10-Day War
Title: 10-Day War (AO3)
Series: Star Trek AOS
Author:neko-fish
Pairings: Jim/Bones, Spock/Uhura, Sulu/Chekov
Rating: NC-17
Summary: In which fighting is a group activity. Modern day college AU.
Warnings: Crack, crack, crack, crack, failed sexting, mentions of public sex, nerdiness
Notes: Part of the Starfleet University Series
Day 0:
It’s not even their fight to begin with-it’s Hikaru and Pavel’s.
Everything starts off normal enough. It’s Sunday night and the group’s gathered at their usual pub, enjoying the food, the alcohol, and of course, the company. Then out of nowhere, while speaking among themselves, Pavel brings up the ‘plane incident’, and the mere mention of it is enough to get Hikaru riled up, apparently.
Hikaru narrows his eyes disapprovingly at Pavel whose lips curl downwards into an indignant frown. No one else notices anything wrong until the argument actually starts. The rest of the night just goes to hell after that.
It’s not explained in any great detail-or at all, really-and the reasoning behind the argument’s slightly blurry, but somehow, the rest of the group catch enough bits and pieces of the heated debate to put the pieces together, or so they assume, and then like all good friends should in such situations, they join in.
“Pavel, I think Hikaru might be right about this,” Nyota says at one point.
“I am afraid I disagree with your statement, Nyota. Mister Chekov’s reasoning appears more sound than that of Mister Sulu’s,” Spock replies.
She frowns. “It is not. Hikaru has every right to be upset. Just because Pavel looks like an adorably angry puppy doesn’t make him right, Spock. Leonard agrees with me. Right, Leonard?”
He blinks and cradles his glass. Damn, he’d done so well to stay out of the centre of attention too. Gulping down the rest of his drink, he grumbles, “Why me? But yeah, she’s right.”
“That’s just balls, Bones! Sulu’s totally in the wrong here!” Jim immediately protests. “Just look at that puppy-dog face! How can Chekov do anything wrong?”
Spock arches a brow. “Jim, while I may disagree with their judgment and agree with yours, it is illogical to base your arguments around Mister Chekov’s physical similarity to that of a small canine.”
“Oh, lay off it, Jim. You don’t even know what the argument’s about,” Leonard drawls. “And you stay out of this too, Spock.”
“Oh, fuck off, Bones. I know exactly what the argument’s about!” Jim retorts.
“Really, Jim?” He makes a mock-sweeping gesture. “Well then, by all means, please enlighten me.”
Caught off guard, Jim stumbles over his words for a moment. He repeats whatever bits he picked up and expands on them with vague gestures, hyperboles and metaphors.
Leonard snorts and cups his ear. “What was that? Sorry, I couldn’t hear you over the torrent of bullshit spewing out of your mouth.”
The rest of the group jumps in after that and it becomes a loud, angry, sexless orgy. And from there, somehow, the argument shifts from ‘I agree with Pavel/Hikaru’ to ‘I agree with Jim/Leonard’ because they seem to have a talent of getting into the centre of things-or at least Jim does, and where Jim goes, Leonard’s sure to follow (however unwillingly).
As they consume more alcohol, the argument escalates until the tension builds up and something snaps. “God, you’re such a tribble sometimes, McCoy!”
Everyone at the table goes quiet.
‘Tribble’ is the word they decided on to avoid making personal attacks on one another. It’s the safe-word-a precaution to preserve their friendship and to stop fights from escalating. But at the same time, it’s their anti-safe-word because while it halts a fight, it also signals that a disagreement’s become official and sides need to be formed immediately.
Leonard pauses and scowls. When he speaks again, it’s clearly a warning. “I’m a tribble? Oh, I’m a tribble, am I?”
Not one to back down, Jim snaps, “Yeah, you are! You’re nothing but a goddamn tribble, McCoy! Jesus, I can’t believe I’m dating such a stupid prick! I just-I don’t even want to see your face! I’m gonna sleep in my own room tonight!”
There are collective gasps from the group (save Spock who merely arches a brow). Everyone knows that when a fight escalates to the point where Jim and Leonard refuse to share a room and bed, and when Jim Kirk flat out turns down the idea of angry make-up sex, the fight has become official-official.
“Was that supposed to upset me somehow? Speaking of pricks, you and your prick better stay the fuck away from me or I’ll have you castrated. Have fun with your right hand, Kirk,” Leonard hisses.
“I’ll have you know that I’m ambidextrous and both my hands work equally well when it comes to having fun-and they make for better company than you, McCoy. At least they don’t bitch about everything at any given point in time! Hope you don’t miss having my dick up your ass-oh wait, there’s already a fucking stick up there!” Without taking his eyes off Leonard, Jim raises a fist towards Spock’s direction. “Spock, fist-bump.”
“I do not believe such a gesture is necessary.”
Still refusing to break eye contact with Leonard, Jim whines, “Come on, we’ve discussed this!”
Spock nods, making no move to take part in the fist-bumping. “Yes, and I believe we agreed that I would only take over the role of being your designated ‘fist-bumper’ in situations where Leonard is absent or unavailable.”
“Wow, I think that’s the first time I’ve ever heard you call me by my name,” Leonard says, surprised. “I’m so uncomfortable right now.”
“I apologize for your discomfort, Leonard,” Spock says.
Leonard rolls his eyes. “Well, now you’re just doing it on purpose, you cheeky Canadian.”
Still holding his fist up, Jim sighs. “I know that’s what we agreed on, Spock, but it wouldn’t really be logical to fist-bump Bones after I just brilliantly insulted him, now would it? So technically speaking, that would make him unavailable. Ergo, fist-bump, Spock-now, s’il te plaît.”
With more than just a little reluctance and a suppressed sigh, Spock obliges and holds a fist up for bumping.
“Merci beaucoup, mon ami. That wasn’t so bad, was it? You like what I did with le français there, O wise, bilingual Vulcan from the true north strong and free?” Jim asks with an eyebrow waggle.
Nyota mock-gags and tells him, “I think your ‘French’ made me throw up in my mouth a little, Kirk.”
Pretending not to hear her and still smirking in triumph, Jim turns back to Leonard with his arms crossed. “Anyways, stick up the ass. Your move, McCoy.”
Leonard rolls his eyes, unimpressed. “What can I say, Jim? It’s the only way to get an orgasm nowadays. Not to slander you by saying that you’re bad in bed or that your penis is microscopic or anything-oh wait, it’s not slander if it’s the truth-source: my medical law and ethics class.” With a crooked grin, he fist-bumps Nyota, knowing he just hit two things Jim’s especially proud of.
Hikaru lets out an impressed whistle. “Look at the pre-med go.”
Getting up, Leonard announces, “Yeah, and now I’m gonna leave before this escalates into a rap battle or a dance-off-again. C’mon, let’s go, guys.”
Jim sits there, still gaping as everyone on ‘Leonard’s team’ gets up to leave with their leader. He frowns when Gaila follows suit. “Gaila, you too? You’re ditching us? But, engineering! Engineering!”
She shrugs and smiles at everyone remaining at the table. “Nyota is my best friend and Leonard is very good looking when he gets all snappy like this. And Christine is probably going to join our side. It sounds like fun and I would not want to be up against Hikaru when he is angry. See you boys later.” With a wink and a wave, she takes off after the other half of the group.
“Fine, whatever! Go with them! All I need are Spock, Scotty and Chekov anyway!” Jim calls back with a hand on Spock’s shoulder, holding him in place. He might agree with her about Leonard’s attractiveness, but he’s not about to forfeit a fight because of that. Frowning when Spock arches an eyebrow at him, he says, “Don’t give me that look. There’s no such thing as a ‘neutral side’ in a group fight, Spock, and no, you’re not exempt just because you’re from Canadia. You’re on my side. We male engineering geniuses have to stick together-and no, I don’t care how chauvinistic that sounded!”
Outside, Leonard snorts in amusement when he realizes that they left ‘Jim’s team’ with the bill. Hikaru pauses and looks over and asks, “Wait, how did we end up on the girls’ team, McCoy?”
He shrugs, not knowing the answer.
Nyota shoots them a confident smile. “Because being on the ‘girls’ team’ also means being on the winning team, Hikaru.”
It isn’t until later that night as he’s lying on his bed alone that Leonard wonders how the hell it ended up being a fight between him and Jim when it started with Hikaru and Pavel.
--
Day 1:
The next day, the two groups steer clear of each other. With no real bitterness or anger behind it, or any threat of break ups, it’s an official fight, but not a very serious one-a fight fueled by nothing except bruised egos and sheer stubbornness.
The rules are simple: the first team leader to apologize or admit to being at fault loses. Or alternatively, in Jim and Leonard’s case, the first person to show up at the other’s dorm room also forfeits the fight.
The only objective in a not-so-serious fight: to win.
That night, they hold separate meetings in respectively elected dorm rooms (Scotty’s and Nyota’s). Scotty has booze and a poker set, and Nyota has food and booze and movies, which says a lot about the quality and the productivity of their meetings.
Within two hours of homemade brew and poker, the boys are completely smashed and Spock takes the opportunity to return to his room on the account that it’s a Monday night and he has a tutorial to teach in the morning.
Jim waves him off and starts trying to talk Pavel into playing another round of poker. “Come on, Chekov, it’ll be fun! We won’t bet money! We’ll bet cats, okay?”
“Didjyo know…,” Pavel starts, but then fumbles with his words for a moment and has to try again, “’jyo know that cats were invented in Russia?”
“Shit, I didn’t know that,” Jim says in amazement, completely forgetting about the cards. “How’d you guys do it? Where’d you get the cat parts? Scotty, more booze-and did you know about the cats? Apparently, the Russians invented them.”
Scotty’s on the floor next to him, snoring.
“We did,” Pavel insists.
Jim empties the rest of Scotty’s drink and runs a hand through his hair and slurs, “How come the world doesn’t know about this? Oh my god, I have to tell Bones! Wait, we’re fighting. Balls. Why’d we have to fight now when I made such an important discovery? Bones, you suck! This is why I’m gonna win, right, Chekov?” At that point, Pavel’s disappeared and Jim can hear someone cursing in Russian from the bathroom. Jim lets out an encouraging cheer, “Atta boy, Chekov!”
Leonard’s team on the other hand, enjoy themselves immensely. They have a full meal over a glass of wine and end up watching one of the old, foreign movies Nyota has lying around. As Gaila had predicted, Christine decided to join them. He suspects that she only showed up because she’s bored and in need of entertainment, but when she shows up with a six-pack, he's reminded of why they’re such good friends and welcomes her to the team.
He’s still trying to figure out what language they’re speaking when he notices Gaila creeping towards his feet with bottles of nail polish in her hands. Arching a brow, he asks, “Excuse me, are you planning on painting my toenails red?”
