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d8rkmessngrTitle: Standby 3/4
Author: d8rkmessngr
Fandom: Star Trek: Reboot'verse
Pairing: Kirk/McCoy
Rating: PG-13, angst, h/c, first time
Words: 23,000+, complete (yup, you read right!)
Summary: He was glad Bones was dating again. He was. Really. But what Jim thought was good for Bones turned out to be oh, so wrong for Jim. For this prompt in![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
st_xi_kink.
Warnings: implied past abuse, attempted non-con, sap (lol)
Part 1
Part 2
Jim stood swaying at the back end of the medical building. The sun was warm on his face, but disorienting as it reminded him just how long he was stuck indoors. He rubbed at the back of his head, scowling as he felt the smooth, too smooth spot at the back of his skull. Great.
"Damn it," Jim grumbled as he felt the area. Stupid brain surgery.
"For God's sake, it'll grow back in a week, you narcissistic brat."
Out of nowhere, a cap was shoved over his head, over the spot, the brim pulled over his eyes. Jim staggered, spun around and frowned.
"What are you doing here?" Jim demanded. He lowered the fists that came up.
Bones leaned against the statue of whoever Starfleet Medical thought was important, his arms folded in front of him. He was back in uniform, clean-shaven again, and smirking.
"Waiting for you," Bones drawled. He nodded towards the exit Jim came out of. "Figured you wouldn't stagger out the front." He scowled.
"The doctors said a week and while I think he's a senile twenty-second century quack, I do agree with him on this."
Jim shrugged. "I feel fine."
"You don't look fine." Bones waved towards the cap he crammed over Jim's head.
Jim scowled and readjusted the cap over his head, covering his bald spot. Jim made a face at Bones. "Ouch." He opened his arms. "I think a good portion of the campus would disagree with you." He smirked but at Bones's far too serious face, Jim sobered. He just shrugged again.
"Anyway," Jim muttered. "I feel better, okay? I could rest in my dorm room." He studied Bones.
"What?"
Jim shrugged as he turned back around to head down the east path towards his quad.
"Figured you had class," Jim said casually. His chest, however, felt oddly lighter as he sensed Bones walking behind him.
Bones scoffed. "Not yet. But with the suspension hearing done this morning, I should be allowed back into—"
Jim skidded to a halt. He whipped around; a mistake because Bones's right arm shot out to grab his shoulder when he tottered.
"Will you watch it? Your equili—"
"What hearing?" Jim demanded around the lump lodged in his throat, the churning nausea slowly settling under Bones's grip. "What suspension?"
"Will you calm down?" Bones was in his face now. "Dammit, Jim. You're still—"
"What. Suspension?" Jim ground out.
Bones sighed. He rolled his eyes. "For fighting, okay? For hitting...you know..." Bones scratched his jaw with a thumb and took a step back.
Jim stared. "For fighting? You? I usually have to get you piss drunk before you would even miss class by ten minutes."
Bones scowled. "Don't remind me." He shrugged and dropped an arm around Jim's shoulders, steering him the other way.
"Wait, wait, wait. You were really suspended?" Jim's head spun. "For hitting Ad—" Jim halted and Bones had no choice but to stop as well. Jim tilted his head up, his eyes narrowing at Bones.
"You...you hit Adam," Jim said flatly. He tensed. "Why? Because...because you thought we were..."
Bones exhaled sharply. "Because he said you were coming on to...dammit, Jim, I hit him because..." Bones dropped his arm from Jim's shoulders.
"So," Jim digested, "you didn't believe him?"
"Look, you can be a pain in the ass, a loud mouth, the most conceited, crazy son of a bitch I ever met, but..." Bones opened his hands in the air, his smile crooked.
"You're just not the kind who would do such things to a friend. You're pretty damn loyal."
Jim stared, unable to think of anything to say. He swallowed and looked away.
"You make me sound like some sort of dog," Jim muttered as he shoved his hands into his pockets.
"Trust me, if I thought neutering would solve anything..."
Jim snorted. He peered at Bones out from under the brim.
"So...you didn't believe Adam?" Jim said carefully and waited. "You believed...me? But the way we came out—"
Bones grunted and met Jim's eyes. "Jim, I believed you because I trust you."
Jim swallowed and looked down at his shoes. "Oh." He shrugged, not sure why despite the pounding headache he has, he felt like grinning. "All right. Sure."
"Sooner or later," Bones muttered, barely audible off his ear. "You're gonna have to trust me that I would always trust you."
"Huh?" Jim looked up, unsure he heard properly.
Bones chuckled wryly to himself. "Never mind. Come on, let's go." He draped his arm around Jim's shoulders again.
"My dorm is that way," Jim pointed out, not moving.
"Not anymore," Bones quipped. "I'm your new roommate."
"Hold it. What the hell?" Jim glowered at Bones. He now realized there was a duffel, his duffel, slung over Bones's left shoulder. "Is that my stuff?"
"You've been here eight months. You didn't have a lot," Bones muttered. "And you're not about to go back to that idiotic roommate of yours who wouldn’t know a head trauma if it fired on his ass."
Jim rolled his eyes. Damn. Big mistake. He staggered but Bones suddenly dropped his arm to around his middle before he could sway and fall on his butt.
"Look," Jim started, "I know you're feeling guilty—"
"Guilty?" Bones snorted. "Your own damn fault for not letting me know sooner, you dumb ass."
"Dumb ass?" Jim elbowed Bones in the ribs. "I just got brain surgery and my head shaved!"
"You have a spot the size of a blueberry taken off, you baby and yeah, it was your fault. You should have trusted me."
Jim stiffened. "I do."
Bones sighed even as he herded Jim towards his quad. "No, you don't," he murmured, sounding a little sad, a little weary for some reason. "Otherwise you would have told me sooner."
"Didn't see a point," Jim mumbled. He didn't know why Bones was making such a big deal about it.
