#darlin collection

[honeybad]

I want to feel you smile (pt2)

So, more blind Jim, because I like blind Jim. I also like shipping Jim, thats okay right? And kicking the shit out of Jim, is that okay too?

-----

There was a completely valid reason as to why he had skipped out on Carol and Christine.

He had a practical to study for, because he needed to know every nerve ending and every valve in a human heart for his automated exam. There was a paper on his laptop that was far from being finished that was supposed to be a minimum of ten pages and he only had about two. He needed to do his laundry, it had started to pile up in the corner of the room and he couldn't tell what was clean from what was dirty anymore. He needed to get some sleep before his night shift at the hospital, because he had food and textbooks to buy, and child support was still a thing.

He had a lot of completely valid reasons for skipping out on Carol and Christine, because he was a grown man damnit, he had things that had to be done.

He was twenty-five, and there were things that he needed to do just like there was a desire to have his degree already under his hands and safe under his belt.

Except there wasn't a valid reason at all for the fact that he was, once again, in the Enterprise Café.

Nyota hadn't been behind little hostess podium, no one had been actually, but he'd received a catcall from the direction of the bar as soon as he'd walked in. Round cheeked and flushed rosy, the red head behind the bar had given him a toothy grin, her riot of curls piled high upon her head.  She'd waggled her fingers at him, told him her name was Gaila, and she'd made him a tall glass of tea that was as sweet as any his Mama would ever make.

He'd taken a seat at the same booth as last time after a few minutes of talking to her, finding out she was an engineering major who had more brains than her pretty face showed, and his laptop was before him with a medical journal pulled up on the main page.

The music was different, seductive croons of Frank Sinatra and Nat King Cole replacing the sultry cries of ACDC and Led Zepplin, and he'd located the docking station behind the bar where an iPhone had been plugged in for the tunes. A smile tipped at his lips, and he took a sip of his tea even as he raised the glass in a bit of a toast to Gaila where she swayed behind the counter. The women were at war then it seemed, with the music choices that the establishment played, and the differences in their tastes were endearing if not striking.

Gaila seemed more like the love ballad type of girl than the heavy guitar anyway.

Quickly, he became engrossed in the medical journal before him, absent minded to the rest of the world around him as he read. Songs filtered past, Dean Martin to Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong popping his head in once or twice, but he didn't pay much mind as he scanned through the electronic pages.  Their voices lulled him, striking a conversation within his head about love and the merits of it, classical olden music bathing their words.

"Jimmy!"

Gaila's sharp gasp drew his attention, because the sound was hardly one of pleasure, and instead, he caught the tail end of her movements as the curvaceous red head hefted herself up and over the counter in a flurry of movement.

Turning his head, he caught sight of the same golden man from the other day, and the walls of his stomach turned cold and squeezed, hard.

The man's skin was torn in places, turning purple already in others, and red stained his pink shirt to turn it into a dark macabre of color. One of his arms was wrapped tight around his middle, and the other hung at an awkward angle at his side like the shoulder had come clean out. The skin around one of his brilliant eyes was dark with blood under the skin, and some of it dribbled from his nose.

Leonard was out of his booth and rushing toward them before he thought about it.

"Damnit kid, what'd you do, take a fall down a damn stairwell?"

He didn't know the man, not personally, and that was a shame, but he couldn't dwell on it as he watched the golden, red and purple stained man flinch. Gaila had slipped an arm around his waist, jostling his arm, and Leonard watched as his jaw tensed and he exhaled sharply through his teeth.

The smile he got was blinding though, brilliant even if it was pained, and it felt like a punch to the solar plexus.

"Ferguson and s'me of his boys decided they wanted my wallet."

The way he said it, coupled with the wobbling shrug, had Len's blood boiling. Fists clenching, fingers cracking, he took a breath before slipping his arm gently around the man's waist. His skin was hot to the touch, and he could feel tight muscles rippling under his hands, but he didn't have the time to dwell on that now.

"Gaila, can you be a jem and get me a First-Aid kit?"

She nodded, giving him a wide look before disappearing into the kitchen. With her, there was a sudden chorus of Russian, a curse of something that sounded oriental in nature, and a crash. Ignoring it, shaking his head, he wrapped his fingers around the pound of flesh he held and tipped his head to look down at the golden man.

"You're going to need a hospital for that sho-"

"Pop it back in."

