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Leonard woke up slowly, hoping to enjoy a rare day off, and rolled over in his bed to pull his partner closer to him. However, his arm didn’t meet the solid warmth of a sleeping Jim, but instead fell flat onto a cool bed. That wasn’t what he was expecting. He and Jim had only recently moved back to San Francisco for a year while the Enterprise was being repaired back on Yorktown, on account of the fact that he refused to spend more time on that fucking station than necessary. So Jim was teaching at the Academy and he was heading up the emergency room at SFM. They had an apartment in one of the ‘fleet buildings in the city and they were busy but it was good.
That morning, though, was supposed to be a relaxing morning for them to spend together. They didn’t often have the same days off, so they wanted to be sure they enjoy the few that overlapped. But Jim was nowhere to be found. Leonard decided he was too sleepy to be annoyed or even concerned, especially when he noticed the smell of cooking eggs and coffee coming from the kitchen. Oh good, so Jim was still around, he was just making himself some breakfast.
Leonard squinted his eyes open, caught sight of the rain pelting their window, groaned, closed his eyes, and decided to abandon all plans of doing shit all that day. He considered shouting to Jim to bring him a coffee but instead he pressed his face back into his pillow and very much did not fall back asleep. But somehow when he opened his eyes Jim was back in bed, leaning against the headboard, holding a mug of steaming coffee, and staring down at him with a rather besotted look in his eyes.
“I thought you ‘hadn’t been able to sleep in since you were 27’,” Jim teased him lightly with a grin and a sweep of his fingers through Leonard’s hair.
“Kiss my ass, it’s my day off,” Leonard mumbled, mostly into the pillow. He caught Jim leaning down and so he warned, “If you actually kiss my ass right now I swear to God I’ll castrate you.”
“You’re an asshole. Drink this,” Jim nudged his coffee towards him. With the promise of coffee, Leonard was able to remove his face from the pillow and push himself up to a position that vaguely resembled sitting up but was mostly just leaning against Jim’s chest. Jim huffed out a laugh and handed him his coffee. He had at first assumed the coffee was Jim’s own, but upon drinking it he immediately realized Jim had made it and brought it in for him. It was a dark mocha, with altogether too much espresso, just how he liked it. Jim hated mochas because he was a heathen with no sense of taste.
Leonard drank the first half of his mocha - which was in a mug that read “Galaxy’s Best YOUR TEXT HERE” - in silence, only sitting up just enough to not spill all over himself like a fool. Jim twisted their legs together while he drank, and tapped out meaningless patterns on Leonard’s shoulder, but was largely content to sit in the comfortable silence. Jim was a talkative son of a bitch, but he had learned through 8 years of friendship and 3 years as partners that it was in his best interest to not speak unless spoken to until Leonard had some caffeine in his system. Finally, once he’d woken up sufficiently that he didn’t think he was going to fall back asleep at any given moment or say something mean if he tried to speak, he yawned and said,
“Thanks for the coffee.”
“I like to think of it as self preservation.”
“Fair enough.”
“I made omelettes too but I figured you’d want coffee first,” Jim said, “And yes, I remembered to put them in the stasis so they stay warm.”
Leonard raised an eyebrow, “You hate cooking.”
“Yeah but you love home cooking and I love you,” Jim said, then paused for a beat and groaned, “That was sappy as shit.”
“Sure as hell was, kid,” Leonard confirmed, but it was sweet all the same so he shifted to sit up a little more and leaned in to press a quick kiss to Jim’s lips.
“Coffee breath,” Jim complained, but he obviously didn’t care that much because he leaned in for a second kiss. Leonard itched to deepen it, to taste the sweet warmth of Jim’s mouth on his tongue, but he was still holding half a mug of hot coffee and, well, he did actually love his partner and knew the combination of morning breath and coffee breath had to be pretty rancid.
“I don’t know how you can stand to drink that shit,” Jim pulled a face as Leonard took another sip of his mocha, then flopped down to rest his head on Leonard’s lap. Leonard rested his coffee mug on Jim’s head, and Jim protested mildly but then started drawing random shapes on Leonard’s knee.