"There. You see?" Bones tugged the cap over Jim's eyes. Asshole. "Come on, you're stuck with me. Someone competent gotta be sure you don't start spouting gibberish after too many knocks on the head."
Jim shook his head and shrugged away from Bones. "Bones..."
"I'm not going anywhere." Bones stopped in his tracks and was suddenly serious. Too serious. Jim squirmed. "You'll just have to deal with the fact I'm sticking around." Bones snorted. "Don't know why. Maybe I hit my head," Bones muttered under his breath.
Jim didn't know why either but the prospect didn't sound so bad actually. And Bones might make a decent roommate for the remaining two years. It might not be so bad if Bones really did stick around like he claimed he would. The idea sounded as unknown as going into deep space and unbidden, a wry smile curved. Jim raised then dropped his shoulders.
"Fine. But you better not snore."
"I think you're getting that mixed up, kiddo." Bones nudged Jim with his shoulder. "You snore. Like a fat Rigellian horned hog."
"Bastard."
Bones gave him a head slap Jim barely felt.
"Baldie."
Two Kobayashi Marus, one suspension, one mud flea vaccine, one mind meld and one fucking insane psycho time traveler from the future Romulan later...
Apparently, Jim thought groggily, his fucking reputation had reached far into space, even to lousy, unexplored Partos II. He was slammed over the stone table of the stone chamber (a lot of stone) in a hole out of a mountain of other holes.
Great.
Two months of diplomatic bullshit events and hand-holding missions of mercy and they finally found a planet to discover. Only it had already been discovered. By a team of scientists three years ago, there to study the oblivious inhabitants.
They found the scientists in a shallow ditch. Most of them anyway. Parts of them.
The natives were apparently not so oblivious.
Jim shoved an elbow back and the humanoid, who had a face like a hairless flesh-colored giant praying mantas, squawked. It chattered angrily before it pressed its whole length over him again. The sharp angles of its knees dug into the back of his thighs, which wouldn't be a problem if half of his trousers weren't already shredded off and barely hanging off his hips.
Alien or not, it felt clear from the frantic rutting against his ass what it wanted. Seemed like even aliens wanted a piece of him.
Whatever it clicked and chirped over his right ear was either foreplay or something lewd. Its four-fingered grip dug into his sides with sharp heat. It trembled and—ah hell—something warm dampened what remained of his pants.
"Not on the first date!" Jim snarled and threw his head back, catching it by its pointy chin and damn it, it had a hard head. His vision blurred but he pushed forwards, whipping a roundhouse kick towards its chest area. The giant walking bug-face staggered back.
"Not even the greatest first date," Jim panted as he swung a double fist right into where the solar plexus should be. For a human, that is. His clasped hands bounced off its body armor. Shit.
"I wasn't impressed," Jim gritted out as he kicked behind a knee and it shrieked, "with the grabbing me from my away team, killing some of my men and carrying me like a sack of potatoes for a day and a half to this shitty hole!" He grabbed it by the head, grimaced at the odd sensation of paper thin skin and drove his knee up over its chin.
One thing Jim learned from that bastard Fra—was to keep moving, become a harder target.
Jim dodged one pincer-like arm whizzing towards him, grunted when the other arm rammed into his back. Jim swung, connected and—gross—it felt like shattered eggshells where his fist connected on its face.
The creature screamed. It sounded like metal scraping against metal. Its too long arms flailed wildly towards its face, white blood-like substance dribbling down its body armor. Its large arms lashed out before Jim could duck and something went crack in Jim's chest and something hot erupted in his throat when something very solid rammed up under his chin.
Jim lurched, choked and was thrown back over the stone table again with a hard enough blow that wrenched the air out of his body. He couldn't breathe; his vision was going dark. Jim growled as his cheek scraped against the rough surface and suddenly it was a brick wall again in some crummy alley, "manwhore" hissed into his ear and a strangled sense of resignation came over him as he felt his arms yanked back behind him, a body too alien yet nauseatingly familiar settled across his back.
Get through this, Jim thought fuzzily as the sensation of being crushed started to overwhelm. He hissed as he felt it grinding against him once more, the hem of its body armor digging into and bruising the small of his back. Sharp elbows pinned his arms to his sides. The alien's high-pitched clicks made his ears burn as it rose in some sort of triumph. Outside, others echoed.
Jim clenched his teeth and breathed sharply through his nose.
Get through this. It's just sex. It's not even sex. It's probably some weird, screwed up alien ritual—
"Ji—Get the fuck off him!"
The weight that was suffocating him before was gone suddenly after the whine of a phaser. Jim turned around, his head spinning and he blinked at the sight of a worse-for-wear Bones stomping repeatedly over the supine alien. It twitched under each boot stomp. Bones's face was contorted, flushed, oddly feral under the dirt smudges and scratches all over his face.
Watching Bones was both a relief and disturbing when Jim realized Bones looked determined to drive the alien completely into the ground.
"'ones," Jim croaked, his jaw stiff, his tongue thick and useless, his limbs heavy. Bones stopped.
Bones took a deep breath and staggered back a step. That not-Bones look lifted and he looked disoriented as he stared at the alien on the ground. He swallowed hard. He finally looked up at Jim. Something eased away from his face and Bones exhaled shakily. He steered right for him with a limp.
"Are you okay?" Bones demanded hoarsely before Jim could ask about his leg. His fists curled tightly on Jim's biceps. Hazel flecked with green scanned Jim up and down before they narrowed.
"No, you're not okay," Bones decided in that god damn I'm the doctor way of his before Jim could even claim otherwise or ask about the phaser whines he could hear outside the stone—whatever this shit place was. Bones was still holding onto one of Jim's arms as he grabbed his communicator.
"Enterprise, McCoy here. I got him. Two to beam up, emergency transport."
