The tension aboard the Enterprise was so thick that even Scotty’s pet tribble was beginning to tremble and the Engineering staff was worried.  After Scotty received an official reprimand for bringing the tribble aboard from Delta Vega and a biohazard cage was secured for the creature, Spock agreed to address the matter of the degree of tension aboard the ship with the captain when their duty shift was over.

Bones found all this out as he patched up Chekov after the kid’s fencing lesson with Sulu.  Sulu had gotten tired of losing at hand-to-hand combat to the captain and challenged Chekov to fencing, something he could win.  Bones continued muttering under his breath about stupid kids who don’t know their asses from a hole in the ground.

“Sir?” Chekov interrupted, wincing as Bones’s hand jerked and pressed the hypospray too hard into his bicep.  Bones grunted, which Chekov took for encouragement because he went on.  “Sir, vhy do zhou not apologhize to ze keptin?”

Bones froze and then looked up.  Chekov’s baby face was so fucking earnest that it made Bones ill.  “Apologize?  What the hell for?”  He finished the bandage on the through-and-through Sulu had given him.  “You’re done, kid.”

Chekov gave him a pitying look as he hopped off the medical bed.  “When there is fight, someone says sorry.”  He smiled.  “Is better.”

“Christ,” Bones muttered under his breath.  The kid probably thought it was that simple.  “Keep the wound dry for twenty-four hours, then it should be fine.  Come back if it isn’t.”

“Yes, sir.”  Chekov sketched a mockery of a salute and left, laughing at Bones’ responding scowl.

Chekov wasn’t the first he’d had to patch up due to Jim’s temper, either directly or indirectly.  It had taken Jim nearly a week to recover fully from the injuries sustained on Traken III and Bones had only managed that by keeping him sedated most of the time.  If he hadn’t done that, Jim would have pulled another stunt like his post-Artraxian bridge visit.

Being drugged wasn’t what sparked Jim’s temper, though.  Bones sighed heavily and gathered the supplied he’d used on Chekov, carrying them back to the supply closet.  No, Jim’s anger stemmed from the conversation Bones had with him the night he discharged Jim and Jim had shown up in his quarters.

Though it had shredded him, he’d told Jim they needed to stop seeing each other for a while.  Bones held firm while Jim raged, but refused to explain beyond his inability to separate his personal and professional lives.  He’d told Jim he needed to be able to have professional detachment and continuing a relationship with the captain of the ship he was serving on did not facilitate professional detachment.

He didn’t dare tell Jim that it had felt like part of him was dead on that bed to see Jim ripped apart and bleeding to death – the furthest thing from professional detachment he could imagine.

Bones closed his eyes and leaned his forehead against the shelving of the storage closet.  He was starting to sound like a fucking woman.  Not like his ex-wife, not quite, but close.  That frightened him nearly as much as his memory of the sight of Jim after the Klingon was done.

“Have you seen him lately?” a male voice asked just outside the closet.

Bones’s eyes shot open, heart pounding.  He considered making himself known, but held back after hearing a second voice answer the first.

“You think he’s been drinking again?” the second voice was female and Bones recognized it as belonging to one of his nurses.  He thought her name was Crowle.

Bones pushed the door to the closet nearly shut, leaving an opening barely wide enough for him to see the room, and turned off the light.  If he wasn’t going to make himself known, he certainly didn’t want to be found.

The man scoffed and replied disdainfully, “He’s always drinking.  Ever since that last away mission.”

“I hope you know what you’re doing,” Crowle murmured.  There was a muffled thud, then a moan.  “I know you want him.”

Bones rubbed his forehead.  Were talking about him?  But they had to also talking about someone else.  Who else were they talking about?  Were they talking about his drinking?  He hadn’t realized it was so obvious.  He couldn’t help but be offended, but wasn’t sure who he was offended for or by.  A rustle of clothing disturbed his thoughts.  Shit, was he going to have to listen to them fuck?  It’d been more than a month for him with only his right hand for company and he wasn’t sure he could handle listening to anyone.

“It’s for his own good,” the man said, slightly breathless.  “The Admiral will help me.”

Bones felt his heart rate spike.  Admiral?  What the hell is going on here?

“You should know better than to trust brass,” Crowle warned.  She sounded breathless as well.

The man gave a mirthless laugh.  Another rustle of clothing and Crowle moaned.  “I gave something to brass in exchange,” the man crowed.  “Both of them were ecstatic about it.”

