Archive of Our Own

“Nice digs, right?” Jim says, looking around appreciatively at the sleek, elegant setup of his assigned quarters as the suite door hisses shut behind them. It’s the first time he’s taken a good look at the place, and it’s nicer than he thought it would be: polished but comfortable, with warm lighting and a huge couch Jim can’t wait to sink into with a drink in his hand.

He hasn’t spent any real time here yet. Today’s been a whirlwind, obviously, and the day they first arrived on Yorktown he only stopped by long enough to change into his base uniform before promptly turning around and heading straight for the nearest bar to nurse a sidecar in a dark corner and brood over what the fuck he was supposed to do with his life.

Not that he would’ve admitted that was what he was doing, at least not to ninety-nine point nine nine nine nine nine percent of the people on this station – but there’s no hiding from Bones, who commed him about an hour in to ask where he was holed up, adding with his usual tact that Jim might, quote, look like less of a sad sack with company.

Yeah, he’s Mr. Sensitive, all right.

He wasn’t wrong, though, and Jim didn’t hesitate to take him up on the offer. He was flagging down the bartender to order a mint julep – Bones refuses to admit it’s his favorite cocktail, because for some reason that’s the stereotype he gets hung up on, which means it’s Jim’s duty as drinking buddy to force them on him as often as possible – when his comm buzzed with an urgent message from Commodore Paris, calling him in to confer on the unidentified vessel that had just been brought in and its near hysterical pilot, and, well. Things kind of spiraled from there.

So he still owes Bones a drink, which is why he insisted on bringing him back for a postgame in his suite to sample the Lludrian whiskey Scotty tucked into his jacket pocket with a wink at the party.

Jim smiles to himself as he heads toward the kitchenette, pulling the bottle from his pocket as he goes. Bones threw him a birthday party. What a fucking softie.

He pauses in front of the suite’s long outer wall to peer out the floor-to-ceiling windows, admiring the sight of the station at night. He can’t make out any details of the other rings, the gleaming new cityscape gone nearly as dark as the black beyond the sphere. All he can see are tiny pinpoints of light, arcing above like overlapping strings of Christmas lights, or maybe like stars, long narrow bands of constellations bowed and fitted together into one dazzling interlocking whole.

“Wow,” he murmurs. “That’s some view.”

“Sure,” Bones says behind him, with that desert-dry tone that tells Jim he means the exact opposite. “If you like sleeping inside a goddamn carnival funhouse mirror.”

Jim raises an eyebrow at Bones’s reflection, foggy and thin where it’s superimposed over the station outside. “And here I thought you’d started thawing on this place. You did save it, after all.”

“I save a lot of shit that gets on my nerves,” Bones says pointedly, and Jim shoots him a grin over his shoulder before continuing on to the kitchenette, warmed by the familiar worn-in tread of Bones’s disgruntlement. After everything that’s gone down the past couple days, it’s nice to be reminded that some things will never change.

“Come on, even you have to admit this station is pretty incredible,” he says, snagging a couple glasses off a shelf and setting them on the counter with the round-bottomed whiskey bottle, which wobbles back and forth like a Ftanesian pendulum, bright blue liquid sloshing against the sides. “It’s the leading edge in architectural engineering, light-years ahead of any other project in the Federation. Scotty was saying the grav sim calculations alone took years to get right.” He scans over the various appliances under the counter, searching for where they might have stashed the ice maker; Bones takes his whiskey on the rocks. “I still can’t think how they did it. I’d love to get my hands on those formulas.”

“I imagine you’re in luck, then,” Bones says, his voice taking a strange, hard turn Jim’s not expecting. “Don’t reckon they’ll deny that particular privilege to a vice-admiral.”

Jim loses his hold on one of the ice spheres he’s scooped up from the maker. It cracks on impact with the counter, fracturing into a dozen sharp-edged pieces.

Fuck.

He drops the rest of the ice into a glass and reaches for the still-swaying whiskey bottle. He doubts either of them are going to touch these drinks now, but it gives him something to do, a reason to put off turning around and looking Bones in the face, seeing the anger he’s sure he’ll find there. He hates when Bones is mad at him. “How’d you find out?”

“Not from you,” Bones says tersely. Oh yeah, he’s definitely mad.

Jim finishes pouring their drinks, caps the bottle and tucks it away in a corner where it’ll hopefully be safe even if another attack were to rattle the station. He sweeps the ice fragments from the broken sphere into his hand and dumps them into the disposal chute, shakes off the wetness from the melting little sliver that clings stubbornly to his palm. And then, out of excuses, he forces himself to turn and meet Bones’s eyes. “I’m not taking it.”

Bones arches an eyebrow, but doesn’t say anything. There’s no need. Jim’s seen that look enough times to know what it means. Do better.

Jim crosses his arms over his chest, mirroring Bones, and then immediately uncrosses them when he realizes what he’s done. Bones has a right to be mad, and he’s only going to get madder if Jim goes defensive on him. “I was going to tell you.”

“And when were you planning on getting around to that, exactly?” Bones says, every word sharp as a bat’leth, dangerously low and deliberate like he only ever gets when he’s pissed and making an effort to keep his voice down. He’ll rant and holler about meaningless shit, but when it matters, when he really wants Jim to listen, he’s always painstakingly careful not to get too loud. That’s how Jim knows he’s in trouble. “We were only supposed to be here for a week, Jim. At what point were you considering maybe clueing me in to the fact that you weren’t going to be leaving with us?”

Jim…hadn’t really thought that far, to be honest. He’d probably be better off keeping that to himself, but lying by omission is what got him into this mess. His only way out is to tell the truth. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know,” Bones repeats. He shakes his head, so visibly let down that it makes Jim’s stomach hurt. Bones’s anger is bad enough; his disappointment is unbearable, a poison that seeps under Jim’s skin and eats away at him long after Bones has forgiven and forgotten. “For god’s sake. You’re a real piece of work, Jim. I mean, Spock’s one thing, but I expect better from you.”

What? Where the fuck did that come from?

“What do you mean, Spock’s one thing? What does Spock have to do with this?” Jim frowns. “Wait – he didn’t apply for the position too, did he?”

“We’re not talking about Spock right now,” Bones snaps, which seems unfair, since he’s the one who brought him up. “We’re talking about you, and how you didn’t see fit to let me know you were about to leave me behind on that tin can for the next two years without so much as a week’s notice. I don’t suppose you bothered to consider that if you’d had the common courtesy to give me a goddamn head’s up, I could’ve made my own plans.”

“Plans?” Jim echoes, more confused than ever. “What plans? What are you talking about?”

“Old colleague of mine from SFM got appointed as the Chief Medical Officer for this base. And it so happens that they’re still a little hard up for experienced surgeons – no surprise there, seeing as how it turns out most of us have the common sense God gave a flea and aren’t interested in relocating to some flimsy-ass crystal ball floating out in the middle of the void. Hugh would’ve been more than happy to light some fires under the right asses to rush the transfer order.” He pauses, his eyes narrowing as he takes in Jim’s expression. “But it didn’t occur to you that I might want to stay here with you, did it?” He shakes his head again, glaring off to the side, like he can’t even stand to look at Jim right now. “Christ alive. You are unbelievable, you know that? Un-fucking-believable.”

“Bones, come on, I – I’m not going to ask you to take a demotion for me,” Jim says, fumbling for the right words in his surprise. Bones would have left the Enterprise for Yorktown? He hates everything about this place. He’d be miserable here. “You’d go crazy having to work under a bunch of other people again. And you – this is your career we’re talking about. You’re the best CMO in the Fleet. You love your staff. You’re happy where you are. I’m not gonna make you give all that up just because I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing out here anymore.”

“Oh, come down off your fucking cross, would you?” Bones says sharply. “You’re not making me do shit. I’m a grown man, Jim. I can make my own decisions.”

“But you shouldn’t have to,” Jim says, frustrated by this whole aircar crash of a conversation: Bones’s refusal to meet him halfway and accept what he’s trying to explain, the scorching blue-flame heat of Bones’s anger he knows he deserves but can’t seem to make any headway in cooling down. His stomach is hurting worse by the second. If he can’t get Bones to forgive him before he walks out, he seriously thinks he might throw up. And wouldn’t that be a fitting end to his birthday – on his knees in front of a Starfleet toilet, puking up a stomachful of booze and regret. Just like old times. “Look, it’s a moot point, okay? I turned down the position. I’m not going anywhere. It was shitty of me, and yes, okay, I should’ve told you, but it doesn’t matter anymore.”

“It doesn’t – of course it matters.” Bones stares at him in disbelief, like he’s grown a second head or admitted he actually secretly loves the taste of chopped liver. “Jesus, Jim – you really don’t get it, do you?”

“I’m trying.” Okay, in retrospect Jim wishes that could have come out just a little bit less small and pathetic-sounding, but, well, that’s pretty much where he’s at right now. Dammit, Bones knows he’s bad at this stuff. He fucked up, and he wants to fix it, but how can he do that if Bones won’t even tell him exactly what he did wrong?

The pathetic thing must do the trick, anyway, because Bones softens slightly, all over: his eyes, his shoulders, the stark pissed-off lines of his face. “Yeah, I know,” he says, in a voice that’s suddenly more weary than mad. “I know you are.”

He sounds so fucking tired. Jim feels bad about that too. It must be exhausting, dealing with him. It’s exhausting enough being him.

