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Bones beats him back to the beach. Toes buried in the sand, eyes closed, face upturned so that it catches the early morning light. There’s enough of a breeze that it’s tugging at his hair, catching on his eyelashes.
Jim smiles even though Bones can’t see it as he comes out of the waves, dripping from everywhere and anywhere, wetsuit clinging to him like a second skin, like always.
Bones opens his eyes, the orange light making them look dark, teal, almost the color of his pupils. Jim’s lips are wet and Bones’ are dry and cracked, but his mouth is warm and slick, and Jim drops his board so that he can cup Bones’ face, brushing at his cheekbones.
The sun is warm at their backs, promising a warm day, but in the mean time, it’s just them, and the early morning cool, the waves crashing and calling them back.
---
The little dry erase board on the door to Scotty’s shop is showing a smiling sun with a little thumbs up, weather and wave conditions written out happily in Scotty’s messy handwriting. Jim spares a second to look at them before pushing the door open, making the little bell overhead trill happily. It’s easy to weave his way past racks and piles of boards stacked 4, 5, deep out from the walls – he spends a fair amount of time here.
Which is why he’s rather shocked to find that it’s not Scotty at the counter, or even Gaila. Instead, some random guy he’s never seen in his life has his feet kicked up on the wood top, reading a magazine and looking bored with life in general. The guy doesn’t look up when Jim drums his fingers on the counter.
“Um, hi? Earth to – whoever you are?” Jim waves a hand in front of the guy’s face and that finally gets him to look up, glaring at Jim. He’s wearing jeans and a faded grey t-shirt, plus a rather pissed off expression.
“Can I help you?” He drawls, clearly not in the mood to do any such thing.
“Yeah, you can. Where’s Scotty?” Jim leans on the counter, eye to eye with the guy.
“You can’t talk to me?”
“Not really.”
The guy sighs and slaps his magazine down, slouching off and radiating general hate for the world, disappearing into the back of the shop.
Jim twists his head to the side, frowning at what he thought was a magazine, but now he can see it’s a journal. Important red letters on the front proclaim it to be the New England Journal of Medicine, and Jim picks it up, starting to flip through. He gets as far as reading the headline of the main article (“Three-Year Efficacy of Complex Insulin Regimens in Type 2 Diabetes” by R. R. Holman and Others, whatever the heck that means) when it’s plucked out of his hands, and he looks up into the face of Growly McScowlerson. And Scotty. Thank god.
“Scotty, my man!” Jim brightens at the familiar face. “Just who I was looking for.”
“So McCoy here told me. What can I do for yah?”
“McCoy?”
Growly raises his hand, his nose back in the medical journal.
“New employee, Gaila decided to take off to Australia for a while. Or Thailand. Somewhere.” He waves a hand dismissively. “So, what abouts are you here for?”
“Guess?” Jim says serenely, looking up at Scotty through his lashes, which earns a snerk of muffled laughter out of McCoy.
“Your new board.” Scotty sighs dramatically. “You know laddie, it isn’t gonna get done overnight.”
“I do know, but I’m getting kinda stir crazy here. Understandably.”
“Understandably,” Scotty agrees with a nod. “You’ll have it by the end of the weekend.”
It’s Wednesday. Jim’s got the week off of work, and has no earthly clue what to do until then.
---
He’s lying out on his deck, nursing a beer and reading a paperback when he notices two figures with boards a good couple hundred meters off down the beach. He scoots forward in interest, sticking his head under the railing to watch them. One’s holding a fish that’s all tan except for the wide swath of blue and white across the middle – even this far away he knows it’s Scotty’s. Not many people around here have the Scottish flag plastered on their boards.
The other person, however, he’s pretty sure he’s never seen before. When he figures out who it must be, he’s pretty glad he’s not totally sloshed or baked (or both) and still has some level of basic reasoning to puzzle it out, because it’s the new guy from Scotty’s shop. His board has some weird blue pattern at the bottom that eventually peters out to just plain white, and Jim squints, trying to make it out. No luck.
