Switch 32/50
Oct. 20th, 2009 09:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ceres_liberaTitle: "Switch" (32/50)
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ceres_libera
Rating: R to NC-17
Summary: The life and times of Leonard H. McCoy MD/PhD … If Leonard McCoy's life could get any fucking weirder, it would be … Jesus, he didn't even want to think what that could possibly mean, because it's already been too fucking weird to make any kind of rational sense.
Canon: Based in the ST:XI universe, but strongly influenced by all canon ST-verses.
Characters: McCoy/Kirk, with eventual appearances by all other ST:XI characters.
Notes: OK. I'm putting up two sections tonight because I decided not to do so would just be unwarranted cruelty to my kind and very indulgent readers. And I'm warning for angst.
+
One thing Leo knew after two years of getting drunk with him was the many moods of James Tiberius Kirk, the drunken edition. In fact, if he looked at it dispassionately, which honestly would have to wait for a time when he wasn't half in the bag himself, he knew they'd spent too much of their time together drunk off their asses -- although the incidences of that had really fallen off after their first six months at the Academy, as they'd both found their footing, their focus, and honed their ambition. Still, he'd seen Jim drunk and giddy, drunk and horny, drunk and morose, drunk and reflective, drunk and belligerent, and his least favorite, the combo platter, i.e., when Jim was just drunk enough to rapidly cycle through all of the above.
What he was seeing tonight, however, in light of Jim's second failure at the Kobayashi Maru, was Jim drunk and fucking spoiling for a fight. Not with him so much, because when Jim got into this kind of mood, a verbal tongue-lashing wasn't really what Jim was looking for, and he didn't think Jim would ever get angry enough at him to hit him or for Leo to reciprocate. No –- any physical confrontation would devolve really swiftly into fucking, there was no doubt in his mind -- because any physical frustration that Jim had with him was about getting into his pants, or getting Leo into his.
But that wasn't quite what Jim was after tonight, anyway. When Jim got into one these moods -- and it had been a long, long time since he'd been in one -- he sought out bullies and idiots like Cupcake, guys who could back up the copious bullshit they spewed with fists like hammers, giving as good as they got until Jim, whippet-thin but fueled by a wellspring of childhood rage that no run-of-the-mill bully could ever hope to match, turned the tables on them and beat them into the ground, no matter the cost to himself.
Leo'd barely been able to talk Jim into going to Finnegan's, where at least there was a well-stocked medkit behind the bar, because he'd fucking seen to it himself, what with Jim's predilection for getting his pretty face punched. Leo was very fond of that pretty face, and he had a vested interest in seeing that it remained that way. He also knew that Liam kept a phaser or two behind the bar, and that he liked Jim well enough to ensure that whatever happened wouldn't go too far, even if that meant that he stunned Jim along with whomever else was fighting. Leo only hoped that it wouldn't come to that tonight, but even he knew better than to put much stock in that wish. Jim'd been pretty much silent since they'd come off the simulated bridge and stripped out of the ugly-ass jumpsuits that they'd had to wear. Even his jokes about the fleet getting off by making them appear in costume had failed to rouse a response from Jim. His fixed smile was there for all the other viewers, but Leo could see that he was deep within himself, in a dark and ugly place. He wondered if Jim would ever actually explain why defeating this test mattered so much –- he'd accepted the fact that Jim had real issues with the teaching of passivity and acceptance of defeat, but there was something personal, something important in how Jim felt about this stupid exercise that Leo couldn't quite get his mind around.
Once back into his reds and out of the view of anyone who'd been in the sim with them, Jim's smile had slid off his face to be replaced by a dark scowl as he made a break for the paths that led off campus and into trouble. Leo, of course, had followed with a wary expression of his own and a sigh, and an internal reminder to be as patient with whatever the fuck was going on in Jim's twisted psyche as Jim had been with his own foibles.
Rome wasn't built in a fucking day, after all.
+
Leo reminded himself of that thought as he watched the chairs upend and Jim's head snap up and over toward the fight that was happening nearby. Goddamnit. No one had fucking risen to Jim's bait all night long, so now he was going to throw himself in between two knuckleheads who were getting into it over a girl, from the looks of it.
"Jim …" he was talking to the empty air, as Jim had already vacated the space next to him. He sighed and got up from his seat, quelling the urge to announce to the uncaring room at large that he really was too damned old for this shit when he was brought up short by the fact that Jim had yet to throw a punch.
"He's not fighting," Gaila said to him, her voice holding wonder. He'd seen that she was at the bar, but she'd uncharacteristically chosen to stay away from them.
"No, he's not," Leo said, reflecting some of that back at her.