She looks up and smiles sweetly at him. “Yes? I finished with Hikaru’s nails. I think he looks very nice with painted nails. Did you want a different colour, Leonard? Nyota has the nicest nail polish.”
“I still don’t get how I ended up on the girls’ team,” Hikaru mutters, studying his nails.
He looks over at Hikaru who’s sitting there with yellow and red nails and still looks a little lost about the whole situation and shrugs. “I don’t know, I think I prefer this team though. There’s actual food instead of just booze, and I’m not surrounded by engineering geniuses for once. It’s kind of nice, almost like I’m talking to normal people,” he takes a swig of his beer, “-almost.” Then turning back to Gaila, he thinks about her offer for a moment and says, “I think I’m gonna opt for green, darlin’.”
Nyota laughs and takes out a nail file. “Give me your hand, Leonard. I’ll start on those. How does Pre-Med Blue sound?”
“Is that an actual colour? Can’t imagine it’d be very marketable to people who aren’t in the medical world. Go for it, I guess.” Leonard holds out his hand and wonders how he ended up in a spa.
Christine arches a brow at him. “I think you’re enjoying yourself a little too much, Leonard. Never took you to be a manicure and pedicure kind of guy. What do you think the boys are up to?”
“If experience is anything to go by, they’re all probably smashed out of their faces right now. And Jim’s immediate plan will be something like ‘I’m awesome so I’ll win by default,’” he tells her. “I think I can afford to enjoy myself a little today.”
Just as he says that, his phone chimes, “Text!”
23: 42, J. Kirk to L. McCoy:
Catesz werew ionverented in russoia djyas knoweytnhast?
23:44, J. Kirk to L. McCoy:
BTWS, I’mm aqwesdome so I totallky wionm bny dfegeaultr
23:45, L. McCoy to J. Kirk:
Did you make it back to your room? Make sure you drink lots of water and there’s aspirin in the top drawer of your nightstand, or in the cupboard next to the fridge at Scotty’s.
23:47, J. Kirk to L. McCoy:
I loicveyoui soooooo miuch docvtir bomnes
“It’s amazing how right I am sometimes,” Leonard says with a triumphant smirk.
“This isn’t a very serious fight, is it?” Christine asks, looking at Jim’s messages. “Otherwise, you two wouldn’t be texting each other. Especially not stuff like ‘I love you so much, Doctor Bones.’ It’s both cute and vomit-worthy. I have to admit, I’m kind of glad though. I still remember the ‘silent incident’ when you two refused to acknowledge each other’s presence for two whole weeks. That was weird.”
Hikaru nods in agreement. “Oh yeah, I remember that. Everyone had to stop fighting and work together to try to get you two talking again.”
“Because you two were being total bitches,” Christine supplies helpfully.
“Thanks, Christine. You always have the kindest words. I don’t know why I put up with you. No, it’s not serious, but it’s still official and that’s all that counts.” He puts his phone away and wiggles his toes. “So does anyone have any ideas on what we should do now?”
Finishing painting his pinky toe, Gaila looks up with bright eyes and a devilish grin. “I think I have an idea on how to win this fight.”
--
Day 2:
“Text!”
Sitting in the middle of the library, Leonard fumbles with his phone and switches it onto silent mode before opening the message.
15:30, J. Kirk to L. McCoy:
[Picture Attached]
15:31, L. McCoy to J. Kirk:
A blurry picture. Thanks for that. Are you still drunk?
15:32, J. Kirk to L. McCoy:
Oh whoops, forgot to put my pants back on before taking that picture. It’s such a bother sometimes that Captain Kirk’s MASSIVE enough to bend LIGHT.
Leonard has to look away and cover his mouth to hide his grin.
15:32, L. McCoy to J. Kirk:
Your modesty and subtlety never cease to amaze.
15:32, J. Kirk to L. McCoy:
I was also going to threaten not to help you out in physics but then I remembered that Gaila betrayed us and Sulu’s secretly good at physics, isn’t he?
15:33, L. McCoy to J. Kirk:
Yep.
15:33, J. Kirk to L. McCoy:
Well, so much for that. BALLS.
15:33, L. McCoy to J. Kirk:
I’m sure you’ll come up with something else. In the meantime, absolutely no sex.
15:34, J. Kirk to L. McCoy:
WHAT!? That takes the fun out of EVERYTHING! Why aren’t you on my team, Bones?
15:34, L. McCoy to J. Kirk:
Because we’re the ones who’re supposed to be fighting? I think? And it’s Gaila’s orders.
15:34, J. Kirk to L. McCoy:
That’s BALLS, Bones. BALLS.
15:34, L. McCoy to J. Kirk:
Tell that to Gaila.
15:34, J. Kirk to L. McCoy:
Oh, I will. This is total BALLS, Bones.
15:35, L. McCoy to J. Kirk:
Stop typing ‘balls’.
15:35, J. Kirk to L. McCoy:
Would you prefer if I said ‘That’s TESTICLES, Bones.’?
15:35, L. McCoy to J. Kirk:
Not really. And it’s ‘testes’, not ‘testicles’.
15:36, J. Kirk to L. McCoy:
Oh, BONES, you dirty, dirty boy! YES! Keep talking PRE-MED to me, you sexy future-doctor, you! You know what I wanna do to you right now? I want to run the fungiform and filiform papillae of my tongue up your gracilis while I insert my lubricated digitus secundus-all the way up to the head of my METACARPAL-to stretch out your anal sphincter muscles. Yeah, you like that, don’t you? Me talking all anatomically correct and stuff?
It takes all of Leonard’s self-control to not burst into laughter. Leave it to Jim to leave him breathlessly amused and strangely hot and bothered with a single text message.
15:38, L. McCoy to J. Kirk:
Are you done?
15:39, J. Kirk to L. McCoy:
I bet you’re SO very super turned on right now, aren’t you? So what’ve you been up to without me and Captain Kirk for company? How’s the GIRLS’ team?
15:40, L. McCoy to J. Kirk:
How’s it the girls’ team when there’s me and Sulu? Anyway, my team could kick your team of geeks’ asses any day and you know it. We had dinner, drinks, watched movies, and…wait, let me take a picture.
15:40, L. McCoy to J. Kirk:
You guys had FOOD!? That’s BALLS, man. Shotty being on the girl’s team next time!
He sends Jim a picture of his painted nails.
15:40, L. McCoy to J. Kirk:
[Picture Attached]
15:41, J. Kirk to L. McCoy:
Wow, that’s raunchy, Bones. Pre-Med Blue?
15:41, L. McCoy to J. Kirk:
That’s an actual colour?
15:41, J. Kirk to L. McCoy:
Yep. Are you thinking what I’m thinking, Bones?
15:42, L. McCoy to J. Kirk:
Probably not because I don’t think anyone in this world can or will ever figure out what goes on in that strange head of yours.
15:42, J. Kirk to L. McCoy:
I was thinking: behind the biology building in 15ish?
15:43, L. McCoy to J. Kirk:
Huh, alright, maybe I WAS thinking what you were thinking. I’ll see you there.
--
Day 3:
“Text!”
10:58, J. Kirk to L. McCoy:
[Picture Attached]
11:00, L. McCoy to J. Kirk:
A close-up of your unzipped fly. An explanation would be nice.
11:01, J. Kirk to L. McCoy:
I would’ve sent you a picture of Captain Kirk, but he’s so BIG he probably would’ve shot out your screen and poked out an eye, and we wouldn’t want that, now, would we?
11:02, L. McCoy to J. Kirk:
Are you still upset about that? Stop personifying your body parts-and don’t refer to you and your penis as ‘we’. It’s really creepy.
11:02, J. Kirk to L. McCoy:
I can’t help it if he’s got a personality big enough to match his ENORMOUS size. And yes, WE will continue being deeply upset until you publicly admit that Captain Kirk is of ample size. A written statement would work too.
11:03, J. Kirk to L. McCoy:
Something like: “I, Leonard H. McCoy, formally acknowledge that James T. Kirk’s penis (hereinafter known as “Captain Kirk”) is of more than ample size, and that James T. Kirk is amazing in bed.”
11:03, L. McCoy to J. Kirk:
Don’t make me laugh, Jim, I’m in class right now. Is this what this whole fight’s about?
11:03, J. Kirk to L. McCoy:
Maybe? I’m pretty sure it’s part of it, but I couldn’t tell you what came before that even if I wanted to.
11:04, L. McCoy to J. Kirk:
Whatever, just get your enormously egotistical and slightly-above-averagely proportioned parts over to the physics building in 20.
11:04, J. Kirk to L. McCoy:
Not there. Sulu and Chekov. Behind the library?
11:04, L. McCoy to J. Kirk:
That’s no good. Nyota and Spock. Ugh, now I have images in my head.
11:05, J. Kirk to L. McCoy:
Wow, hot, secret sex all around, eh? This is what not so serious fights are all about! Well, if she’s busy over there then we can probably meet by the linguistics building.
11:05, L. McCoy to J. Kirk:
Sounds good. See you in 20.
11:05, J. Kirk to L. McCoy:
Wait, what do you mean only ‘slightly-above-averagely’ proportioned!?
After class, Leonard makes his way over to the linguistics building only to find Jim standing in a Superman pose with a grin on his face. “Ah, Bones,” he glances down for a moment and waggles his eyebrows suggestively, grin widening; “we’ve been expecting you.”
He rolls his eyes skyward and sighs. “Oh, fuck me.”
Jim laughs and pulls him close. “Don’t you worry. We’ll get to that soon enough.”
--
Day 4:
Leonard takes out the relatively new electrical toothbrush he’d stopped using because of a not so offhanded comment Jim had made. The exact words had been: “Jesus Christ, Bones, are you trying to give me a boner by using that thing? I’ll tell you right now that it’s working-don’t give me that look! Have you seen yourself in the mirror? You look like you’re blowing a small, vibrating dildo and there’s white foam dribbling from your mouth! What else am I supposed to think!?”
He smirks and sends Jim a picture of it-not of him using it because he figures that’d be too indulgent of him, and they’re still supposed to be in the middle of an argument.
21:23, L. McCoy to J. Kirk:
Hey, Jim, remember this?
21:23, L. McCoy to J. Kirk:
[Picture Attached]
21:23, J. Kirk to L. McCoy:
No fair! That’s such a low blow, Bones! You’re not allowed to do that! I’m trying to eat!
21:24, L. McCoy to J. Kirk:
Where are you?
21:24, J. Kirk to L. McCoy:
Mess. Couldn’t be bothered to cook.
21:24, J. Kirk to L. McCoy:
*Mess with a boner. Thanks for that.
21:24, J. Kirk to L. McCoy:
You better be on your way over here to fix this.
21:26, J. Kirk to L. McCoy:
Bones?