Jim blinked blearily as he swayed against Bones. The communicator squawked. Scotty sounded almost shrill as his brogue came through in rapid-fire succession. Jim sagged against Bones, eyes half-mast and everything blurry around him. Bones's arm snaked around to wrap around his shoulders instead, squashing Jim's face to Bones's shoulder and Jim wanted to tell Bones to knock it off, he wasn't made of glass, damn it, he was the fucking captain of the Enterprise. But then Jim's dazed eyes drifted to the ground and widened.
"Shit, did you shoot it in the crotc—"
The white sparkles swirled around him and stole whatever he was going to say.
There was a smack across his cheek that flared all across his face.
Before he could step back, protest, swing back, anything, there was another blow.
And another.
And another.
Stopstopstopstop...
He raised his hands in pathetic defense. Cried out as a phantom blow came from behind and it struck him; his voice sounded higher, cracked...
Scared.
He looked up, fury boiling in his chest about his fear, about the fists he couldn’t defend against, about the jeers and names tossed his way. He looked past the violent rain of blows and saw Frank's face distort into a chimera of his, Nero and Adam.
Jim woke up.
It took a few gulps, a few blinks, before the Enterprise's soft lighting of gamma shift filtered into memory and the cushioned surface of a biobed registered. It took a few more breaths before Jim relaxed.
He laid there, feeling oddly displaced and wondered for a brief moment if becoming captain was just one screwed up dream.
Someone mumbled.
Tensing, Jim raised his head and stared at Bones slouched in a chair, legs sprawled out, head resting on the adjacent empty biobed, his mouth partially opened. The privacy curtain was drawn around both beds and Bones must have taken advantage of the gamma shift to sleep.
But he wasn't snoring.
Even from here, Jim could hear snatches of "...fucking kill him..." and "...bastard...hands off..." and "...leave him alone..." muttered. Bones's brow furrowed, his mouth twitched and he fidgeted in his narrow chair, head lolling against the side of the other biobed.
"Bones," Jim whispered. With a groan, he pushed up on his elbows. His chest felt tight, his throat tighter. Bones never stirred.
Jim eased himself off the biobed. He stumbled, leaning heavily on the platform, towards Bones.
Closer, Jim grimaced at the scabbing cuts on Bones's face, one that ran an angry red jagged line from the corner of his right eye down into the coarse dark stubble Bones seemed to be cursed with if he didn't shave every day.
Jim scanned his friend quickly, noting the bandaged right thigh, the splinted ring finger and felt an odd sort of déjà vu swept over him at the thought Bones must have gotten them while tracking him down.
"Bones," Jim murmured and he couldn't help himself: he lightly touched Bones's hair. Jim snatched his hand back. What the?
Bones grumbled something unintelligibly, something about Adam and he scowled in his sleep.
Jim frowned. Adam?
Whatever it was, Bones wasn't happy and the squirming he was doing before grew to something more agitated, something that was bound to hurt as Bones growled under his breath.
Not good. Jim reached over and shook his shoulder. "Bones. Wake up. Wak—"
Eyes flew open on contact and Bones's wild-eyed stare zipped towards Jim's face with a stark emotion Jim didn't understand, was afraid to recognize. Bones's gaze pinned Jim to the spot. Before Jim could assure Bones he was okay, they both were, Bones grabbed him by the shoulders, yanked him closer and smashed his mouth over the yelp Jim was about to make.
....
....
Holy fuck.
Greedy hands carded through his hair as they guided his head down and Jim was awkwardly stooped over Bones, settled between his legs. Jim's hands on Bones's shoulders curled—to push away, to pull closer, hell if he knew.
Warm, tasting strongly of coffee as if Bones had drowned in the stuff, Jim felt the rough texture of Bones's stubble rubbing against his jaw, a callus from Bones's left thumb making tiny circles on the back of his neck.
Jim thought Screw it and leaned into the solid build that oddly felt familiar as if his own body knew this sensation all his life, waited for it and god damn it was like being welcomed home when Bones's kiss deepened and began nipping his lower lip like he was some kind of treat.
Kissing a man was nothing new. Kissing Bones though was entirely different. It was a hot, twisty feeling of shitIcandothisforevernoone'sherefuckmenow that curled in Jim's belly because this was Bones, the one guy who nagged, berated, griped, pissed him off, yet always around. This was Bones, who snuck him into the Enterprise, the one who nearly drank himself to death when he found out Delta Vega was not as safe as Spock had thought, the one who held his head up as he puked after getting Frank's call, didn't judge when he found Jim curled on the bathroom floor desperately trying to forget. This was...this was...
Fucking perfect.
Somewhere in-between getting devoured and doing the devouring, Jim moaned into a kiss that he still wasn't certain was real. And that was a mistake.
Like an alarm, Bones jerked, his body tensing so suddenly, Jim thought for one moment that Bones was having a heart attack. Bones reared back, his arms windmilling until he realized there was no place to go past the chair he was poured into.
Bones stared, his mouth partially opened, chest heaving. Then the mouth snapped shut.
"W-what the hell are you doing out of bed?" Bones demanded, his voice hoarse.
Jim frowned at him. He doubted "the better to kiss you" would be the appropriate response right now but he was sorely tempted to see Bones's reaction.
Bones staggered up to his feet, tottered until he regained his balance, favoring his good leg. He snagged Jim's right elbow.
"Come on, you should be in be—"
Fuck it. "Why were you dreaming about Adam?" Jim asked abruptly.
Bones jerked like he was struck and nearly collided into Jim. "The hell I was dreaming about that bastard."
Ah ha. Very interesting. Jim stared, a little idea forming, bits and pieces falling into slots and tabs and Adam's smirking face floated unwanted in his mind. Jim's eyes widened.
"Son of a bitch," Jim breathed. "Adam was me, wasn't he?"
If it weren't for the fact that Jim could feel Bones's hard on against his thigh, the bulging, the shit I'm going to faint look on Bones's face would have been funny.
Besides, hard to laugh when he himself was sort of realizing that, fuck, he liked kissing Bones!