"But he's furious," Gaila said in a confused tone. "He really, really wants to hit something, or fuck somebody." Her blue eyes cut over to his.
"I know," Leo said to her calmly, but with an edge of his own. He really, really didn't need anyone else interpreting Jim's moods for him. He might not be able to smell them on him like she did, but his Jim-sense was pretty goddamned refined, thankyouverymuch.
"He's angry with me, you know," Gaila said.
Now Leo did look over at her with surprise, looking away from where Jim had placed one hand on the chest of one of the two combatants and was trying to talk him out of punching the other one's face in. "What would make you say that, darlin'?" Leo asked curiously. He'd assumed that she was staying away because Jim in a black mood was the kind of thing only those experienced with black moods, like Leo, could bear.
"I wouldn't help him with the Maru," Gaila said. "And he should have known better than to ask."
Leo had no idea what she was talking about.
She shook her head at his expression. "It doesn't matter," she said. "Just that Jim forgets sometimes that I have to be more careful than everyone else. There's not a lot of trust for my people here."
Leo opened his mouth to refute her, knowing full well how Jim had defended her honor from that fuckhead Mitchell over the summer, but the sound of a fight breaking out made him swivel his head back to where Jim was sagging from evidently having been hit in the head with a bottle by the young woman. "Damn it!" he swore, moving to Jim's side, Gaila forgotten as an all-out brawl began to consume Finnegan's.
He ended up back-to-back with Jim, fighting all comers, noticing Gaila perched on the bar watching as he and Jim battled their way to the front door and made their escape into the foggy San Francisco night.
+
"That was awesome," Jim said for at least the twentieth time as they stumbled along the sidewalk.
Occasionally, Leo would turn and fruitlessly try and hail a cab, even though they were almost all the back to campus. He could only imagine what they actually looked like as he glanced over at Jim, whose lower lip was swollen to twice its normal lush size. He had an obvious abrasion on his right cheekbone, and another one resolving under his left eye and he was favoring his left side. The fog had slicked Jim's hair to his skull; Leo's hair was stubbornly falling in his eyes, and he had no idea which was worse, the sweat that had turned cold in the dank night air, or the veneer of moisture that they'd been coated with as they pushed their way through the fog.
"Bones," Jim said, brushing Leo's hair out of his eyes and peering at him with that particularly kind of drunken intensity that tried to pass for focus, "you still with me, man?"
"Right here, kid," Leo answered, wrapping fingers around Jim's wrist. He doubted that Jim realized that he'd left his hand on what was threatening to be a spectacular bruise on Leo's cheekbone. He lapped at his lips and tasted blood. He was pretty sure it was from his nose, which had taken a good shot, although he didn't think it was broken.
"Y'r nose is bleeding, Bones," Jim said, wiping with gentle but clumsy fingers gone cold in the damp. The cold felt good against his overheated skin.
"C'mon, Jim," Leo urged, pulling Jim's arm away from him and up and around his shoulders. "Let's keep moving before we turn into Cadetsicles."
Jim honest-to-God giggled at Leo's words as they began to move in the direction of the campus again. "You were awesome, though, Bones," Jim said. "I know you don't like to fight, but you're so much better at it now." His pride was obvious in the tone of his voice, not to mention the feigned punches he was throwing with his left hand. "Ow."
"I think you bruised your ribs, Jimmy," he said absentmindedly, towing them across the empty street and through the gate into campus, watching the light flash from red to green as their comms were registered.
"Technically, it wasn't me who bruised them," Jim pointed out with drunken precision. "It was that big, really ugly guy."
"Which one was the really ugly one?" Leo asked with a smile, watching as Jim pursed his fat lips comically, seriously contemplating the question.
"Well, the other guy was just kind of regularly ugly," Jim said thoughtfully, "but the really ugly guy, Bones? He had a lumpy skull," Jim ventured this observation with distaste, waving a hand as he declaimed. "I get that some guys don't want to use the hair stimulators and all, you know, bald pride or whatever, but you shouldn't shave your head if you have a lumpy skull," He shrugged. "My personal opinion."
Leo had to stop himself from laughing out loud at the serious manner in which Jim was rendering this opinion. Sometimes, usually when the kid wasn't trying at all, he was absolutely fucking adorable. "I see," Leo said with gravity.
Jim nodded, and then looked at Leo with serious blue eyes that were focused on him. "I don't like it when people hit you in the face, Bones"
"That makes two of us, kid," Leo agreed. "I don't like it when people hit me in the face, and I'm not real crazy about when people hit you in the face, either."