“You trying to say something there?”
Jim being Jim, he traced a crude outline of a penis onto his knee.
“I will spill this coffee on your face,” Leonard warned.
“You wouldn’t. You hate treating burns and you like my pretty face too much to let it scar.”
“True,” Leonard ran his finger over Jim’s cheek, “Can’t be ruining your number one asset, then what would I do?”
“Dump me, probably. All you’d be left with is my personality which,” Jim faked a wince, “Not my best feature.”
“Let me think,” Leonard said, and tapped idly on Jim’s chin as he pretended to be deep in thought, “Reckless, cocky, impatient, stubborn, smart ass, smarter than anyone has any right to be, brave, compassionate, adventurous, funny, and loyal. I don’t know if I could manage, but I figure I’d give it a solid try.”
“Hmmm. Probably helps that you’re in love with me.”
“Certainly doesn’t hurt things. Doesn’t change the fact that you’re one immature son of a bitch sometimes, though.”
“That’s fair, but I was that when you met me. If you didn’t want someone to trace dicks onto your knee when you first woke up you probably shouldn’t have kissed me the night before the 5 year mission started.”
“I seem to recall that it was you that kissed me.”
“Yeah but you kissed back, so…” Jim shrugged, “Seems like a pretty straight line from that to this. Should’ve seen it coming, really.”
Leonard finished off his mocha with one last long sip, leaned over to deposit the empty mug on the bedside table, and then adjusted both Jim’s position and his own so that he had his arms wrapped around Jim from behind, spooning him tightly. Jim sighed and relaxed into his arms, and Leonard hummed into his neck then began rubbing soft circles into his chest.
“Ya know, Jim, you said it’s been point A to point B these past few years, but it’s been better than I ever coulda seen it being.”
“Aw, you like my dick drawings that much?” Jim said with a laugh, and Leonard kicked him in the shin,
“I’m trying to be serious, you pain in my ass.”
“In more ways than one,” Jim said, and Leonard could hear the smirk. Jim sighed, then, and was more serious when he spoke again, “I know what you mean, though. I never thought I wanted this with anyone, back when I was younger, but I never knew it would be like this. Safe and comfortable and all that.”
“I may turn Jim Kirk into a relationship guy yet,” Leonard teased, referencing Jim’s oft repeated claims at the Academy that he was not and never would be a relationship guy. That had been a front, even then, but Leonard quite enjoyed teasing his partner about his former - and just a bit exaggerated - playboy reputation.
“You might be winning me over,” Jim said, but his statement was punctuated by a loud growl of his stomach. “Oops,” Jim laughed.
“Did you not eat yet?” Leonard asked.
“Nah, I wanted to eat with you and I know you won’t eat before you have coffee.”
“Well I’ve finished my coffee so up and at-’em,” Leonard somewhat reluctantly pulled himself away from Jim, who protested weakly,
“Hey, I was comfortable.”
“Too bad. I was promised an omelette.”
“Okay, okay,” Jim rolled out of bed, all dramatics. Leonard made a move to get up as well but Jim pushed his shoulders back,
“Nope, you stay here, I’m full service.”
“I’m more than capable of walking to the kitchen,” Leonard rolled his eyes and Jim shook his head,
“I don’t care. We’re having breakfast in bed. It’s supposed to be romantic, or whatever. You could do me a big favor in the meantime, though?”
“Anything,” Leonard promised, then immediately regretted it. Sure, he’d do anything for Jim, but a lot of the non-serious things Jim wanted were just stupid. There was a significant chance that Jim was going to request he eat breakfast in the nude or something equally asinine.
“Can you brush your damn teeth? It would be nice to kiss you without suffocating in morning coffee breath. That shit’s toxic.”
“Wow, you’re a real Romeo. And they say romance is dead,” Leonard drawled. Jim was already heading into the kitchen and just called back,
“Love you!” in a way that, while it was certainly the truth, was clearly mostly said to be a pain in the ass. It was working.