Bones unfolds his arms and scrubs a hand over his face, lets it fall down to slap against his leg as he blows out a big breath, like he’s trying to exhale all his aggravation at Jim’s idiocy right out of his system. “All right, kid. Let’s try it this way. Tell me: why did I get my flight certs?”

“Because – I mean, you had to,” Jim says, not sure yet where this is going, but glad that Bones is willing to give him some direction. Bones makes a little and? gesture with his hand, and Jim obediently elaborates: “Because they’re required for all senior starship crew.”

“That’s right. And why did I give one single solitary fuck about qualifying for a senior starship position when you know damn well I joined up planning to either stay at SFM or get some other planetside assignment?”

“Because…because I told you you were gonna be my CMO,” Jim says, his stomach tying itself into even more painful knots as he realizes what Bones is getting at. He’s been screwing up Bones’s life even longer than he thought. He dragged him out into the black against his will, stole him away from the life he wanted for himself in the name of his own self-serving ambitions, and now after all the shit they’ve been through out here he was just going to abandon him to serve out the rest of this mission by himself. What kind of friend is he?

“Because I wanted to be your CMO, you horse’s ass,” Bones says impatiently. “My god, listening to you, you’d think I had a goddamn Ceti eel crammed inside my skull for the last seven years. I chose to come with you. I could’ve told you to fuck off and find someone else, but I didn’t. You know why?” He holds up a hand before Jim can try to answer, which is probably for the best, considering Jim has no idea what he’d say. “Because I didn’t trust anyone else to keep your dumb ass alive. Because I wanted to see what kind of captain you were going to be. Because you wanted to be out here, and I wanted to be with you. Even if that meant bouncing around the galaxy like a fucking pinball for the next thirty years.”

Jim doesn’t know what to say to that. The idea that Bones made a conscious decision to stay with him, that anyone would ever pick Jim of all people over – over anything, really, but especially the safe, comfortable life Bones could have had back in San Francisco…it’s more than he can wrap his head around.

Fortunately, Bones just keeps going, not waiting for Jim to chime in. He’s always hard to slow down once he’s gotten the ball rolling on a good rant. “I know you got knocked around some today, so in case Krall put a few brain cells out of commission, let me jog your memory by reminding you that I’m the one who brought you onto the Enterprise in the first damn place – not because I had to, sure as shit not because I was supposed to, but because I wanted to.”

“You said you were doing me a favor,” Jim says hesitantly, wary of saying the wrong thing again and bringing back the full force of Bones’s anger. He doesn’t need the reminder, anyway; this particular memory is crystal clear, as detailed and substantial as if it just happened yesterday. Even with everything that came after – sneaking onto the Enterprise, a lightning storm in space, leaping off the drill platform after Sulu, the implosion of Vulcan, emerging from the pod into the frigid white cold of Delta Vega, Spock’s hand around his throat, taking the captain’s chair for the first time, Pike’s limp weight against his side, the blinding shockwave of the detonated cores knocking them free from the black hole’s grasp – that moment in the hangar is the one he remembers the most vividly of all:

Bones’s hand closing around his arm.

Bones’s voice low in his ear.

Bones, coming back for him.

Here and now, though, Bones scoffs like that’s the stupidest thing he’s ever heard. “Kid, if you still think I’d’ve put myself on the block for a court martial as a favor, you’re not half as smart as you think you are. I snuck you onboard for my sake as much as yours. I couldn’t go wherever we were going without you. Literally, physically could not make myself do it. Still can’t.” The tiredness in his voice seems to spread through the rest of him then, his shoulders sagging, his eyes losing some of their fired-up spark. He drags a hand through his hair, ruffling it into stressed little tufts. “You can call it whatever you want, dress it up in whatever martyr horseshit you feel like torturing yourself with this week, but the fact of the matter is, I’m not getting on any ship without you on it. I really thought you’d know that by now.” He laughs to himself, an awful humorless sound that twists miserably in Jim’s gut. “Guess I’m the dumb one, when it comes down to it. Dumb enough to think we were in this together.”

And yeah, Jim deserved that, but fuck it hurts, worse than any of the hits he took from Krall in the life support hub, worse than crashing onto the Franklin’s transporter pad with the momentum of free fall behind him. It’s the kind of hurt that gets his heart pounding, his muscles tensing, his mouth gone dry and sour with the old-coin taste of nerves and adrenaline, every centimeter of his body primed to fight back if he can and run if he can’t –

– but he won’t do either. He’ll stand here quietly in his hurt and take it, take as many hits as Bones wants to dish out, contrary to every instinct he has, everything he used to think he knew about pain and survival – because this is Bones, and Bones is the one who taught him that relationships don’t have to be binary or zero sum, that just because someone’s mad at you doesn’t mean they love you any less.

Bones doesn’t fight like anyone Jim knew before him. He’s not trying to scare Jim, to put him in his place or exert control over him. He’s not even really fighting to win. He’s upset because he cares about Jim, because he expects better from him, because he’s hurt by what Jim’s done, and that makes Jim feel like the scummiest asshole in the entire galaxy. The timing absolutely could not be any worse. Here Bones just did this incredibly nice, thoughtful thing for him, and Jim turned around and repaid him by pissing all over seven years of friendship – even though the timeline flowed the other way, even though Jim didn’t realize that’s what he was doing.

Why didn’t he realize it, though? What the fuck was he thinking?

He wasn’t, really. The vice-admiral position was a half-baked impulsive idea, not so different from his original decision to join up – a shot in the dark, grasping at straws for something that might give him a sense of purpose or a renewed understanding of his place in the universe - and the embarrassing truth is that it didn’t occur to him to warn Bones he might be leaving because he didn’t think it through far enough to even truly recognize that leaving the Enterprise would mean losing Bones.

Maybe he has taken too many hits to the head, like Bones is always saying. There’s no other way to explain how he could have entertained the prospect of staying on Yorktown long enough to put in his application without realizing it wasn’t really a prospect at all. It was fucking stupid of him to imagine he would ever be able to walk away from his crew – and to leave Bones? Insane. Impossible. He may as well decide he’s going to convert his molecular structure from carbon- to silicon-based, or maybe reverse his body’s gas exchange, uptake carbon dioxide and release oxygen like a plant. It’s ridiculous, a refutation of the most basic foundations of what he is and how he functions in the universe.

He’s never been without Bones before, not since the very first day they met, the day he left Riverside and started cobbling together the chassis of a future out of the smoldering wreckage of his life up until that point. Bones is a constant, like a law of physics Jim just takes for granted: force is mass times acceleration, you can’t know both position and momentum, and Bones will always be there when Jim needs him, never more than a comm call away, ready at a moment’s notice to fix whatever Jim’s broken or hold him steady when it feels like everything else is spinning apart. That’s just the way it is, the inescapable scientific principle underpinning Jim’s whole life. He can’t win, can’t break even, can’t quit the game, and oh, god, he’s in love, he’s in love, that’s what this is.

He’s in love with Bones.

“ – and if you think I’m gonna waltz off and leave you here to die the next time your legs move faster than your pea-sized brain, you can go ahead and think again, because – Jim?” Bones is still frowning at him, but it’s a different frown now, the one he gets when Jim’s bleeding or concussed or swelling up with anaphylaxis or, apparently, having an existential meltdown in the middle of the worst fight they’ve had in years. “Hey, you with me? What’s wrong? God damn it, I knew I should’ve made you sit through a comprehensive scan before I let you drink. A couple of love taps, my ass.”

He stalks up into Jim’s space and slides his left hand under Jim’s arm, against his ribs, the hold he always goes for when he needs to keep Jim still. His right hand goes to eye level, passing a finger back and forth in front of Jim’s face, which Jim tracks automatically, well-trained by years of head trauma assessments.

It’s such a classic Bones move: even in the middle of chewing Jim out, he can’t stop himself from worrying about him, taking care of him. It’s what he does. He might bitch and moan and complain along the way, but in the end he always does what Jim needs from him, whether it’s getting his flight certs or piloting a hijacked swarm ship, putting in for a starship assignment or coming along on an away mission or throwing Jim a fucking birthday party even though Jim told him to do the exact opposite, even though he doesn’t even like most parties

(too many people, too much chitchat, too much opportunity for Jim to get himself into trouble)

because sometimes he knows what Jim needs better than Jim does.

Jim doesn’t have to change career paths or settle down on a starbase to figure out his place in the universe. His place is right here, safely tethered to the anchor he’s been clinging to for so long he’d forgotten he was even doing it.

Paris was right, before, about the gnawing uncertainty of being adrift out here – but she was wrong, too. Jim’s not lost at all. He never was.

And maybe he still doesn’t know just what it means to be Jim, but he knows it involves Bones, it has to, because they are in this together. They always have been. He wouldn’t be anything without Bones. Everything he’s done in the past seven years, he’s managed because he had Bones in his corner, looking out for him, teaching him how to be a real person, believing in him when no one else did. He’s only alive because Bones believes in him. Like a fairy.

The thought surprises a laugh out of him, a sharp uncontrollable burst of sound, maybe bordering on hysteria, and Bones’s frown deepens, grim lines carving down between his eyebrows. “Jim, c’mon,” he says, his fingers tightening around Jim’s ribs, “if you’re not gonna answer me, at least sit down while I go grab my – ”

Tricorder, he’s probably going to say, or maybe medkit, but Jim’s never going to know which, because that’s when he grabs the front of Bones’s shirt and pulls him in close and kisses him.