"The girl started it!" Jim said. "Did you see that, Bones? Here, after my whole shit day, I was trying to be all reasonable and shit and keep those shitheads from breaking up Liam's bar, and …" he trailed off, wide-eyed. "And she hit me!" He concluded in an outraged tone.
"She wanted them to fight over her?"
"Yes!" Jim said incredulously. "Ugly and Uglier. What the fuck was up with that?"
Leo keyed his way into the dorm entry and Jim shivered in the blast of heat from the change in environments.
"Man, what a day," Jim rambled on. "I hate that fucking test."
"Yeah?" Leo asked, trying to keep Jim talking as they rode up to his floor.
"Yep," Jim said. "It's stupid." He brooded as the floors flashed by and then stalked out the door to Leo's room, keying the entry in himself. "Can I take a shower, Bones?" he asked, already starting to peel off his clothes. His tunic made a sodden noise as it fell behind him on the floor.
"Lemme fix you up first," Leo said, watching Jim toe off his shoes.
Leo did the same, but he hung up his tunic and threw a hanger at Jim, which he caught one-handed without even turning his head. Even drunk as a skunk, the kid's reflexes were superb. He went into the bathroom and carefully washed his hands, only to bump into Jim standing right behind him. "You need to use the head?" he asked, startled.
Jim shook his head. "I gotta wash my hands," he said, swaying slightly, "so I can fix you up."
Leo cocked his head at him. "You gonna get your M.D., now, kid?"
"Funny Bones," Jim said, pushing past him. "Maybe I will, just to piss you off. But tonight, you can tell me how to fix you up."
Leo raised his eyebrows at Jim's words and Jim chuckled as he bent over the sink, washing his hands carefully.
"I could hear the eyebrows, Bones," he said, glancing over his shoulder, and then bobbing his head as he confirmed their rise. "Nice!"
Leo rolled his eyes and went out into the main room.
When Jim came into the room, he sauntered over to the bed and plopped down on the edge, patting next to him. Leo sat down and faced him, and Jim pulled his legs up and sat in a modified yoga pose.
"Show off," Leo groused.
"Miss Elizabeth knows what she's doing, man," Jim said, crowding up against Leo. "Ow, fuck Bones," he complained as Leo put a finger on Jim's ribs, while watching the tricorder readings come up.
"Bruised," Leo confirmed. "Not broken."
"Still hurts," Jim groused. He was studying Leo as he ran the regen over his ribs. "Is your nose broken?"
"No," Leo said.
Jim's focus on him was unaltered, although Leo wouldn't venture a guess as to what was going on in his head. "You know," Jim said suddenly. "My dad flunked the Maru."
Leo looked up in surprise at the sudden change in topic. "He didn't flunk it when it counted, Jim," he said carefully.
Jim huffed out an impatient breath. "You think so?"
Leo stared at him, but didn't say anything in answer. Jim's expression had morphed into one of brooding, and he picked up the tricorder and went to scan Leo. "I'm not done, Jim," he said sharply.
"Pike agrees with you," he said. "But you know, it begs the question about what the predictive value of the test is."
"Why does it matter so much?" Leo asked him, as the regen beeped, signaling it was done with the basic damage. He moved it up to Jim's lip, then thought better of it, as Jim began to answer him.
"Because," Jim said sullenly.
Leo shook his head and moved the regen back down to Jim's mouth. "Be quiet for a minute," he ordered. Jim studied him as the machine began to repair the damage to his lip. "Maybe you need to read up on Don Quixote," Leo said, taking advantage of the enforced quiet.
Jim rolled his eyes in answer, his long fingers moving restlessly, moving from Leo's hand to his arm, outlining the muscles in his forearm.
Leo felt his respirations kick up a notch in response to Jim's caresses. "Jim," he said warningly. "Focus."
Jim's lips tried to resolve into a smirk, his eyes reflecting the twinge of pain that his actions caused, but his fingers continued to stroke up Leo's arm, while his other hand came up to play with the hair at the nape of Leo's neck, his long fingers cool and determined at the top of Leo's spine as he pulled Leo's head closer.
Leo struggled to keep his eyes open, and to keep focused himself. Jim was really drunk, too drunk to carry out whatever his fingers were promising. Maybe.
"Bones," Jim said in a whisper, his voice a rasp. The swelling had diminished on one side of his mouth, making him look distinctly lopsided.
"Shh …" Leo answered, as Jim pressed his forehead against his. "I can't see what I'm doing, kid," he said, his own voice a whisper. He kept the regen pressed to where he thought Jim's mouth was, as he felt the ghost of a kiss next to his mouth.
Jim hummed in response, but pulled back, his eyes hot and heavy-lidded. "Do your worst," he said in a languid voice.
