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Jim Kirk's life as he's known it ends on a Thursday. It's pretty fitting, he thinks; he never could get the hang of Thursdays.
"This stops now." Bones sounds deceptively calm, but that's the closest he has ever come to giving an Alpha-style command since Jim's known him. He's holding a PADD with Jim's test results in one hand, knuckles turned white, the other is fisted at his side.
Jim hates himself a little when he bows his head and just says: "Okay."
--
Jim goes through his second heat at twenty-three, far away from the shiny fleet facility designed specifically for such a thing.
"I think the bathroom sink just threw up on me," Bones says, lips curling with disgust. The disinfectant he pours on his hands smells sharply of hospital.
"Bones," Jim says, because he wants him like he's never wanted a thing before. Laid bare on a rickety bed with scratchy sheets against his sweaty back. He wants to forget every rule he's ever made and just give in.
"You're okay, kid," Bones says, palm cool against Jim's burning forehead, hypo sharp against his neck. "I got you."
"You could have me," Jim says, gripping for his hand, pulling.
Bones catches himself against the bed and shakes his head minutely. "Not like this," he says.
--
"Maybe next time you should check into one of the facilities," Bones says, fingers curled tight around the armrests and eyes squeezed shut. "There would be...uhm...other type of aids available."
"No," says Jim. After a moment he adds: "Bones, breathe."
--
The wanting doesn't go away.
"How did you know?" he asks his mother, back against the rough brick of Bones's dormitory and toes curled into dew damp grass.
"I didn't. Not really. It's always a leap of faith." She so far away that the light of the sun shining on her face won't reach Earth for thousands of years but her voice is right there tired in his ear.
Jim tips his head back against the wall. "I don't have a lot of faith," he says, blinking slowly at stars he can barely see.
--
"What in god's name do you think you're doing?" Bones barks later, towering over Jim like a vengeful minor deity.
Jim blinks at him, suppressing a shiver. He must have fallen asleep. "I was waiting for you."
"I gave you a goddamned code for you to use it." Bones hauls Jim to his feet, mouth pressing into a thin line when he realizes Jim's feet are not actually in his boots.
"You said only in emergencies."
"Well, I didn't think you would listen." Bones picks the boots up and ushers Jim into the building with firm hand between his shoulder blades. It feels like coming home.
--
Life is better off the suppressants, Jim has to admit--he doesn't constantly feel like a sack of shit for one--but there are downsides.
"Jesus fucking Christ."
"Do you blaspheme at all your patients or am I special case?" Jim asks, or tries to, mostly he just dribbles blood down his front.
"What the fuck happened?" Bones demands, ignoring Jim's aside. He's already scanning Jim with one hand, the other cupped gently around the back of Jim's neck. Jim wonders if he's even aware.
"Just a fight." Jim shrugs and doesn't meet Bones's eyes. His left shoulder really hurts even though he made the paramedic on the scene slide it back into its socket. He winces and Bones glowers, lowering his scanner.
"Just a fight my ass, you look like a tendered steak."
"Sexy."
"Maybe if you're a butcher. Seriously, Jim, what the fuck?" He presses a hypo to Jim's neck and guides him down on the bio bed.
Jim doesn't mind the hypos so much when they come in the form of sweet relief. "It's your fault," he says, blinking sluggishly at the ceiling. "Only the really mean ones will fight me now."
--
"You can't do this anymore," Bones says when Jim wakes up and he looks broken, like Jim broke him, and that's just not right.
"Okay," Jim says, finding Bones's hand where it's resting on the covers and squeezing it hard.
--
The next day Jim finds himself in front of Christopher Pike, back straight with his hands folded neatly in his lap. Bones would laugh if he could see him.
"That was dumb," Pike says.
"I know."
Pike sighs and scrubs at his eyes. "Why?" he asks.
"Not enough positive role models as a child?" Jim suggests, pasting on his brightest, most lying smile.
Pike snorts.
--
"Your nature does not make you weak," the therapist, Dr Dahlia, says during the first mandatory session. Her eyes are warm and kind and she smells like the air just before it snows.
"I'm beginning to believe that," says Jim and he's surprised to realize it's not a lie.
--
They go back to the same ramshackle cabin for Jim's next heat.
"Aaaah, the sweet smell of mildew," Jim says, inhaling deeply.
"Hmph," says Bones.
--
"You could be with a Beta," Bones suggests, pushing Jim's sweaty bangs away from his face. "Or that Orion girl you like. You trust her."
