fic: Maladroit
Title: Maladroit
Author: roflolmaomg
Rating: NC-17
Words: 4000
Prompt: Sex pollen
Summary: So maybe drugs aren’t always bad, mmkay?
Notes/Warnings: Drugged sex that appears a wee bit dubcon but isn’t. I promise it’s all good in the hood. On a side note, I really wanted to end this with them getting married in a Burger King and both becoming Burger Queens, but I was talked out of it. For the km_anthology , round 2 of course I’m like the last one to post.
~~~~~~
According to Bones, one of Jim’s major character flaws is his inability to listen to the advice Bones gives him, and that he’d be a lot better damn well off if he’d just wrap his thick head around the idea that actions have consequences and Bones won’t always be around to clean up after him. Jim argues that he’s alright with abandonment, since his mother has a professional career in it, but he still doesn’t like to think of Bones as being something that isn’t there. This, however, does not at all guarantee compliance, since Jim is a grown-ass man and can make decisions for himself.
When he pulls out his phone to send a text his thumbs fumble, because apparently dexterity isn’t something he possesses today.
To Bones (11:46):
don’t be mad when you find out I broke into your broom and left you a surpis
He hits ‘send’ and leans back against the headboard, excited for the response. In an attempt to appear casual to an empty room, Jim crosses his ankles and assumes the lounge position.
Twenty minutes later, he smacks his hand on the edge of the night table when his phone clatters across it like a tiny stampede. “Fucking vibrate,” he says, and flips open to the welcome screen.
From Bones (12:09):
I don’t know what that means.
Jim frowns and goes to his outbox to check that he even sent the right message.
“Fucking typos.”
To Bones (12:10):
*room *surprise btw happy valentine’s day buddy hope you like the gift
From Bones (12:15):
Why is it a plant and why is it pink and why do I insist on knowing you
Jim laughs fondly and sits up. He hits the ‘call’ button and chews on his thumbnail because he’s thirteen, not a twenty-three year old at the top of his class in an elite, professional academy that operates in space.
“It’s blowing lip-shaped clouds of sparkles at me. Come over here so I can kill you,” is how Bones answers the phone.
“Happy Valentine’s Day to you, too, Bonesie,” Jim says. “Do you love it? I saw it in a window downtown yesterday and thought of you.”
Bones makes noises of physical disgust over the mechanical hiss of a door, most likely to the bathroom. “Should I bother asking why a four foot tall, magenta, bird of paradise-cactus-pussy willow-plant dump in a ceramic cherub made you think of me?”
“It made me happy,” Jim says.
“I put it in the bathtub. It won’t stop fucking farting glitter, you’re so lucky I don’t have a roommate or a vindictive disposition.” Jim can hear Bones roll his eyes, but his tone is humored, at the very least.
“I wouldn’t put it past you to fill my boots with crushed candy hearts, but that would require you making an effort.”
“Fuck you, ‘effort,’” Bones says. “I owned my own fucking medical practice in Georgia and did six months of residency here even though I absolutely did not need to and I’m guest lecturing in Sacramento next week to present new developments for surgical laser technology.”
“Mm, keep talking geek to me.” Jim flops back onto his bed, head and legs dangling off opposite sides.
Bones hangs up.
To Bones (12:30):
rude
~--~
They meet for a late lunch in the cafeteria and immediately regret it; despite the strict, law-enforcing solemnity of the board of elders (or whatever the heads of ‘Fleet call themselves), they seem fine with allowing eye-searing decorations and tacky, gaudy endorsement for over-hyped holidays. Every table is adorned with rather majestic centerpieces, bundles of red cellophane exploding in fountains of hearts and Cupids. Garland, tulle, and other similar materials normally reserved for parade floats loop support beams and columns, and dinner is pink mashed potatoes and heart-shaped miniature pizzas and strawberry Jell-O and other horribly mismatched foods, all varying shades of red.
“Can I have a bite of your love brownie?”
“Don’t ever say those words in that succession to me ever again,” Bones replies, peeling away his pepperoni and dropping them onto Jim’s tray.
“Your love brownie, can I have a b-” Jim gets his wish, except Bones takes ‘bite’ to mean ‘shove all of it in Jim’s mouth at once’. Jim coughs bits of crappy replicated chocolate all over the table and tries chewing anyway, since a brownie is a brownie, whether it’s made from a box or from compressed energy. He mumbles a garbled ‘thank you’ and Bones looks like he’s about to hit him.
“So it’s safe to assume you’d be morally wounded if I disposed of your…gift,” Bones says, looking pained to even refer to the plant in such polite terms.
Jim nods and swallows, wiping his mouth on a bright pink napkin. It wishes him a Happy Valentine’s Day, but unlike his cup’s similar greeting, at least the napkin doesn’t sing every time he uses it. “Promise me you’ll keep it a week, brighten your room up. Don’t you get lonely, living in a single?”
“Please,” Bones scoffs, “being thirty and having a roommate is the last thing I want, Jim. Besides, you hardly ever let me be alone,” he adds, though Jim can’t tell if Bones thinks that’s a good or bad thing.
“Because we’re buddies,” Jim says.
“Mmmhmm.”
Jim starts to say ‘rude’, but then he realizes most of their conversations turn out that way, and if there’s any holiday devoted to changes of heart and getting your best friend to realize how awesome you are and wooing them via creepy, glitter-barfing plants, it’s Valentine’s Day. Instead, he goes for aloof: “So, any plans for tonight?”
