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Kirk’s uniform was itchy. He and Bones had just gotten out of a Cadet meeting in one of the lecture halls and were wandering around the balmy campus, enjoying the San Francisco weather before the two-week cram of exams set in, where they wouldn’t see the light of day unless they were scrambling from building to building with a datapad of flashcards under their noses. The hot sun made Jim’s skin crawl beneath the wooly material and he pulled at the collar of his uniform, trailing behind Bones, who was postulating about their exams.
Jim wanted to listen to him, he really did. He loved listening to Bones. But the thing is, something was getting in his way. It was the way Bones looked when he walked, how his shoulders were square beneath the red of his uniform, his head tilted up to the sun, soaking it in. He looked so peaceful, with the rays tanning his face. Jim knew the nightmares that plagued Bones’s mind. He knew why Bones sometimes took to the bottle too hard, but it was still magical to him to see a man so hurt become so beautiful in just the afternoon sun after a dumb meeting in a poorly designed lecture hall.
“-and we’ll have to get ready for Tactical Analysis at least a month beforehand, you know how the Admiral is. Jim? Hey, Jim!” Bones had turned and snapped his fingers in front of Jim’s face. “You got all your marbles there, kid, or are you so lost in space that you haven’t heard a word I’ve said?”
Jim rubbed a hand on the back of his neck. “Sorry, Bones, I was just thinking about stuff. You gonna be ready for Turn-of-the-Millennium? They’re giving a pretty long typing exam this time, I hear.”
“Yeah, I’m sure. C’mon, let’s go get a quick drink,” Bones said, clapping Jim on the shoulder and leading him off the campus. Jim felt shocked by the touch and tried to let it go, but he couldn’t help thinking about all the horrendous things Bones knew about him, too, and how giddy it made Jim feel that Bones still wanted to be his best friend.
***
Leonard McCoy wasn’t nervous about his medical exam. Jim had made sure of that by helping him study more than he had studied for his own tests. It was Jim that had Leonard nervous. It was Jim that made Leonard fidget with his uniform while he went over Andorian biological functions for the thousandth time. It was Jim that made Leonard blush when Jim wasn’t looking as they talked over beer. It was Jim who had pulled Leonard out of so many dives in the middle of the night and hauled him back to his dorm and stayed there the whole night until Leonard passed out during his drunken ramblings. Leonard wasn’t even sure what he had confessed to Jim while he was on a bender but he knew for damn sure it wasn’t pretty.
But he and Jim didn’t need pretty. They needed real. Leonard knew that he, at least, would always need someone to steer him back on the path of social drinking after he took a few too many shots down the road back to alcoholism when his thoughts turned too dark and Jim was the one who consistently shoved him out of barstools and onto his bunk and sat beside him at Leonard’s desk until dawn. On more than one occasion, Leonard had woken to see Jim drooling on the datapad in his sleep.
The thought made Leonard smile in the large atrium where about thirty other cadets waited to be called into the exam. His name was called and the last thing Bones told himself before going in was that if he passed with no mistakes, he’d pick a flower and give it to Jim later that day.
***
Kirk waited under the largest tree on campus after his Interspecies Ethics exam with his head spinning. He had managed to pass it, in a roundabout way, mainly because of what he remembered from helping Bones study for his medical exam. Jim was waiting for Bones, nervous to hear about the results of the medical exam. What if Jim hadn’t been a good enough assistant? What if Bones had failed and blamed Jim and would never show up? Jim leaned against the trunk of the tree, a breeze blowing through his hair, and took a deep breath.
Bones was smart. Like, really smart. Almost as smart as Jim. There was no way Bones was going to fail, even if Jim was the crappiest studying assistant in the known universe (which he knew he wasn’t.) He took a seat on the ground, comfortable and willing to wait for hours, and enjoyed the weather.
***
Leonard burst out of the exam with a grin on his face and a nervous sweat gathering under his arms. He had passed with no mistakes. He had done it. And Jim had helped him. Riding on the high of passing the hardest exam he had ever taken at Starfleet Academy, Leonard launched himself out the front of the building and jumped a few of the steps, jogging down the rest and speed-walked through a sea of cadets as they made their way past him. It was confession time. Leonard was going to give Jim a little more than just a flower; he was going to say the words that needed to be said. It might not be as concise as the three words perched under Leonard’s chin every time Jim looked up at him from a datapad when they were studying (he always knew when Jim was peeking at him) but it would come to mean about the same.
Leonard passed gardens full of exotic flowers that no one would miss, but those didn’t seem like the right choice to him. He and Jim were both traditional men, and so that meant traditional flowers to make up for this not-so-traditional confession Leonard was preparing his brain for. Near the main lecture hall was a garden that exhibited species of flowers from Earth on one end, to flowers from other planets on the other, arranged in chronological order according to when the planet was discovered. There were ten sunflowers growing amidst the Earth display and Leonard nipped towards them and plucked one from the soil. He dusted dirt off the roots, pulling the longer, thicker tendrils off the flower completely, and headed towards the largest tree on campus, thoughts buzzing through his head at warp factor nine.