Bones’s control is absolute, yet there are beads of sweat along his hairline and a tremble to the hand running through Jim's hair.
"You don't have to come," Jim chokes out but it's a lie, Bones has to be here. It's vital.
Bones sighs and settles down next to Jim on the rickety bed. "Yeah, I do," he says. "You know I do."
He feels guilty, Jim knows, for making Jim go through this when he fought so hard for so long to not have to.
"You did the right thing," Jim whispers later when he doesn't feel quite as raw. "I'm glad you did it."
Bones doesn't respond but he reaches out to squeeze Jim's hand and that's enough.
--
For Christmas their second year Jim takes Bones into space.
"Well, this is hateful," Bones says, staring at the wall to ceiling window covering the entire wall of their cabin.
"Beautiful," Jim corrects, coming up behind him and wrapping his arms around Bones's waist on a whim.
"We look like the front cover of a trashy romance novel." Bones nods at their reflection, outlined against the stars.
"Captain Kirk's Alpha," Jim suggests and Bones snorts.
"In your dreams, kiddo."
--
"I know what you're doing," Bones says later, when he's full and lethargic, stretched out on the floor with his socked feet propped up against the window and a drink in his hand. The remains of a feast fit for kings are spread around them.
"And what is that?" Jim asks innocently.
"You're making me face my fears."
"Mhmmm." Jim turns his head to watch him. "Is it working?"
Bones looks at his feet and curls his toes against the glass. "Maybe."
--
Starfleet Academy is hard and Jim is on accelerated course, and for a while it's enough to throw himself into school work and charm his way into strangers' beds. He doesn't need to drink and fight to scratch that itch under his skin and when it gets really bad he crawls into Bones's bed and let himself be soothed by Bones's scent all over his skin.
He knows Bones doesn't like it when he smells like other people, so he always showers before showing up but he never showers after, keeping Bones's scent on him for as long as he can, like a phantom claim.
"I like it when you smell like me," Bones says one day, the closest he's ever come to acknowledging this thing between them.
"Me too," Jim mumbles, looking anywhere but Bones. His cheeks feel hot and there's a prickle under the collar of his cadet reds. He wants to slide out of his seat and kneel at Bones's feet; he wants Bones to let him.
He did once, during Jim's first heat. He let Jim kneel at his feet and curled a hand over the back of Jim's neck, keeping him there. Jim doesn't know if he figured out that Jim came from that, if he could smell it, or if he felt it in the way Jim trembled against him, choking on his moans.
--
Jim thinks the smell of mildew and the clanking of ancient pipes will always remind him of the days and weeks he's spent secreted away with Bones in a ramshackle cabin, shivering through his first few heats as a functioning adult.
This one is bad. He can't stop shaking, can't stop wanting. Whatever it is Bones keeps in his blessed hypos doesn't seem to be working at all.
"I'm sorry," Bones whispers, letting Jim climb into his lap and press his face into Bones's neck. "I think it's my scent. You're reacting to it."
"'S okay," Jim slurs, nosing at Bones's pulse point, chasing his scent. "Just don't leave."
--
He's exhausted afterwards, pale and shaky still as they make their way onto the shuttle back to San Francisco. Bones has his lips pressed into a thin line and Jim knows what he's going to say even before he opens his mouth.
"You should--"
"No."
"Jim--"
"No."
--
Bones's seat is next to an Omega. He wordlessly swaps with Jim, putting Jim between them but it's not enough. Jim is too raw, too exhausted.
"He's mine," Jim says, eyeballing the Omega. She's petite and pretty, exactly Bones's type, and Jim wants to punch her in the nose.
"Jim," Bones says sharply.
Jim slips out of his seat and onto the floor as if he's made of water, pressing his forehead against Bones's knee. Alpha voice. Bones never uses his Alpha voice with Jim.
"Sir," sharp, unfamiliar, seemingly coming from very far away. Jim feels as if he's under water.
"I'm sorry," he hears Bones say. "Jim, darlin', come on."
Jim likes “darlin'.” He lets Bones pull him back into his seat and buckle his harness.
"Sorry," he mumbles to the other Omega and then, "sorry," again to the attendant watching them with a frown on his face. "I'm just really tired."
"Christ," Bones says, but he curls a hand over the back of Jim's neck and keeps it there so that's okay. Everything's okay.