“Test coming up, figured I’d study for that,” Bones says. Pizza sauce hugs the corner of his mouth and Jim’s fingers spasm around his fork with the effort not to do anything.
“You animal. What, no date? It’s Valentine’s Day, the worst day to be alone.” Jim has a date, yeah, but it’s accidental. Last week he barreled her over while…excusing himself from another girl’s room, increasingly heavy objects following in his wake. He’d given his date-to-be a black eye, so he figures the least he could do is make out with her a little.
“Thank you so much for the reminder, I’d completely forgotten I was a divorced, bitter old man,” Bones growls, and when his cup touches his lips it bursts into a chorus of season’s greetings. Jim tries and fails at not laughing while Bones slams the cup back onto the table. “Fucking loons. Have a delightful evening, Jim, I’m going back to my room,” he says, promptly standing with tray in hand.
Jim watches him go with vague unease, but knowing Bones, if Jim pushed the matter it would end up in war waging and two men grumbling over their humps for days. On the other hand, if he cancelled his date there would go an opportunity for sex and mildly interesting company. Also, it’d be a douchebag move.
“At least you’d have matching black eyes,” a cadet sitting at the far end of the table says. Jim startles so hard his elbow hits the prongs of a fork, catapulting it into his face. The cadet bursts into laughter. “Sorry,” she says, “but your internal monologues are not as internal as you think.”
She leaves to bus her tray and Jim sits mystified at how this is his life.
~--~
Deanna, to her credit, expresses no hard feelings about the healing parenthetical bruises surrounding her eye when Jim picks her up. “And I can’t exactly be judgmental about how you asked me out,” she says, meaning right after you were thrown from another girl’s room, “seeing as I said yes.”
“Self-depreciative honesty, how refreshing,” Jim says, and it’s nice that they both laugh. Not all of his dates have been insubstantial waifs, but they haven’t all exactly been winners, either. Deanna’s pretty in her subtleties, like the gait of her walk and the shadow of a dimple when she smiles.
He takes her to a restaurant thankfully devoid of any garish decorations, and both of them discover they share a peanut allergy when the waiter offers the specials.
“Swelled up like a ripe watermelon,” Deanna says, and Jim winces in sympathy. “And, to make matters worse, I had to pretend it was because of something else so the birthday girl wouldn’t cry. Damn peanut butter frosting.”
Jim opens his mouth to recall his own disasters when his ringtone fires off notes from his pocket. Upon scrambling to jam the buttons into an off position, he sees that it’s Bones calling, of all people. Frowning, he excuses himself from the table and weaves to the bathroom.
Once the stall door’s lock stutters into place, Jim flips open his phone to find not only a voicemail but a series of text messages.
From Bones (7:10):
your fucking plant filled the whole fucking bathroom with fucking glitter smoke I can’t see shit ge
From Bones (7:10):
t your ass over here and fix it or I will never fucking speak to you again and make sure you ca
From Bones (7:11):
n’t have children you asshole
“Weird,” Jim says.
The voicemail starts in the middle of Bones yelling shit fuck mother mary joseph and coughing, static cutting through the background noise of button jamming and more coughing. Finally, after a few seconds of muffled sneezing and more swearing, Bones’ husky, angry voice fills Jim’s ear.
I don’t care if you’re on a date with Miss America, my room is flooded in creepy sparkling powder, it’s literally everywhere, what the fuck kind of store did you get this monster from? I mean it, I can’t keep cleaning up after your damn messes, kid, on top of this bullshit, I think I’m allergic to whatever the damn plant is spewing--
Bones’ voice suddenly gives way to what sounds like a sharp inhale, and then an unmistakable groan. Jim’s eyes widen and he grips the phone so hard it nearly snaps in half.
…On second thought, he says, and Jim can barely hear it, don’t come anywhere near here unless it’s with a h-hazmat suit. I-I’m…
Jim gulps, staring hard at the marble pattern of the bathroom stall. Dead space hangs in the tiny confinement, until the automated female voice tells him he can either delete, save, or hear the message again. He hits zero and listens to Bones’ message two more times, gut clenching tighter and tighter every time the last bit of the message plays. He imagines a taut stretch of neck, head thrown back and sweat rolling down the muscle, a fever induced gasp-
“Jim?” Deanna calls through the door, preceded by a hesitant knock. “Jim, are you alright?”
“Shit,” he says, and flushes the toilet out of panic, except now it’ll seem like he’s been taking a dump this whole time. “Shit,” he says again.
He already regrets ditching Deanna, but Bones is his best friend, and it kind of is Jim’s fault for putting him in this situation. At a loss of how to even explain what was happening, Jim washes his hands and nearly smacks Deanna in the face again opening the bathroom door.
“Sorry,” they say at the same time, and in the cramped hallway it becomes awkward very quickly.
Head muddled with escape plans and the lingering rasp of Bones’ voice, Jim says “I think I have to go” as Deanna says “So this probably isn’t going to work out,” and they both stare at each other in mild bemusement.
“My ex wants to get back together,” Deanna confesses, holding up her own phone like it’s going to speak for her. “You seem nice and everything, but-”
Jim holds up a hand, relief flooding through and relaxing his shoulders. “It’s fine. A friend just called with an emergency I need to go take care of.”
