[FIC] Paint It Black Lavender
Title: Paint It Black Lavender
Author: Lilas (pegasus_01/pavlovs_kitten)
Universe: Reboot
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 2,462
Genre: cracktastic angsty fluff
Warnings: None.
Summary: “So, do you know where I could buy a few gallons of non-toxic paint?”
Group: 4
Prompts: lavender field, scissors, swimming lessons, blind
Beta: nusuth (without whom I would not have had a plot and this would totally suck)
A/N: This fic was for the K/S Relativity challenge, which was inspired by the Food Network show "Chopped". Basically a whole bunch of people gave ideas of a location, an object, an event/activity, and something miscellaneous, and claimers were assigned an "ingredient" from each group and had to come up with a fic/art/whatever.
There was something to be said for having been Jim Kirk’s best friend and roommate. For one, McCoy’s patience had increased in proportion with his stress levels, and his bed side manners, although not necessarily better, weren’t as awful as they used to be (at least not around people whose names did not rhyme with dirk). The 3 a.m. bar calls had eventually become routine and the random strangers knocking at his door in the middle of the day to tell him Kirk had been taken to the infirmary had, unfortunately, become expected. McCoy had come to expect the unexpected and rarely did double-takes at the shit Kirk got himself into. To expect Jim to go through a single day without doing something crazy was like expecting the sun to suddenly stop shining. And this hadn’t changed just because the kid had become a captain.
Even so, there was only so much a person could handle, regardless of their level of sanity.
“Pass that by me again,” McCoy said, staring incredulously at his friend.
Jim squirmed, sighed, and crossed his arms in front of his chest defensively. “Do I have to?”
McCoy blinked. “Yes, Jim, you do. Because I couldn’t possibly have heard you correctly the first time.”
Kirk sighed. “I need paint.”
“Yes, I did hear that part. But there was more to the word vomit from a few sentences ago,” McCoy said, staring and waiting.
“I need purple paint. Preferably lavender,” Jim mused, blue eyes wandering in thought.
“Yes, I remember hearing that too,” McCoy nodded sagely, his stylus still in the same position on his PADD as it had been when Jim had first brought up the topic.
“It’d look better in lavender than grape.”
“See, that, right there,” McCoy cut him off, throwing the stylus onto the stack of PADD in front of him, “is where I start losing you.”
Jim sighed. “Look, Bones, it’s really not that difficult to understand. Gary and I made a bet, I lost.”
“And now you’re going to paint the football field lavender?”
“Well,” Jim amended, “he only said purple. But there are so many shades of purple, and I like lavender the best.”
“You like laven…” McCoy stopped himself and groaned, leaning his forehead into his hands and grinding down on his eyes. “You give me a migraine, kid.”
“So?” Jim asked impatiently as he took two steps forward and poked McCoy in the shoulder.
“So what?” McCoy barked, hands pressing down further into his eyes.
“So, do you know where I could buy a few gallons of non-toxic paint, of course. That was the original question, remember?”
“How could I forget?” McCoy groaned. Jim grinned shamelessly. “I am not helping you.”
“That’s fine,” Jim said, nodding sagely.
“No,” McCoy said, raising his head up and glaring at Kirk. “I don’t think you understand. I. Am not. Helping you. At all.”
Jim’s face went from sly to crestfallen in half a second. “But Booones! I neeeed you!”
“No. Now go away. I have medical journals to catch up on now that we’re finally on shore leave,” McCoy grumbled as he picked up his stylus from the stack of PADDs in front of him.
Jim crossed his arms and stared daggers at the doctor, blue eyes blazing, and waited. After five years of living in each other’s pockets, Jim had learned that McCoy had a breaking point and that all he’d have to do was be… very… silent… and… imposing…
“What?! What?!” McCoy yelled as he looked up, right eye twitching and hand clenching around his stylus.
“Paaaaint!”
“You sound like a demented zombie. Go away.”
“Oh, come on, Bones,” Jim whined, plopping himself on McCoy’s bed and crossing his legs Indian style. “I just need to know what paint to get so that people won’t die when they’re playing on the field.”