Leonard treated himself to a quick sonic shower, just to get some of the morning feeling rinsed from his body, brushed his teeth, then made his way back to the bedroom to find Jim sitting on their bed with a large plate. Jim whistled low at the sight of Leonard emerging from the bathroom in just his pajama pants, having foregone his shirt, and Leonard rolled his eyes.
“About time, I was beginning to think you’d hit your head and died in there or something,” Jim teased.
“So thoughtful that you came to check on me. Oh wait…”
“You were naked in there, Bones! I didn’t want to invade your privacy!”
“Oh, because you cared so much about that even before you’d seen it all before,” Leonard rolled his eyes and settled in beside his partner in bed, earning an obnoxious pinch to his right pectoral for his trouble. Leonard smacked in Jim’s general direction then looked down at the plate in Jim’s lap and laughed,
“That just for me, kid?”
“Uh, I kinda got carried away,” Jim ducked his head, somewhat sheepish. It was a rare expression on him. “We can share, I figured.”
Leonard poked at the comically large omelette on his plate with one of the forks then asked,
“Just how many eggs are in this thing?”
“Somewhere between 3 and 6.”
“It ain’t 3, I can tell you that much right now. Were you trying to feed all of San Francisco with this thing?”
“I kept thinking of toppings you’d like and added too many and had to add extra eggs to compensate. It got a bit out of hand. I wanted to make something you really loved but,” Jim shrugged, “Ya know I’m not really the best cook in the galaxy.”
Leonard looked back down at the omelette, which remained laughably large upon second glance, then back up at Jim and just how earnest those bright blue eyes were, and he swallowed the teasing remark on the tip of his tongue. For some reason he couldn’t possibly begin to guess, this meant a hell of a lot to Jim.
“Well, I certainly appreciate the thought. I’m sure it’s delicious,” Leonard said, just to get that slightly apprehensive look out of Jim’s eyes.
“If it’s not, we can always replicate something or I can get takeout or…” Jim started to ramble and Leonard cut him off by unceremoniously picking up one of the forks and stabbing it through a piece of fluffy egg. He put it in his mouth, chewed, and hummed in appreciation. Truthfully it was a hell of a lot better than he expected the product of Jim Kirk flying by the seat of his pants in the kitchen would go. Jim was right, he wasn’t typically the most talented cook, but while the omelette was hardly gourmet dining it was definitely enjoyable. Leonard tasted spinach, mushrooms, cheese, onions, and sausage, and looking at the omelette seemed to suggest there were tomatoes and bell peppers hiding somewhere in there as well. There was a lot going on, but it worked, somehow. Leonard speared another forkful, making sure to get a cherry tomato this time, then turned to his partner,
“It’s a damn good omelette, Jim.”
“Yeah?” Jim asked, eyes shining brightly.
“When have I lied to spare your feelings? It’s at least twice the size it ought to be, but no complaints on the taste. Eat up, I ain’t gonna be able to fit this all in my stomach. And, yes, before you ask, I will eat your mushrooms, thank you very much.”
“They’re so gross and slimy,” Jim complained, screwing up his features and removing a chunk of mushroom from the side of the giant omelette nearest him with near surgical precision and throwing it square at Leonard’s face, where it hit him in the cheek then slid off and onto his lap while he was staring at his partner, trying to figure out just what the hell had happened. He and Jim locked eyes for a moment, and then they both burst out laughing.
“What the fuck is your problem?” Leonard asked through his laughter at nearly the same moment Jim asked,
“Why didn’t you open your mouth?”
“Why would you think I would open my mouth?” Leonard asked, trying his best not to descend into giggles like a school boy. “Do I look like a goddamn Betazoid to you?”
“Actually Betazoids looks pretty much identical to humans, aside from their eyes, so…”
“Jim!”
“Did I just think the part where I told you to catch?” Jim asked and Leonard laughed again,
“Well you certainly didn’t say it out loud, I’ll tell you that. I’m a doctor, not a mind reader.”
