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He can’t see.
The ship is under attack, quaking and juddering with the impact of phaser blasts or torpedoes or God only knows what all, and Leonard can’t see a fucking thing. There’s not even the dull red glow of the emergency lights to go by, just a perfect sea of darkness all around him, black as the void. One of the first hits must have done a number on the power grid – or, Christ, maybe it was sabotage from the inside, the invaders already onboard, murdering their way through Engineering and disabling systems.
He can’t see what he’s grabbing for, which vials are rolling away from his grasping fingers and clattering to the floor. He feels his way along the counter until it ends, flails blindly through the dark until he reaches the next and slams open the equipment cabinet with a hand he refuses to let shake. Focus, focus, focus. He needs – the ship jolts, throwing him forward against the counter, what is happening out there – focus, McCoy – a protoplaser, he needs a protoplaser and hemostats and Ringer’s, whoever this is they’re bound to have weapons and weapons mean blood loss and that means he needs to move now, needs to get out there and find the wounded before it’s too late.
He shouts orders into the blackness at his back: Christine and Helx with him, Da’kalo and Abraham to stay behind to treat anyone who finds their way here, comm him immediately if they hear anything from the bridge or if –
There’s a hiss off to his left, the main doors sliding open as they do countless times a day to welcome the sick, the injured, the innocent bystanders and the criminally reckless – and Leonard’s heart plummets into his stomach. Oh, God, this is it, they’ve come, his people are going to be butchered right here in the sanctity of medbay, cut down in the dark like helpless animals and there’s not a single fucking thing he can do to save them –
But then he recognizes the tread of the boots hurrying across the threshold, the pace and weight of those footsteps unmistakable even through the confusion of his staff’s frantic movements and his own heavy breathing, and all at once the sick knotted-up jumble of fear in his gut unsnarls, dissolving into a bathwater-warm flush of relief.
They’re okay. Everything’s going to be okay. They’ll all make it through one way or another.
He flings his kit over his shoulder and turns to rush toward the sound of those footsteps, opens his mouth to call out but his voice won’t work and the floor is shifting treacherously under him, not a sharp jarring lurch like the ship’s taken another hit, but rocking beneath him, his feet sinking into the tiles with every step, he’s struggling to keep his balance and he…
He…
Oh.
He opens his eyes to a different kind of darkness, his surroundings given the merest suggestion of shape and dimension by the near-imperceptible tint of lights at two percent. His own quarters. His own bed. They’re not under attack. He was dreaming, that’s all, and now he’s awake, because –
The mattress wobbles again as a familiar disturbance wriggles up close behind him, the firm pressure of chest and belly molding hot along the length of his back. An arm winds its way around his waist, startlingly cold fingers curling in under his ribs while long legs tangle through the sprawl of his own. A flare of sensation at his shoulder, the sandpaper burn of new stubble, chased by the gentler touch of cool lips at his nape.
Jim.
Leonard smiles and snugs himself back into the peculiarly warm-cold cradle of his husband’s body, more than ordinarily glad for the jackass’s insistence on making a big show of coming to bed. Jim’s home. That’s good. That’s real good.
Jim kisses his neck again, a smidge higher this time. Then again, and again, cold plush-soft lips teasing at his hairline before venturing eastward, marking out a leisurely trail around his neck. They linger at the corner of his jaw, a flutter of delicate little almost-kisses tickling insistently against the hinge of bone until Leonard finally turns his head and gives Jim the welcome home kiss he’s begging for, sleep breath and awkward angles be damned.
“Hey, kid.” He pats clumsily at Jim’s cheek, which is as unusually chilled to the touch as his lips and hands, a strange contrast with the heat of his body. “You just get back?”
“Yep. ’s late. The Linurii wanted me to stay for their aurora ceremony.” Jim nudges his icy nose against Leonard’s jaw and hums happily. “You’re so warm.”
Leonard may be more than half asleep still, but he ain’t stupid. He’s been bedding down with this half-starved boa constrictor of a man most every night for five years now; he knows an invitation when he hears one.