“I will not be an accomplice into creating a lavender field, Jim.”
“A name,” Jim begged as he threw himself onto the pile of PADD in front of Bones and causing a stack of them to tumble off the bed.
“Jim!” McCoy shouted exasperated.
“Pleeeaase!” Jim whined some more.
“I will stab your eye out with my scissors!” McCoy threatened even as his eyes started wandering around the room, clearly looking for the shiny, pointy weapon.
“No you won’t. You love me too much.”
McCoy sighed. He grabbed one of the PADDs dangling precariously at the edge of the bed and scribbled something on it before handing it off to the blonde mass of energy in front of him.
“There. Do not let anyone link this back to me. I don’t want to know anything else about this. Ever. Do you hear me?”
Jim grinned maniacally as he grabbed the PADD. “Crystal.”
McCoy shook his head as he watched him bounce off the bed and run out the door. There was no way that this would end in anything but madness and a massive headache for him. He just hoped that Jim didn’t end up getting admitted into the hospital in the process of completing his mad scientist plans.
****
“James Tiberius Kirk,” McCoy growled as he stared disbelievingly at the man in front of him.
Jim crossed his arms over his chest defensively. “Stop that, Bones. You sound like my mother.”
“Good. The woman is a saint. How she survived you and kept her sanity is a mystery.”
“I was the perfect child,” Jim rebuffed.
“Perfect terror,” McCoy grumbled.
Jim waved his hand dismissively. “You say to-mah-to, I say to-mai-to. Semantics.” Jim batted Bones’ hands away as the doctor placed them on his cheeks to turn his head to the right. “It’s fine, Bones. Leave it be. It’ll wear off.”
“Fine?” McCoy asked incredulously. “How is any of this even remotely in the same stratosphere as ‘fine’?”
“Relax. Besides, it was totally worth it,” Jim replied.
“Were you even able to see the final result before the allergy hit?” McCoy asked skeptically.
“’See’ is such an ambiguous word,” Jim evaded.
“Before the paint made you blind, Jim,” McCoy growled as he stuck the man with a hypo.
Jim yelped and started even as McCoy instinctively grabbed onto his bicep to prevent him from falling off of the examination table.
“Easy there,” McCoy coaxed, his thumb absentmindedly rubbing the spot on Jim’s neck.
“Doctor McCoy.”
Both Jim and McCoy started at the new voice and instinctively turned towards the door to see the newcomer. Jim immediately cursed and turned back to staring at the wall, shoulders tensed and back hunched as his hands clenched around the medical mattress.
“Spock,” McCoy greeted, the hand on Jim’s neck reflexively squeezing the blonde’s shoulder in an attempt to drain the tension there.
“Captain,” the Vulcan said, head titling sideways minutely to try and look at the man.
Jim only tensed further and refused to answer. Spock’s eyebrow arched up at the action and his questioning gaze wandered back to the doctor. McCoy sighed exasperatedly and rolled his eyes but refrained from saying the first few words that popped in his head, every single one of which was a curse word acting as an adjective to describe what he thought of Jim at the moment. Instead he squeezed Jim’s shoulder one more time.
“The Captain has had a…” McCoy paused.
“Mishap,” Jim supplied.
“It’s a lot more than a ‘mishap,’ Jimmy,” McCoy snapped, hand squeezing in irritation.
Spock narrowed his eyes. “Captain, if you would please explain?” he queried.
McCoy watched from the corner of his eyes has Jim’s lips thinned and his blue, unfocused eyes stared at some undetermined spot somewhere in front of him. McCoy could already tell that this line of questioning was going to go nowhere fast.
“He’s blind.”
“Bones!” Jim said indignantly.
“He’s blind?” Spock parroted, his other eyebrow joining its brother at his hairline. “Jim?” he asked as he finally stepped forward and around the biobed to get a look at the blonde.
“I’m fine,” Jim snapped, cheeks flushed red in anger and embarrassment.