--
When they back to campus Jim falls into Bones's bed and sleeps for sixteen hours. When hewakes up Bones is on the couch, watching a holo. Jim wants to kneel at his feet and beg for forgiveness, but he stops at a safe distance and runs a hand through his hair.
"I'm sorry," he says.
Bones looks up. "I forgive you."
Jim swallows. He still wants to fall to the floor at Bones's feet. "I should go."
Bones looks very tired when he says: "Yeah, maybe that's for the best."
--
"I hated my dad growing up. I hated him for what he did to my mum." Jim swallows, staring down at his hands. "I hated her too, for turning to Frank, but I think that if she hadn't...." He trails off, swallows again, forcing saliva past the lump in his throat. "He used to call me ‘the bitch’ when she couldn't hear, always bossing me around. I used to think she knew, but their bond was barely there, I don't think she could tell what kind of person he really was."
Dr Dahlia – “you can call me Aina,” but he never does -- doesn't say fucking finally but if it wasn't terribly unprofessional Jim thinks she would have. This is what she's been trying to get to for a year now, the original damage.
Once he's started he can't stop. The words just come spilling out, things he's only ever told Bones before and even Bones only knows the story in bits and pieces.
"They say Kodos believed in the survival of the fittest, but he killed the bonded Alphas first. I think he liked watching the Omegas suffer. I swore to myself that I would never let myself be compromised like that."
"I went through my first heat at sixteen and I couldn't deal with the way I wanted all the things I swore I'd never succumb to. I chained myself to the wall and threw the key across the room. If mum hadn't come home unexpectedly, I would probably have died there."
"I started taking suppressants after that. They're easy enough to get on the black market, and it was fine. I felt like shit most of the time but it was worth it to never feel like that again."
"It got out of control after I met Bones because the more time I spent with him, the more Supps I needed to take. The logical thing would have been to avoid him but I couldn't. I just couldn't."
Jim's throat feels raw and his appointment should have been over two hours ago, but Dr Dahlia never once tried to stop him or slow him down.
"Thank you," she says, when he's finally done talking and just sits there, breathing hard.
Jim wants to laugh at the absurdity of the whole thing, at the mess that is his life. "You're welcome," he says instead.
--
Jim's second fail at the Kobyashi Maru is worse than the first. He stares at Bones, pretend dead over his console, and wants to set fire to the world.
"Everyone fails," Bones says afterwards. "It's the point."
"Fuck the point," Jim snarls.
--
Jim can't settle down. He trails after Bones back to his dorm, but even there he can't seem to relax, pacing back and forth like a caged lion.
"Jesus, Jim," Bones says from the kitchenette. "Sit the fuck down before you wear a hole in the floor."
The reaction is instantaneous, instinctual, Jim's knees hit the floor with jarring force. He crosses his wrists at the small of his back, bows his head, and breathes.
"Jim, where did you--oh."
Jim holds his position, doesn't look up even when Bones' bare feet enters his line of vision.
"Jim..."
Jim shuffles forward, pressing his cheek against Bones' thigh and squeezing his eyes shut. The earth trembles, or maybe that's just him, shaking in time with his pounding heart. He'll shatter if Bones pushes him away now, fall into literal pieces all over the floor. He wants to say that, make it a joke, but when he opens his mouth nothing comes out.
"Jim," Bones says again, sliding his fingers into Jim's hair, but this time it sounds like an endearment.
Jim's not sure how long he stays on the floor, breathing in time with the slow drag of Bones' fingers through his hair, but his knees and shoulders are stiff when he finally finds it in him to gracelessly clamber to his feet. It takes him a while longer to find the courage to meet Bones' calm gaze.
"Feel better?" Bones asks, as if people kneel at his feet all the time, as if this thing between them is in any way normal.
"Yeah."
"Good."
He reaches out to curl a hand around the back of Jim's neck, the way he does sometimes, thumbing at the bristly hairs at the base of Jim's skull. "Whenever you need it," he says lowly.
"Thanks, Bones," Jim mumbles.
--
There's always a backlash, an urge to fight or flee that runs through Jim's veins like an electric current. He settles for carving more proverbial notches into his bedpost and pestering the admiralty about letting him take the Kobyashi Maru again. He would feel worse about it if he didn't know Bones is sort of seeing someone from Starfleet Medical that he won't let Jim meet. Her name is Chandra and she's a Beta, which is the only thing Jim cares about, really.
"I don't know if he even swings that way," Jim admits with his head resting on Gaila's stomach. "He never said."
