Work Text:
“We’re going to live together, right?” he says to you, not really asking, an officer in charge of assigning housing to new recruits standing in front of you both, padd in hand.
You’re really going to do it. You’re going to join Starfleet, sweaty palms, queasy stomach, and agitation-accelerated respiration rate be damned.
“Sure, kid,” you tell him, trying to stretch out the few years between your age and his, not so many years except you were stupid, married a woman you shouldn’t have, your fascination with medicine a balm to cope with your own paranoias and fears, an almost primal yearning for stability in an inherently unstable existence that led you to the altar and misery before yielding to divorce court.
The worst thing …
The worst goddamn thing …
The worst goddamn thing is misdiagnosis. In medicine. In life. You won’t make another mistake like that, choosing to implicate someone else in your emotional well-being, needing someone else, until the psychological malpractice had to be undone, leaving you alone.
“Great!” He grins at you and it’s not clinically significant that your lips tingled when he drank from your flask in the shuttle, not important that your sternum tingles now. Stop looking at his smile, all curled lips and rounded cheeks you could graze with your fingertips, stroke with your thumb to find out if he wants more, and thank God he turns toward the officer with the padd. “I’m Jim Kirk and this is Leonard McCoy reporting for duty and a place to live. Do you have anything with a view of the Golden Gate Bridge?”
The room has a view of a concrete wall.
There are two skinny beds, two closets, two desks, and a bathroom so small you could develop muscle cramps from lack of ability to fully extend your arms.
“I like it,” he proclaims, his chin jutting in a quick nod. “Everything we need and nothing we don’t. I’ll be back later. I’m gonna go study.”
There’s nothing to study. Classes haven’t begun. Hell, there hasn’t even been a discussion of who will clean the bathroom and who—
He’s gone.
A mattress sags as you sit and rub your eyes—using the sides of your fingers, not the tips, minimizes the risk for bacterial conjunctivitis. You just need to think, get your mind right about joining Starfleet … about him.
Gossamer.
No. You’re a doctor, damnit. A human being is made of dermal tissues, lymphatic and respiratory systems, bones, muscles, endocrine secretions, veins, arteries. He’s not gossamer.
Except he is, glints of light in his hair, a nimble mind that’s evident when he talks, easy grins and supple motion, and you learn that "studying" means he’s on the prowl. Sex, he likes sex, “study” partners or groups, a seeming indifference to gender, species, or most other external characteristics. But he never spends a night out, always sleeps in his own bed by himself.
“I checked your medical records,” you confess to him in the darkness, your bed along one wall and his bed along the wall parallel, his uneven breathing proof that he’s having trouble falling asleep tonight, too. Can’t be worry about midterms. He actually seems to like tests. “You’re up to date on all your inoculations against sexually transmitted infections. Knowing you, though, you’ll invent a new one.”
Gossamer. His chuckle is gossamer. “A guy’s gotta be known for something.”
“You could be known for keeping it in your pants once and a while.” Jealousy roughens your voice, except what do you expect? You’ve never said a damn thing to him about how he’s gossamer, your time with him causing happy-flutters in your chest. Scans with two different medical tricorders indicated the arrhythmia wasn’t clinically significant.
He gives you goddamn heart palpitations. What the hell is wrong with you?
There’s loud snoring from his side of the room.
“Unbelievable,” you call out, your eyes rolling even though it’s too dark to see much of anything. “You’re pretending to be asleep.”
Another chuckle. “How can you tell?”
“It doesn’t take an M.D. to know when you’re being a pain in the neck.” Laughter catches in your throat and you force the giggles down, away, no, you won’t laugh with him, laughter is too much like love, keeping your jaw tight with irritation is better … safer.
After finals, during the semester break, the academy is mostly empty, as if the buildings and the trees are for just the lucky few with nowhere else to go. He sits next to you on the outdoor stairs, bright sunlight and your lips tingling from his sip from your flask as you accept him passing the alcohol back to you.
