I've learned two things whilst writing this. 1) when doing a prompt fic, keep the goddamned thing short. And 2) my MS Word spellcheck apparently thinks I'm typing in incredibly misspelled Russian, and I can't convince it otherwise.

Indigestion and Other Matters of the Heart by mrasaki
Fandom: Star Trek XI (Reboot)
Pairings: Kirk/McCoy
Rated: NC-17
Words: ~9177
Completed: 10/17/09

Notes: Written for a prompt (which is included at the end of the fic) on the LJ community space_married, and yes, it's incredibly late. Believe me, I am feeling absolutely, horribly guilty about it.

And, I don't know why I always feel the need to give a warning for happy fluff, but I do, and I am. (Something's wrong with me, I know.)

***********

Leonard was missing shore leave.

So while everyone else except a skeleton crew was planetside, partying like 2299 and probably picking up a whole mess of dubious warts and lesions in interesting places, Leonard had decided he was too damn old for that shit and stayed onboard. Surprisingly, Jim had also remained behind, but had almost instantly made himself scarce the moment the last crew-member had beamed down, with only a perfunctory glance into sickbay as if confirming to himself Leonard was there. Well, that was fine, Leonard told himself; he had a lot of work to catch up on and surely Jim did too, and tried not to notice how quiet the ship was.

"Jim?" he said into his communicator after a long internal struggle and an hour of not catching up on work.

"Hey, Bones," Jim replied brightly. He also sounded breathless, which was more worrying. "I'd love to talk, but I'm a bit busy here, so—"

Leonard felt it then, a slight tremor under his feet accompanied by a brief flicker of the lights. Only, a tremor big enough to be felt on a starship easily the size of a small city was A Very Bad Thing. Either the inertial dampeners had gone, which was near impossible because the ship was in dock, or, judging by the loud noise that came staticky over the comm, that was an explosion.

The alarm went off a second later and the computer intoned, "ATTENTION: FIRE ON DECK 8, SECTION 3E. MESS HALL. ATTENTION: FIRE ON DECK 8, SECTION 3E. ALL RELEVANT PERSONNEL REPORT TO—" Leonard swore a blue streak and took off running, pausing just long enough to tear a medkit out of its recess in the wall next to the door.

He returned seventeen minutes later in a fizzing haze of curiosity and aggravation, dusting white fire retardant powder off himself.

The alarm had cut out almost as soon as he'd reached the door. But between Jim staggering out of the mess hall with fire-retardant billowing out behind him and quipping, "Where's the fire, beautiful?" in that giddy dozy way concussed people did when they'd—well, when they'd been caught in an explosion—interrupted by hacking coughs, and saying with a giggled, "Aw damn, didn't know it'd do that. Guess we're not having that anymore," Leonard was worried. Especially because questions like "You didn't know what would do what?" and "Jim, what the hell's going on?" and "Not having what anymore?" were neatly avoided just as easily as Leonard when he'd started scanning him.

Then his job had gotten a whole lot more difficult with Jim trying to shoo him down the hallway like he was some sort of wayward chicken that'd escaped its coop. Which had sort of worked, because every wave of Jim's arms had threatened to leave smeary white fingerprints all over Leonard's newly cleaned uniform. Now back in sickbay and glumly looking down at himself, it occurred to him to be very glad the corridor had been empty of any witnesses to the undignified duck and weave he'd had to do to avoid him.

Leonard was pretty sure other CMOs didn't have nearly the same problems he did.

But okay. His job was done. Jim was fine—physically, at least—no concussions or cuts or bruises or burns or anything, although covered in that fine white powder that he hoped Jim hadn't inhaled and wouldn't get into Jim's eyes or irritate his skin because chances were, Jim was allergic to it. He'd barely managed a, "Chemical shower's in the—" before Jim had wriggled out of his reach, pecked him quickly on the lips, and made a dash for the mess hall. "Dinner tonight, keep the sched open," he'd said briskly, a brief flash of teeth through the powder, then made another shooing motion before he'd slipped through the open door.

Leonard had been left standing awkwardly in the corridor, staring after him open-mouthed.

"You aggravating bastard," he'd muttered at last, trying to ignore the electric shiver that had shocked through him at Jim's unexpected kiss, and tasted bitter chalkiness on his lips.

###

Leonard waited for the SOP follow-up report from the computer and frowned when it didn't come. "Computer," he said. "Status of mess-hall explosion and fire."

"Classified," wasn't the reply he was expecting. He dropped his datapad. "What? Classified by who? The captain?"

"Classified."

"Huh."

This would've been far less frustrating if he wasn't locked out of the mess hall, Jim apparently having figured out a code that superseded even the CMO's authorization. Instead of banging on the door and yelling that this was distinctly against Starfleet regs—because he was a venerable, dignified doctor, dammit, not a child—he was determined to stay in sickbay instead of going back and getting to the bottom of Jim's sudden mysteriousness. He could probably hack the door—after a lot of elbow grease and salty language—but Chekov was the damned computer genius who made cracking command-level codes seem as easy as breathing, not him. It was too much damn trouble, was what, and at any rate, he wasn't sure he really wanted to know what Jim was up to and what he'd meant by that sudden kiss—if he'd even meant anything. Jim was a flirtatious, affectionate man with absolutely no sense of personal space, after all. He was probably just fucking around.

Leonard picked up the datapad again and put it out of his mind.

###

After two hours, Leonard couldn't stand the shrill silence anymore. He was used to Medical bustling with people, Nurse Chapel and other assistants hurrying about, and random ensigns perched nervously on the beds and eyeing him out of the corner of their eyes. Even when there was downtime and the nurses had gone off to grab a meal and maybe a game of cards in the rec room, Jim was liable to pop in, that mischievous smile hanging crookedly on his face and a bottle of something illicit in one hand and two glasses in the other, and thoroughly distract Leonard from his work.

Now Leonard found that he needed the distraction to focus on his work, which was a really screwed up state of things no matter which way he turned it.