"W-what?" Bones managed out before his eyes flicked downwards. He must have either realized Jim was really close or that his dick was saluting him. Probably both because Jim watched his ears turn beet red (he hadn't seen that color since Cardassian Fire shots second year) and Bones scrambled back, dropping his grip on Jim's elbow.
Still thinking, hard not to, Jim gave Bones his space by leaning back on the opposite biobed.
"Well, think about it," Jim began.
"Do I have to?" Bones muttered under his breath.
Ignoring Bones, Jim held up his hand to count.
"Okay, he looks like me. Kinda. His nose was funny looking and my ass is way better than his." Jim craned to look behind him. Bones made some sort of weird choking sound. Oh yeah. Definitely better. Jim turned back and suddenly, he found he couldn't meet Bones's eyes. He shrugged one shoulder.
"I'm kinda...well...like him. We were both...you know," Jim added but trailed off at Bones's stormy expression.
"You," Bones growled, "are nothing like that asshole."
Jim quirked a faint smile. Good ole Bones. "Face it, you and I both know that I was a fuck up then, a bit of a manwh—" Jim yelped when Bones grabbed him by the upper arms and shook him like some damn martini shaker.
"Will you stop saying that shit?" Bones demanded. "Haven't three years with me tattooed that into your idiotic brain yet?"
Jim stared at Bones. Even now, to this day, he wasn't too sure why Bones took such personal offense to it. It wasn't like they were talking about him.
"You know," Jim said mildly, "according to Starfleet regulations, this could be seen as assaulting a commanding officer."
Bones shot him a look of disbelief that Jim could understand, because yeah, Jim couldn't believe he was referring to Starfleet regulations either.
With a snort, Bones glowered at him.
"I think of it as beating some sense into a friend." Bones gave his arms a careful squeeze. "Not everybody buys into that business, okay? I never did. You know that."
And it was true even when Jim went out of his way sometimes to act like it, because it was easier at times than trying to prove that he wasn't. Bones, somehow, saw past it with his usual exasperation and patience that scared—if Jim could admit it to himself—him. Jim took a deep breath.
"Okay. Fine," Jim relented, subdued, "But Adam..." Jim caught the flinch, felt oddly unanchored when Bones lowered his arms from his. "He wasn't just a coincidence, was he?"
Bones studied Jim for a long moment before he dropped his chin. His shoulders slumped.
"No," Bones exhaled. He slumped back as he absently rubbed a spot above his dressing. "No, he wasn't." Bones shrugged. "In my defense though, I didn't realize at the time that I was...substituting you with Adam."
"Oh." Jim found himself with the rare occurrence of being at a loss for words. Jim stared at the floor, at his bare feet.
"So after that, why didn't you just go out with m—" Jim stopped, the last word stuck in his throat. What the hell?
Despite the fact Jim never finished, Bones acted like he did. His eyes widened and he tossed an uneasy glance over his shoulder to check that the privacy curtain was still surrounding them: their own little world.
"You..." Bones rubbed the back of his neck and he glanced down. He swallowed and Jim stared at his throat as it worked. Now Jim averted his gaze, his mouth dry. Okay, that was weird. It wasn't like he'd never checked out or thought about a guy before, but this wasn’t a guy, shit, it was Bones.
"It's not like you ever showed any interest. Besides...Remember what you said?" Bones lowered his voice. "After Adam? After you woke up?" Whatever memory Bones held made his upper lip curl.
Baffled, Jim numbly shook his head.
Bones's mouth crinkled upwards but his eyes looked dull, tired, a little resigned. "You said all your life, people stayed because they want something then...they leave." Bones made a self-deprecating laugh.
"I was trying not to be one of those, Jim."
Kid, Jim thought in a fuzzy haze. Bones used to call him kid. Of course he wasn't a kid anymore and often, Jim never thought he ever was. He was captain now and even his name, Jim, was laced with everything that had happened since Nero. They couldn't go back to when things were a hell of a lot easier and looking at Bones avoiding his eyes didn't hurt so damn much.
"Oh," Jim mumbled, because he couldn't think of what he wanted to say, afraid of what he might want.
"I was trying to be a friend," Bones sighed and Jim inwardly cringed at how resigned Bones sounded. "Figured I could at least be that."
"You were," Jim said because suddenly, like long before, he really really needed to say it to Bones. "You still are."
Bones flashed him a brief smile.
Jim frowned to himself as something wiggled in memory. "So all that time I was flirting around, pushing and being an ass and..." Jim peered up at Bones. "You stuck around anyway..." Jim grimaced.
"Man, it sucked being you."
The laugh that barked out was short and hurt to hear. Bones clapped Jim on the shoulder.
"There were times I seriously considered that neutering, Jim." Bones grinned toothily. "But it would have been for your own good. Really."
Jim glowered. Not funny. Bones just chuckled at his expression.
"It's okay, Jim," Bones said quietly and it reminded Jim of the many times Bones had told him that, pulled him out of the darkness Jim often fell into—willingly or not. It was always Bones, right there, telling him it was okay. Even now. How fucked up was that for Bones?
Bones straightened as if he came to a decision. "It'll just be like before, all right? Nothing's changed. We were roommates for over two years and I survived. Adam...Adam was a big mistake that I regretted but the only thing I regretted, well, since I joined Starfleet at least." Bones stuck an arm out past the curtain to draw it back. As the fabric hissed, opening wider, Bones paused and looked back at Jim.
"Don't worry about it, okay?" Bones hobbled out of the curtained area. "And get back on that bed. You're not being released yet."
"But..." Jim wasn't sure what he was protesting but Bones just gave him a lazy two fingered salute over his eyes before limping back to his office.
"Captain?" a nurse appeared to his left, Hahm or Han or something, a hand lightly touching his arm. "Shouldn't you be in bed?"
Jim turned and sighed.
"You know, I thought that's what was going to happen," Jim murmured, not sure why his stomach clenched.
Part Four: Conclusion
Author: d8rkmessngr
Fandom: Star Trek: Reboot'verse
Pairing: Kirk/McCoy
Rating: PG-13, angst, h/c, first time
Words: 23,000+, complete (yup, you read right!)