She smiles, then immediately looks guilty for doing so, but Jim chuckles and motions for them to walk back out to the dining area. Once outside the restaurant, he waits until Deanna finds a cab and bids her a friendly farewell before dialing Bones’ number. It rings six times before Bones finally picks up.
“Not a good time,” he mutters. “Take my advice for once in your life and-” Bones hisses, breathing so heavily Jim imagines the accompanying phantom heat. Goosebumps rise in a flush down his spine. “Don’t come over.”
“You sound…in pain,” Jim says. Bones’ cough of laughter is too deep a rumble to be joking, instead curling out dark and dirty. Jim nearly walks into a lamp post.
“That’s terrible grammar, you should let me teach you proper English,” Bones says, and an image of Bones licking his thumb and turning the pages of a real paper book flashes into Jim’s head. “Yeah, come to my room, I’ll show you the right waaaaaait no, no, don’t, don’t listen to anything I’m saying, stay away.”
“Uh.” Considering the better decision maker of the two of them is currently high off his ass from weird plant smoke, Jim figures it’s fair enough if he takes control of this one. “I can be there in about three minutes. Try not to do anything until then.”
Bones shudders into Jim’s ear and it’s really fucking distracting, but at least it isn’t anything explicit. Jim hangs up right as Bones starts to curse again, making noises Jim isn’t prepared to deal with just yet.
“Fucking Valentine’s day business traps,” he grumbles, “putting my best friend into a drug haze, fucking shit.”
~--~
If Jim thought he wasn’t ready for noises, then he absolutely isn’t ready to be hauled ass over teakettle into Bones’ room and slammed against the wall, a whole lot of Bones pressed against his front. His mouth is just level with the space beneath Jim’s ear, eyelashes brushing against his cheek when Bones closes his eyes and moans, right there, right into Jim’s skin and oh god.
“Told you not to fucking come,” Bones growls, arms and chest a solid barricade Jim doesn’t really want to break through. “You never listen, do you.”
This close, Jim can feel Bones’ heart hammering wildly in his ribs, and when Bones pulls back far enough to look Jim in the eye, the normal hazel is barely visible around the murky pupils. He’s been in the room for less than two minutes, but already the haze of plant smoke is giving him a headache. What little clothing Bones is still wearing is streaked with glittering pink powder, and it’s getting all over Jim’s hands.
“W-what the hell happened in here?” Jim manages, a feat with Bones mouthing arcs along Jim’s jaw and creeping fingers trying to unbutton his shirt.
“Who cares,” Bones says, and Jim’s finding it difficult to argue. “Let me fuck you,” and hey, that’s new.
Jim tries to duck away, break out of the hold so they can step back and reason, but Bones gets a lock around both of his wrists and hugs Jim even closer to the wall. From chest to toe Bones drapes him like a blanket, impossibly thick muscled and hot. “No,” comes the persuasive rasp, “you should really let me fuck you.”
Then Bones fits their mouths together and sweeps his tongue right in, conquering. Jim gasps and his hips flex upwards, only to be slammed back with a thigh between his own and an erection like an iron rod pushing into the seam of his jeans. Jim bites his lip, pulls and sucks and he wonders if Bones fucks anything like he kisses. Once they break for air Jim shoves him backwards, if only for the sake of yanking his shirt the rest of the way off. Bones pulls his wife-beater up and over his head and Jim wishes he could’ve watched that from behind, seen Bones’ shoulders and the V of his back and hips, oh man.
“Yeah,” Jim says, fingers hooking into belt loops and encouraging Bones closer. “Yeah, you should fuck me,” only he hardly gets past should when Bones decides his giant hands should really meet Jim’s thighs and Jim’s back should really meet the dorm room wall for the hundredth time.
Not that he’s complaining.
~--~
It’s so unsexy to have his face mushed into the sheets but Jim’s pretty far gone, reaching for anything to grab onto that isn’t already ripped to pieces. The bedspread had torn in his hands while he’d ridden Bones, both men so fever-bright and delirious neither one had noticed. Jim’s pants were ruined, too, when Bones had said fuck it and fucked Jim right there against the wall, fucking holding him up with freaky sex drug powers.
“So explain to me again how this turned out badly,” Jim grunts out, breaking a few times as Bones’ fingertips crook inside of him.
He doesn’t get the chance to ask again, not when Bones slides back in and god, yeah, he shouldn’t ever leave. It’s the first mental image Jim had listening to the voicemail multiplied by one thousand, even better because it’s real and it’s happening and Jim’s there to see it. Bones bends him in fucking half, pushes Jim’s knees up to his ears and angles his hips and Jim bites down so hard his lip splits. In an impossible shift of limbs Bones maneuvers his face near Jim’s and suddenly they’re kissing open-mouthed, tasting like sweat and blood and the weird tang of the pollen.
“Baby,” Bones says, Jim never imagined him the type, “yeah, could do this for hours, watch you writhe beneath me, touch you everywhere,” and that’s not even playing fair.
The noise that erupts between them is throaty and wrecked and when Bones loses rhythm in favor of frenzy, Jim comes for what feels like the twentieth time. His groan is exhausted, but he can’t help clinging to the trembling waves of the orgasm as Bones bottoms out and stays there. Disgusting and messy and incredible, he feels Bones stutter into his own climax, then pull out and flop beside him.
