An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
My humble (and slightly belated) gift to Jess at @sexuallydisoriented for the @startreksecretsanta 2016! There’re like 3k words of AOS Academy-era McKirk, mostly fluff, with just a dash of pining and very light angst because I could not help it. Jim “borrows” a shuttle. Bones makes him put it back. Then they fall asleep. Spoiler alert: that is the entirety of the fic. Voila!
Bones is, emphatically, not a morning person. Which is why when the warm, comfy sheets are so rudely whipped from his person at three in the fucking morning on a Saturday he comes up flailing and tries to stab Jim Kirk in the neck with the hypo full of sedative which he's not technically allowed to be keeping hidden under his pillow according to the strict rules and regs of Starfleet housing. But he has his own room by virtue of a preexisting medical degree, thankyouverymuch, and what he does in his own room is his business. Or at least it's supposed to be.
Jim, ingeniously nosy hacker and charismatically clingy friend that he is, has yet to grasp the concept of personal privacy.
“Lights!” Jim yelps, backpedaling rapidly, and the room floods with illumination just startlingly bright enough for Bones to clench his eyes shut with a groan as twin twinges of pain lance into his skull. He lets the hypo fall and hears it clatter to the floor as he flops face-first back into his pillow, muzzily grabbing for the blankets and dragging them back up around his head.
“Aw, c'mon, man, don't be like that,” Jim says, shuffling closer.
Bones elects to ignore him and manages in the ensuing, suspiciously peaceful seconds of silence to drift off into the blanker, blissfully less-conscious side of semi-consciousness before a gust of warm, moist breath hits his ear and an unnervingly nearby mouth whispers, all puffing plosives and tickling sibilants which rattle his inner ear and crawl over his scalp to shiver in the roots of every single one of his hairs, “Booones.”
Bones reflexively whacks him in the face with his pillow to regain a measure of space and jackknifes into a sitting position, squinting with bleary balefulness as he sways in place, one hand absently attempting to comb down the horrendous thatch of bedhead he knows has arisen. The fucking cowlicks in the back are sticking as straight up as officers standing at attention. As indomitable as the officers at attention which were plastered all over those recruitment holos he'd stumbled past, back around the time of the split-second fuck it decision at a job fair booth and the subsequent drowning his sorrows and aviaphobia in alcohol bender in Iowa which landed him on the shuttle which then landed him here at Starfleet Fucking Academy. Fucking crash-landed, if you ask him.
“You up?” Jim grins, leaning on the bed and once again invading Bones' bubble. The smile is as insufferably charming as ever, but there's a strung-out energy around him, a tremble of exhaustion in his shoulders, and his shockingly blue his eyes are bloodshot. The cadet reds he's wearing are rumpled, and from this close Bones can detect a whiff of sweat and mustiness; he wonders how long it's been since the kid changed, let alone showered or slept.
“No,” Bones finally mumbles after too long a pause, just to be contrary.
“Excellent,” Jim says blithely, as though Bones had answered in the positive. His restless fingers find the edge of the sheets and casually, coaxingly begin to tug Bones' blankets off again, inch by sly inch as though Bones won't notice. “Come on, I got a surprise waiting.”
“I don't function without coffee.” He yanks the sheets out of Jim's reach and bundles them more securely around his shoulders.
“And if I said I'd gotten you coffee?”
“I wouldn't fuckin' imbibe caffeine in the middle of the night. When I'm planning on going back to sleep.”
“Which is why,” Jim exclaims, nothing but deranged, sleep-deprived triumph as he reaches for something he's stowed under the bed, “I brought you hot chocolate, instead.”
Bones blinks as a travel mug is shoved under his nose, heat and aromatic steam warming his face. He sucks in the scent of cocoa and feels himself softening around the edges almost against his will as he accepts the beverage from Jim, their hands brushing as Jim relinquishes the mug into his possession with undue care.
“Thanks,” he says, grudgingly, and then, even more reluctantly, adds: “So what was so fucking fantastic you had to wake me up during my fuck-no hours?”
“You swear a lot when you're tired, you know that?” Jim asks, to all appearances inquiring with genuine curiosity.
“Answers. Now,” Bones growls. “Or this cocoa's getting dumped out all over your infernal blond head.”