His brain catches up a second later, and with it comes fear, because Bones’s mouth is slack against his and Bones’s hand has fallen away from his ribs and it hits him all at once that he has no fucking idea how Bones will react, where they’re going to go from here. Bones is always telling him he needs to think before he acts, before he goes jumping off cliffs or applying for vice-admiral positions or kissing his best friend on the mouth without pausing for one fleeting nanosecond to consider what might happen if Bones doesn’t feel the same.

Sure, Bones loves him, he knows Bones loves him, but he doesn’t know if it’s love, and Bones would never hurt him, not intentionally, so he’ll try to be kind about it, but a whole unmapped nebula just exploded into existence in Jim’s awareness, chaos and potential swirling all around him in this paradoxical funhouse mirror of a room, and if Bones doesn’t love him back it’s going to break him apart, he’ll never find his way through, he’ll be lost.

He can’t navigate this by himself. He needs Bones with him, needs the strong unfaltering pull of Bones’s gravity to keep him from spinning out alone into the dark.

He doesn’t know how Bones feels, what he’s thinking, what’s going to happen to them, but he tightens his grip on Bones’s shirt and keeps kissing him anyway, because it’s too late to come back from this and his heart is about to cave in on itself like a collapsing star so he might as well give the whole thing over while he still can, toss it away from himself like a hot potato or a live plasma grenade, no give-backs, and Bones can either catch it or drop it but either way it’s not Jim’s problem anymore.

And then Bones is moving, touching him, hands coming up to frame his face – big warm steady hands that have always been so good to him, have healed his hurts and held him together and brought him to life – and now those hands are on either side of his jaw and they’re gently, gently guiding him away.

Jim opens his eyes, which he closed at some point – obviously, who would kiss someone with their eyes open, who would kiss their best friend with their eyes open, fuck – and Bones is staring at him, not frowning anymore but not smiling either, his mouth a flat unreadable line, not giving anything away. His eyebrows have flattened out too, and the rest of his face is equally inscrutable, smooth and blank in all the places Jim is used to finding clues. It’s unsettling, like noticing that every screen on the nav console has gone quiet at once, which never really means there isn’t anything for the sensors to pick up – no, usually it means that whatever’s out there is about to fuck them up left, right, and inside out.

Bones’s eyes, though – his eyes are wider than Jim’s ever seen them, dark and liquid-shiny like they get sometimes in the right light. Bones has stupidly gorgeous eyes, Jim’s always thought that, but the thought means something different now with the nebula whirling around him and his heart trying to eat itself alive, with those huge dark shining eyes fixed on him like they’ve never seen him before.

Maybe they haven’t. Bones has never seen this Jim, the Jim who’s in love with him, who wants him more than he’s ever wanted anything – family, home, purpose, redemption, a reason to justify why he’s still alive when so many others have died in his place – and Bones is all of those things and more and Jim can’t believe it took him so long to realize that. He’ll make it up to him, he will, he’ll do anything anything anything if Bones will just try to love him back.

Bones doesn’t look pissed or grossed out or any of the other things he’d have every right to be feeling after Jim kissed him out of nowhere. He just looks…Jim’s not sure how he looks. He doesn’t know what to make of Bones’s wide shiny eyes and flat mouth, the offline sensors of his forehead wrinkles and frown lines. But he’s not pissed, anyway, and that’s something. That means there’s still a chance, however vanishingly small it might be.

If Spock were here, he could calculate the precise odds of all this turning out in Jim’s favor. They’re probably not great, but then, when are they? Jim’s found it’s usually better not to ask, so maybe it’s for the best that Spock’s not here.

Besides, if Spock showed up right now, Bones really would be pissed, and then Jim would have to wait even longer to know exactly what it is the sensors aren’t picking up.

The thing is, he thinks that those eyes, the way Bones is staring at him – he thinks that it might mean Bones does love him back, or could, maybe, in time. But he can’t be sure either way until Bones says something, or does something – kisses him, pushes him away, walks out and leaves him alone in the smoking ruins of what he’s only just realized is so much more than his longest-lasting friendship.

He’s stretched the unbuttoned placket of Bones’s henley all out of shape, so he makes himself let go, lays his hand flat against Bones’s chest instead, cotton and warm skin and the thin chain of his pendant, the faint rhythmic metronome of his heart ticking deep down inside where Jim can’t get to it. He wishes he could, that he could just take Bones’s heart out for a little while and study it like a tricorder or a motorcycle engine or an antique record player, take it all apart so he can figure out exactly how it works, what’s going on in there.

Bones would give him a look if he told him that, the what the fuck look he gives him when he’s being weirder than usual. “People aren’t tinkering projects, kid,” he’d say, and maybe that’s true but it’s stupid, it’s unfair. Why do emotions have to be so much more complicated than engineering mechanics? What’s the point of being able to recalibrate a malfunctioning targeting scanner and build a graviton telescope from scratch if he can’t even work out whether his best friend loves him back or not?

What’s the point of anything if Bones doesn’t love him back?

The fear rises up again, shrill-sharp like shrieking audio feedback, and he pushes his hand harder against Bones’s chest because he doesn’t know what else to do. Bones is always the one who fixes things for him, ruptured eardrums and fractured ribs and severed tendons and panic attacks, all the million ways Jim’s been fucked up and broken, because Jim is the tinkering project, when you really think about it, and Bones is the one who’s constantly having to piece him back together, sift through the pile of busted misshapen scraps and somehow Frankenstein them into something better than the original, something that actually makes sense.

This is Bones’s own fault, he’s the one who taught Jim to trust him, to lean on him for anything and everything, to love him, oh god, why won’t he just say something so Jim knows whether or not he’s just burned his whole life to the ground.

“Bones,” he says, not meaning to. It’s a reflex, a gut instinct, help me love me please Bones please, and it feels good to say but terrible to have said, relief and damnation, like letting out that last little bit of air in your lungs when you’re drowning. Which he’s only done once – okay, twice – and Bones saved him then, both times, every time, so maybe – maybe –

He bites his lip, because he doesn’t know what else might come spilling out of him and he doesn’t know what Bones is thinking and he doesn’t know anything, it turns out. He doesn’t know dick about squat, as Bones would say.

(He wonders how long it’ll take to get Bones’s voice out of his head if Bones leaves him. He wonders what will take its place.)

Bones’s gorgeous eyes flick down to Jim’s mouth, his bitten lip. He frowns again, brows drawing together – is that bad? it looks bad – and he looks back up and shakes his head, he shakes his head and Jim shatters into a trillion pieces, falls apart atom by atom, space dust in the nebula, but Bones’s hands are still warm and gentle on his face, holding the whole pulverized mess of him together, and then Bones says in this hoarse stripped-raw voice Jim’s never heard from him before, “My god, kid,” and he thumbs Jim’s lip out from between his teeth and pulls him back in and kisses him like he’s never been kissed before in his fucking life.

And just like that the fear is gone, evaporated like it never was, because this isn’t a “sure, why not” kind of kiss, or a “guess I’ll humor you” kiss, or even a “fuck it, let’s give this a shot” kiss. This is love, and Jim feels like an idiot for having ever doubted it. Of course Bones loves him, of course he does – that’s what this kiss is, it’s of course, it’s seven years behind them and however many they have left ahead, the double helix of their lives spiraling off in both directions from this moment, bound at every turn. It’s JimandBones, the inextricable whole of them, so much more than the sum of their parts, and Jim could scream with how right it is as Bones holds Jim’s face in his hands and kisses their love into his mouth, the joy of it, the certainty, flowing back and forth between them with the steady hum of a closed circuit.

Bones loves him. Bones loves him, he’s in love and Bones is too and they’re going to be okay, they’re going to be fucking incredible.

Jim grabs onto the back of Bones’s jacket and hauls him in closer, or maybe hauls himself in closer, drawing in toward their barycenter, tightening up his orbit. He can feel it now, the pull between them, the perfectly weighted balance that’s kept them spinning together all this time, even in Jim’s blindness, his ignorance, eppur si muove, because a law doesn’t need to be known to be true.

Bones’s hands are moving again, sliding down from Jim’s face. One curves around the side of Jim’s neck, firm and bracing, while the other keeps going, slipping under Jim’s jacket collar to palm the join of his neck and shoulder, tracing along his collarbone. It’s familiar and brand-new, shockingly unravelingly new, aching in Jim’s skin, catching in his lungs, because Bones has touched all those places a million times before, palpating and stabilizing, fixing Jim up, putting him back together, but never like this, this sweet soft reverent exploration, like Jim’s already something whole, something worth taking his time with.

It makes Jim shudder, makes him let out a noise he’s not especially proud of into Bones’s mouth, and Bones kisses him harder and touches him softer, thumbs over the corner of his jaw, trails careful fingertips down into the hollow of his throat, and god, god, Jim really needs to not be standing up anymore. Bones’s love is pouring through him, flooding him with warmth and wonder, the electric relief of finally knowing how it feels to come home, and there’s a non-zero chance he’s going to pass the fuck out if Bones keeps kissing him like this. Bones will be mad if that happens, he’ll bring out the tricorder and probably jab Jim with a hypo or five and most importantly he’ll stop kissing him, and that is just not an option right now.