Bones could imagine the smug smirk on his face and wanted to punch him.  He wondered if the ass was mimicking Jim’s smirk and that just pissed Bones off even more.  Crowle moaned more deeply, but it was doing nothing for Bones.  Any arousal he may have felt from this aural voyeurism was destroyed with the mention of one admiral – let alone two – and his own overly analytical thoughts.

“What did you give?”  Crowle’s voice was breathless, each word punctuated by a grunt.  Bones could imagine she was being fucked against the wall just outside the storage closet.  He wondered how many violations he could write into her personnel record.

The man laughed again.  “Not what.  Who.”  Crowle moaned more deeply, then whimpered.  “Kirk.”

Bones backed up, barely catching himself before he crashed into the rear storage bins.  This was their saboteur?  And it was for jealousy?  Over him?  He scrubbed both hands over his face and shook his head in denial.  He would have to find a time and place to talk to Spock again, to review this new threat.

He heard Crowle come, a breathy moan followed by deep grunts as the man came.  Bones rushed the door and peeked out, but all he could see of the man was a blue science tunic and a pale white ass since his view was partially blocked by a shelving unit.  Crowle’s legs fell from his waist and he stepped back, pulling up his pants.

Rather than reveal himself, Bones turned back into the storage closet.  As he slumped against the wall and slid down, resting his forehead on his knees, he distantly heard Crowle and the man leave.  He was too old for this shit.  Jim was the one who thrived on the political intrigue, not him.

He tried not to berate himself for not mentioning a word of the Starfleet conspiracy to Jim, though he and Spock had agreed not to do so for fear Jim would go off half-cocked in an effort to solve it himself.  Right now, Bones would love for the entire affair to be done and over with.

“Spock to Doctor McCoy.”

Bones ignored the first page, but when Spock paged him again, he pulled his communicator from his belt.  Flipping it open, he growled, “McCoy here.”

“Doctor, you are required on the bridge.  Spock out.”

Goddamned green-blooded bastard.  Bones knew it wasn’t a medical emergency or Spock would have added that.  He wondered if Jim put the bastard up to it, hoping to get Bones nearby in order to bat those eyelashes at him and get him to relent or apologize.  Bones was afraid it might work, which was why he tried not to spend too much time in Jim’s company, as painful as the complete separation had become.  They had been friends long before they were lovers, but everything else made that friendship too much for Bones to bear for the time being.

Climbing up from the floor, he dusted himself off and straightened his uniform.  He could do nothing about the stubble on his face that looked like he’d just come off a bender despite the fact he hadn’t had anything to drink since “breaking up” – and what a damned girlish term that was – with Jim.  He knew that once he started drinking over that, he wouldn’t stop, so better not to start.

Lost as he was in his own world, he found himself on the bridge before he realized he’d left sickbay.  He snorted.  Teach me to drift off.

“You rang, Commander?” he muttered, earning a raised eyebrow from Spock and a reluctant snicker from Sulu.  Jim ignored him.

“Indeed he did, Doctor McCoy,” a baritone voice resounded from the viewer.  With a sick feeling in his stomach, Bones turned to the front of the bridge.  The head and shoulders of Admiral Lynch, from his office at Starfleet Headquarters, filled the viewer.  Lynch was not amused.

Bones took his customary position on the bridge next to Jim, clicked his heels together and straightened from his surly slouch.  “Sir.”;

Admiral Lynch held his gaze for a moment, then shifted his eyes right to meet Jim’s.  “As I was saying before Doctor McCoy decided to grace you with his presence, I have an assignment for the Enterprise.  The coordinates have been sent to your helmsman.”  Sulu gave a small wave indicating receipt.  “The Enterprise will rendezvous with the Kepler, collect her passengers, and then take them to Starbase 642.”

Bones felt the air tense around Jim as much as saw him stiffen out of the corner of his eye.  “Sir, Starbase 642 is two sectors out of our way.”  The Enterprise’s current mission was to perform astronavigational surveys in Sector 327, previously lightly charted.  Jim, who counted astronavigation among his hobbies, had been anticipating it since recovering from Traken III.

Lynch settled back, resting his elbows on the arms of his chair and steepling his fingers over his lips.  There was a challenging smirk toying with his mouth, as if he’d just love to knock Jim down.  “Are you questioning orders, Captain Kirk?”

Bones heard Jim’s teeth grind together.  “No, sir, I am not.”  Jim’s tone was overly formal despite the strain to it.

