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[chasedthestars]

Bones is getting better. He's nowhere near as well as he insists he is, but Jim will concede that the man is stronger than he was even days ago, the lingering fatigue from his pneumonia at last beginning to abate. Still, he's in no shape to walk all the way from the Compound to home, and certainly not to any of the more distant clinics.

Bones should be grateful Jim stopped short of carrying him on his own back. Instead, he's fashioned what can only be described as a tricked-out wheelbarrow, complete with padding on the inside, and shocks to absorb the more unforgiving portions of island terrain. Jim's pleased enough with it that he almost looks forward to doing something stupid enough to land his own ass in it, but for now, he's ready and waiting at the Compound door.

After a few false starts, Jim at last sees Bones make his attempt at escape. "Bones!" Jim barks at him cheerfully, leaning forward with his hands braced against the bamboo handles. "Your chariot."

Comments

[leftwithmybones]

While the pneumonia's been kind enough to trail off and stop him from feeling like the world's laziest asshole, it still lingers in every muscle and tendon, like he can't escape the fact that he's been sick. He's finally managed to create an offset of the antibiotics that do the trick just right, so within a week, he ought to be back to normal.

That means that when Jim greets him outside of the Compound with what can only be described as a wheelbarrow, his immediate response is to shake his head. "No," he says, tucking his research under his arm to begin the slow and arduous walk back to the house.

[chasedthestars]

"Fun fact," says Jim pleasantly, wheeling the cart behind Bones until it's almost reached the backs of his knees. "There are a dozen ways to trip someone, up to and including sweeping the leg. I learned that in Advanced Combat. But my favorite has to be -"

Pushing the cart just enough, he angles the lip of the wagon against the bend in Bones' knees, giving him nowhere to go but toppling backwards and into the cart. " - Pushing their legs out from under them like an asshole. What do you think?"

[leftwithmybones]

He swears as he topples back into the cart, papers going flying and only some of them make it into the vehicle with him. Through messy strands of his hair, he gives his upside-down view of Jim a harsh look and doesn't even hesitate as he gives him the finger. "You're a complete asshole is what I think," he says, putting together words in his fury. "I hope you don't think you're sleeping in the same bed with me anytime soon."

[chasedthestars]

"Like you could stop me climbing in," says Jim, bending to collect Bones' scattered papers. "Well." He pauses with a thoughtful look. "Maybe you could with all the strength you're about to conserve getting home again. Now stop getting angry, you're burning energy."

[leftwithmybones]

"I was married for a lot of years. I've got the 'sleep on the couch' speech perfected," he assures Jim, still angry as he grabs hold of the sides of the barrow while Jim's distracted and hauls himself out to put his feet back on solid ground. "And if you pull the other eleven advanced combat moves on me right now, you can kiss sex goodbye too."

[chasedthestars]

"You hypo me in the face," Jim returns, standing as Bones does, "And I still sleep with you, how is that fair? Hey!" Throwing the papers into the cart, Jim grabs the handles. "Get back in, I'm serious, Bones. You're tiring yourself out with all these trips."

[leftwithmybones]

For once, he listens to Jim and his body, who must be working as allies to bring him down. Exhausted and weary, he grumbles until he slumps over, but doesn't get back in the cart yet. "You sleep with me because you choose to. You never exile me from bed," he points out.

"Jim, this is humiliating," he says, quieter than before.

[chasedthestars]

"It's not as bad as me putting you over my shoulder after having to scrape you off the forest floor," says Jim, though not unkindly. "You want to work, right? Won't you get more done if you're not exhausted?" He turns the wheels from side to side. "You can even read on the way home."

[leftwithmybones]

No, it's not as bad as that. He might be from the South, but that doesn't mean that he wants to be a swooning maiden anywhere in his genetic code. He sighs and signals for Jim to tip the wheelbarrow so he can crawl into it. "God help me, the next time you get sick, I'm going to humiliate you in every possible way," he informs him, but crawls back into Jim's contraption.

[chasedthestars]

"That's a nice way of saying 'thank you for my painstakingly crafted, shock-absorbing ride home'," Jim observes. Gripping the handles, he levers Bones' weight from the ground and starts them into motion. "This on top of Barnes' classes. You're lucky my arms can take it."

[leftwithmybones]

"Thank you for your painstakingly crafted shock-absorbing ride home," he mimics fondly, reaching up to stop Jim, sliding his fingers around his wrist to tug him down in order to press a fond kiss to Jim's lips. "Jim, you didn't have to do this. Seriously."

[chasedthestars]

"Sure I do," says Jim, smiling gently back at him. "I hate seeing you so worn down, and hey." Crouching, he straightens the dark hair he'd mussed with Bones' tumble. "You're stronger every day. Pretty soon you'll be well enough to ride a horse, which I will dutifully steal for you."

[leftwithmybones]

"What is it with you and me and horses?" he wonders, but shakes it off quickly enough as he turns away from the coddling touch, rearranging his notes back into their folder cautiously and carefully, not willing to lose his research. "You're fine? You haven't been feeling sick or worn down?"

