I. HAVE. FINISHED.

Notes: This is the Post-It Verse. This AU takes place about 20 minutes in the future in San Francisco.

Disclaimer: I own The Final Countdown as my ringtone, but I don't own Star Trek.

Just a compliation of scenes post-relationship. Fluff and cuteness and scenes that I wrote that never really made it into the story before now. Enjoy.

Nearly two weeks after their first tentative (well, "tentative" as compared to Jim, who was like a living locomotive) steps into their relationship, Jim looked out the window. It was a clear, sunny day with the first taste of autumn in the San Francisco air.

"It's the perfect day for The Talk," he declared, one fist held in the air triumphantly.

Bemused, bewildered, and befuddled, McCoy found himself being tugged out of the house by an overly-eager Jim. He allowed Jim to gabber away at him, talking about the importance of a healthy relationship as they made their way towards the main street.

"I just need to know that you really want to be with me. I'm young, I don't want to stay in a relationship that isn't going to work," Jim reiterated, emphatically gesturing with his hands. "I'm hot, I'm smart, I'm talented. I could take my show on the road any day of the week!"

McCoy really wasn't trying to sidestep the question, but he literally could not physically stop himself from rolling his eyes and responding to Jim's overzealous confidence.

"Your arrogance knows no bounds."

"I really am spectacular, aren't I?" Jim responded, his eyes crinkling from the broad smile decorating his face.

"Sure," McCoy agreed half-heartedly. He sighed deeply and then turned his gaze fully on Jim. When he spoke again, his voice was much more serious. "Anyway, I'm really in this. I'm here to stay."

Jim smiled again, showing less carnivorous teeth and more sincere softness. "That's all I need to hear." He winked over at McCoy and looked beyond him at the burger joint they had first visited that fateful day McCoy had elbowed Jim in the face.

"Now, c'mon," he announced, pulling at McCoy's sleeve endearingly as he led them towards the restaurant. "It's your lucky day, asshole. You get to buy me a burger."

So, apparently, the price of this sort of relationship was $1.75.

Jim threw open McCoy's bedroom door and interrupted the doctor from his medical journals. Said doctor was not amused.

"I was watching that weird show with Patrick Stewart from the eighties and it has revolutionized my life." He paused for dramatic effect. "I have decided I want to be a spaceship pilot!"

McCoy gave Jim his "what the hell" eyebrow. Which, really, was only a fraction of a centimeter lower than his "this shit is un-fucking-believable" eyebrow and a fraction of a centimeter higher than his "I'm only pretending to act interested" eyebrow. But if anyone could ever know the difference, it would be Jim.

"Oh, don't give me your 'what the hell' eyebrow."

Hmm. Maybe they were spending a little too much time together.

In retrospect, McCoy should have been proud of Jim for lasting through four paychecks before finally buying something completely unnecessary.

However, that didn't stop him from bitching about how they seriously did not need a gaming system.

"But Bones," Jim whined, "it'll be fun!" He held out the non-descript kung-foo game he had purchased.

McCoy looked between the game (which, admittedly, did look more entertaining than the work he had to file away) and Jim (who was giving him the best puppy eyes, damn him). After a moment's hesitation, he relented.

"Sure. I'll play a round. Can't be that bad."

An hour later…

"Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!" Jim yelled repeatedly as he jumped on top of McCoy's back.

"Motherfucker!" McCoy replied, his voice muffled by Jim's arm wrapped around his head.

The two men struggled against each other as they battled dominance on the television screen. Both of them madly smashing the keys on their controllers as their digital counterparts kicked each other's asses on the screen.

"Son of a bitch, I will kill you so hard!" Jim swore as McCoy stumbled backwards.

His legs hit the back of the couch, his knees buckling at the weight as Jim twisted around him. McCoy fell backwards on the couch, Jim hitting the back cushions. The force of the impact caused Jim to lose his monkey hold on McCoy, which caused the doctor to leap away as though on fire.

Jim struggled to straighten out on the couch, but gravity worked against him. He slid backwards off the couch, facing the screen upside-down. His face grew steadily red as the blood rushed to his skull, his fingers stabbing madly on the controller.

"I AM KICKING YOUR ASS!"

Another hour later…

"Ow, ow, ow!" Jim yelped.

McCoy removed his hands from where they rested on Jim's side.

"Oh, shut the fuck up and quit being such a baby. You've got a few nasty bruises, but no broken ribs," McCoy informed him, lacking all bedside manner.

"Whatever," Jim said, brusquely brushing aside McCoy's insults. "I totally won."

"Are you kidding me? I won! You were the one bleeding on the screen." He paused before adding, "and on the carpet, too."

