Prompt from the kink meme: AU where the command crew ship out into space while not being the command crew, but instead are low ranked enough to have to share quarters with bunks. Kind of a boarding school dormitory story in space, basically.

They all drive each other crazy, help each other out, and get in each other's business. Privacy's a nightmare to come by. For people who want to have sex - it's not only trying to find a place to do it that's the problem, but even if everyone you share with agrees to give you private time, you're still liable to fall off the damn narrow bunks or bang the hell out of your elbows and knees. And if there are more than two people in the relationship...

They weren't exactly the highest ranked crewmen around, but they liked it that way.

Technically, Jim Kirk held the highest rank among all of them; but it was also universally known (within the confines of their own dorm of course) that he was also the man who had the loudest sex out of all of them. When confronted by Uhura, who was getting quite disgruntled that she was unable to nap properly when Jim went at it with Bones, the resident doctor of the dorm, he had blushed all the way to his toes before making an excuse about getting a coffee at the replicator.

The next day, Uhura had purposefully moaned and groaned extra loud when Spock passionately made love with her, knowing well enough that Jim was trying to catch some extra sleep after a very tiring Beta shift three bunks down the row.

The feud came to a truce after Scotty had threatened to use up the daily supply of hot water to the shower everyday should the inappropriate noises continued as they were.

Red-faced, Krik and Uhura had solemnly swore to cease their bickering.

But that wasn't the end of it. Not really.

Chekov had been ill one day and had taken to his bunk, burrowing into the blankets like a mole. He didn't want to see a doctor, claiming that it was just the regular flu so Bones, being the concerned doctor he was, had perched himself precociously at the side of the Russian kid's bunk.

"Look, Pavel, your fever's gone up. At least go and see a nurse or something-"

Chekov coughed and turned over. "Don't need it."

Bones groaned. He was just a low ranked doctor, he couldn't administrate the hypos without proper authorisation. The best option was for the kid to go to the sickbay but he was ardently refusing to. "Don't make me drag your Russian ass all the way there, Pavel."

"No, no nurse." Chekov insisted before turning over again, nearly falling off his bunk in the process.

Bones swore just as Sulu walked in, tossing his gold uniform onto his own bunk before glancing at Bones sitting on Chekov's bunk. "What's wrong with him?"

"Flu." grumbled Bones. "Damn kid doesn't want to go down to Sickbay."

Sulu arched an eyebrow. "Can Russians even catch the flu?"

"Apparently they can, else Pavel will be up bouncing around as usual." Bones stretched his arms and hit the headboard of the bunk next to Pavel's instead. Swearing, Bones cradled his injured fist. If Kirk ever made it as a captain, the first thing Bones would have him do would be to increase the dormitory space assigned to the lower ranked crewman. How anyone even moved around the damn room was a big mystery to Bones. He didn't need the dorm's Vulcan to lecture him on the physics and reasons on how the room was tailored exactly to their needs; the room was too damn tiny for all of them, in Bones' opinion, not that anyone listened to him. Even now Bones was still pulling out shards of glass under his bunk after that one particularly raucous party by Scotty.

Behind him, Chekov moaned in his fevered sleep and Bones turned his attention back to the kid.

"Uhura, come on, I need to go real bad!" Jim pounded on the door to the bathroom. When there was still no answer except for a sniffle, Jim stopped his pounding. "Uhura?" Still no answer. "Nyota, I'm coming in. Are you decent?"

"Yeah," came the muffled reply even as Jim overrode the control panel and stepped into the bathroom. Nyota was sitting on the floor, her dark hair messy and falling into her eyes.

She looked terrible, and Jim felt guilty in a strange way. A broken PADD was lying on the floor, its screen smashed in. Carefully, Jim picked up the glass and threw it into the disposer before picking up the PADD and placing it on the top of the bathroom counter, careful to balance it so that it couldn't fall over.

Uhura didn't move an inch at all through it, and when Jim was finally done cleaning up he sat down next to her.

