Fic: stolen sweethearts challenge
Title: A Case Of The Bends
Author: witblogi
Rating: PG
Warnings: none really, a fight, some manly dancing
Word Count: 1071
Summary: #40 - LET'S DANCE: Bones and Jim slow dancing after a bad fight. it's their non-verbal way of forgiving each other. (maybe, it's how they deal with the whole non-trusty stuff that went on in the movie?)
A/N: wyntreaurora signed up for the sweethearts challenge in jim_and_bones and i was all "mannn I don't have timmee for thisss" and I didn't understand how the pairing up was supposed to work so I didn't sign up. But then she gets her prompt and immediately like a horrible friend, i write it. So....this was my hand at her prompt bahaha
“I just want to go to bed,” he said in that same dull tone he’d been using all week. Hell, even when he wasn’t ordering some one about back on the ship he’d been using that tone, lifeless, directionless. It made Leonard want to tear his hair out in frustration. They came to a stop in the eerily silent corridor of Jim’s dorm room before his door.
“No. You don’t,” he snaps before he really has a chance to think. It’s a horrible trait, his big mouth, s’gotten him in more trouble than it’s been worth in years. The line of Jim’s shoulders tense, already weighted, already brittle with so much going on.
They’d been adrift in space for weeks, barely held together with duct-tape, a little spit and a lotta hope. Every last person aboard that tin can had been damaged, physically, mentally, you name it. Jim had kept them together, been the duct-tape and the glue and whatever else everyone needed to make it back to Earth without falling apart. He wasn’t used to being the person everyone ran to, wasn’t used to people needing him. It was like they had been compressing him tightly, so tightly on all sides and when they had finally disembarked and fled to their families to their therapists to their liquor... Jim was left in the wake.
Now left behind in this cluster fuck of hand shaking, promotion giving, debriefing, protocol spitting, funeral attending madness, Jim was aching. He might not know it, but Leonard sure as shit knew what a case of the bends looked like when he saw one, never mind the fact it wasn’t physical.
Jim turned, looking at him with an entirely too carefully arranged expression of neutrality on his face.
“And what is it I do need Doctor McCoy?” he entered his access code without glancing at the screen, and it trilled cheerfully with acceptance. “Since you seem to be such an expert on everyone’s needs lately,” he said in a frosty tone. Leonard sneered at him, sweeping into the room first, but in his mind he was cheering, at least he wasn’t monotone anymore.
“You need to stop acting like you’re carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders,” he said plainly, crossing his arms and watching as Jim strode across the tiny room to depolarize the window and reconfigure the field, letting the fresh evening air chill the room.
“Oh, is that right? Because if I’m not mistaken it’s not exactly acting when it’s true.”
“You know that’s not what I mean. You saved the world, you’re an admirable Captain, but every Captain needs to know when to let things go, when to delegate and when to fucking start coping.”
“That’s rich, you want to talk about coping? How about we discuss the fact you wrote your resignation from service three weeks ago and have been carrying it around with you ever since. Or maybe the perpetually full hip flask I haven’t seen you without since we landed?”
“You callin’ me a hypocrite?”
“No. I’m calling you a drunk old quitter but you know whatever, potato potahto.” Jim was pacing now the frantic energy he’d been stifling within himself finally rising back up to the surface, “You run away when things get hard instead of dealing with it. It’s not like that in the real world Leonard McCoy, not all of us can be award winning, baby kissing, I’ve got my shit together Doctors with charming fucking accents on top. No. The rest of us deal with this, with the death and the silence and the danger and the mother fucking disease. But you know what. it’s fine, you run, run away like every other person always has.”
He stood there, eyes burning, shoulders rising and falling with every breath while Leonard continued to calmly survey him, arms still crossed.
“We still talkin about me, Jim?”
It was like the straw that broke the camel’s back, the way Jim suddenly sagged, a marionette with all it’s strings cut. Leonard caught him, hands slipping under armpits to support his sagging weight. His breath was uneven, face turned into Leonard’s neck.