It’s getting late, so the water’s glowing in the light of the setting sun, and it makes it hard to follow Scotty, who’s a dark figure on a dark board. The other guy, however, is easy to pick out, his board glinting dangerously. And really, Jim’s seen Scotty surf a million and five times, nothing new. The other guy though – McCoy, right? – that’s interesting to watch. Jim had honestly pegged him as a civvie, and yet, he’s out on there on the waves (which are kinda mushy this late in the day, but it’s enough for the guy to at least demonstrate that he can move) with Scotty, keeping up with him. And Scotty’s really dang good.
He’s suddenly itching to go grab a board – but he’d have to grab one out of the garage and wax it and dig a wetsuit out of the dryer, and really, if he hadn’t broken his primary board like some kind of fuckup he’d be out there. It’s weird, though. He wants to be out there with McCoy in particular, and he doesn’t even know the guy. He’s not even sure he likes him.
And yet, he’s good, and Jim wants to get to know him. He watches them until they finally stop, just as the sun is setting, and when the guy breaks out of the water, Jim swears he looks his way for a split section, his board suddenly orange and blue, catching the light of the dying sun.
---
McCoy’s in the exact same place when Jim goes into the shop on Saturday, only now he’s reading the newspaper of all things.
“Scotty ran out to get lunch.” McCoy beats him to the punch, not even bothering to look up.
“That’s ok. Do you have a first name?” Jim leans on the counter, and the guy looks up in surprise, one eyebrow climbing toward his hairline. “Mine’s Jim, if it helps.”
“Scotty told me.” McCoy takes his feet down and leans forward, offering up a hand, which Jim shakes. “Len.”
Jim cracks a grin, dragging his fingers across the counter in little patterns.
“So what brings you here?” Jim’s actually kind of curious, truth be told.
“I got sick of LA.” Len shrugs, folding the copy of the Times he’s got and tossing it down on the counter. “Too much traffic, not enough ocean.”
“Preach, my man.” Jim holds up a fist to bump, and he’s pleasantly surprised when Len actually responds correctly. “What were you even doing there?”
“School,” Len sighs, tipping back in his chair and lacing his hands behind his head. Jim wrinkles his nose and drops a little ‘ew’, which makes Len actually laugh. “Not a fan?”
“Of institutionalized learning? Fuck no.” Jim shakes his head with a snort. “I got out of high school a year early and that was it for me.”
“Ah, so you’re annoying and a precocious baby genius. How charming.”
“You know it.” Jim cracks a shit-eating grin. “I have a proposal: come to lunch with me.”
“Sorry, no can do, kid. I’m holding down the fort until the resident nutty Scotsman gets back.” He at least looks mildly apologetic. “You can bring me food though.”
Jim picks up the discarded newspaper to smack Len upside the head with.
---
Len spends the afternoon reading a book on “Lighthouses of the Northern Atlantic Coast” (Scotty’s got some interesting reading material around the shop, and it was either this or something out of the stack of drugstore porno mags and dime shop paperback bodice rippers that Scotty keeps in a box in back), idly flicking pages in between occasionally ringing things up for the random customer that will wander in.
It’s after he’s sold the second “my leash broke and I need another one like now!” of the day (“What the hell, how do you even do that on day like today?”) that he hears a crash from the back and a muffled “Jesus Mary and Joseph my fucking foot!”. He sighs and shoves his hands into his pockets, ducking behind the bead curtain to find Scotty where he usually is – packed in among half finished (or half broken) boards, tags on each one fluttering in the breeze the overhead fan is providing. He’s currently inspecting his foot, peering at his big toe with a rather bemused expression.
“Need some help?” Len asks, leaning against the doorframe, and Scotty looks up, pursing his lips.
“Nah, I’m alright.” He waves it off. “Just dropped a sanding block on my foot.”
Len rolls his eyes, and he’s about to go back to his post when he notices just what Scotty’s working on, watching as he picks the errant block back up and takes it to the rails.
“Who’re you working on a mini-gun for?” He walks around to the other side of the board, dragging his fingers over the unfinished surface, enjoying the roughness under the pads of his fingers. “This isn’t exactly the place for one.”
“Aye, but try telling that to Jim. Long as I’ve known the boy he’s always surfed one, conditions be dammed.”
“No one’s got a quiver full of guns. Especially not here.”
“Oh sure, he’s got a few other boards, but, any time you want to get him going, ask him about Betty.”
“Betty.”