21:27, J. Kirk to L. McCoy:
You can’t just stop answering! That’s just BALLS.
21:28, J. Kirk to L. McCoy:
Seriously not cool, Bones. If we weren’t fighting seriously before, we’ll start now if you leave Captain Kirk standing-literally. Get it? Hilarious, right?
21:29, L. McCoy to J. Kirk:
Come outside.
21:29, J. Kirk to L. McCoy:
Holy shit. Never mind outside, I’m pretty sure I just came in my pants.
21:29, J. Kirk to L. McCoy:
This is SO amazingly awesome. On my way now.
--
Day 5:
They get caught outside the psychology building with their hands down each other’s pants.
Scotty throws his arms up in the air and exclaims from afar, “Jim, what on earth are you doing!? Get your hands out of there! We’re supposed to be in the middle of a disagreement, lad!”
Gaila’s a lot less squeamish and marches over to them and pulls on Leonard’s arm with a frown on her face. “Leonard, you are not allowed to sex Jim while you are fighting!”
Embarrassed as he is, he can’t really focus on how ashamed he should be feeling with Jim’s hand still fiddling around in his pants. He grits out, “Dammit, Gaila-”
“We’ll let you watch! Just let us finish!” Jim cuts in with his offer.
Leonard blinks. “We will?”
She pauses and after much consideration, shakes her head. “No. No sexing during a fight, Jim.”
“Aye, the lass is right, Jim. Not during the fight,” Scotty chimes in, taking a step closer to them.
Jim looks over at his teammate. “Scotty-no, but Bones-oh, this is just balls.”
Forcefully pried apart and their phones confiscated, suddenly, it goes from being a ‘Jim versus Leonard’ fight to a game of ‘keep Jim and Leonard apart’. And without the hot, secret sexcapades around campus, the argument doesn’t seem all that fun anymore.
They spend the weekend apart with their respective teams, both under heavy supervision.
--
Day 8:
When Monday comes around, Jim’s bored and miserable.
Everyone seems to be taking the fight a lot more seriously now, and he has a sneaking suspicion that there’s more at stake than just winning now. It’s been three days since he last saw Leonard and he’s suffering from Bones withdrawal. He even escaped Scotty’s watchful eye and tried sneaking into Leonard’s class only to be deflected by Christine over at the biology building, which then caused him to retreat back to the engineering building in defeat.
On his way to class, he runs into Pike. “Kirk, are you having a fight with McCoy? I haven’t seen him around since last week. You two aren’t ignoring each other’s existence again, are you?”
He raises a brow, surprised that a professor like Pike would notice. “We’re supposedly arguing right now, sir.” In all honesty, he doesn’t know what they’re fighting about and now that they have no means of communicating with one another, the fight’s lost all its appeal. Life without Leonard’s just dull. “Is there a problem with my fight with Bones?”
Pike frowns. “Yes, there is. There’s a very big problem, Kirk. Why would you get into a fight with our medic? And by ‘our’ medic, I mean the engineering faculty’s medic. He was the only person with medical training of any kind who was willing to set foot in this building-and frequently too.”
“Are you telling me that no one in this building has a first-aid certificate?” Jim asks.
Shaking his head, Pike rolls his eyes and grumbles, “Of course no one does. Who has the time for that? That’s why we have a pre-med faculty on campus and why we always welcomed them here-except McCoy was the only one who ever showed up.” He heaves a sigh. “This is just great, I guess we’ll have to blow even more of our budget on Febreze now. First, national security, and now I’ll have to deal with the other professors too. This is going to suck-epically.”
Balls, he thinks, now not only is he deprived of Bones, he’s disappointed Pike too-the two things he hates most. “It’s not so much that I want to continue this fight with him, sir,” he starts before he even realizes what he’s saying, “it’s more like there are a lot of obstacles barricading my way.”
“That’s it?” Pike asks, incredulous. “When has something like that ever stopped you?”
Jim’s momentarily speechless.
“Look, go and reconcile with McCoy already,” Pike tells him. “You’re both better off with each other. And if not that, do it for the faculty.”
He chuckles. “If I didn’t know any better, sir, I’d say you were playing favourites.”
“That’s exactly what it is. Unlike some people, I’m not above favouritism, and I’ve given up on pretending to be otherwise a long time ago-when I’m not in class anyway.”
“To be honest, I thought you’d try a little hard to deny it,” Jim admits.
Pike snorts. “Fuck that.”
He knew there was a reason why Pike was his favourite and most respected professor.
“I’m sick of alternating between the scent of disappointment and broken spirits to ‘Sweet Citrus & Zest’ to dying students to ‘Spring & Renewal’. Archer wants to change it to ‘Hawaiian Aloha’, but Barnett thinks ‘Brazilian Carnival’ will do a better job of masking the smell. With the things I have to put up with here, pretending to be unbiased is the least of my worries.” Then he looks over at Jim with an arched brow. “Well, what are you waiting for, Kirk? Stop gaping and get us back our medic before the faculty loses all its students and blows its budget on air freshener.”
He remembers Leonard rambling about Febreze and dead students during the ‘blackmailing incident’, but he’s never really taken it seriously until now. Suddenly, he feels immensely grateful to Leonard for rescuing him from his lab parties and for regularly checking in just to make sure he’s still alive. At least this explains why the labs smelled so much fresher at the beginning of the semester.
“If it’s any help, I’d recommend ‘New Zealand Springs’,” he suggests.
Pike waves him off. “Just go get McCoy back already.”
Jim grins and mock-salutes. “Will do, sir.”
--
Day 9:
“Leonard, your boyfriend is weird.” Nyota tells him during their study session.
He looks up from his notes and arches a brow. “You just noticed after all this time, Nyota? And he’s not my boyfriend. We haven’t figured out the official naming system yet, but we’re not ‘boyfriends’. That sounds strange and weird.”
“Alright, then the guy you’re dating is weird. Is there any reason why Kirk used Spock’s phone to send me this message?” she asks him.
“Hmm? I’m not sure. What does it say?”
“It just says ‘Bones’ over and over again, and then it trails off into this random mess of letters. Does he normally send you messages like this? Here, take a look.” She passes him her phone. “He needs to learn how to not capitalize everything.”
“Yeah, it’s a bad habit he picked up. Something about emphasis via text message,” he mutters, taking the phone. “Don’t look at me like that. I’m not the one who wrote it.”
16:00, S. Spock to N. Uhura:
BONES. BONES. BONES. BONES. BONES. BONES. BONES. BONES. BONES. BONES. BONES. BONES. BONES. BONES. BONES. BONES. BONES. BONES. BONES. BONES. BONES. BONES. BONES. BONES. BONES. BONES. FTGWTINTSTMTABABABTIBLMPB.
He arches a brow when he sees that Jim also added a subject line with nothing but ‘^^^!!’. Taking a closer look, he realizes that the carets are pointing at the time, and because he is and will always be Jim’s best friend first and foremost, he understands exactly what the maniac’s trying to tell him.
Mentally, he translates the message into something along the lines of: “Bones! The fight’s getting way too intense. Time to abort, abort, abort! This is balls, man! Plan B at 1600 hours tomorrow!”
Leonard has to fight back his urge to sigh and force his expression to remain neutral.
He hates Plan B.
Nyota studies him closely. “So what does it mean?”
Passing the phone back to Nyota before he accidentally reads any of the private messages between her and Spock, he shrugs and decides to take a page out of their book. “Who knows? It’s Jim, and this is, as you’d put it, ‘Kirk-Speak’ of some kind.”
She nods. “Yes, and I happen to know that there’s a Kirk-Speak-speaking population of two people in the world, and one of them is you, Leonard.”
It’s true, but he’s going to deny it anyway because in all technicality, he doesn’t know how to speak Kirk-Speak, he only knows how to read it.
“What are you talking about? You’re the linguist here; does it look like a decipherable message to you? For all I know, he was trying to use his chin to type the message-again.” She doesn’t look convinced, so he continues babbling in hopes of distracting her, “You should be glad he didn’t type ‘balls’ over and over again. It’s his word of the month or something, his flavour of the week-” the two of them arch their brows and exchange horrified looks, “-sorry. I deeply regret and would very much like to retract that comment.”
“Comment retraction approved. I didn’t hear a thing,” she immediately agrees.
There’s a long moment of silence between them. Nyota’s playing around with her phone and Leonard’s trying his best to pretend to be studying, but he’s read the same line half a dozen times now and the letters aren’t registering in his brain. Finally, he can’t take it anymore and looks up, “So what’s it like going out with a super logical genius from Canada?”
Instead of answering, she asks, “What’s it like going out with a genius man-child from Iowa?”
“Is it the complete opposite of going out with a super logical Canadian genius?” he guesses.
She tilts her head back slightly and looks upwards with a thoughtful expression. “Hmm, I think you’d be surprised.”
Then, because Leonard can’t resist, he asks, “Oh? What about ‘eh?’ Have you ever heard him say ‘eh?’”
Nyota just laughs.
He chooses to interpret that as a ‘maybe’.
--
Day 10:
Stretching, Leonard stands up and heaves a sigh. Out of all the possible arguments in the group, his and Jim’s are always the hardest to resolve regardless of seriousness. When Spock and Nyota fight, all Nyota does is give him her glare of fury and all Spock has to do is use the word ‘feelings’ or ‘emotions’ in a sentence and all’s well again. When Hikaru and Pavel fight, one of them usually gives in within a week. When he and Jim fight, all hell breaks loose and the world implodes.
It doesn’t help that Jim refuses to resolve things like a normal person. With the fight now more ‘Jim and Bones versus everyone’ focused than anything else, it’s only natural that they’re expected to deal with their own teams-which is why he’s currently thinking of ways to ditch said teammates and make his way over to their rendezvous point. His team must’ve realized that something’s up because he’s been under constant supervision the whole day now.
Glancing over at Christine as they walk down the hall and away from the lecture hall, he suddenly stops and pivots around on his heel. “Shit, I forgot to ask the prof something. Go on without me, Christine. I’ll catch up in a minute.”
Because he’s an absolutely terrible liar, he runs away before she can call bullshit. Much to his dismay, he’s spotted by Nyota on his way towards the exit. She smiles at him with feigned innocence. “Hello, Leonard. Where’s Christine? I thought we were all meeting in the mess.”
“She’s on her way there, I think. I just had to go to the bathroom,” he tells her, making another turn towards the men’s room. “No need to bother waiting for me; you can just go on ahead. I’ll meet you two there.”
Nyota shoots him a knowing look and shakes her head, keeping her voice pleasant. “Oh, it’s no bother at all, Leonard. I’ll wait for you outside then we can go to the mess together.”
Goddamn it all.
He shrugs. “Sure, if you want.”