After several attempts to get through an article on Romulan oncology, he gave up and put on twentieth-century Terran rock songs. He and Jim vastly preferred the brash vocals and guitar riffs of ancient bands like Aerosmith, Queen, Def Leppard, and Led Zepplin over the intergalactic synth-pop that was popular among the younger personnel, but was too grating to what Jim called their 'ear-balls and eyedrums.' Rock kept Leonard awake through long, boring shifts, and if Jim ever came by when he was alone, he was treated to a virtuoso performance of thrashy head-banging. Jim always did it with gusto, whacking a head of pretend monster hair about so hard Leonard was always sure he'd see brain leaking out of Jim's ears afterwards.

Their love of rock was their own well-kept secret.

"I'm just a poor boy, nobody loves me," he mumbled in a monotone under his breath because he really couldn't sing for shit, then fudged his way through the next couple of stanzas. Then louder, gaining courage in the empty room, "Whichever way the wind blows—"

"Doctor McCoy? Hello?…. Doctor. Doctor?" Leonard jerked his head up to see Chekov leaning on the door, haggard and an alarming shade of pasty green, and slapped off the music. Chekov didn't even blink in the sudden silence. He said only, clutching his stomach, "Doctor, I do not feel so...good."

"Good god, kid, the hell happened to you?" Leonard demanded, hustling over. He helped Chekov to a biobed and set it to scan. "Weren't you planetside?"

"I was," Chekov groaned, chewing his lower lip. "I came back a little early."

He palpated Chekov's abdomen. "You get like this on Rigel?" Severe abdominal pain, Leonard noted, cataloguing symptoms clinically. Some tension, profuse sweating, fever—

"No," Chekov gasped when he prodded him in a tender place, and Leonard gentled his touch. "You got it onboard, then?" he asked. Chekov nodded. "Okay, so what were you doing when you got sick?" Chekov was flushing embarrassedly now. Curiouser and curiouser. "Come on, kid, I'm your doctor. Tell me."

"I—I was hungry so I stopped by the mess hall for—"

Well, that was helluva thing to be embarrassed about. "So? You eat something there?" Wait—Chekov had gotten into the mess hall? Jim'd unlocked the door?

"Yes?"

Was he going to have to play Twenty Questions about the kid's fucking lunch? "And?" Leonard tried to school the exasperation out of his voice. God, he hoped Chekov hadn't contracted some sort of off-the-books disease. The kid was certainly acting weird enough, and Leonard'd had enough for a lifetime of the heretofore-undiscovered diseases and infections that the Enterprise crew was entirely too talented at picking up, thankyouverymuch.

"I don't know what it was, sir, it was just...pink? and fuzzy?"

"Pink—?" The bio-scanner beeped. He nodded as the display confirmed his diagnosis. "Severe and acute enteritis." His eye caught something on the list and he swore, striding to a cabinet and flinging it open. He rooted around in it until he found a vial filled with chalky fluid, and whirled on a frightened Chekov. "Your stomach lining's eroding. What the fuck did you eat?"

"I don't know! He said it'd be good—" he stuttered to a stop as Leonard stared at him in horror, another piece of the puzzle falling into place. "What?"

"Does that 'he' happen to be the captain, Chekov?" Leonard asked slowly.

"I—I'd rather not say," Chekov faltered, looking very conscious that Leonard, as his superior officer, could order him to confess if Leonard chose to. "I promised not to."

Leonard's mind whirled as he stared Chekov down, who flushed a deeper red but doggedly held his gaze. "Never mind, kid," he sighed after a while, and handed over the bottle. "Drink this, it'll neutralize the acid in your stomach," and turned away before Chekov could see his expression. Leonard had a niggle of something that was a step beyond suspicion, and it was entirely enough to make his stomach clench in horror.

Jim couldn't cook. At all. And god help him, Jim was in the mess hall, and there'd been an explosion, and now Chekov was sitting in his sickbay looking greener than Spock. If his deduction was correct, god help them all.

###

Leonard was in a quandary, and it was making him irritable. He was pacing in front of his office door and debating whether it was insubordination to go down to the mess hall in the name of the long-term health of the crew and shake Jim until his teeth rattled in his head, when he noticed Chekov had woken up and was watching him. He stopped in his tracks and pushed away seditious thoughts for the time being. "Feel better?"

Chekov nodded. Leonard crossed his arms and demanded abruptly, "The captain made you eat it, didn't he." If he was hoping to startle Chekov into an admission, the attempt failed miserably. The kid was a Starfleet senior officer after all, and not easily bullied. And Leonard had to admit, the kid's loyalty to his captain despite being poisoned into an agonized, nauseated mess, was laudable.

"I don't know what you're talking about." Chekov sounded amused but weary, his voice hoarse after an hour of puking pink, fuzzy, and foamy into a bucket. Leonard rolled his eyes. "You're a shitty liar," he told him, and Chekov gave a wan smile but didn't attempt to correct him.

A pause long enough to let the topic drop, then, "Did—did Lieutenant Sulu come looking for me?" Chekov asked hesitantly. A sharp examination revealed a blush to Chekov's cheek, maybe a little embarrassment to downcast eyes and fingers twisting together atop the white sheet, and a suspicion that'd been coiling in the back of Leonard's mind since Chekov had staggered into sickbay alone solidified into certainty. "No. He supposed to be back early too?"

"No. I—never mind."

Leonard fiddled with the tray next to the bed, rearranging the medical tools into precise lines and setting others to auto-disinfect. He carefully didn't look at Chekov as he asked neutrally, "Wanna talk about it?" The Federation hadn't gotten around to assigning a counselor to every ship in the fleet just for that purpose yet, so until that happened, counseling and maintaining the psychological health of the crew was also his job. So far in the three years he'd been aboard, he'd dealt with post-traumatic stress, grief, and two divorce mediations—the irony of which wasn't lost on him—and a serious spat that had nearly fractured the Cartography team over who got to name a newly discovered star, the guy who saw it first or the guy who confirmed it was new? Jim, in that brilliantly logical yet illogical way he had that made Spock twitch, had put the kibosh on that last with a compromise of the two suggested names. Quite a feat that'd been, merging the glottal multi-syllabic Andorian with 'Bob'.