“So what happened? When you got divorced?” He’s pensive, academic exams over so his thoughts have turned to other questions and answers.
The alcohol doesn’t burn anymore, not even for a lengthy sip.
“Lost it all, kid. You know that. My medical practice, my home, my old life—all pronounced dead on arrival of the divorce decree.” There isn’t much San Francisco fog today. Your eyes close to blot out the glare, let the sunshine disinfectant kill the memories, negative implications of your worst misdiagnosis fading in the light.
“Do you miss her? Your wife?” He tugs the flask away from your fingers and you let him. Listen to him gulp and swallow, the flask pushed back into your hands when he’s done.
How do you tell him that you miss the idea of being married, partnership and trust and all that soppy stuff, but not the actual woman you’d promised to stay with in sickness and in health? How do you tell him that despite your best efforts … despite wanting so badly for it to work, indisputable practical benefits of matrimony and monogamy … that she had never been … gossamer?
So you don’t say anything, just let the sun shine on your closed eyes as you sit next to him on the steps until the flask is empty.
Classes, midterms, finals, break. Classes, midterms, finals, break. Home has become a room with skinny beds along parallel walls. He always finds out in advance if there’s going to be an inspection. On those mornings, his hospital corners are better than yours.
He’s not a slob. Not a neatnik either. Just bizarrely easy to live with, telling you when you’re hunched over your desk that your rotations at Starfleet Medical have you over-researching symptoms and diagnoses instead of trusting your instincts, and listening when you tell him, his textbook padd brighter than the moon outside, that command training is great but even future captains need to know when to hit the books and when to hit the hay.
Because, no matter how much he studies … or “studies” … his unspoken choice to always sleep at home has become part of the stability you’ve craved, despite the mess of a divorce that proves reliance on another person for happiness is contraindicated.
You become an expert at managing symptoms.
Clenching your jaw to avoid laughing with him gives you a headache. So you take an analgesic for the pain.
The analgesic complicates the mild arrhythmia you get from thinking about him. So you prescribe yourself a low-dose course of lectrazine.
The lectrazine makes you grumpy, which is a favorable outcome under the circumstances.
One of the Starfleet Medical lecturers gives a speech about the importance of focusing on underlying causes of illness rather than treating isolated manifestations or physical effects of even chronic conditions.
Yeah, you could do that. You could tell him that he’s gossamer, admit how your mind and body have become attuned to him, ensure he understands that he doesn’t have to feel the same way, you just wanted him to know, wanted him to be aware that your love isn’t gossamer, it’s muscular, cerebral, bare as a nerve ending, yet burrowed into your very marrow.
Yeah, sure … in a pig’s eye you’ll tell him all that.
It doesn’t matter, he’s accused of violating the ethical code and his name isn’t called to board a ship. He tells you to be safe but you can’t be safe without him, you take him with you to the Enterprise, he’s first officer, he’s captain, the universe has gone mad but you’re not afraid of space anymore.
You’re afraid of something bad happening to him.
So you become his doctor, chief medical officer of the flagship, healing his lacerations and contusions by day, missing his breathing by night, the double bed in your quarters big and lonely, stars outside the viewports not nearly as comforting as the concrete wall when he always slept at home.
He dies. Your worst fear turned cold reality, tears heavy in your eyes, ache of loss radiating from your sternum, drowning, you’re drowning in air he’ll never breathe again, and through sheer force of will and luck and a necrotic tribble turned super-blood serum proof of concept, you bring him back.
A pillow cradles his head as his eyes open, brilliant blue irises, pupils that dilate to focus on you, it’s going to be okay, ache of loss ebbing, ache of love soaring, you can breathe again, and he is what he’s always been … gossamer.
“Stay with me tonight?” he asks as the sun sets, trees rustling outside the windows of his private room within Starfleet Medical.