He lets his head fall back to the pillow and yawns, stretches out as best he can within Jim’s clutches while he musters the energy to roll over. He’ll wrap Jim up properly the way he likes, tuck the kid’s poor frozen face into the curve of his neck to thaw, maybe collect a few more of those ticklish little kisses before drifting off again, the weight of Jim’s body against him enough to keep his restless dreams at bay.
Leonard yawns again just thinking about it. Yeah, it’s damn good to have Jim home.
He’s forgotten, though, that if there’s one thing Jim likes more than strangling him to sleep at night, it’s keeping him on his toes. Right as Leonard’s readying himself to scooch away far enough to turn onto his back, those long legs go tense where they’ve twined themselves around his, and –
The next thing he knows he’s flat on his face, squashed into the mattress with seventy six point nine kilos of starship captain weighting him down from neck to ankles.
“Jim!”
“Mmm hmm?” Jim sounds outrageously pleased with himself, naturally. Leonard can hear that smirk of his – and then he feels it, too, as Jim burrows in a tiny bit deeper and manages to land a glancing kiss to the side of his mouth.
(If Leonard’s lips twitch ever so slightly in response – well, he doesn’t see how that’s anyone’s business but his.)
“Get off of me, you fool,” he grumbles. He tries to roll his shoulders to urge Jim off, but Jim retaliates by going lax on top of him, even heavier than before. It’d take a real strong effort to dislodge him, that much is clear, and frankly Leonard’s not so sure he’s got it in him. “I’m your husband, not a damn bedroll.”
“I think we both know those aren’t mutually exclusive.” One of Jim’s arms snakes out from beneath Leonard’s chest to lay over and alongside his, the angles of their elbows slotting together as neatly as if they were designed for that express purpose. “I keep telling you, Bones: you contain multitudes.”
Leonard scoffs. “Tell you what I don’t contain is any goddamn oxygen.” He squirms under the ballast of Jim’s weight, trying to earn himself enough space for his lungs to expand. “Jesus. The hell were they feedin’ you down there – bricks?”
“Polsook blubber, mostly,” Jim corrects, not sounding real thrilled about it. “Uncooked, unseasoned polsook blubber. Huge wobbly hunks of it. And they made me eat an eyeball. Apparently it’s some great honor.” He sighs theatrically, a big noisy huff of air against Leonard’s neck. “Diplomacy really sucks sometimes.”
“You voluntarily ate raw seal fat for six days?” Leonard attempts a sideways kick to Jim’s calf, with limited success. “You sure you ain’t been replaced by another one of them pod people?”
Jim nips at the soft of Leonard’s ear, reproachful. “Too soon, Bones.”
“Get your teeth outta me, kid. I ain’t one of your damn polsook carcasses.”
The tease earns him another bite, as he knew it would. “Joke all you want. You’re the one who’s gonna have to deal with whatever mutant parasites I probably got from that stuff.” Jim wiggles his cold fingers under Leonard’s ribs, tickling something terrible.
Leonard’s not proud of the sound he lets out in response. “Ah, shit, get your fuckin’ – alien ice worm fingers away from me, Christ – ” He struggles in vain to escape the maddeningly skin-crawling touch, bucking like a damn mechanical bull under Jim’s unyielding body.
Not being entirely without mercy, Jim leaves off tormenting him and contents himself with jamming his melting icepack of a hand further beneath Leonard’s belly. “See? You don’t like it either.”
Yeah, but it’s a lot funnier when Jim’s the one squawking and trying to get away. Leonard judiciously keeps this thought to himself, all too aware of Jim’s frozen hand wedged under his unprotected belly – which in turn sparks a sudden flicker of suspicion. “Why’re your hands so cold, anyway? Please tell me you wore – ”
“Yes, Bones, I wore the heated gloves,” Jim says with exaggerated patience. “And the boots. I kept them on the whole time, even to bed at night, just like you told me to. Even though the Linurii laughed at me and the gloves made my palms itch like crazy.”