So Jim turns them around, because he doesn’t remember the exact layout of the room and if anyone’s going to run into something it should be him, and he stumbles backwards toward where he thinks the couch is, his fingers curled up over Bones’s shoulders to tow him along. (Bones’s shoulders, what the fuck – have they always been this broad and muscular?) The curve of Bones’s bottom lip is driving him insane, it’s so full and round and bitable, so he does bite it, carefully at first in case Bones doesn’t like it, but apparently he didn’t need to worry about that since Bones makes this amazing noise and his fingers flex around Jim’s neck and Jim’s so distracted by that that he forgets to pay attention to where they’re going and they crash into the couch, almost toppling over the back of it, except Bones manages at the last second to plant his feet and rear back and right himself, right them both, because his hands have found their way to Jim’s waist and he’s holding on so tight that Jim couldn’t fall if he wanted to.

I love your hands, Jim tries to tell him, but he’s too busy kissing to say it right, so it comes out as a garbled slur, all vowels. That’s okay. He’ll tell him later. He has a lot to tell him, about his hands and his eyes and his shoulders and his mouth, holy shit, and the miraculous machine of his heart and the nebula all around them, how beautiful it is, how vast.

Later, though. Now is for kissing, not talking, and also for sitting down before Jim’s knees give out.

Jim maneuvers them around to the front of the couch and pushes Bones backwards so he’ll sit and Jim can get on top of him, only it doesn’t work out that way. Bones just absorbs the force and pushes back, holding his position with the ease of years of practice in keeping Jim upright when he doesn’t want to be: steering him home from the bar when he can’t remember how to put one foot in front of the other, dragging him to medbay when he’s too weak or out of it to make it there on his own steam.

Okay, okay, this is fine. A minor setback. Jim’s pretty sure Bones will be on board with this plan once he realizes that there is a plan, that Jim’s not just pointlessly flailing at him like he usually is.

So Jim surges forward with purpose this time, drapes himself heavily against Bones, leaning against him with almost his full bodyweight to carry them both down to the couch, but Bones still doesn’t budge, just wraps his arms more tightly around Jim’s waist to hold him up. Fuck, that’s – no, focus, Kirk, focus. Eyes on the prize.

But the prize remains stubbornly out of reach, no matter how many different angles Jim comes at it. He tries knocking his knee against the inside of Bones’s thigh and that doesn’t work, he tries pulling down on Bones’s shoulders and that doesn’t work either, Jesus fuck, is he made of rodinium? How is he doing this?

This really shouldn’t be so difficult. Bones may be strong – ridiculously fucking strong, it turns out – but between the two of them, Jim is the fighter. He could take Bones down if he put his mind to it, but he doesn’t want to hurt him, he just wants him to sit the fuck down already so Jim can concentrate on kissing him without having to worry about swooning through his arms like the overcome maiden off some Xyrran soap opera.

They’re fast approaching that point, though, and Bones has yet to show the first sign of yielding, so finally in desperation Jim tears his mouth away from Bones’s for half a second and gasps out, “Down – ”

– and down Bones goes, bringing Jim with him right onto his lap.

It’s so quick, so immediate and unquestioning that heat sizzles up Jim’s spine, shocks him into letting out another embarrassing noise into Bones’s mouth. That is definitely something they’re going to explore in more detail at some point – but it’ll have to wait until later, because they’re finally sitting down and Jim’s discovered that his new favorite place in the galaxy is here on Bones’s lap, straddling Bones’s cast-rodinium thighs, Bones’s huge warm hands sliding up under his jacket and shirt to span his back. He loves those hands. He tries to arch into them, but that brings him too far away from the rest of Bones, which is bullshit if you ask him. He wants to be touching Bones everywhere at once, his chest and his shoulders and his face and his back and why are they wearing so many clothes, they haven’t even gotten their jackets off yet and there are way too many layers between them.

Jim pulls back and Bones follows him, chases after his mouth with a rumbly little sound that melts into a hum when he catches him, and that’s almost distractingly hot enough to derail him, but no, no, Jim’s got a goal here, he has a plan and he’s gonna see it through.

“Clothes,” he says against Bones’s lips, since it worked so well the last time, “clothes off,” and Bones hums again and runs his tongue along Jim’s upper lip and then falls back enough to give Jim the space he needs to start getting him naked, thank god.

Jim pretty much tears Bones’s jacket off him, revealing the thin shirt stretched across his wide sloping shoulders, short sleeves clinging tight around his upper arms. His arms are beautiful, all smooth defined musculature like a fucking Classical statue. Jim wants to lick them, bite them, but they’re moving before he gets the chance, biceps bunching up round and tempting as Bones’s arms fold between their bodies and his hands seize the open sides of Jim’s jacket with unmistakable purpose.

Oh, right. Sure, okay, fair’s fair.

Jim nearly dislocates his shoulder trying to help Bones get his jacket off – Bones would kill him, he’s already had to reset it twice this tour – and he’s about to move on to their shirts when Bones palms his throat again, the heavy unsubtle pressure of his hand shooting sparks down Jim’s spine, dragging his attention away from the taunting strip of golden skin where he’s started pushing Bones’s henley up over his stomach. Bones is staring at him as intently as before, but there’s no trace of mystery in it this time, want so clear on his face that any old moron could read it even without Jim’s hard-won fluency in his micro-expressions. He looks at Jim’s mouth and wets his own, tongue swiping out over the obscenely round pout of his bottom lip, eyes as dark-bright as the slow-creeping slide of lava down the slopes of Mt. Dekoltu, and Jim is suddenly out of patience for tedious tasks like undressing. He abandons his efforts with Bones’s henley in favor of falling back into him, into his broad chest and the slick plush heat of his mouth, winding both arms around Bones’s incredible shoulders as Bones’s hands make their way back under his shirt.

Kissing is more than enough to keep his mouth and the better part of his attention occupied, but Jim’s always been a multitasker, and soon his hands begin to wander, exploring all the new-old places he can touch now: the sculpted curves of Bones’s arms and shoulders, the firm planes of his chest above his stretched-out shirt placket, the rasp of fresh stubble at his jaw, the flat barely-there dots of moles scattered over his neck and cheeks. Jim sneaks a fingertip in to trace along the fringe of Bones’s eyelashes, careful careful careful, and the thin delicate skin of Bones’s temple twitches under his other fingers but Bones doesn’t swat him away or stop kissing him, even though Jim knows he’s thinking to himself that Jim had better not poke his fucking eye out.

Jim would never. He loves Bones’s eyes. Loves Bones’s everything.

He retraces his path back down Bones’s face, his throat, his chest, and this time he keeps moving south, smoothing his hands down Bones’s sides, feeling out the solid cuts of muscle hidden beneath his shirt. (Seriously, has Bones always been this ripped? How has Jim never noticed before? Where were his priorities?)

He lingers at the dip of Bones’s waist, just below his ribs, tapered and defined where Jim’s pretty much straight up-and-down. It’s such a good fit for Jim’s hands, he almost can’t make himself pull them away, but there are other parts of Bones to cling to, and more still to be discovered; it would be negligent of him to stop now, before he’s charted them all.

With that in mind, Jim grabs the hem of Bones’s shirt again, recommitting himself to the task of getting them both naked – but when he starts to yank it up Bones stops him, his hand closing so suddenly and firmly around Jim’s that Jim breaks away from their kiss, startled, terrified for the split-second before he sees Bones’s eyes and knows it’s okay, Bones still loves him, they’re still together in this.

“Take me with you,” Bones says, and his rough breathless voice is a shock to Jim’s system, as new-old and staggering as the rest of him, words dragging under the weight of his accent like Jim’s only ever heard before when he’s drunk or half asleep. “If – I need you to promise me, Jim.”

Jim stares at him, not processing, his mind a deafening overloaded whir of love and touch and Bones Bones Bones, and Bones grips his hand harder and stares back with those dark molten eyes, asking for something Jim doesn’t know how to give him.

“Take the damn vice-admiral position if you want it. Stay here, go back to Earth, put in for a transfer to some rinky-dink little science vessel out in bumfuck nowhere – you can plant your flag in the middle of the goddamn Neutral Zone for all I care, kid, but you’ve got to take me with you.”

Oh. Oh, god.

“Bones,” Jim says, lost for words, stunned almost speechless, which Bones would probably appreciate under any other circumstances. Of course he’s not going anywhere without Bones. He can’t be without Bones, and he wouldn’t want to be, would rather shatter into dust and vanish into the nebula than lose Bones now.

But Bones doesn’t understand. Bones doesn’t trust this, and Jim did that, put that hesitance in him, all because he was so wrapped up in his own selfish bullshit that he couldn’t see what was right in front of him. He was so stupid, so blind, and it almost cost them both everything.

He pulls Bones’s hand up to his chest, presses it down hard over the pounding of his heart so Bones can feel it, feel the way Jim’s blood rushes through him, the ebb and flow of it, in thrall to the pull of Bones’s gravity.