Chekov heaved a sigh but didn't say anything.

"Look, kid. Anything you say to me is patient-doctor privileged. That means our conversation is confidential—you know that, right?"

Chekov drew his legs up and propping his chin on his arms, considered Leonard for a long time before he dropped his eyes to his lap. "We got in a fight," he said finally, and his expression was so much more miserable than he'd ever looked puking up what even the computer hadn't been able to identify and only responded with a bright red ERROR.

"About what?"

"Something so small, so stupid." A sigh, and now, muffled into his arm, "He'll know how stupid I am now."

"I'm pretty sure Lieutenant Sulu has better judgment than that, whatever you did," Leonard told him gently.

Chekov made a derisive noise. "Hah. I saw him kissing some girl. And—I got so angry. I shouted at him."

"Sounds justified to me," Leonard observed flatly, resolving to have a not-so-quiet word with Sulu later. Staff cohesion and harmony had to be maintained, as Spock would say, especially as far as the bridge crew whose flawless teamwork ensured the smooth workings of the Enterprise were concerned, but he genuinely liked the both of them and didn't need them reenacting his acrimonious divorce.

Silence, and now Chekov was frowning at him. Leonard supposed he'd said something wrong. He was a competent physician, yeah, but he was the first to admit that maybe soft, placating diplomacy wasn't his forte. "Ve are not…vat you call 'going out,' doktor," the previously careful soft consonants slipping in Chekov's upset.

This was news to Leonard, who, like the rest of the Enterprise crew, assumed the navigator and helmsman had been an item since...well, since forever. The two were inseparable, always together and complementing each other like hand in glove, double-teaming the helm of the Enterprise and always arguing over equations and the gravitational pull of the latest singularity the ship encountered, to the exclusion of everyone else. They even finished each other's sentences like identical twins. True, no one had seen them being physically affectionate in public besides hugs and companionable arms about shoulders, but everyone'd always assumed they were just being discreet.

Should take his own advice and not listen so damn much to the gossip-mongers, Leonard scolded himself, and carefully said, "Ah," instead of the What the fuck? that initially rose to his lips.

"Yeah. So," gloomier than ever.

"What'd he say?"

"I don't know, I left."

Leonard put a hand on Chekov's hunched shoulder and squeezed. Poor kid, obviously he was in love with Sulu and Sulu had no idea. Leonard was way beyond the age where love was the mind-frying, gonad-sizzling, end-all and be-all of existence, with its unrequited state making life unbearable, but he could see the hurt and sadness on Chekov's pinched face, and dammit, he was a doctor and it was his job to fix people.

He didn't say anything stupid like Have you thought about telling him? because obviously Chekov had.

Instead he said with a lopsided, creaky smile, "You want a drink?"

###

"Kirk to Medical."

"Yeah, Jim," Leonard was sitting by the side of the bed next to Chekov, who was sitting up, legs crossed, and sipping away at a tumbler of scotch. "Dammit, kid, that stuff's not that moonshine you Russians like, so quit chuggin' it," he snapped as an aside. "You listenin'?" Chekov waggled his tongue in the brown liquid at him and grinned, looking much happier than he had an hour ago. Leonard wasn't generally an advocate of drowning problems in alcohol—at least where other people were concerned—but he figured homeopathic remedies had its place in modern medicine. At least he could trust Chekov not to get maudlin like Scotty. "Damn uncultured—" he grumbled, more pleased than annoyed at Chekov's returning good cheer, though his liquor supply was too rapidly disappearing down Chekov's throat.

"Are you drinking with someone and I wasn't invited?"

"Is that 'awesome' Captain James Tiberius Kirk sounding jealous?"

"Why do I always hear quotation marks when you say 'awesome'?"

"Why do you always answer everything with a question?"

Jim laughed. "You busy at 1900?"

Leonard checked the chrono. 1830. He was more or less caught up with his work, but there was Chekov to consider and he didn't like to leave his patients unsupervised. "I don't know, Jim," he was saying when Sulu suddenly burst through the door. He looked like he'd been running, disheveled and sweaty, and his rumpled black hair stuck out in wilder tufts than before. His intense stare searched out and narrowed on Chekov, who shifted uneasily. "What the hell happened?" Sulu gasped at Chekov. "I commed the Enterprise looking for you and Alden told me you were in sickbay."

Leonard lowered his communicator, saying, "Call you back, Jim," and then told Sulu, "He's fine. Just ate something he shouldn't have." But it was like talking to a wall because Sulu had crossed the room swiftly and was at Chekov's side, hands hovering hesitantly like he was afraid Chekov would break if he touched him. He hadn't even noticed Leonard. Chekov was whispering, "I'm fine, I'm fine," eyes bright as Sulu then cupped his face with gentle fingers, murmuring, "God, I was so scared, I didn't know what happened, Pavel, I've been so stupid," and so on. Their faces were very close, Sulu leaning down, Chekov tilting his head up, and then they were kissing. The glass slipped out of Chekov's fingers and fell to the floor with a clatter.

Leonard blinked, feeling suddenly invisible. He thought about clearing his throat as the soft moans became louder, hands began wandering, and—tapping his finger against his temple—goddamn. But in the end, after a long moment of eyebrowing, he silently backed out and unobtrusively pulling the privacy screens around them, left them to it.

In his office he commed Jim back.

"What happened?" Jim wanted to know right away.

"Our resident senior staff couple is now official," he said, hoping that Jim wouldn't catch the indulgent affection he couldn't keep out of his voice. Leonard McCoy was a man, dammit, not some fool who went 'd'awwww' every time something mushy happened.

"What? Who—You mean Chekov and—wait, weren't they already—"

"Tell you about it later."