[chasedthestars]

"I feel fine, I told you so this morning and last night and that morning. Besides." Rolling them into motion, slowly this time so as not to dislodge Bones' notes, Jim adds, "Even if I do, you get to humiliate me in every possible way, so it's still a win for you."

[leftwithmybones]

"I felt just fine right up until this thing knocked me on my ass, too," he feels compelled to remind Jim, seeing as pedantic is the one place he can go to when righteous anger's been taken from him. "And maybe I don't want to humiliate you. Maybe I just want you to be okay and me to get better so I can finally do something for me, for us, instead of running my ass around this island trying to prevent disaster."

"Hell," he scoffs, "Ought to follow through on that whole moving out business, if nothing else."

[chasedthestars]

The cart doesn't quite come to a halt, but there is a pause as though Jim has stumbled. "That was the fever talking," he says. "You're not going anywhere without your favorite nurse."

[leftwithmybones]

"No," he says patiently, peering up at Jim. "I'm serious. Fever's gone down, incidentally, you can't keep blaming everything I say on fever. Look, most couples don't exactly jump into living together the second they have sex for the first time is all I'm saying. There's a lot of steps I missed doing."

[chasedthestars]

"Since when are we most couples, Bones?" Jim asks, fingers flexing around the bamboo handles. "Since when are we most anybody? We didn't jump into living with each other, anyway. We've been doing that for years, either at the Academy, and near enough aboard ship. I think we did enough waiting around, don't you?"

[leftwithmybones]

"Are you telling me you don't want to do the dating thing? Don't want to wait on my porch and wonder if you're gonna get a kiss or, better, get lucky? Look, Jim, I like what we have, I do, but so help me, there's an old-fashioned part of me that wants to have this proper. Dates and bringing you home to make sure you get in all right and getting that feeling of pure joy when I get to stay the night," he says, rhapsodising about the past, sure, but he loves it. "I guess I want some of that."

[chasedthestars]

"How is only getting to stay the night some time better than knowing you're going to every time?" Jim asks, confused, and if he's honest, frustrated. On an academic level, he can understand the whole romance thing, but he's never had it, and they have each other. Why start the chase all over again? "I mean, do you - "

Jim frowns and keeps them moving forward with even steps. "Are you not happy?"

[leftwithmybones]

"Of course..." He says it too quickly and he realizes, soon after he starts, that this is something that he needs to be cautious with. "Jim, I love you. I'm happy," he assures him with the weight of truth in his words. "But when you think about couples, long-run couples who get together and make it work, there's a story. There's always something to the romance. We've been friends forever, Jim, sure as hell feels like it and I'm not trying to discount that. I think it's not going anywhere, but, I want..."

He feels like he's playing dirty, but here goes nothing. "If our story was your parents, would you be proud to hear it?"

[chasedthestars]

"Of course I would," says Jim, and perhaps therein lies the problem. He doesn't have romantic tales from his own parents. Winona refused to speak of George, and there'd been no pictures of them around the house. What few Jim has seen are the same everyone else has, those holos beamed around the Federation on every anniversary of the Kelvin's demise. All Jim has of his father is heroism and sacrifice, most of that gathered from textbooks and not his mother's own mouth, but Jim knows he must have loved her fiercely. A man doesn't fly a ship into another one if not to save someone important.

"We saved Earth. We stopped Nero. I'd be damn proud to hear my parents did all that together."

[leftwithmybones]

"Not that part," he says, his eyes wide because that's not even close to what we meant. "Jim, think. If you and I ever have a kid or adopt a kid or whatever. Kid from scratch, from baby," he says, flailing his hands around and it shows how frustrated he is trying to explain this that he's already jumped to nonsense. "You really wanna sit Junior down and say 'hey, so, your Dad and I got together because Daddy watched a sex tape and got all hot and bothered, then we started screwing like bunnies.'"

"Jim, I want a romantic history. So sue me."

[chasedthestars]

"Max is kind of our kid, Bones, and he already knows," Jim grunts, but he sees what Bones is saying, and a few things that he's not. If they ever had a kid, their kid. Like people do when they're a family, when it's not screwing like bunnies but forever.

Jim comes around the side of the wheelbarrow, crouching until they're at eye level. "It doesn't start with that tape for me. It started at the Academy, it might even have started that day we met on the shuttle and you threatened to throw up on me. As long as I've known you, even when we weren't fucking, it felt like we belonged. And that's..." Jim pushes a hand through his hair and shrugs, helpless. "I don't know how to do the rest of that stuff. Romance. You know me, I've never dated."

[leftwithmybones]

When Jim's close enough, McCoy doesn't wait for decency. He threads his fingers through Jim's hair and tugs him close enough to press their foreheads together, stealing slow and small kisses at every moment that he can. "I want to date," he says quietly. "We've got a history, no one's denying that. Jim, give us the chance for a romantic one, too. Let us have that, will you?"