Leo shook his head, as much to clear it as anything else, and locked eyes with Jim as he repaired his mouth. As soon as he moved the regen away from Jim's lips, Jim leaned in and kissed him, his tongue slipping in to tangle lazily with Leo's. They kissed for long minutes, until Leo pushed Jim back from where he'd crowded up against him. "C'mon, Jim," he said, his voice broken and aching. "Let me finish." He kept the hand that had found its way to the back of Jim's skull in place as he ran the regen over the abrasions and bruises that marred Jim's face. The whole time, Jim watched him with a hooded expression, waiting until the machine beeped and Leo pulled his hand away.
"Your turn," Jim said, watching him carefully.
He picked up the tricorder and Leo shook his head. "Lemme see your hands, Jim," Leo said huskily.
Jim laid a hand across the palm that Leo held out, pressing his forehead against Leo's again as he regenerated first one, then the other, of Jim's fine-boned hands. Jim's fingers were longer than Leo's, the skin fairer and the bones seemingly more fragile, but Leo could feel the strength in them as he held them, one after the other.
When Leo clicked off the regen and went to drop Jim's hand, Jim didn't let go, but deftly turned it over, revealing the abrasions that bloomed on his own knuckles. "Fix it," he said, and watched as Leo began to run the regen over the reddened skin, watching as the angry weals turned pink and receded. He bent his head and kissed Leo's knuckles. "The other one," he ordered, fumbling for Leo's left hand. He watched intently as the new skin appeared. "Doctor magic," he mumbled drunkenly.
"Hmm …" Leo said quizzically. "Jim, you know it's simulation at the basal …"
Jim laid his fingers over Leo's mouth. "You've got no sense of romance, Bones," he said, then laughed and traced Leo's quirked eyebrow with his fingers.
After Leo shut off the regen and displayed his knuckles for Jim's inspection, he sat in uneasy silence when Jim pushed him back against the pillows and ran the regen over the bruises on his face.
Jim smiled at him, an uncharacteristically soft smirk on his face. "You really, really hate being the patient, don't you, Bones?"
"I just prefer that my doctor," he sketched the air quotes behind Jim's back where he couldn’t even see them, because somehow Jim had worked things around so that he was sitting astride Leo's lap. And even the clammy damp of their pants, which neither of them had managed to take off, hadn't served to keep his cock from reacting to being pressed so closely to Jim's, "actually have some degree of medical training."
"Afraid I'll ruin your pretty face, Bones?" Jim said with a slur, dropping the regen next to them on the bed and moving in even closer.
One of Leo's hands found its way to Jim's face and stroked over the pink of his newly healed lip. "I ain't the pretty one, Jim."
"I disagree," Jim said with drunken certainty.
When Leo opened his mouth and kissed Jim, he could taste the iron and alcohol on his palate, and it made him shiver. He ran his hands up under Jim's black undershirt, feeling the play of muscles in his back as Jim shifted and pressed against him, his hand pressing down and over Leo's ass, pulling him so that he could get a better angle to grind against him. He felt Jim sigh as he broke the kiss, pressing his face into the bend of Leo's neck and sucking.
"I'm kinda fucked up," he mumbled against Leo, nipping at his neck.
Leo tamped down on his desire at Jim's admission, and went to move away from Jim, but he wouldn't let go.
"About you," Jim continued, wrapping his arms around Leo's back and holding on tight. "I'm kinda fucked up."
"Jim?" Leo asked.
Jim was quiet against him for a moment, and then he bit him, hard. "About this," he said, and his voice was angry.
"Damn it, Jim!" For once, Leo let the frustration that was fueling him burst out and he pushed Jim back hard and met Jim's belligerent glare. "What the fuck?" His neck was throbbing angrily, and he was beyond confused and just fucking tired of the two-step they were doing. "Don't pretend like this is all me," he growled at him.
Jim's glare was resentful and he wondered how the fuck it always came back to this, over and over again in his relationships. How he was always the one who loved more and got burned – with Jocelyn, with Jessica and now, fuck it, with Jim. Wasn’t he supposed to have learned all his hard lessons about this kind of shit?
"I should go," Jim said, and there was a kind of danger in his tone, a note of challenge despite the fact that he was swaying drunk.
And for once, Leo didn't try and coax him otherwise, didn’t persuade him, or sweet-talk him. Fuck it. He let him go. If Jim was going to run, he was going to run. Let him run and fucking get it out of his system, and if he wanted to, he goddamned knew where Leo was. He could come back.
Leo sat on the bed and watched Jim put his boots back on, shove his arms into his damp tunic and he did nothing to stop him, just sat there with a scowl on his face regenerating the bite while he watched him.