"Want to talk about it?" he prompted. When no reply came, Jim tried again. "Is it about Spock?" Still no reply. "Look, if you want me to go away, just say it. I don't want to disturb you. Hell, if you need some time to yourself in here, I wouldn't mind since it's so terribly crowded out there all the time and I think Bones just started a round of poker with Scotty and Sulu-"

"Jim, just shut up already." Uhura's voice was muffled but Jim grinned. Finally, a reaction from her!

"I thought you were dead for a moment there, Uhura. Alright, I'll shut up and leave already." said Jim as he eased himself off the cold floor. But before he could rise completely, he felt a warm arm snaked around his, pulling him back down onto the floor. "Wha-"

"Just hold me, Jim." Uhura's voice was oddly soft and pleading. "Please."

And that was how Bones found them later after five rounds of poker when Scotty overrode the control panel for him, eyes closed and leaning against each other gently; his hands around her shoulders, hers around his waist

Sulu found Spock huddled in the corner late one night. There were dark shadows under the Vulcan's eyes and his skin was dreadfully pale even for him. A cup of coffee was clutched to Spock's chest, a PADD in another hand.

"Maybe you should just apologise to her," Sulu said bluntly.

"She has rejected all attempts of me apologising to her, Ensign." Spock replied evenly. "I doubt your advice will do much good for me."

Sulu shrugged. He was getting tired of the sniping between Uhura and Spock, and sharing quarters with them meant that he could hear almost every single argument they had, never mind the fact that they argued in the bathroom. (It was an unwritten rule that all private matters was to be resolved in the bathroom). "Maybe get her a gift to make up for it?"

Spock's eyebrows shot up. "A gift?"

"Yeah, girls dig the gifts." Or so Jim Kirk had told him months ago when he'd been dating a certain nurse from Sickbay. "Chocolate, flowers; anything you can get during shore leave that she'll love." Some part of Sulu was expressing disbelief at him giving of all people the Vulcan dating advice. "Then you apologise."

Spock seemed to ponder over Sulu's words for a while before saying gravely. "I shall consider your words, Ensign." A beat. "Thank you."

"No problem, Spock." Anything to get those two back to normal. Then maybe he didn't had to wait outside the bathroom for them to stop arguing at each other whenever he was in urgent need of it. Together with an equally desperate Jim Kirk.

When Uhura kissed Spock openly in the dormitory a few days later after their latest shore leave, Sulu couldn't help but feel smug. Ignoring the catcalls sent to the couple by Scotty and Kirk, Sulu settled for waggling his eyebrows knowingly in Spock's direction.

The scathing look sent his way could've melted Delta Vega's ice caps, but Sulu didn't mind. Not if it meant getting full access to the bathroom anytime he wanted.

Jim had termed their quarters as the 'cool gang quarters'. And at that moment, a familiar argument was brewing in the so-called 'cool gang quarters'.

"No, I get the top bunk this month," Jim argued furiously.

"Nah you don't, laddie." Scotty shot back. "You lost that privilege when you lost that bet against me in yesterday's poker game, Jim."

Jim blanched. "I so did not bet away my top bunk privilege! You're lying!"

Scotty bristled at the words. "I ain't lying, you bastard! You're the one who can't remember it because you were drunk off your ass when I won that night-"

Bones groaned as he put his PADD down from which he'd been reading some medical journals. He had been listening to them bicker for three hours straight and quite frankly he was damn fed up with it. "If you two idiots can't figure out who gets the top bunk, I'm just going to claim it for myself." To prove that he was serious, Bones climbed up to the top and settled himself in it, eliciting squawks of unfairness by Scotty and Jim.

"That's mine!" squealed Jim as he climbed up the steel ladder and tried to push Bones off despite the fact that the older man was much heavier than Jim was. "Get off, you cow!"

Jim didn't expect the pillow that came down on his head. Yelping, he tumbled off the top bunk and landed on the floor painfully. Bones stared down at Jim imperviously, pillow in hand. "Call me a cow again, and I won't sleep with you for a month."