Summary: He was glad Bones was dating again. He was. Really. But what Jim thought was good for Bones turned out to be oh, so wrong for Jim. For this prompt in
st_xi_kink.Warnings: implied past abuse, attempted non-con, sap (lol)
Part 1
Part 2
Jim stood swaying at the back end of the medical building. The sun was warm on his face, but disorienting as it reminded him just how long he was stuck indoors. He rubbed at the back of his head, scowling as he felt the smooth, too smooth spot at the back of his skull. Great.
"Damn it," Jim grumbled as he felt the area. Stupid brain surgery.
"For God's sake, it'll grow back in a week, you narcissistic brat."
Out of nowhere, a cap was shoved over his head, over the spot, the brim pulled over his eyes. Jim staggered, spun around and frowned.
"What are you doing here?" Jim demanded. He lowered the fists that came up.
Bones leaned against the statue of whoever Starfleet Medical thought was important, his arms folded in front of him. He was back in uniform, clean-shaven again, and smirking.
"Waiting for you," Bones drawled. He nodded towards the exit Jim came out of. "Figured you wouldn't stagger out the front." He scowled.
"The doctors said a week and while I think he's a senile twenty-second century quack, I do agree with him on this."
Jim shrugged. "I feel fine."
"You don't look fine." Bones waved towards the cap he crammed over Jim's head.
Jim scowled and readjusted the cap over his head, covering his bald spot. Jim made a face at Bones. "Ouch." He opened his arms. "I think a good portion of the campus would disagree with you." He smirked but at Bones's far too serious face, Jim sobered. He just shrugged again.
"Anyway," Jim muttered. "I feel better, okay? I could rest in my dorm room." He studied Bones.
"What?"
Jim shrugged as he turned back around to head down the east path towards his quad.
"Figured you had class," Jim said casually. His chest, however, felt oddly lighter as he sensed Bones walking behind him.
Bones scoffed. "Not yet. But with the suspension hearing done this morning, I should be allowed back into—"
Jim skidded to a halt. He whipped around; a mistake because Bones's right arm shot out to grab his shoulder when he tottered.
"Will you watch it? Your equili—"
"What hearing?" Jim demanded around the lump lodged in his throat, the churning nausea slowly settling under Bones's grip. "What suspension?"
"Will you calm down?" Bones was in his face now. "Dammit, Jim. You're still—"
"What. Suspension?" Jim ground out.
Bones sighed. He rolled his eyes. "For fighting, okay? For hitting...you know..." Bones scratched his jaw with a thumb and took a step back.
Jim stared. "For fighting? You? I usually have to get you piss drunk before you would even miss class by ten minutes."
Bones scowled. "Don't remind me." He shrugged and dropped an arm around Jim's shoulders, steering him the other way.
"Wait, wait, wait. You were really suspended?" Jim's head spun. "For hitting Ad—" Jim halted and Bones had no choice but to stop as well. Jim tilted his head up, his eyes narrowing at Bones.
"You...you hit Adam," Jim said flatly. He tensed. "Why? Because...because you thought we were..."
Bones exhaled sharply. "Because he said you were coming on to...dammit, Jim, I hit him because..." Bones dropped his arm from Jim's shoulders.
"So," Jim digested, "you didn't believe him?"
"Look, you can be a pain in the ass, a loud mouth, the most conceited, crazy son of a bitch I ever met, but..." Bones opened his hands in the air, his smile crooked.
"You're just not the kind who would do such things to a friend. You're pretty damn loyal."
Jim stared, unable to think of anything to say. He swallowed and looked away.
"You make me sound like some sort of dog," Jim muttered as he shoved his hands into his pockets.
"Trust me, if I thought neutering would solve anything..."
Jim snorted. He peered at Bones out from under the brim.
"So...you didn't believe Adam?" Jim said carefully and waited. "You believed...me? But the way we came out—"
Bones grunted and met Jim's eyes. "Jim, I believed you because I trust you."
Jim swallowed and looked down at his shoes. "Oh." He shrugged, not sure why despite the pounding headache he has, he felt like grinning. "All right. Sure."
"Sooner or later," Bones muttered, barely audible off his ear. "You're gonna have to trust me that I would always trust you."
"Huh?" Jim looked up, unsure he heard properly.
Bones chuckled wryly to himself. "Never mind. Come on, let's go." He draped his arm around Jim's shoulders again.
"My dorm is that way," Jim pointed out, not moving.
"Not anymore," Bones quipped. "I'm your new roommate."
"Hold it. What the hell?" Jim glowered at Bones. He now realized there was a duffel, his duffel, slung over Bones's left shoulder. "Is that my stuff?"
"You've been here eight months. You didn't have a lot," Bones muttered. "And you're not about to go back to that idiotic roommate of yours who wouldn’t know a head trauma if it fired on his ass."
Jim rolled his eyes. Damn. Big mistake. He staggered but Bones suddenly dropped his arm to around his middle before he could sway and fall on his butt.
"Look," Jim started, "I know you're feeling guilty—"
"Guilty?" Bones snorted. "Your own damn fault for not letting me know sooner, you dumb ass."
"Dumb ass?" Jim elbowed Bones in the ribs. "I just got brain surgery and my head shaved!"
"You have a spot the size of a blueberry taken off, you baby and yeah, it was your fault. You should have trusted me."
Jim stiffened. "I do."
Bones sighed even as he herded Jim towards his quad. "No, you don't," he murmured, sounding a little sad, a little weary for some reason. "Otherwise you would have told me sooner."
"Didn't see a point," Jim mumbled. He didn't know why Bones was making such a big deal about it.
"There. You see?" Bones tugged the cap over Jim's eyes. Asshole. "Come on, you're stuck with me. Someone competent gotta be sure you don't start spouting gibberish after too many knocks on the head."
Jim shook his head and shrugged away from Bones. "Bones..."