“Jim,” Spock whispered, one hand stretching out to touch the man but stopping halfway there at Jim’s flinch.
“I apologize, Captain,” Spock said, immediately retrieving his hand.
“No. Sorry,” Jim mumbled. “You just… You startled me.”
McCoy watched silently as the Vulcan’s lips thinned unhappily and Spock took two more steps until he was standing in front of Jim.
“May I touch you?” he asked even as he reached out. He waited until Jim had nodded to cup the man’s cheek and rub the pad of his thumb underneath one of Jim’s eyes. “What happened?”
“Allergic reaction,” McCoy replied.
“To what?” Spock asked as he watched the doctor wander towards the main part of the infirmary and to the cabinet dedicated to storing the medication the Captain was not allergic to.
“Paint, apparently,” McCoy said, finally finding the joke in all of this.
“Paint?” Spock asked incredulously, brown eyes roaming from McCoy to Kirk. “I do not understand…”
“Well,” McCoy said, his voice muffled as he rummaged around the cabinet, “Jimmy here made a bet with Lieutenant Mitchell about two days ago.”
“Bones!” Jim whined indignantly. “What ever happened to doctor-patient confidentiality?”
“It only applies to divulging patient maladies, not the ways they got said maladies,” McCoy replied smugly.
“Captain,” Spock interrupted, eyebrows slowly coming together into a frown. “Am I to understand that you were somehow involved in the football field’s new color palette?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about, Mr. Spock,” Jim replied back innocently, unfocused blue eyes staring straight ahead.
“Jim,” Spock said softly. “I will not report you. But if you were involved, I wish to know what paint was used so I may begin researching the various components to discover which one set off the allergic reaction so we know not to use it in the future.”
“Oh,” Jim said stupidly. “I used Avreno number 00326. A lot of it. And I used a spray hose.”
“What precautionary methods did you employ?” Spock questioned.
“The usual. Gloves, mask, plastic goggles. But it took me most of the night to get the entire field painted; I’d say about six to seven hours.”
Spock nodded absentmindedly. “Even with full on protection, over such long hours the fumes of the paint would have made their way past the protective barrier of the goggles.” Spock fell silent for a few seconds as he studied Jim’s face before he sighed softly. “Doctor,” he said and paused.
McCoy groaned at the tone of voice. “What now, Spock?”
“I would request that you allow my team to isolate the component that caused the reaction before administering an antidote on the Captain.”
“Huh,” McCoy mused. “That’s reasonable.”
“How long is that gonna take?” Jim complained from the biobed. “I’d like my eyesight back sooner rather than later.”
“Then you should have thought about that before you decided to paint the football field purple, Jim,” McCoy berated.
“Lavender,” Jim smarted at the comment, clearly annoyed.
“I cannot speak as to how long it will take, Captain,” Spock replied before McCoy could say anything to Jim’s correction on the color, his hand leaving Jim’s face to rest behind his back. “I will be sure to keep you and Doctor McCoy appraised of the situation.”
“Fine,” Jim snapped, arms once again crossing over his chest. “Bones, could you give us a minute?”
“Take your time, Jim. I’ll go find you a cane.”
“I do not need a cane!” Jim yelled even as McCoy jogged out of the room with a grin on his face. “Stupid Bones. He thinks this is hilarious.”
“Only because it will not be permanent,” Spock said watching Jim closely.
Jim visibly deflated at that, hands coming to rest limply on his thighs. “Yes, I hope not.” Spock stood silently by his side, waiting for more. “So,” Jim finally said, and Spock smiled slightly at how well he had come to know the man. “I guess this means we’ll have to shelve our plans.”
“It would appear so, Jim,” Spock concurred.
“I was really looking forward to it.”
“As was I. However, swim lessons seem a superfluous activity when the student cannot see the instructor.”
“Fuck, Spock. I’m really starting to think I’m not supposed to learn how to swim. Every single time I’m going to learn, something happens,” Jim said, frustration coloring his every word.
“You are exaggerating, Jim. Besides, I am sure it will take me a week at most to isolate the component and find an antidote,” Spock reassured him.