Jim recovered quickly. "Right. Let's meet for dinner, then you dish with the gossip."

Dinner? Leonard hesitated. "Jim, do you think I'm stupid?" he demanded.

A long pause, then a huff of laughter like Jim knew where this line of questioning was going. "You really want me to answer that? Because you might get an answer you won't like," roguishly.

"All right, smartass. Point is, I ain't stupid, and this not-stupid person figured out a long time ago that you're up to something, and that something involves food, and you cooking it."

Jim sounded brightly ingenuous. "Who says I'm up to anything?"

Leonard sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Because I know you better than I know the back of my hand?"

"Why, sah, whatevah do you mean?" Jim was definitely amused, drawling out his words in a very bad and somewhat insulting imitation of Leonard. "Just shut up and meet me in the officer's mess at 1900, you poof."

"In the interest of not having my stomach implode, just—NO," he said, or tried to say, but the comm was already off. He hissed in irritation and commed Jim over and over again until Jim finally answered. "Stop hanging up on me! " Leonard growled.

"The vein in your forehead's throbbing," Jim informed him. "And before you can point out that I can't see you right now, how do I know, let me just tell you that I know you like the back of my hand. And I'm a little busy here with something that might or might not have anything to do with food, and if you press the issue, I don't know what you're talking about. See you in twenty."

Click.

Leonard leaned back in his chair with a sigh. That damn aggravating, endearing fool. A look through the window of his office produced instant regret, because identifiable shadows could be seen writhing rhythmically through the privacy screens. Thank the stars for small favors that his office was soundproofed—call him prudish, but he didn't really need or want to know that much about his colleagues.

He shifted uneasily in his seat, squashing a pinprick of jealousy. Maybe he hadn't done such a great job at pushing the kiss out of his mind, he reflected. Damn Jim and his total lack of personal space, reminding him of what he hadn't had in nearly six years. It'd been a long time since Jocelyn, and it wasn't as if he was any great catch in the admittedly small and much younger pond that was the Enterprise—even if he had time for romantic pursuits beyond the occasional abortive flirtation or date.

It occurred to him that he could use some liquid courage to face the impending meal, and after some casting about, he remembered he'd gone and left the bottle on the floor next to Chekov's bed.

Dammit.

###

Thirty minutes later, Leonard eyed the door to the mess hall with the rapidly beating heart and grim determination of the condemned. He wondered, not for the first or even seventy-third time, if Sulu would have forgiven him if Leonard had slipped in just long enough to make off with the bottle. But now with the door and the impending meal looming large and ominous in his immediate future, taking his chances with Sulu and Sulu's just a little too wild-eyed fascination with sharp pointy things was looking better and better.

He steeled himself instead, gripping the hypospray loaded with every anti-inflammatory and antacid he had in stock, and stepped through.

"What the hell?" he almost said, but what came out was a more undignified, "Guh?"

He'd expected the place to be a total mess, chairs and tables piled up against the wall and twisted by the explosion, piles of powdery, disinfectant-smelling fire retardant dusting every surface, streaks of soot on the ceiling. He'd gleefully anticipated Chef Patterson, a gruff man who ruled the Enterprise kitchen with an iron fist and a ladle roughly the size of a ham, taking a bite out of Jim's ass when he came back from leave.

Instead, there was absolutely nothing out of the norm, and that unsettled Leonard more than the wreckage he'd anticipated. Just the normal huddle of tables and chairs, blandly spic and span. There were even a few crewmembers in the common room, eating, playing chess, and now giving him curious stares. He glowered back at them, fighting the sensation that he'd had a transporter accident and been dropped into some surreal alternate universe.

Jim bustled out of the kitchen in a wide smile and a magenta apron emblazoned with Kiss Me I'm Cookin'. He didn't look at all like he'd been involved in any highly dubious shenanigans, but the apron and the thick oven mitt on one hand were not good signs.

"Bones!" Jim said cheerfully, seizing his elbow and steering him into the officer's mess. If there was a hesitant, almost nervous quality to Jim's usual massively pleased-with-himself cheer, Leonard barely noticed in favor of staring at the covered dishes on the table and in particular horror at the masses of candles piled on nearly every available surface. "Before you say, 'Candles are against regulation and you'll catch yourself on fire, Awesome Captain Kirk, and then I'll have to put you out and spend my evening regenerating your eyebrows,' I'll have you know I already commandeered one of your dermal regenerators. Thorough advance planning, Bones, is one of the most important characteristics of a good leader."

"I was wondering where that'd gone," Leonard replied absently, as Jim sat him down at one end. He blew out the candles at his elbow as a precaution. It didn't affect the lighting much. There was plenty to spare, so much so that he was sweating from the radiated heat.

"Feel really bad about Chekov, I think I miscalculated some of the spices in the recipe," Jim said, settling down next to him, and he really did look contrite as he pulled a bottle of something from under the table, his hair precariously close to a candle. Leonard licked his fingers and pinched the flame out. "Some miscalculation," he replied dryly.

Jim's taste in scotch had improved vastly since their Academy years, and Leonard gratefully drank deeply as Jim started uncovering dishes. The food didn't smell...awful, which was, tentatively, a good sign. It didn't exactly smell great, either. "What is this?" he said at whatever Jim was enthusiastically slopping onto his plate. It was yellow and dubiously lumpy, and even in the flickering light it looked suspiciously like—

"Macaroni and cheese," Jim declared grandly. Leonard stared at him disbelievingly, and still wasn't done when Jim turned to a tureen farther down the table. And that was—

"Ramen?" Leonard cringed at the high, adolescent squeak in his voice. Jim looked at him like he'd lost his mind. "It's not ramen, they stopped making that after the Sino-Japanese MSG Wars of 2067. It's 'reconstituted hydrolase noodles in a dehydrated soup base,' he informed him loftily, "but I added chicken. And I remade it after Chekov tried it and got sick, because what kind of responsible captain would I be if I didn't? Anyway, eat. Promise it's edible." He got up and, after nudging the loaded plate at Leonard, hurried out of the room.