"I'm not going anywhere." Bones stopped in his tracks and was suddenly serious. Too serious. Jim squirmed. "You'll just have to deal with the fact I'm sticking around." Bones snorted. "Don't know why. Maybe I hit my head," Bones muttered under his breath.
Jim didn't know why either but the prospect didn't sound so bad actually. And Bones might make a decent roommate for the remaining two years. It might not be so bad if Bones really did stick around like he claimed he would. The idea sounded as unknown as going into deep space and unbidden, a wry smile curved. Jim raised then dropped his shoulders.
"Fine. But you better not snore."
"I think you're getting that mixed up, kiddo." Bones nudged Jim with his shoulder. "You snore. Like a fat Rigellian horned hog."
"Bastard."
Bones gave him a head slap Jim barely felt.
"Baldie."
Two Kobayashi Marus, one suspension, one mud flea vaccine, one mind meld and one fucking insane psycho time traveler from the future Romulan later...
Apparently, Jim thought groggily, his fucking reputation had reached far into space, even to lousy, unexplored Partos II. He was slammed over the stone table of the stone chamber (a lot of stone) in a hole out of a mountain of other holes.
Great.
Two months of diplomatic bullshit events and hand-holding missions of mercy and they finally found a planet to discover. Only it had already been discovered. By a team of scientists three years ago, there to study the oblivious inhabitants.
They found the scientists in a shallow ditch. Most of them anyway. Parts of them.
The natives were apparently not so oblivious.
Jim shoved an elbow back and the humanoid, who had a face like a hairless flesh-colored giant praying mantas, squawked. It chattered angrily before it pressed its whole length over him again. The sharp angles of its knees dug into the back of his thighs, which wouldn't be a problem if half of his trousers weren't already shredded off and barely hanging off his hips.
Alien or not, it felt clear from the frantic rutting against his ass what it wanted. Seemed like even aliens wanted a piece of him.
Whatever it clicked and chirped over his right ear was either foreplay or something lewd. Its four-fingered grip dug into his sides with sharp heat. It trembled and—ah hell—something warm dampened what remained of his pants.
"Not on the first date!" Jim snarled and threw his head back, catching it by its pointy chin and damn it, it had a hard head. His vision blurred but he pushed forwards, whipping a roundhouse kick towards its chest area. The giant walking bug-face staggered back.
"Not even the greatest first date," Jim panted as he swung a double fist right into where the solar plexus should be. For a human, that is. His clasped hands bounced off its body armor. Shit.
"I wasn't impressed," Jim gritted out as he kicked behind a knee and it shrieked, "with the grabbing me from my away team, killing some of my men and carrying me like a sack of potatoes for a day and a half to this shitty hole!" He grabbed it by the head, grimaced at the odd sensation of paper thin skin and drove his knee up over its chin.
One thing Jim learned from that bastard Fra—was to keep moving, become a harder target.
Jim dodged one pincer-like arm whizzing towards him, grunted when the other arm rammed into his back. Jim swung, connected and—gross—it felt like shattered eggshells where his fist connected on its face.
The creature screamed. It sounded like metal scraping against metal. Its too long arms flailed wildly towards its face, white blood-like substance dribbling down its body armor. Its large arms lashed out before Jim could duck and something went crack in Jim's chest and something hot erupted in his throat when something very solid rammed up under his chin.
Jim lurched, choked and was thrown back over the stone table again with a hard enough blow that wrenched the air out of his body. He couldn't breathe; his vision was going dark. Jim growled as his cheek scraped against the rough surface and suddenly it was a brick wall again in some crummy alley, "manwhore" hissed into his ear and a strangled sense of resignation came over him as he felt his arms yanked back behind him, a body too alien yet nauseatingly familiar settled across his back.
Get through this, Jim thought fuzzily as the sensation of being crushed started to overwhelm. He hissed as he felt it grinding against him once more, the hem of its body armor digging into and bruising the small of his back. Sharp elbows pinned his arms to his sides. The alien's high-pitched clicks made his ears burn as it rose in some sort of triumph. Outside, others echoed.
Jim clenched his teeth and breathed sharply through his nose.
Get through this. It's just sex. It's not even sex. It's probably some weird, screwed up alien ritual—
"Ji—Get the fuck off him!"
The weight that was suffocating him before was gone suddenly after the whine of a phaser. Jim turned around, his head spinning and he blinked at the sight of a worse-for-wear Bones stomping repeatedly over the supine alien. It twitched under each boot stomp. Bones's face was contorted, flushed, oddly feral under the dirt smudges and scratches all over his face.
Watching Bones was both a relief and disturbing when Jim realized Bones looked determined to drive the alien completely into the ground.
"'ones," Jim croaked, his jaw stiff, his tongue thick and useless, his limbs heavy. Bones stopped.
Bones took a deep breath and staggered back a step. That not-Bones look lifted and he looked disoriented as he stared at the alien on the ground. He swallowed hard. He finally looked up at Jim. Something eased away from his face and Bones exhaled shakily. He steered right for him with a limp.
"Are you okay?" Bones demanded hoarsely before Jim could ask about his leg. His fists curled tightly on Jim's biceps. Hazel flecked with green scanned Jim up and down before they narrowed.
"No, you're not okay," Bones decided in that god damn I'm the doctor way of his before Jim could even claim otherwise or ask about the phaser whines he could hear outside the stone—whatever this shit place was. Bones was still holding onto one of Jim's arms as he grabbed his communicator.
"Enterprise, McCoy here. I got him. Two to beam up, emergency transport."
Jim blinked blearily as he swayed against Bones. The communicator squawked. Scotty sounded almost shrill as his brogue came through in rapid-fire succession. Jim sagged against Bones, eyes half-mast and everything blurry around him. Bones's arm snaked around to wrap around his shoulders instead, squashing Jim's face to Bones's shoulder and Jim wanted to tell Bones to knock it off, he wasn't made of glass, damn it, he was the fucking captain of the Enterprise. But then Jim's dazed eyes drifted to the ground and widened.