"Bones-" Jim whined from his position on the floor. Scotty just shook his head in amusement as he stepped over the lieutenant, carefully treading on Jim's fingers as hard as he could on the way.

"You can keep the bunk, Doctor." Scotty snorted after glancing at Bones' mean expression as he sat on his current bunk. "I don't think I can hide all my stash up there without getting caught by the Captain, anyway."

Bones just waved his PADD in response, never once getting down to help Jim who had apparently fallen asleep on the floor out of sheer exhaustion.

And Jim had the audacity to call this the 'cool gang quarters'.

"A transfer?" Spock could feel the stares of all his roommates on him as he nodded in acknowledgement to the question. "You got a damn transfer?"

"A minor one." Spock replied. "I will be rooming with the Science division as it will be easier to help them out should any needs arise for-"

Chekov's bottom lip wobbled dangerously. "You're leaving us then?"

Spock had to look away from the Russian kid before replying. "I will not be leaving the Enterprise, I am merely transferring to a different division which will also require me to transfer to a new quarters. This is a logical-"

"You give me the word logical one more time Spock, I will personally eject you out of the airlock." Bones grounded out as he folded his arms. "How about Uhura? Have you told her yet?" The silence confirmed his question. "Dammit you hobgoblin, at least have the guts to tell her before you tell us!"

"Tell me what?" Shit, Uhura was standing in the doorway, her eyes narrowed when she saw Spock surrounded by his roommates who looked ready to beat the living crap out of him. "What's going on?"

"Spock's moving out." came Jim's answer as he threw himself down on his bunk. "I mean yeah, great, he got a promotion but-" Jim sighed when he saw the look in Uhura's eyes. "He has to move out."

Uhura composed herself before she spoke, and her voice was still slightly shaky as she spoke. "Wow Spock, t-that's great. " She hugged the stiff Vulcan gently. "You've got the promotion you always wanted."

Spock spoke softly to her and only her. "But I have to move out if I am to accept this new transfer." Jim, Bones, Chekov and Scotty then decided to excuse themselves to the corner of the room as Spock and Uhura leaned intimately against each other, their foreheads gently bumping against each other. "Nyota, what would you have me to do?"

"It would be selfish of me to keep you here," whispered Uhura. "So I say, go for it. We'll-" She choked a little. "We'll miss you. Loads. Come back and visit often, get it?"

"Nyota-" But she had already pulled away and walked out of the dorm, sobs following her as she exited. Jim turned from her to Spock, who still looked as sad as a Vulcan could.

Jim cleared his throat. "Well, your lady gave you the give-go, so you should just... just accept the promotion. I mean, I don't oppose it, I'll just-" He cleared his throat again, albeit a little nervously this time. "We'll miss you. All of us."

Bones nodded fiercely, his hand on Jim's shoulder. Chekov and Scotty nodded too, their eyes betraying their true emotions.

Spock had never felt such a swell of emotions before and as he was crushed by his wall of friends hugging (or tackling him) at the same time, he reflected that maybe, just maybe, he was making the wrong choice.

Nothing surprised Christopher Pike more when Spock turned down his transfer offer a few days later. When the captain had demanded for an answer, the Vulcan had merely raised an eyebrow and given a puzzling answer. "It was for the greater good."

Noting the way the Vulcan glanced at Lieutenant Kirk in the corner, Chris had a vague idea of what had happened and he grinned up at Spock. "Looks like your human friends are rubbing off you today, Ensign."

Ah yes, he had been missing that eyebrow. "They have not initiated much physical contact with me today, Captain therefore your choice of words indicate that-"

Chris groaned. "It was an expression, Spock. Now get back to work, and do it well or I'll force the a transfer on you purposely next time that you cannot refuse on any grounds." Seeing the blank look on Spock's face that indicated that the Vulcan hadn't understood his vaguely friendly threat, he just sighed and dismissed Spock with a wave of his hand.