“Waste of a perfectly good cuppa cocoa,” Jim comments amiably, but he continues before Bones can make good on his threat. “I borrowed a Starfleet shuttle and need someone to go joyriding with me.”
There is a moment where Bones is still processing the words, the gears of his exhausted mind turning over with a rusty, excruciating clunkiness before the momentum stutters into a panicked whir of frenetic energy as the implications catch up to him, his heartbeat likewise kicking into overdrive and his hands clenching around the mug as though it's Jim's throat.
Very, very calmly, he says, “Jim. Please. Tell me you did not. Steal. A shuttle. From Starfleet. For a joyride.”
“Ah ah, borrowed, Bones, borrowed.”
Bones takes in a deep, deep breath, squeezing his eyes shut for a moment as he feels a vein in his temple start to throb, and slowly, slowly lets it out.
Murdering his best friend is not going to solve anything. It would, in fact, fuck things up further. So. No murder. There will be no murdering of the moron. However. Moronic. He may be.
“I had a friend who owed me one,” Jim is blathering on obliviously. “Remember that thing with Gary's ex's flight instructor's TA? Well, she called me earlier and said she was having some programming glitches with the navigational system of this one runabout which is supposed to be ready for the seniors' lunar drill Monday and was at her wit's end because she thought it wasn't a big deal and lied to the instructor about it being a problem before she knew what a problem it would be and it was too late to switch it out for repairs or get the tech department on it given that backlog with the old computer terminals which're getting revamped over in the Union Center, and really I blame the instructor on this one because he's actually a total asshole and would rip into her if he knew even though she's been taking over a lot of the responsibilities he's supposed to be in charge of himself in this pretty advanced class, so she contacted me because she saw how I'd taken care that thing with Gary's ex's stolen keycode and said that if I fixed the nav system tonight she'd let me take it out for a cruise on the down-low so long as I brought it back before morning without a scratch and of course I said yes, because, like, duh.”
“Oh, well, that makes total sense,” Bones says, with an acidic level of sarcasm.
“So, navigation's good as new with just a touch of tweaking, flew smooth as― I dunno, a baby's bottom― all the way here, kissed down on the roof. Feather-light. Beautiful. Been wanting to get out of the sims and into a real cockpit since forever, it's a dream come true, Bones, you just gotta come with me, I need someone to share in the experience and I swear you won't regret it―”
“Shut― shut up,” Bones breaks in, pinching the bridge of his nose to stave off the growing migraine. “Fine. I'll come.”
Jim crows in victory and Bones hits him with the pillow again to regain his attention.
“I'm coming, on the condition that you're turning that tin can around and driving it right back to wherever the hell it belongs.”
“Sure,” Jim laughs magnanimously, clapping him on the back. “Anything for you, Bonesy.”
Bones swallows a sudden lump in his throat at the declaration, at the glow of delight in Jim's face, at the wild sparkle in roving eyes too consumed by grand visions of the future to bother meeting his... a surge of achingly sentimental, yearning emotion coming out of nowhere to catch him unawares.
He gives himself a mental slap upside the head, sternly tells himself to get the fuck over it, and takes a deep swig of hot chocolate. It's not coffee, but. It'll have to do.
Still. “Call me 'Bonesy' again and I'm resorting to violence, kid.”
Jim is already making for the door and barely spares a moment to wave back at him dismissively. “All right, old man. Now hop to it, I parked on the roof and I don't know how long we have before someone finds out.”
Parked on the roof. Of course he parked on the goddamn roof, dammit.
The shuttle is small, just a two-person craft, but it's warm, at least, which is nice given the fact that in lieu of actual clothes Bones has mutinously decided to use his blanket as a cape over his ratty tank top and sweats, shove his feet into the tall, thick synth-sheepskin slippers Jim had gotten him as a joke gift on his birthday, and call the resulting ensemble good enough of an outfit for the occasion. It's not like he's a debutante at a ball, after all; just trudging after Jim to the turbolift while resentfully clutching his not-coffee close to his chest, glowering both at the world at large and at the back of Jim's head in particular.