“I didn’t know,” he says, which doesn’t make any sense at all, “Bones, I didn’t – I get it now, I’m sorry, I – yes,” because Bones still looks uncertain and Jim really needs to focus less on working out his own shit and more on giving Bones what he needs, “yes, I’ll take you, I promise, please just – just – ”

Come with me, stay with me, stay forever, and somehow the fear is back again, the crushing flayed-alive hurt of being left echoing up from his past and sending warning tremors into his future –

(sure Bones wants him now but what if it doesn’t last, it never lasts, it has to last, Bones is the only reason for anything and if he leaves him he’ll die, he’ll fucking die)

– and Jim doesn’t know how to say anything more, doesn’t know what words can convince Bones that it’ll only ever be him, could only ever be him, because Jim’s heart was a barren black-rotted wasteland before him and his steady healing hands have sown life where Jim thought nothing would ever grow again. Bones has remade Jim’s blighted heart into a flourishing oasis, he’s made it a cathedral, airy and sacred and filled with light, and it’s his, all of it, could never be anyone else’s, but he has to stay or it’ll all fall to ruin again, he has to stay, he has to stay –

Jim doesn’t know how to say anything more, but what he’s managed must be enough, because the worry is gone from Bones’s face and he’s pulling Jim back in by his shirtfront and kissing him, acceptance and thanks and his own promise, too.

“Jim,” he says, and it means of course he’ll stay, of course. He kisses the side of Jim’s mouth, his chin, soft little off-target kisses that make Jim’s throat tighten with fearful joy. No one’s ever kissed him like this, not seductive or teasing or turned on but just…just wanting to kiss him. He doesn’t deserve this, but he needs it, needs Bones to touch him like he’s worth something and kiss him just because, needs Bones to love him –

He takes back Bones’s mouth with his own, craving the clarity of that first instant Bones kissed him, the hum of the closed circuit. It helps to press into the comfort of Bones’s kiss, to wrap his arms around Bones’s neck and pull his knees in tight against Bones’s hips, but it’s so much all of a sudden, too much and too big to fit inside him. He doesn’t know what to do with it, all this frantic desperate energy coursing through him, crackling over his skin in electric sparks, barely held in check by the soothing stroke of Bones’s hands up and down his sides. Love. He bites at Bones’s lips, wild with it. It feels like being caught in the slipstream, flailing and helpless, swept along at the mercy of a force he can’t control, and he’s dizzy, can’t keep his balance even with Bones’s hands on him, Bones’s body mooring him to the here and now.

“Down, lay down,” he demands, a plea masked as an order, and something in his voice must give him away because Bones doesn’t cooperate this time, just slides a hand back under Jim’s shirt and cradles his jaw with the other and holds him still for the glancing unhurried brush of Bones’s hot lips against his.

“Breathe,” Bones murmurs, and then his fingertips are tapping out a familiar rhythm along Jim’s spine, one-two-three-four hold four-three-two-one, and Jim wants to tell him he’s not having a fucking attack, he doesn’t need it, he’s fine, but he swallows the words back and presses his forehead against Bones’s and breathes instead, one-two-three-four hold four-three-two-one, one-two-three-four hold four-three-two-one, because sometimes Bones knows what he needs better than he does.

And fine, fine, maybe he does need it. Not the count itself, necessarily, but the reminder that he has Bones for when it gets to be too much – his constant, his anchor, the gravitational tether keeping him from spinning out alone into the dark.

So Jim keeps playing along, one-two-three-four hold four-three-two-one, and breath by breath the too-muchness eases out of him, drained away like R’wustian snaketree poison under Bones’s practiced touch. Bones doesn’t rush him, never does, just taps the count over and over against Jim’s skin, up and down, in and out, one-two-three-four hold four-three-two-one.

Love.

Jim nudges his nose into Bones’s cheek, exhaling four-three-two-one against his jaw. Kisses him there, where he’s scratchy and warm, and lets himself take comfort in being known so well, rather than getting sulky about being wrong.

“All right,” he says, unprompted, because he is, and who knows how much longer he’ll have to sit here not being kissed if he waits for Bones to get around to asking.

Bones smiles, his cheek pulling taut under Jim’s lips. “Impatient little cuss, ain’t you.”

Jim bites him again, not hard but not gentle either, setting his teeth against the bone of Bones’s jaw. “Bones,” he whines, and when Bones’s fingers twitch on his back he’s not sure whether it’s the bite or the name that did it for him. Maybe both. Something else to investigate. “We wasted seven fucking years. Don’t make me wait any longer.”

Bones clicks his tongue, disapproving. “Not wasted,” he says, turning his head to bring their lips together, sideways and sweet. “Spent ’em together, didn’t we?”

Jim likes where this is going, so he turns into the kiss and hums in agreement, lifts a hand to sink his fingers into Bones’s hair at the back of his head where it’s rumpled and silky. Good grabbing length, he decides.

“And I’m not makin’ you wait,” Bones continues, even though the very next second he pulls his mouth away from Jim’s, making his way back across Jim’s cheek with chaste little pecks. “I’m just…” Light, idle kisses along Jim’s jaw, teasing at the more sensitive skin of his throat. “Savorin’.”

Jim tips his head back, fingers clenching in Bones’s hair, and Bones rewards him with a slow lick up the length of his throat, all the way from his collarbone to his jaw. He blows on the wet stripe he left, and Jim shivers, torn between rearing back from the sensation and wriggling his whole body closer.

Bones kisses the point of Jim’s chin, drags his stubble-sharp cheek against Jim’s jaw, and adds with a smirk in his voice: “And seein’ how long I can make you wait.”

Jim’s eyes pop open in outrage. “I knew it,” he accuses, “you lying asshole,” and kisses the laugh from Bones’s mouth as he locks his arms around Bones’s shoulders and topples them over sideways on the couch.

It’s easy enough to get them situated how he wants after that, Bones laid out on his back so Jim can sprawl on top of him, calmer now but still restless, hungry, every part of his body trying to be closer to every part of Bones’s. The heat between them flares again almost instantly, accelerated by all this delicious full-body contact and by the way Bones has repented of his teasing ways and gone back to kissing Jim like he means it, those deep wet consuming kisses that make Jim’s head spin, and it’s not long before Jim realizes he’s definitely getting hard and Bones definitely knows it.

“We – we should – ” Jim tries, one last good-faith effort to do something about the fact that they’re both still completely dressed, but wherever that sentence was planning on going it’s lost to him now, because Bones is shifting around underneath him, grabbing Jim’s hip with one hand and his upper thigh with the other, and then – holy fuck – hauling him over just enough that he’s full-on straddling Bones’s leg.

“God,” Jim moans, way louder than he meant to, the sound shocked out of him by the sudden pressure of Bones’s thick, muscular thigh wedged up against him. Bones is hard too, he can feel him at his hip, but he can’t even focus on wanting to do something about that, one hundred and ten percent of his attention zeroed in on Bones’s insanely strong hands on him, squeezing at him now, rocking him almost, encouraging him to thrust down into the answering press of Bones’s thigh. “Ah – Bones – ah – ”

It’s abruptly dawning on Jim that it’s been a really long time since he had sex. Funny thing about five-year deep-space missions: they don’t offer much in the way of hookup potential, at least when you’re the captain and not at liberty to indulge in the ill-advised intra-crew dalliances you’re supposed to pretend not to know about unless it’s directly affecting someone’s work. He guesses he probably could have found someone here on Yorktown, but it never even occurred to him as something to look forward to.

Because the truth is, lack of opportunity is only half the story. If some beautiful stranger had wandered into the party earlier tonight and invited him back to her place for a good time, he has no doubt that he would have turned her down – not just because he wouldn’t have wanted to leave his crew and Bones (which, hello, probably should’ve told him something), but because he would have had zero interest in what she was offering.

Sex has just been the absolute furthest thing from his mind recently. He’s been so tired, exhausted by the relentless slog of getting through each day, forcing himself to play the role of the captain his crew deserves. He hasn’t even gotten himself off in a while, too worn down and detached to feel…well, anything, much less the fierce driving urgency of physical arousal. He can’t actually remember the last time he was hard, and he definitely couldn’t say when the last time was that he did something about it.

Honestly, he didn’t really give it much thought. If anything, he kind of figured that maybe sex was just something he used to do, one of the many hedonistic excesses of his misspent youth, like getting into bar fights and stealing cars and drinking himself to blackout every night – a regrettable phase he’d left firmly behind him, never to be revisited.

But he was so wrong, so wrong, because between Bones’s hands and the tight fit of their bodies and the insistent way Bones keeps urging Jim’s dick down against the tense muscle of his thigh, Jim’s pretty sure he’s never been this turned on in his entire life. He’s so hard it aches, pulsing against the confines of his jeans, and he really should have worked harder at getting their clothes off. It feels so fucking good though, even through his jeans, and Bones is still kissing at his open mouth, nipping and sucking on his lips, licking at the corners, and god Jim hopes these suites are soundproofed because he is making some seriously humiliating noises.

He should maybe keep it down, for the neighbors’ sake, but when he tries to hold back Bones just seems to take it as a challenge, tightens his grip on Jim’s thigh and grinds his leg up against Jim’s trapped throbbing cock until another moan breaks free, all the louder for having been choked back.

“That’s it,” Bones says in this dark, deep growl of a voice that rolls through Jim’s body like an infrasonic wave. Jim moans again, helpless to it, and Bones repeats himself, “that’s it, darlin’,” rocking Jim down even harder against his thigh, panting sloppy hot-breathed kisses into Jim’s mouth.

Oh, fuck, Bones likes it. He likes Jim making noise for him.

Well, that settles that. Bones is going to get anything he wants, and if what he wants is Jim getting loud for him then, you know, bonus, because Jim’s out of his mind with what Bones is doing to him and he’s pretty sure he couldn’t shut up now if he tried, he’s practically sobbing it feels so good and the neighbors will just have to deal.