Brow furrowing, leaning back, he watched as those brilliant eyes swept around the room, unseeing, before they landed just off his shoulder. Close as he was, he could see that they didn't have a single bit of cloud across them, no molecule disruption, meaning the boy hadn't been born that way.

"Come again?"

"I said," Speaking through gritted teeth, the golden man wiped the back of his hand under his nose to push away the blood, and succeeded in smearing it across his skin. There was a fierce look on his face, and it didn't seem to matter that the kid couldn't see him, because he was doing his best to be threatening and demanding all the same. "Pop it back in."

"Now listen here, I can't just go around puttin' bones back like some field medic, they must have beat your head in enough to give you a concussion if you think I'm going to ju-"

"Sulu!"

Len would like to say he didn't jump, but the man's voice boomed out, tone sharp and far from the wounded look that his image held. There was another crash from the kitchen, and then a slim Asian man was shoving his way out of the door and in their direction.

"Christ Jim, you look like shit."

Feeling out of place, he watched as those lips twitched up into a smile, wide as the first one had been, and felt the man shift out of his grip. Quickly, he angled them so that the man's hand would brace himself on the table, and eased away to feel at his ribs.

"Yeah yeah, and I bet you look good enough to eat. Do me a favor and shove this back in." He swayed his torso, causing his limp arm to flop uselessly in the air, and Len watched as the man named Sulu grimaced.  Fingers trailing across the wide ribcage, he felt for breaks under the bruising, slow and careful.

"Better not punch me for this."

Smile turning sharp, the man -Jim, his name was Jim- curled his fingers against the table top, and let out a bit of a laugh.

"Now, when have I ever punched you?"

Sulu shook his head, bracing a hand on Jim's shoulder blade and grasping his arm with the other, frowning with a bit of an unimpressed look.

"One,

The crack that resounded was loud, muffled out only by the sharp grunt that Jim gave. His eyes shut tight, his body jerked a bit under Len's hands, and he waited a few ticks before he exhaled.

"Fuck,"

Watching as Sulu moved away, he went back to his poking, mindful of the breaths that he got in response, and only stopped with the man batted at him.

"Nothin's broke."

"You can't kno-"

"Trust me, I know what it feels like when my bones break." He was smiling again, wide and bright if not a bit pained, and he was looking straight at Len with those brilliant eyes. "Bruised ribs, relocated shoulder, couple of scrapes and bruises and a ruined shirt. I'm fine."

"Spock's going to kill you."

"Spock ain't gana know, now is he, Hikaru?"

Bustling her way between them, kit grasped in her hands, Gaila had a wide look on her face, a bit pale at the sight of his blood, and she shoved the kit over before scurrying away into the kitchen once more.

"You're supposed to be in a lecture with him right now, he's going to know."

Grunting, Jim swore, hands scrambling across the table till he lowered himself into a seat.

"Go away Hikaru."

Raising both hands, the Asian man had a bit of a dip in his step when he turned.

"Don't jump the Southern Gentleman, he seems a bit grouchy."

Before he could be insulted, even though his brow furrowed, Len watched as Hikaru waltzed back into the kitchen, leaving him and Jim alone in the dining area. Laughter, slight and exasperated, drew his gaze back down, and he frowned harder at the man.

"Fuck do you think is funny?"

"Was going to skip my lecture t'day anyway, Ny said she saw you on her way to class headed this way. Heard you talkin' last time you were in, recognized your voice 'cuz I've heard you round campus with the med students."

"Hell were you lookin' for me for?"

Stomach clenching, gut feeling liquid and hot, Len did his best to ignore the feeling as he took the antiseptic wipe and rubbed it across Jim's face to clean away the blood.

"Wanted to get your name."

"Darlin', you wandered across campus instead of going to your lecture, got the shit kicked out of you, because you wanted my name?"

It wasn't till the words were out and in the air that he noticed what he'd said, and Len felt himself flush with embarrassment. He wasn't the only one though, because as he watched, a pink blush of color spread across the golden tan on Jim's skin.

He shrugged, going quiet, and those brilliant, sightless blue eyes skirted away from him to drop down instead.

Frowning for as long as he could, he ended up with a smile on his face, and an exasperated sigh pulled from his chest as he went with cleaning the blood from Jim's arm.

"McCoy. Leonard McCoy."

[honeybad]

I want to feel you smile (pt1)

So, theres this thing thats been going over my dash called the Darlin' Collection, and I just had to try it. Uhm, this might turn into like, a 2-3, maybe 4 parter, for lengths sake. Blind!Jim because wtf why not ------------------------------------------

Enterprise Café wasn't the usual haunt that the medical students at San Francisco University decided to bide their time after class.