“Love of his life, too bad she finally bit it. In Del Mar last month of all places,” he say, looking up and wiping a smudge of dust off of his forehead. “He had that board when he found me in J-Bay. She’s been to Hell and high water and back. You should ask him about it.”
And, ok, he’s kind of curious.
---
He gets Jim’s address off of Scotty, and feeling kind of like a fish out of water (haha, he’s punny), he skates down the bike path, letting the beach and ocean roll by, past the pier. Jim’s got one of the little bungalows on the sand side of the Highway, and it’s not hard to find. Jim’s even out on the back deck, slouching lazily in one of the bright plastic chairs and reading.
Len stops, flipping his board up and tucking it under his arm, sighing. This is probably a stupid idea, but before he can decide otherwise Jim looks up, looking confused for a second before a grin splits his face and he waves. Len rolls his eyes, kicking off his shoes (wearing shoes on the beach is just plain wrong) and walking across the sand.
“Hey stranger,” Jim chirps as Len hops up the stairs. “What brings you all the way up here?”
“Down, moron. I came from Scotty’s.” Len drops into one of the chairs, setting down his board and shoes and stretching out. “And what if I just wanted to stop by and say hi?”
“I wouldn’t be adverse to that.” Jim grins. “Want something to drink?”
“Nah, I’m good.”
“Beer it is.”
Len’s going to protest that it’s like four in the afternoon, but whatever. As Jim walks by he flips Len’s board with his toes, grinning at the design on the deck – it’s the back of skeleton from the pelvis up.
“Cute.” Jim smirks and Len just shoots him a glare. He kicks his bare feet up on another chair and sighs as Jim vanishes into the house, watching the waves roll and break.
Jim comes back out of the house (whistling something that sounds disturbingly like ‘California Girl’, only in the very, very wrong key) with a couple of bottles, setting one down in front of Len, which he takes with a gruff ‘thanks’. They sit in silence for a few minutes before Jim opens his mouth again.
“I’m curious, what were you doing in school exactly?”
Len turns away from the beach to look at Jim, confused.
“You told me you were in LA for school. Not many people as good as you go running off to college.”
“As good as me?” Len smirks, quirking an eyebrow.
“Surfing.”
“Ah.” Len nods. “Ignoring the fact that you have no clue if I actually surf, I just happen to work in a surf shop, I was in med school.”
“I saw you the other day. You surf.” Jim’s tone doesn’t leave room for argument. “And med school. That’s a new one.” Len just shrugs, taking a sip of beer and pushing his hair out of his face.
“I just – it’s not something I see myself doing right now,” he says. Jim just nods, and it’s another few seconds before he talks again.
“You due back at work any time soon?”
---
The sun’s started dipping towards the horizon, behind the pier by the time they make it out to the beach. The diner at the end of the pier clicks its neon sign on, the bright red letters glowing in the oranges and blues of the sunset.
“We’re getting dinner later,” Jim tells him, pointing to Ruby’s, his other hand occupied with holding his board. “You can actually meet some people.”
“You planning on turning me into a social butterfly?” Len raises his eyebrows, but doesn’t look up from where he’s running a hand over the rails of his board.
“Duh.” Jim leans against the side of the ancient Bronco he calls a car, grinning. Bones tosses him the block of wax he was just using, rolling his eyes when Jim deftly catches it without looking. “I’ll meet you out there, Sunshine.”
“Hey, no fair!” Jim slams the back of the car and goes scurrying after Len.
“You’re not going to wax your board? Are you insane?” Len walks backwards, watching him like he’s grown a second head.
“Possibly,” Jim says as he goes jogging past him, grinning. “C’mon, Bones!”
“Bones?”
“You needed a nickname,” Jim points out as Len catches up with him.
“I really didn’t, but you seem to have a fanatical need to name everything.” (He’d been informed that the Bronco was named ‘Silver’, never mind that it was a rather alarming shade of yellow.)
The waves aren’t huge, but that’s never stopped either of them before. Jim’s got a little funboard that looks well loved that’s perfectly suited to the conditions, and he zips around, Len taking time to just sit on his board and watch him between waves. He makes this look as natural as breathing, dragging his hands through the water and laughing like a moron in the middle of a swell. It’s easy to just stare at him, his hands and feet tan against the dark material of his wetsuit, his hair still blindingly blond even when it’s wet, matted to his forehead. It’s nice, though, sharing the waves with someone who actually knows what they’re doing.