There are fleeting thoughts of a shower (or six), but the plant is still in the bathtub and Jim can barely stand the idea of moving his fingers, let alone his legs. Instead, he collapses into unconsciousness, Bones snuffling gently into his ear.
~--~
They don’t speak for days.
Jim braces himself on the sink and stares into the mirror, unsatisfied. “So you had sex with your best friend,” he says, “really fantastic sex, mind-blowing, for hours. Drugged. You had drugged sex with your best friend.”
His reflection frowns.
It was certainly consensual at the time, that wasn’t the issue Jim was mulling over. He’d woken up glued to the sheets and to the pillowcase and to Bones, but he was happy. Sore as shit, but happy. Bones…
“…not so much.” Jim blinks hard and sighs, breath fogging up the glass. Bones had barely spoke, nothing further than talk of cleaning up and maybe even a couple rounds with a dermal regenerator. Jim had seen the bruises, scratches, and bite marks littered across Bones’ shoulders, and picturing it now makes his eyes blur and his stomach tighten.
Bones won’t answer any of Jim’s texts or calls or emails, and it’s grating, the way Bones has always blared out this stay away signal, but now Jim’s starting to take it personally.
“You can’t shut me out forever, Bones,” Jim says. His reflection stares back unflinchingly. “Please call me. Or write me. Just, something. I’m not angry, I promise. It’s not-” He licks his lips, then, “I want you. All of you.”
He hangs up, startled.
~--~
Jim is not nervous often, but he can’t stop wringing his hands. Shortly after he’d left the voice mail, Bones sent a text that read fine, tomorrow after my 7:30 lecture. I’ll come by, and since then, Jim has been tearing up the walls, picturing the one thousand different ways this could go.
He doesn’t even know if what he’s wearing is right, and that’s when he bursts out laughing. It’s also, incidentally, the moment Bones walks through the door.
“Uh,” Bones says.
“Hi,” Jim says, abruptly sober. “Hey.”
For a long, awkward moment, Bones hovers just inside the doorway, shifting from foot to foot and looking extremely uncomfortable. Jim hates it.
“Look-”
“I’m sorry,” Bones cuts him off. “I’m sorry I took advantage of you and I’m sorry you had to see me like that and get drugged too and I’m sorry I didn’t get rid of the plant and I’m sorry I’ve been avoiding you.” His hands are shaking, just a little. Bones’ hands never shake.
At the first apology, an odd sense of calming relief creeps under Jim’s skin. He hadn’t at all expected Bones to be so…open. “Okay,” he says.
Bones takes a jilted step forward. “That’s-that’s all you have to say?” The closer he gets, the more panic Jim can see in his eyes. He’s never seen Bones like this, and he doesn’t know what to make of it. “Just ‘okay?’ Does it even fucking matter to you?”
“Whoah. Whoah,” Jim says, holding his hands up. “Yes, it fucking matters, I’m just letting you talk first, seeing as that’s what I’ve been trying to get you to do for nine days.” Bones pauses at that, thankfully. He still looks three hairs away from losing it.
“You didn’t take advantage of me,” Jim continues. “I know that neither of us was in any kind of position of rationality, but it wasn’t. It wasn’t-I don’t regret it,” and both of their mouths clamp shut.
Bones squares his shoulders, jaw clenched. The way he looks at Jim is both careful and terrified, but it’s the biggest fucking relief because Jim is both of those things, too.
“Why not,” Bones says, and it isn’t a question.
“You know wh-”
“Say it,” he says, and moves so close to Jim they’re nearly touching. The air between them is so static and taut that Jim wonders if he could drag his fingers through it and leave trails.
“I want you,” Jim says, and in a rush Bones’ hands are vices around his arms and he’s kissing Jim, fingernails digging into his skin. It’s like their first kiss, full of desperation and want, but this time there’s an edge of relief and hope and tack-sharp clarity.
“Yeah?” Bones says when he pulls back. Like he’s memorizing what Jim tastes like sober, Bone’s tongue swipes over his lips and something inside Jim sky rockets. “Great, because I want you, too.”
Without the haze of the pollen their kissing is a little sloppier, needier in a different way than before. It’s fucking perfect.
~--~
They don’t have sex.
They do, however, lie entangled on Jim’s bed, their legs and arms and hands and fingers all folded together just right.
“So what’d you do with the plant?”
Bones scowls and Jim pushes away the wrinkles with his thumb. Because he can. Because he can. “I let the botany department take care of the fucking monster,” Bones replies. “They disposed of it days ago. Most of them had a case of the giggles and a creepy, doe-eyed sort of look. I guess some of the pollen still lingered.” He shudders, and Jim laughs.
“Hey, now, if it wasn’t for that ‘fucking monster’, we probably wouldn’t be here,” Jim says. “Or at least, not this soon.”
It falls quiet after that. Then,
“Yeah. Good thing.”
“So you’re saying an idea of mine turned out for the better?” Jim grins into Bones’ collarbone and Bones slaps him gently on the shoulder.
“Wipe that grin off, cocky bastard, I can feel it. But yeah,” Bones says, “yes. I suppose it did.” His lips find Jim’s forehead and it’s so sweet it almost hurts.
It’s small, but all things considered it’s the best damn victory Jim’s ever had.