“Woah, S’alright, I gottcha.” He wrapped his arms around Jim’s back squeezing him tightly, tighter, anything to ease the ache,
“I gottcha,” he breathed into Jim’s hair, squeezing his own eyes shut at the feel of sobs wracking Jim’s body.
Music from somewhere on campus floated in through the open window, a somber elegant tune, a salute to fallen comrades, a celebration of the life still churning away in their bodies. Jim’s sob grew quieter, and almost unconsciously Leonard began to gently sway, rocking the body in his arms for comfort, keeping time with the music.
After a few more long minutes Jim shifted, hooking his chin over the back of Leonard’s shoulder.
“What are we doing, Bones?” he whispered, voice cracked.
“Hmm?” Leonard lifted his cheek from where it had been rested upon Jim’s head.
“I’m sorry,” he sighed quietly into Leonard’s ear, “I didn’t mean-”
“Yeah you did, and I’m sorry too. ‘M not leavin’, you should know that.”
They were quiet for another minute more, feet shuffling as they swayed and turned together, slow and simple as molasses.
“Are we dancing?” Jim asked at last, cheek to cheek now, arms still tightly wound about one another.
“Sure.”
“I haven’t slow danced with anyone since...” he paused, his breath huffed over Leonard’s ear, “I haven’t ever actually.”
“Well, there’s a first time for everything.”
Jim loosed his grip upon Leonard then, pulling back just enough, bringing their faces together slowly, too intimate to be anything less than romantic in intentions. He closed his eyes, swallowing as Jim’s nose bumped against his, brow to brow stubble scraping each other’s lips.
“Look at me, Bones.”
He swallowed and slowly reopened his eyes, Jim’s face too close to really see anything much more than a brilliant blue blur, but then it doesn’t really matter as warm dry lips slide against his own and his eyes slipped closed one again.
When they part just enough to rest their foreheads together, their swaying has stopped and so has the music, but Leonard is still squeezing Jim hard enough his arms are beginning to hurt.
“How’re your joints?” he asks letting go slowly, but unable to step away, or to properly address what was happening between them.
“Better.”
Author: witblogi
Rating: PG
Warnings: none really, a fight, some manly dancing
Word Count: 1071
Summary: #40 - LET'S DANCE: Bones and Jim slow dancing after a bad fight. it's their non-verbal way of forgiving each other. (maybe, it's how they deal with the whole non-trusty stuff that went on in the movie?)
A/N: wyntreaurora signed up for the sweethearts challenge in jim_and_bones and i was all "mannn I don't have timmee for thisss" and I didn't understand how the pairing up was supposed to work so I didn't sign up. But then she gets her prompt and immediately like a horrible friend, i write it. So....this was my hand at her prompt bahaha
“I just want to go to bed,” he said in that same dull tone he’d been using all week. Hell, even when he wasn’t ordering some one about back on the ship he’d been using that tone, lifeless, directionless. It made Leonard want to tear his hair out in frustration. They came to a stop in the eerily silent corridor of Jim’s dorm room before his door.
“No. You don’t,” he snaps before he really has a chance to think. It’s a horrible trait, his big mouth, s’gotten him in more trouble than it’s been worth in years. The line of Jim’s shoulders tense, already weighted, already brittle with so much going on.
They’d been adrift in space for weeks, barely held together with duct-tape, a little spit and a lotta hope. Every last person aboard that tin can had been damaged, physically, mentally, you name it. Jim had kept them together, been the duct-tape and the glue and whatever else everyone needed to make it back to Earth without falling apart. He wasn’t used to being the person everyone ran to, wasn’t used to people needing him. It was like they had been compressing him tightly, so tightly on all sides and when they had finally disembarked and fled to their families to their therapists to their liquor... Jim was left in the wake.
Now left behind in this cluster fuck of hand shaking, promotion giving, debriefing, protocol spitting, funeral attending madness, Jim was aching. He might not know it, but Leonard sure as shit knew what a case of the bends looked like when he saw one, never mind the fact it wasn’t physical.
Jim turned, looking at him with an entirely too carefully arranged expression of neutrality on his face.
