the Dalaverse

This is the second of ivorysilk's fics. It was a lot of fun to write, which is why it ended up being about three times as long as I intended.


Title: Five Space Pets Jim Brought Home and One Bones Let Him Keep
Author: Dala
Pairing: Kirk/McCoy
Rating: R
Disclaimer: standard applies; images all acquired from Google
Author's Note: Written as an exceptionally late help_haiti gift for ivorysilk, for her prompt using these words: blossom, spring, puppy, clean, report. Contains pictures, very brief sort-of mpreg, and possibly the violation of your childhood memories (so sorry about #2...)



Five Space Pets Jim Brought Home and One Bones Let Him Keep


1.

"But Bones, Scotty swears he figured out how to make them sterile!"

Bones crosses his arms over his chest and narrows his eyes at his captain. "After all that trouble they caused? What the hell were you thinking, Jim?"

The tribble in Jim's arms lets out a trill with a slight warning edge. Jim rubs his palm over its soft ash-colored fur. "It's okay, Cy, that’s just Bones’s natural charm."

"Cy?"

"After the Iowa State mascot," says Jim. Off Bones's skeptical look, he mutters, "Okay, so I only went for a semester, but I was feeling nostalgic today."

Bones sighs, dropping onto the bed with his head in his hands. "How much time would it take me to talk you out of this?"

"More than you have," Jim replies cheerfully, kneeling next to him and taking care not to jostle Cy. "I don't see what the big deal is anyway, now that we've taken care of that whole born-pregnant thing. Tribbles are clean, useful as a Klingon warning system, and they have a calming effect on the human nervous system."

"I know that, I ran the tests," Bones snaps, making a face when Jim settles the tribble on his shoulder. "Dammit, Jim, get that thing - huh." He frowns, craning his neck to peer at the contentedly cooing ball of fur. "I've had a headache all morning and it feels like it's staring to go away."

"See?" Jim ducks around Cy to peck him on the lips. "It's the best possible pet a perpetually stressed-out grouch like you could have."

Bones grunts in a doubtful sort of way, but he strokes a finger over Cy's head -- torso -- whatever.

True to Jim's word, one tribble stays one tribble instead of multiplying into five. Cy is low-maintenance enough to fit into their busy schedules, and though Bones still feigns an air of disinterest, Jim catches him patting the tribble before he turns out the lights.

Over the next week, Jim finds himself craving slightly strange foods at odd hours of the day -- he programs spaghetti with ranch dressing into the replicator for breakfast, stuffs himself with peanut butter-and-date sandwiches midway through beta shift, wakes up at 02:00 with a craving for plomeek soup sprinkled with bacon bits. Bones gives him a wary eye, but all of it stays down so there's not much he can do except refuse to make out with Jim after he's eaten something gross.

Then he wakes up one morning to Bones's long fingers poking him in the side. Jim is tempted to whap him with a pillow until Bones points it out: a hard bump under his skin, about the size of a ping-pong ball. It doesn't hurt; in fact Jim can't feel it at all, and can't say for sure if it was there the day before.

Bones hauls him down to sick bay and scans him. His furrowed brows slowly, slowly stretch all the way up like an old time-lapse recording of a plant shooting out of the ground.

Then he laughs.

"What?" Jim demands, hunching forward on the biobed. "What is it? Is it a tumor?" He's pretty sure Bones wouldn't be laughing if something were truly wrong, but maybe it's some freaky space disease and uncontrollable hysteria is Bones's first symptom.

"It's not a tumor." Bones turns the screen around to show him. There's the little round lump nestled under his ribs, outlined in glowing red. He squints. Is it...vibrating?

"Scotty might be an engineering genius, but he should stick to mechanics," Bones says with one last chortle. "Cy didn't reproduce in the usual way, Jim. Somehow it found a way to implant a fully formed tribble fetus in you."

Jim's jaw drops as he stares at the image. "What the fuck."

Bones and Spock argue over the science of it, but in the end the baby tribble is surgically extracted without complication to Jim's health or its own. Mother (father? Jim doesn't even fucking know) and child are happily reunited, quarantined, and within a day have produced two more offspring all on their own. Jim is damned lucky the Enterprise is due for a supply stop at Starbase 17, which happens to house a research station that is only too happy to take the little family of fluffballs. They're up to eleven by then, despite all the prophylactic injections Bones tried. Jim is also damned lucky that the new breeding method seems to be a last-ditch effort at reproduction when there are no other tribbles in range, since no one else experiences spontaneous tribble pregnancies. It's one more embarrassing footnote in his reports to Starfleet, but at least he manages to keep it off the ship's gossip network.

"He was a good pet," says Jim wistfully, giving Cy one last pat. "Until he knocked me up, I mean."

Bones just rolls his eyes and waves the transport on.





2.