~~~~~~
Author: roflolmaomg
Rating: NC-17
Words: 4000
Prompt: Sex pollen
Summary: So maybe drugs aren’t always bad, mmkay?
Notes/Warnings: Drugged sex that appears a wee bit dubcon but isn’t. I promise it’s all good in the hood. On a side note, I really wanted to end this with them getting married in a Burger King and both becoming Burger Queens, but I was talked out of it. For the km_anthology , round 2 of course I’m like the last one to post.
~~~~~~
According to Bones, one of Jim’s major character flaws is his inability to listen to the advice Bones gives him, and that he’d be a lot better damn well off if he’d just wrap his thick head around the idea that actions have consequences and Bones won’t always be around to clean up after him. Jim argues that he’s alright with abandonment, since his mother has a professional career in it, but he still doesn’t like to think of Bones as being something that isn’t there. This, however, does not at all guarantee compliance, since Jim is a grown-ass man and can make decisions for himself.
When he pulls out his phone to send a text his thumbs fumble, because apparently dexterity isn’t something he possesses today.
To Bones (11:46):
don’t be mad when you find out I broke into your broom and left you a surpis
He hits ‘send’ and leans back against the headboard, excited for the response. In an attempt to appear casual to an empty room, Jim crosses his ankles and assumes the lounge position.
Twenty minutes later, he smacks his hand on the edge of the night table when his phone clatters across it like a tiny stampede. “Fucking vibrate,” he says, and flips open to the welcome screen.
From Bones (12:09):
I don’t know what that means.
Jim frowns and goes to his outbox to check that he even sent the right message.
“Fucking typos.”
To Bones (12:10):
*room *surprise btw happy valentine’s day buddy hope you like the gift
From Bones (12:15):
Why is it a plant and why is it pink and why do I insist on knowing you
Jim laughs fondly and sits up. He hits the ‘call’ button and chews on his thumbnail because he’s thirteen, not a twenty-three year old at the top of his class in an elite, professional academy that operates in space.
“It’s blowing lip-shaped clouds of sparkles at me. Come over here so I can kill you,” is how Bones answers the phone.
“Happy Valentine’s Day to you, too, Bonesie,” Jim says. “Do you love it? I saw it in a window downtown yesterday and thought of you.”
Bones makes noises of physical disgust over the mechanical hiss of a door, most likely to the bathroom. “Should I bother asking why a four foot tall, magenta, bird of paradise-cactus-pussy willow-plant dump in a ceramic cherub made you think of me?”
“It made me happy,” Jim says.
“I put it in the bathtub. It won’t stop fucking farting glitter, you’re so lucky I don’t have a roommate or a vindictive disposition.” Jim can hear Bones roll his eyes, but his tone is humored, at the very least.
“I wouldn’t put it past you to fill my boots with crushed candy hearts, but that would require you making an effort.”
“Fuck you, ‘effort,’” Bones says. “I owned my own fucking medical practice in Georgia and did six months of residency here even though I absolutely did not need to and I’m guest lecturing in Sacramento next week to present new developments for surgical laser technology.”
“Mm, keep talking geek to me.” Jim flops back onto his bed, head and legs dangling off opposite sides.
Bones hangs up.
To Bones (12:30):
rude
~--~
They meet for a late lunch in the cafeteria and immediately regret it; despite the strict, law-enforcing solemnity of the board of elders (or whatever the heads of ‘Fleet call themselves), they seem fine with allowing eye-searing decorations and tacky, gaudy endorsement for over-hyped holidays. Every table is adorned with rather majestic centerpieces, bundles of red cellophane exploding in fountains of hearts and Cupids. Garland, tulle, and other similar materials normally reserved for parade floats loop support beams and columns, and dinner is pink mashed potatoes and heart-shaped miniature pizzas and strawberry Jell-O and other horribly mismatched foods, all varying shades of red.
“Can I have a bite of your love brownie?”
“Don’t ever say those words in that succession to me ever again,” Bones replies, peeling away his pepperoni and dropping them onto Jim’s tray.
“Your love brownie, can I have a b-” Jim gets his wish, except Bones takes ‘bite’ to mean ‘shove all of it in Jim’s mouth at once’. Jim coughs bits of crappy replicated chocolate all over the table and tries chewing anyway, since a brownie is a brownie, whether it’s made from a box or from compressed energy. He mumbles a garbled ‘thank you’ and Bones looks like he’s about to hit him.
“So it’s safe to assume you’d be morally wounded if I disposed of your…gift,” Bones says, looking pained to even refer to the plant in such polite terms.
Jim nods and swallows, wiping his mouth on a bright pink napkin. It wishes him a Happy Valentine’s Day, but unlike his cup’s similar greeting, at least the napkin doesn’t sing every time he uses it. “Promise me you’ll keep it a week, brighten your room up. Don’t you get lonely, living in a single?”
“Please,” Bones scoffs, “being thirty and having a roommate is the last thing I want, Jim. Besides, you hardly ever let me be alone,” he adds, though Jim can’t tell if Bones thinks that’s a good or bad thing.
“Because we’re buddies,” Jim says.
“Mmmhmm.”
Jim starts to say ‘rude’, but then he realizes most of their conversations turn out that way, and if there’s any holiday devoted to changes of heart and getting your best friend to realize how awesome you are and wooing them via creepy, glitter-barfing plants, it’s Valentine’s Day. Instead, he goes for aloof: “So, any plans for tonight?”