"Shit, did you shoot it in the crotc—"
The white sparkles swirled around him and stole whatever he was going to say.
There was a smack across his cheek that flared all across his face.
Before he could step back, protest, swing back, anything, there was another blow.
And another.
And another.
Stopstopstopstop...
He raised his hands in pathetic defense. Cried out as a phantom blow came from behind and it struck him; his voice sounded higher, cracked...
Scared.
He looked up, fury boiling in his chest about his fear, about the fists he couldn’t defend against, about the jeers and names tossed his way. He looked past the violent rain of blows and saw Frank's face distort into a chimera of his, Nero and Adam.
Jim woke up.
It took a few gulps, a few blinks, before the Enterprise's soft lighting of gamma shift filtered into memory and the cushioned surface of a biobed registered. It took a few more breaths before Jim relaxed.
He laid there, feeling oddly displaced and wondered for a brief moment if becoming captain was just one screwed up dream.
Someone mumbled.
Tensing, Jim raised his head and stared at Bones slouched in a chair, legs sprawled out, head resting on the adjacent empty biobed, his mouth partially opened. The privacy curtain was drawn around both beds and Bones must have taken advantage of the gamma shift to sleep.
But he wasn't snoring.
Even from here, Jim could hear snatches of "...fucking kill him..." and "...bastard...hands off..." and "...leave him alone..." muttered. Bones's brow furrowed, his mouth twitched and he fidgeted in his narrow chair, head lolling against the side of the other biobed.
"Bones," Jim whispered. With a groan, he pushed up on his elbows. His chest felt tight, his throat tighter. Bones never stirred.
Jim eased himself off the biobed. He stumbled, leaning heavily on the platform, towards Bones.
Closer, Jim grimaced at the scabbing cuts on Bones's face, one that ran an angry red jagged line from the corner of his right eye down into the coarse dark stubble Bones seemed to be cursed with if he didn't shave every day.
Jim scanned his friend quickly, noting the bandaged right thigh, the splinted ring finger and felt an odd sort of déjà vu swept over him at the thought Bones must have gotten them while tracking him down.
"Bones," Jim murmured and he couldn't help himself: he lightly touched Bones's hair. Jim snatched his hand back. What the?
Bones grumbled something unintelligibly, something about Adam and he scowled in his sleep.
Jim frowned. Adam?
Whatever it was, Bones wasn't happy and the squirming he was doing before grew to something more agitated, something that was bound to hurt as Bones growled under his breath.
Not good. Jim reached over and shook his shoulder. "Bones. Wake up. Wak—"
Eyes flew open on contact and Bones's wild-eyed stare zipped towards Jim's face with a stark emotion Jim didn't understand, was afraid to recognize. Bones's gaze pinned Jim to the spot. Before Jim could assure Bones he was okay, they both were, Bones grabbed him by the shoulders, yanked him closer and smashed his mouth over the yelp Jim was about to make.
....
....
Holy fuck.
Greedy hands carded through his hair as they guided his head down and Jim was awkwardly stooped over Bones, settled between his legs. Jim's hands on Bones's shoulders curled—to push away, to pull closer, hell if he knew.
Warm, tasting strongly of coffee as if Bones had drowned in the stuff, Jim felt the rough texture of Bones's stubble rubbing against his jaw, a callus from Bones's left thumb making tiny circles on the back of his neck.
Jim thought Screw it and leaned into the solid build that oddly felt familiar as if his own body knew this sensation all his life, waited for it and god damn it was like being welcomed home when Bones's kiss deepened and began nipping his lower lip like he was some kind of treat.
Kissing a man was nothing new. Kissing Bones though was entirely different. It was a hot, twisty feeling of shitIcandothisforevernoone'sherefuckmenow that curled in Jim's belly because this was Bones, the one guy who nagged, berated, griped, pissed him off, yet always around. This was Bones, who snuck him into the Enterprise, the one who nearly drank himself to death when he found out Delta Vega was not as safe as Spock had thought, the one who held his head up as he puked after getting Frank's call, didn't judge when he found Jim curled on the bathroom floor desperately trying to forget. This was...this was...
Fucking perfect.
Somewhere in-between getting devoured and doing the devouring, Jim moaned into a kiss that he still wasn't certain was real. And that was a mistake.
Like an alarm, Bones jerked, his body tensing so suddenly, Jim thought for one moment that Bones was having a heart attack. Bones reared back, his arms windmilling until he realized there was no place to go past the chair he was poured into.
Bones stared, his mouth partially opened, chest heaving. Then the mouth snapped shut.
"W-what the hell are you doing out of bed?" Bones demanded, his voice hoarse.
Jim frowned at him. He doubted "the better to kiss you" would be the appropriate response right now but he was sorely tempted to see Bones's reaction.
Bones staggered up to his feet, tottered until he regained his balance, favoring his good leg. He snagged Jim's right elbow.
"Come on, you should be in be—"
Fuck it. "Why were you dreaming about Adam?" Jim asked abruptly.
Bones jerked like he was struck and nearly collided into Jim. "The hell I was dreaming about that bastard."
Ah ha. Very interesting. Jim stared, a little idea forming, bits and pieces falling into slots and tabs and Adam's smirking face floated unwanted in his mind. Jim's eyes widened.
"Son of a bitch," Jim breathed. "Adam was me, wasn't he?"
If it weren't for the fact that Jim could feel Bones's hard on against his thigh, the bulging, the shit I'm going to faint look on Bones's face would have been funny.
Besides, hard to laugh when he himself was sort of realizing that, fuck, he liked kissing Bones!
"W-what?" Bones managed out before his eyes flicked downwards. He must have either realized Jim was really close or that his dick was saluting him. Probably both because Jim watched his ears turn beet red (he hadn't seen that color since Cardassian Fire shots second year) and Bones scrambled back, dropping his grip on Jim's elbow.
