Jim articulated.
“What? No…” Leo denied as he rolled his eyes and made his way toward the door.
“I’m not whipped, Jim!”
“Whipped like whipped cream, bro!”
Leo growled a little and walked away from Jim without looking behind him.
“I’m a doctor, not a dessert topping! And stay away from my damn liquor!” Leo said before leaving his office. Jim stood in his best friend’s office with a Cheshire Cat smile and made his way over to Leo’s stash of bourbon, grabbed a bottle and sat down at the CMO’s desk. Propping his legs up onto the big wooden beast, he popped open the bottle of bourbon and took a quick drag of it.
With a smile still on his face Jim said and chuckled to himself, “He is so whipped.”