Stillness
It's embarrassing, so he never articulates it. How Bones settles him. How Jim can be craving the sharp shining edge of danger or pain or adrenaline and Bones' touch will just…bring him a moment of stillness. Of peace.
Okay, no. No, it's not embarrassment.
Jim can admit that much to himself.
It's awe. What he feels sometimes when he looks at Bones, what Bones does, who he is, that stillness he brings to Jim like a gift. It's awe that wells up until Jim can almost touch the brightness of it, when he lets himself consider it at all instead of shoving the knowledge down under the easiness of best buds, the addicting hotness of sex, the valued respect between captain and CMO.
Because thinking about that stillness that Bones brings him, focusing on it, is inviting a jinx. Acknowledging something—someone—that good, that solid, that real and important…Bones is too important.
If he's too important he'll leave.
He'll leave.
It's stupid. Bones isn't going to leave him. Bones dragged Jim into space, risking the new life he'd rebuilt from scraps. Bones didn't leave Jim behind, god, what has he ever done to deserve, Bones is so…and then Bones followed him into space. And Bones hates space. He really does, it's not an act, despite the jokes Sulu and Chekov crack. Jim was with Bones for his first EVA. Saw the panic that tried to gut him as he stood on the hull of the ship, nothing but the thin soft shell of the EVA suit keeping space and death away and Jim saw Bones grit his way through it, pale and shaking, holding on to the anchor of Jim's voice...Bones is so fucking brave.
And Bones followed him into space because Jim asked him to. Needed him to.
Bones isn't going to leave him. He's not. And that quiet stillness that only Bones can sometimes give…if Jim gives voice to it, it won't disappear. It won't.
But…
But that last whisper of superstition, that surety dwelling deeper than rational thought knows.
They leave.
He'll leave.
Jim can't take that chance.
But he can show Bones. Show him what he can't say. When the words bottle up in Jim's throat, try to push their way free, until he's almost vibrating with the need to speak. He doesn't. He can't. So he worships Bones instead.
Neither of them admits that's what he does. What he's doing.
Neither of them says a word during these quiet times, so different from their usual rough-housing, brain melting sex. Those times are filled with words, with smirks and filthy smiles and banter, lewd and crude. But these times, times like now, there's hushed silence as Jim spends minutes just kissing Bones' shoulder right there. When he inhales Bones' musky scent and breathes it back out along taut skin. When he places almost chaste kisses everywhere he can find, neck to broad shoulders to nipples, hips to knees to toes, and comes back up to spend long, melting minutes just exploring Bones' surgeon hands. When he says 'thank you' and 'don't leave me' and 'love you, love you, love you Bones' with every reverent touch. When he looks up to see Bones watching him, drinking him in, and he feels the way Bones touches back, strong skilled hands roaming so carefully, communicating unspoken messages of his own.
Maybe there are things Bones can't say too.
END