PART TEN [CLOSED]
PART ONE PART TWO
PART THREE PART FOUR HERE
PART FIVE HERE PART SIX HERE
PART SEVEN HERE
PART EIGHT HERE
PART NINE HERE
PART ELEVEN HERE
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Jim stays quiet because Jim who is normally Jim wouldn't. It's opposite day. Week. Something.
Bones groans and sits up in bed, rubbing his forehead. His hair is sticking up in the back, and as he climbs out of bed, Jim sees that he is wearing SpaceBrats boxers. There is a joke here somewhere. He smiles faintly.
Bones's eyes are suddenly wide and fixed on his face. "Fuck, kid. What'sa matter with you?"
Jim can hear the prompter inside his head: "Aw, c'mon Bones, keep up! This is our routine. I wake you up at fuck o'clock; you entertain me. Where're you hiding the good booze this week?"
When he ignores it, there's a sense of whatthefuckareyoudoing waiting in the wings, jumping up and down pointing at the prompter's words. Say them, it mouths frantically.
What the fuck is he doing?
"Kid?" Concerned.
There is something important here. A fork in the road. He thinks. Both ways lead to self-preservation, probably. It is something he is unwittingly very good at.
"Jim?" Really concerned.
One is self-preservation, alone. One is self-preservation, accompanied. There is pride, which he's never found much use for. There is fear - he swallows - where there maybe should be trust. They are in space. Bones is in space. For at least four more years, he will stay in space; he keeps his commitments, he cares about his patients. Is four years enough of a guarantee. Is four years too much of a risk. Where is Spock when you need him.
"I -"
Jim's eyes are on the floor. Bones's hands are on Jim's shoulders. They're warm.
"I need out. Of, of -" he makes an impatient hand gesture, nearly whacking Bones in the face "- my head."
"Hey," Bones says gently, and waits for Jim to look at him. When he does, Bones's tone sharpens, but he still drops his consonants because he's tired. "You need to tell me what's goin on in that fool head of yours before you go evacuatin it." His eyes, though. Fuck, but Bones is a softy.
"I'm." Jim licks his lips. "It's." He makes another hand gesture, this one angry and abrupt, and a frustrated noise in his throat. "Bones," he says, pleading, his voice cracking. He just does not give a fucking fuck. Stop. Stop, stop, stop.
"Okay," Bones says, and thank fuck he doesn't sound wary or condescending. Thank fuck he's Bones. "Jim," and Jim's eyes snap back to Bones's. "Okay," Bones says, this time more to himself. "You haven't eaten, of course." Dryly.
It's not a question, but Jim says, "No. Not since -" He can't remember.
"Shit, Jim," Bones mutters, and brings over chicken soup and what looks like iced tea from the replicator. He drinks the tea himself and watches Jim as he eats, like he's waiting for Jim to try slipping the soup to the nonexistent dog under the nonexistent table.
When Jim finishes, he says, "C'mere," so Jim stands up, walks over. "Eyes on me, kid. All you gotta do is tell me to stop, you understand?"
He nods, but Bones is still waiting. "Yeah," he says. He sounds like he's been eating gravel.
Bones steps closer, and Jim shuts his eyes, raises his hands above his head, acting on instinct. Slowly Bones tugs off his shirt, then steps away for a second - probably to fold it, because Bones will not stop being anal even in the event of the apocalypse, and this is not the apocalypse. When he comes back, he easily thumbs open the button to Jim's pants. Jim keeps his eyes closed as he steps first out of one pant leg and then the other; Bones steadies him as he lifts each leg. He opens his eyes to strip off his own boxers and pull off his own socks as Bones shucks his own clothing gracelessly.
He stands there, and suddenly he wants to run out of the room, down the corridors back to his own quarters, nudity be damned.
He eyes the door half-seriously. Bones curses under his breath as he trips on his pant leg, and then he straightens up, facing Jim. His face is like nothing Jim can understand, like he wants to be Jim so Jim doesn't have to, like he wants to show Jim it's okay to be Jim. Like he wants.