Leonard stared after him. He hadn't been this despairingly mystified since undergrad Intro to Philosophy. He poked at the pile on his plate, remembering Jim's attempt at the shapeless, unappetizing brown mass that he'd called haggis for Scotty's birthday. Why someone would choose haggis of all things for their first try at cooking in their lives was something he'd never gotten a straight answer about from Jim, and how Jim had managed to produce 'ramen' that was pink and fuzzy and highly poisonous, was, he suspected, another question that would remain eternally unanswered.

The door opened again and Jim deposited a pan covered in a towel on the table with a thunking finality that made Leonard shiver. "What's all this for?" he asked, abruptly. "Candles, food, poisoning crewmembers—you're up to something and I want to know what the hell it is."

That cagey look came back and Jim fidgeted with the corner of his apron, a completely alien gesture that made Leonard stop and really take stock of his friend for the first time that day. "What?" he asked, suddenly concerned.

Jim opened and closed his mouth a few times. Then he shook his head and said exasperatedly, "Well—look, can't I just cook you something if I goddamn feel like it?"

"What'd I say about answering a question with a question?"

Jim rolled his eyes at him. "How's the food?" he said instead. This habit of avoiding a straight question was seriously getting on Leonard's nerves, but Jim was shifting impatiently from foot to foot in that way he did when he really didn't want to discuss the subject at hand. The only time Leonard pushed the topic further was if Jim was doing that terrible-twos-gotta-potty dance in sickbay and then, he'd learned, Jim's reason was generally medical, generally embarrassing, and meant a three drink minimum for Leonard.

Leonard chose not to pursue the topic and instead declared that the food was indeed edible, though the macaroni and cheese was overly salty but underlaid with an odd sweetness, and the noodles were overcooked to the point of disintegration. But — all in all, it was—well, not good per se, but like Jim had said, edible. He didn't gag, though it was a close thing, and his stomach made a queer growly noise, but after a careful moment's evaluation there seemed to be no other reaction. Jim had never lied to him before, and so far his record was still unblemished. After that he shut his mouth and chewed along in silence, braced to finish the entirely too generous helping because Leonard had been raised in the 'it's rude not to clean your plate' school, not trusting what he'd say if Jim pressed him on the topic. He always reserved the right to be blunt with the captain, a right earned from his exclusive roles as Jim's CMO and best friend, but he couldn't bring himself to at the moment because dammit, obviously Jim had gone to a lot of trouble to make this gaggingly over-salted, over-sweet, mushy, slightly burned food for him, and Jim was now seated next to him, apron and mitt off, staring at him with those intense blue eyes and an inscrutable expression that was a mix of hopeful and…something else that made the food stick suddenly in his dry throat.

He told Jim about Sulu and Chekov instead to distract Jim from any awkward questions and himself from the taste, giving only as much detail as he discreetly thought he could without violating Chekov's confidence. Jim chuffed a laugh and replied, "You'd better disinfect the bed later, huh?" as he reached across Leonard. Leonard realized a second too late what he was going for, and before he could say anything or grab Jim's hand, Jim had popped a spoonful of the lumpy yellow mush into his mouth. Leonard held his breath with the fascinated horror of watching a transport crash, then Jim gagged, an expression of disgust crossing his puckering face.

Please god this wasn't the first time Jim had tasted his own cooking, Leonard thought despairingly.

Jim swallowed, hard. Then he gave Leonard a deaths-head grin with cheese smeared on his teeth and said with strained good cheer, eyes and a vein in his forehead popping slightly, "See? Not bad."

Leonard bit down hard on the Compared to what? because dammit, he'd made Spock cry once, and while he didn't think this setback could possibly make intergalactic man of mystery and amorous star of Starfleet Jim fucking Kirk cry, maybe he should start exercising his admittedly rusty sense of discretion because you never know. He'd already proven he was quite capable of breaking the laws of probability.

But apparently even Jim's aplomb couldn't stand up to the weird chalky taste that Leonard knew was in the back of Jim's mouth because it was in his mouth too, and because Jim kept working his tongue against the roof of his mouth like a dog with a mouthful of peanut butter. Leonard pushed a tumbler of scotch at him, expressionless, and Jim drank it thirstily. At least the creepy, disgusting smile had vanished.

Jim eventually conceded, with his hidden powers of understatement that could give Spock a run for his money, "Okay, so maybe it's a little bit awful." He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and looked slightly green.

Leonard still had that sense of discretion rearing its ugly little head, so he tried to say It's not that bad, but he'd never lied to Jim about anything in the entire time they've known each other and he couldn't bring himself to start now. It really was that bad. So he just stared haplessly back and wondered how he could salvage the situation, although a traitor part of his mind hoped this would either teach Jim to pay attention to recipes or to quit cooking altogether. "Well, you tried so hard," he said, choosing his words carefully. "You know you don't need to cook for me to impress me, right? Impressing me sorta went down the drain the twenty-fourth time you threw up on me," and then the flippant words died on his tongue. Leonard had almost seven years of knowing Jim to draw on and he still had no idea how to interpret the weird look Jim was giving him. Maybe this was Jim's self-esteem-finally-goes-down-for-the-count-and-it's-time-to-break-out-the-chocolate-and-hankies-expression, he thought wildly.

That intense, freezing look on Jim's face shifted, like he'd come to a decision. "Oh, fuck all this," he growled, and Leonard had no time between formulating 'Are you out of your insane little mind, Jim,' and saying it before his senses were full of Jim's lips mashing his against his teeth and Jim's wet tongue sliding jarringly between his lips, the taste of scotch burning into his mouth. The force of it shoved Leonard back so hard the stiff chair skidded a few inches backwards, and he gasped, so stunned he barely scraped enough brain cells together to respond in the few seconds before Jim pulled away. "You are so fucking dense sometimes," Jim breathed, still so close that the words were muffled, but not enough to hide the layers of deep frustration dark in his tone.

