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"Why are you on the coffee table?" Bones asked as he paused in the doorway, staring at his roommate like he was crazy. Which he probably was, given that he was dancing on the coffee table to Nirvana (which was so old-school it was practically ancient history).
"Because Nirvana makes me happy and Kurt Cobain's death was the saddest day of the nineties, as far as I'm concerned," Jim replied, not even bothering to stop.
"Yeah, the nineteen nineties," Bones muttered, eying the glass table dubiously for a moment before remembering that his friend weighed half what he looked and turning to walk away. The track changed to "In Bloom"1 and Jim's movements slowed somewhat.
"You look like you're higher than the Empire State when you sway like that," Bones said, walking to his room.
"Do not deny your love for my hips," Jim called after him, "For they do not lie! They do exactly as they say on the tin!"
"Aaaand now you're quoting classic movie actors,"2 Bones muttered, remembering the day that Jim had forcibly subjected him to a marathon of holos dedicated to long-dead film stars. He threw his bag on his bed, kicked his shoes off and made his way into the kitchen. "You hungry?"
"For your soul," Jim confirmed, adding a slow headbang as the chorus began.
"Stir-fry it is," Bones said, rooting around the cupboards in search of noodles and sauces, "I swear to god, if you don't disinfect that table when you're done-"
"I will, I promise," Jim said, and Bones just knew he wasn't going to do it, "No, seriously, I'll do it right now."
He hopped off the table, leaving the music playing, and slid into the kitchen behind Bones, rummaging around under the sink for a minute before coming away with a new cloth and some window cleaner.
"That is not disinfectant."
"It'll do," Jim shrugged. Bones gave up and started peeling a carrot.
"I hate you," Bones said as he handed Jim a beer, "Intensely."
"Oh, come on," Jim said from his place reclined in one of the lawn chairs, "That's just mean."
Mean, Bones thought as he perched on the edge of his own lawn chair, was dragging your friend out onto the balcony in midwinter to attempt to watch the stars through San Francisco's light pollution. Mean was being immune to the cold and wearing only slacks and a t-shirt while your friend was practically a marshmallow for all his layers. Mean was having the luxury of drinking a chilled beer while your friend drank as much hot chocolate as possible but still couldn't feel his fingers.
"Not everyone has your all-terrain advantages, kid."
"Hey, if we ever went near the equator you'd see how all-terrain I get. By which I mean I'd probably just die of heatstroke the second we stepped off the shuttle."
"... How do you feel about a trip this semester break, Jim?"
"Bite me."
Bones watched with barely concealed amusement (who was he kidding, he was grinning like Christmas had come again) as Jim shambled to the breakfast bar on New Year's Day, hangover evident in every aspect of his movement.
"Good morning, Jim!" Bones said brightly (and loudly), "How're you feeling on this wonderful morning?"
"Like I wanna strangle you," Jim groaned, "You're like a reminder of how much I should regret my life choices at every turn, do you know that?"
"You know," Bones said conversationally, ignoring Jim's last comment, "for a Guardian of Childhood you're not very child friendly."
Jim glared balefully at Bones for a moment before replying; "I helped raise entire generations of Bennett children, thank you very much. I'm just trying to experience as much as I can in this life before I go back to being the scion of Clean, Safe Fun."
"So, to translate: you're going to get in as much trouble as possible in as little time as possible?"
"I have at least eighty years left in me, Bones; the amount of trouble I'll be causing is hopefully going to result in a monument in my honour. Made of solid gold. Hopefully with you prostrated at my feet."
"Keep dreaming, kid."
"I was born in 1694."
"And yet here you are, still a kid."
Jim just put his forehead on the breakfast bar. Bones took the opportunity to stab him in the neck with a hangover remedy and only smirked when Jim went on a long, loud rant about how mean he was.
"U-hura~!" Jim suddenly sang, having spotted someone he knew approaching them on the path perpendicular to theirs, "Won't you tell me your name~?"
"How many times do I have to tell you-" one woman in a group of three started to say.
"Oh calm down, Uhura, it's a song,"3 Jim laughed, "I'm over the name thing. For now. Maybe."
Uhura huffed and flicked her hair; "I've never heard it."
"That's because it's over two centuries old," Bones butt in before Jim could offer to show it to her, "as Jim is in the habit of listening to music older than his grandparents."
"It's good stuff," Jim defended with an eye roll. The Orion of the group of girls giggled lightly and Jim's eyes locked onto her. "Well hello there- hey! Bones! Let me go!"
"Not a chance, kid," Bones said, gripping his arm to pull the idiot away from the group, "We're already late, and I'm not missing another First Contact Diplomacy lecture because you wanted to flirt with the pretty girls. Ladies," he nodded at them, dragging Jim off.
"You're seriously-"
"If you say no fun, I will punch you."
"I was going to say a massive cockblock but yeah, "no fun" is also pretty accurate- OW!"
Behind them, Bones could hear at least two of the triad laughing at them.
"Hey tall, dark and handsome! What's your comm.?" one of them called.
"One eight hundred you're far too young!" he yelled in reply, and Jim nearly fell over laughing.
"Way to get some tail, man," he wheezed, shaking Bones' hand off of his arm, "You go, tiger. Oh my god. One eight hundred you're too young. You are seriously the best person ever."
"From no fun to best ever in three seconds; I don't know whether I should be offended or flattered."