“Oops,” Jim shrugged with a giggle. Leonard ruffled his hair and rolled his eyes as he turned his attention back to his breakfast,
“I wasn’t exactly expecting the hibachi treatment this morning.”
Jim knit his brows together, “What does Japanese food have to do with you nearly getting beaned in the eye with a mushroom?”
“Ya know, when they do the whole bit where they fling various vegetables into everyone’s mouths?”
“Why would I know that? When would I have been to a place like that? I haven’t ever been with you, you really think I went before we met? That shit is expensive, so I hear.”
Suddenly, Leonard felt a bit like an asshole. He cleared his throat and said, “Right, well, I know what we’re doing next weekend. Regardless, the point stands: quit throwin’ your unwanted food at my face you fucking maniac.”
“Maybe you should learn to read minds instead. Ya know, if I’d hit you in the eye, you’d have eye fungus.”
Leonard stared at his partner as if he’d gone mad. Jim was grinning widely and elbowed him in the ribs,
“Get it, Bones? ‘Cause mushrooms are a fungus?”
“Christ, kid,” Leonard pressed his face into his hands to try to keep from smiling at the absolutely abysmal joke.
“Ha! I totally caught that smile,” Jim bragged.
Leonard couldn’t help but laugh just a little despite himself, “Do yourself a favor and quit while you’re still ahead.”
“I’m still ahead? I was hoping to be a good amount behind by now, I really need to make up for lost time.”
“Dammit, why do I put up with you, you little shit?”
“Probably because you love me.”
It wasn’t a question but Leonard couldn’t help but affirm it, “Sure as hell do. Now shut up and eat this gargantuan omelette you’ve made for us.”
Jim saluted him with his fork and ended up flinging a stray bit of spinach at Leonard’s face. Leonard really couldn’t find it in himself to be even a little bit annoyed by it.
Between the both of them, Leonard and Jim were able to finish off that stupidly giant omelette Jim had made, save for a small pile of mushrooms that Leonard had declined to eat for Jim. He’d ended up with his head rested on Jim’s stomach after breakfast, with Jim combing his fingers through his hair as they watched the rain out the window in silence. It was nice, being with Jim like this. They didn’t get moments like this very often, just to be quiet and together. They were both busy men, and Jim had a tendency to get antsy with prolonged sitting, but sometimes, just sometimes, Jim would get tired and lazy and indulgent and they’d spend hours wrapped up with each other in quiet moments like this. It was probably all the more special, Leonard figured, for its rarity. But he couldn’t help but wonder what prompted this one.
“So, what’s the occasion?” Leonard finally asked. Jim’s hand stilled in his hair for a fraction of a second, then scratched at his scalp, as if he was trying to distract him. It only worked for a few seconds, then he shot his partner a look.
“Does there have to be an occasion to spend a morning in bed with my partner?” Jim asked.
“You don’t have to have a reason, you just generally do. Breakfast in bed and everything,” Leonard whistled low, “You trying to butter me up for something?”
“I’m not always up to something, ya know. But, since you asked, it’s our anniversary.”
Leonard froze for a second. He and Jim didn’t do anniversaries, and sometimes joked that they didn’t even have a real one, because though their first kiss had been the last domino to fall on their way from friendship to romantic relationship, there were so many small turning points along the way that were nearly just as important. However, if you went by the day of their first kiss, their anniversary was in February. It was June.
“I can assure you that it isn’t.”
“Well, it’s not our anniversary, technically speaking, but four years ago today I realized I was in love with you.”
Leonard arched a brow. This wasn’t something Jim had mentioned before, in fact they’d never really had much of a conversation about how they’d realized their feelings for each other. But now that Jim had brought it up, Leonard was curious.
“You remember the day? I don’t think you’ve told me this story.”
“It’s not really much of a story.”
“Yet you remember it anyways.”
“I remember a lot of things.”
“Ain’t gonna argue that point, but you clearly thought it was important enough to bring up so why don’t you just shut up and tell me what happened.”