“Spock,” Jim said as he turned his face towards the Vulcan and stared slightly to the right of his face. “First, I was allergic to the chlorine they used in the pool. Then, Tarsus happened. Then, I was too busy being self-destructive and an overall asshole to everyone. Then, I was too busy trying to complete Starfleet in three years. And finally, I’ve been in a starship for two years.”
“The Enterprise is equipped with a pool, Jim,” Spock pointed out.
Jim glared. “And when, exactly, would I have found the time to learn how to swim while captaining a starship, Mr. Spock?”
“If you had truly wished to learned, you would have found a way.” Spock watched as Jim’s face pinched in silent frustration and defeat. “Jim,” he said softly, his hands coming to rest on top of the blonde’s. “There is no need to be ashamed.”
“Spock, I’m a twenty-eight year old starship captain who doesn’t know how to swim. Do you have any idea how much of a liability that is?”
“That is precisely why I shall teach you. However,” Spock continued before Jim could say anything, “the lessons can wait until you are no longer blind.”
Jim pouted silently on the biobed for a moment longer before a slow, sly grin painted over his lips. “Well,” he said flippantly as he snaked his hands from underneath Spock’s and placed them behind him to support himself as he leaned back on the biobed. “I’m sure we can get started on some of the lessons while I’m in this state.”
Spock raised his eyebrow at the statement. “What do you have in mind, Captain?”
“Breathing exercises,” Jim replied, blue eyes mischievous as he licked his lips deliberately.
Spock let a small, fond smile spread over his lips at Jim’s insinuation. “That is an excellent idea, Jim,” he murmured as he stepped forward to stand between Jim’s thighs and leaned forward.
“Not in my infirmary!” McCoy shouted from his office. “Out!”
Jim grinned wickedly and winked at Spock before he grabbed a handful of Spock’s uniform to haul him forward and kiss him soundly in the middle of McCoy’s precious infirmary. Sometimes the excepted was the only way to go.
*****
AND ITS SEQUEL (SORT OF): CURIOUS THING
Author: Lilas (pegasus_01/pavlovs_kitten)
Universe: Reboot
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 2,462
Genre: cracktastic angsty fluff
Warnings: None.
Summary: “So, do you know where I could buy a few gallons of non-toxic paint?”
Group: 4
Prompts: lavender field, scissors, swimming lessons, blind
Beta: nusuth (without whom I would not have had a plot and this would totally suck)
A/N: This fic was for the K/S Relativity challenge, which was inspired by the Food Network show "Chopped". Basically a whole bunch of people gave ideas of a location, an object, an event/activity, and something miscellaneous, and claimers were assigned an "ingredient" from each group and had to come up with a fic/art/whatever.
There was something to be said for having been Jim Kirk’s best friend and roommate. For one, McCoy’s patience had increased in proportion with his stress levels, and his bed side manners, although not necessarily better, weren’t as awful as they used to be (at least not around people whose names did not rhyme with dirk). The 3 a.m. bar calls had eventually become routine and the random strangers knocking at his door in the middle of the day to tell him Kirk had been taken to the infirmary had, unfortunately, become expected. McCoy had come to expect the unexpected and rarely did double-takes at the shit Kirk got himself into. To expect Jim to go through a single day without doing something crazy was like expecting the sun to suddenly stop shining. And this hadn’t changed just because the kid had become a captain.
Even so, there was only so much a person could handle, regardless of their level of sanity.
“Pass that by me again,” McCoy said, staring incredulously at his friend.
Jim squirmed, sighed, and crossed his arms in front of his chest defensively. “Do I have to?”
McCoy blinked. “Yes, Jim, you do. Because I couldn’t possibly have heard you correctly the first time.”
Kirk sighed. “I need paint.”
“Yes, I did hear that part. But there was more to the word vomit from a few sentences ago,” McCoy said, staring and waiting.
“I need purple paint. Preferably lavender,” Jim mused, blue eyes wandering in thought.