It was just coincidence that he flung the regenerator at the closed door after Jim disappeared through it.
+
Switch 33
Author:
ceres_liberaRating: R to NC-17
Summary: The life and times of Leonard H. McCoy MD/PhD … If Leonard McCoy's life could get any fucking weirder, it would be … Jesus, he didn't even want to think what that could possibly mean, because it's already been too fucking weird to make any kind of rational sense.
Canon: Based in the ST:XI universe, but strongly influenced by all canon ST-verses.
Characters: McCoy/Kirk, with eventual appearances by all other ST:XI characters.
Notes: OK. I'm putting up two sections tonight because I decided not to do so would just be unwarranted cruelty to my kind and very indulgent readers. And I'm warning for angst.
+
One thing Leo knew after two years of getting drunk with him was the many moods of James Tiberius Kirk, the drunken edition. In fact, if he looked at it dispassionately, which honestly would have to wait for a time when he wasn't half in the bag himself, he knew they'd spent too much of their time together drunk off their asses -- although the incidences of that had really fallen off after their first six months at the Academy, as they'd both found their footing, their focus, and honed their ambition. Still, he'd seen Jim drunk and giddy, drunk and horny, drunk and morose, drunk and reflective, drunk and belligerent, and his least favorite, the combo platter, i.e., when Jim was just drunk enough to rapidly cycle through all of the above.
What he was seeing tonight, however, in light of Jim's second failure at the Kobayashi Maru, was Jim drunk and fucking spoiling for a fight. Not with him so much, because when Jim got into this kind of mood, a verbal tongue-lashing wasn't really what Jim was looking for, and he didn't think Jim would ever get angry enough at him to hit him or for Leo to reciprocate. No –- any physical confrontation would devolve really swiftly into fucking, there was no doubt in his mind -- because any physical frustration that Jim had with him was about getting into his pants, or getting Leo into his.
But that wasn't quite what Jim was after tonight, anyway. When Jim got into one these moods -- and it had been a long, long time since he'd been in one -- he sought out bullies and idiots like Cupcake, guys who could back up the copious bullshit they spewed with fists like hammers, giving as good as they got until Jim, whippet-thin but fueled by a wellspring of childhood rage that no run-of-the-mill bully could ever hope to match, turned the tables on them and beat them into the ground, no matter the cost to himself.
Leo'd barely been able to talk Jim into going to Finnegan's, where at least there was a well-stocked medkit behind the bar, because he'd fucking seen to it himself, what with Jim's predilection for getting his pretty face punched. Leo was very fond of that pretty face, and he had a vested interest in seeing that it remained that way. He also knew that Liam kept a phaser or two behind the bar, and that he liked Jim well enough to ensure that whatever happened wouldn't go too far, even if that meant that he stunned Jim along with whomever else was fighting. Leo only hoped that it wouldn't come to that tonight, but even he knew better than to put much stock in that wish. Jim'd been pretty much silent since they'd come off the simulated bridge and stripped out of the ugly-ass jumpsuits that they'd had to wear. Even his jokes about the fleet getting off by making them appear in costume had failed to rouse a response from Jim. His fixed smile was there for all the other viewers, but Leo could see that he was deep within himself, in a dark and ugly place. He wondered if Jim would ever actually explain why defeating this test mattered so much –- he'd accepted the fact that Jim had real issues with the teaching of passivity and acceptance of defeat, but there was something personal, something important in how Jim felt about this stupid exercise that Leo couldn't quite get his mind around.
Once back into his reds and out of the view of anyone who'd been in the sim with them, Jim's smile had slid off his face to be replaced by a dark scowl as he made a break for the paths that led off campus and into trouble. Leo, of course, had followed with a wary expression of his own and a sigh, and an internal reminder to be as patient with whatever the fuck was going on in Jim's twisted psyche as Jim had been with his own foibles.
Rome wasn't built in a fucking day, after all.
+
Leo reminded himself of that thought as he watched the chairs upend and Jim's head snap up and over toward the fight that was happening nearby. Goddamnit. No one had fucking risen to Jim's bait all night long, so now he was going to throw himself in between two knuckleheads who were getting into it over a girl, from the looks of it.
"Jim …" he was talking to the empty air, as Jim had already vacated the space next to him. He sighed and got up from his seat, quelling the urge to announce to the uncaring room at large that he really was too damned old for this shit when he was brought up short by the fact that Jim had yet to throw a punch.
"He's not fighting," Gaila said to him, her voice holding wonder. He'd seen that she was at the bar, but she'd uncharacteristically chosen to stay away from them.
"No, he's not," Leo said, reflecting some of that back at her.