Leonard recovered from the shock just enough for his higher brain functions to reboot, regaining enough of his common sense to ignore the way his heart beat faster. Jim was a very tactile person, always been physically affectionate with Leonard—always with hands sliding along Leonard's shoulders, or squeezing his arm, or massaging the back of his neck, running his fingers through Leonard's hair, and sometimes drunkenly swatting him across the ass. "If you're trying to get in my pants, the path to my heart is not through the stomach in your case," Leonard observed, trying for the same acerbically flippant tone he'd started with and usually used when Jim got handsy, but there was a tremor in it that he hoped Jim wouldn't catch. Jim had never gone this far before.

Jim sat back and stared at him so disbelievingly that Leonard's doubt was shaken, but he still wouldn't let himself believe, couldn't let himself believe; Jim was the swashbuckling golden boy, after all, breaking hearts across the galaxy, and Leonard—Leonard was old and crabby, and his most interesting hobby to date was writing scathing reviews of other people's publications in medical journals.

Jim moved quickly then, pressing Leonard back in his chair again and straddling his lap in one smooth move. Leonard sucked in a breath, Jim's hands hot through the viscose material of his uniform, his weight pressing solidly along Leonard's thighs.

"You remember once, we were talking about comfort food? Because Spock asked what it was?" said Jim, seriously. Quietly.

"Yeah?" was all Leonard could come up with, too focused on willing down his erection and wondering if Jim had noticed it yet, to really follow the sudden quirks and slippery tangents of Jim's facile mind.

"And I said it was stuff like cheeseburgers and chicken soup, but you said any food can be comfort food, as long as it was made for you by someone who cares for you." A ghost of Jim's usual grin returned to his lips. "That made Spock cry, remember?"

Oh yeah. The memory of a Vulcan blubbering into his hands with "Mother! Mooootheerrr!" arising in phlegm-choked sobs had not been one of Leonard's proudest moments, and he'd tried his best to forget it. He said as much.

Jim looked exasperated. "I'm being serious," he said, his tone that no-nonsense one he used when a delegation was being particularly pain-in-the-ass and dismissive of the youngest captain in Starfleet. "So listen, because you're completely retarded at reading non-verbal communication." A poke to the chest, sternly thin-lipped. "So remember what you said about comfort food? Yeah, so if I have to have a reason to cook something for you, then here it is: I goddamn care about you. You've been the most important person to me since you got on that shuttle and told me that you might puke on me, which, by the way, are the least sexy words anyone has ever said to me before and since. I've been hitting on your sexy ass for the entire time we've known each other, and I discovered I loved your grumpy irascible self since the day you smuggled me onto the Enterprise and damn near got yourself court-martialed for it. I was hoping you'd remember what you said so I wouldn't have to say it in so many words, but now look, you made me go and say it, because you are as fucking oblivious as a sack of bricks!"

Leonard stared at him. In the pause Jim attempted to lean in and kiss him again, but Leonard pulled away before he could get there and said not very coherently, "You what? Me?"

"Is this one of those 'see no evil hear no evil' deals, because you're making me repeat things I've already said, and I know you don't have a hearing problem," Jim said, frowning, the scenario apparently not going the way he'd planned in his head.

"I just want to get it on the record that macho Captain Kirk is talking about his feelings." Leonard couldn't seem to make his facial expressions behave. He only managed a twitching, incredulous smile as he allowed himself to slide his hands up over Jim's thighs, to those amazingly trim and narrow hips that he could now barely admit he'd noticed and thought about.

"Good friends don't rub that in, and in fact pretend it never happened." Jim muttered, but hunched forward at Leonard's touch and leaned in to nip at Leonard's lips again. This time Leonard retained enough presence of mind to return the kiss, and Jim moaned into his mouth. Suddenly it wasn't enough and their hands were scrabbling at the other's hair, clothes, and Jim's grip was tight where he cradled Leonard's neck. When they broke apart, Jim's eyes were glazed and his mouth was swollen and red like it'd been smeared with lipstick.

They caught their breath, staring at each other, gauging who would make the next move. Then— "So…" Jim flexed his hips suggestively and Leonard's breath stuttered. "Sex?"

Leonard almost laughed despite the mush his brain had apparently turned into. "Are you serious? Does that work for you?"

Jim looked hurt. "I just spent the last nine hours cooking for you, I've accidentally poisoned someone doing it, I've just admitted I'm in love with you, and a lot of backtalk is the thanks I get?"

Leonard fixed him with a skeptical eye, because dammit, Jim was hot as hell and almost irresistible, lean and languid with promise hot in his half-lidded eyes, but "I can't believe you're sulking on my lap and trying to guilt me into sex." His life was fucking surreal sometimes.

"You ever hear of a medical condition called 'blue balls'?" Jim punctuated it with another lazy thrust of his hips, and Leonard's gaze was irresistibly drawn down to Jim's crotch as Jim rubbed a hand in a slow circle on the flat plane of his abdomen, a devious twinkle now in his eye. Damn him, he knew exactly what he was doing to Leonard.

He squeezed his eyes shut, his cock now definitely awake and ready to fling itself headlong into the fray. "I suddenly have a lot less respect for the hundreds of people you've had sex with," he commented as acerbically as he could, but his eyes flew open again as Jim's weight shifted, Jim leaning forward and whispering throatily in his ear, "Please, Bones." Leonard caught his breath, his heart skipping a beat at the light flick of tongue against the lobe. Jim was absolutely right, Leonard could be pretty clueless when it came to flirting and attraction. Even Jocelyn hadn't happened until she'd yanked him into the bushes at an Alpha Phi Omega fraternity party, and there'd been no other way to put it—he'd been ravished. Maybe ravishing was the only way he'd ever get laid, he thought dimly, because he was apparently shit at getting it in any normal way that didn't involve ambush.