He can’t focus on kissing anymore, doesn’t have the coordination for it. He drags his lips up Bones’s jaw instead, painting a trail of slick open-mouthed kisses up to his ear and then down onto his neck and god, he smells incredible, intoxicatingly familiar in a way that’s never flipped this particular switch before. It’s like now that he’s realized he’s in love with Bones, he’s distractingly in love with every last thing about him, all the hundreds and thousands of little details he’s seen but not seen all these years, his hands and his eyes and the stubble-rough angle of his jaw, the moles on his throat and the pulse hammering under his ear. He kisses the underside of Bones’s jaw, mouthing at the taut stretch of skin there, prickly and vulnerable, a little salty from the damp heat rising off him, fuck, he tastes even better than he smells and the combination is making Jim lightheaded.

Jim mouths harder, sucking hungrily on that tantalizing patch of skin just below Bones’s jaw, and oh, good, Bones likes that too, his fingers tensing on Jim’s thigh as another low rumbly noise rolls through his body and into Jim’s. It’s not quite a moan, more like a purr, almost, or a – what’s that thing big cats do? Whatever it is, Jim fucking loves it, wants to hear it over and over and over again, feel it vibrate against his lips and his tongue and his teeth, because he’s biting again, can’t help it, Bones tastes so good and Jim just wants to devour him – okay, that’s crazy, he definitely can’t say that out loud, but it’s true, he wants to take every bit of Bones’s heat and strength and goodness inside him somehow and hold it there forever, keep Bones all to himself in the beautiful light-filled cathedral he made for them.

God, sex has never felt anything like this before – like he’s tearing down a highway in his dad’s old Corvette with his foot jammed against the gas, wind whipping his face, screaming and sun-blind and awake for the first time ever. It keeps ratcheting up and up, white hot and too much again, but it’s okay, he’s got Bones to hang onto, Bones’s sweat-slick skin and racing pulse to remind him they’re in this together, always. He can lose himself to this, because there’s nothing lost at all, it’s just passing back and forth between them, and even if his heart and his breath and his self-control are with Bones for a while, it doesn’t matter, because Bones is always here, right where he needs him to be.

Jim writhes into Bones’s thigh, clutches at his shoulders, bites and sucks and pants against his neck. Can’t get enough of him. He feels so good, smells so good, sweat and skin and newly replicated cotton, comfort and love, home, oh fuck oh god Jim’s gonna come like now.

“Bones,” he gasps, trying to – warn him? check that it’s okay? ask for more? He doesn’t even know. “Bones, I – I’m – ”

Bones groans like he’s been kicked in the gut, and maybe he’s onto something with liking Jim noisy, because that is definitely the hottest fucking thing Jim’s ever heard, at least until the next second when Bones pulls him away from his neck with those big warm hands on his face and rumbles, “C’mere, darlin’, let me see you,” and when Jim comes it feels like something’s broken inside him, like everything he’s ever been just collapsed into itself and exploded out into something new, instantaneous cosmic inflation, hotter and faster and greater in every way than he’ll ever be able to understand.

Bones, he tries to say, not sure he manages it, but Bones is here anyway, under and around him, the constant that not even the remaking of existence itself can shake. Bones is still cradling his face in both hands, and it’s that touch that drags him slowly back to himself, away from the racing outer edges of his new universe. He doesn’t want to be out there, alone in the dark. He wants to be here, with Bones.

Here is good. Here is Bones’s hands on his face, Bones’s thigh still rubbing up against him, and it’s really too much now but he can’t make himself stop, can’t pull back even a micrometer from the firm grinding pressure Bones is giving him even after it starts to hurt.

Bones knows, though, because he always knows what Jim needs, and he lets his leg relax down to the couch, dropping away from the clinging grip of Jim’s thighs. Jim whines at the loss, his hunger for Bones so much stronger than the relief from oversensitivity, and Bones strokes his cheeks and kisses him, makes this tender little hushing noise against his lips, ssh ssh ssh, and the exhaustion’s already setting in but Jim can’t let it take him yet, he has to fight it, has to bring Bones with him like he promised.

He wants to give Bones the best orgasm he’s ever had, but he doesn’t know how, paralyzed by the choice between a hundred different possibilities, each more impossible than the last. He wants to suck him off but then he’d have to stop kissing him – wants to take his cock inside him but can’t convince himself to put enough space between them – wants to fuck him so well he forgets his own name but that’s definitely not happening any time soon.

He’ll do all of it later. He’ll blow Bones until he screams, ease himself down onto Bones’s cock and ride him for hours, fuck him over the back of this couch and then eat him out after, anything Bones wants, anything at all. He’ll do things he’s never done for anyone else, things he’s kicked strangers out of bed for trying, but Bones is different, Bones is safe, Bones loves him, so if he wants to smack Jim around a little or pin his wrists or fuck his throat or come on his face, he can have at it, just as long as he kisses him exactly like this afterward.

Later. Later, later, later. There are going to be so many laters.

Jim has the rest of their lives to get creative, and right now he just wants Bones to come. He can’t bear to pull away from him, not even enough to get a hand down there, so he decides to follow Bones’s example, shifts his weight enough to ease his oversensitive dick away from direct contact, slots his thigh down between Bones’s legs and grinds against Bones’s cock in a steady rhythm and hopes it feels half as good for Bones as it did for him, which by the sounds he’s making it probably does.

Bones actually seems like he might be pretty close already. Jim guesses all his writhing around earlier must have given Bones a decent head start on this, even if it wasn’t enough to get him all the way. As nice as it would’ve been to come together – and that’s definitely another later – many more laters, with any luck – Jim appreciates having the presence of mind to focus entirely on Bones’s reactions, what he likes, what he responds to, what makes his thighs clench and his mouth shudder under Jim’s. If he’s going to be giving Bones the best sex he’s ever had on a regular basis, he needs to start studying the material.

Mostly, though, he just really fucking wants to make Bones come, as hard and as soon as possible. He throws himself into finishing the job, rolling his whole body into it, rising up onto his knees a bit for better leverage to rock his thigh against Bones’s cock. Bones’s hands are spasming on his face, so Jim pulls one away and redirects it down to his hip, squeezing his own hand over top so Bones knows it’s okay to grab at him as hard as he wants.

And he wants, apparently, his fingers sinking bruising-hard into the side of Jim’s ass as he drives his hips up to meet Jim’s thigh. “Jim,” he groans, his lips lax and trembling against Jim’s, “Jim, oh, Christ, Jim,” and if Jim could come again he would, just from the sound of it, Bones gasping out his name like it’s the only word he knows, like it means something.

Which reminds Jim – he may not have the full manual of how to rock Bones’s world just yet, but there’s one thing he’s already learned that Bones is into, and it’d be shamefully remiss of him not to put that knowledge to good use.

He kisses over to Bones’s ear, sets his teeth into the soft curve of his earlobe and then takes it between his lips, flicking his tongue against it slow and teasing and wet, wetter still at the thought of where else he’d like to put his mouth right now.

“Bones,” he whispers, breathing hot against Bones’s ear, and thrills with triumph as Bones’s hips jolt into his thigh. Bingo. “You gonna come for me, Bones? You’re so close, aren’t you. Let me get you there.”

Bones responds with a sound that might be another attempt at Jim’s name. He’s shaking now, stuttering right at the edge.

Jim tenses his quads as tight as he can, wanting to make everything as good as possible for Bones here in the home stretch. He moans in Bones’s ear, intentionally this time, but also pretty turned on again by the way Bones is quaking under him. “Come on, Bones, come for me, please,” and that last part was a guess but apparently a great one, because Bones’s fingers bite down on his ass and he lets out a low wrenching cry, his head jerking to the side as his hips strain convulsively against Jim’s thigh.

Jim kind of feels like he has come again now, a tingling rush of satisfaction rippling through him, quivering along with the flex and clench of Bones’s thighs. He channels that high into talking Bones through it, letting his mouth run wild – “So good, Bones, so hot, bet you taste so good, you’re gonna come in my mouth next time, will you let me, please, want it so bad, want you to come all over me” – and finally as the urgency starts to bleed out of Bones’s thrusts he dares to say, out loud for the first time against the hot shell of Bones’s ear, “love you, Bones, love you,” and Bones makes a sharp ripped-out noise and surges up one more time against Jim’s thigh before collapsing into the couch, falling away from Jim everywhere except the hands still holding tight to his face and ass.

That’s about the time Jim’s knees give out on him, the exhaustion he’d managed to put off washing back over him with a vengeance. He slumps down onto Bones, who grunts under his weight but doesn’t push him off or try to move away, and as a show of gratitude Jim directs the very last of his waning energy toward moving his leg away from Bones’s spent cock.

Jim’s mouth is jammed against the crook of Bones’s neck, which seems like a sign, so after a while he starts sucking there again, lured back in by that tempting scent-taste. It’s weirdly soothing: the salt of Bones’s skin, the sandpaper grit of stubble just starting to break through, the shudder that runs through him when Jim licks over his pulse to find out how it feels under his tongue. Bones’s throat is such a pretty color right now, this flushed reddish bronze that reminds Jim of a tequila sunrise, or maybe an actual sunrise – no, sunset, the ruddy golden glow of the moment just before the sun vanishes below the horizon. Whatever it is, it looks incredible, and the marks Jim’s mouth is leaving look even better. Bones will probably use the dermal on them later, erase all of Jim’s hard work. That’s okay, though. He’ll know they were there.