"But he's furious," Gaila said in a confused tone. "He really, really wants to hit something, or fuck somebody." Her blue eyes cut over to his.
"I know," Leo said to her calmly, but with an edge of his own. He really, really didn't need anyone else interpreting Jim's moods for him. He might not be able to smell them on him like she did, but his Jim-sense was pretty goddamned refined, thankyouverymuch.
"He's angry with me, you know," Gaila said.
Now Leo did look over at her with surprise, looking away from where Jim had placed one hand on the chest of one of the two combatants and was trying to talk him out of punching the other one's face in. "What would make you say that, darlin'?" Leo asked curiously. He'd assumed that she was staying away because Jim in a black mood was the kind of thing only those experienced with black moods, like Leo, could bear.
"I wouldn't help him with the Maru," Gaila said. "And he should have known better than to ask."
Leo had no idea what she was talking about.
She shook her head at his expression. "It doesn't matter," she said. "Just that Jim forgets sometimes that I have to be more careful than everyone else. There's not a lot of trust for my people here."
Leo opened his mouth to refute her, knowing full well how Jim had defended her honor from that fuckhead Mitchell over the summer, but the sound of a fight breaking out made him swivel his head back to where Jim was sagging from evidently having been hit in the head with a bottle by the young woman. "Damn it!" he swore, moving to Jim's side, Gaila forgotten as an all-out brawl began to consume Finnegan's.
He ended up back-to-back with Jim, fighting all comers, noticing Gaila perched on the bar watching as he and Jim battled their way to the front door and made their escape into the foggy San Francisco night.
+
"That was awesome," Jim said for at least the twentieth time as they stumbled along the sidewalk.
Occasionally, Leo would turn and fruitlessly try and hail a cab, even though they were almost all the back to campus. He could only imagine what they actually looked like as he glanced over at Jim, whose lower lip was swollen to twice its normal lush size. He had an obvious abrasion on his right cheekbone, and another one resolving under his left eye and he was favoring his left side. The fog had slicked Jim's hair to his skull; Leo's hair was stubbornly falling in his eyes, and he had no idea which was worse, the sweat that had turned cold in the dank night air, or the veneer of moisture that they'd been coated with as they pushed their way through the fog.
"Bones," Jim said, brushing Leo's hair out of his eyes and peering at him with that particularly kind of drunken intensity that tried to pass for focus, "you still with me, man?"
"Right here, kid," Leo answered, wrapping fingers around Jim's wrist. He doubted that Jim realized that he'd left his hand on what was threatening to be a spectacular bruise on Leo's cheekbone. He lapped at his lips and tasted blood. He was pretty sure it was from his nose, which had taken a good shot, although he didn't think it was broken.
"Y'r nose is bleeding, Bones," Jim said, wiping with gentle but clumsy fingers gone cold in the damp. The cold felt good against his overheated skin.
"C'mon, Jim," Leo urged, pulling Jim's arm away from him and up and around his shoulders. "Let's keep moving before we turn into Cadetsicles."
Jim honest-to-God giggled at Leo's words as they began to move in the direction of the campus again. "You were awesome, though, Bones," Jim said. "I know you don't like to fight, but you're so much better at it now." His pride was obvious in the tone of his voice, not to mention the feigned punches he was throwing with his left hand. "Ow."
"I think you bruised your ribs, Jimmy," he said absentmindedly, towing them across the empty street and through the gate into campus, watching the light flash from red to green as their comms were registered.
"Technically, it wasn't me who bruised them," Jim pointed out with drunken precision. "It was that big, really ugly guy."
"Which one was the really ugly one?" Leo asked with a smile, watching as Jim pursed his fat lips comically, seriously contemplating the question.
"Well, the other guy was just kind of regularly ugly," Jim said thoughtfully, "but the really ugly guy, Bones? He had a lumpy skull," Jim ventured this observation with distaste, waving a hand as he declaimed. "I get that some guys don't want to use the hair stimulators and all, you know, bald pride or whatever, but you shouldn't shave your head if you have a lumpy skull," He shrugged. "My personal opinion."
Leo had to stop himself from laughing out loud at the serious manner in which Jim was rendering this opinion. Sometimes, usually when the kid wasn't trying at all, he was absolutely fucking adorable. "I see," Leo said with gravity.
Jim nodded, and then looked at Leo with serious blue eyes that were focused on him. "I don't like it when people hit you in the face, Bones"
"That makes two of us, kid," Leo agreed. "I don't like it when people hit me in the face, and I'm not real crazy about when people hit you in the face, either."
"The girl started it!" Jim said. "Did you see that, Bones? Here, after my whole shit day, I was trying to be all reasonable and shit and keep those shitheads from breaking up Liam's bar, and …" he trailed off, wide-eyed. "And she hit me!" He concluded in an outraged tone.