"He definitely swings your way." Gaila cards her fingers through Jim's hair. It’s not as good as when Bones does it, but almost. "I can tell these things."
"Maybe."
--
Jim doesn't talk to Bones for a week. It's easier that way. He wants too many things when he's around Bones and few of them make sense.
"He won't wait forever," Winona says, pragmatic as always.
"Maybe he's not waiting at all." Jim loves his mum, but she's never even met Bones; how would she know? "And why does everyone think I have to make the first move. Bones can move too."
"Oh honey," Winona says. It sounds like "my darling idiot son." Jim is insulted.
"He can," Jim protests, tone definitely straying into the territory of petulant. "He's the damn Alpha."
"You know it doesn't work like that."
Jim doesn't know anything. Not a single thing. He never wanted know.
--
Jim crawls back to Bones, into his bed, curls up at his back, and breathes him in.
"You okay?" Bones sounds like he's mostly asleep still.
"I'm fine," Jim whispers. "Go back to sleep."
"Mmm 'kay."
Bones is out like a light again in seconds but Jim stays awake for hours, basking in Bones's presence, until he finally drifts off with his forehead resting against Bones' back.
In the morning Bones says, "I'm not seeing Chandra anymore," and Jim says, "good."
--
Jim is burning, from the soles of his feet to the tip of his fingers; even his hair is on fire.
"Bones," he croaks, reaching out blindly. "Bones."
"Shhh, I'm here. I'm right here."
Bones curls up around him, holds him tight, but it's not enough. It's not nearly enough.
"Want you," Jim gasps. "Please, please, please. Bones, please!"
"Shhh, darlin'," Bones whispers, lips desert dry against Jim's temple, his cheek. "Just rest for a bit."
The hypo stings like ice and then everything goes black.
--
"You sedated me," Jim says. "You've never done that before."
"I shouldn't have," Bones says tightly. He looks awful, hollow-eyed and pale with stubble climbing up his cheeks and down his neck.
Jim blinks. "Then why did you?" He's ravenous. He’s already eaten enough for two, but he can't stop eyeing Bones' plate that has barely been touched.
Bones pushes it at him without saying anything.
"You should eat something too," Jim says, already digging in.
"I'm not hungry."
Bones gets up to refill his coffee and Jim absently tracks his every move. He's still in that shaky aftermath where he can't stand to let Bones out of his sight for more than a moment.
"You didn't answer my question," Jim points out when Bones sinks back into his chair, looking like twenty-nine going on eighty-five.
Bones mouth tightens and he won't meet Jim's eyes, shoulders slumped. "I couldn't handle it," he says lowly. "You were begging and I didn't trust myself to keep saying no."
"You don't have to," Jim says.
"Yes, I do," Bones roars and then his coffee cup hits the walk with breaking force, sending coffee and bits of porcelain flying everywhere.
Jim jumps, staring at Bones open-mouthed. Jim's seen him angry before but never like this, Bones is literally shaking, eyes burning with fury.
"Bones...."
"I can't do this right now," Bones says tightly. "I'm going for a walk."
Jim doesn't reach out to stop him even though every molecule of his being is shouting for him to try.
--
Bones is gone for three hours, and Jim goes through every emotion from despair to anger and back again while he cleans up the kitchen, changes the bed sheets, and packs their bags. He takes a long shower that does nothing to soothe his frazzled nerves, and when Bones finally comes back he's sitting on the edge of the pristinely made bed with his hands folded in his lap.
"I'm sorry," Bones says and he looks it too, expression hang-dog and eyes dark.
"We should get going," Jim says. "Or we'll miss our shuttle."
They don't talk about it in the car, at the terminal, or on the shuttle. They don't talk at all. Jim falls asleep halfway through the shuttle ride, pulled under by the bone-deep exhaustion that always hits him after a heat, and when he wakes up they're about to land and his head is on Bones's shoulder.
"Sorry," he mumbles, straightening up.
"It's okay," Bones mumbles back.
--
It's not okay. Nothing is okay. There's a rift between them that has never been there before and Jim doesn't know how to breach it. They go through the motions of being friends but Jim doesn't know if they still are and it terrifies him.
Jim goes to Gaila because he can't not, but when she says she loves him, there's a taste of ashes in his mouth and fire in his veins and he's happy when Uhura interrupts. He stumbles over to Bones's quarters with bees buzzing in his belly, but Bones is working still and Jim falls, exhausted, into his bed.