"Flatternded?"
Bones shot him a look.
"Yeah, that sounded a lot better in my head."
"That's pretty much your life story summarised; "sounded like a good idea, was not"."
"You're very rapidly descending into "no fun" territory again."
Bones raised a fist and Jim jumped a foot away from him; "Okay, okay! Sheesh, you'd think I was threatening your firstborn or something."
"Touch my kid and die."
"Understood, sir!" he said with a flippy little salute at the end as they walked into the lecture hall.
The lecturer gave them a look but let them pass without comment.
Bones wondered how this had become his life.
"Hey Bones!" Jim called as he walked in the front door. Thankfully the man wasn't on the coffee table this time, but they did apparently have a guest; "Come meet Tooth!"
"Uh, hi," Bones said, trying not to be too rude about surveying the odd woman before him as he approached, "Leonard McCoy, ma'am."
"Oh, I haven't been called ma'am in ages," she tittered, holding out her hand; "I'm Toothiana. Most people just call me Tooth."4
"It's a pleasure to meet you," he replied, shaking the offered appendage, "Thanks for all the mysteriously appearing credits I got on my chit when I was a kid."
"It was my pleasure. Literally; your teeth are immaculate. My girls swooned over them almost as much as they did over Jack's."
"Which is quite the accomplishment," Jim commented from the stove where he was making... something.
"Excuse me for a moment, I have to put my bag away," Bones said, hoping that Jim didn't blow up the kitchen in the meantime.
When he returned, the kitchen was still intact, as were the people in it. Tooth was possibly one of the strangest humanoid's he's ever seen; mostly human face with huge purple eyes, tiny feet and hands, a tapered body covered in feathers and shimmery wings that occasionally fluttered when Jim said something scandalous or funny (usually both at the same time). The two were so easy with each other that it was obvious that they'd been friends for a long time (a very, very long time) and Bones simply stood in his doorway for a moment to observe them.
And then something small and chirpy appeared in front of his face.
"Holy Jesus!" he yelped, skittering backwards and staring at the tiny fairy-like thing giggling into it's (her?) hands.
"Baby Tooth," Jim scolded from the kitchen, "That's not very nice."
"You're very lucky I didn't smack you straight out of the air, missy," Bones added on recovering, and Baby Tooth looked about half a percent contrite before turning and zipping back to her... mother?
"Most people would have," Tooth commented idly, petting the sprite with one finger.
"This is Starfleet Academy, ma'am," Bones replied as he took a seat next to her, "If I was jumpy enough to start smacking unfamiliar beings in the face I doubt I would've been allowed to enlist. Kid, what the heck are you making?"
"Food," Jim replied blandly, continuing only when Bones glared at him, "Ragu iz ovoshej. Russian vegetable stew. You vill eat, and you vill like, yes? Took very much convincing to learn recipe from North."
"Oh yay, food from the Motherland," Bones said flatly as Tooth laughed at Jim's impression.
"You vill enjoy, I guarantee!"
"Jack, you've managed to find another Bunny, haven't you?" Tooth said, still giggling.
"Pardon?" Bones asked, confused.
"She means you're a lot like Aster," Jim answered, surveying him with narrowed eyes, "And now I will never be able to un-see the similarities, thanks Tooth."
"Are you going to add the parsnip?" Tooth asked (deflected) innocently.
Jim swore in what had to be Russian and grabbed a bowl of white roots from his left. "Why didn't you say anything before?"
"Because I'm secretly evil," she smiled, "Don't tell the kids," she muttered to Bones, who just grinned in response.
"So," Bones said as they piled their boxes in the living room, "Captain of a starship in three years, huh?"
Three years of junk and clutter had been condensed into a surprisingly small number of boxes, and Bones was torn between being depressed by that and overjoyed that he wasn't going to have to get rid of anything - all of it could fit perfectly into the cosy new quarters he'd be getting onboard Starfleet's god-damned flagship as its CMO.
"I told Pike I'd do it in three," Jim replied, easily hefting another box onto the pile, "I meant the education part, of course, but this is even better."
"No regrets?"
"Mostly," Jim's eyes glassed over for a moment, "I wish we could've saved Vulcan."
"I hear ya," Bones murmured, "Has the pointy-eared bastard agreed to be your XO yet?"
"I haven't heard anything," Jim sighed, rubbing a hand in his hair, "I'm hoping he'll surprise me with flowers or something when I walk on the bridge, but..."
"He's a Vulcan," Bones finished with a wry grin, "and thus chances of that happening are-"
"Slim to none."
Bones stared narrowly at Jim for a moment before barking a laugh that made the other man visibly jump.
"What the hell, Bones!?"
"We are an old married couple," Bones said, gesturing at the space between the two of them.
Suddenly they couldn't stop laughing; if anyone else had been in the apartment with them they probably would've called medical, but even though they were slightly hysterical it felt good. The last few weeks had been a shitstorm of paperwork, bureaucracy, memorials and more paperwork; it felt good to laugh after all that.
"Well, Bones," Jim said, wiping a tear from his eye, "Whaddaya say? Shall we go and harass the kids- I mean crew of our brand new station wagon- I mean starship?"
"Oh god, let's," Bones grinned, heading for the door, "We can start by making some poor ensigns cart this all up to the ship."
"Excellent plan, dear. Does this mean we'll be sharing quarters?"
"Not a chance in hell."