“Test coming up, figured I’d study for that,” Bones says. Pizza sauce hugs the corner of his mouth and Jim’s fingers spasm around his fork with the effort not to do anything.
“You animal. What, no date? It’s Valentine’s Day, the worst day to be alone.” Jim has a date, yeah, but it’s accidental. Last week he barreled her over while…excusing himself from another girl’s room, increasingly heavy objects following in his wake. He’d given his date-to-be a black eye, so he figures the least he could do is make out with her a little.
“Thank you so much for the reminder, I’d completely forgotten I was a divorced, bitter old man,” Bones growls, and when his cup touches his lips it bursts into a chorus of season’s greetings. Jim tries and fails at not laughing while Bones slams the cup back onto the table. “Fucking loons. Have a delightful evening, Jim, I’m going back to my room,” he says, promptly standing with tray in hand.
Jim watches him go with vague unease, but knowing Bones, if Jim pushed the matter it would end up in war waging and two men grumbling over their humps for days. On the other hand, if he cancelled his date there would go an opportunity for sex and mildly interesting company. Also, it’d be a douchebag move.
“At least you’d have matching black eyes,” a cadet sitting at the far end of the table says. Jim startles so hard his elbow hits the prongs of a fork, catapulting it into his face. The cadet bursts into laughter. “Sorry,” she says, “but your internal monologues are not as internal as you think.”
She leaves to bus her tray and Jim sits mystified at how this is his life.
~--~
Deanna, to her credit, expresses no hard feelings about the healing parenthetical bruises surrounding her eye when Jim picks her up. “And I can’t exactly be judgmental about how you asked me out,” she says, meaning right after you were thrown from another girl’s room, “seeing as I said yes.”
“Self-depreciative honesty, how refreshing,” Jim says, and it’s nice that they both laugh. Not all of his dates have been insubstantial waifs, but they haven’t all exactly been winners, either. Deanna’s pretty in her subtleties, like the gait of her walk and the shadow of a dimple when she smiles.
He takes her to a restaurant thankfully devoid of any garish decorations, and both of them discover they share a peanut allergy when the waiter offers the specials.
“Swelled up like a ripe watermelon,” Deanna says, and Jim winces in sympathy. “And, to make matters worse, I had to pretend it was because of something else so the birthday girl wouldn’t cry. Damn peanut butter frosting.”
Jim opens his mouth to recall his own disasters when his ringtone fires off notes from his pocket. Upon scrambling to jam the buttons into an off position, he sees that it’s Bones calling, of all people. Frowning, he excuses himself from the table and weaves to the bathroom.
Once the stall door’s lock stutters into place, Jim flips open his phone to find not only a voicemail but a series of text messages.
From Bones (7:10):
your fucking plant filled the whole fucking bathroom with fucking glitter smoke I can’t see shit ge
From Bones (7:10):
t your ass over here and fix it or I will never fucking speak to you again and make sure you ca
From Bones (7:11):
n’t have children you asshole
“Weird,” Jim says.
The voicemail starts in the middle of Bones yelling shit fuck mother mary joseph and coughing, static cutting through the background noise of button jamming and more coughing. Finally, after a few seconds of muffled sneezing and more swearing, Bones’ husky, angry voice fills Jim’s ear.
I don’t care if you’re on a date with Miss America, my room is flooded in creepy sparkling powder, it’s literally everywhere, what the fuck kind of store did you get this monster from? I mean it, I can’t keep cleaning up after your damn messes, kid, on top of this bullshit, I think I’m allergic to whatever the damn plant is spewing--
Bones’ voice suddenly gives way to what sounds like a sharp inhale, and then an unmistakable groan. Jim’s eyes widen and he grips the phone so hard it nearly snaps in half.
…On second thought, he says, and Jim can barely hear it, don’t come anywhere near here unless it’s with a h-hazmat suit. I-I’m…
Jim gulps, staring hard at the marble pattern of the bathroom stall. Dead space hangs in the tiny confinement, until the automated female voice tells him he can either delete, save, or hear the message again. He hits zero and listens to Bones’ message two more times, gut clenching tighter and tighter every time the last bit of the message plays. He imagines a taut stretch of neck, head thrown back and sweat rolling down the muscle, a fever induced gasp-
“Jim?” Deanna calls through the door, preceded by a hesitant knock. “Jim, are you alright?”
“Shit,” he says, and flushes the toilet out of panic, except now it’ll seem like he’s been taking a dump this whole time. “Shit,” he says again.
He already regrets ditching Deanna, but Bones is his best friend, and it kind of is Jim’s fault for putting him in this situation. At a loss of how to even explain what was happening, Jim washes his hands and nearly smacks Deanna in the face again opening the bathroom door.
“Sorry,” they say at the same time, and in the cramped hallway it becomes awkward very quickly.
Head muddled with escape plans and the lingering rasp of Bones’ voice, Jim says “I think I have to go” as Deanna says “So this probably isn’t going to work out,” and they both stare at each other in mild bemusement.
“My ex wants to get back together,” Deanna confesses, holding up her own phone like it’s going to speak for her. “You seem nice and everything, but-”
Jim holds up a hand, relief flooding through and relaxing his shoulders. “It’s fine. A friend just called with an emergency I need to go take care of.”