There was no jarring music, no roaring crowd, and no television advertisements to get them more publicity. None of the workers were hipsters with their fabric layers and their retro references that made him feel impossibly older than his years. There was no screaming children, no brightly colored toys to be handed out with kids meals, and instead of having a play area, they had a bar, sleek wood dark and well used.

Really, that was probably one of the reasons he liked it so much.

He wasn't a regular, he wasn't, since he'd only dropped in once or twice after his classes, having found the place by accident. He knew they stayed open late though, that they had one of the best chicken sandwiches he'd tasted since he left home, and that the only kind of music ever allowed to play made him think of his Daddy's mullet band records. He knew that the booths were soft and well-worn with use, just like he knew that the tables were wide enough for his textbooks to be sprawled out across them with little overlay. He knew that the coffee was hot, that his cup never made it past half empty, and that there was an entire galaxy painted up on the ceiling.

It wasn't full of medical students, nor was it littered with post-graduate students who liked to gripe and snipe, and Leonard liked it that way, he liked it just fine.

Spread out in a booth in the corner, he was doing just that, his books spread out before him so he could flip through as many text chapters as he needed to try and get all the theorems and definitions down pat, all the practices, procedures and emergency surgical maneuvers he would need to possibly ever know. They got the occasional person in the Enterprise, a few older people who liked to keep away from the bustle, and a few of the high school students who liked to keep the gem to themselves, so he didn't bother looking up when the door chimed, and instead, stayed buried deep in his neuro-surgical text.

"Been a while since you've showed your face."

"Nyota, my beautiful, illustrious maiden, dare I say that you missed me? Why, have you finally come to your senses and decided to run away with me?"

Laughter, light and musical, drew his eyes up from his books, and he found the podium in the front where the little hostess station had been made. Dark skin bright and striking against the crimson of her uniform dress, the young woman was smiling, her teeth bright and white and her eyes dark, but she wasn't the one laughing even though she was smiling. No, the laughter belonged to the red haired girl behind the bar, with her riot of curls and the soft roundness of her cheeks. Yet, the hostess was smiling, a soft, fond sort of smile, and her fingers went out, scribbling something down on the board before her.

"I'd rather keep Spock company."

Except, the young man -blond, broad shouldered, with a pale mint shirt that set off his golden tan and jeans that hung low on his narrow hips- just laughed instead of looking insulted, and while Len couldn't see his face, he could see the way the man leaned against the podium, bracing his weight against it.

"Fine, I'll run away with Spock then. We'll have a big gay adventure up in Canada, where no one will bother us, and we'll have pancakes with real syrup and I'll made moose cheese. Did you know that’s a thing, moose cheese? And you can't milk a moose unless you're in a room that’s completely quiet, because if the cow gets scared, than her milk dries up and you won't get anything from her."

"Fascinating," An intrigued remark came from the kitchen area, and he watched as the blond perked up, his body straightening and his weight bouncing on his heels.

"Hey, Spock!"

"Greetings, Jim, it would be appropriate if you would take your seat, you neglected to bring a beverage to our shared Classical Literature lecture, and I am concerned about your level of hydration with the current level of heat we are experiencing."

A hand went up, waving in the direction of the kitchen, and then the young man turned away towards the booths and tables.

His face was handsome, features sharp with an angular jaw and a sculpted slope of his nose, wide lips and bright eyes. Even from a distance, he could see the color of them, blue and bright, vibrant, and something in his stomach gave a warm, heavy flop.

The man didn't look at him though, didn't even seem to see that he was there, for he just kept walking, with his fingers trailing over the backs of chairs and booths before he fell into one that sat before the panel of windows. His long legs stretched out, toes bumping against the other booth seat, and he tipped his face into the sunlight with a soft sort of smile, eyes shutting.

Nyota wandered over to him after a moment, with a tall glass of water that clanked with ice when she set it down, and the sharp look she shot Len was enough to remind him he was staring. His gaze dropped, trying to absorb the ink once more, and he felt his skin flushing with embarrassment.

"Glass is at your two o'clock, straw or no straw?"

"No thanks Ny."

Brow furrowing, Len fought with himself to not look up, grasping instead to the fact that she'd had to tell him where the drink was, as if he couldn't see it for himself. Pausing, lifting his head again, he thought back to a few chapters before, and the notion of blindness crossed his mind even as he tried not to turn and look.