Lynch was silent long enough that Chekov coughed to break the tension.  However, when Admiral Lynch smiled, the smile wasn’t any more pleasant than his silence had been.  “That’s what I thought, Captain.  Lynch out.”

The viewer returned to its usual star field.  The collective release of pent-up breath among the bridge staff sounded like the popping of a balloon.  Jim cursed under his breath before ordering Sulu to the given coordinates at warp three.

Though not asked, Sulu volunteered, “We’ll arrive at the coordinates in two hours, sir.”

“Thank you, Mr. Sulu,” Jim ground out.  Bones glanced down at him long enough to see the telltale signs of exhaustion on his face in the dark circles under his eyes, as well as the tense lines fanning out from the corners of them.  Before Bones could say anything, though, Jim sprang up from his beloved chair and barked, “You have the bridge, Mr. Spock.”  Four strides carried him to the turbolift and away from Bones.

Spock, who had followed Jim’s departure with his eyes, turned back to Bones.  “Might I have a word in private, Doctor McCoy?”  The words were carefully modulated, but nonetheless carried disapproval.

Bones nodded slowly, still stunned by Jim’s abrupt departure.  “Of course, Mr. Spock.”  He barely heard Spock hand off the bridge to Sulu.

Spock led him into the Captain’s Ready Room just off the bridge.  It was a tiny, seldom-used room Jim hadn’t bothered to decorate, preferring instead to use the anteroom connected to his quarters rather than the Ready Room.

Spock gestured for him to take a seat.  He sat only once Spock did.  Though he had his own items to bring to the discussion, he waited for Spock to begin – and nearly swallowed his tongue with Spock’s chosen opening topic.

“Nyota informs me that the reason the Captain is in the state he is in is that you have ‘broken up’ with him.”  Bones could have sworn Spock’s cheeks had a green tinge to them, but that had to be a trick of the piss-poor light in the Ready Room because Vulcans didn’t blush.

“Your point?” Bones hissed.  He didn’t mind discussing Starfleet’s machinations, but damned if he wanted to discuss his personal life, especially with Spock.

“I thought we had agreed to take better care of the Captain.”  Spock paused, shifting one hand absently on the tabletop, turning it from palm-up to palm-down.  “I fail to see how making him more . . . vulnerable . . . to his emotions is looking out for his or, indeed, is ultimately in the best interests of the Enterprise.”

Bones rolled his eyes and leaned back in his chair.  Folding his arms over his chest, he asked, “So you’re telling me that my relationship with Jim is in the best interests of the ship?”

Spock looked pained.  This conversation was one he clearly didn’t want to have either, given the amount of emotion he’d shown already, Bones thought.  The fact he was having it, despite that, was, to borrow a phrase, fascinating.  “My personal opinions on the matter are not at issue here.  Morale aboard the Enterprise has reached a critical level and it has been . . . forcibly . . . brought to my attention that you may be the only one to rein the Captain in.”

Bones sighed heavily, but refrained from snickering.  He wondered how just much pressure Uhura had put on Spock, but then remembered his conversation with Chekov in sickbay.  Maybe there was some truth the “whole ship” idea.

He had to put aside his own feelings on the matter, ironically, in order to address the matter.  “What exactly are you talking about?”  Bones knew Jim’s temper was tightly wound, but was there more he didn’t know about?

Spock held his gaze impassively for long enough that Bones almost felt like a child being taken to task by the school principal.  When Spock released his gaze, Bones took a deep breath and shifted uncomfortably in his chair.

“The Captain has been unusually aggressive and moody according to the rest of the crew,” Spock admitted.

Bones raised an eyebrow.  “You haven’t found him to be a bigger asshole than usual?”

That earned an eyebrow of disdain.  “I will admit that I have noticed a certain increase in . . . hostility recently when interacting with the Captain.”

“I hope you didn’t strangle him this time,” Bones muttered.  Spock didn’t deign to reply.

Bones was becoming increasingly uncomfortable.  He knew that, were they on Earth, Jim would be venting his anger at Bones by going to some nameless bar and picking a fight with the biggest guy there.  It wouldn’t matter if he won or lost, the driving force was the need to vent via physical aggression.  Spock, with his Vulcan strength, might be the only one Jim could fight in a mood like this, but Spock would never fight him unless highly provoked.  Fighting merely to vent frustration would be highly illogical.