Jim practically throws himself into the pilot's seat, his maniacal grin fading into concentration as he runs through the startup sequence. Bones watches his hands manipulating the controls through his eyelashes, still too out of it to keep himself from blatant staring, struggling simply to keep his eyes open. Or he is right until the runabout lurches and it really hits him that he's in a tiny flying death machine about to take off, at which point he snaps back to full awareness and clenches his free hand into the armrest hard enough to leave permanent indentations.
He's regretting choosing the passenger side, what with the expansive view offered by the steep overhead slant of the surrounding windshield. The dark geometric bulk of university buildings drop sharply beneath them, farther and farther away, the nose of the shuttle dipping down as they pick up altitude and acceleration and affording Bones a better look at the woefully distant ground, but just as he is in the simulation runs, so long as he isn't required to pull any of his beloved evasive maneuvers, Jim's flying is uncannily smooth. They begin to skim towards the glimmer of the ocean which limns the soft curve of the nighttime horizon, the weblike mass of soaring architecture and terraced foliage of the city dark as it stretches around them and the light display of the runabout console almost bright enough to outshine the faint diamond glitter of constellations scattered over the black velvet sky visible through the milky sheet of patchy cloud cover above them, other shuttles streaking by along the street courses plotted out around them, safe enough lengths between them that Bones' paranoia isn't clawing at his nerves with the insistent certainty that a midair collision is imminent.
He relaxes incrementally.
“A whooole neeeew wooooorld,” Jim croons, off-key, flashing him a sideways smirk through the saccharine rendition of an ancient but aggravatingly apt film song as he finishes entering the last of their flight path into the computer and sets it to autopilot with a flourish. “How you holding up over there?”
“Surprisingly fine,” Bones says, taking a noisy sip of his cocoa. It's already almost down to the dregs; he swirls it around mournfully. “Did you spike this or something?”
Jim barks out a laugh, shaking his head. “Seriously, though, if you need me to get you a paper bag to breathe into, or set down at any point―”
“I'm handling it,” Bones snarls in exasperation.
Jim holds up his hands, mutters “Okay, okay,” still all good-natured humor, but his movements are sharp-edged, again, as though each one is a surprise to himself, twitchy and too-fluid bursts which subside too suddenly into stillness. He begins to tap his knee, his fingers drumming out a rapid tattoo before he halts abruptly and announces, “I have ulterior motives.”
Bones... does not react, other than to look away from Jim so as to stare off into the distance in a haze of utter incomprehension. He's had too much emotional whiplash and too little rest for one night. He is not equipped. He is not handling it.
“Towards you,” Jim clarifies.
Bones swallows. Says, “Who?” As though he'd need Jim to repeat it.
Jim laughs harshly, shuts himself up with a nervous lick of his lips and turns to likewise stare straight ahead, the smile dropping from his face like a mask from a mannequin. “Sorry, I― never mind,” he murmurs.
“No, what― what?” Bones says. And to think he'd thought Jim was the moron.
Jim shrugs, even his awkwardness coming across as charming. “It doesn't have to be a big deal. I just wanted you to know. And if you wanna, y'know... that'd be cool. Y'know?”
Bones looks out at the sky, at the clouds rushing past above them. Between studying, partying, and mother-henning every member of his vast social circle, Jim's been awake for at least a few days straight. His decision-making skills are clearly compromised; he's stolen a fucking shuttle for goodness' sake, which doesn't precisely speak for him being in his right mind. He's divulging personal feelings and trying to make life-changing choices on what is probably a spur-of-the-moment impulse.
And, even beyond all that, Jim has a future, is a bright, ambitious young man with a fire in his soul and the stars in his eyes. There's no way he could bear to tie his magnificent, freewheeling heart down to some cynical divorcee who's already too old to fit comfortably in his own skin. Not in the long run.
Bones won't be the one to clip his wings.
But... he's also not one to piss all over a chance for a miracle, either.
“You should sleep on it. Then think on it long and hard. Then bring it up to me again,” Bones tells him. From the corner of his eye he sees Jim smile and look away, a tension lifting from his shoulders as all his bluff melts into quiet affection, painfully vulnerable in its genuineness. For a moment.
“Long and hard,” Jim then repeats, with unnecessarily gleeful lasciviousness. “Gotcha.”