Jim gives the pet thing a rest for awhile after the whole mess with the tribbles. Leonard couldn't bring himself to needle him too hard about it; not even Spock had predicted they would adapt to sterility in such a way. He doesn't miss the little fuzzball himself, but he does make sure to pay Jim some extra attention whenever he starts sneaking sad looks at the bedside shelf where Cy used to spend the night.

But Leonard's sympathies extend only so far; a tentacle monster is just asking too much.

"'Monster' is a bit harsh," Jim says in a wounded tone.

"I'm tellin' you no, Jim!"

This is hardly the first fight they've had on the transporter pad. Most of the survey team slinks away and Scotty at the controls quickly finds an elsewhere to look. But Sulu, unsurprisingly, takes Jim's side.

"Aw, c'mon, doc, it was a gift from the welcoming committee. Science has already checked it out, it‘s not dangerous."

The little blue thing huddled against Jim's leg peers up at Leonard with wide eyes, uttering a quiet, interrogative yip noise. Which, okay, is kind of cute coming out of its wide, wrinkly mouth. That's not what Leonard has a problem with. He just doesn't think people -- or at least humans who grew up on Earth with proper dogs and cats and hamsters and the occasional pet gecko -- were meant to live with small furry-tentacled beings. And he says as much.

"If I may intercede," says Spock, raising a finger, "the natives of this planet raise these creatures for companionship and indicated that they make agreeable pets, as they can be trained to dispose of their waste in a single location."

Leonard fights the urge to stomp his foot, but it's a near thing. "I'm not house-training anything with tentacles!"

The tentacled thing makes a low, distressed sound and hides its face against Jim's boot.

"Well, now you've upset him. I hope you feel good about yourself," says Jim icily, scooping the creature up in his arms and stalking out of the transporter room.

Needless to say, Leonard loses that argument. The tentacle thing (Leonard can't pronounce its species to save his life; Jim picked the name Mango for no discernible reason) is quiet and well-behaved, and he does use the domed litterbox Jim jury-rigs so its contents dump into the ship's waste disposal system. He's also more visibly affectionate than the tribble, which Jim likes. Leonard still thinks it's weird as fuck, but as long as he keeps his tentacles to himself and curls up on Jim's side of the sofa it's not so bad.

Things might have gone on like that if Mango hadn't broken Leonard's number one rule. It's a pretty average night, nothing in particular going on, except Jim hasn't gotten himself shot at or stabbed or kidnapped recently so he's a little stir-crazy. Leonard takes it upon himself to work out this excess energy in the bedroom. He's got Jim writhing and panting, just about to hit the begging stage, when he goes perfectly still.

"Oh yeah, Bones, that‘s -- Bones?"

"Jim," says Leonard very quietly, "where are your hands?"

Jim blinks up at him, confused and lust-stupid. One hand tweaks his nipple, the other waves from above the pillow where he pinned it two minutes ago.

Leonard turns his head and Jim follows his gaze, down the bed, where Mango has slithered up amidst the tangled sheets. He makes that long, low ohhhhhh noise and runs a curious tentacle over Leonard's bare ass.

Jim flinches and shouts, "Bad cephalapod, bad!"

Leonard doesn't bother to mind his knees and elbows as he flails out of bed.

They try putting him out in the common room, but he yips louder and louder until Leonard can't take it anymore (and of fucking course Jim can't listen to his baby cry). Leonard huffs in frustration and rolls onto his side while Jim croons apologies to the nosy-ass interloper. He's drifted off by the time Jim presses up against his back, whispering that Mango's sleeping by the bookcase and maybe if they're very, very quiet...

They are.

It doesn't help.

The thing must have some kind of boner detector, because they can't even jerk off in the shower without hearing an endless litany of yip-yip, yip-YIP from outside the door. Jim claims he's just jealous and points out that there's always Leonard's office, the ready room, "broken" lifts, supply closets, et cetera. Leonard is still creeped out. And horny. Eventually even Jim has to concede that a man can't live on lunchtime quickies alone (to his credit, he holds out a lot longer than Leonard would've put money on).

So Mango gets dropped off on his native planet when they return to sign an official Federation treaty. "He'll probably be happier here, anyway," Jim sighs as the transporter beam starts to shimmer around them.

"I'm sure," says Leonard. Then he grabs Jim's wrist, drags him through the corridors to their quarters, and locks the door to all override codes.





3.

Sulu’s not much of an animal person; he thinks rodents and reptiles are creepy, birds make him nervous, cats always seem like they’re hiding something, and an uncle’s German shepherd bowling him over when he was four has apparently scarred him for life. Therefore he can’t really sympathize with Jim’s drunken outburst at poker night. But he never likes to see his friends unhappy, so the next evening he presents Jim with a small plant in a bright orange pot.

“Just water it twice a week, feed it a pinch of this --” He shakes out a little package of plant food. “--and turn your lamp to this setting for a few hours every day.” Arranging the pot just so on Jim’s desk, he fingers a waxy green leaf. “I know it’s not the same as a flesh-and-blood pet, but you’d be surprised what good company plants make.” He smiles his easygoing smile at Jim. “They’ll listen to all your gripes and secrets and never tell a soul.”