When he wakes up in the morning, Bones is already up. He hands Jim a cup of coffee with an almost-smile. Jim doesn't know if he ever came to bed, but Bones doesn't say "stop showing up like this" and that’s enough.
--
Jim beats the test and Bones rolls his eyes at him, but he claps his shoulder on the way out and they eat together in the cafeteria like they used to.
"I'm not mad at you," Bones says, poking listlessly at his salad.
"Okay," says Jim because he can't tell if it's a lie or not.
--
There’s a hearing and a cranky Vulcan with too-knowing eyes, and then Bones is walking away and Jim feels as if he's already dead until Bones comes back and makes him wish that he was.
--
Bones puts a hypo to his neck and when Jim wakes up his mind is suddenly crystal clear: a lightning storm in space.
Jim has never in his life been so horrified to be right.
--
When everything is said and done, when they've saved the Federation but lost Vulcan, and they're limping back towards Earth on impulse drive, Jim ends up sitting on the edge of a bio bed in sick bay letting Bones tend to the worst of his wounds.
"I can't do this anymore," Jim whispers, fisting his hands into Bones' rumpled uniform shirt. He looks good in blue, regal, every inch the commanding Alpha now that he has a crew of his own, however temporary, and Jim just can't pretend anymore.
Bones goes pale but after a moment he nods, as if he's come to some inevitable conclusion, and tries to turn away. "I'll get someone else to attend to you," he says stiffly.
Jim almost lets him go out of pure shock, but at the last second he tightens his grip and yanks, making Bones stumble into him, nearly knocking Jim back on the bed.
"You're a goddamned idiot," Jim growls, clutching at Bones with arms and legs and grabbing a fistful of his hair when Bones still won't look at him.
"You think I don't know that," Bones hisses, struggling to get free.
"Jesus Christ," Jim explodes when Bones accidentally knocks one of the regen pads off and the bio bed starts whining at them. "Would you stop your damned squirming! I'm trying to tell you I'm in love with you."
Bones stills. After a breathless moment he picks up the regen pad and fastens it back over Jim's ribs with exaggerated care. The bed goes silent and for a long moment the only sound is their harsh breaths.
"You're my Alpha," Jim says lowly, finally admitting out loud what has been true for years. "And I'm in love with you."
"Jim..." Bones says and it sounds like no.
"Okay." Jim lets his hands drop, folding them primly in his lap. After a moment he turns sideways and swings his legs onto the bed, lying down like a good patient. He feels hollow but he's trying to be graceful in defeat.
"You don't know the full story," Bones says. He sounds anguished, as if this is tearing him apart.
Jim rolls over on his side and pulls his legs up, fully turning his back on Bones. "If I don't know the full story it's because you never told me," he whispers.
There is a long silence before Bones says: "I'm incapable of forming a lasting bond." There's another silence while he lets that sink in. Jim doesn't say anything, doesn't know what to say. I don't care, seems like a copout.
“I tried for years with Joce, but it always faded with the waning of her heat and she kept saying it didn't matter but--" Bones sucks in a harsh breath. "Of course it did. It mattered a whole lot. When my dad got sick, she turned to Clay so quick and I didn't even realize my wife had bonded with another Alpha until she threw it in my face."
Bones touches Jim's shoulder, rubbing his thumb just below the regen pad placed there, and Jim has to fight the urge to roll into him.
After a moment Bones drags his hand down Jim's back, spreading heat across his skin. "Then I joined Starfleet and they told me my psi readings are abysmal, way way below average for a human, let alone an alpha, and I told myself I was done with Omegas..." Bones trails off, hand coming to rest on Jim's hip.
"But you see, it turned out my new best friend was an Omega. He'd just fucked up his body chemistry so badly trying not to be one that I couldn't even tell and by the time I realized I should have run for the hills I was already so desperately in love with him it wasn't an option."
Now Jim does roll over, he can't not, and he blinks up at Bones with his heart fluttering in his throat. He nearly died thrice over today but it feels like this is where his life truly hangs in the balance.
"I'm a shit excuse for an Alpha," Bones says shakily. "But Christ, Jim, if you'll have me there's nothing I won't give you."
Jim reaches up, cupping Bones's cheek in his hand. "I'm not asking for much," he says, voice catching on the heart in his throat. "I just want your soul."
Their first kiss is not the desperate clash of teeth and lips Jim might have imagined, it's soft, almost reverent, and it's over way too soon.
"This isn't the place," Bones murmurs as he pulls back, thumbing lightly at the corner of Jim's mouth.