With an irritated sigh, Bones drove a hand through his hair, tugging hard.  He had done what he thought was best for both of them when he said they should stop seeing each other, but it was slowly destroying Jim and, through him, the ship – the exact opposite of what Bones had intended.

“Doctor?”

Bones looked up, meeting Spock’s dark eyes.  “I’ll talk to him.  Can’t promise anything, but I’ll talk to him.”

Spock gave a terse nod, then rose.

Bones held up a hand, made a “sit down” gesture, and leaned forward.  “Since I have you here, I might as well tell you I’m pretty sure I uncovered our saboteur.”  Bones smiled at his pun.

Both Spock’s eyebrows rose as he sat.  “Oh?”  He sounded reluctantly intrigued.

“His accomplice is an assistant on the medical staff, Ensign Crowle,” Bones said.  He rubbed at the frown line between his eyebrows where a headache was starting.  “Since all I saw of the primary perpetrator was his bare ass, I’m not that eager to attempt to pick him out of a line up.”

Spock frowned as well.  “I see your point.”  He tilted his head and narrowed his eyes slightly, intensifying his focus on Bones.  “What did you overhear?”

When he thought about it later, he would find it interesting that Spock assumed he’d been eavesdropping – and that he hadn’t testily denied it immediately.  He didn’t know exactly what it meant but it was interesting.

“Apparently our would-be saboteur has decided to bait his trap with the one person he thinks is in his way.”  Bones paused.  Though he was still incredibly uncomfortable with the idea of starring in anyone but Jim’s sexual fantasies – and even then it was debatable – he wanted to see the reaction on Spock’s face.  If any.

“Yes, Doctor?”  A hint of impatience edged into the hobgoblin’s voice.

“Apparently Jim stands in the way of his true happiness.”

Spock stared, then blinked slowly.  “He harbors fantasies about you?”  Bones nodded.  Spock blinked again.  “Fantasies delusional enough to believe that by involving the captain of the Enterprise in the conspiracy, he would somehow be gifted with you like a prize?”

“Well, when you put it like that . . . .” Bones trailed off as if pondering the idea, but concluded by yelling, “Yes!”

“Fascinating.”

Bones wanted to throttle him for further information, but Spock’s communicator beeped and Sulu’s voice warbled from it.  “Bridge to Commander Spock.”

He pulled his communicator free and opened it.  “Yes, Mr. Sulu?”

“We’re approaching the Kepler now.  They’ve requested you, Captain Kirk and the doctor be present in Transporter Room 3 to meet them.”

Spock flicked his eyes upward to meet Bones’s surprised gaze.  Bones rarely met transporter parties unless there were injuries among the party members – a fact he reinforced vehemently among all staff after the Traken III debacle.  “Acknowledged, Mr. Sulu.  Doctor McCoy is still with me.  We will travel there now.  Spock out.”  Spock closed his communicator, slipped it back into its pocket on his belt, and both men rose.

They were silent until they reached the turbolift, at which point Bones asked, “I wonder who has enough pull in that party to order us about like pawns.”

The ’lift slowed, then stopped.  Spock allowed Bones to exit first.  The position allowed Spock to bend slightly and hiss in Bones’s ear in a very human way, “It is pointless to speculate but I, for one, do not like being manipulated.”  With that, Spock strode ahead, hands clasped at the small of his ramrod-straight back.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Bones whispered before scurrying to catch up.  Apparently, there was some of his mother in that Vulcan after all.

He was not the last of their trio to appear – that so-called honor fell to Jim – and it allowed Bones a few moments of time to compose himself.  He greeted Scotty, who had recovered fully from the Traken III incident and was working the transporter controls, and exchanged small talk about a lieutenant who had been injured the previous week in some contest Scotty had organized in the mess hall.  Bones had learned the hard way to ask only enough questions to diagnose and resolve the problem, but nothing more.  Asking more, one time, had earned him more information about Keenser than he’d ever wanted to know.

Jim came running in only moments before Scotty beamed the first group over.  Because they had been ordered to attend the transfer of passengers, they stood at attention, back straight, hands behind them, on the off chance this was something diplomatic or the more likely possibility that passengers outranked them.  The position allowed Bones to view Jim only from the corner of his eye.

His heart ached – damn, he was turning girlish – as he looked.  Jim had showered just before arriving as his hair was still damp.  He had a sleepy look about him, so Bones suspected Sulu’s call had woken him from a fitful nap.  At least Bones hoped that’s what it had been – and that he’d been alone.