Your throat catches with a sharp retort and with something much worse—the truth of your worries, your vigil over his biobed while he was in his coma, how you had to increase your own dosage of lectrazine, your heartbeat erratic with fear, with hope, with love.
“Yeah,” you tell him, “I’ll get them to bring another biobed in here.”
Two skinny beds, like the old days.
And it’s lights out, just the glow of his biobed monitors, the ease of his breathing, the quiet comfort of knowing each other is there.
“Do you miss her?” He doesn’t say your ex-wife, but his question is as clear in the darkness as it was all those years ago in the sunshine.
It’s even darker with your eyes closed, a fake snore for effect.
He snorts. “That’s my move.”
Good thing your biobed monitors aren’t active, damned pulse so high that your heartbeat thunders in your ears, a wave of nausea twisting your guts. Divorce court, failure, the right decision to end a bad marriage, and you’ve done what you never wanted to do again, you’ve implicated someone else in your emotional well-being, found yourself needing someone gossamer for the stability you crave … even bringing him back from the dead … and he still thinks about the ex-wife you’re too ashamed to say you’ve never, ever missed.
“So stop talking and give it a try,” you tell him, your voice too loud, the roaring in your ears isn’t his fault, none of this is his fault, you need to speak more quietly. “Seriously, Jim, you need your rest.”
True enough.
Years slip-slide by and you save his life again, again, again, the unimaginable becoming routine as his recoveries teach you to defy loss, defy medical protocols, defy the odds just like he does. You throw him a surprise party for his birthday and you toast to him, cool glass in your hand and your drink held high. The Enterprise was destroyed and the new ship isn’t ready yet. His quarters and your quarters are on different decks of Yorktown Starbase, but he leaves the party when you do, not stepping off the lift at his floor.
He walks with you to your door.
“A birthday gets a guy thinking,” he says, and he follows you into your quarters, staying close, so close.
Your eyes roll. “You never stop thinking. Even though it might be good for you to stop thinking once and a while. Give me a few days off from saving your ass from whatever new—”
Hot breath on your cheek, then a press of his lips to the same patch of skin.
Surprise catches in your throat, chokes whatever else you were going to say.
And, as the lips that curled around your flask the day you met him are soft along your cheek, the tingles that alit in your sternum that first day back with a vengeance, warmth racing up into your face and down into your groin.
No. Yes. No. For one thing, you should have shaved. You’re stubbly, sharp hairs that could irritate his lips, cause scratches or chapping, you don’t want to hurt him … you don’t want to hurt him … you don’t want to hurt him.
You don’t want to get hurt.
“It was a good party, Bones. We had a few drinks, but I’m not drunk and neither are you.” He’s kissing and speaking, working his way from your cheek toward your mouth, taking his time, giving you time. “I’ll leave if you want me to go. But first I want you to answer a question for me.”
What he’s going to ask is obvious, but you’re addle-brained, his lips on your skin making you weak-kneed like a goddamn teenager, and you’re stumbling backward, your arm curling around him to hold onto his back, keep him close as your shoulder blades find the wall so you won’t fall.
“Do you,” he’s deliberate, his hips pushing against your hips as he asks, as his hot kisses trace closer and closer to your mouth, “miss her?”
Temptation. To twist your head, kiss his lips, hard, stop the conversation and show him the answer.
Another temptation. To send him away, refuse to put him or yourself at risk because of your fears and needs.
But his lips are soft and his hips are hard and the way he’s always been gossamer … your arm clings to him, palm pressed tight to his lower back … heat and hope … fear pricking sweat under your armpits… and your mind unravels, gives in to yet another temptation: to finally answer the question he’s asked you again and again.
“I miss what I thought it would be. I miss being stupid enough to believe someone would always be with me … would always want to be with me. I miss having someone to go home to, for talking or sex or sleep … even just reading a book and knowing someone else is there. But do I miss her? Damn it, Jim, I wish I did. I wish I missed her … wish I thought about her … ever … the way I think about you.”