Bones doesn’t seem to mind being used as a chew toy. His hand has drifted up to cup around the back of Jim’s neck, massaging gently, and if Jim had a nanogram of tension left in him it would melt away under that strong, comforting touch. Bones feels so good beneath him, solid and warm and safe, the truest safety he’s ever known. Jim wants to stay here as long as he can, soaking up the heat of Bones’s body like a lizard on a sunny rock, everything that had gone cold and still inside him slowly stirring to life, coming online.

Bones’s hand slides up into his hair, long fingers stroking tracks along his scalp. Jim moans, not a shrill hot-blooded moan like before but maybe even more embarrassing, needy and shameless. It feels amazing. Forget “as long as he can” – if Bones keeps doing that, Jim is never moving again.

Bones huffs to himself, and Jim pauses in his attentions to Bones’s throat, curious. He makes an inquisitive noise, hoping it’ll be enough to spur Bones on. He’s halfway to sleep, drugged by the languid rhythm of Bones’s petting; he’s not sure he has the brainpower to form actual words.

Bones’s thumb draws slow circles at Jim’s temple, just grazing the very edge of his eyelashes. When he speaks, his voice is gravelly and wry, somehow sounding both exactly like Bones and like no version of him Jim’s ever heard before: “Hell of a way to win an argument, kid.”

Jim bursts out laughing – a big, loud, obnoxious belly laugh, something he dimly realizes he hasn’t done in a long, long time. It’s probably not that funny, but everything is magnified right now, and once he’s started he finds that he can’t stop. He buries his face in Bones’s neck and shakes with it, with all the relief and joy and amazement bubbling up through him like a hot spring, like Kandora champagne, fizzing and frothy, sparkling-bright.

He laughs until he’s crying, until he can hardly breathe, and then he laughs some more. At one point he almost rolls off onto the floor, he’s cracking up so hard, but Bones catches him up in the circle of his ridiculously strong arms and keeps him where he is, and that just makes him laugh harder. He’s so happy.

He calms down eventually, in fits and starts, another hiccuping stuttery burst of elation escaping from him every time he thinks he’s finally done, and once the worst of it’s over Bones loosens his straitjacket hold and reaches up to pry Jim carefully away from his neck, tilting him over so he can see his face. He’s smiling, a small indulgent kind of smile, faint creases bracketing the warm quirk of his mouth.

“You always this giggly after?” he asks, rubbing his thumb against Jim’s cheek.

Jim brings a hand up to wipe his eyes, marveling at how light he feels. So this is love, huh. Who fucking knew. “I’m never this anything after.”

He’s not sure that makes as much sense out loud as it did in his head, but Bones seems to get it. He smiles bigger, slow and easy like his low drawling voice. “Yeah?”

Jim leans up and kisses him, because he can and he wants to and he really really loves Bones’s mouth. “Yeah.”

Kissing Bones is somehow even better like this – okay, maybe not better, but good in a different way, relaxed and leisurely. Luxurious, almost, like sinking into a warm bath at the end of a long day. Jim’s never been one to stick around for the afterglow, but it makes sense, with Bones.

Everything makes sense with Bones.

Jim’s lips are sore and tingly by the time he convinces himself to pull away. Bones traces over the shape of them with his finger, dragging over each curve with a blunt fingertip. His eyes are beautiful in a different way too now, golden-green and glowy, fixed on Jim’s mouth. “Lord almighty. You’re a sight.”

Well. If it’s a sight Bones wants, Jim’s happy to oblige.

Jim draws Bones’s fingertip into his mouth and sucks on it, lavishing the pad of Bones’s finger with tight curling strokes of his tongue. He likes the way it tastes, the way it feels, and most of all the way Bones is staring at him now, his own mouth hanging open in surprise.

Jim never did learn to quit while he’s ahead, so instead of releasing Bones’s finger he takes it in all the way to the knuckle, intending to tease – but this joke might be on him, because it turns out he really likes having Bones’s finger in his mouth: the weight of it on his tongue, the feel of it just starting to crook down into his throat, the shapes of Bones’s knuckles pressed against his lips.

Fuck, he’s definitely got a thing for Bones’s hands. But if the look on Bones’s face is any indication, he’ll probably humor him.

He pulls off Bones’s finger with an obscene little pop, blows on it where it’s spit-wet and shiny and grins when Bones’s whole hand twitches. Yeah, Bones will humor him. This is going to be fun.

“Hold that thought,” Jim says cheerfully, and sets Bones’s hand down on his chest with an affectionate pat. “You are gonna let me blow you next time, right?”

“Jesus.” Bones drops his head back against the couch cushion, squeezing his eyes shut for a second. “You are unbelievable, kid.”

It’s not the first time he’s said that tonight, but Jim’s pretty sure they’re both a lot happier about the implication behind it this time. “Hey, speak for yourself,” he says, laying his hands together on Bones’s chest and resting his chin on them so he can still see Bones’s face without too much neck craning. “I can’t believe you made me come in my pants. Like a teenager.”

Bones raises his eyebrows and gives Jim’s cheek a flick. “I made you? Did I knock my own ass over on this couch and have my wicked way with myself?”

“Oh, whatever,” Jim says, unsympathetic. “I heard all that complaining you were doing.”

Bones’s mouth twitches with a smile he’s doing a significantly worse-than-usual job at holding back. “Didn’t say I minded, did I?” He runs the backs of his fingers down Jim’s cheek, a sweet touch at odds with the played-up grievance in his voice. “Least you’re still young enough to get away with it. It’s downright embarrassin’ at my age. Here I am almost forty and – ”

“You are fucking not,” Jim interrupts indignantly. “Since when is thirty-five ‘almost forty’? What kind of bullshit rounding is that?”

“I’ll be thirty-six in a couple weeks,” Bones argues.

“Yeah, and then next year you’ll be thirty-seven. And a year after that you’ll be thirty-eight. Holy shit, you’re right, you’re practically Methuselah.” He catches Bones’s finger on its way to flick him again, nips at the bend of the first knuckle. “C’mon then, grandpa – better get you to bed for the night before your joints lock up.”

The thought of finally getting out of their clothes and into bed is enough to give Jim a second wind, spurring him out of his post-coital languor. He rolls off the couch and bounces up onto his feet, to the evident chagrin of Bones, who has to be hauled up grousing and groaning like the old man he pretends to be.

Jim yanks him up with extra force as payback, propelling him forward so their bodies collide and Jim can trap him close before he gets any ideas about escaping. Bones protests this treatment, because of course he does, but Jim ignores him, winding his arms around Bones’s neck and kissing him thoroughly. Not on the mouth – no, that would be too easy, and Jim’s eager to level up his persuasive skills now that this whole new playing field has opened to him. He kisses all over Bones’s grumpy face instead, attacking the deep-etched exaggerated lines of his fake scowl until they smooth out under his lips, Bones’s hands coming to rest on Jim’s back as his cheek creases tellingly beside his tilting mouth.

“I’m really gonna have my hands full with you, ain’t I,” Bones says, not even trying to sound like he’s anything less than delighted by the prospect.

Jim grins against the furrow of Bones’s dimple. “Yep.” He rewards Bones’s surrender with a real kiss, then pushes him back to arm’s length and fixes him with a stern look. “Now quit yer bellyachin’ – ” Here, despite his best intentions, he’s compelled to dart back in and tip up onto his toes to press one last kiss to the judgy little brow furrow that always appears when he mangles Bones’s accent. “ – and take your clothes off. I don’t know about you, but I am not sleeping in these jeans.”

With that, Jim retreats across the room to the far wall, having recently learned a valuable lesson about the hazards of distraction while attempting to get undressed. He goes to pull off his shirt, and that's when he realizes –

“Oh my god.”

“Hmm?”

“Bones, the windows.”

They both turn to look at the window panels that make up the outer wall, which are still huge and lovely and glittering with the lights of the station and totally, unmistakably, one hundred percent see-through.

“Um,” Jim says weakly. “Whoops?”

To his surprise, though, Bones just rolls his eyes and says in a firm voice, “Computer, window transparency at zero percent.” The panels frost over, sealing them away from Yorktown and any prying eyes that may be drifting around out there, and Bones shakes his head and grumbles goodnaturedly, “Lordy. Should’ve known you’d be a damn exhibitionist.”

“I am n– ” Jim cuts himself off, because actually, he’s not sure what he is now that Bones is part of the equation. Like, he’s pretty sure he doesn’t have any interest in that sort of thing, but an hour ago he was pretty sure he didn’t have any interest in fucking his best friend, and that assumption hasn’t exactly stood the test of time.

Never say never, that’s Jim new motto.

“It’s as much your fault as it is mine, you know,” he points out, and when Bones arches an eyebrow it’s hard to tell whether it’s in disagreement of that point or reacting to Jim’s very conspicuous skirting of his accusation. Either way, there are more important things to focus on right now. “Look, just take your fucking clothes off, okay? That’s an order.”

Bones rolls his eyes again, because for all his talk of loyalty he’s always been Jim’s most insubordinate subordinate, but he dutifully crouches down and starts fumbling with his boots, so Jim turns around and sets to work following his own directive. He nearly falls on his ass yanking off his boots and socks, still kind of wobbly and sex-drunk, and quickly strips out of his shirt and his jeans and his gross come-slick underwear, flinging them all off to the side to deal with later, some time when he doesn’t have a naked Bones to tackle into his bed.