Jim delivers this report with a particularly virtuous tone, clearly expecting a pat on the ass for doing the absolute bare minimum to keep himself out of harm’s way – and if Leonard could get a hand free, he might actually give him one. Fittingly for a man who frequently behaves like an overgrown toddler, Jim responds much better to reward than to the threat of punishment, and it is a pleasant surprise to learn that he’s obeyed his orders to the letter for once.
“I’ll be damned,” Leonard says. “Look at you, bein’ all responsible. What’re you butterin’ me up for?”
“Well, if I tell you, it won’t work.” Jim brushes his lips against the shell of Leonard’s gnawed-upon ear, his cannibalistic tendencies having evidently dissipated for the time being. “I don’t know, I guess your lecture just stuck. It was a good one. Lots of arm waving.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.” With some effort, Leonard manages to twist the wrist of his pinned arm enough to give Jim’s hand an inelegant squeeze. “Thanks, kid. You did good.”
He means it. He’s impressed by the extent of Jim’s cooperation, and if he wants this to be any more than a one-off trick, he needs to make sure Jim knows that.
Oh, sure, Jim ought to do as he’s told for no other reason than because Leonard’s his goddamn Chief Medical Officer and knows what’s best for him – but the fact is, simply being right has never gotten Leonard all that far when it comes to getting the maniac to give half a damn about his own health. If the occasional dollop of praise is what it takes to keep his most troublesome patient toeing the line – well, that’s a price Leonard’s willing to pay, especially when it gets him a returned hand squeeze and another sprinkle of kisses along his neck.
(Hey, he’s never claimed to be immune to a little positive reinforcement, himself.)
“So what’s with the cold paws, then?” he asks, flexing his awkward grip around Jim’s gradually defrosting fingers. As pleased as he is that Jim followed his instructions, it’s troubling to hear that the specially designed gloves apparently weren’t up to the job. “The heating elements give out on you or somethin’?” Lord, he hopes it was a recent glitch; if it got to the point of frostbite setting in, he’ll have to haul Jim to medbay for proper rewarming and regen.
“No, don’t worry – the gloves worked fine,” Jim assures him. His belly quivers against Leonard’s back with a spasm of badly suppressed laughter. “I, uh…may have brought back a few souvenirs for Scotty. Those Linurii kids pack a mean ice ball.”
Leonard muffles his laugh in the pillow. He really shouldn’t encourage Jim with this kind of foolishness, but right now he’s just glad he doesn’t have to leap up and start repairing nerve damage. “Still nursin’ a grudge over his little trick on W’tena IV, huh?”
“Oh, no, we’re all good now,” Jim says cheerfully. “Water under the bridge.”
“Uh huh. And would Scotty say the same?”
“Sure,” Jim says. “Probably. I mean, I’m assuming. I didn’t stick around long enough to find out.” He noses behind Leonard’s ear. “Totally unrelated, but I changed the door code for our quarters. And the override.”
“Yeah, ’cause that’ll be enough to keep your chief engineer out if he decides he wants in.” Typically this would be the point where Leonard would roll his eyes or jab an authoritative finger in Jim’s face or some other such display of disapproval, but his options are fairly limited at the moment, so he settles for another halfhearted kick to Jim’s calf. “He busts in here all pissed off and out for blood, he’s your problem, we clear on that?”
“Crystal.” Jim nuzzles into the join of Leonard’s neck and shoulder and sighs contentedly. “It was worth it. You should’ve heard him scream.”
Children. Leonard works with goddamn children.
Jim eases out of Leonard’s sideways hold and covers Leonard’s hand with his own, loosely threading their fingers together. That accomplished, he sets about shifting the rest of himself around too, resettling his weight along Leonard’s back, fine-tuning the positioning of various limbs to his liking.