“It’s kinda hard to shut up and tell you at the same time, Bones,” Jim said with a smirk in his voice. Leonard sighed and eventually Jim continued. “We’d just had a big argument a couple days before, I’m not sure if you remember…”
“A big argument we had in the year we were grounded after Kahn? You’re gonna have to be more specific,” Leonard remarked. That had been, by far, the most difficult time of their friendship to date. He and Jim had both had a metric ton of trauma from the whole thing where Jim died and Leonard had to bring him back. At the best of times, Jim was a god awful patient with a not insignificant amount of childhood medical trauma and a stubborn streak from here to New Vulcan, and Leonard was a grouchy and neurotic bastard with questionable bedside manner and one of the few people with a stubborn streak to rival Jim’s. And the time after Jim died was not the best of times for either of them. They’d butted heads over Jim’s health, his treatment plan, physical and mental therapy, his medical clearances, and even the very decisions of Jim dying to save the ship and Leonard risking everything to bring him back. They’d made it through after quite a bit of therapy on both of their parts, and they were both better people now for the things they’d worked through together and individually during that time, but Leonard wouldn’t go back to that time if they paid him.
“You told me if I quit PT and counseling AMA that you’d make sure I wasn’t cleared to sit in the captain’s chair again by you or any other doctor. You were right, in hindsight, but neither of us really were, uh, expressing ourselves all that well back then,” Jim reminded him.
“By which you mean I held your captaincy over your head in the least tactful way I could think of, you freaked the fuck out at me, and we both yelled at each other for hours?” Leonard asked. He remembered that fight well. It was by far the worst one he and Jim had ever had, even compared to the other times they’d gone head to head shortly after Jim died. There were no longer hard feelings about anything they’d gone through during that time, and from a certain lens it was almost funny in hindsight what absolute assholes they could be when they were both working through their trauma in ways that were, at first, not all that healthy. But, all the same, hard feelings or not, Leonard didn’t see why Jim was bringing this all up.
“Yeah, pretty much that,” Jim affirmed.
“And you decided you were in love with me at some point when we were yelling in each others’ faces?” Leonard asked, his eyebrow up near his hairline.
“Obviously not. It’s just, I told you to fuck off, and then you did for a couple days, and I had a bit of a freak out ‘cause I realized that was the longest I’d gone without seeing you since I died and I didn’t know how to be without you anymore and even when I was pissed at you I still wanted you there, that having space didn’t do anything other than make me miss you and feel like an asshole, and somehow my brain decided that’s what love was. I don’t know why I came to that conclusion then, and not some other time, but it was June 12th sometime in the evening and I sat up on the couch I was being depressed on and said ‘holy shit I’m in love with Bones.’. I then proceeded to not tell you for like 8 months while I fixed my fucked up brain. The end. Told you it was a boring story.”
Leonard took some time to think that over, then finally said,
“So, that was 4 years ago today, then? Hence the coffee and omelette?”
“Yeah,” Jim said, “Honestly I kinda just felt like celebrating something and realized this happened to be on our day off. I probably would’ve figured out some way to make you an oversize omelette regardless.”
“Well I appreciate it,” Leonard said and slid off Jim’s chest to adjust to a position where he could give Jim a quick kiss. That quick kiss turned into a series of very lazy kisses as they pressed their lips together in a kind of relaxed contentment that wasn’t going anywhere but made Leonard feel warm all the way down to his bones.
Jim kissed his forehead then pulled away to say,
“I told you my boring story, I think you owe me yours.”
“I have a lotta boring stories, Jim, which one in particular do you want?” Leonard asked. He slid off from his position on Jim’s chest to get more comfortable if they were going to be having a conversation, lying on his stomach, propped up on his elbows, and looking up at Jim who was still lying on his back.
“Wait, come back,” Jim complained. Leonard rolled his eyes,
“I thought you wanted story time.”
“I wanted both.”
“Tough. That position was giving me a neck cramp.”
“Old man.”
“Needy bastard.”
“Guilty,” Jim shrugged, then tossed one of his legs on top of Leonard’s, “So, you were going to tell me about when you realized you were in love with me.”