Except Bones isn’t naked when he turns back around. He’s decidedly clothed, in fact, barefoot but not even shirtless yet, jeans undone but still hanging loosely off his hips. He’s just watching, his eyes gone dark and shiny again, roaming up and down the length of Jim’s body.

Jim’s the one to arch an eyebrow this time. “Pretty sure you’ve seen it all before, Doc,” he says, gesturing at himself – half teasing, half trying to distract from how those eyes are making his cock hurt from trying to get hard again too soon.

Bones shakes his head, gaze fixed somewhere around Jim’s stomach. “Not like this.”

Jim doesn’t flex his abs on purpose, he’s not a total dickhead, but it’s instinct to try to show everything off to its best advantage when Bones is eyeing him like that. “Like what, exactly?”

Bones raises his eyes to meet Jim’s, and shit, where has he been keeping that look? If he’d ever once looked at Jim like that in all the years they’ve known each other, Jim would’ve jumped him on the spot, epiphany or no epiphany.

He doesn’t answer, either, just raises his hand and crooks a finger in Jim’s direction, beckoning him over, which has no right being anywhere near as sexy as it is.

Fuck it. If they’re playing this game, Jim’s playing to win.

He wets his lips, slowly and thoroughly, and awards himself a point when Bones breaks eye contact to watch. With that small early success to build on, he revs his tired engine for one last maneuver – shoulders back, hips loose, lashes dropping to half-mast – and starts prowling over to Bones, each step short and deliberate, slinking closer with every centimeter of his body on unmistakable offer.

“You need some help over there?” he asks innocently, thrilling at the heat in Bones’s eyes, the restless way his hands flex at his sides as he takes in Jim’s leisurely approach. “You seem to be having trouble following instructions.”

Bones keeps staring, clearly buying what Jim’s selling, but he still doesn’t answer, and Jim starts to question himself the closer he gets, a little unnerved by how well Bones is holding out. He might not win this after all. Sultry he can do, but self-restraint has never been his strong suit, and it’s taking all his willpower to resist just flinging himself full-body into Bones’s arms and kissing him until they both pass out.

On the other hand, it’s hard to see how that outcome would be anything short of an unqualified victory for both of them.

It doesn’t matter, anyway, because despite putting in an impressive effort up until the final play, Bones totally cracks first. Jim’s barely a step away when Bones suddenly lunges forward, his hands landing heavily on Jim’s hips, dragging him in as Bones growls, “Get over here, you goddamn – ” and then Bones’s lips are on his and Jim has won in so many different ways.

He sways his body into Bones’s, magnanimous in his triumph, eager to deliver on all those nonverbal promises and replace the sting of defeat with any number of much more enjoyable sensations. Let it never be said that Jim Kirk doesn’t follow through.

Speaking of following through. “Why – uh – ” Bones’s mouth is doing terrible things to Jim’s concentration, to say nothing of his enunciation. It’s with sincere regret that Jim pulls out of their kiss, angling his head away to buy himself enough time to ask: “Why are you still wearing clothes?”

Bones squeezes Jim’s ass with both hands, hauling him in against Bones’s fully dressed body. “Got distracted.”

“So un-distract yourself.” Jim slides his hands under the loose waist of Bones’s unfastened jeans, helping them down off his hips. Bones kicks out of them, leaning heavily into Jim in the process, and Jim realizes belatedly that he should have taken care of his underwear too while he was at it. He consoles himself for the oversight by grabbing his own double handful of Bones’s deliciously round, muscle-firm ass through the form-fitting fabric. Lemonade from lemons, as Bones might say. “It’s not fair for me to be the only one walking around naked. It’s cold in here.”

Bones chuckles, low and suggestive. “Not that cold, far as I could see.”

Damn, that was a good line. But still. “Flattery’s not going to get your clothes off any faster,” Jim says, and reluctantly lets go of Bones’s ass to snag the hem of his henley and finally pull the fucking thing off.

Bones cooperates this time, lifting his arms when required and shaking free of the shirt on his own as soon as it makes it past his elbows. He grins at Jim once it’s gone, dimply and bright-eyed and with his hair all ruffled up just asking for further dishevelment and on second thought maybe the underwear can wait.

“This ain’t gettin’ my clothes off any faster, either,” Bones says a while later, though he goes back to kissing Jim right after he says it, so Jim doubts he cares that much.

Jim runs his hand down Bones’s wonderfully bare chest, intrigued by the way the muscles twitch when he palms over the tight nub of Bones’s nipple. “It’s a process.”

Bones probably has some sardonic comeback to that, but it’s dead on arrival, because Jim has decided to investigate Bones’s curiously sensitive nipple with his mouth and their conversation falls apart again into moaning and sucking and a surprising amount of hair pulling, all of which Jim strongly prefers to being made fun of.

He does succeed in getting Bones’s underwear off a couple minutes later – at which point he’s forced to agree that it’s really not very cold at all – and by unspoken mutual agreement they elect to abandon all their clothes on the living room floor and hurry into the head, because Bones refuses to ruin a perfectly good set of fresh sheets by climbing into bed in their current state. They cram into the shower stall together and take the fastest sonic in recorded history, and while they’re in there they take turns brushing their teeth with the lone toothbrush, which is maybe a tiny bit gross but not nearly as bad as next-morning bourbon breath, and then at last after a little friendly post-shower groping they finally make it to the bedroom and fall into the nice big comfortable officer’s bed where Jim intends to spend lots of time not sleeping.

Later. Right now they’re definitely going to sleep, considering that it’s –

(“Computer, time?”

“Current starbase time is 0257 hours.”

“Jesus H. Christ.”)

– it’s really fucking late and Jim has a vague memory of Nyota suggesting they all meet for breakfast at that place that’s supposed to have great chilaquiles.

“We could just not show,” he suggests, nuzzling into the inviting curve of Bones’s shoulder. Bones’s arm is perfectly heavy around him, and his chest is so broad and firm, a pleasure for Jim to skim his hand over. He can’t imagine he’ll have any desire to drag himself away from this in the morning, especially on the ass-end of only a scant few hours of sleep. “Beg off with a hangover or something. I bet that whiskey Scotty gave me would have fucked us up if we’d actually managed to drink any of it.”

“No doubt of that.” Bones pats Jim’s hip. “Up to you, kid. We’ll play it your way, whatever you decide. But you know that lie ain’t gonna sit well with you.”

No, it’s not – especially after everyone turned out for him tonight. Dammit. Jim groans against Bones’s shoulder. “Being a good friend is a pain in the ass sometimes.”

“Tell me about it,” Bones says dryly, and laughs when Jim pinches his stomach in retaliation.

“You’re an asshole.”

“I’m a good friend.” Bones reaches over with his free hand and runs his fingers through Jim’s hair, brushing it off his forehead. “And so are you.”

Jim tilts his head back so he can look up at Bones’s face, which is just as freakishly gorgeous from this angle as it is from any of the others Jim’s tried so far. It’s really annoying of him to be so enticing while he’s convincing Jim not to stay in bed with him for the next two weeks straight. “We’re going to breakfast.”

Bones smiles. “I know.” He cups Jim’s cheek and ghosts his thumb under Jim’s eye, gentle as anything. “Nice shiner.”

The words stir up an old memory: a night out in San Francisco, a run-in with the man formerly known as Cupcake, a fight that was more about protecting Jim’s ego than saving lives and an argument afterward that definitely didn’t end with anyone’s pants coming off.

God, that was a long time ago. They were different people then. Worse people, in Jim’s case. But Bones put up with him anyway, because he’s always been a better man than Jim, and maybe because some small part of him knew that at some point they’d end up here, in this funhouse mirror of a room, curled together in the same bed with the constellations glittering outside and the nebula whirling around them where they lie.

Of course.

Jim smirks, playing his part. “Thanks,” he says brightly. “Made it myself.”

Bones snorts. His thumb skates off to the side, following a curving path out from Jim’s eye. “Wish you’d let me fix it up for you.”

“I’m fine, Bones. Really. I’d practically forgotten about it. It barely even hurts at all.”

“Barely’s too much,” Bones says, and leans in to brush his lips against the bruise, a breathtakingly tender hint of a kiss that sinks through Jim’s skin and down down down into the garden of his heart, taking root in the rich life-giving soil where he once thought nothing could ever grow again.

“Wow,” Jim whispers when Bones pulls back, gazing at him with a softness in those dark shiny eyes that rivals every marvel and spectacle he’s seen out here in the past three years. “You are…” He cranes over and kisses Bones properly, sighing into it, anchoring himself in the sweetness of Bones’s mouth.

“I am?” Bones prompts him after a minute, his hand warm on Jim’s face, holding him steady.

Jim grins into the kiss. “A huge sap.”

Bones barks out a laugh, breaking the connection of their mouths, and even though Jim’s laughing too he can’t help but swoop back in and kiss him again, teeth and all. He’s so fucking beautiful when he laughs. Jim is going to make him do it as often as he can.

“Yeah, well,” Bones says when Jim finally releases him, red-mouthed and soft-eyed and still smiling, everything Jim never knew he wanted and the only thing he needs. “Just don’t go spreadin’ it around, would you? I got a reputation to uphold.”

“Uh huh.” Jim lays his head back down on Bones’s shoulder and closes his eyes, shifting around a little until he fits just right inside the curl of Bones’s arm, his chest flush against Bones’s ribs, Bones’s heart ticking its steady metronome beat under his hand. “Don’t worry, Bones. Your secret’s safe with me.”