She smiles, then immediately looks guilty for doing so, but Jim chuckles and motions for them to walk back out to the dining area. Once outside the restaurant, he waits until Deanna finds a cab and bids her a friendly farewell before dialing Bones’ number. It rings six times before Bones finally picks up.
“Not a good time,” he mutters. “Take my advice for once in your life and-” Bones hisses, breathing so heavily Jim imagines the accompanying phantom heat. Goosebumps rise in a flush down his spine. “Don’t come over.”
“You sound…in pain,” Jim says. Bones’ cough of laughter is too deep a rumble to be joking, instead curling out dark and dirty. Jim nearly walks into a lamp post.
“That’s terrible grammar, you should let me teach you proper English,” Bones says, and an image of Bones licking his thumb and turning the pages of a real paper book flashes into Jim’s head. “Yeah, come to my room, I’ll show you the right waaaaaait no, no, don’t, don’t listen to anything I’m saying, stay away.”
“Uh.” Considering the better decision maker of the two of them is currently high off his ass from weird plant smoke, Jim figures it’s fair enough if he takes control of this one. “I can be there in about three minutes. Try not to do anything until then.”
Bones shudders into Jim’s ear and it’s really fucking distracting, but at least it isn’t anything explicit. Jim hangs up right as Bones starts to curse again, making noises Jim isn’t prepared to deal with just yet.
“Fucking Valentine’s day business traps,” he grumbles, “putting my best friend into a drug haze, fucking shit.”
~--~
If Jim thought he wasn’t ready for noises, then he absolutely isn’t ready to be hauled ass over teakettle into Bones’ room and slammed against the wall, a whole lot of Bones pressed against his front. His mouth is just level with the space beneath Jim’s ear, eyelashes brushing against his cheek when Bones closes his eyes and moans, right there, right into Jim’s skin and oh god.
“Told you not to fucking come,” Bones growls, arms and chest a solid barricade Jim doesn’t really want to break through. “You never listen, do you.”
This close, Jim can feel Bones’ heart hammering wildly in his ribs, and when Bones pulls back far enough to look Jim in the eye, the normal hazel is barely visible around the murky pupils. He’s been in the room for less than two minutes, but already the haze of plant smoke is giving him a headache. What little clothing Bones is still wearing is streaked with glittering pink powder, and it’s getting all over Jim’s hands.
“W-what the hell happened in here?” Jim manages, a feat with Bones mouthing arcs along Jim’s jaw and creeping fingers trying to unbutton his shirt.
“Who cares,” Bones says, and Jim’s finding it difficult to argue. “Let me fuck you,” and hey, that’s new.
Jim tries to duck away, break out of the hold so they can step back and reason, but Bones gets a lock around both of his wrists and hugs Jim even closer to the wall. From chest to toe Bones drapes him like a blanket, impossibly thick muscled and hot. “No,” comes the persuasive rasp, “you should really let me fuck you.”
Then Bones fits their mouths together and sweeps his tongue right in, conquering. Jim gasps and his hips flex upwards, only to be slammed back with a thigh between his own and an erection like an iron rod pushing into the seam of his jeans. Jim bites his lip, pulls and sucks and he wonders if Bones fucks anything like he kisses. Once they break for air Jim shoves him backwards, if only for the sake of yanking his shirt the rest of the way off. Bones pulls his wife-beater up and over his head and Jim wishes he could’ve watched that from behind, seen Bones’ shoulders and the V of his back and hips, oh man.
“Yeah,” Jim says, fingers hooking into belt loops and encouraging Bones closer. “Yeah, you should fuck me,” only he hardly gets past should when Bones decides his giant hands should really meet Jim’s thighs and Jim’s back should really meet the dorm room wall for the hundredth time.
Not that he’s complaining.
~--~
It’s so unsexy to have his face mushed into the sheets but Jim’s pretty far gone, reaching for anything to grab onto that isn’t already ripped to pieces. The bedspread had torn in his hands while he’d ridden Bones, both men so fever-bright and delirious neither one had noticed. Jim’s pants were ruined, too, when Bones had said fuck it and fucked Jim right there against the wall, fucking holding him up with freaky sex drug powers.
“So explain to me again how this turned out badly,” Jim grunts out, breaking a few times as Bones’ fingertips crook inside of him.
He doesn’t get the chance to ask again, not when Bones slides back in and god, yeah, he shouldn’t ever leave. It’s the first mental image Jim had listening to the voicemail multiplied by one thousand, even better because it’s real and it’s happening and Jim’s there to see it. Bones bends him in fucking half, pushes Jim’s knees up to his ears and angles his hips and Jim bites down so hard his lip splits. In an impossible shift of limbs Bones maneuvers his face near Jim’s and suddenly they’re kissing open-mouthed, tasting like sweat and blood and the weird tang of the pollen.
“Baby,” Bones says, Jim never imagined him the type, “yeah, could do this for hours, watch you writhe beneath me, touch you everywhere,” and that’s not even playing fair.
The noise that erupts between them is throaty and wrecked and when Bones loses rhythm in favor of frenzy, Jim comes for what feels like the twentieth time. His groan is exhausted, but he can’t help clinging to the trembling waves of the orgasm as Bones bottoms out and stays there. Disgusting and messy and incredible, he feels Bones stutter into his own climax, then pull out and flop beside him.