More soft words between them, things he tried to ignore, and then a shadow fell over him, blocking out the light for his books. Looking up, a scowl on his face, he felt himself shrink away a bit from the sharp, calculating look on her pretty face. She planted a hand on the table, just as slender and elegant as the rest of her, and leaned in close enough to speak on a whisper.

"Regardless of if he can see you or not, you're a med student, Leonard, and you should know its rude to stare at people with a disadvantage."

He did shrink then, sliding down a bit in his cush booth seat, and his fingers curled in the denim at his thigh.

"I wasn-"

"Talk to him, Leonard, he doesn't bite."

And then she straightened, turning from him with a swish of her long ponytail and a sway to her step, calling out to Spock that she needed the usual and a fresh pot of coffee.

Talk to him, she said, like that was something easy to do. Grumbling, he turned his eyes down to his text books once more, more than just a bit unhappy that he'd been put in his place like a child. Instead, he stared at his notes with a scowl on his face, tapping the eraser end of his pencil against the table in his frustration. He was a grown man damnit, not a blushing school girl, he could stare at an attractive man if he damn well pleased, and he would talk to said man if he damn well felt like it.

Except, he had the horrible feeling that he would do something stupid, like call the golden man darllin'.

[symphonicdameron]

The first time Bones calls Jim "darlin'," they're both surprised. Mostly because it's just not something Bones does. Ever. He's actually always been pretty exasperated with his family's tendency to call everyone they meet "darlin'" in their slow, Southern drawls.   Bones never did that. Not even with Jocelyn or Joanna.     So when he calls Jim "darlin'," well. It wasn't something he consciously said.    -     Jim's been sick for the past few days. An allergic reaction to some pollen somewhere. Bones never knew that pollen could have such a bad effect, nor did he know that one person could be allergic to so much.       He's turning Jim's head gently to the side to hypo him with a particularly nasty medicine when it happens.     "Hold still, darlin', this might hurt."     It only registers what he's said when he's putting the hypospray down and freezes.       Had he really just said that?     Jim rolls over and looks at him with an unreadble expression. "What?"     "Are you hungry?" Bones asks, changing the subject.     Jim shrugs and rolls back over. - The second time (well, actually, this day includes the second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth times he says "darlin'") happens on a Saturday. When Bones wakes up,  Jim is staring straight ahead,  lying awake in bed, the covers pulled up to his chin.     Bones sits up and looks closer at his roommate. He's definitely awake.     Something's wrong.     Bones won't tell Jim that until he needs him to.     He groans and rolls back over in order to try to get some sleep, but Jim's anguished face stares at him through a haze.     He gets up to take a shower.   When he's done, he comes back out and Jim's still there, staring at nothing. "Jim?" he prompts.     Jim looks slowly over at him with hollow eyes.     "Are y- are you okay?" he asks.     Jim turns and buries his face in his pillow.     "Do you want breakfast?"     Jim makes an unintelligible sound and lifts himself out of bed, heading towards the shower.     He comes out of the shower chipper. Too happy. Way too happy.     Something's definitely up.     - It's eight pm and they've done nothing the entire day (including the six-page paper Bones has due Monday).     Jim stands. "Well. I'm going out."     "I'll come with you," Bones says because if he knows Jim at all, something's wrong and Jim's about to go out and drown whatever it is in booze and a pretty girl. "No thanks," Jim says.     "That wasn't a question," Bones answers.   "I don't need a wingman tonight."    "I'm not offering as your wingman. I'm offering as your friend."     "I don't need-"     "Yes you do."     "Bones-"     "You do."     "I'm fine," Jim snaps.     Bones strides toward him and puts his hands on Jim's shoulders. "No, you're not."     It's a staring contest. Bones meets Jim's blue eyes with his head on.     He knows when Jim's about to break right before he does.       He blinks.     Then crumples.   "Oh, darlin'," Bones whispers, lifting him back up and dropping him onto the bed.   Jim's shaking in Bones' arms, clutching onto his shirt sleeves and whimpering. He's never seen Jim this scared, this broken.     "What happened? What happened, darlin'?" Bones whispers.     For a moment, there's nothing between them except breath. "Tarsus IV," Jim whispers.     Bones' stomach clenches. "Oh, darlin'," he whispers, rubbing Jim's arms. He knows the story. Jim told him last year on this day.     Jim curls into Bones, crying into his shirt.     "Darlin', darlin'," Bones murmurs, cradling his best friend in his arms.    They both fall asleep like that.    -   Years and years pass and Leonard McCoy is still calling Jim Kirk "darlin'."   Although now, now they aren't Leonard McCoy and Jim Kirk anymore, are they really? They're Leonard Kirk-McCoy and James Kirk-McCoy.   But.   They'll always be Bones and Darlin'.