"I know." Jim curls his fingers around Bones' wrist, keeping his hand against his face, breathing him in. "It'll keep."
--
They come together like starved men in the dark of the ship's night, kissing until their mouths feel sore in Bones' tiny quarters, pushing and pulling at shoes and clothes until they're skin against skin on the bed and they both come way too fast.
"Well, that was--" Bones starts breathlessly.
"Just the beginning," Jim promises.
--
Hours later they're sore and sated, curled together so tightly even light can't shine between them.
"Don't let me fuck this up," Jim whispers into the dark, fingers digging into Bones's skin. He feels raw, overwhelmed. He's had plenty of sex in his life but it's never been like this. It's never even come close.
Bones cards his fingers through Jim's hair, sliding his hand down to curl over the back of Jim's neck. "How about you try to not fuck this up and I try to not fuck this up and we just...live happily ever after?"
The wistful note to his voice makes Jim feel as if his chest is about to cave in. "Sounds like a plan," he says, voice catching. "Let's just do that."
--
They arrive back to Earth heralded as heroes, but Starfleet treats them like juvenile delinquents.
"This is the first time I've had to answer for the length of my goddamned toilet breaks," Bones growls over lunch in the nearly empty cafeteria. "I feel like I'm on trial."
"I suppose we are in a way," Uhura says, pushing her food around her plate. "But some of the questions they ask are unnecessarily...intrusive."
"Their psychiatrist is a hack," Jim adds, feathers ruffled. "Kept asking me about coping mechanisms until I told him I like to kneel at my Alpha's feet until it feels like I can breathe right. He shut up after that."
There's a brief silence where everyone turns their heads to stare at Bones.
"What?" he barks. "Jim does what he damned well pleases."
"My champion," Jim says, batting his eyelashes.
"Oh for Christ's sake," Bones mutters, but Jim can tell he's smiling on the inside.
--
"They're giving you the Enterprise?" There's a note of disbelief to Bones's voice and he looks a bit shell-shocked.
"They're giving me the Enterprise," Jim confirms, unable to keep his smile from engulfing his entire face. He probably looks deranged. "It's the second greatest thing to ever happen to me."
Bones frowns. "What's the first?"
Jim rolls his eyes. "I'm looking at it."
The way Bones' face transforms makes Jim think Bones has not had nearly enough nice things in his life. The way his heart soars when Bones pulls him in for a long sweet kiss makes him think the same thing is probably true about himself.
--
"You stink, kid," Pike says, crinkling his nose.
"Is that any way to address a starship captain?" Jim asks cheerfully, throwing himself into the visitor's chair.
"It is when he stinks." Pike smiles. "You make me feel like I'm haunted by my doctor. Is that his jacket?"
"I can neither confirm nor deny," Jim says, affecting his best deadpan. It's absolutely Bones's jacket and Bones's scent all over his skin. Jim is living his best life.
Pike chuckles, shaking his head. "I should have figured you'd be insufferable in love."
"Like I wasn't before." Pike outright laughs at that and Jim leans back, pleased with himself. "So what's the latest from the secret negotiations I know nothing about?"
"Tides are changing in favour of letting you choose your own command staff--it's customary after all--but Barnard and a couple of others are still resisting."
"Why would the head of Starfleet Medical even--wait, is this about Bones?"
Pike rolls his eyes at the nickname, but he nods. "They know that given half a chance he's going with you so they don't want to give him half a chance. Your boyfriend is a bit of a medical superstar and they want him on the ground."
Jim chews on the inside of his cheek. "Well, they can't have him."
"I'm not the one you have to convince."
--
Jim fills his prospective command crew, except Spock who has politely declined Jim's every invitation to join them, in on his conversation with Pike over dinner at a Chinese restaurant close to campus.
"Those fuckers," Bones mutters. "They just want to pick my brain and take the credit. Barnard is a fucking asshole."
"An asshole with power," Scotty points out. "He did his dirt years out in the black and enough people owe him their life to give him incredible swaying power."
Bones grunts in recognition, stabbing at a dumpling as if it personally wronged him. "He's not a bad doctor," he allows. "Or at least he wasn't before he settled into his cushy desk job and forgot what it's really like out there."
"Persuading him is not going to be easy," Sulu interjects thoughtfully. "In the end I'm sure they'll sign off on your every pick except Chief Medical Officer. Starfleet is already seeing an influx of new recruits in the wake of your appointment, but Starfleet Medical, presumably, stands to gain a lot more from having Leonard take up a teaching position on campus."