They dock without incident and even disembark before they hear footsteps and have to start running just in case it's someone with the authority to bust them. Jim actually grabs Bones' hand as they go and tries to drag him in his wake like Bones is a goddamn damsel in a typically sexist 20thcentury action flick, which is all kinds of insulting, but Bones allows it anyway. Mostly because they're both stumbling along with all the grace of a pair of drunken ostriches. Not because Bones is pleasantly struck by the fact that this is the first time they've held hands, or anything.
They nonetheless keep ahold of each others' hands even after they've gone far enough to slow to a walk, Jim folding in on himself with merriment right there on the speedwalk and gasping for air between guffaws. His hand is clasped firm and warmly around Bones', twists in his grip a little before squeezing as though in reassurance. Jim's tactile, more so with Bones than with anyone else Bones has seen, prone to slapping him on the back, hanging off his shoulders and looping his arm around Bones' neck, sometimes even hugging him from behind to surprise him despite the countless times that's earned Jim a panicked jab to the ribs and a subsequent lecture on the perils of catching stressed out people unawares to go along with the cold pack applied to any of Jim's resultant bruises.
Jim's... different in a lot of ways, with regards to Bones. He's never flirted with him at first sight the way he does with practically everyone else he runs into, for instance. Just gave him a stupid nickname, one which stuck with enough tenacity that Bones answers to it more readily than to his actual one, and... imprinted on him, for lack of a better term. Like a duckling.
That was probably due to the fact that Bones' first impression was less than stellar; a scruffy, bitter, queasy too-old recruit defiantly broadcasting the worst of his issues to a stranger in breath reeking of bourbon. Not happy-go-lucky, no-strings-attached sexytimes material. But... best friend material, apparently.
And now the material with which Jim wants to try and construct some sort of a romantic relationship. Possibly.
Bones will believe it if Jim properly remembers this in the morning instead of mistaking it for some kind of lucid, oddly non-sexual dream.
They walk the rest of the way back student housing, side-by-side, hands entwined.
Jim hesitates on the threshold of Bones' bedroom until he's tugged in and the door hisses shut behind him.
“I don't wanna presume,” Jim says, going for devil-may-care teasing and missing by several hundred parsecs. His performance of perfection is slipping more and more with his exhaustion, crumbling around him. Bones finds he prefers it, this way. It's easier to read him without the glib exterior, the slick deflections and flashy bravado. Easier to see the raw, hungry wonder burning in the blue of his eyes, the same sort of unnameable thing which drove Icarus up to the sun.
“Just to sleep,” Bones says, pleads, because he's so weak for this man, so selfish and lonely, and because he knows Jim wants him as much as he wants Jim, at least here, now, in the earliest, grayest hours of the morning.
Jim watches him with a single-mindedness which is at once both intense and tender before he smiles slightly and cups Bones' cheek, his thumb stroking against Bones' stubble as he leans in. Bones finds himself closing his eyes and letting his head fall forward as Jim's lips press against his brow. The skin tingles when Jim draws away, and he can't help but touch the spot as though checking for a mark, as though hoping to hold the sensation in place for longer.
Jim huffs a laugh, flushing red as he goes to remake the bed with the extra comforter Bones keeps folded at the foot. He barely bothers shaking it out over the mattress before he's given up and fallen face-first into the pillow, going slack all at once. He mumbles something unintelligible as Bones climbs up beside him, sticking his hands under Jim's dead weight to wrestle his uniform shirt off and toss it to the floor. When Bones settles in, back-to-back, Jim somehow musters the wherewithal to roll over and slide his arm over Bones' waist, nuzzling his face into the back of Bones' neck, eyelashes tickling Bones' nape and knees pushing forward to fit snugly into the crook of Bones' legs.
His toes are fucking freezing.
Cold feet should not be endearing and yet with Jim, as with all things, they somehow fucking are.
Bones finds himself matching the rise and fall of Jim's breathing. Imagines their heartbeats slipping into synchronicity, pulsing as one.
“T'morrow,” Jim whispers, more exhalation than speech. A promise.
“Yeah,” Bones agrees, closing his eyes against the dawn. “Tomorrow.”
