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Leo has always been oblivious to gossip. Whenever this comes up, people treat it like a virtue, but in his experience, not knowing what people are saying about him only ever hurts. It’s why he didn’t know that Joce was cheating on him until he walked in on her, even though literally no one else was surprised. It’s why he was stunned when the hospital let him go, even though Joce’s lawyer had apparently been arranging things behind the scenes for weeks.
And now, it’s why his best friend has apparently spent years tolerating having his reputation slagged.
The jackass Ensign currently waiting to be treated has a friend keeping him company, and it’s clear neither of them noticed that Leo has emerged from his office, because the jackass has just called Jim, his Captain, a slut.
“I mean, she was hot, I can see why he’d want to hit that,” Jackass goes on, “but this makes three missions in a row.”
“Oh, come on,” the friend scoffs. “I buy three missions, but not in a row.”
“The High Councillor’s cousin this mission,” Jackass says. “The Station Commander last mission. And the Diplomatic Attache the mission before that.”
The friend--Jackass the Second, Leo decides, scowling--whistles. “Wow. Okay, you have a point.”
“It’s a wonder anyone takes him seriously,” Jackass just keeps digging this hole deeper, “considering that he can’t keep it in his pants.”
“Nurse Chapel!” Leo barks. She pops out of the lab as if conjured. “I need you to take care of these two,” he says, stalking towards the door, “because if I do it, those cuts and bruises might turn out to be fatal.” Her startled acknowledgement fades into the distance behind him as Leo lengthens his stride.
Leo knows how these things go over his head, which means that if the gossips have gotten so shameless that they’re saying this shit in the middle of Sickbay when they know that he’s Jim’s best friend, then they’ve been saying it for years. If it was true, if Jim really was sleeping with Diplomats and Station Commanders left and right, Leo would have reprimanded them for their disrespect and moved on.
But it’s not true. Leo knows for a fact that it’s not true, because Jim spent every one of those nights having a quiet drink with him.
Jim flirts. He flatters them and dances with them and smiles at them, and then he says goodnight with infallible charm, and he comes to Leo’s quarters and they have a drink and he doesn’t ask the question.
Are you ready, yet?
He doesn’t often ask it aloud, these days. There was a time when he asked every month or two. As the years have gone by, Jim has settled for voicing the question just once a year, but Leo always hears it, anyway.
He hears it, but he only answers once a year. I’m sorry, Jim. I can’t.
As he storms down the hall towards Jim’s quarters, Leo’s anger turns from the jackass Ensigns to himself. I can’t, he always says. I can’t.
Can’t what? Can’t get over Jocelyn? Fuck, Jim had helped him past that bit of heartbreak in their first year. Can’t have a relationship? Bullshit, he puts more time and care and effort into his friendship with Jim than he ever did into his marriage. Can’t fall in love? That’d be the biggest lie of all.
What he’s really been saying, all these years, is I can’t admit I was wrong.
He was wrong when he said he was done with relationships, and he’s been too fucking proud to say so. He’s been waving bitterness and disillusionment around like a badge of honor, and he can’t for the life of him figure out why Jim just keeps letting him doing it. Which is why, when he bursts into Jim’s quarters, what comes out of his mouth isn’t, ‘I’m ready,’ or ‘I was wrong,’ but, “What the hell is wrong with you?”
Jim looks up from the PADD he’s holding and stands from his desk when he sees how furious Leo is. “Bones? What’s wrong?”
“What’s wrong?” Leo’s almost panting, his anger and his quick trip from Sickbay leaving him near breathless. “What’s wrong is that you’ve been letting me jerk you around for years.”
“I… have no idea what you’re talking about,” Jim admits.
“Are you ready, yet,” Leo quotes, and Jim’s eyes go wide, because Leo has never, not even once, brought that up himself. “Why’d you just keep asking, Jim? Why do you keep letting it go, like ‘I can’t’ is any kind of answer?”
Jim’s expression softens. Leo doesn’t have much occasion to see him gentle, but he’s gentle now. “You were hurting, Bones. I’d have to be a special kind of asshole to throw an ultimatum at you when you were already hurting.”
Leo makes a frustrated noise. “But it’s okay for you to get hurt, instead?” Abruptly all his anger drains away and he’s just exhausted instead. He rubs his hands over his face. “It’s okay for me to break your heart over and over again? It’s okay for people to call you a slut and scoff at the idea you could ever take anything seriously?”
“So that’s what this is about,” Jim says, his expression clearing. “Relax, Bones, it’s only the idiot rookies who say shit like that. They’ll learn better.”
“That really wasn’t the important part of that sentence,” Leo huffs.
“Hey.” Jim crosses the room and briefly, gently strokes Leo’s cheek. “You never broke my heart, Bones. ‘I’m sorry, I can’t’ isn’t heart-breaking. You never told me to move on. You never said, ‘I don’t love you’.”
Jim drops his hand, and Leo realizes that even now, even after all this, Jim is still waiting. If Leo doesn’t get over himself, Jim will just keep waiting.
Despite everything, it takes everything Leo has to bring his hands up to cup Jim’s face. “You don’t have to wait anymore,” Leo says hoarsely. “I love you.” He leans in and kisses Jim, pours everything he has into it, and prays that it’s worth the years of waiting.
Now that the wait is over, Jim doesn’t waste a second. The moment their lips meet, he comes alive under Leo’s hands. He kisses back eagerly, and his arms go around Leo and pull him in close. When their lips part, Jim hangs onto Leo and beams at him. “I think I may need to thank the idiot rookie who sent you storming in here,” he says.
Leo drops his hands from Jim’s face to his hips. “Don’t encourage them. Jackasses.”
“Hard to argue with results like this,” Jim teases. He hesitates just a second before leaning in and softly kisses Leo again.
Leo wishes he could say he’d have gotten there eventually, jackasses aside, but he doesn’t actually know that he would have. He’s always been too stubborn for his own good. Making sure Jim never has cause to hesitate again, he decides as he deepens the kiss, is more important than his pride.
Stubborn as he is, he is capable of learning.
--End--