“Yes, I remember hearing that too,” McCoy nodded sagely, his stylus still in the same position on his PADD as it had been when Jim had first brought up the topic.
“It’d look better in lavender than grape.”
“See, that, right there,” McCoy cut him off, throwing the stylus onto the stack of PADD in front of him, “is where I start losing you.”
Jim sighed. “Look, Bones, it’s really not that difficult to understand. Gary and I made a bet, I lost.”
“And now you’re going to paint the football field lavender?”
“Well,” Jim amended, “he only said purple. But there are so many shades of purple, and I like lavender the best.”
“You like laven…” McCoy stopped himself and groaned, leaning his forehead into his hands and grinding down on his eyes. “You give me a migraine, kid.”
“So?” Jim asked impatiently as he took two steps forward and poked McCoy in the shoulder.
“So what?” McCoy barked, hands pressing down further into his eyes.
“So, do you know where I could buy a few gallons of non-toxic paint, of course. That was the original question, remember?”
“How could I forget?” McCoy groaned. Jim grinned shamelessly. “I am not helping you.”
“That’s fine,” Jim said, nodding sagely.
“No,” McCoy said, raising his head up and glaring at Kirk. “I don’t think you understand. I. Am not. Helping you. At all.”
Jim’s face went from sly to crestfallen in half a second. “But Booones! I neeeed you!”
“No. Now go away. I have medical journals to catch up on now that we’re finally on shore leave,” McCoy grumbled as he picked up his stylus from the stack of PADDs in front of him.
Jim crossed his arms and stared daggers at the doctor, blue eyes blazing, and waited. After five years of living in each other’s pockets, Jim had learned that McCoy had a breaking point and that all he’d have to do was be… very… silent… and… imposing…
“What?! What?!” McCoy yelled as he looked up, right eye twitching and hand clenching around his stylus.
“Paaaaint!”
“You sound like a demented zombie. Go away.”
“Oh, come on, Bones,” Jim whined, plopping himself on McCoy’s bed and crossing his legs Indian style. “I just need to know what paint to get so that people won’t die when they’re playing on the field.”
“I will not be an accomplice into creating a lavender field, Jim.”
“A name,” Jim begged as he threw himself onto the pile of PADD in front of Bones and causing a stack of them to tumble off the bed.
“Jim!” McCoy shouted exasperated.
“Pleeeaase!” Jim whined some more.
“I will stab your eye out with my scissors!” McCoy threatened even as his eyes started wandering around the room, clearly looking for the shiny, pointy weapon.
“No you won’t. You love me too much.”
McCoy sighed. He grabbed one of the PADDs dangling precariously at the edge of the bed and scribbled something on it before handing it off to the blonde mass of energy in front of him.
“There. Do not let anyone link this back to me. I don’t want to know anything else about this. Ever. Do you hear me?”
Jim grinned maniacally as he grabbed the PADD. “Crystal.”
McCoy shook his head as he watched him bounce off the bed and run out the door. There was no way that this would end in anything but madness and a massive headache for him. He just hoped that Jim didn’t end up getting admitted into the hospital in the process of completing his mad scientist plans.
****
“James Tiberius Kirk,” McCoy growled as he stared disbelievingly at the man in front of him.
Jim crossed his arms over his chest defensively. “Stop that, Bones. You sound like my mother.”
“Good. The woman is a saint. How she survived you and kept her sanity is a mystery.”
“I was the perfect child,” Jim rebuffed.
“Perfect terror,” McCoy grumbled.
Jim waved his hand dismissively. “You say to-mah-to, I say to-mai-to. Semantics.” Jim batted Bones’ hands away as the doctor placed them on his cheeks to turn his head to the right. “It’s fine, Bones. Leave it be. It’ll wear off.”
“Fine?” McCoy asked incredulously. “How is any of this even remotely in the same stratosphere as ‘fine’?”
“Relax. Besides, it was totally worth it,” Jim replied.
“Were you even able to see the final result before the allergy hit?” McCoy asked skeptically.
“’See’ is such an ambiguous word,” Jim evaded.