Leonard should probably put up some kind of fight, at least make Jim work for the privilege of using him as a damn body pillow, but…well, maybe it’s just the onset of full-body numbness from being trapped under Jim for this long, but he’s not actually all that uncomfortable. Besides, Jim’s clearly starting to fade, nestling sleepily into Leonard’s neck, his right hand gone lax and motionless under Leonard’s belly. He’ll be clingier than ever, nearly impossible to shake off without brute force. It’d be more trouble than it’s worth to budge him.
“Hey, Bones?” Jim whispers a minute later, as Leonard is already well on his way to falling back to sleep himself.
Leonard makes a questioning noise around a yawn.
Jim strokes his thumb along Leonard’s, a feather-light caress. “Did you miss me?”
Son of a bitch, Leonard thinks, mildly irked with himself even as his arm prickles up with goosebumps at the double whammy of Jim’s touch and hushed words. He’s been played good, all right.
Because of course he missed Jim. He always does. Oh, it’s nowhere near as bad as it used to be. He goes about his business just fine when Jim’s away, picks up the odd extra shift to occupy himself but doesn’t go overboard, eats and drinks and even sleeps okay – but he ain’t happy about it.
The whole ship feels colder with Jim gone, less familiar and lived-in and more like the gigantic bloodless machine it is, all hard edges and long empty stretches of polished corridor. Leonard misses knowing he can go up to the bridge any time and find Jim in the command chair, his bearing relaxed and confident, radiating a quiet authority that puts everyone around him at ease. He misses the gleam of delight that never fails to brighten Jim’s eyes when he notices Leonard’s arrival, and that lopsided little compromise of a smile Leonard’s grown to appreciate in the last year, halfway between private and for-show. He misses how right it feels to stand there by Jim’s side, trading barbs with Spock or eavesdropping on mission planning or simply hanging back and watching the galaxy blur past, secure in the knowledge that he and Jim are both exactly where they’re meant to be.
He misses the comfortable routine of their evenings together: catching up on their days over dinner, debating and dissecting the latest rumor going around the ship, the thieving fingers he has to whap away from his plate and the way Jim will sometimes stop dead in the middle of a thought and lean over to kiss him stupid for no reason at all. He misses lazing around on the couch in their sweats, some part of Jim always tucked and twined around some part of him, and how Jim will rub his feet for him after he’s come out of a long stint in the OR, stubbornly insisting on making Leonard’s toes crack even though Leonard’s told him a hundred times it doesn’t do a damn thing.
He misses Jim’s warmth against him in their bed at night, the scent of his hair, the rhythm of his breathing. He misses having an armful of cuddly, sleep-heavy husband to hold when he wakes from an unsettling dream or can’t get his mind to quiet – and God help him, he misses that goofy-ass squashed Tribble noise Jim lets out every morning as he muddles his way to full consciousness.
He misses being able to find Jim if he needs him. He misses knowing Jim’s okay, and having the power to do something about it if he’s not. He misses the kid’s incessant chatter and that look he gets when he’s been hit by a truly deranged stroke of genius.
He just fucking misses him, period. He’s fine on his own. He gets by. He survives. But the incontestable truth of the matter is that Jim Kirk is the single greatest joy of his life, the bright-shining sun at the center of his system, and without him every day is a little duller, a little darker, plagued by a chill that creeps into his bones and won’t leave until Jim and his brilliant chaos of light tumble back into view.
He wasn’t planning to admit to all that, though. This mission didn’t even take a full week. It’s not like Jim’s been off on some years-long odyssey that would justify what a sad sack Leonard’s been these past few days.
On the other hand, who gives a good goddamn, anyhow? So he mopes around a bit when his partner’s away – what of it? He’s on the wrong side of forty, the CMO of a ship that seems to be staffed exclusively by gossipy teenagers and squabbling children, and at this particular moment he’s willingly surrendering to a slow crushing death by snuggling under a man with a belly full of alien seal blubber. Ain’t much point in pretending he’s got a lick of pride left to his name.
