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“Jim… Jim, darlin’ please, I don’t have time for this now! I need to-“, Leonard trailed off as he entered more information on the file of a patient while simultaneously trying to survey the current of data on the screens to his left.
Jim couldn’t have chosen a more inconvenient time to ask the doctor for a few minutes of his precious time.
“Bones, you said the exact same thing the last three times I asked you for a sec.” The young Starfleet captain stood with his elbow propped up on a shelf filled with medical equipment, a slightly annoyed look on his face.
“No, I didn’t. Say the exact same words I mean, and you only asked me two times so far. Which makes this the third.” Leonard sighed heavily and turned around to face Jim more directly.
“I know we didn’t really have the chance to be together in private much lately, but with us going off earth tomorrow I can’t, for the love of god, afford to neglect my duties here.” Leonard sighed again. “Can’t it wait until we are onboard the Enterprise tomorrow and things have calmed down for a bit?”
Something crossed Jim’s face at his words but it was gone again in an instant.
Leonard lowered his voice as he put a warm hand on Jim’s shoulder, his index and middle finger rubbing a reassuring pressure in the skin at the joint of neck and shoulder. “I hate this as much as you do. Spending so little time with you.” He added with a mild chuckle as he caught sight of the crinkle on Jim’s brow. “It’s been… what, three days? since I’ve last had my hands on you properly. Don’t you think it doesn’t drive me crazy as well?” His fingers twitched and for a moment something hot seemed to flare in Jim’s blue eyes.
Jim licked his lips. “Four days. And you have to promise me that I’ll be the first on your list as soon as you’ve got some time to breathe again.”
“Always, darlin’” Leonard trailed his fingers along the hem of Jim’s shirt collar for a second, smirking minimally as he noticed the goosebumps on his neck.
“I certainly hope so. See you later then, Bones” The last word was nothing more than a raspy whisper in Leonard’s ear as Jim surged forward to place a tiny kiss on his jaw, which felt a lot like a promise of some kind before Jim stormed away.
Leonard slowly let out a stream of air to recollect himself. He would never admit it, but he was really looking forward to being back on the Enterprise again. The last week had been a blur of preparations for the new mission and last-minute rescheduling here in San Francisco. He was glad to at least have the time to take a piss.
*
Much to Leonard’s surprise all went according to plan the next morning and by 1300 hours everything concerning medical was done for the time being.
Leonard rolled his shoulders, straightened his science blues and made his way over to the bridge where he expected Jim to be. However, there he was informed that the captain had left the command in Spock’s hands and was most likely to be found in his quarters.
The grin which tried to sneak its way onto Leonard’s face upon hearing this kind of news was quickly masked with a look of mild surprise and acknowledgement, but he still had the feeling that Spock was giving him a quizzical look.
Jim and Leonard’s relationship was no secret anymore; it actually had never really been a secret to begin with.
In fact, Leonard had had the feeling that most of the crew had known what was going on between him and Jim before he himself had. But eventually both of them had figured it out and years of bottled-up sexual tension had resolved into a very heated and unexpected make-out and sex session which in the end caused half of sickbay to get Melvaran mud flea infection (oh the irony), which had spread from one of Leonard’s patients because he wasn’t there in time to take actions.
Leonard just liked to keep their privacy.
As he opened the door to Jim’s quarters Leonard was surprised (and a little disappointed) to find Jim fully clothed and pacing the room muttering quietly to himself. The second Jim noticed him he fell silent and just stared at Leonard for a few seconds before he seemingly became aware of his reaction and laughed nervously.
“You know after the two years we’ve been together now I thought I know you. But here I am entering the room fully expecting to see you laying naked on the bed in all your glory waiting for me, and instead you look like a schoolboy about to talk to his crush for the first time. What’s going on, Jimmy?”
While talking, Leonard had closed the door behind him and walked over to Jim who now held his left hand up as if to stop him. Jim opened his mouth and closed it again. Then suddenly as if he couldn’t hold it to himself anymore he began to speak so fast that he stumbled over his own words and had to start over.
“Oh god, this is so weird. I never thought I’d ever really do this but here I am and this is totally wrong because I didn’t want to make this up here ‘cause even after years in space you still somehow hate flying and I didn’t want for you to connect this with something you hate and I also didn’t want to make this all private because it’s just too common to make this in private and I don’t want to make this the standard procedure.” At this point Jim swallowed nervously. “But there is a good portion of tradition in all of this and I just couldn’t think of anything to make this less huge because it kind of is a big deal for me and oh god, I’m totally messing this up because I don’t want to make it a big deal for you after all you’ve gone through concerning this kind of thing before.”
Jim looked at him with such intensity that it sucked the air from Leonard’s lungs. Then, as if there wasn’t already too little oxygen in the room to his liking, Jim took a deep breath and curled his left arm around Leonard’s shoulders, his chin came to rest next to his left ear.
Leonard reflexively slung his arms around Jim’s lower back and he couldn’t fail to notice the tension in all of Jim’s muscles he could feel. His mind was just about to take a mental note as Jim began to whisper into his ear.
“Leonard Horatio Bones”, Jim chuckled mildly, “McCoy, would you do me the honor of becoming my husband?”
The world, pardon starship, seemed to stand still for a moment. All Leonard could hear was his blood rushing in his ears.
Then suddenly, everything became crystal clear.
He could feel the tension seeping out of Jim after he had finally said what he was clearly planning on doing for over a week now; he could feel himself pressing Jim closer to his own body and then something cool touching his left hand.
“Despite all intention to making this as far from a usual marriage proposal as possible, I couldn’t resist to get a ring for you. I think I’d really like the sight of it on your finger.” Jim murmured. “Of course you still have to say Yes first…”
Leonard abruptly grabbed Jim by the shoulders and shoved him about an arm’s length away to look at him. Jim’s blue eyes seemed to look into his very soul.
“Oh fuck it all, let’s get married.” And with that he crashed his lips against Jim’s.
“Jim, darlin’”, Leonard breathed out in between increasingly hotter kisses and Jim moaned at the endearment, “you are the captain, couldn’t you get us married right now?”
Jim’s laughter bubbled up from deep in his throat. “I guess”, kiss, “that doesn’t”, another kiss, “really work”, another, “in our case”, he groaned and bit Leonard’s lower lip.
Leonard fumbled around to get a hold of Jim’s left hand which was still closed around the ring. “Now give that to me!” he grumbled mockingly and without even looking at what they were doing Jim put the ring on Leonard’s finger. It fit perfectly.
With his arms around Jim’s neck again, Leonard walked them backwards to the bed and as they flopped onto it he said: “You know, I don’t even care about the way that this might be a big deal”, they both glanced at the simple silver band on Leonard’s finger, “but I’ll never forgive you for asking me to marry you in fucking space.”
“But you told me to-“
“Shut up and let me fuck you already!”