When the last dregs of light finally slip away they splash out of the waves, Len ridding almost all the way to the sand, grinning back at Jim. He might be a cantankerous bastard, but there are a select few things in this world that are designated to make him happy, no matter what.
“So,” Jim says as they walk back to the Bronco, “dinner?”
“Surfing and food? Jim, it’s like you know the way to my heart.”
“Through a man’s stomach.” Jim’s smile is blinding, even in the dim light, and Len’s pretty sure he’s got a matching one.
---
After a change and a couple of towels, Jim drags him down the pier, the lamps making everything look yellow. There’s a fierce breeze kicking up, and Len ducks his chin into the neck of his hoodie, watching Jim talk animatedly about various people he knows, a few of which evidently work at the diner.
The diner is surprisingly crowded for it being this late, and a girl with a long black ponytail looks up at the sound of the door opening, rolling her eyes as they walk in.
“Uhura!” Jim grins at her. “How goes life?”
“Fantastic, if you keep your mouth shut.” She finishes this up with a charming smile before jabbing two menus at his chest. “Who’s this?”
“I’m Len.” He smiles at her, attempting to appear less annoying than Jim.
“Well, pleased to meet you, I’m Nyota.” She returns his smile as Jim drags him past her, hollering something about looking forward to being served.
“I’ll send Pavel your way!” She replies sweetly.
After he’s been shoved into a booth and figures out that the menu is like every other diner on the planet, he spares a look around. Most of the tables are occupied by people who look like locals – which make perfect sense for past nine on a March night. He’s so busy looking around he nearly misses it when a guy about Jim’s age slips into the booth, grinning.
“Sulu! What up?” Jim’s default greeting seems to always be chirpy and stupidly happy.
“Nothing much. You seen Pavel?” Sulu asks, and Jim shakes his head. Sulu cranes his neck around the booth, looking towards the back of the diner. When he turns back around he smiles at Len and sticks out a hand, which Len shakes.
“I’m Sulu.”
“Len.”
“Pavel!” Sulu’s suddenly waving at someone over Len’s shoulder, and he turns around to see some kid who looks like he’s still in high school scurrying their way, his curls bouncing.
“Hi Hikaru,” the kid says with a giant smile when he gets to their table. “I didn’t know you were here.”
“I wanted to surprise you.” Sulu grins and Len glances at Jim, raising an eyebrow. Jim is barely hiding his laughter behind his hand, shaking his head while Sulu and Chekov talk.
“When’s the wedding?” Len whispers, leaning over the table, and Jim loses it, cracking up, which gets Sulu and Pavel to look at him in surprise.
“Ignore me!” He gasps between giggles, Len biting on his bottom lip in amusement.
“But I have to take your order,” Pavel points out, holding up his little pad of paper and pencil.
“Pavel, I get the same thing every time I come in here,” Jim says, collecting the menus from the table and handing them over while Pavel scribbles something down. Sulu and Len order, which leaves Pavel free to scurry off, and as soon as he’s away from the table Jim cracks up again.
“What is so funny?” Sulu asks, looking at them both like they’ve gone totally nuts.
“All I said was ‘when’s the wedding?” Len replies nonchalantly, which sends Jim off again.
---
When he gets to the shop in the morning Scotty’s nowhere to be found, which really isn’t that shocking. The man has a habit of running off when he realizes he needs something. There’s a reason the store doesn’t have any set-in-stone hours.
He’s dropping his bag in the back when he realizes that Jim’s (now mostly done) board is sitting out on the worktable. Scotty had finished the resin last night, and Len brushes a hand over top of it as he stares at the sticky note smack dab in the middle of the deck.
Doc –
She’s all yours. Make her pretty. (I can hear you rolling your eyes all the way in La Jolla – just do the damn paint job.)
- S
Len nearly bangs his head into the nearest wall when he realizes that he is indeed rolling his eyes at the note. Is he really that predictable? Ok, maybe he doesn’t want an answer to that question.
He stares at the board for a while, just tracing out imaginary lines and designs with long fingers, dragging calloused hands over the smooth surface. Well, the stupid thing has to be yellow and orange, that’s a given. Goddamn Sunshine.