His jealousy didn’t surprise him, though he had no right to it.

“First group,” Scotty called.

Bones felt nausea rise to choke him when Admiral Jellico appeared on the primary transporter pad.  She turned and unerringly found Jim first.  Her smile, which might have been called girlish on someone forty years younger, made Bones’s skin crawl.  She stepped off the transporter platform with a helpful hand down from an assistant who had arrived on the second pad.

“Captain Kirk,” she simpered.  Jim stepped forward, taking her hand and tucking it into the crook of his elbow, the courtesy as natural as breathing to him.  “I am so pleased to finally meet you.”

Bones watched Jim bend his head, listening to the prompting by Admiral Jellico’s assistant.  The medical staff officer approached Bones with the data for the new passengers, briefing him, but he only heard half of it despite the woman’s high, grating voice that should have caught and held his attention.

He watched Jim walk out the door, replying to the Admiral, “The pleasure is all mine, Admiral Jellico.  I’m surprised Doctor McCoy didn’t mention meeting you before today.”

The doors snicked shut with a sibilant snap.  Bones ground his teeth together, not missing the deliberate reminder from the Admiral about their conversation at the reception several weeks back, and took the PADD from the staff officer.  A brief review revealed he would need to create a special environment for one of the last members to beam over.  Thanking the staff officer, he excused himself from Spock and made his way back to sickbay.

Settling all three dozen new passengers took nearly four hours.  For Bones and his staff, the majority of that time had been taken up in the creation of a sustainable environment for a critically ill patient who was allergic to common plastic polymers.  Scotty coordinated with the Chief Engineer on the Kepler while Bones coordinated with their CMO to transfer the specialized living module from the Kepler to the Enterprise.

While not unusual, the fact they had no notice of such a specialized request and had had to work on the fly – which Scotty had pointed out was what they were best at – meant Bones was angry.  His entire day had been a series of disasters and he had a splitting headache.  He could have gotten up for a headache reliever, or asked one of his staff to get him one, but he wanted to brood alone in his office.

Added to that, in the midst of everything, Spock had commed him to tell him that Admiral Jellico’s spies knew the quarters next to Jim’s were vacant.  She had, therefore, demanded to be housed there.  Spock had had no choice but to accede to her wishes.  The bitch was now living next door to Jim for as long as it took to dispose of her at the Starbase.

Even if he did make up with Jim, there was no way he could visit the captain’s quarters for anything other than professional reasons so long as she was on board.  He rolled his eyes, sending what felt like shards of glass through his brain due to his headache, and made a note to himself that Spock would have to be exceedingly circumspect in seeing Uhura while Jellico’s party was aboard.

Bones leaned forward to rest his elbows on his desk and rub his temples with his fingertips.  Why was she here?  Crowle’s accomplice must have had something to do with it, but damned if Bones could puzzle out what.  There were too many parts of the puzzle missing, though he thought that he and Spock must have a few of the larger pieces in place, to abuse the analogy.

His personal messages folder chimed.  Glaring at it, he sighed when he saw that the message was from Spock.  He opened it then cursed, loudly, after reading it.

Storming from his office and into sickbay, he immediately found the only red tunic he was seeking.  The last thing he wanted to see in his sickbay was Jellico’s red tunic unless it was due to injury – and he couldn’t bring himself to feel badly about wishing injury upon her.  Two annoyed strides brought him across the room to stand in front of Uhura.

“Lieutenant,” Bones growled.  “Your boyfriend wants me to tell you he can’t make your date tonight.  You can inform him, when you see him, that I’m a doctor, not a damned messenger service.”

Uhura looked down at him from her perch atop the medical bed.  Nurse Chapel finished suturing a wound at Uhura’s shoulder, exchanging a look with her that Bones recognized as being, Men are stupid no matter what their race or what planet they come from.

“And did he explain why he would not be joining me for dinner as promised?  This is the fourth date he’s cancelled.”  Uhura’s voice was glacial.

“Bridge shift.”  Bones found the narrowing of her eyes in response an interesting physiological phenomena ranking right up there with a woman’s craving for chocolate once a month.

“He was supposed to have tonight off,” she hissed.  “It’s the Captain’s shift.”

Jim’s voice startled both of them, making them turn toward the doorway.  “It was the Captain’s shift until the Admiral overrode the duty roster, Lieutenant.”