There was a huge party in the dorm that evening, courtesy of Jim Kirk and Montgomery Scott (who Bones sneakily suspected was supplying the seemingly limitless alcohol) after Spock had announced rather dourly that he was indefinitely stuck with his colourful roommates until further notice. Uhura had pulled Spock into a kiss, and the other male occupants had slapped him on the back as hard as they could.

As the party raged on (other crewmen had been invited as well, much to Bones' displeasure), Bones found Jim sitting on the small faux leather seat overlooking the tiny window in the side of their room. Outside, they could see the planet they were currently orbiting; it was a beautiful red planet that was a bustling trading point for the Federation and its glow reflected off the hull of the Enterprise, making her glow luminously in outer space.

"You know, when I first saw the Enterprise for the first time in the shipyards, I fell in love instantly." Jim said quietly to Bones as he settled down opposite Jim, the both of them gazing out of the tiny window. "I wanted to see the universe and get the hell away from my family down on Earth, so I enrolled into Starfleet." A small smile twisted Jim's lips. "Ironic, isn't it? I enrolled to escape my family, and I found a totally new one on this ship."

Bones shifted so that his arms were around Jim's shoulders now. "You and me both, Jim." He sniffed. "Don't you think it's funny? Us being here together, I mean. I was assigned to the new medical program that was supposed to send me to boring old outposts near the Neutral Zone but instead, I land here. On the damn Federation's flagship, no less." Bones downed a quarter of the bottle he was holding, wiping the trail of liquid off his chin. "Do you ever sometimes think it's fate, Jim?"

"Fate?" Jim barked in laughter. "How much have you drank, Bones?"

Bones' was serious though. "I mean you, me, that damn Vulcan, Uhura, Chekov and the rest; it just feels so right when I'm with them all, y'know. Like I'm supposed to. Like I won't be the man I was today without them." Bones' green eyes locked with Jim's. "Without you."

Jim could only stare back before smiling. "Okay Bones, if you say so," he ribbed his old friend gently, nudging him in the side with his elbow. "Geez, you're such a sentimentalist. Didn't knew you had it in you, honestly." Jim ducked the playful hand that tried to swat at his cheek. "Hey, no hitting the face!"

"Aaaaaand smile!" A flash of light blinded Jim as he scrambled madly for a blanket to cover himself decently. When his vision finally cleared from the stupid flash of light, he saw the rest of his friends standing before him. An old digital camera was in Scotty's hand (Jim had no idea where the Scotsman had dug it up from nor how he had even made it work. Not that Jim wanted to know anyway!) and an identical grin on every single one of their face except for Spock, who looked a little too smug for Jim's liking.

"Got it!" announced Scotty as he looked at the small screen of the ancient digital camera.

From far away, Jim could make out the rough outline of him and Bones cuddling in each other's arms on the tiny screen, looks of content on their relaxed faces.

Bones was the first to react. "Give that back, dammit!" He tried to make a grab for the camera but Scotty tossed it to Sulu who was lounging on a bunk and Jim groaned. Sulu was like a freaking ninja, they were never going to get back the camera anytime soon.

"This," announced Sulu as he sat on the edge of Bones' top bunk while he viewed the offensive picture on Scotty's camera. "Is so going on the ship's broadcast board next week."

"Oh, hell no!" Bones was halfway up to his bunk when Sulu jumped off it, laughing as he landed on the bunk next to Bones which conveniently happened to be Chekov's. Jim couldn't help but howl in mirth as he watched Bones scrambling madly to get at the more agile Sulu. At this rate they were going, somebody was going have to patch up the doctor himself after Bones had scrapped his knees one too many times on the edges of the bunks.

They weren't the most professional, nor were they the highest ranked crew members around.

They hated each other, threw pillows at each other all the time, drank themselves drunk on occasions, hogged the bathroom so that the next person waiting for it would suffer, regularly stole the top bunks from each other, and had sex loud enough for a dead man to rise from his grave.

They talked, discussed, made fun of and comforted each other. They cried against each other's shoulders, confessed their crimes and insecurities together and supported their mates through thick and thin.

They were best friends, and they would do anything for each other as they sailed the universe together.

May the stars hear them roar.