Painting the rails and the deck is easy, just back and forth with the airbrush. Slapping on one of Scotty’s logo decals is even easier, and while he’s waiting for everything to dry he starts sketching on a piece of printer paper he’d found, trying to figure out what he wants to do with the design. Eventually his mind wanders to a picture from an art history classes ages ago (it was a humanities requirement, otherwise he never would have gone near it), a carving of an Aztec sun.
Which is how he spends the next eight hours of his life sketching, stenciling, and painting on a large piece of rice paper. There’s a fair amount of swearing and bitching involved. Luckily, by the end of it, he’s got something that he’s actually rather happy with.
He sticks the topcoat of resin on over everything and leaves it to dry, kicking a pair of board shorts off of the old couch and dropping onto it. He doesn’t even remember falling asleep.
---
When Scotty finally gets in, just past when sane people tend to have dinner, he finds Len curled up on the couch in the back, sleeping away quite blissfully, even though he’s got paint up his arms and splotched across his forehead.
And the board is done. Now that Scotty looks at it, it isn’t just done – it’s plain out amazing. He’d expected Len to do a two-tone job and leave it be, but he’d actually gone and done a design. It almost looks like he printed it out, it’s so skillfully done, but Len’s covered in paint, which means he made it from scratch. It’s downright impressive.
Scotty finishes checking everything over before popping the fins and the leash plug in, admiring his handiwork. The board really is a beauty, he’ll be sad to part with her, but Jim’s been chomping at the bit for weeks now.
Len stirs on the couch, his brow furrowing as he stretches.
“Time issit?” He slurs, blinking up at Scotty.
“Time for you to get your arse home, Mr. Artiste.” Scotty laughs as Len gets up, blinking a few times in confusion. “Late.”
Len comes over to look at the board, tilting his head.
“This doesn’t suck too badly.” He follows the sun pattern with his finger, staring down at it.
“Not at all.” Scotty claps him on the back. “A job well done. Jim’ll like it.”
Len smiles softly, nodding.
“Yeah, that’d be good.”
---
Despite Scotty saying it was ‘late’, when Len drags his cellphone out of his pocket it’s only just past seven, so he makes a sleepy trip down the bike path to Jim’s, yawning as he crosses the beach and knocks on Jim’s back door. It takes a few minutes, but Jim eventually appears, smelling like paraffin and rubbing at his hair with what is probably a very waxy hand.
“Hey Sunshine, guess what’s done?”
“I – my board’s done?” Jim’s face has lit up like Christmas.
“All ready and good to go- hey!” Len is suddenly aware that he’s four wheels and a deck short, as Jim has gone running off with his goddamn skateboard. The fucker had literally grabbed it out of his hands. “Kirk, you motherfucker!”
Jim’s evidently evolved selective hearing though, because he doesn’t even spare a wave as he goes running across the beach to the cement path, kicking off without a backwards glance.
Len retaliates by stomping around the house and into the open garage, pulling down Jim’s bike, making sure to knock over a few things in the process. The stupid thing is too small for him, but it sure beats walking back to the shop.
He can hear excited voices from the back when he shoves open the door, still glowering as he makes his way past boards to sweep aside the bead curtain. Jim’s got his board held out in front of him, grinning at it like it’s a new puppy.
“-and this is such an awesome decal, oh man, thank you!” Jim’s babbling on and on, and Scotty has to laugh, cutting in.
“Not a decal, and not my work.” Scotty tips his head in the direction of Len, who’s got his arms crossed and is radiating a general air of “you little bitch, you touched my skateboard.”
“You did this? By hand?” Jim asks, running a palm reverently over the design before looking back up at Len.
“It’s a goddamn McCoy original, consider your ass a lucky one.” Len slouches a bit further.
“Thanks, Bones.”
A lot of his anger dissipates at the look of total and utter unbridled joy and thankfulness on Jim’s face.
“No problem, Sunshine.”
He shrugs, and somehow, he really means it.
---
Scotty somehow convinces Jim to let the resin set overnight, which is good, but the barging somehow ended up including Len dragging his ass out of bed at o-dark-hundred. He’s fine with waking up early, but this is a whole ‘nother level of it.