[sicktheory]

there's a word that is jim's favorite in the whole world.

it's been kissed and breathed and bitten and embedded into every inch of his skin. like a brand. like a stamp. it feels like it's tattooed on his chest, inside his wrists and ankles, on the hollow of his throat, right below his navel and high on the inside of his thighs. on his heart and soul. on his bones...

it's just two simple syllables dipped in honey and sunshine and lust and devotion. it means more than i love you and burns deeper than i'm yours.

bones never calls him that in public, never lets anyone else hear it. the word is private, intimate, theirs. and jim knows deep in his very core that he will never tire of it. he will never tire of hearing it gasped and moaned when he moves deep and slow inside bones. or whispered like a prayer when his lips slide down bones's writhing sweat-drenched body. or full of all encompassing love and reverence and relief when jim comes back to him after yet another mission that could have gone really, really wrong.

because jim knows bones is not big on words. he feels so much and so deeply but doesn't know how to say any of it. so he says darlin' and jim knows.

[thepathlesstrekked]

My addition to the Darlin' Collection  (Though there might be another later)

The first time he heard it, Jim thought Len was mocking him. The long drawling vowels made his blood rise and he had to bite his tongue to keep from rounding on the doctor. 

“I’m sure you are, Darlin’.” He nodded with a raised eyebrow when Jim told him he was going to be doing the program in three years. Kirk had been hurt by the teasing from the man he thought would be his friend. 

Over time, however, Jim began to realize that it wasn’t teasing. Mostly because Len didn’t tease. He fucked with you sure, and God knows he could be a sarcastic asshole, but he didn’t tease. “Darlin’” was as sincere a word as any that came out of the doctor’s mouth. 

It came at hime when he he expressed his intention to do the impossible. 

“I’m sure you will, Darlin’.” He heard it when he had done something so stupidly dangerous that Bones couldn’t even be angry. 

“You can’t do that to me, Darlin’. I don’t know what I would...you just can’t.” 

Bones had let it slip once or twice in casual conversation. 

“Well that’s peachy, Darlin’, but you still have to clean the kitchen.” 

“That is not what I said, Darlin’ and you know it.” 

Jim stated to count how many times he could get Len to say it in a day. His high score was seven. 

Well actually it might have been nine, but he couldn’t quite remember because that was the same day Bones had said 

“I love you, Darlin’.” 

And well, Jim had been a little distracted after that. 

You try keeping count when it’s being said between kisses. 

[captainkirkmccoy]

Darlin' is a universal constant. 

When the Enterprise  encounters an ion storm, or a transporter malfunction, or weird mojo on a planet with no name that leads them to another world, Bones still calls Jim Darlin'. 

Even when they were space pirates or school teachers in Georgia, or when Bones was the Captain and Jim his bighearted-fool of a CMO, Bones always said Darlin' with the same cadence, the word carrying the weight of a love that couldn't be explained. 

"Fucking sappy," Mirrorverse Jim, his curved barbell eyebrow piercing rising as he lifted one eyebrow. He pointed his phaser at the away team until Mirrorverse Scotty could work the transporter to get them home. 

"It's good to see you again, darlin'" A world-weary Bones whispered on a subdued Enterprise. Spock was the captain and Jim didn't have the heart to ask what had happened to his counterpart. Some stories weren't meant to be shared. 

"For now, for forever and for always, darlin'" They overhear Bones say to the very female version of himself as they get married on some beach in Georgia. 

Jim reaches for Bones hand to squeeze as he feels the pull as their Enterprise finally beams them up. 

He's been to a lot of worlds and he's seen a lot of things. No matter how many analogs he has, no matter how unsettling they make him or how much he wonders about what could have been, he loves the way his Bones says darlin' and wouldn't trade it for the world. 

[weird-bird-headingnorth]

For the darlin collection. And potentially for my anon from a month ago, though yeah it doesn't quite jive with the same verse as "boy draws wings on everything."

"Eat your goddamn breakfast," Bones grumbles, standing.

Jim beams back at him with his mouth full of eggs and when Bones makes a disgusted sound like a put-out goat, struggles not to spray it out in laughter.