“Yeah, Jim.” Leonard weaves their fingers together a bit better, urges Jim’s lukewarm fingertips to curl down under his palm. “I missed you.”
He feels Jim’s cheek tighten with a smile where it’s pressed against his neck. But rather than preening or fishing for more ego-stroking like he’s expecting, Jim just kisses his shoulder, soft and sweet, and says in a real small voice: “I missed you, too.”
Leonard’s heart gives a sharp, aching pang in the confines of his half-suffocated chest. Damned if Jim can’t still knock him on his ass in the space of a few words, unravel him entirely with the slightest tug at the right thread, even after all this time.
There’s no way to reach Jim’s mouth at this angle, so he drags Jim’s hand over and kisses him there instead, breathing in the scent of him (and maybe just a whiff of polsook fat) and breathing out his love against Jim’s knuckles. “I know, darlin’,” he murmurs, his last pretense of bluster swept away in the rush of tenderness that’s washed over him. “I know you did.”
He does know. There was a time Jim would’ve hidden it from him, buried any hint of vulnerability under a thick shell of bravado and deflection and bolted at the first suggestion of intimacy or attachment, but those days are well behind them now. As with most things he actually gives a shit about, Jim loves with absolutely everything in him: fearlessly, unflinchingly, holding nothing back. There are few secrets to be found in the open book of his heart nowadays, and not a microgram of reserve. He tells Leonard anything he wants to know, and plenty more it wouldn’t even occur to him to ask after.
So Leonard knows that it’s hard on Jim, too, being away from him: that he doesn’t sleep well, that he burrows deep under the sheets or blankets or finely decorated bedspreads and still wakes up feeling chilled and achy, clutching handfuls of bedding in a white-knuckled grip. That he picks at his food and has to force himself to eat enough to satisfy his hosts. That he finds himself resenting anyone and anything that inadvertently prolongs the mission as the days wear on, and that on especially lengthy assignments he’ll sometimes scrounge around for any excuse he can contrive to bring Leonard down, even for a few short minutes – just to see him; just to reassure himself that home will still be waiting for him when it’s all over.
Leonard kisses the points of Jim’s knuckles, smiling when Jim’s thumb tugs free of his grip and sweeps across his jaw. “I’m glad you’re back, kid.”
“Me too.” Jim pets him a moment longer, and then lifts his heavy head from Leonard’s shoulder and says in a clear, firm voice: “Computer, set an alarm for 0600 hours.”
Leonard arches an eyebrow out of instinct, though of course Jim can’t see it. “0600? Mighty ambitious, don’t you think?”
“Oh?” Jim’s voice drops into a low purr, velvety with intent. “I’m sorry – it must be my other husband who gets off on slow, drawn-out morning sex.” He punctuates this thought with a teasing scrape of his cheek over Leonard’s shoulder, stubble rasping hotly across his skin. “My mistake. Computer, reset alarm for – ”
“0545,” Leonard interjects quickly, turning his face away from the pillow to make sure he’s heard.
(Again: sleepy, not stupid.)
Jim’s lips curve against the ridge of Leonard’s scapula. “Good choice.”
“Yeah, well, you’d better make it worth my while.” Leonard relaxes down into the bed again, closing his eyes to shut out the not-quite-darkness. Jim’s fully thawed now, nice and warm, a boneless dead weight blanketing him from head to toe. Phaser to his head, he’d have to admit it’s really not so bad being trapped like this. Not bad at all – and on the bright side, in this position Jim’s guaranteed to take the brunt of any revenge attack Scotty unleashes as payback for the ice ball incident.
Still. It’s the principle of the thing.
Leonard rolls his shoulders again to jostle Jim – not so roughly as to displace him, just enough to make a point. “Don’t suppose you’d consider lettin’ me roll over any time soon?”
Jim hums thoughtfully, pretending to actually consider it, and then tucks back into his favorite spot against Leonard’s neck with a satisfied little snuffle. “Nah. This is good.”
And it is.