Jim’s already out on the waves when Len gets there, which isn’t that surprising at all. He’s got another friend with him who Len doesn’t realize, and he takes his time waxing his board, watching them surf. Jim seems to be having way too much fun – Len’s noticed that he surfs like, for lack of a better analogy, a dolphin. He’s quick, skipping across the tops of waves and dropping down into them to drag his hands through the water, little bursts of energy. Len’s never seen someone turn a three-o as fast as Jim can.
The sand is cool under the soles of his feet as he curls his toes in it, making his way across the beach to the water. It’s early enough that the waves aren’t that crowded yet, which is nice. It’s starting to creep into April and more and more people seem to be showing up every day, especially on the weekends. He’s not looking forward to how crammed it’s going to get in a month or two.
He hits the water without much thought, paddling out to where Jim and the mystery guy are, waiting for them a couple meters out.
“Bones!” Jim somehow ends up coasting out to meet Len, which just gets an eye roll out of him. “I was starting to think you’d slept through your alarm clock.”
“Course not.” Len lies back on his board, looking over at Jim. “Who’s with you?”
“That’s Spock.” Jim turns back to the wave break, grinning. “Also known Uhura’s bitch.”
“Nyota from the diner?”
“She has him whipped like no other.” Jim shakes his head in amusement. He eventually turns back to watch Spock, and they slip into comfortable silence.
“Enjoying the board?” Len finally asks, sitting back up and stretching, noticing that Spock’s making his way over to them. Len raises an eyebrow when he sees that even though Spock’s hair is matted down with water, it’s still perfectly in place.
“Dude, this board is orgasmic.” Jim bends down to hug it, pressing a cheek to the deck lovingly. “I’ll promise to love you forever and never cheat on you, baby.” Len just has to laugh at him.
“Before you ask, I’m Len.” He waves, eyeing Spock’s hair.
“I am Spock,” Perfect-Hair answers in an eerily level voice before turning to Jim. “I regretfully have to retire for the day, I’m due at work in an hour.”
“Eh, it’s all good. I may have to drag you out again though.” Jim grins at him.
“I would not be adverse to that. It was nice to make your acquaintance Len.”
“Yeah, likewise.”
When he’s paddled out of earshot Len turns to Jim, looking confused.
“Is he for real?” He jerks a thumb over his shoulder.
“Degree in physics and oceanography from MIT,” Jim says, kicking water at Len. “You awake yet?”
“Most of the way there.”
“Well then get your ass in gear, we’ve got some riding to do.”
Following Jim out to the break seems like the most natural thing in the world, watching the yellow and orange board under him dip in and out of the water.
---
By the time they crash onto the beach (Jim on his back next to his board, laughing so hard that he’s gasping for breath at something Len’s been bitching about nonstop) it’s mid morning.
“You are the only person on the planet I know who can carve and bitch up a storm at the same time.” Jim’s having trouble speaking around his laughter, his eyes bright. Len just shakes his head, toeing at Jim’s side and making him fall prey to another round of giggling, curling away from Len’s foot and clinging to his board.
“Try not to molest your board on the beach.”
“She needs a name before I can molest her.”
Len pulls a face, hands on his hips, and Jim grins, tugging at Len’s ankle. The motion manages to go from Jim yanking on his leg to something that makes Len’s breath catch at the back of his throat, Jim sweeping a calloused thumb over his ankle. Jim’s gone quiet, just watching him, and before Len’s totally sure what he’s doing he’s straddled Jim and dropped to his hands and knees in the sand, giving Jim a stare before ducking his head and kissing him.
He’s got a million things he can blame it on – not getting a ton of sleep, being high off the surf, the way Jim’s ass looks in a wetsuit – but right now he’s just kind of ok with it happening.
Jim wraps his arms around Len’s neck, kissing him back, simple and sweet. Jim tastes like salt and sun and it makes Len want more, but they’re out in the middle of the beach and they’re no doubt already pushing it. Len presses one last kiss to the corner of Jim’s mouth before sitting back, pulling Jim up with him.
“No need to scare anyone,” Len murmurs, running a hand through Jim’s hair, and he grins, helping Len up.
“We’re too hot to scare anyone,” Jim points out, licking his lips.