Still thinking, hard not to, Jim gave Bones his space by leaning back on the opposite biobed.
"Well, think about it," Jim began.
"Do I have to?" Bones muttered under his breath.
Ignoring Bones, Jim held up his hand to count.
"Okay, he looks like me. Kinda. His nose was funny looking and my ass is way better than his." Jim craned to look behind him. Bones made some sort of weird choking sound. Oh yeah. Definitely better. Jim turned back and suddenly, he found he couldn't meet Bones's eyes. He shrugged one shoulder.
"I'm kinda...well...like him. We were both...you know," Jim added but trailed off at Bones's stormy expression.
"You," Bones growled, "are nothing like that asshole."
Jim quirked a faint smile. Good ole Bones. "Face it, you and I both know that I was a fuck up then, a bit of a manwh—" Jim yelped when Bones grabbed him by the upper arms and shook him like some damn martini shaker.
"Will you stop saying that shit?" Bones demanded. "Haven't three years with me tattooed that into your idiotic brain yet?"
Jim stared at Bones. Even now, to this day, he wasn't too sure why Bones took such personal offense to it. It wasn't like they were talking about him.
"You know," Jim said mildly, "according to Starfleet regulations, this could be seen as assaulting a commanding officer."
Bones shot him a look of disbelief that Jim could understand, because yeah, Jim couldn't believe he was referring to Starfleet regulations either.
With a snort, Bones glowered at him.
"I think of it as beating some sense into a friend." Bones gave his arms a careful squeeze. "Not everybody buys into that business, okay? I never did. You know that."
And it was true even when Jim went out of his way sometimes to act like it, because it was easier at times than trying to prove that he wasn't. Bones, somehow, saw past it with his usual exasperation and patience that scared—if Jim could admit it to himself—him. Jim took a deep breath.
"Okay. Fine," Jim relented, subdued, "But Adam..." Jim caught the flinch, felt oddly unanchored when Bones lowered his arms from his. "He wasn't just a coincidence, was he?"
Bones studied Jim for a long moment before he dropped his chin. His shoulders slumped.
"No," Bones exhaled. He slumped back as he absently rubbed a spot above his dressing. "No, he wasn't." Bones shrugged. "In my defense though, I didn't realize at the time that I was...substituting you with Adam."
"Oh." Jim found himself with the rare occurrence of being at a loss for words. Jim stared at the floor, at his bare feet.
"So after that, why didn't you just go out with m—" Jim stopped, the last word stuck in his throat. What the hell?
Despite the fact Jim never finished, Bones acted like he did. His eyes widened and he tossed an uneasy glance over his shoulder to check that the privacy curtain was still surrounding them: their own little world.
"You..." Bones rubbed the back of his neck and he glanced down. He swallowed and Jim stared at his throat as it worked. Now Jim averted his gaze, his mouth dry. Okay, that was weird. It wasn't like he'd never checked out or thought about a guy before, but this wasn’t a guy, shit, it was Bones.
"It's not like you ever showed any interest. Besides...Remember what you said?" Bones lowered his voice. "After Adam? After you woke up?" Whatever memory Bones held made his upper lip curl.
Baffled, Jim numbly shook his head.
Bones's mouth crinkled upwards but his eyes looked dull, tired, a little resigned. "You said all your life, people stayed because they want something then...they leave." Bones made a self-deprecating laugh.
"I was trying not to be one of those, Jim."
Kid, Jim thought in a fuzzy haze. Bones used to call him kid. Of course he wasn't a kid anymore and often, Jim never thought he ever was. He was captain now and even his name, Jim, was laced with everything that had happened since Nero. They couldn't go back to when things were a hell of a lot easier and looking at Bones avoiding his eyes didn't hurt so damn much.
"Oh," Jim mumbled, because he couldn't think of what he wanted to say, afraid of what he might want.
"I was trying to be a friend," Bones sighed and Jim inwardly cringed at how resigned Bones sounded. "Figured I could at least be that."
"You were," Jim said because suddenly, like long before, he really really needed to say it to Bones. "You still are."
Bones flashed him a brief smile.
Jim frowned to himself as something wiggled in memory. "So all that time I was flirting around, pushing and being an ass and..." Jim peered up at Bones. "You stuck around anyway..." Jim grimaced.
"Man, it sucked being you."
The laugh that barked out was short and hurt to hear. Bones clapped Jim on the shoulder.
"There were times I seriously considered that neutering, Jim." Bones grinned toothily. "But it would have been for your own good. Really."
Jim glowered. Not funny. Bones just chuckled at his expression.
"It's okay, Jim," Bones said quietly and it reminded Jim of the many times Bones had told him that, pulled him out of the darkness Jim often fell into—willingly or not. It was always Bones, right there, telling him it was okay. Even now. How fucked up was that for Bones?
Bones straightened as if he came to a decision. "It'll just be like before, all right? Nothing's changed. We were roommates for over two years and I survived. Adam...Adam was a big mistake that I regretted but the only thing I regretted, well, since I joined Starfleet at least." Bones stuck an arm out past the curtain to draw it back. As the fabric hissed, opening wider, Bones paused and looked back at Jim.
"Don't worry about it, okay?" Bones hobbled out of the curtained area. "And get back on that bed. You're not being released yet."
"But..." Jim wasn't sure what he was protesting but Bones just gave him a lazy two fingered salute over his eyes before limping back to his office.
"Captain?" a nurse appeared to his left, Hahm or Han or something, a hand lightly touching his arm. "Shouldn't you be in bed?"
Jim turned and sighed.
"You know, I thought that's what was going to happen," Jim murmured, not sure why his stomach clenched.
Part Four: Conclusion
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Date: 2009-07-23 02:18 am (UTC)WOOT!
Date: 2009-09-06 11:24 pm (UTC)Also, Thanks for the fish. BEST THING EVER!!!! YEAH FOR HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE
Re: WOOT!
Date: 2009-09-07 01:19 am (UTC)LOL, wondered how many would get that! :)