Pushing the bathroom doors open, he blinks when he finds Hikaru standing in front of one of the sinks, looking very engrossed with washing his hands. Leonard stops mid-step and gapes, stunned into silence. Hikaru looks up and gives him a nod in greeting. “Hey, fancy seeing you here, McCoy. I was just on my way to the mess hall, what about you?”
Leonard nods back. “Yeah, I was just headed there myself. Just had to make a pit stop.” Then he mutters under his breath, “Oh, you guys are good.”
“What was that?” Hikaru asks.
He shakes his head. “Nothing. ‘scuse me for a sec.”
Making his way into the handicapped stall at the far end of the bathroom, he locks the door behind him and stares at the window that Jim had once used to escape some crazy, vengeful girl. He pinches the bridge of his nose and sighs, trying to come to terms with what he’s about to do.
Leonard glances at his watch (the one he had to start wearing because Gaila still has his phone) and notes that he only has ten minutes left. Cursing under his breath, he decides that wallowing in self-pity and questioning his life choices will have to wait until after the fight’s over. He steps onto the toilet seat and pulls the window open. He takes a deep breath and mumbles to himself, “Oh god, this is actually happening. I’m actually gonna do this. Dammit, Jim, I hate you so much right now.”
“McCoy, you alright in there?” Hikaru asks from outside.
“Yeah, just peachy keen,” he calls back, trying to keep the sarcasm out of his voice.
He hoists himself up and squeezes himself through the frame with an embarrassing amount of huffing and wheezing. Jim probably had a much easier time doing this, he thinks; because Jim’s scrawny and unbelievably flexible-a little something he discovered during the ‘yoga incident’. Luckily, he manages to get a leg out and avoids falling out the window face first. “Stupid Jim Fucking Kirk, we could’ve just met up somewhere and talked it out like civilized people, but no, of course you have to turn this into a game.”
“Going somewhere, Leonard?” an amused voice asks him.
Whirling around, his eyes widen. “Christine! Oh dear lord, please don’t tell me you saw all of that.”
Christine grins. “You know, if someone told me last week that I’d get to watch Leonard McCoy struggling to escape via a bathroom window, I would’ve called bullshit. But here you are, about as flexible as a brick wall and athletic as a tree stump. God, I wish I took pictures. Just imagine how much Jim would pay me to get his hands on them.” Then she asks, “How’s your dignity feeling?”
“Battered and bruised-all in all, nothing new. I’m in pre-med and not athletics for a reason,” he tells her. “What’re you doing here anyway? I thought we were supposed to be on the same team.”
“The game’s changed, Leonard. Get with the program,” she replies, crossing her arms in a confident manner, and he just knows that this is somehow Jim’s fault. “What’re you going to do now?”
Leonard’s wondering the same thing. He needs to get past her, but he’ll have to distract her first if he wants to avoid the crippling embarrassment of being tackled to the ground by a girl-again. “Not sure yet. But while we’re here, want to know why Geoff didn’t take any classes with us this semester?”
Christine narrows her eyes. She’s probably fully aware that he’s trying to distract her, but he’s sparked her curiosity with this piece of gossip and she just has to know now. She crosses her arms and asks, “Why? Come to think of it, he normally joins in on fights, doesn’t he?”
“He got himself a girlfriend. She’s in microbiology, I think, so he’s doing his microbiology courses first,” he tells her.
“Oh, that vag!” She pulls out her cell phone. “I’m going to send him the angriest text he’s ever read!”
Taking advantage of her momentary lapse of concentration and against his better judgment, he makes a break for it-or, he attempts to. He manages to get past Christine only to get ambushed by Gaila out in the open. “Aha! I got you, Leonard!”
Knowing very well that if he stops running now, he’ll lose all will to carry out Jim’s ridiculous plan, Leonard forces his legs to continue; and quickly realizing that he has no intention of stopping, Gaila starts chasing him and jumps onto his back. Startled by the sudden weight on his back, he struggles to maintain his balance and screams, “Jesus Christ, my back. Why is this happening!? I’m a student, not a horse, dammit! Get off me, Gaila!”
“No! You have to stop running first!” she retorts, tightening her grip. Then after a moment, she tells him, “I have never seen you run so fast before, Leonard. It is very impressive.”
“I’m so glad you approve,” he wheezes, both his breath and speed leaving him quickly with the added weight of another human being on his back. He has mixed feelings about how unfazed he is by all the stares he’s receiving. This isn’t the first time something like this has happened to him (he’s had to carry someone across campus three times now and has been carried himself twice). It’s hard to be friends with Jim and not have had to run across campus while carrying someone.
When he finally reaches the field, he sees Jim standing there, with Pavel slung over his shoulders, fireman-style. “Hey, Bones, I see you got yourself a jockey.”
Leonard doesn’t have enough air left in his lungs to answer, so he decides to save his insults for later and hunches over and tries to catch his breath instead. Jim puts Pavel down and dusts himself off as the rest of their teammates start showing up, making their way towards them from all sides of the field.
Still on his back, Gaila waves and laughs. “Looks like we win this one, Scotty.”
Scotty waves back and calls out, “Aye, that ye did, lass. Guess we’ll be paying for the drinks next week. It was a good match though. Ye should’ve seen Jim run! There was no stopping the lad!”
“Yes, it was very impressive!” Pavel agrees with a look of admiration on his face even though he’d just been slung around Jim’s shoulders less than a minute ago. “It was very exciting being carried by him all the way here! He was fast like a Russian horse!”
Jim grins and fixes the collar of his shirt with a smug grin. “Not to brag or anything, but I may have also vaulted over a couple people on the way here.”
“Leonard was not as fast, but it was very fun.” Gaila slides off Leonard’s back and he promptly collapses and rolls onto his back rather pathetically.
“He makes up for it in effort, I guess,” Christine adds with a smirk. “Did you really think I’d be that easy to distract?”
“I hate you all,” he gasps, and raising a hand, he points at Jim, “especially you. Plan B sucks. I was pretty much at the other end of the campus and had to climb out a bathroom window to get here. And I had to carry Gaila.”
“Just look at you, Bones, bitching even when you can barely breathe,” Jim says with a good-natured chuckle.
Narrowing his eyes, Leonard gestures for Jim to approach and growls, “Come over here so I can throw up on you.”
“I know you’re not a marathon runner or anything, but was it really that bad? You need to get more exercise, Bones.” Jim walks over and offers a hand and pulls Leonard onto his feet. “Don’t glare at me like that! It’s not like I just waltzed over here. I had to slide between Spock’s legs to avoid that pinch of death of his, and I risked my life on the Enterprise-which, I can admit is partly my own fault because I knew that the flooring had been removed-but whatever. I mean, a safe and easy escape is just boring, right?”
Leonard rolls his eyes and gives Jim the finger.
“An illogical yet fascinating choice in gesture to signal the end of this dispute,” Spock comments, arms folded behind his back and standing intimately close to Nyota. The proximity’s probably Spock’s special way of showing how much he missed her, Leonard thinks. It's almost cute.
“It’s just his way of telling me how lost and lonely he was without me,” Jim replies, “isn’t that right, Bones?”
“Never mind dating, why are we friends again?” Leonard asks.
Jim wraps an arm around his waist loosely and squeezes, a shit-eating grin on his face. “Because I’m unbelievably awesome in unimaginable ways and you love me.”
“Oh, I think I see where this is going-is that offer to watch still open, Jim?” Gaila asks with a teasing grin.
“Sorry, you already got to ride Bones once today. I think it’s my turn now,” Jim answers with a wink.
Nyota rolls her eyes. “And that’s our cue to leave.”
Hikaru claps Jim on the shoulder as he leaves with Pavel. “Try to remember that you’re still in public and on the field. Some sports team is bound to show up for practice at any time now, and I doubt they’ll take very kindly to people messing around on their field.”
Leonard decides not to comment on that. Instead, he waits for everyone to leave before turning to Jim with a baffled expression on his face. “I could’ve sworn this started out as a fight-our fight, in fact. How did it end up like this, with our own teams turning against us? What the hell happened to continuity?”
Arching a brow, Jim shoots him an amused smile. “You didn’t notice? Gaila and Scotty were totally placing bets on who would win the fight. Why else would she have turned down my offer to let her watch?”
“A sense of decorum, maybe?-I don’t know, it’s just a thought,” he suggests, voice laced with sarcasm.
Jim nearly doubles over from laughing. Wiping a tear from his eye, he takes a deep breath and says, “That’s a nice thought and all, Bones, but you’ve known us for how long now?”
Leonard turns his gaze skywards and sighs. “Yeah, you guys suddenly developing any sense of decency would be a bigger error in continuity than our teams turning against us.”
“That’d be okay by me. The only continuity I need is you-and the semi-annual visits I get from the National Defense, but I don’t think I’m supposed to tell people about those. And technically speaking, our teams didn’t really turn against us. They were just trying to stop us from being the first to reach this place ‘cause that would mean losing.” Jim leers at him. “But speaking of continuity, I hope you’re ready to continue from where we left off. I’ve thought of a lot of…fun ways for us to ‘make up’ these last few days.”
Although Leonard’s eyebrow shoots up in interest, he frowns. “I don’t know, Jim, I’m pretty sure I’ve exceeded my daily exercise quota already. Any more physical exertion and I might die of a heart attack.”
Jim wraps an arm around his shoulder and starts leading him away from the field. “I promise I’ll make it worth your while. If you die, at least you’ll die a very satisfied man, Bones. I can’t wait to show you what I’ve been thinking about doing to your perineum with my manūs.”
His lips curl into a lazy grin as he drawls, “You know, you’re not the only one who learnt a little new lingo this last week.”
Arching a brow, Jim pauses mid-stride and turns to him with a challenging look in his eyes. “Oh yeah? Lay it on me, Bones.”
Leonard leans in close and whispers into Jim’s ear, “Let’s go find ourselves a computer and use an integrated secure toolkit applied to a safe-type concurrent algorithm derived from an active binary work cluster embedded in a synchronized meta-level high-speed architecture.” He recites it all in one drawn out breath, eyes never leaving Jim’s. He actually has no idea what he just said, but he’s not about to let Jim know that. “Does that sound like fun to you?”
Much to Leonard’s delight, Jim’s eyes widen and his breath hitches. “Holy balls, Bones. That was amazing. Gaila taught you my favourite way to hack?” Ah, so that’s what it all meant. Before he can get another word out, Jim cuts him off with a heated look. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“Dammit, Jim, I’m a student, not a public event.” Then he sighs. “Behind the psych building?”
Jim grins and nods. “Behind the psych building.”
--
A/N: That hacking bit was from Warehouse 13 because I don't know techie at all. And the absolute crack because nothing helps pass the time like thinking up the most ridiculous scenarios imaginable in your head. All pictures are from Google.