Where would he start? How about with all the thank you’s he never said after Jim had helped him cram, leaving Leonard’s dorm at 0300 hours only to go and study for his own exams until 0530 hours and crash until his 0800 hour classes? Or maybe he would tell Jim that no one had ever been as good to Leonard as he had, not even his wife. No, he shouldn’t bring up his wife, she wasn’t even his wife anymore, they had divorced and should be happy. Leonard realized that if he hadn’t met Jim, he wouldn’t be happy. He might have dropped out of Starfleet and drank himself to death if it hadn’t been for Jim. That’s what he would start with.
The tree was in sight and he saw Jim’s silhouette beneath it, sitting and waiting just like he had said he would. Leonard’s heart leapt in his chest, and he wondered if it could really be a medical phenomenon, since it certainly felt like his heart was physically jumping around inside his ribcage. Leonard got a little closer and realized that Jim wasn’t alone.
***
There was a green girl standing in front of him and Jim Kirk could not remember her name. He could remember every single tactical maneuver programmed in the datapad, but he could not remember this girl’s name. He had only seen her a few times in some of his classes but he hadn’t talked to her much. Jim plastered on a smile and pretended that he cared deeply about her railings concerning Cadet Uhura always being too caught up in her xenolinguistics studies to go out and have a drink with her and maybe Kirk would like to go with her instead?
Gaila, that’s her name. “Gaila, look, I can’t, I’m kind of involved a little with someone. Okay, it’s not really involved, but it’s something. I would have loved to a while ago, but now I’m a little caught up in something.” Jim stopped himself from saying too much, he had already made a fool of himself, and stared up at Gaila, his smile becoming more painful by the moment.
“Oh, that’s okay! If I had known, I wouldn’t have asked,” she laughed. It was a pleasant laugh and Jim felt bad for saying no to a drink, even as just friends, but he was too nervous about seeing Bones soon to really think straight. Gaila said goodbye to Jim and flounced off, her red curls swinging behind her. Jim sighed and looked around for Bones again, catching sight of him coming down the sidewalk.
***
Leonard watched as Gaila went away from Jim, in what looked like a triumphant way. His chest deflated and the sunflower felt limp in his hands. He shouldn’t feel bad because Jim talked to the girl, but it certainly looked like she had just gotten him to agree to something Bones wouldn’t like. The energy he had been preparing to put into his confession leaked away from him as he got closer to Jim. He would probably have rejected Leonard anyway. By the time he reached Jim, his friend was standing and smiling broadly at him, asking, “How’d it go?”
Leonard cleared his throat and told him the good news.
“No mistakes?” Jim looked aghast. “I don’t think anyone has passed that exam with no mistakes.”
“Well, it looks like I’m the first in line, then.”
“What’s with the flower? Does it smell nice?”
Leonard looked down at the sunflower and spun the stem between his fingers. “I found it lying on the sidewalk. Someone must have picked it and decided not to keep it. It seemed a shame to leave it.” He couldn’t meet Jim’s eyes, not now.
“It’s a pretty flower, it was good of you to pick it up,” Jim told him. “I passed Interspecies Ethics, by the way. You were right, you can learn a lot about a species from the way they treat their patients.” He gave Leonard a smile so genuine that Leonard knew he was a goner. He knew what it was he felt for Jim. The fact that Jim had taken one of Leonard’s dumb, half-drunk side comments to heart was liberating for Leonard, but he still didn’t know if he was ready to confess things yet. Maybe Jim didn’t even remember it because Leonard had been the one telling it to him. Maybe Jim had only remembered it because Jim needed a way to pass the examination and that was it.
Leonard put the blasphemous thoughts from his mind and followed Jim back to his dorm, where they would review for Tactical Analysis, their last exam before the current classes were considered over. Leonard took Jim’s desk and put the sunflower down, just like he took the desk in his own dorm, and Jim sprawled on the bed in half of his uniform, the jacket discarded on one of the chairs, leaving Jim in a white t-shirt and his uniform pants. Leonard had to try very hard not to stare too long.
***
Jim, on the other hand, wasn’t shy about his own staring. Bones had been reserved even though he had passed his medical exam. By all rights, he should be ecstatic and bouncing off the walls, but instead, he was hunched over Jim’s desk with a crease growing between his brows and Jim wanted to know why. Had he seen Gaila with him under the tree? Jim supposed it was possible that Leonard would jump to the worst case scenario; he usually did in everything that wasn’t a medical examination involving a scared patient. Jim shoved the datapad up onto his pillow and rolled onto his side to look at Bones without hurting his neck.