"Teaching," Bones says drily. "My dream."
Chekov who's been watching the discussion flow back and forth leans forward. "I thought Starfleet could not break up bonded pairs," he says, looking between Jim and Bones with a bewildered look on his face.
Bones stiffens and Jim drops a hand on his thigh. "We're not bonded," he says.
"Oh." Chekov looks like he wants to ask why not but knows it would be impolite.
"It doesn't always take," Sulu says smoothly, as if he can tell it's a touchy subject. Maybe he can; he's a bonded Alpha himself. "Literature tends to make it out like it's inevitable but that's not how it works at all."
"There's a thought, though," Uhura says, pursing her lips. "You could get married."
"Uhura, you're a genius," Jim breathes. He can't believe he didn't think of that himself.
"Yes, I know," she says smugly.
--
"Maybe I don't want to get married," Bones says testily as they cross the campus on their way back from the restaurant. "I've been married. It didn't end well."
"You've never been married to me." Jim sticks his hand into Bones's, lacing their fingers together. "I'm a delight."
"More like a delinquent," Bones grouches but he curls his fingers tight around Jim's.
"I contain multitudes," Jim says loftily.
--
Jim dreams sometimes of the boy he used to be and wakes up itching for something he can't quite grasp. Those mornings Bones's scent soothes and aggravates him in equal measures and he fights Bones's touch until Bones holds him down and makes him take it.
"Cinnamon," Bones whispered against his ear the first time it happened. "Say it and this stops."
"Fuck you," Jim snarled and he didn't stop fighting until Bones dropped sated onto his chest.
--
"Do you think you're seeking punishment for some past sin?" Dr Dahlia asks when he tells her about it, crossing her legs primly at the knee.
Jim shakes his head slowly. "I feel powerless," he admits, staring out the window at the overcast sky. "The admiralty is still yanking me around about letting me choose my own command crew. My heat’s a week away and it feels like I have everything and nothing and my dreams are reflecting that."
Dr Dahlia gives one of her go on nods.
"Half my life is being decided by a bunch of dickheads in uniforms and the other half by a biological quirk I can't do a single thing to influence." Jim blows out a breath, running a hand through his hair. "Bones pretends that he's fine but he's not, he's every bit as on edge as I am."
Jim chews on his lower lip turning his restless gaze on Dr Dahlia. "I'm scared," he admits.
--
"Shack, sweet shack," Jim says, inhaling a lungful of crisp mountain air and putting his shoulder to the door when it won't open, swollen shut after a long damp autumn.
"I can't believe you made me go back here," says Bones.
--
The first night they light a fire in the fireplace and spread blankets on the floor before it. Jim is restless and antsy, as always before the heat truly hits, but Bones coaxes him down to lie beside him and soothes Jim's frazzled nerves with lips and tongue and hands and dick.
"My beautiful, my darling," Bones murmurs, moving over Jim, in him, with slow measured trusts. "You're so gorgeous like this."
Jim whimpers and clutches at his sides, desperate, needy and completely undone. "Bones," he groans, arching up into Bones' thrusts. "Bones."
--
Whatever fear or reservations they might have been harbouring going into this washes away in the wake of Jim's heat hitting for real.
"I got you, I got you," Bones murmurs, touching Jim where he's slick and wanting, easing him onto his cock. "Shhhh, darlin', you're mine now."
"Yours," Jim manages, hiding his face into Bones' neck. "Yours."
--
In the bleak light of the second morning dawning Jim paints an absent pattern on Bones' back with the tips of his fingers and luxuriates in the steady thrum of the mating bond, a bright spot of warmth seemingly located in his chest.
He can see now how losing the bond over and over could break a relationship, but at the same time he can't imagine ever thinking this is not enough. So what if he can only have the bond for a few days at a time, Bones will still be his Alpha the rest of the time and that's more than Jim thought he'd ever have.
"Tickles," Bones complains sleepily, pushing against Jim's fingers.
"Sorry," Jim murmurs, flattening his hand against Bones' back and pressing a kiss to his brow. "Go back to sleep, babe."
They have a while yet before the need rises to unbearable levels and this is the most at peace Jim has been in a long time, possibly ever. The sheets are scratchy, the ceiling water-stained, and a pervasive smell of mildew and wet firewood hangs in the air but Jim has Bones plastered all along his front and for the first time in his life he knows, actually knows, what it feels like to be loved without reserve.
