Author: Clio
Title: The Pajama Game
Pairing: Star Trek: James T. Kirk/Leonard "Bones" McCoy
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Bones just wants to do a little something nice for their wedding night, is all.
Length: 1300 words
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created by Gene Roddenberry and owned by one of the large media companies in a complicated arrangement to which I am not a signatory. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
Notes: Written for a prompt on the
buckleup_meme. Fulfills the "bedtime rituals" square on my
schmoop_bingo card.
Bones stood in the bathroom, willing himself to calm the fuck down. He had nothing to be nervous about, after all; it might be Jim’s first time, but it wasn’t his. He breathed out and checked himself in the mirror again, and remembered how this entire pajama thing got started in the first place-over five years ago, at the start of their first mission.
When he'd thought about it-which was more often than he'd liked in the beginning-Bones had figured Jim for a nude sleeper, maybe throw on some shorts for decency if he wasn't alone. And while he and Jim stayed over in each other’s rooms more than a few times after they started dating, they weren't really living together, so Bones wasn't privy to Jim's workaday bedtime ritual until they were on board the Enterprise.
Bones wasn't surprised that Jim was fixated on oral hygiene, actually brushing his teeth for the entire recommended time as well as flossing and rinsing, because he used those pearly whites as a weapon in his diplomatic missions. Nor was it a shock to watch Jim obsess over whether or not he was about to get a blemish; he'd had a bad time of it as a teenager and bar fights weren't the only thing he'd hoped he'd left behind in his younger days. And Bones already knew about his self-administered pedicures because he'd taught Bones how to do them and insisted on them not long after they'd started fucking.
What he hadn't been expecting was that as he was doing all these things each night, he was wearing pajama pants. Not boxers, like Bones, nor those glorified sweats known as sleep pants, but proper woven cotton pajamas with snaps at the waist and a fly and everything, in a variety of solid colors with piping. There were tops to them, too, but he rarely wore them unless it was unusually chilly in his room or someone knocked on the door. And damn if they didn't make him look, well, like a grown up. Like a man.
"Thought you were the pack lightly type," Bones said. "Not one for sleepwear."
"When I travel," Jim said. "Not when I'm home."
Bones nodded, still a little taken aback when Jim referred to the Enterprise, or really these two cabins of it, as home. But it was, at least for the next five years. "Well, they look good on you."
"Thanks," Jim said, smiling at him in the mirror. "Tiberius wore them, and I just thought they looked cool." He glanced down Bones's body. "But don't you be getting any ideas."
"Me?" he asked. "Why not?"
Jim ran a hand down Bones's thigh. "I like the view," he said with a smirk, then went back to flossing.
Bones blinked. After two years of dating he still wasn't used to Jim's open ogling of his body, nor his casual possessiveness now that they'd decided to be exclusive, but he at least he didn't blush or stammer any more.
"Thanks," he said. "Good to know."
It was a few years later, a bit after the midpoint of the five-year mission, that Jim gave Bones the other piece of the Jim-in-pajamas puzzle.
After a particularly lousy week, during which they'd all had to pull several rabbits out of the hat to find a way to get what the Federation wanted without screwing over the locals in the process, Jim and Bones were kicking back on Jim's couch with a classic holovid-Bullitt, one of Jim's favorites. He liked to say because of the action and the car chases, but Bones knew Jim had a big hard-on for Steve McQueen. During a scene where Bullitt was home with his girlfriend, a leggy British brunette, Jim moaned.
"I thought you liked McQueen," Bones said.
"No, I am McQueen," Jim replied, as always.
"Right," Bones replied, dubious.
"I'd just forgotten how sexy a girl looks in a pajama top."
"Not that much shorter than a standard Starfleet uniform," Bones said.
"Yeah, but those leave nothing to the imagination," Jim replied. "Even the men's uniforms. Everyone can see how broad your shoulders are. But the pajama top, sure, you can see her legs but on top it's loose. She might not even be wearing panties, but you can't tell by looking at her."
Bones raised his eyebrows. "Is that why you've kept all those pajama tops?" he asked.
Jim grinned and ran his hand along the underside of Bones's thigh. "Don't worry," he said. "It's been a long time since I've seen a girl in a pajama top of mine, and I'm thinking it won't be happening again. The right man in a pair of boxer shorts, though, is even sexier." He waggled his eyebrows.
"Is that so?" Bones asked, leaning down to plant a kiss on Jim's neck.
"Bones, the car chase is next," Jim said.
Bones picked up the remote and paused the vid. "We'll watch it later," he said, pushing Jim down onto the cushion without much resistance.
By the time they were headed back to Earth, at the end of that five-year mission, things between Bones and Jim had been so tested and were still so solid that asking Jim to marry him had been simple. Well, the decision was simple; the actual process was kind of complicated, because he’d made a show of it, the kind of thing that pleased Jim because it made him feel special for something other than being the Poster-Boy Captain.
So compared to that, dressing up a bit for their wedding night shouldn’t have been nerve-wracking in the least. He and Jim had had plenty of sex before now, and who had sex on their wedding night anyway? But it was Jim's first, and he'd been so aware through the whole thing that it wasn't Bones's first, trying to be casual about the wedding though not the marriage, that Bones had wanted to do something special for him. And since those broad shoulders Jim liked so much looked pretty damn ridiculous in a peignoir, he'd gone another route.
"What the hell, Bones?" Jim called out. "Whatcha doing in there?"
Bones looked at himself in the mirror again, adjusted his hair, and sighed, shaking the tension out of his back and arms. He turned and opened the bathroom door just enough to peek his head out. "Sorry," he said, slowly opening the door.
Jim cocked his head, narrowing his eyes. "Bones? Thought I told you no paj-oh." He sat up slowly. "Where did you-"
"Custom made," he said, pushing the bathroom door shut and leaning against it. "I uh, had a couple tops made when we ordered your new ones. You know, so they'd match. I mean, you still have pajama tops that fit you, of course. There's just a couple that fit me."
"You mean, don't fit you," Jim said, and he was right. The pajama top was oversized and hung from Bones's shoulders; the bottom hem hit him at the upper thigh. "Come here."
Bones walked over to where Jim sat on the bed, naked, his back against the headboard. "So you like it?" Bones asked.
"Oh I like it a lot," Jim said. "Just want to know if you're wearing anything under it."
"Well, darlin', that's for me to know," he replied, straddling Jim and sitting in his lap, "and you to find out."