“Before the paint made you blind, Jim,” McCoy growled as he stuck the man with a hypo.
Jim yelped and started even as McCoy instinctively grabbed onto his bicep to prevent him from falling off of the examination table.
“Easy there,” McCoy coaxed, his thumb absentmindedly rubbing the spot on Jim’s neck.
“Doctor McCoy.”
Both Jim and McCoy started at the new voice and instinctively turned towards the door to see the newcomer. Jim immediately cursed and turned back to staring at the wall, shoulders tensed and back hunched as his hands clenched around the medical mattress.
“Spock,” McCoy greeted, the hand on Jim’s neck reflexively squeezing the blonde’s shoulder in an attempt to drain the tension there.
“Captain,” the Vulcan said, head titling sideways minutely to try and look at the man.
Jim only tensed further and refused to answer. Spock’s eyebrow arched up at the action and his questioning gaze wandered back to the doctor. McCoy sighed exasperatedly and rolled his eyes but refrained from saying the first few words that popped in his head, every single one of which was a curse word acting as an adjective to describe what he thought of Jim at the moment. Instead he squeezed Jim’s shoulder one more time.
“The Captain has had a…” McCoy paused.
“Mishap,” Jim supplied.
“It’s a lot more than a ‘mishap,’ Jimmy,” McCoy snapped, hand squeezing in irritation.
Spock narrowed his eyes. “Captain, if you would please explain?” he queried.
McCoy watched from the corner of his eyes has Jim’s lips thinned and his blue, unfocused eyes stared at some undetermined spot somewhere in front of him. McCoy could already tell that this line of questioning was going to go nowhere fast.
“He’s blind.”
“Bones!” Jim said indignantly.
“He’s blind?” Spock parroted, his other eyebrow joining its brother at his hairline. “Jim?” he asked as he finally stepped forward and around the biobed to get a look at the blonde.
“I’m fine,” Jim snapped, cheeks flushed red in anger and embarrassment.
“Jim,” Spock whispered, one hand stretching out to touch the man but stopping halfway there at Jim’s flinch.
“I apologize, Captain,” Spock said, immediately retrieving his hand.
“No. Sorry,” Jim mumbled. “You just… You startled me.”
McCoy watched silently as the Vulcan’s lips thinned unhappily and Spock took two more steps until he was standing in front of Jim.
“May I touch you?” he asked even as he reached out. He waited until Jim had nodded to cup the man’s cheek and rub the pad of his thumb underneath one of Jim’s eyes. “What happened?”
“Allergic reaction,” McCoy replied.
“To what?” Spock asked as he watched the doctor wander towards the main part of the infirmary and to the cabinet dedicated to storing the medication the Captain was not allergic to.
“Paint, apparently,” McCoy said, finally finding the joke in all of this.
“Paint?” Spock asked incredulously, brown eyes roaming from McCoy to Kirk. “I do not understand…”
“Well,” McCoy said, his voice muffled as he rummaged around the cabinet, “Jimmy here made a bet with Lieutenant Mitchell about two days ago.”
“Bones!” Jim whined indignantly. “What ever happened to doctor-patient confidentiality?”
“It only applies to divulging patient maladies, not the ways they got said maladies,” McCoy replied smugly.
“Captain,” Spock interrupted, eyebrows slowly coming together into a frown. “Am I to understand that you were somehow involved in the football field’s new color palette?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about, Mr. Spock,” Jim replied back innocently, unfocused blue eyes staring straight ahead.
“Jim,” Spock said softly. “I will not report you. But if you were involved, I wish to know what paint was used so I may begin researching the various components to discover which one set off the allergic reaction so we know not to use it in the future.”
“Oh,” Jim said stupidly. “I used Avreno number 00326. A lot of it. And I used a spray hose.”
“What precautionary methods did you employ?” Spock questioned.
“The usual. Gloves, mask, plastic goggles. But it took me most of the night to get the entire field painted; I’d say about six to seven hours.”