“And what is it I do need Doctor McCoy?” he entered his access code without glancing at the screen, and it trilled cheerfully with acceptance. “Since you seem to be such an expert on everyone’s needs lately,” he said in a frosty tone. Leonard sneered at him, sweeping into the room first, but in his mind he was cheering, at least he wasn’t monotone anymore.
“You need to stop acting like you’re carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders,” he said plainly, crossing his arms and watching as Jim strode across the tiny room to depolarize the window and reconfigure the field, letting the fresh evening air chill the room.
“Oh, is that right? Because if I’m not mistaken it’s not exactly acting when it’s true.”
“You know that’s not what I mean. You saved the world, you’re an admirable Captain, but every Captain needs to know when to let things go, when to delegate and when to fucking start coping.”
“That’s rich, you want to talk about coping? How about we discuss the fact you wrote your resignation from service three weeks ago and have been carrying it around with you ever since. Or maybe the perpetually full hip flask I haven’t seen you without since we landed?”
“You callin’ me a hypocrite?”
“No. I’m calling you a drunk old quitter but you know whatever, potato potahto.” Jim was pacing now the frantic energy he’d been stifling within himself finally rising back up to the surface, “You run away when things get hard instead of dealing with it. It’s not like that in the real world Leonard McCoy, not all of us can be award winning, baby kissing, I’ve got my shit together Doctors with charming fucking accents on top. No. The rest of us deal with this, with the death and the silence and the danger and the mother fucking disease. But you know what. it’s fine, you run, run away like every other person always has.”
He stood there, eyes burning, shoulders rising and falling with every breath while Leonard continued to calmly survey him, arms still crossed.
“We still talkin about me, Jim?”
It was like the straw that broke the camel’s back, the way Jim suddenly sagged, a marionette with all it’s strings cut. Leonard caught him, hands slipping under armpits to support his sagging weight. His breath was uneven, face turned into Leonard’s neck.
“Woah, S’alright, I gottcha.” He wrapped his arms around Jim’s back squeezing him tightly, tighter, anything to ease the ache,
“I gottcha,” he breathed into Jim’s hair, squeezing his own eyes shut at the feel of sobs wracking Jim’s body.
Music from somewhere on campus floated in through the open window, a somber elegant tune, a salute to fallen comrades, a celebration of the life still churning away in their bodies. Jim’s sob grew quieter, and almost unconsciously Leonard began to gently sway, rocking the body in his arms for comfort, keeping time with the music.
After a few more long minutes Jim shifted, hooking his chin over the back of Leonard’s shoulder.
“What are we doing, Bones?” he whispered, voice cracked.
“Hmm?” Leonard lifted his cheek from where it had been rested upon Jim’s head.
“I’m sorry,” he sighed quietly into Leonard’s ear, “I didn’t mean-”
“Yeah you did, and I’m sorry too. ‘M not leavin’, you should know that.”
They were quiet for another minute more, feet shuffling as they swayed and turned together, slow and simple as molasses.
“Are we dancing?” Jim asked at last, cheek to cheek now, arms still tightly wound about one another.
“Sure.”
“I haven’t slow danced with anyone since...” he paused, his breath huffed over Leonard’s ear, “I haven’t ever actually.”
“Well, there’s a first time for everything.”
Jim loosed his grip upon Leonard then, pulling back just enough, bringing their faces together slowly, too intimate to be anything less than romantic in intentions. He closed his eyes, swallowing as Jim’s nose bumped against his, brow to brow stubble scraping each other’s lips.
“Look at me, Bones.”
He swallowed and slowly reopened his eyes, Jim’s face too close to really see anything much more than a brilliant blue blur, but then it doesn’t really matter as warm dry lips slide against his own and his eyes slipped closed one again.
When they part just enough to rest their foreheads together, their swaying has stopped and so has the music, but Leonard is still squeezing Jim hard enough his arms are beginning to hurt.
“How’re your joints?” he asks letting go slowly, but unable to step away, or to properly address what was happening between them.
“Better.”