He was dressed in unrelieved black, making Bones wonder briefly what had become of his gold tunic.  Then something seemed to short-circuit in Bones’s brain and all he could do was lick his lips at the sight before him.  The unrelieved black complimented Jim’s face and body exceptionally well.  Jim crossed his arms over his chest, drawing his shirt tight across his shoulders.

“If you’re cleared, Lieutenant,” Jim murmured.

Bones looked at Nurse Chapel, who nodded.  Bones said, “She’s cleared.”

“Keep that dry for a day, Nyota,” Chapel added, indicating the wound she had just healed with a small wave of her hand.  “Come back if you have problems with it.”

Uhura, who had been pulling up her sleeve, glanced up and nodded.  “Thanks, Christine.  Doctor.”  She waited until she was at the door to sickbay before adding with a curt nod and a touch of ice, “Captain.”

Jim followed her with his head, glancing back over his shoulder, until she was out of visual range before returning his gaze to Bones.  Without taking his eyes from Bones, he said, “Nurse Chapel, if you could excuse us please.”

Bones could hear the smile in her voice when she replied, “Of course, Captain.  Doctor McCoy, if you need anything, I’ll be in my office.”  Her office was on the other side of sickbay, which meant she wouldn’t be able to hear much of anything from his office if he closed the door.  Bones gave her a withering look over his shoulder and she then left with a poorly concealed grin.

Women were a scourge on the Earth.  Or in space.  Or wherever.

In frustration, Bones crossed his arms over his chest, mirroring Jim’s stance.  “You aren’t sick, are you?  Jellico didn’t poison you?”

Crossing sickbay, Jim shook his head.  “Can we go in your office?”

Bones rolled his eyes, but swept an arm down and to his left, indicating Jim should precede him.  There was something off about Jim’s behavior but Bones wasn’t quite sure what it was yet.  Therefore, for now, he’d give Jim the benefit of the doubt – then he’d kick him out of sickbay so he could take a headache blocker and brood.

Jim settled gingerly into his usual chair, perching on edge of the seat rather than nestling deep into it, arms and legs loose in his typical sprawl.  He leaned forward slightly, elbows on his knees, hands lightly clasped together.

Bones closed the door before dropping into his chair.  Unlike Jim, he did sprawl in his chair and was mildly disconcerted when Jim made no effort to ogle him.  Despite the current state of their relationship, Jim had made a point of looking at Bones whenever possible in hopes of convincing Bones to change his mind.  It was part of the reason Bones had taken to avoiding Jim – it was exceptionally difficult to resist any sort of plea in those blue eyes.  He hadn’t realized how accustomed he’d become to being ogled until now.

Bones scowled and continued his questioning.  “You aren’t sick?  You aren’t coughing blood?”  Jim looked up and frowned.  “Sulu didn’t run you through with that katana?”  Jim’s frown turned to a scowl of his own.  “Scotty didn’t make you drink anything resembling lighter fluid?”

“Shut the fuck up, Bones,” he shouted, standing, fists clenched at his sides.

Bones leaned back in his chair and propped his booted feet up on his desk, one ankle over the other as he crossed his arms once again.  Raising one eyebrow, he took in a furious Jim Kirk.  Jim’s nostrils flared with each breath; his chest heaved.  It passed through Bones’s mind that “furious” was a good look for Jim and regretted not being able to adjust his suddenly too-tight pants.

Jim had learned to rein in his temper as captain, though it had been a hard-fought process.  Seeing him now, Bones put more credence in Spock’s concerns about Jim’s recent short trigger.  Bones sighed heavily.  He’d gone about everything with Jim ass-backwards and Jim had suffered the most for it.

“Sit down, Jim,” Bones said wearily.  He had some heavy apologizing to do even before he got around working through his own issues trying to separate his personal and professional feelings.  He’d been working on the feelings part for a month by avoiding thinking about it.

“Why?” he barked in return.

Bones raised an eyebrow.  “Don’t make me make you sit down.”  He jerked his feet off the desk and twisted, leaning forward, forearms flat on the desktop.  “Please, Jim,” he added quietly.

Jim blinked, then seemed to fold in on himself, falling into the chair like a paper lantern cut from its hanger.

“Why are you here if you aren’t sick?”  Even getting Jim to visit sickbay when he was sick was a challenge.  He usually only visited when well if he was trying to get Bones away for recreational activities, and hadn’t visited once since he’d been released after the Traken III incident and its aftermath.