Len’s waiting for the other shoe to drop, for his brain to suddenly start calling him an idiot and listing all the reasons that this is a horrible idea, but he finds it blissfully quite in his head for once, Jim’s mischievous eyes keeping him grounded. Jim teases one last kiss out of him before grabbing his board in one hand and Len’s hand in the other, dragging him up the beach.
---
They end up back at Jim’s place, Jim spread out on the couch and watching god knows what while Len borrows his shower – Jim might not mind it, but Len cannot stand the grit of sand in his hair for any longer that he absolutely has to.
Jim’s sitting the wrong way on the couch – head hanging over the edge, feet over the back – when Len wanders into the living room, hands tucked into the pockets of the worn in jeans he had shucked earlier for his wetsuit. There are still beads of water dripping off of the tips of his hair, and he shakes his bangs out of his eyes as he stand by the couch, staring at the TV. Jim’s got MTV going, and Len’s pretty sure the woman prancing around in a metal dress onscreen is Lady Gaga. He’s not sure what’s scarier – that Jim’s watching this, or that he can identify what Lady Gaga looks like.
Jim grins up at him, patting the couch next to him, and Len drops down onto the cushions, letting his head tip back. He’s acutely aware of the space between them now, the way it seems to hum. He drums his fingers on his thigh, kicking his feet up onto the coffee table and trying not to dwell on their impromptu make-out session.
“I cannot believe you’re watching this Haus of Gaga shit.”
“I cannot believe you know who she is.” Well, that confirms what’s scarier.
“I don’t live under a rock.”
Jim laughs and spins onto his stomach, reaching to snag the remote off the table and clicking through channels as he manages to right himself on the couch. It’s an impressive bit of controlled flailing.
“Oh dude, Iron Chef. This show is like my life. If I was a badass chef.” Jim’s full attention is on the show, a huge grin on his face. “C’mon, you have to admit that you’ve entertained being on this show like, at least once or twice.”
Len just shrugs, spreading his arms out across the back of the couch. Jim somehow takes this as an invitation instead of just a stretch, and suddenly he’s got a sandy, sunny ball of energy tucked under his arm, pressing a kiss to his cheek.
“Jim-“
“Best secret ingredient, go.”
Len sighs, giving in and wrapping an arm around Jim’s shoulder, his lips twitching into a little smile when Jim makes a happy little noise in response, snuggling a bit closer.
“Best or weirdest?” Len asks.
“Dude, they’re like one in the same.”
“Sea urchin.”
“Um, ew.” Len laughs at the way Jim sticks his tongue out like a little kid. “What about something cool like chocolate?”
“I think we’re going to have expand your palate if you think chocolate is the coolest ingredient they’ve ever had. Even bell peppers rate more interesting than that.”
“Hey,” Jim says pulling back so that he can look at Len. “I am a mad awesome cook with a very diverse range of tastes.” Len just bites his bottom lip, trying not to laugh at the wounded look on Jim’s face. Jim dials the stink eye up another notch in retaliation.
“Really, I believe you.” Len nods, and Jim just sighs.
“That’s it, I’m making lunch.” He gets up, giving Len one last look before sashaying (no really, there’s no other word – his hips) towards the kitchen.
Len’s worried what exactly he’s gotten himself into until he finds that Jim makes a mean smoked chicken sandwich.
---
Len finds himself spending more and more time at Jim’s, trading lazy kisses with him or drinking beer and ribbing each other on the back deck, watching the world go by, laughing at crappy TV (made even more hilarious when baked out of their minds), surfing when the waves are right. They also puzzle out little bits and pieces of who the other is – Jim’s from Iowa, works in the bookshop on Main Street, and has a love of annoyingly upbeat pop and 80’s glam rock; Len’s from South Carolina, grew up surfing the shit that passes for breaks out that way, has a degree in chemistry from Pepperdine and has mostly finished med school (he’s got eight credits left).
They chew each other out, trade jokes, poke fun, and compare scars. Jim’s got mean reef burn across his back from ‘a shit kid move at Bells’, Len’s got twin slices up his right leg from catching the wrong side of a couple of fins when he was 18.
Jim makes sushi one night, which gets him mad props in the chef department, and they’re sitting outside laughing about god knows what when Jim nonchalantly gets up, crosses to Len’s chair, and straddles his lap, slipping a hand under his shirt and pressing a kiss to his neck.