Spock nodded absentmindedly. “Even with full on protection, over such long hours the fumes of the paint would have made their way past the protective barrier of the goggles.” Spock fell silent for a few seconds as he studied Jim’s face before he sighed softly. “Doctor,” he said and paused.
McCoy groaned at the tone of voice. “What now, Spock?”
“I would request that you allow my team to isolate the component that caused the reaction before administering an antidote on the Captain.”
“Huh,” McCoy mused. “That’s reasonable.”
“How long is that gonna take?” Jim complained from the biobed. “I’d like my eyesight back sooner rather than later.”
“Then you should have thought about that before you decided to paint the football field purple, Jim,” McCoy berated.
“Lavender,” Jim smarted at the comment, clearly annoyed.
“I cannot speak as to how long it will take, Captain,” Spock replied before McCoy could say anything to Jim’s correction on the color, his hand leaving Jim’s face to rest behind his back. “I will be sure to keep you and Doctor McCoy appraised of the situation.”
“Fine,” Jim snapped, arms once again crossing over his chest. “Bones, could you give us a minute?”
“Take your time, Jim. I’ll go find you a cane.”
“I do not need a cane!” Jim yelled even as McCoy jogged out of the room with a grin on his face. “Stupid Bones. He thinks this is hilarious.”
“Only because it will not be permanent,” Spock said watching Jim closely.
Jim visibly deflated at that, hands coming to rest limply on his thighs. “Yes, I hope not.” Spock stood silently by his side, waiting for more. “So,” Jim finally said, and Spock smiled slightly at how well he had come to know the man. “I guess this means we’ll have to shelve our plans.”
“It would appear so, Jim,” Spock concurred.
“I was really looking forward to it.”
“As was I. However, swim lessons seem a superfluous activity when the student cannot see the instructor.”
“Fuck, Spock. I’m really starting to think I’m not supposed to learn how to swim. Every single time I’m going to learn, something happens,” Jim said, frustration coloring his every word.
“You are exaggerating, Jim. Besides, I am sure it will take me a week at most to isolate the component and find an antidote,” Spock reassured him.
“Spock,” Jim said as he turned his face towards the Vulcan and stared slightly to the right of his face. “First, I was allergic to the chlorine they used in the pool. Then, Tarsus happened. Then, I was too busy being self-destructive and an overall asshole to everyone. Then, I was too busy trying to complete Starfleet in three years. And finally, I’ve been in a starship for two years.”
“The Enterprise is equipped with a pool, Jim,” Spock pointed out.
Jim glared. “And when, exactly, would I have found the time to learn how to swim while captaining a starship, Mr. Spock?”
“If you had truly wished to learned, you would have found a way.” Spock watched as Jim’s face pinched in silent frustration and defeat. “Jim,” he said softly, his hands coming to rest on top of the blonde’s. “There is no need to be ashamed.”
“Spock, I’m a twenty-eight year old starship captain who doesn’t know how to swim. Do you have any idea how much of a liability that is?”
“That is precisely why I shall teach you. However,” Spock continued before Jim could say anything, “the lessons can wait until you are no longer blind.”
Jim pouted silently on the biobed for a moment longer before a slow, sly grin painted over his lips. “Well,” he said flippantly as he snaked his hands from underneath Spock’s and placed them behind him to support himself as he leaned back on the biobed. “I’m sure we can get started on some of the lessons while I’m in this state.”
Spock raised his eyebrow at the statement. “What do you have in mind, Captain?”
“Breathing exercises,” Jim replied, blue eyes mischievous as he licked his lips deliberately.
Spock let a small, fond smile spread over his lips at Jim’s insinuation. “That is an excellent idea, Jim,” he murmured as he stepped forward to stand between Jim’s thighs and leaned forward.
“Not in my infirmary!” McCoy shouted from his office. “Out!”
Jim grinned wickedly and winked at Spock before he grabbed a handful of Spock’s uniform to haul him forward and kiss him soundly in the middle of McCoy’s precious infirmary. Sometimes the excepted was the only way to go.
*****
AND ITS SEQUEL (SORT OF): CURIOUS THING