"She wanted them to fight over her?"
"Yes!" Jim said incredulously. "Ugly and Uglier. What the fuck was up with that?"
Leo keyed his way into the dorm entry and Jim shivered in the blast of heat from the change in environments.
"Man, what a day," Jim rambled on. "I hate that fucking test."
"Yeah?" Leo asked, trying to keep Jim talking as they rode up to his floor.
"Yep," Jim said. "It's stupid." He brooded as the floors flashed by and then stalked out the door to Leo's room, keying the entry in himself. "Can I take a shower, Bones?" he asked, already starting to peel off his clothes. His tunic made a sodden noise as it fell behind him on the floor.
"Lemme fix you up first," Leo said, watching Jim toe off his shoes.
Leo did the same, but he hung up his tunic and threw a hanger at Jim, which he caught one-handed without even turning his head. Even drunk as a skunk, the kid's reflexes were superb. He went into the bathroom and carefully washed his hands, only to bump into Jim standing right behind him. "You need to use the head?" he asked, startled.
Jim shook his head. "I gotta wash my hands," he said, swaying slightly, "so I can fix you up."
Leo cocked his head at him. "You gonna get your M.D., now, kid?"
"Funny Bones," Jim said, pushing past him. "Maybe I will, just to piss you off. But tonight, you can tell me how to fix you up."
Leo raised his eyebrows at Jim's words and Jim chuckled as he bent over the sink, washing his hands carefully.
"I could hear the eyebrows, Bones," he said, glancing over his shoulder, and then bobbing his head as he confirmed their rise. "Nice!"
Leo rolled his eyes and went out into the main room.
When Jim came into the room, he sauntered over to the bed and plopped down on the edge, patting next to him. Leo sat down and faced him, and Jim pulled his legs up and sat in a modified yoga pose.
"Show off," Leo groused.
"Miss Elizabeth knows what she's doing, man," Jim said, crowding up against Leo. "Ow, fuck Bones," he complained as Leo put a finger on Jim's ribs, while watching the tricorder readings come up.
"Bruised," Leo confirmed. "Not broken."
"Still hurts," Jim groused. He was studying Leo as he ran the regen over his ribs. "Is your nose broken?"
"No," Leo said.
Jim's focus on him was unaltered, although Leo wouldn't venture a guess as to what was going on in his head. "You know," Jim said suddenly. "My dad flunked the Maru."
Leo looked up in surprise at the sudden change in topic. "He didn't flunk it when it counted, Jim," he said carefully.
Jim huffed out an impatient breath. "You think so?"
Leo stared at him, but didn't say anything in answer. Jim's expression had morphed into one of brooding, and he picked up the tricorder and went to scan Leo. "I'm not done, Jim," he said sharply.
"Pike agrees with you," he said. "But you know, it begs the question about what the predictive value of the test is."
"Why does it matter so much?" Leo asked him, as the regen beeped, signaling it was done with the basic damage. He moved it up to Jim's lip, then thought better of it, as Jim began to answer him.
"Because," Jim said sullenly.
Leo shook his head and moved the regen back down to Jim's mouth. "Be quiet for a minute," he ordered. Jim studied him as the machine began to repair the damage to his lip. "Maybe you need to read up on Don Quixote," Leo said, taking advantage of the enforced quiet.
Jim rolled his eyes in answer, his long fingers moving restlessly, moving from Leo's hand to his arm, outlining the muscles in his forearm.
Leo felt his respirations kick up a notch in response to Jim's caresses. "Jim," he said warningly. "Focus."
Jim's lips tried to resolve into a smirk, his eyes reflecting the twinge of pain that his actions caused, but his fingers continued to stroke up Leo's arm, while his other hand came up to play with the hair at the nape of Leo's neck, his long fingers cool and determined at the top of Leo's spine as he pulled Leo's head closer.
Leo struggled to keep his eyes open, and to keep focused himself. Jim was really drunk, too drunk to carry out whatever his fingers were promising. Maybe.
"Bones," Jim said in a whisper, his voice a rasp. The swelling had diminished on one side of his mouth, making him look distinctly lopsided.
"Shh …" Leo answered, as Jim pressed his forehead against his. "I can't see what I'm doing, kid," he said, his own voice a whisper. He kept the regen pressed to where he thought Jim's mouth was, as he felt the ghost of a kiss next to his mouth.
Jim hummed in response, but pulled back, his eyes hot and heavy-lidded. "Do your worst," he said in a languid voice.