“What’re you –“ Len’s breathing jumps when Jim’s calloused fingers trace the skin right above the waist of his jeans, dipping beneath the fabric.
“I’ve wanted to fuck you since the day after I met you,” Jim murmurs against Len’s ear, slowly working his shirt up, exposing his stomach.
“Day after?” Len’s hands make their way to Jim’s hip of their own accord, digging into the material of his shorts.
“I thought you were a kook asshole the first day I meet you, and then I saw you surf the day after. You were out with Scotty at sunset and seriously, you are all sorts of hot when you’re out on the water.” Jim kisses his jaw, nosing against the perma stubble that he never seems to get rid of fully, ghosting hot breath against his neck.
“Glad to know you amended your original opinion of me,” Len murmurs, his voice suddenly hoarse. “Took you long enough to make a move.”
“I got sick of waiting for you to move beyond tonsil hockey about 15 minutes ago.” Jim grins against his throat, and then talking is totally the last thing Len wants to do. Jim’s lips are warm under his, and he wraps his arms around him, pulling him close. Jim always smells, tastes like the ocean.
They eventually move inside, stripping clothes off each other as they make their way to Jim’s bedroom, rolling and rocking as the sun burns low on the horizon behind the pier, lighting the sky on fire.
---
He doesn’t even really notice that sleeping at Jim’s has become a habit until he wakes up one morning to Jim dropping kisses all over his shoulders and his chest, “Bones, up!” peppered in between the kisses.
Len swats at him, groaning and attempting to roll over, but Jim’s straddling his hips, which is making that difficult. They’d been up late as fuck last night, because evidently moving from getting high on the back deck to fucking on the kitchen table lead into (some seriously amazing) marathon sex, broken up only by running out to the In-N-Out in town at like one in the morning. Len’s shocked they didn’t get kicked out, because he’s pretty sure Jim was shirtless at the time (then again, they were probably used to that shit, being two blocks from the beach).
“Though we were sleepin’ in,” Len slurs, trying to buck Jim off of him. This just ends in him grinding his hips up into Jim’s instead.
“Well see – oh, or we can do that – the weather lied about lying.” They’d been sleeping in because the huge front that was supposed to roll in was, as of last night, dead on the table according to several different weather sources. No big waves meant actually sleeping past five AM for once.
“Huh?” Len opens his eyes, staring up at Jim. His eyes are bright, a huge smile on his face.
“Dude, this is it – best day of the year. Straight up choka. Seriously, get your ass up, there’s corduroy to be had.” Jim lets him up so that he can roll out of bed and press his hand to the wall of windows that make up one side of Jim’s bedroom, just kind of staring with a little ‘oh’. Yeah, the weather totally lied about lying – there are ten footers crashing against the pier, breaking over the wood. He can already see people moving on the beach, even this early. Word spreads fast around here.
Jim pretty much hustles him out the house, throwing a wetsuit at his head (“Dammit, Jim, this is still wet!”, “Well it’s about to get soaked!”) and by the time they get out the back door, Len grabbing his board from where he left it on the deck it last night, Jim’s pretty much vibrating. Len loves this, sure, it’s a huge chunk of his life, and there’s nothing quite like being out in conditions like this, but with Jim, it’s something else entirely. It’s all encompassing, consuming, it’s what he lives for.
The waves are incredible. Choka doesn’t even describe it properly – they don’t get waves like this around here very often. He’s not really one for religion, but this is the kind of the day where you’ve just got to thank someone, pick your favorite deity, for letting this happen. The sound is incredible, the waves cresting and breaking, the sun just coming up, clear and crisp in the early air. It’s got all the makings of a truly bluebird day.
Len spots Sulu and Spock down the beach a ways, Nyota even standing with them (although she’s in jeans and a hoodie, hunched over and probably displeased to be up this early), and he figures Chekov can’t be too far behind.
Jim holds up his fist, grinning when Len bumps it with his own and then stops for a second to cup the back of Jim’s head, pulling him in for a bruising kiss, quick and dirty and just what they need, their boards bumping.
“You ready, Sunshine?” He asks when they break apart.
“Born ready, Bones.”