Work Text:
Exhibit A
We are friends in a sleeping bag splitting the heat
We have one filthy pillow to share and your lips are in my hair
It’s not exactly a surprise when Jim finally ends up in Bones’ tiny twin sized bed after a long night of sharing a flask on the roof of the astrophysics building. They’re too drunk to do anything more than lie there in each other’s arms, but the significance of it isn’t lost on either of them, and it happens four more times that week. Oddly enough it’s when they’re sober that they finally open to each other, this time ending the night naked in more than one way. Bones kisses Jim’s forehead as he talks in that small, feeble voice of the boy who endured Tarsus IV and Jim won’t look anywhere but at Bones as he tells Jim about his father. When they’re together they’re not Dr. Leonard Mccoy or James Tiberius Kirk, they’re Jim and Bones, and they each belong to the other and no one else.
Exhibit B
And if we have sex
They can hear us through the floor
But we don’t do that anymore
After their first year, Bones and Jim see much less of each other what with Jim’s rapid ascension through the program and Bones taking on another concentration (this time in Andorian virology). Neither are worried; they instead enjoy each other’s company through late nights of studying and coffee or the passing moments when Jim visits Bones at the clinic in between classes. They pass a semester like this, just taking in each other whenever they can. It’s only over the winter break when half of his comms go unanswered that Bones begins to worry, but Jim insists he’s just tired and overworked. It’s an unsettling rhythm they settle into, with Bones going days without even touching Jim (and it’s driving him crazy) but Jim keeps pushing away and Bones doesn’t know any better than to let him.
Exhibit C
Look how quaint
And how quiet and private
Our paychecks have bought us a condo in town
It’s after they’ve endured the tears and the eulogies and the names of the dead choked out of the throats of their living that Star Fleet gives the announcement that Acting Captain Jim is now Captain James Tiberius Kirk of the USS Enterprise. Neither Bones nor Jim feel any elation at the news, and night after night Bones wakes up to strangled sobbing shaking the regulation bed where they lay separated by at least a foot of cold, empty space. Bones wants to reach out and touch Kirk, to hold him like he did years ago in his tiny dorm room when Jim had nightmares about Tarsus IV. He wants to stroke the soft expanse of Kirk’s back and murmur in his ear that it’s going to be okay, that he’s here, his Bones is here, but he doesn’t. He doesn’t because he hasn’t done it in years and the gap between them has grown too wide, and Leonard thinks it might be too late to cross it.
Exhibit D
Now we're both mostly paralyzed
Don't know how long we've been lying here in fear
Too afraid to even feel
Years of traveling through the black have left Leonard thoroughly numbed to the death, to the loss, something he swore he would never let happen. He’s always prided himself on his gruff, yet caring nature, but these days he only cares about one thing and that’s why he still can’t fucking touch James or even speak to him. James blames himself because he knows he could have said something years ago, but the captain always goes down with his ship. Instead he’s decided to shut himself off to anything but the careful mask of bravado and self-assuredness that’s earned him Star Fleet’s confidence in him as an Admiral. He could have let Leonard in, and it hurts so much because he did once and chose never to do it again.
Exhibit E
You and me lying the only way we know
Side by side and still and cold
James would sometimes remember when he first met Leonard, when he told him that space was wrapped in darkness and silence, but all he can think of is the space between the two of them, void and unbreachable just like what Leonard was terrified of, was still terrified of. Now it’s James who’s the terrified one, freezing when Leonard asks was it worth it and James isn’t sure. He doesn’t know if it was worth it but he realizes it doesn’t matter. What he knows is that it’s too late, it’s too goddamn late to fix it, but he takes Leonard’s wrinkled, rough hand anyway and kisses it. Leonard closes his eyes and sighs, and they’ve done it one last time, communicated in that wordless way that they’ve gotten so good at. Except now instead of saying “stay away” they’re saying “I’m sorry”. After a moment Leonard squeezes James’ hand and says so faintly, James can barely hear it--
“Jim.”
“My Bones.”
And Jim is sure that despite everything, Bones will be waiting for him in the stars.