Jim thought about telling Bones how he felt towards him. After telling Gaila he was involved in…something…with someone, it seemed unfair to keep that information from the someone Jim felt that he was involved with. But it had been years, and nothing had happened between him and Bones besides the usual friendly interactions. Jim watched as Bones flicked through a menu on his datapad and wondered if Bones wanted the same things that Jim did.
What if Jim told Bones everything, told him that he wouldn’t have even stayed in Starfleet if it wasn’t for having Bones, told him that he wouldn’t have done half as well if Bones hadn’t been there to remind him to quit partying and study more, told him that he was the only person Jim had been comfortable sharing his past with and Jim actually felt better knowing that Bones knew and understood, told him he wanted to keep sharing and understanding with him, what if he told him all that, and Bones said no?
He didn’t think he could live with it. He pushed it down inside his heart again and tried to shut away those feelings, but he knew at least one of them could pick a lock.
***
They came out of the Tactical Analysis exam together. Their names had been called simultaneously for different exam rooms and Leonard and Jim had finished in about the same amount of time, Jim passing just a hair better than Leonard, with only one mistake.
“I can’t believe they thought that it would be better to let a Klingon ship enter Earth’s orbit than host negotiations closer to Mars!” Jim railed as they walked across the grass on their way off the campus. “There’s too many variables to worry about coming from the Klingons!”
“Jim, listen to me,” Leonard said, taking Jim by the elbow and steering him around. “It was a test. Do you think they’d really let a Klingon ship get anywhere near Earth in reality? It was a dumb, trick question. I got it wrong, too! Hell, Jim, I could swear you were smarter than that!”
Jim rolled his eyes and looked away from Leonard. “No, you’re right. It was a trick question,” he said, meeting Leonard’s eyes for the first time that day. “I just really wanted to pass an exam with no mistakes, like you, hotshot.”
Leonard cracked a grin but didn’t let go of Jim’s arm. “Who you tryin’ to impress, kid?”
“A good friend of mine,” Jim replied, patting Leonard on the shoulder. They separated and moved off towards San Francisco, keeping close but not quite touching. The tension was enough to drive Leonard crazy, but he decided that a stiff drink would help with that…for now. It had been a week since Jim had spoken to that Gaila girl, and he hadn’t made a mention of it to Leonard. He didn’t even seem like he was interested in her. In fact, it didn’t seem like Jim was interested in anyone. All he did was hang around with Leonard…
Realization burned through Leonard as quickly as the sun would burn through a shuttle with a cracked hull. All Jim did was hang around with Leonard. That meant something, didn’t it? Of course it did. Who in their right mind would choose to stick around and watch a half-alcoholic keep spiraling down again? Who would have understood exactly what Leonard had gone through, was still going through, and stay with him? There was something lurking beneath the nonchalant surface of Jim’s skin and Leonard was going to find out what it was, exactly. He just couldn’t wait one minute more.
Feeling like he was about to explode and throwing all his previously prepared statements out the window, he stopped Jim again, taking his hand instead of him elbow. “Jim, I need to tell you something,” Leonard said quietly, feeling Jim squeeze his fingers out of reflex.
Jim turned to Leonard fully and his expression was one of concern and curiosity. He was thinking hard, Leonard could tell. “Anything,” he said with a nod and a shrug. “I have something to tell you, too,” he added, the words coming out slowly.
“Great. Um, on three?”
“Yeah. One, two, three-“
“Kid, I think I’m in love with you.”
“Bones, I think I’m in love with you.”
They spoke in unison and stared at each other once they realized what had been said. Leonard huffed out a laugh and they shared a stupid grin, one that only two dopey high school kids would look at each other with, but they weren’t embarrassed. Jim’s face relaxed and Leonard felt the tension between them diffuse as Jim pulled him into a hug that was infinitely different than any comforting touch he had offered Leonard in the past. This embrace was jubilant, exultant, everything that Leonard felt on the inside now that he knew his feelings were reciprocated could be displayed outwardly in the way he wrapped his arms around Jim and clung to him.
“I don’t think I could ever tell you how happy you’ve made me, Jim,” Leonard said into the side of Jim’s neck.
“You don’t have to, I’m pretty sure I feel the same,” Jim told him, pulling back to look into Leonard’s face. “Look at us, you’d think we just got engaged,” he chuckled.
“Maybe some day, if you’ll let me, we could change that,” Leonard said cautiously.
“Bones, I’m going to kiss you now,” Jim said, and kiss him he did. Leonard felt the stares of passers-by, but the feeling faded once he registered that Jim was finally kissing him. Leonard closed his eyes against the California sun and let Jim warm him up instead.