Series: Star Trek AOS
Author:neko-fish
Pairings: Jim/Bones, Spock/Uhura, Sulu/Chekov
Rating: NC-17
Summary: In which fighting is a group activity. Modern day college AU.
Warnings: Crack, crack, crack, crack, failed sexting, mentions of public sex, nerdiness
Notes: Part of the Starfleet University Series
Day 0:
It’s not even their fight to begin with-it’s Hikaru and Pavel’s.
Everything starts off normal enough. It’s Sunday night and the group’s gathered at their usual pub, enjoying the food, the alcohol, and of course, the company. Then out of nowhere, while speaking among themselves, Pavel brings up the ‘plane incident’, and the mere mention of it is enough to get Hikaru riled up, apparently.
Hikaru narrows his eyes disapprovingly at Pavel whose lips curl downwards into an indignant frown. No one else notices anything wrong until the argument actually starts. The rest of the night just goes to hell after that.
It’s not explained in any great detail-or at all, really-and the reasoning behind the argument’s slightly blurry, but somehow, the rest of the group catch enough bits and pieces of the heated debate to put the pieces together, or so they assume, and then like all good friends should in such situations, they join in.
“Pavel, I think Hikaru might be right about this,” Nyota says at one point.
“I am afraid I disagree with your statement, Nyota. Mister Chekov’s reasoning appears more sound than that of Mister Sulu’s,” Spock replies.
She frowns. “It is not. Hikaru has every right to be upset. Just because Pavel looks like an adorably angry puppy doesn’t make him right, Spock. Leonard agrees with me. Right, Leonard?”
He blinks and cradles his glass. Damn, he’d done so well to stay out of the centre of attention too. Gulping down the rest of his drink, he grumbles, “Why me? But yeah, she’s right.”
“That’s just balls, Bones! Sulu’s totally in the wrong here!” Jim immediately protests. “Just look at that puppy-dog face! How can Chekov do anything wrong?”
Spock arches a brow. “Jim, while I may disagree with their judgment and agree with yours, it is illogical to base your arguments around Mister Chekov’s physical similarity to that of a small canine.”
“Oh, lay off it, Jim. You don’t even know what the argument’s about,” Leonard drawls. “And you stay out of this too, Spock.”
“Oh, fuck off, Bones. I know exactly what the argument’s about!” Jim retorts.
“Really, Jim?” He makes a mock-sweeping gesture. “Well then, by all means, please enlighten me.”
Caught off guard, Jim stumbles over his words for a moment. He repeats whatever bits he picked up and expands on them with vague gestures, hyperboles and metaphors.
Leonard snorts and cups his ear. “What was that? Sorry, I couldn’t hear you over the torrent of bullshit spewing out of your mouth.”
The rest of the group jumps in after that and it becomes a loud, angry, sexless orgy. And from there, somehow, the argument shifts from ‘I agree with Pavel/Hikaru’ to ‘I agree with Jim/Leonard’ because they seem to have a talent of getting into the centre of things-or at least Jim does, and where Jim goes, Leonard’s sure to follow (however unwillingly).
As they consume more alcohol, the argument escalates until the tension builds up and something snaps. “God, you’re such a tribble sometimes, McCoy!”
Everyone at the table goes quiet.
‘Tribble’ is the word they decided on to avoid making personal attacks on one another. It’s the safe-word-a precaution to preserve their friendship and to stop fights from escalating. But at the same time, it’s their anti-safe-word because while it halts a fight, it also signals that a disagreement’s become official and sides need to be formed immediately.
Leonard pauses and scowls. When he speaks again, it’s clearly a warning. “I’m a tribble? Oh, I’m a tribble, am I?”
Not one to back down, Jim snaps, “Yeah, you are! You’re nothing but a goddamn tribble, McCoy! Jesus, I can’t believe I’m dating such a stupid prick! I just-I don’t even want to see your face! I’m gonna sleep in my own room tonight!”
There are collective gasps from the group (save Spock who merely arches a brow). Everyone knows that when a fight escalates to the point where Jim and Leonard refuse to share a room and bed, and when Jim Kirk flat out turns down the idea of angry make-up sex, the fight has become official-official.
“Was that supposed to upset me somehow? Speaking of pricks, you and your prick better stay the fuck away from me or I’ll have you castrated. Have fun with your right hand, Kirk,” Leonard hisses.
“I’ll have you know that I’m ambidextrous and both my hands work equally well when it comes to having fun-and they make for better company than you, McCoy. At least they don’t bitch about everything at any given point in time! Hope you don’t miss having my dick up your ass-oh wait, there’s already a fucking stick up there!” Without taking his eyes off Leonard, Jim raises a fist towards Spock’s direction. “Spock, fist-bump.”
“I do not believe such a gesture is necessary.”
Still refusing to break eye contact with Leonard, Jim whines, “Come on, we’ve discussed this!”
Spock nods, making no move to take part in the fist-bumping. “Yes, and I believe we agreed that I would only take over the role of being your designated ‘fist-bumper’ in situations where Leonard is absent or unavailable.”
“Wow, I think that’s the first time I’ve ever heard you call me by my name,” Leonard says, surprised. “I’m so uncomfortable right now.”
“I apologize for your discomfort, Leonard,” Spock says.
Leonard rolls his eyes. “Well, now you’re just doing it on purpose, you cheeky Canadian.”
Still holding his fist up, Jim sighs. “I know that’s what we agreed on, Spock, but it wouldn’t really be logical to fist-bump Bones after I just brilliantly insulted him, now would it? So technically speaking, that would make him unavailable. Ergo, fist-bump, Spock-now, s’il te plaît.”
With more than just a little reluctance and a suppressed sigh, Spock obliges and holds a fist up for bumping.
“Merci beaucoup, mon ami. That wasn’t so bad, was it? You like what I did with le français there, O wise, bilingual Vulcan from the true north strong and free?” Jim asks with an eyebrow waggle.
Nyota mock-gags and tells him, “I think your ‘French’ made me throw up in my mouth a little, Kirk.”
Pretending not to hear her and still smirking in triumph, Jim turns back to Leonard with his arms crossed. “Anyways, stick up the ass. Your move, McCoy.”
Leonard rolls his eyes, unimpressed. “What can I say, Jim? It’s the only way to get an orgasm nowadays. Not to slander you by saying that you’re bad in bed or that your penis is microscopic or anything-oh wait, it’s not slander if it’s the truth-source: my medical law and ethics class.” With a crooked grin, he fist-bumps Nyota, knowing he just hit two things Jim’s especially proud of.
Hikaru lets out an impressed whistle. “Look at the pre-med go.”
Getting up, Leonard announces, “Yeah, and now I’m gonna leave before this escalates into a rap battle or a dance-off-again. C’mon, let’s go, guys.”
Jim sits there, still gaping as everyone on ‘Leonard’s team’ gets up to leave with their leader. He frowns when Gaila follows suit. “Gaila, you too? You’re ditching us? But, engineering! Engineering!”
She shrugs and smiles at everyone remaining at the table. “Nyota is my best friend and Leonard is very good looking when he gets all snappy like this. And Christine is probably going to join our side. It sounds like fun and I would not want to be up against Hikaru when he is angry. See you boys later.” With a wink and a wave, she takes off after the other half of the group.
“Fine, whatever! Go with them! All I need are Spock, Scotty and Chekov anyway!” Jim calls back with a hand on Spock’s shoulder, holding him in place. He might agree with her about Leonard’s attractiveness, but he’s not about to forfeit a fight because of that. Frowning when Spock arches an eyebrow at him, he says, “Don’t give me that look. There’s no such thing as a ‘neutral side’ in a group fight, Spock, and no, you’re not exempt just because you’re from Canadia. You’re on my side. We male engineering geniuses have to stick together-and no, I don’t care how chauvinistic that sounded!”
Outside, Leonard snorts in amusement when he realizes that they left ‘Jim’s team’ with the bill. Hikaru pauses and looks over and asks, “Wait, how did we end up on the girls’ team, McCoy?”
He shrugs, not knowing the answer.
Nyota shoots them a confident smile. “Because being on the ‘girls’ team’ also means being on the winning team, Hikaru.”
It isn’t until later that night as he’s lying on his bed alone that Leonard wonders how the hell it ended up being a fight between him and Jim when it started with Hikaru and Pavel.
--
Day 1:
The next day, the two groups steer clear of each other. With no real bitterness or anger behind it, or any threat of break ups, it’s an official fight, but not a very serious one-a fight fueled by nothing except bruised egos and sheer stubbornness.
The rules are simple: the first team leader to apologize or admit to being at fault loses. Or alternatively, in Jim and Leonard’s case, the first person to show up at the other’s dorm room also forfeits the fight.
The only objective in a not-so-serious fight: to win.
That night, they hold separate meetings in respectively elected dorm rooms (Scotty’s and Nyota’s). Scotty has booze and a poker set, and Nyota has food and booze and movies, which says a lot about the quality and the productivity of their meetings.
Within two hours of homemade brew and poker, the boys are completely smashed and Spock takes the opportunity to return to his room on the account that it’s a Monday night and he has a tutorial to teach in the morning.
Jim waves him off and starts trying to talk Pavel into playing another round of poker. “Come on, Chekov, it’ll be fun! We won’t bet money! We’ll bet cats, okay?”
“Didjyo know…,” Pavel starts, but then fumbles with his words for a moment and has to try again, “’jyo know that cats were invented in Russia?”
“Shit, I didn’t know that,” Jim says in amazement, completely forgetting about the cards. “How’d you guys do it? Where’d you get the cat parts? Scotty, more booze-and did you know about the cats? Apparently, the Russians invented them.”
Scotty’s on the floor next to him, snoring.
“We did,” Pavel insists.
Jim empties the rest of Scotty’s drink and runs a hand through his hair and slurs, “How come the world doesn’t know about this? Oh my god, I have to tell Bones! Wait, we’re fighting. Balls. Why’d we have to fight now when I made such an important discovery? Bones, you suck! This is why I’m gonna win, right, Chekov?” At that point, Pavel’s disappeared and Jim can hear someone cursing in Russian from the bathroom. Jim lets out an encouraging cheer, “Atta boy, Chekov!”
Leonard’s team on the other hand, enjoy themselves immensely. They have a full meal over a glass of wine and end up watching one of the old, foreign movies Nyota has lying around. As Gaila had predicted, Christine decided to join them. He suspects that she only showed up because she’s bored and in need of entertainment, but when she shows up with a six-pack, he's reminded of why they’re such good friends and welcomes her to the team.
He’s still trying to figure out what language they’re speaking when he notices Gaila creeping towards his feet with bottles of nail polish in her hands. Arching a brow, he asks, “Excuse me, are you planning on painting my toenails red?”