“Oh, is that what I was doing? I’m afraid you’re gonna be disappointed, ‘cause I never realized that.”
Jim frowned, “You know I don’t like when people say that.”
Leonard winced and kicked himself for his poor phrasing that made his partner think he was poking at known sore spots. He rolled onto his side and used his now free hands to take one of Jim’s.
“I’m sorry, sweetheart. That was sloppy phrasing on my part. What I meant to say was I never had a moment when I realized I was in love with you. Obviously I am, wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t, right?”
“Obviously,” Jim said, and a slight flush colored his cheeks. Leonard wanted to kiss it away, but he knew from experience that in moments like this it was best to just ignore it. “So you never really had an ah-ha moment?”
“Not really,” Leonard shrugged, “Happened pretty gradually, but there was no ‘ah-ha’ moment, as you say. Don’t even know when it started. I knew I was in love with you when I snuck you onto that goddamn tin can, but I don’t have a ‘moment’. Sorry to disappoint.”
“Wow, it’s like you just had to upstage me for most boring story,” Jim huffed in mock annoyance, “Ya know, you pining for me for over two years is really embarrassing.”
“Shut up, brat,” Leonard smacked Jim in the arm, “I was not ‘pining’, I’m a doctor not a damn 12 year old. Contrary to what you seem to think, I am capable of thinking of something other than you from time to time.”
“Hmm…doubt it.”
“And even if I was pining, which, for the record, I was not,” Leonard carried on, ignoring his partner, “It’s not ‘embarrassing’. In case it’s escaped your notice, we’ve been partners for over 3 years. It seems my feelings ended up being mutual.”
“Yeah, well, you were into me way earlier than I was into you. That’s embarrassing,” Jim teased, because he could never just let anything go. “Back during the Narada incident, I…ya know, actually, I probably was at least a little bit in love with you then, I just didn’t realize it because I have no idea what’s going on in my brain at any point.”
“Those are probably the truest words I’ve heard you speak,” Leonard nodded sagely.
“It’s not my business.”
“What’s not your business?”
“My emotions and whatever. Not my business. I don’t need to know what’s going on in there.”
Leonard took a moment to think about that, attempted to make it make even the slightest bit of sense, utterly failed, then sighed in fond exasperation,
“There is truly something wrong with you.”
“Yeah, but you love me anyways, so I think that says more about you than me, honestly,” Jim quipped.
Leonard rolled his eyes, “You’re going crazy lying here, aren’t you?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Jim lied badly, not even able to look Leonard in the eyes, “I’m totally enjoying this relaxing morning in bed with my partner and will continue to do so for another hour…two hours? I dunno, however long you want, I guess.”
Leonard laughed, “I don’t know why you even try. I can tell you’re getting bored, you’re being even weirder than usual. We don’t actually have to lay here doing nothing all day, ya know. Nor do you need to spend all day following me around, if you don’t want to. It’s not actually a special occasion, I’m not going to be offended if you go for a run.”
“It’s raining.”
“Never stopped you before.”
“Well maybe I want to follow you around all day, you think of that?”
“Well, feel free. I ain’t planning on doing anything, but I can’t turn down the company. Say, you wanna play that horrible holo game you got a couple weeks back?”
Jim’s eyes lit up like a Christmas tree, “The one I’ve been trying to get you to play with me since I got it? Absolutely fuck yes. In fact, get up right now, I can’t risk you changing your mind.”
Leonard let Jim pull him out of the bed and couldn’t help but roll his eyes as he followed him out into the living room, hand in hand.
“Happy fake anniversary, Jim,” Leonard said and Jim beamed back at him,
“You’re such a softie. Happy fake anniversary to you too, Bones.”
And, because it was only their fake anniversary once a year - or not, he wasn’t sure how fake anniversaries worked - and because he was pathetically in love, Leonard decided to let that one go. After all, he had Jim, and Jim had been right earlier. He knew exactly what he was getting into when they kissed for the first time. And Leonard hadn’t regretted it even once.