Jim leaned forward, crossing his arms on the edge of the desk and resting his head on them.  He was close enough that Bones could reach forward and touch him if he chose.  If he did, it would be the first voluntary, non-medical touch in nearly a month.  Bones’s fingers twitched.  He missed Jim.  It wasn’t even so much the physical – though that certainly was part of it – as the fact he missed his best friend.

Before he could come to a decision, Jim looked up.  His blue eyes lanced through Bones’s gut like a laser scalpel before moving upward to his heart with deadly precision.  Voice soft, Jim asked, “Can you be sexually harassed by a woman?”

Bones swallowed hard, leaning back.  He wanted to hurt Admiral Jellico in so many creative ways that he couldn’t begin to enumerate them – then he’d turn her over to Spock.  He was certain there were things Spock could do to her that couldn’t be traced back to the Enterprise.  Probably.

As neutrally as he could, he asked, “Are you talking about Admiral Jellico?”

Jim merely stared at him in response, which was confirmation enough.  Then he scoffed and murmured, “I thought only Gaila had that many hands.”

Bones shook his head, the image Jim’s words had put there one he didn’t want.  He liked Gaila and didn’t want to feel the need to injure her – nor did he want to imagine Jellico’s wandering hands.  “I don’t want to know.”

Jim grinned, a genuine grin for the first time in days.  Impulsively, and before he could think himself out of it, Bones reached forward and grabbed Jim’s forearm.  The grin faded into an uneasy hunger, making both of them swallow audibly and Jim lick his lips.

“Have you heard of Directive 563?” Bones asked.  He despised the breathy trembling in his voice as too damned girlish, but was helpless to stop it.

Jim’s eyes widened in shock before he started laughing.  Bones huffed and started to pull his hand away, only to be stopped by Jim’s other hand, pinning his in place.

His laughing softened to an indulgent smile as he asked, “Is that why you’ve put me through such fucking hell since Traken III, Bones?”

Bones glared.  “It hasn’t been a fucking picnic for me, either!”

Jim sobered.  Taking Bones’s hand in both of his, he held Bones’s gaze and said, “Pike assured me that Subdirective A applied to any reasonable relationship.”

“You asked?”  That startled Bones.  Jim rarely planned ahead, preferring instead to live in the moment.  He planned in his professional life, but rarely in his personal life.

A faint blush rose on Jim’s cheeks, so faint anyone but Bones, and possibly Spock, might have missed it.  “I asked because it mattered.”  Jim’s gaze swept down to their entwined hands:  without either of them realizing it, they’d gone from Jim grasping Bones’s hand to Bones twining his fingers with Jim’s.

“You’re turning me into a damn woman,” Bones muttered gruffly.

He expected Jim to pounce on the opening, so he was again surprised when Jim let it pass without any sort of comment.  He’d expected at least a so does that mean I can be on top? in reply and the lack of it was mildly disappointing.  Bones kicked Jim’s foot, startling him.

“What are you going to do about Jellico?” he asked.  Jim frowned, his fingers tightening around Bones’s almost painfully.  “Can you avoid being alone with her?”

Jim stared into the middle distance.  “I can try not to be alone with her, but she’s insistent.”  He began rubbing the webbing between Bones’s thumb and index finger with his thumb, sending little shocks through Bones’ system.  “I used to think sleeping my way to the top would be simple, an easy track to the top if I wanted it that way.”  He brought his eyes to Bones’s, though Bones wasn’t sure how much Jim was actually seeing.  “I mean, my body is an easy commodity according to most.  It’s already assumed I’ve slept with anything and everyone.”

His gaze narrowed and focused intently on Bones, echoes of pain at the edges of that look.  He hadn’t stopped stroking Bones’s hand, but it was most absent-minded now though no less arousing.

“I haven’t, you know.”

Licking his suddenly too-dry lips, Bones found himself wanting to throw caution to the wind and pin Jim to the wall.  He wanted to nibble his way down his neck, slide that black shirt up, run his hands over Jim’s stomach and feel him tense and moan.  He wanted Jim to writhe and burn and come undone underneath him, consequences be damned.

He shifted uncomfortably, clearing his throat.  “Haven’t what?”

A small, ironic smile quirked one corner of Jim’s too-pretty mouth.  “Slept with anyone else.”

Bones scoffed.  “That’s a lie.  I know you have.  You were hardly a virgin.”