"That was you!" Jim insisted, lifting himself off the couch with an audible grunt.

"I was the one on the right!" McCoy snapped, poking Jim vindictively in the painful ribs.

Jim stopped, his expression falling.

"…Oh. So that means I was the one on the left." He waited until McCoy nodded before grinning deviously. "Rematch?"

Completely disregarding the medical bag on the floor beside him and Jim's hand pressed medicinally to his side, McCoy made the worst decision he had ever made as a doctor.

"You're on!"

Jim was rambling nervously. McCoy actually found it endearing and sweet, but he'd have to have a gun to his head to ever admit that.

"…I know you said that you wanted to go to China before, but you don't have to go if you don't want to," Jim continued as he washed the dishes after dinner. "I mean, I'd love it if you wanted to come, but I know that you are not a fan of flying and this would require you to be on the plane for a long time. It's perfectly safe, of course, but I know you don't always see it that way. Also, I know you hate taking time off of work and that you like to save your vacation days for when Joanna comes to visit and I really wouldn't want to take that away from you. I know we talked about going to China the second week of September next year, but we can change that if you want. Or I can just go. Or I don't have to go at all."

Jim spoke quickly, his soapy hands rushing across the surface of the pots and pans. McCoy looked up from the strainer he was drying to look at the younger man with concern. Did he really say all of that in one breath?

"Jim," he said, his eyes raised. Jim stopped what appeared to be his next train of thought and looked up anxiously. "I already bought the tickets."

Jim's entire face seemed to glow.

"Really?" he breathed, somewhat giddy and astonished.

"Yeah, really," McCoy grumped, suddenly uncomfortable from the sudden display of gratitude Jim was giving him. He was still getting used to Jim's heart-on-a-fucking-sleeve way of dealing with this.

"Thanks, Bones!" he cried happily, wrapping his arms around McCoy and landing a wet, slobbery kiss on the doctor.

"Yeah, yeah, whatever," McCoy muttered, pulling away. But he let Jim see the shared smile on his face.

The two continued washing and drying the dishes in silence, occasionally flicking water on each other in their shared happiness.

McCoy came home from his night shift at the hospital at five in the morning, the sun just starting to brighten the sky to a lighter blue. Fully expecting the apartment to hold the same sort of sleepy silence that it always held during these lost hours, he was surprised to see Jim waiting for him at the kitchen table.

Jim told him he could sleep when he was dead and whisked him back out the door, racing him to the nearby playground. According to Jim, this was the best time to go to the park because then they didn't have to share any of the equipment with the little kids. What a better way to while away the hours, he asked.

McCoy could do nothing but grumble at Jim's antics, and yet he put down his medic bag and followed him out the door.

Jim ran ahead to the playground, his red jacket made him look a bit like the strangest reincarnation of Little Red Riding Hood that McCoy had ever seen. By the time McCoy caught up to Jim, Jim was crawling on top of the monkey bars, despite McCoy's repeated warnings that people weren't supposed to climb them that way.

Jim then challenged him to a contest on the swings, saying that if he jumped further from the swings, then McCoy couldn't boss him around anymore.

Unwilling to let Jim win a contest (and partially because the use of the old playset was making McCoy feel more like a child than he had in quite some time), McCoy agreed.

McCoy could feel the press of the gravel under his sneakers as they headed to the swings. Jim plopped into his seat without any grace, the creaks from the swings resisting the sudden weight. McCoy settled more carefully into the other swing, watching as Jim's legs began pumping into the air, his lean body shifting back and forth as the swing brought him closer and closer to the sky.

With a delighted yell, Jim told McCoy to join him. Without worrying about the consequences, McCoy kicked off from the ground, the sudden whoosh of air against his body causing him to smile broadly. The chains strained within his fists as he brought the swing to its highest point, his body lifting and falling back into the swing as he reached the peak of his swing.

Jim cried out one, two, three.

Both men pushed out of the swings, quickly letting go of the chains and falling down to the earth in increasing speed, laughing wildly all the way.

Jim won.

Although, McCoy was pretty sure that using the dew still thick on the grass as a means to slide forward on the ground was cheating. Not that Jim paid any attention to those accusations.

Instead, Jim pulled the collar of McCoy's jacket and brought him closer to the tetherball court. The sun rose higher in the sky as the early morning sounds of people waking up and driving to work filled the air around them. Paying no attention to the rest of the world, Jim and McCoy hit the tetherball back and forth until their palms were grimy and smelled of rubber.