Face burning hot enough to be a fever, you look upward, stare at the ceiling so the tears stinging the corners of your eyes won’t fall. Misdiagnosis. The worst thing. And you’ve spoken the misdiagnosis out loud, made it clear that someone else is implicated in your emotional-well being. Not just someone. Him. You were stupid, and you need to somehow swallow your words, take it all back.
But with your head inclined upward, his kisses shift to your neck, more ardent, more fervent, lips soft along your throat, your airway isn’t constricted but you can’t breathe, everything spinning, spinning, spinning, and he murmurs between kisses: “Good.”
“No, damn it, it’s not good.” Is he crazy? Are you? Dizzy, almost queasy, gulping air but not enough to get a deep breath. “I can’t be your responsibility. I can’t ask you to—”
“Bones.” His kisses stop. Fear claws at your chest, feral, alive, desperate. How can you be so scared of losing what you never had? His hands grasp your shoulders. “You’re not asking me for anything. I’ve asked you—over and over again—if you miss her. Because, if you did, I get that. Or if you were with someone else. Or just not interested. But none of that is what’s going on, is it? Listen to me. You’re grumpy and you’re smart and you’re always on my side except when I’m being stupid and then you’ll tell me. You’re the one I want to talk with about whatever’s on my mind. You’re the one I miss when I’m in my quarters by myself. And if you think I haven’t been checking out your body since basically the day we met then you’re wrong. You’re … you’re the one I want to be with. Now, I’ve made myself clear, so it’s time for you to decide.”
Your hand hasn’t stopped clutching his lower back.
When you would sit at your desk at the academy, he would tell you when you were over-researching symptoms and diagnoses instead of trusting your instincts. If you’re the patient … doctors make the worst patients … then togetherness was misdiagnosed as a cure for your problems when you got married. But your needs weren’t the only factors that were clinically significant. Your ex-wife was part of the treatment plan that failed.
And it’s a well-proven fact that misdiagnosis in one case can be the correct diagnosis in another case. The variables have changed, and the person who knows you better than anyone else in your life has said he wants to be with you.
He … wants to be with you.
He wants … to be … with you.
He … wants … to be … with … you.
Slowly, so slowly, you let yourself look into his eyes.
Excessive dilation, most likely due to sexual attraction.
Hints of excess moisture, probably from speaking about strong emotions.
And love.
So much love.
How long has that been there?
What did he call you? Grumpy and smart and all that other stuff?
Well, you’re going to trust your instincts and tell him what he is.
“You’re gossamer.” No thoughts, just pulling him closer, letting your lips press to his, soft, so soft, his arms and his scent wrapping around you, shimmers dancing across your vision and he’s smiling into the kiss, growling with excitement, and he was wrong about one thing: he said you weren’t drunk, but you’re love-drunk, inebriated by his touch and his kiss and his breaths folding in with yours.
He’ll ask, because of course he will, what it means when you call him gossamer. And you’ll have to explain the lightness he’s brought to your life, the joy, the elegant and delicate dance of love and devotion and beauty. You’ll have to tell him how much he’s meant to you, since the moment you met him, and how you’re not sure if you ever would have unknotted your tangle of feelings if he hadn’t given you the push you needed.
And you’ll have to thank him for helping you find enjoyment in physicality again, all the “studying” he did at the academy a benefit to you, finally, and you’ll have to reassure him that he’s always been easy to live with and, yes, you’ll move in with him again, one big bed this time, and you don’t need to treat symptoms anymore because there’s no need to pathologize love when he loves you, too.
But, for now, you hold on tight, jagged breaths and ardent kisses and eager hips, low sounds of enjoyment flowing from your throat, jubilation in your chest, and something non-medical deep inside you cracks apart, a radiant lightness that flows into your veins, your arteries, your lungs, and, for a moment, a magnificent, mystical moment, everything is gossamer.