She looks up and smiles sweetly at him. “Yes? I finished with Hikaru’s nails. I think he looks very nice with painted nails. Did you want a different colour, Leonard? Nyota has the nicest nail polish.”
“I still don’t get how I ended up on the girls’ team,” Hikaru mutters, studying his nails.
He looks over at Hikaru who’s sitting there with yellow and red nails and still looks a little lost about the whole situation and shrugs. “I don’t know, I think I prefer this team though. There’s actual food instead of just booze, and I’m not surrounded by engineering geniuses for once. It’s kind of nice, almost like I’m talking to normal people,” he takes a swig of his beer, “-almost.” Then turning back to Gaila, he thinks about her offer for a moment and says, “I think I’m gonna opt for green, darlin’.”
Nyota laughs and takes out a nail file. “Give me your hand, Leonard. I’ll start on those. How does Pre-Med Blue sound?”
“Is that an actual colour? Can’t imagine it’d be very marketable to people who aren’t in the medical world. Go for it, I guess.” Leonard holds out his hand and wonders how he ended up in a spa.
Christine arches a brow at him. “I think you’re enjoying yourself a little too much, Leonard. Never took you to be a manicure and pedicure kind of guy. What do you think the boys are up to?”
“If experience is anything to go by, they’re all probably smashed out of their faces right now. And Jim’s immediate plan will be something like ‘I’m awesome so I’ll win by default,’” he tells her. “I think I can afford to enjoy myself a little today.”
Just as he says that, his phone chimes, “Text!”
23: 42, J. Kirk to L. McCoy:
Catesz werew ionverented in russoia djyas knoweytnhast?
23:44, J. Kirk to L. McCoy:
BTWS, I’mm aqwesdome so I totallky wionm bny dfegeaultr
23:45, L. McCoy to J. Kirk:
Did you make it back to your room? Make sure you drink lots of water and there’s aspirin in the top drawer of your nightstand, or in the cupboard next to the fridge at Scotty’s.
23:47, J. Kirk to L. McCoy:
I loicveyoui soooooo miuch docvtir bomnes
“It’s amazing how right I am sometimes,” Leonard says with a triumphant smirk.
“This isn’t a very serious fight, is it?” Christine asks, looking at Jim’s messages. “Otherwise, you two wouldn’t be texting each other. Especially not stuff like ‘I love you so much, Doctor Bones.’ It’s both cute and vomit-worthy. I have to admit, I’m kind of glad though. I still remember the ‘silent incident’ when you two refused to acknowledge each other’s presence for two whole weeks. That was weird.”
Hikaru nods in agreement. “Oh yeah, I remember that. Everyone had to stop fighting and work together to try to get you two talking again.”
“Because you two were being total bitches,” Christine supplies helpfully.
“Thanks, Christine. You always have the kindest words. I don’t know why I put up with you. No, it’s not serious, but it’s still official and that’s all that counts.” He puts his phone away and wiggles his toes. “So does anyone have any ideas on what we should do now?”
Finishing painting his pinky toe, Gaila looks up with bright eyes and a devilish grin. “I think I have an idea on how to win this fight.”
--
Day 2:
“Text!”
Sitting in the middle of the library, Leonard fumbles with his phone and switches it onto silent mode before opening the message.
15:30, J. Kirk to L. McCoy:
[Picture Attached]
15:31, L. McCoy to J. Kirk:
A blurry picture. Thanks for that. Are you still drunk?
15:32, J. Kirk to L. McCoy:
Oh whoops, forgot to put my pants back on before taking that picture. It’s such a bother sometimes that Captain Kirk’s MASSIVE enough to bend LIGHT.
Leonard has to look away and cover his mouth to hide his grin.
15:32, L. McCoy to J. Kirk:
Your modesty and subtlety never cease to amaze.
15:32, J. Kirk to L. McCoy:
I was also going to threaten not to help you out in physics but then I remembered that Gaila betrayed us and Sulu’s secretly good at physics, isn’t he?
15:33, L. McCoy to J. Kirk:
Yep.
15:33, J. Kirk to L. McCoy:
Well, so much for that. BALLS.
15:33, L. McCoy to J. Kirk:
I’m sure you’ll come up with something else. In the meantime, absolutely no sex.
15:34, J. Kirk to L. McCoy:
WHAT!? That takes the fun out of EVERYTHING! Why aren’t you on my team, Bones?
15:34, L. McCoy to J. Kirk:
Because we’re the ones who’re supposed to be fighting? I think? And it’s Gaila’s orders.
15:34, J. Kirk to L. McCoy:
That’s BALLS, Bones. BALLS.
15:34, L. McCoy to J. Kirk:
Tell that to Gaila.
15:34, J. Kirk to L. McCoy:
Oh, I will. This is total BALLS, Bones.
15:35, L. McCoy to J. Kirk:
Stop typing ‘balls’.
15:35, J. Kirk to L. McCoy:
Would you prefer if I said ‘That’s TESTICLES, Bones.’?
15:35, L. McCoy to J. Kirk:
Not really. And it’s ‘testes’, not ‘testicles’.
15:36, J. Kirk to L. McCoy:
Oh, BONES, you dirty, dirty boy! YES! Keep talking PRE-MED to me, you sexy future-doctor, you! You know what I wanna do to you right now? I want to run the fungiform and filiform papillae of my tongue up your gracilis while I insert my lubricated digitus secundus-all the way up to the head of my METACARPAL-to stretch out your anal sphincter muscles. Yeah, you like that, don’t you? Me talking all anatomically correct and stuff?
It takes all of Leonard’s self-control to not burst into laughter. Leave it to Jim to leave him breathlessly amused and strangely hot and bothered with a single text message.
15:38, L. McCoy to J. Kirk:
Are you done?
15:39, J. Kirk to L. McCoy:
I bet you’re SO very super turned on right now, aren’t you? So what’ve you been up to without me and Captain Kirk for company? How’s the GIRLS’ team?
15:40, L. McCoy to J. Kirk:
How’s it the girls’ team when there’s me and Sulu? Anyway, my team could kick your team of geeks’ asses any day and you know it. We had dinner, drinks, watched movies, and…wait, let me take a picture.
15:40, L. McCoy to J. Kirk:
You guys had FOOD!? That’s BALLS, man. Shotty being on the girl’s team next time!
He sends Jim a picture of his painted nails.
15:40, L. McCoy to J. Kirk:
[Picture Attached]
15:41, J. Kirk to L. McCoy:
Wow, that’s raunchy, Bones. Pre-Med Blue?
15:41, L. McCoy to J. Kirk:
That’s an actual colour?
15:41, J. Kirk to L. McCoy:
Yep. Are you thinking what I’m thinking, Bones?
15:42, L. McCoy to J. Kirk:
Probably not because I don’t think anyone in this world can or will ever figure out what goes on in that strange head of yours.
15:42, J. Kirk to L. McCoy:
I was thinking: behind the biology building in 15ish?
15:43, L. McCoy to J. Kirk:
Huh, alright, maybe I WAS thinking what you were thinking. I’ll see you there.
--
Day 3:
“Text!”
10:58, J. Kirk to L. McCoy:
[Picture Attached]
11:00, L. McCoy to J. Kirk:
A close-up of your unzipped fly. An explanation would be nice.
11:01, J. Kirk to L. McCoy:
I would’ve sent you a picture of Captain Kirk, but he’s so BIG he probably would’ve shot out your screen and poked out an eye, and we wouldn’t want that, now, would we?
11:02, L. McCoy to J. Kirk:
Are you still upset about that? Stop personifying your body parts-and don’t refer to you and your penis as ‘we’. It’s really creepy.
11:02, J. Kirk to L. McCoy:
I can’t help it if he’s got a personality big enough to match his ENORMOUS size. And yes, WE will continue being deeply upset until you publicly admit that Captain Kirk is of ample size. A written statement would work too.
11:03, J. Kirk to L. McCoy:
Something like: “I, Leonard H. McCoy, formally acknowledge that James T. Kirk’s penis (hereinafter known as “Captain Kirk”) is of more than ample size, and that James T. Kirk is amazing in bed.”
11:03, L. McCoy to J. Kirk:
Don’t make me laugh, Jim, I’m in class right now. Is this what this whole fight’s about?
11:03, J. Kirk to L. McCoy:
Maybe? I’m pretty sure it’s part of it, but I couldn’t tell you what came before that even if I wanted to.
11:04, L. McCoy to J. Kirk:
Whatever, just get your enormously egotistical and slightly-above-averagely proportioned parts over to the physics building in 20.
11:04, J. Kirk to L. McCoy:
Not there. Sulu and Chekov. Behind the library?
11:04, L. McCoy to J. Kirk:
That’s no good. Nyota and Spock. Ugh, now I have images in my head.
11:05, J. Kirk to L. McCoy:
Wow, hot, secret sex all around, eh? This is what not so serious fights are all about! Well, if she’s busy over there then we can probably meet by the linguistics building.
11:05, L. McCoy to J. Kirk:
Sounds good. See you in 20.
11:05, J. Kirk to L. McCoy:
Wait, what do you mean only ‘slightly-above-averagely’ proportioned!?
After class, Leonard makes his way over to the linguistics building only to find Jim standing in a Superman pose with a grin on his face. “Ah, Bones,” he glances down for a moment and waggles his eyebrows suggestively, grin widening; “we’ve been expecting you.”
He rolls his eyes skyward and sighs. “Oh, fuck me.”
Jim laughs and pulls him close. “Don’t you worry. We’ll get to that soon enough.”
--
Day 4:
Leonard takes out the relatively new electrical toothbrush he’d stopped using because of a not so offhanded comment Jim had made. The exact words had been: “Jesus Christ, Bones, are you trying to give me a boner by using that thing? I’ll tell you right now that it’s working-don’t give me that look! Have you seen yourself in the mirror? You look like you’re blowing a small, vibrating dildo and there’s white foam dribbling from your mouth! What else am I supposed to think!?”
He smirks and sends Jim a picture of it-not of him using it because he figures that’d be too indulgent of him, and they’re still supposed to be in the middle of an argument.
21:23, L. McCoy to J. Kirk:
Hey, Jim, remember this?
21:23, L. McCoy to J. Kirk:
[Picture Attached]
21:23, J. Kirk to L. McCoy:
No fair! That’s such a low blow, Bones! You’re not allowed to do that! I’m trying to eat!
21:24, L. McCoy to J. Kirk:
Where are you?
21:24, J. Kirk to L. McCoy:
Mess. Couldn’t be bothered to cook.
21:24, J. Kirk to L. McCoy:
*Mess with a boner. Thanks for that.
21:24, J. Kirk to L. McCoy:
You better be on your way over here to fix this.
21:26, J. Kirk to L. McCoy:
Bones?