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And Bones doesn't back down. He just walks to the shower, turning briefly to raise an eyebrow at Jim. So Jim follows, and watches as Bones sets the water to 108 degrees Fahrenheit and the timer to twenty minutes, and follows him again, this time into the shower.
The water is immediately hot, and Jim's eyes slip shut again, his head falling forward so that if his hair were longer, it would obscure his face. He hears the whirr of the shampoo dispenser, and then Bones is facing him. His fingers are on Jim's scalp, thumbs unerringly finding the places at the base of his skull where he is carrying tension and rubbing it away in tiny circles. Bones continues the motion long after the soap has washed away and long after Jim feels his neck is like that of a floppy stuffed doll's. Then he steps nearer, sliding his hands down through Jim's hair to cup the back of his neck, and Jim thinks this must be permission to put his forehead on Bones's shoulder. It has to be; to shake, to let Bones hold him close, to let Bones hold him up.
Bones's chest is tight against Jim's, and one of Bones's hands is spread across Jim's back. It's not possible for Bones to be warmer than the water, but fuck, he is. Warm and right now such a goddamned certainty Jim isn't sure how it's possible either. How he's gotten here where Bones still is, telling him he's a dumbfuck for expecting anything else.
He lifts his head and kisses Leonard Horatio McCoy, tasting water and, more faintly, sugar (it was sweet tea, then). He is trying to convey something other than desperation, and worrying that it's not working. One arm is wrapped around Bones's waist. But Bones is kissing him back, and then it's easier. His thumb is on Bones's cheekbone, and he wants to apologize and confess into the kiss; wants, uselessly, for Bones to know - for this not to be an anchor stopping him but a sail bolstering him.
They kiss until the water shuts off. Jim is immediately shivering, and then he is wrapped in a towel. Mechanically he begins to dry himself off.
"I don't -" His tongue feels thick in his mouth, but he's going to finish at least one goddamned sentence tonight. "I didn't mean for it to happen like this."
Bones snorts and scrubs his towel over his hair. "No? Had it all planned out, did you, Casanova?"
"Yes. No," he says, exasperated. "I meant - fuck, Bones." He tosses the towel in the direction of the hamper--Bones scowls--and walks out to the bedroom. When Bones follows, Jim continues, "The odds -"
Bones starts pacing up and down the room, gesticulating. "Jesus Christ, Jim, no. You are the most infuriating person I know. You're so goddamned blithe about your physical well-being, but Christ, do you pussyfoot when it comes to anything remotely emotional. There're no formulas for people!" He stops, exhales sharply through his nose, then says, quietly, "there's no formula for making people love you. There's no formula for making people stay."
Jim swallows. "Then how are you supposed to -"
"You don't. Fuck," he chuckles mirthlessly. "You don't. But when they do -" He shuts his eyes briefly, then opens them to stare straight at Jim. "It's worth it," he says finally.
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There is a choice. Agency. A choice similar to the one Bones has been making again and again for years now - a choice similar to the one Bones made years and years ago now. Neither choice has worked out particularly well for Bones, who is stuck between a divorce and a Jim Kirk.
But Bones is looking back at him, that open want in his face again, like he - like he believes. In Jim, in this, in them.
Jim wants a lot of things. To wake up unweighted, most of all, and to know that he threw the weight off himself. There is danger in letting other people lift the weight off you for you. There is also no one who knows him so well as Bones, no one who is as near. But correlation doesn't equal causation.
God, he's tired. He's tired and in the hell where the indecisives go.
It's a bed with his best friend in it, and in the morning it will still be a bed, still with his best friend in it.
He decides. He will be in it, too.
He walks over and crawls in, face to face with Bones. Bones's eyes are sad and warm and tender, and altogether too much, but Jim forces himself to meet them. He wonders what Bones sees in his eyes.
Bones brings his hand up to frame Jim's cheek as he kisses him softly. He murmurs, "G'night, Jim," against Jim's cheek, staying close. Jim's eyes are starting to lose focus. He's warm.
It's something. (A beginning.)
They sleep, and Jim doesn't dream.
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***
yes.
This is life inside my head. Thanks for putting it in Jim's too, though it hurts to read it there.
Smart people are very good at driving themselves crazy, and Jim is very, very smart.
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