McCoy hit the ball until it wound around the pole, letting out an uncharacteristic whoop of excitement when he realized he had beat Jim. Jim's infectious grin caught on and then McCoy found himself being the one to drag Jim over to the merry-go-round.

Jim settled himself in the middle as McCoy told him to hold on, his usually gruff voice brighter with glee. The feel of the rusty bars under his gripped hands dug into his skin as he ran around in circles, the merry-go-round screeching with the sudden friction.

When McCoy was sure he couldn't go any faster, he leapt up onto the quickly spinning platform and carefully made his way towards Jim. The two men lay down on the metal surface, cool from the early November air.

McCoy touched the small space between himself and Jim, barely separated from the bar in the middle, until he found Jim's hand and slipped his fingers through Jim's. He could feel their shared pulse as they both laughed and stared out at the sky directly above them, the clouds spinning madly overhead.

It only took a moment for McCoy to realize that the insulting Post-it note on his door was due to the snapping comment he had made about Jim's drunken behavior the night before. Jim was screaming "I just want to wear cowboy boots!" in the bar and McCoy may or may not have said that he held his liquor like a fifteen-year-old girl.

He held the Post-it in his hand, frowning, as he tried to smooth down his sleep-tousled hair.

Farouche [fA-Roosh]
-adjective, French
1. sullenly unsociable or shy
2. socially inept
[from French, from Old French faroche , from Late Latin forasticus from without, from Latin foras out of doors]

Actually, he had to smile a little. It was at least something original. Placing the Post-it note onto his desk, he stepped out of his bedroom and soon found Jim sitting on the couch watching cartoons.

Without further ado, he smacked Jim upside the head and walked over to the kitchen to make some breakfast.

"Fuck you, sweetheart!" Jim responded endearingly, his gaze not moving from the television.

"Up yours, darling," McCoy returned with the same cheery disposition as he got out the eggs.

Just a regular day…

"I love you."

Jim said it simply, as though just throwing it out in conversation, as though he were merely announcing he wanted mashed potatoes for dinner (which he did, incidentally. He had talked about it earlier.).

McCoy looked around them, wondering if there was a hamburger around or a Harrison Ford movie playing. When he found neither of those things (and thus nothing that Jim would admit his love to so openly), he looked at the younger man.

Jim smiled from the other side of the couch and scooted over until his thigh was pressed against McCoy's. He tucked his head into the crook of McCoy's shoulder, his shortened hair tickling the doctor's neck. Then he snatched the blanket that was hanging over the edge of the couch and covered them both with it. Folding himself more deeply into McCoy, he snuggled in and apparently hoped to spend this hour or so before dinner in quiet comfort.

"I love you," he repeated, his voice somewhat muffled from nuzzling McCoy's neck.

McCoy draped an arm over Jim's shoulder, letting the weight of Jim's words settle around him. There was a time when those words would have sent him running and yelling and straight into a cabinet full of whiskey. But now?

McCoy let the embarrassingly happy feeling swell in his stomach and overtake his senses until he was pretty sure he would melt or even maybe ooze rainbows and unicorns.

Jim looked up somewhat expectantly as McCoy tried to find the right words to say.

"Dammit, Jim," he gruffed, his tone not compliant with the soft smile curling on his lips.

Jim laughed and said something about Bones being an old man before the two of them lapsed into comfortable silence, their heartbeats erratic and beating together, their warm bodies entangled in each other, and the comfort that they both understood what McCoy meant settled down around them.

And that is the end of Post-It Verse. I hope you all have enjoyed reading it as much as I have enjoyed writing it.

This started out much differently than I anticipated. This is the first story that I have ever written without any sort of plan or chapter-by-chapter storyline that was worked out before the actual writing took place. I was making it up as I went along, which was, in a way, freeing. I have never done anything like that and it was interesting to see how much my story plans could change during the course of the actual writing. Will I try it again? I don't know. It was a bit nerve wracking to not know what was coming next. But overall, I am very happy how this worked out. Honestly, I just meant this to be a sort of experiment and never expected it to be this long and involved. Funny how things work out, isn't it?

Now to upset everyone: I will not be writing a sequel. If anything, I might write a few one-shots and post them separately, but otherwise this story has finished. If anyone else would like to write a story in the Post-It verse, just let me know. You're welcome to add to this verse, but I'd like some notice. :)

I want to thank the Academy... No, seriously, I do want to thank everyone who has read this story. And favorited and alerted and lurked, everything. And for those of you who wrote reviews? You are amazing. Seriously, amazing. Some of you reviewed every chapter or joined in on the party later on and some of you wrote me PMs when I was slacking in updates. I don't think I could have written this without your constant support. Thank you, all of you.