21:27, J. Kirk to L. McCoy:
You can’t just stop answering! That’s just BALLS.
21:28, J. Kirk to L. McCoy:
Seriously not cool, Bones. If we weren’t fighting seriously before, we’ll start now if you leave Captain Kirk standing-literally. Get it? Hilarious, right?
21:29, L. McCoy to J. Kirk:
Come outside.
21:29, J. Kirk to L. McCoy:
Holy shit. Never mind outside, I’m pretty sure I just came in my pants.
21:29, J. Kirk to L. McCoy:
This is SO amazingly awesome. On my way now.
--
Day 5:
They get caught outside the psychology building with their hands down each other’s pants.
Scotty throws his arms up in the air and exclaims from afar, “Jim, what on earth are you doing!? Get your hands out of there! We’re supposed to be in the middle of a disagreement, lad!”
Gaila’s a lot less squeamish and marches over to them and pulls on Leonard’s arm with a frown on her face. “Leonard, you are not allowed to sex Jim while you are fighting!”
Embarrassed as he is, he can’t really focus on how ashamed he should be feeling with Jim’s hand still fiddling around in his pants. He grits out, “Dammit, Gaila-”
“We’ll let you watch! Just let us finish!” Jim cuts in with his offer.
Leonard blinks. “We will?”
She pauses and after much consideration, shakes her head. “No. No sexing during a fight, Jim.”
“Aye, the lass is right, Jim. Not during the fight,” Scotty chimes in, taking a step closer to them.
Jim looks over at his teammate. “Scotty-no, but Bones-oh, this is just balls.”
Forcefully pried apart and their phones confiscated, suddenly, it goes from being a ‘Jim versus Leonard’ fight to a game of ‘keep Jim and Leonard apart’. And without the hot, secret sexcapades around campus, the argument doesn’t seem all that fun anymore.
They spend the weekend apart with their respective teams, both under heavy supervision.
--
Day 8:
When Monday comes around, Jim’s bored and miserable.
Everyone seems to be taking the fight a lot more seriously now, and he has a sneaking suspicion that there’s more at stake than just winning now. It’s been three days since he last saw Leonard and he’s suffering from Bones withdrawal. He even escaped Scotty’s watchful eye and tried sneaking into Leonard’s class only to be deflected by Christine over at the biology building, which then caused him to retreat back to the engineering building in defeat.
On his way to class, he runs into Pike. “Kirk, are you having a fight with McCoy? I haven’t seen him around since last week. You two aren’t ignoring each other’s existence again, are you?”
He raises a brow, surprised that a professor like Pike would notice. “We’re supposedly arguing right now, sir.” In all honesty, he doesn’t know what they’re fighting about and now that they have no means of communicating with one another, the fight’s lost all its appeal. Life without Leonard’s just dull. “Is there a problem with my fight with Bones?”
Pike frowns. “Yes, there is. There’s a very big problem, Kirk. Why would you get into a fight with our medic? And by ‘our’ medic, I mean the engineering faculty’s medic. He was the only person with medical training of any kind who was willing to set foot in this building-and frequently too.”
“Are you telling me that no one in this building has a first-aid certificate?” Jim asks.
Shaking his head, Pike rolls his eyes and grumbles, “Of course no one does. Who has the time for that? That’s why we have a pre-med faculty on campus and why we always welcomed them here-except McCoy was the only one who ever showed up.” He heaves a sigh. “This is just great, I guess we’ll have to blow even more of our budget on Febreze now. First, national security, and now I’ll have to deal with the other professors too. This is going to suck-epically.”
Balls, he thinks, now not only is he deprived of Bones, he’s disappointed Pike too-the two things he hates most. “It’s not so much that I want to continue this fight with him, sir,” he starts before he even realizes what he’s saying, “it’s more like there are a lot of obstacles barricading my way.”
“That’s it?” Pike asks, incredulous. “When has something like that ever stopped you?”
Jim’s momentarily speechless.
“Look, go and reconcile with McCoy already,” Pike tells him. “You’re both better off with each other. And if not that, do it for the faculty.”
He chuckles. “If I didn’t know any better, sir, I’d say you were playing favourites.”
“That’s exactly what it is. Unlike some people, I’m not above favouritism, and I’ve given up on pretending to be otherwise a long time ago-when I’m not in class anyway.”
“To be honest, I thought you’d try a little hard to deny it,” Jim admits.
Pike snorts. “Fuck that.”
He knew there was a reason why Pike was his favourite and most respected professor.
“I’m sick of alternating between the scent of disappointment and broken spirits to ‘Sweet Citrus & Zest’ to dying students to ‘Spring & Renewal’. Archer wants to change it to ‘Hawaiian Aloha’, but Barnett thinks ‘Brazilian Carnival’ will do a better job of masking the smell. With the things I have to put up with here, pretending to be unbiased is the least of my worries.” Then he looks over at Jim with an arched brow. “Well, what are you waiting for, Kirk? Stop gaping and get us back our medic before the faculty loses all its students and blows its budget on air freshener.”
He remembers Leonard rambling about Febreze and dead students during the ‘blackmailing incident’, but he’s never really taken it seriously until now. Suddenly, he feels immensely grateful to Leonard for rescuing him from his lab parties and for regularly checking in just to make sure he’s still alive. At least this explains why the labs smelled so much fresher at the beginning of the semester.
“If it’s any help, I’d recommend ‘New Zealand Springs’,” he suggests.
Pike waves him off. “Just go get McCoy back already.”
Jim grins and mock-salutes. “Will do, sir.”
--
Day 9:
“Leonard, your boyfriend is weird.” Nyota tells him during their study session.
He looks up from his notes and arches a brow. “You just noticed after all this time, Nyota? And he’s not my boyfriend. We haven’t figured out the official naming system yet, but we’re not ‘boyfriends’. That sounds strange and weird.”
“Alright, then the guy you’re dating is weird. Is there any reason why Kirk used Spock’s phone to send me this message?” she asks him.
“Hmm? I’m not sure. What does it say?”
“It just says ‘Bones’ over and over again, and then it trails off into this random mess of letters. Does he normally send you messages like this? Here, take a look.” She passes him her phone. “He needs to learn how to not capitalize everything.”
“Yeah, it’s a bad habit he picked up. Something about emphasis via text message,” he mutters, taking the phone. “Don’t look at me like that. I’m not the one who wrote it.”
16:00, S. Spock to N. Uhura:
BONES. BONES. BONES. BONES. BONES. BONES. BONES. BONES. BONES. BONES. BONES. BONES. BONES. BONES. BONES. BONES. BONES. BONES. BONES. BONES. BONES. BONES. BONES. BONES. BONES. BONES. FTGWTINTSTMTABABABTIBLMPB.
He arches a brow when he sees that Jim also added a subject line with nothing but ‘^^^!!’. Taking a closer look, he realizes that the carets are pointing at the time, and because he is and will always be Jim’s best friend first and foremost, he understands exactly what the maniac’s trying to tell him.
Mentally, he translates the message into something along the lines of: “Bones! The fight’s getting way too intense. Time to abort, abort, abort! This is balls, man! Plan B at 1600 hours tomorrow!”
Leonard has to fight back his urge to sigh and force his expression to remain neutral.
He hates Plan B.
Nyota studies him closely. “So what does it mean?”
Passing the phone back to Nyota before he accidentally reads any of the private messages between her and Spock, he shrugs and decides to take a page out of their book. “Who knows? It’s Jim, and this is, as you’d put it, ‘Kirk-Speak’ of some kind.”
She nods. “Yes, and I happen to know that there’s a Kirk-Speak-speaking population of two people in the world, and one of them is you, Leonard.”
It’s true, but he’s going to deny it anyway because in all technicality, he doesn’t know how to speak Kirk-Speak, he only knows how to read it.
“What are you talking about? You’re the linguist here; does it look like a decipherable message to you? For all I know, he was trying to use his chin to type the message-again.” She doesn’t look convinced, so he continues babbling in hopes of distracting her, “You should be glad he didn’t type ‘balls’ over and over again. It’s his word of the month or something, his flavour of the week-” the two of them arch their brows and exchange horrified looks, “-sorry. I deeply regret and would very much like to retract that comment.”
“Comment retraction approved. I didn’t hear a thing,” she immediately agrees.
There’s a long moment of silence between them. Nyota’s playing around with her phone and Leonard’s trying his best to pretend to be studying, but he’s read the same line half a dozen times now and the letters aren’t registering in his brain. Finally, he can’t take it anymore and looks up, “So what’s it like going out with a super logical genius from Canada?”
Instead of answering, she asks, “What’s it like going out with a genius man-child from Iowa?”
“Is it the complete opposite of going out with a super logical Canadian genius?” he guesses.
She tilts her head back slightly and looks upwards with a thoughtful expression. “Hmm, I think you’d be surprised.”
Then, because Leonard can’t resist, he asks, “Oh? What about ‘eh?’ Have you ever heard him say ‘eh?’”
Nyota just laughs.
He chooses to interpret that as a ‘maybe’.
--
Day 10:
Stretching, Leonard stands up and heaves a sigh. Out of all the possible arguments in the group, his and Jim’s are always the hardest to resolve regardless of seriousness. When Spock and Nyota fight, all Nyota does is give him her glare of fury and all Spock has to do is use the word ‘feelings’ or ‘emotions’ in a sentence and all’s well again. When Hikaru and Pavel fight, one of them usually gives in within a week. When he and Jim fight, all hell breaks loose and the world implodes.
It doesn’t help that Jim refuses to resolve things like a normal person. With the fight now more ‘Jim and Bones versus everyone’ focused than anything else, it’s only natural that they’re expected to deal with their own teams-which is why he’s currently thinking of ways to ditch said teammates and make his way over to their rendezvous point. His team must’ve realized that something’s up because he’s been under constant supervision the whole day now.
Glancing over at Christine as they walk down the hall and away from the lecture hall, he suddenly stops and pivots around on his heel. “Shit, I forgot to ask the prof something. Go on without me, Christine. I’ll catch up in a minute.”
Because he’s an absolutely terrible liar, he runs away before she can call bullshit. Much to his dismay, he’s spotted by Nyota on his way towards the exit. She smiles at him with feigned innocence. “Hello, Leonard. Where’s Christine? I thought we were all meeting in the mess.”
“She’s on her way there, I think. I just had to go to the bathroom,” he tells her, making another turn towards the men’s room. “No need to bother waiting for me; you can just go on ahead. I’ll meet you two there.”
Nyota shoots him a knowing look and shakes her head, keeping her voice pleasant. “Oh, it’s no bother at all, Leonard. I’ll wait for you outside then we can go to the mess together.”
Goddamn it all.
He shrugs. “Sure, if you want.”