But they were in the officer's mess, with the door only a few feet away. Leonard was a bit of a gentleman, a rather antiquated concept that meant that he still let ladies precede him through doors and he didn't chew with his mouth open. He also didn't believe in sex in semi-public places, and though the Enterprise was mostly deserted at the moment there was still the risk of someone walking in. He hesitated a heartbeat too long, and Jim seemed to read some his reservations on his face. He said, "Well, while you're sorting your ideas," and trailing off, slid backwards and under the table, a practiced move. If Leonard tried it, he'd have clonked himself a good one.

His zipper went down with a rasp and blunt fingers outlined and shaped his cock in trailing, deliberate touches. Leonard gasped, "What are you doing?" all worries and considerations flying out of his head. Then his underwear was moved aside and he could feel Jim's breath on his skin, his cock throbbing even harder at the idea, the concept, that his best friend was kneeling between his knees, his lush mouth centimeters away, looking up at him with a pleading look on his face like something in him would break if Leonard refused him. This was way beyond the vivid, crazy dreams Leonard had barely admitted to himself he'd had, and suddenly the room was suddenly too hot and also too cold and he couldn't breathe. "Don't say no," Jim whispered, which Leonard would have told him was impossible if he'd been able to speak. Leonard had never been able to refuse Jim anything he really wanted, and he wasn't about to start.

Jim feathered his lips across the head and worked his mouth down and over Leonard's cock in a slow slide, moving up and down in little increments and advancing at such an agonizing pace that Leonard had to bite back a curse, his thighs hitching wider involuntarily. Then Jim turned it messy and wet, a moan humming loud in the charged air and Leonard realized it was him. Then their situation recurred to him, and he jerked away. Jim let go with a loud pop and a frustrated groan.

"Back to quarters," Leonard said, and Jim sat back on his heels, licking his lips and wiping his chin with the back of his hand. "You are such a tease," he complained, but his rasping voice and the wet swollen shine of his lips made Leonard swallow hard and almost broke his resolve. But he was the older one, dammit, and though Jim was obviously more experienced in sexual escapades, he should be better able to control himself than a man nearly six years his junior. Jim made an impatient noise, ducking his head and breathing hard, obviously trying to calm himself down. When he looked up again his blue eyes had gone opaque, and he had that determined Captain look on his face that Jim got when he was getting ready to bulldoze his way through a frustrating situation and carry the day with his usual Kirkian elán. "Not here," Leonard told him firmly anyway, and Jim's eyes stuttered to the door. "Call me old-fashioned, but we're not doing it here," he clarified, a little too roughly and too breathlessly to be convincing.

"A gentleman wouldn't point out that I'm in the middle of giving you the blowjob of your life here," Jim pointed out reasonably.

"Anyone can walk in, dammit," he protested weakly, his voice breaking as Jim put out his pink tongue and lapped at the head casually.

Jim gave him that mischievous white grin again and crawled up from between Leonard's knees and oiled up until he was mouth-level, and then he kissed Leonard with that wet, slick mouth. Leonard tasted something foreign on his tongue that he realized, heat flaring in his gut, was him, and the taste of it made him plunge his own tongue into Jim's mouth, seeking to lap it all up and somehow the taste made it all so much more real, because he'd never dreamed of it being like this, never. Jim made a desperate noise into his mouth and grabbed at Leonard's hand, bringing it to his crotch and—oh.

He explored it carefully. Even though his entire previous sexual experience had been strictly with women, he'd seen and handled plenty of penises in his time besides his own. But those had always been in medical situations, and Jim was heavy in his hand through the cloth of his pants and was making the most incredible noises as he rocked up into every chafing stroke.

"No," Leonard gasped and pulled away again, but Jim seized his wrist with alarming strength. "It's locked," Jim grated, "The door's locked, you asshole, and thanks for not giving me even that much credit, you fucking—" and then Leonard kissed him savagely and sent them tumbling to the floor, where, thankfully, there were no candles within arms-length.

Jim was hard and firm where Jocelyn had been soft, not as sweet-smelling, his mouth less giving, the blunt tips of his fingers digging bruises into Leonard's shoulders as Leonard discovered that men loved having their nipples laved just as much as women, and Jim bucked his hips up impatiently as Leonard covered him with his own body. It was still a little surreal, Leonard still barely managing to work his mind around the idea that he was finally getting what he'd wanted and never imagined he could have for so long. He'd touched Jim countless times before; he already knew every minute detail of Jim's body, from the constellations of freckles on his left shoulder down to his flat pinky toenails, but had never let himself actually know the texture of his skin and hair as he tested him for various diseases and gave him physicals. But touching Jim with full permission, and Jim pulling him down with both hands, that enigmatic smile curling his lips paired with the wonder in his eyes like he still wasn't sure that Leonard wasn't going to just up and vanish, was a new experience.

Leonard lost himself in the unfamiliar-yet-familiar feel of Jim's skin, scratchy hair against his palms as he skimmed his hands up under Jim's uniform undershirt. An indrawn breath and Bones on every breath as Leonard ran his tongue over the corded muscles of Jim's neck and clavicle, and damn if Leonard didn't understand why Jim had such a bevy of lovers across the galaxy, both male and female, loyal to him even though they knew they'd likely never see him again. Honesty of emotion; Jim didn't lie with his body, and it was an addicting ambrosia.

Jim got impatient with Leonard's examination and flipped them both over, sinking his teeth into Leonard's neck. "You damn vampire," Leonard gasped. "You ever think about just asking me?" And bless him, Jim knew exactly what he was talking about. "Always," Jim murmured, before shifting down and there was a heart-stopping moment of anticipation as Jim mouthed the tip of Leonard's exposed cock.

Leonard was unable to tear his eyes away as Jim used his hands and mouth, taking his time and watching him in little flicking glances upwards. God, and Leonard knew exactly where Jim had picked up those techniques; Jim often wended his way to Leonard's quarters after his conquests and told him everything in excruciating detail. He'd learned that twist of the thumb under the head from that Andorian envoy, that strategic pinch from the Cardassian captain, but the sensuous hand Jim ran over Leonard's stomach to twine his fingers with Leonard's was all Jim's. Then Leonard couldn't analyze anymore, lost in the delicious friction of Jim's rough tongue, and he came hard and wet into Jim's mouth, hands buried into Jim's curly honey-gold hair.