Jim grinned slowly, tilting his head down so he could give Bones the up-through-the-lashes look that usually got him fucked within an inch of too sore to sit.  Bones groaned and scowled.

“I meant since we started – ” he gestured between them with his free hand “ – I haven’t slept with anyone else.”

Two years, Bones’s mind supplied.  It had been about two years since they first made the change from just friends.

Heat flared again, making Bones blow out a pent-up breath.  They hadn’t talked about fidelity, some unspoken understanding being that Bones would almost certainly be faithful while Jim would almost certainly stray underlying things – at least in Bones’s mind.  He’d underestimated Jim again and felt foolish for doing so.

“I . . . I didn’t know,” he said, emotion hoarsening his voice even more than usual.

“I know you didn’t,” Jim replied.  “It needed to be said now, though.  Jellico thinks I’m some empty-headed, pretty boy toy.”  Bones rolled his eyes while Jim grinned widely.  “Well, I am pretty.”

“You wouldn’t be a captain, let alone captain of the Enterprise, at twenty-five, if you were empty-headed,” Bones murmured.  If anything, Jim was too frighteningly intelligent sometimes.

“She’s trying to involve me in something,” Jim added.  “I’m not sure what, but if I can keep her hands off me long enough, I can find out.”

There was a brief moment of clarity during which Bones registered that Jellico was attempting to recruit Jim into whatever she was trying to do at Starfleet.  Then it was overridden by the idea of Jellico’s hands on Jim, knowing now that Jim had been only his for two years.  Bones’s hand tightened possessively on Jim’s.  “She’s had her hands on you?”

Jim’s eyebrows rose.  “Maybe.”

Though he knew he had no right to it, not after the way he’d treated Jim, a red haze seemed to cloud Bones’s vision.  He leapt up, moved around his desk, and hauled Jim up from his chair.  Barely registering Jim’s startled expression, he pulled him into his arms.  Jim was whole, uninjured.  He would be injured again in the future, possibly killed, but until then, he belonged to Leonard McCoy.

Wrapped his arms around Jim and grabbing his ass, Bones hissed, “Mine.”

Jim nodded, a smile toying at his lips.  “Yours.”  Then he pulled Bones in for a kiss, tangling his hands into Bones’s hair and ravaging his mouth.  He drove his tongue deep into Bones’s mouth, tasting and devouring, as if he were trying to make up for lost time.

Bones back him up against the wall of his office, unsurprised when Jim straddled his thigh and moaned.  Jim was hot and hard against him.  It was all Bones could do not to either drop to his knees and pull open Jim’s pants or toss Jim onto his desk and have his way with him.

The door chimed.

Jim broke the kiss, dropping his forehead against Bones’s, and panted, “Fuck no.”

The door chimed again.

Bones pulled back, panting heavily.  Smoothing his shirt and hair, he took a deep breath in an attempt to steady himself.  Jim took the opportunity to sprawl in his usual chair in his usual fashion – and disguise his arousal.  Bones smiled.

“Don’t smile when you answer the door,” Jim advised.  “You’ll scare people.”

Scowling, Bones rolled his eyes, making Jim grin.  Bones answered the door to find Ensign Crowle with a PADD in her hand.

“Yes, Ensign?” he barked.  Given that she was probably sent to discover if there was anything nefarious going on, it was just as well she had arrived when she did and not five minutes later.

“I have the report you wanted,” she replied, handing over the PADD with one trembling hand.

Bones took it, but didn’t look at it.  He hadn’t requested any reports.  She glanced at Jim, then back at Bones.

“Was there anything else, Ensign?”

“No, sir.”

“Dismissed,” he spat, then closed the door.

“That was awfully cold, wasn’t it?” Jim murmured.  Bones threw himself into his chair and rummaged in his desk.  “I mean, I know we were interrupted, but that was no way to treat a lowly ensign.”

Bones emerged with a brand new bottle of bourbon and two clean glasses.  If he couldn’t have Jim, he’d have a drink.  Slamming the bottle and glasses onto his desktop, he hissed, “Let’s have a drink and I’ll tell you all about that ensign and what Admiral Jellico is trying to get you involved in.”  He picked up the bottle and waved it.  “This is the most entertainment I can offer to you tonight.”

He’d explain to Spock later why he told Jim about Starfleet’s conspiracy.

And he vowed they’d make a detour after dropping Jellico at Starbase 642.  Risa sounded good.