Leo shook his head, as much to clear it as anything else, and locked eyes with Jim as he repaired his mouth. As soon as he moved the regen away from Jim's lips, Jim leaned in and kissed him, his tongue slipping in to tangle lazily with Leo's. They kissed for long minutes, until Leo pushed Jim back from where he'd crowded up against him. "C'mon, Jim," he said, his voice broken and aching. "Let me finish." He kept the hand that had found its way to the back of Jim's skull in place as he ran the regen over the abrasions and bruises that marred Jim's face. The whole time, Jim watched him with a hooded expression, waiting until the machine beeped and Leo pulled his hand away.
"Your turn," Jim said, watching him carefully.
He picked up the tricorder and Leo shook his head. "Lemme see your hands, Jim," Leo said huskily.
Jim laid a hand across the palm that Leo held out, pressing his forehead against Leo's again as he regenerated first one, then the other, of Jim's fine-boned hands. Jim's fingers were longer than Leo's, the skin fairer and the bones seemingly more fragile, but Leo could feel the strength in them as he held them, one after the other.
When Leo clicked off the regen and went to drop Jim's hand, Jim didn't let go, but deftly turned it over, revealing the abrasions that bloomed on his own knuckles. "Fix it," he said, and watched as Leo began to run the regen over the reddened skin, watching as the angry weals turned pink and receded. He bent his head and kissed Leo's knuckles. "The other one," he ordered, fumbling for Leo's left hand. He watched intently as the new skin appeared. "Doctor magic," he mumbled drunkenly.
"Hmm …" Leo said quizzically. "Jim, you know it's simulation at the basal …"
Jim laid his fingers over Leo's mouth. "You've got no sense of romance, Bones," he said, then laughed and traced Leo's quirked eyebrow with his fingers.
After Leo shut off the regen and displayed his knuckles for Jim's inspection, he sat in uneasy silence when Jim pushed him back against the pillows and ran the regen over the bruises on his face.
Jim smiled at him, an uncharacteristically soft smirk on his face. "You really, really hate being the patient, don't you, Bones?"
"I just prefer that my doctor," he sketched the air quotes behind Jim's back where he couldn’t even see them, because somehow Jim had worked things around so that he was sitting astride Leo's lap. And even the clammy damp of their pants, which neither of them had managed to take off, hadn't served to keep his cock from reacting to being pressed so closely to Jim's, "actually have some degree of medical training."
"Afraid I'll ruin your pretty face, Bones?" Jim said with a slur, dropping the regen next to them on the bed and moving in even closer.
One of Leo's hands found its way to Jim's face and stroked over the pink of his newly healed lip. "I ain't the pretty one, Jim."
"I disagree," Jim said with drunken certainty.
When Leo opened his mouth and kissed Jim, he could taste the iron and alcohol on his palate, and it made him shiver. He ran his hands up under Jim's black undershirt, feeling the play of muscles in his back as Jim shifted and pressed against him, his hand pressing down and over Leo's ass, pulling him so that he could get a better angle to grind against him. He felt Jim sigh as he broke the kiss, pressing his face into the bend of Leo's neck and sucking.
"I'm kinda fucked up," he mumbled against Leo, nipping at his neck.
Leo tamped down on his desire at Jim's admission, and went to move away from Jim, but he wouldn't let go.
"About you," Jim continued, wrapping his arms around Leo's back and holding on tight. "I'm kinda fucked up."
"Jim?" Leo asked.
Jim was quiet against him for a moment, and then he bit him, hard. "About this," he said, and his voice was angry.
"Damn it, Jim!" For once, Leo let the frustration that was fueling him burst out and he pushed Jim back hard and met Jim's belligerent glare. "What the fuck?" His neck was throbbing angrily, and he was beyond confused and just fucking tired of the two-step they were doing. "Don't pretend like this is all me," he growled at him.
Jim's glare was resentful and he wondered how the fuck it always came back to this, over and over again in his relationships. How he was always the one who loved more and got burned – with Jocelyn, with Jessica and now, fuck it, with Jim. Wasn’t he supposed to have learned all his hard lessons about this kind of shit?
"I should go," Jim said, and there was a kind of danger in his tone, a note of challenge despite the fact that he was swaying drunk.
And for once, Leo didn't try and coax him otherwise, didn’t persuade him, or sweet-talk him. Fuck it. He let him go. If Jim was going to run, he was going to run. Let him run and fucking get it out of his system, and if he wanted to, he goddamned knew where Leo was. He could come back.
Leo sat on the bed and watched Jim put his boots back on, shove his arms into his damp tunic and he did nothing to stop him, just sat there with a scowl on his face regenerating the bite while he watched him.
It was just coincidence that he flung the regenerator at the closed door after Jim disappeared through it.
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