"Watch me never make you a single grit again."

"A single grit? I don't think grits come in ones." Jim waggles his eyebrows at him and yeah, he figures he deserves the thump on the back of the head.

"Don't you tell me about grits, Iowa. Later, you--you thankless delinquent." He huffs at him and then something in his face softens.

Looking like he's on automatic, Bones dips in.

Jim's eyes fly wide as chapped lips brush his cheek. Chaste, perfunctory, as if he's done it a hundred times and he'll do it a hundred more. 

"Bye, darlin'," Bones drawls. The sound slips down his spine and pools like the syrup currently dripping off his laden fork onto the table. Plink.

The door slides closed succinctly. Plink. Plink. Jim only remembers to stop gaping so he can wolf down his pancakes because, really. Even Bones-related crises can wait for Bones's fluffy, cloud of heaven pancakes.

He strokes his cheek with wondering fingertips straight through his diplomacy lecture.

They're  withdrawn within their own spheres that night, bubbles occasionally nudging up against each other from opposite ends of the sofa when Bones reaches for a stylus or Jim's weight dimples the cushions differently.

Jim's fingers have found his cheek again and he looks up to find Bones watching him. A leg's sprawled over the couch, one knee's dragged up, and damn if that space between his thighs doesn't look like prime real estate. He slides his stare up to find Bones's  mouth  wryly knowing even when wrapped around his Friday beer bottle.

"About this morning--" Jim starts, glad he likes hazel eyes, too, or he'd be looking all kinds of places inappropriate for this conversation.

“I was married. I’m from Georgia.” Jaw-ja. Yeah, Bones is really Southern, Jim gets that. Darlin’. Jesus Christ.“You get used to that sort of thing. Get mixed up. Forget.”

“Wow, how domesticated are you?” Jim snorts. He closes the space between them just to snatch the bottle and take a pointed swig himself. “I get it.” He honestly doesn’t. Not their easygoing fondness when everyone else has taught Jim to dole it out gingerly. Not the way Bones manages to kick up the sand and then redraw the lines.

“Force'a habit, kid," Bones grunts in agreement, then sinks back into his research with the characteristic intensity Jim won't fault him for a minute. "Crossed wires." Yeah, alright, Jim's said he got it.

Crossed wires is too fucking right. Kid. Darlin'. He needs to sort out the sparking mess that is his mind. Leaning his cheek on his palm, he tries to  go back to work.

Saturday morning, Jim wakes to a head muzzy with the week's lingering exhaustion compounded with alcohol. He stumbles over to the counter and blinks stupidly at the tray sitting on it.

Coffee, black. Hypo, blue-labeled--he squints to find that it's a hangover hypo. Weird. Isn't he allergic to those? Must be modified just for him, he realizes. A bowl of grits, steaming, the skew of the spoon making him want to laugh with delight, somehow. Bones's PADD's been left there as well. Weird. He hates it near food, but there it is, nudging up against the bowl and the cup. Jim squints at it, expecting a hailstorm of caveats about hypo usage.

[8:03] LHM: Jocelyn is a redhead.

Bones is trying to tell him something and shit, why isn’t he getting it, when Bones always gets him, when they get each other? That's a thing, right, them getting each other?

Jim has the first spoon of grits (ah, perhaps this is a single unit of grits) held to his mouth and is staring at it with probably inordinate distress.

A wide palm lands at his shoulder. A solid presence at his back. A low laugh at his nape.

"Hey, darlin'." Slow and syrupy and he feels that right down to his toes. Wants to lick it straight out his generous mouth.

Bones is a doctor, not an electrician, but he's very suddenly reordered a good chunk of Jim's screwed-up circuitry. Like he's done a hundred times and he'll do a hundred more.

Turning to tip his forehead into his shoulder is dragging his foot across the beach, tingly and warm, scuffing out yet another godforsaken boundary.

[bonesque]

It's just a word, but to Jim, it means everything.

Darlin, said teasingly as Jim does something to make Bones laugh.

Darlin, the first thing Jim hears when he's pulled out of unconsciousness after an away mission gone wrong, Bones's warm hand in his.

Darlin, whispered in his ear in the dark, Bones holding him through the nightmares.

Darlin, the single word greeting he receives when he meets Bones at the altar with a smile.

Darlin, kissed into every inch of his skin later that night, as Bones moves against him.

It's still just a word, but to Jim, it means love.