"You really don't want to change a single thing about me," he whispers into Bones' hair, stunned by the realization.
Bones grunts and shifts slightly to the side. "I'm considering doing something about your bony knees," he grumbles but the bond pulses with warmth.
"Liar," Jim murmurs, pulling him impossibly closer. "You love my knees." He can't stop smiling dopily, but he figures that's okay. No one's around to see him.
--
Jim can feel the bond fading, the curious knot of feeling in his chest flickers like a flame about to go out. Bones is asleep still, sprawled on his stomach with his face half mashed into the pillows, and the grey light of early dawn falling in through the dirty windows paints a curious pattern of light and shadows across his broad back.
Jim reaches out to touch him, smoothing a hand from the nape of his neck to the small of his back, letting it come to rest just above the swell of Bones's ass. It makes the connection stronger but not by much; he's surprised at how desperately he wants it to stay.
"Don't leave me," he whispers. He's talking to the bond but it's Bones who answers, sleepily incensed.
"I would never. What kind of dumb ass things are you thinking about at--Jesus Christ, Jim, it's five am. Come here, you fool." Bones turns on his side and manhandles Jim into the curve of his body, wrapping an arm around his waist and nuzzling against the back of his neck. "I'm not going anywhere, okay? Now go the fuck to sleep."
"Okay," Jim says meekly, hiding his smile into Bones's arm.
Bones grunts and tightens his hold. "Like I'd ever leave you. What a foolish thing to be thinking about."
Jim covers Bones's hand on his chest with his own. "I know," he whispers, because he does know that. On some level he's always known that. He takes a deep breath and closes his eyes, focusing on the flickering warmth of the bond. He's going to hold on to it for as long as he can.
--
The next time Jim wakes up it's nearly midday and Bones is already in the kitchen making breakfast.
He has his back to Jim but there's a slump to his shoulders that has no right to be there, as if he's weighed down rather than energized.
Jim stretches, spreading his fingers and flexing his toes, stiffening abruptly when he realizes he can still feel the warm glow of the bond. He rolls over and grabs the tricorder Bones left on the nightstand, scanning himself quickly. His hormone levels are back to normal, almost a bit low, which means his heat is definitely over. The bond took.
He sits up straight, dropping the tricorder on the bed. The bond took.
"Bones." Jim's jubilant exclamation is the only warning Bones gets before Jim throws himself bodily onto his back, flinging his arms around Bones's neck.
"What the fuck?" Bones steadies himself against the counter. "I'm a person not a jungle gym."
"Bones," Jim says again, burying his face into Bones's neck, just clinging.
"Hey, darlin'," Bones says softly, easing Jim off of his back and into his arms. "It's okay." His hands are shaking Jim realizes, smoothing up and down Jim's back. "It's okay," he says again, pulling Jim in closer and kissing his temple.
Jim pulls back to look at him and Bones meets his gaze head on even though Jim can tell he's squirming to get away inside. Jim reaches up to touch the downturned corners of Bones's mouth, trying to smooth the frown away with his thumbs.
"Bones, you magnificent idiot," he says fondly.
Bones expression turns thunderous and Jim shakes him lightly.
"Bones, it took."
"What the fuck are you talking about?" Bones tries to slip out of Jim's hold, eyes dull.
"The bond. It took."
Bones just blinks at him for several long stunned moments while Jim tries his very best to love-bomb him through the bond. He's not sure how successful he is. It doesn't feel exactly the same as the mating bond, the spark is duller and the connection weak. Unlike mating bonds, life bonds strengthen over time, and theirs is still a fledgling, but he can tell the moment Bones truly gets it because it feels as if he's suddenly drowning in joy.
"It took," Bones breathes, eyes wide and wet. "We're bonded."
"You're stuck with me now," Jim says, grinning at him. "Barnard can go fuck himself."
Bones's answer is a long deep kiss and a wave of love that nearly buckles Jim's knees. As far as wordless declarations go, it's a pretty good one.
--
It's not until much later that a thought dawns on Jim.
"Wait," he says, pushing Bones back when he tries to lean in for another kiss, since apparently round three and a half is a go even though Bones definitely called him sex-obsessed not five minutes ago. "Does this mean I don't get a ring?"
Bones blinks at him, joy sparking through the bond. "You, my darlin'," he says, kissing the tip of Jim's nose and his smiling mouth. "Can have whatever your little heart desires."
- The End -