There are fleeting thoughts of a shower (or six), but the plant is still in the bathtub and Jim can barely stand the idea of moving his fingers, let alone his legs. Instead, he collapses into unconsciousness, Bones snuffling gently into his ear.
~--~
They don’t speak for days.
Jim braces himself on the sink and stares into the mirror, unsatisfied. “So you had sex with your best friend,” he says, “really fantastic sex, mind-blowing, for hours. Drugged. You had drugged sex with your best friend.”
His reflection frowns.
It was certainly consensual at the time, that wasn’t the issue Jim was mulling over. He’d woken up glued to the sheets and to the pillowcase and to Bones, but he was happy. Sore as shit, but happy. Bones…
“…not so much.” Jim blinks hard and sighs, breath fogging up the glass. Bones had barely spoke, nothing further than talk of cleaning up and maybe even a couple rounds with a dermal regenerator. Jim had seen the bruises, scratches, and bite marks littered across Bones’ shoulders, and picturing it now makes his eyes blur and his stomach tighten.
Bones won’t answer any of Jim’s texts or calls or emails, and it’s grating, the way Bones has always blared out this stay away signal, but now Jim’s starting to take it personally.
“You can’t shut me out forever, Bones,” Jim says. His reflection stares back unflinchingly. “Please call me. Or write me. Just, something. I’m not angry, I promise. It’s not-” He licks his lips, then, “I want you. All of you.”
He hangs up, startled.
~--~
Jim is not nervous often, but he can’t stop wringing his hands. Shortly after he’d left the voice mail, Bones sent a text that read fine, tomorrow after my 7:30 lecture. I’ll come by, and since then, Jim has been tearing up the walls, picturing the one thousand different ways this could go.
He doesn’t even know if what he’s wearing is right, and that’s when he bursts out laughing. It’s also, incidentally, the moment Bones walks through the door.
“Uh,” Bones says.
“Hi,” Jim says, abruptly sober. “Hey.”
For a long, awkward moment, Bones hovers just inside the doorway, shifting from foot to foot and looking extremely uncomfortable. Jim hates it.
“Look-”
“I’m sorry,” Bones cuts him off. “I’m sorry I took advantage of you and I’m sorry you had to see me like that and get drugged too and I’m sorry I didn’t get rid of the plant and I’m sorry I’ve been avoiding you.” His hands are shaking, just a little. Bones’ hands never shake.
At the first apology, an odd sense of calming relief creeps under Jim’s skin. He hadn’t at all expected Bones to be so…open. “Okay,” he says.
Bones takes a jilted step forward. “That’s-that’s all you have to say?” The closer he gets, the more panic Jim can see in his eyes. He’s never seen Bones like this, and he doesn’t know what to make of it. “Just ‘okay?’ Does it even fucking matter to you?”
“Whoah. Whoah,” Jim says, holding his hands up. “Yes, it fucking matters, I’m just letting you talk first, seeing as that’s what I’ve been trying to get you to do for nine days.” Bones pauses at that, thankfully. He still looks three hairs away from losing it.
“You didn’t take advantage of me,” Jim continues. “I know that neither of us was in any kind of position of rationality, but it wasn’t. It wasn’t-I don’t regret it,” and both of their mouths clamp shut.
Bones squares his shoulders, jaw clenched. The way he looks at Jim is both careful and terrified, but it’s the biggest fucking relief because Jim is both of those things, too.
“Why not,” Bones says, and it isn’t a question.
“You know wh-”
“Say it,” he says, and moves so close to Jim they’re nearly touching. The air between them is so static and taut that Jim wonders if he could drag his fingers through it and leave trails.
“I want you,” Jim says, and in a rush Bones’ hands are vices around his arms and he’s kissing Jim, fingernails digging into his skin. It’s like their first kiss, full of desperation and want, but this time there’s an edge of relief and hope and tack-sharp clarity.
“Yeah?” Bones says when he pulls back. Like he’s memorizing what Jim tastes like sober, Bone’s tongue swipes over his lips and something inside Jim sky rockets. “Great, because I want you, too.”
Without the haze of the pollen their kissing is a little sloppier, needier in a different way than before. It’s fucking perfect.
~--~
They don’t have sex.
They do, however, lie entangled on Jim’s bed, their legs and arms and hands and fingers all folded together just right.
“So what’d you do with the plant?”
Bones scowls and Jim pushes away the wrinkles with his thumb. Because he can. Because he can. “I let the botany department take care of the fucking monster,” Bones replies. “They disposed of it days ago. Most of them had a case of the giggles and a creepy, doe-eyed sort of look. I guess some of the pollen still lingered.” He shudders, and Jim laughs.
“Hey, now, if it wasn’t for that ‘fucking monster’, we probably wouldn’t be here,” Jim says. “Or at least, not this soon.”
It falls quiet after that. Then,
“Yeah. Good thing.”
“So you’re saying an idea of mine turned out for the better?” Jim grins into Bones’ collarbone and Bones slaps him gently on the shoulder.
“Wipe that grin off, cocky bastard, I can feel it. But yeah,” Bones says, “yes. I suppose it did.” His lips find Jim’s forehead and it’s so sweet it almost hurts.
It’s small, but all things considered it’s the best damn victory Jim’s ever had.
~~~~~~