Pushing the bathroom doors open, he blinks when he finds Hikaru standing in front of one of the sinks, looking very engrossed with washing his hands. Leonard stops mid-step and gapes, stunned into silence. Hikaru looks up and gives him a nod in greeting. “Hey, fancy seeing you here, McCoy. I was just on my way to the mess hall, what about you?”
Leonard nods back. “Yeah, I was just headed there myself. Just had to make a pit stop.” Then he mutters under his breath, “Oh, you guys are good.”
“What was that?” Hikaru asks.
He shakes his head. “Nothing. ‘scuse me for a sec.”
Making his way into the handicapped stall at the far end of the bathroom, he locks the door behind him and stares at the window that Jim had once used to escape some crazy, vengeful girl. He pinches the bridge of his nose and sighs, trying to come to terms with what he’s about to do.
Leonard glances at his watch (the one he had to start wearing because Gaila still has his phone) and notes that he only has ten minutes left. Cursing under his breath, he decides that wallowing in self-pity and questioning his life choices will have to wait until after the fight’s over. He steps onto the toilet seat and pulls the window open. He takes a deep breath and mumbles to himself, “Oh god, this is actually happening. I’m actually gonna do this. Dammit, Jim, I hate you so much right now.”
“McCoy, you alright in there?” Hikaru asks from outside.
“Yeah, just peachy keen,” he calls back, trying to keep the sarcasm out of his voice.
He hoists himself up and squeezes himself through the frame with an embarrassing amount of huffing and wheezing. Jim probably had a much easier time doing this, he thinks; because Jim’s scrawny and unbelievably flexible-a little something he discovered during the ‘yoga incident’. Luckily, he manages to get a leg out and avoids falling out the window face first. “Stupid Jim Fucking Kirk, we could’ve just met up somewhere and talked it out like civilized people, but no, of course you have to turn this into a game.”
“Going somewhere, Leonard?” an amused voice asks him.
Whirling around, his eyes widen. “Christine! Oh dear lord, please don’t tell me you saw all of that.”
Christine grins. “You know, if someone told me last week that I’d get to watch Leonard McCoy struggling to escape via a bathroom window, I would’ve called bullshit. But here you are, about as flexible as a brick wall and athletic as a tree stump. God, I wish I took pictures. Just imagine how much Jim would pay me to get his hands on them.” Then she asks, “How’s your dignity feeling?”
“Battered and bruised-all in all, nothing new. I’m in pre-med and not athletics for a reason,” he tells her. “What’re you doing here anyway? I thought we were supposed to be on the same team.”
“The game’s changed, Leonard. Get with the program,” she replies, crossing her arms in a confident manner, and he just knows that this is somehow Jim’s fault. “What’re you going to do now?”
Leonard’s wondering the same thing. He needs to get past her, but he’ll have to distract her first if he wants to avoid the crippling embarrassment of being tackled to the ground by a girl-again. “Not sure yet. But while we’re here, want to know why Geoff didn’t take any classes with us this semester?”
Christine narrows her eyes. She’s probably fully aware that he’s trying to distract her, but he’s sparked her curiosity with this piece of gossip and she just has to know now. She crosses her arms and asks, “Why? Come to think of it, he normally joins in on fights, doesn’t he?”
“He got himself a girlfriend. She’s in microbiology, I think, so he’s doing his microbiology courses first,” he tells her.
“Oh, that vag!” She pulls out her cell phone. “I’m going to send him the angriest text he’s ever read!”
Taking advantage of her momentary lapse of concentration and against his better judgment, he makes a break for it-or, he attempts to. He manages to get past Christine only to get ambushed by Gaila out in the open. “Aha! I got you, Leonard!”
Knowing very well that if he stops running now, he’ll lose all will to carry out Jim’s ridiculous plan, Leonard forces his legs to continue; and quickly realizing that he has no intention of stopping, Gaila starts chasing him and jumps onto his back. Startled by the sudden weight on his back, he struggles to maintain his balance and screams, “Jesus Christ, my back. Why is this happening!? I’m a student, not a horse, dammit! Get off me, Gaila!”
“No! You have to stop running first!” she retorts, tightening her grip. Then after a moment, she tells him, “I have never seen you run so fast before, Leonard. It is very impressive.”
“I’m so glad you approve,” he wheezes, both his breath and speed leaving him quickly with the added weight of another human being on his back. He has mixed feelings about how unfazed he is by all the stares he’s receiving. This isn’t the first time something like this has happened to him (he’s had to carry someone across campus three times now and has been carried himself twice). It’s hard to be friends with Jim and not have had to run across campus while carrying someone.
When he finally reaches the field, he sees Jim standing there, with Pavel slung over his shoulders, fireman-style. “Hey, Bones, I see you got yourself a jockey.”
Leonard doesn’t have enough air left in his lungs to answer, so he decides to save his insults for later and hunches over and tries to catch his breath instead. Jim puts Pavel down and dusts himself off as the rest of their teammates start showing up, making their way towards them from all sides of the field.
Still on his back, Gaila waves and laughs. “Looks like we win this one, Scotty.”
Scotty waves back and calls out, “Aye, that ye did, lass. Guess we’ll be paying for the drinks next week. It was a good match though. Ye should’ve seen Jim run! There was no stopping the lad!”
“Yes, it was very impressive!” Pavel agrees with a look of admiration on his face even though he’d just been slung around Jim’s shoulders less than a minute ago. “It was very exciting being carried by him all the way here! He was fast like a Russian horse!”
Jim grins and fixes the collar of his shirt with a smug grin. “Not to brag or anything, but I may have also vaulted over a couple people on the way here.”
“Leonard was not as fast, but it was very fun.” Gaila slides off Leonard’s back and he promptly collapses and rolls onto his back rather pathetically.
“He makes up for it in effort, I guess,” Christine adds with a smirk. “Did you really think I’d be that easy to distract?”
“I hate you all,” he gasps, and raising a hand, he points at Jim, “especially you. Plan B sucks. I was pretty much at the other end of the campus and had to climb out a bathroom window to get here. And I had to carry Gaila.”
“Just look at you, Bones, bitching even when you can barely breathe,” Jim says with a good-natured chuckle.
Narrowing his eyes, Leonard gestures for Jim to approach and growls, “Come over here so I can throw up on you.”
“I know you’re not a marathon runner or anything, but was it really that bad? You need to get more exercise, Bones.” Jim walks over and offers a hand and pulls Leonard onto his feet. “Don’t glare at me like that! It’s not like I just waltzed over here. I had to slide between Spock’s legs to avoid that pinch of death of his, and I risked my life on the Enterprise-which, I can admit is partly my own fault because I knew that the flooring had been removed-but whatever. I mean, a safe and easy escape is just boring, right?”
Leonard rolls his eyes and gives Jim the finger.
“An illogical yet fascinating choice in gesture to signal the end of this dispute,” Spock comments, arms folded behind his back and standing intimately close to Nyota. The proximity’s probably Spock’s special way of showing how much he missed her, Leonard thinks. It's almost cute.
“It’s just his way of telling me how lost and lonely he was without me,” Jim replies, “isn’t that right, Bones?”
“Never mind dating, why are we friends again?” Leonard asks.
Jim wraps an arm around his waist loosely and squeezes, a shit-eating grin on his face. “Because I’m unbelievably awesome in unimaginable ways and you love me.”
“Oh, I think I see where this is going-is that offer to watch still open, Jim?” Gaila asks with a teasing grin.
“Sorry, you already got to ride Bones once today. I think it’s my turn now,” Jim answers with a wink.
Nyota rolls her eyes. “And that’s our cue to leave.”
Hikaru claps Jim on the shoulder as he leaves with Pavel. “Try to remember that you’re still in public and on the field. Some sports team is bound to show up for practice at any time now, and I doubt they’ll take very kindly to people messing around on their field.”
Leonard decides not to comment on that. Instead, he waits for everyone to leave before turning to Jim with a baffled expression on his face. “I could’ve sworn this started out as a fight-our fight, in fact. How did it end up like this, with our own teams turning against us? What the hell happened to continuity?”
Arching a brow, Jim shoots him an amused smile. “You didn’t notice? Gaila and Scotty were totally placing bets on who would win the fight. Why else would she have turned down my offer to let her watch?”
“A sense of decorum, maybe?-I don’t know, it’s just a thought,” he suggests, voice laced with sarcasm.
Jim nearly doubles over from laughing. Wiping a tear from his eye, he takes a deep breath and says, “That’s a nice thought and all, Bones, but you’ve known us for how long now?”
Leonard turns his gaze skywards and sighs. “Yeah, you guys suddenly developing any sense of decency would be a bigger error in continuity than our teams turning against us.”
“That’d be okay by me. The only continuity I need is you-and the semi-annual visits I get from the National Defense, but I don’t think I’m supposed to tell people about those. And technically speaking, our teams didn’t really turn against us. They were just trying to stop us from being the first to reach this place ‘cause that would mean losing.” Jim leers at him. “But speaking of continuity, I hope you’re ready to continue from where we left off. I’ve thought of a lot of…fun ways for us to ‘make up’ these last few days.”
Although Leonard’s eyebrow shoots up in interest, he frowns. “I don’t know, Jim, I’m pretty sure I’ve exceeded my daily exercise quota already. Any more physical exertion and I might die of a heart attack.”
Jim wraps an arm around his shoulder and starts leading him away from the field. “I promise I’ll make it worth your while. If you die, at least you’ll die a very satisfied man, Bones. I can’t wait to show you what I’ve been thinking about doing to your perineum with my manūs.”
His lips curl into a lazy grin as he drawls, “You know, you’re not the only one who learnt a little new lingo this last week.”
Arching a brow, Jim pauses mid-stride and turns to him with a challenging look in his eyes. “Oh yeah? Lay it on me, Bones.”
Leonard leans in close and whispers into Jim’s ear, “Let’s go find ourselves a computer and use an integrated secure toolkit applied to a safe-type concurrent algorithm derived from an active binary work cluster embedded in a synchronized meta-level high-speed architecture.” He recites it all in one drawn out breath, eyes never leaving Jim’s. He actually has no idea what he just said, but he’s not about to let Jim know that. “Does that sound like fun to you?”
Much to Leonard’s delight, Jim’s eyes widen and his breath hitches. “Holy balls, Bones. That was amazing. Gaila taught you my favourite way to hack?” Ah, so that’s what it all meant. Before he can get another word out, Jim cuts him off with a heated look. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“Dammit, Jim, I’m a student, not a public event.” Then he sighs. “Behind the psych building?”
Jim grins and nods. “Behind the psych building.”
--
A/N: That hacking bit was from Warehouse 13 because I don't know techie at all. And the absolute crack because nothing helps pass the time like thinking up the most ridiculous scenarios imaginable in your head. All pictures are from Google.