"You," he said after several long moments of incoherence. "Holy shit."

"Me," Jim said agreeably, and moved to lay next to him. "I should—" Leonard started, though he had only an academic idea how to continue. Jim likely had chivalrous thoughts in his head and just started a slow, lateral grind against Leonard's hip, counterpoint to the small gasps hot and moist in Leonard's ear and the laps of tongue that flicked against Leonard's cheek. Leonard didn't have quite as many notches on his belt like Jim, perhaps, but he was hardly known to be a bad lover, and damn if he was just going to lay under Jim like some innocent virgin.

With that in mind, he reached down. Jim slammed his forehead hard into Leonard's cheekbone, breathing Bones like a mantra. Leonard used his grip to pull Jim's hips upwards, and Jim braced himself on all fours over Leonard and stared at him with that glazed heat as he unzipped Jim's uniform trousers and pulled them down. He deliberately sucked the head into his mouth, Jim's yelp and stuttered curse paired with his name enough to make him grin with sudden determined sureness, softened only with the buzzing headiness of afterglow.

It took much less time than he thought, even with his inexpert fumbling and teeth and sucking probably rather too hard, Jim gasping his name and fuck in time with each sucking, wet sound, before Jim crammed himself down Leonard's throat with one final, tense shove. Leonard couldn't move away, pinioned between Jim's hard hips and the floor, and his mouth filling with musky fluid that he struggled to swallow.

Jim slid back down bonelessly just as Leonard began to register his physical discomfort, and seized his mouth in a long, panting kiss. "See? My master plan worked," Jim grinned after he let go, and Leonard groaned dismally but didn't contradict him.

###

Leonard woke up and blinked at the unfamiliar ceiling. It slowly dawned on his sleep-drugged mind that this wasn't his room, not his bed, and that there was a warm body pressed up along his side.

Thank the fucking stars the Enterprise was practically empty because he was sure they'd made a pretty sight, disheveled and pop-eyed, staggering through the corridors to the captain's quarters in the late hours, badly attempting nonchalance and thoroughly failing to keep their hands to themselves. Afterwards, they'd lain there on Jim's bed breathing and sweaty in the dark, Jim murmuring sleepily, "So I asked the crew what their comfort food was, and Sulu said something called oyakodon, and Uhura said apple-raisin crumble, and Chekov said borsht, and Scotty said haggis but begged me not to make it, and Spock looked like he couldn't decide whether to nerve-pinch me or have another breakdown... I couldn't get the ingredients for half that stuff anyway, and you'd told me to 'keep things simple, you stupid ass' so I decided to just go with what I like..." He'd still been talking as Leonard had fallen asleep.

Now Leonard extricated himself from Jim's clinging arms and legs, and Jim muttered something and turned onto his stomach, moving into Leonard's spot and twining the blankets even more firmly around himself. It figured Jim was a bed and blanket-hog, Leonard thought, amused before he fished his clothes off the floor, put them on, and slipped out the door.

He stopped by his quarters first, to shower and change. People were starting to trickle back onto the Enterprise and Leonard passed a number of puffy-eyed, obviously hungover crew-members in the corridors on the way to sickbay, which he found deserted except for the glass still lying forlornly on the floor and the distinctly rumpled sheets on the biobed. Leonard grinned to himself. Good for Sulu.

Jim found him in the mess an hour later. By the time he arrived, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes and looking a bit put out that he'd woken up alone, Leonard had cleared away the dishes and masses of melted wax, looked askance at the pan of scorched cornbread that he'd fortunately had no opportunity of eating, headed off an apoplectic Chef Patterson who'd found his kitchen, if not his mess hall, in utter exploded, powdery shambles, and was almost done cooking. "You left," Jim accused, sitting down on a stool along the bar.

"You had absolutely no problem finding me," Leonard replied, rolling sausages and bacon off the pan onto the plate he'd placed in front of Jim, then heaped it with home fries, pancakes, and an omelette.

Jim looked down disbelievingly. "You can cook?"

Leonard snorted at him. "You've met Jocelyn, you think she didn't make me do my fair share of the household chores?"

Jim blinked and grinned. "You are a man of many talents, Bones," settling himself more comfortably and already lifting a forkful to his mouth. A couple of chews and bliss spread over his face. He groaned expressively. "Bones, you keep cooking for me, and I'll never cook again."

"That a promise?" he replied, and then caught himself. Jim's abortive attempt, though inedible, had meant something—something that Jim, a man of action rather than words, had sincerely tried to express to Leonard. He couldn't quite bring himself to discourage Jim from any more demonstrations of it—it would be like kicking a puppy, and well, it was the thought that counted, after all. He amended, "Well. It's all right if you cook for me sometimes." He shook a finger at him. "After I teach you."

Jim squinted up at him from smashing all the potatoes, sausages, and egg together into an indescribable hash with liberal libations of hot sauce and pepper, and beamed. "Uh," Leonard coughed and looked away. "For the record, I...care about you too," he added gruffly.

Jim still managed to surprise him after all the years he'd known him, because he said, "Yeah, tell me something I don't know, Bones," and went back to eating.

************

The original space_married prompt:

(06) On shore leave (or honey moon) Jim decides he wants to make a romantic dinner for Bones but turns out to be fairly disastrous in the kitchen (bonus points if he almost or does set the place on fire). NO girlish wibbling about having failed at romantic cooking - Captain Awesome had an Awesome Plan which went Awesomely Awry, at which point he distracts Bones from his terrible cooking/destroyed kitchen with Hot Sex. And, in the morning, Bones cooks Jim breakfast in bed (mad skillz learned in previous marriage, yo) and Jim decides his lack of domestic talent was in no way a problem if it means Bones will cook for him from time to time.