Jim has never been particularly interested in plants, aside from the few he’s smoked over the years, but he’s touched by the gesture. “Thanks, Hikaru. It’s really nice.”

Sulu hesitates by the door, looking over his shoulder at the plant. “I started calling it Roxanne, by the way. Not that you have to keep that name, or, you know, name it anything at all.” The tops of his ears turn pink. Jim gives him a sober nod.

“Roxanne it is. You can come by and visit her any time you like.”

He perks up at that. “Really?”

“Sure,” Jim says, clapping him on the back and praying he can keep the plant alive for at least a week.

It must be hardier than it looks, because even his dirt-brown thumb can’t kill it. And Sulu has a point about its impeccable listening skills; he doesn’t intend to start talking to it, but one “Hey, Roxanne” turns into “Let me bounce this comm to the brass off of you” and it quickly becomes a habit. Bones thinks this is hilarious, of course. Jim points out that at least he’s talking to an actual external object, not muttering to himself under his breath like Bones does when he’s stressed. Then it turns into a bit of a wrestling match and poor Roxanne nearly becomes a casualty until they manage to land on the couch.

Sulu said the plant was a few weeks away from flowering; it’s a crossbreed between several species picked up in recent travels, so he can’t tell exactly what its blossoms will look like. Jim has to admit he’s kind of excited to see it, having watched the buds grow slowly but steadily under his care. As luck would have it, he catches some kind of alien flu at a first contact summit right around Roxanne’s due date. He tries to explain to Bones that he needs to go back to his room and tend the baby flowers, but he’s a little delirious at the time and they insist on keeping him under quarantine. He forgets about it until after the fever breaks, then feels horribly guilty.

“Yes, I fed your stupid plant,” Bones assures him, checking his temperature by hand for the tenth time. Jim thinks it must’ve gotten pretty bad, judging by the circles under Bones’s eyes and the state of his stubble, and is glad he doesn’t remember much. “It bloomed, but the flowers are all closed up now.”

“Oh,” says Jim, wilting a little himself.

Bones heaves the sigh of the long-suffering boyfriend and plucks a padd from his coat pocket. “I took pictures for you.”

Jim grins and thumbs the screen on. “Thanks, Bones!”

It seems he caught it just as the buds were opening, their deep pink hue shading lighter on the inside of the petals, with a prominent purple stigma. It’s...wow. It’s long. And thick. And has a misshapen bulb on the end. “Hey, does this look like a --”

“Penis,” Bones replies matter-of-factly, rolling his eyes at Jim’s snicker. “Yes, it looked exactly like a penis, and don’t go getting any ideas because you’re on bed rest for another three days.”

Bones is usually pretty strict about the no-sex-during-recovery-from-death’s-door rule, but this time he gives in after only a day and a half. Jim feels pretty smug about that, and about the fact that Bones can’t keep his hands to himself for the rest of Jim’s home arrest. Actually, even after he’s back on regular duty, Bones is still pretty insatiable.

They’ve always had a healthy sex life, from the early days at the Academy when they were still seeing other people but falling into bed together more and more often, right up to when a madman blew up a planet and sent an answering shockwave through their priorities. Jim admitted to himself that he’d fallen for his best friend and Bones let himself believe Jim was in this for good, and the sex went from amazing but safe to something he’d never had, something he couldn’t live without. They got so wrapped up in each other they didn’t leave the apartment for days at a time, almost missing Jim’s commendation ceremony (and the twinkle in Pike’s eyes implied he knew exactly why they were late, the bastard).

This is kind of like that time, though without the sharp edges of fear and loss. Bones wakes him with blowjobs, yanks him into the shower, bends him over his desk at lunch, meets him at the door after work with a honeyed drawl and a hand down his pants. At first it’s exciting, especially when he fulfills a long-cherished fantasy by fucking Jim in his captain’s chair. Jim doesn’t even have to talk him into it. Bones just licks his lips, gives Jim the kind of slow up-and-down that makes him instantly hard, and says, “Why not?”

So yeah, that’s pretty fucking awesome. But after a week or so Jim is starting to get worried, and exhausted, and frankly pretty sore. The tipping point comes when Bones calls him in the middle of his shift over the ship’s comm (because Jim has been ignoring his not-so-subtle text messages).

“Captain, could you please meet me in sick bay at your earliest convenience? There’s an urgent matter I’d like to discuss.”

Jim shifts in his chair, trying to hide a wince. They’d had sex in the shower that morning, again. Jim had been tired because someone had woken him up at oh-dark-thirty, and he slipped and banged his knee on the soap dish. Also he thinks he pulled a muscle in his back. He’s just all kinds of achy today. “I’m sorry, Doctor McCoy, I’m busy at the moment. I’ll see you after shift.”

A pause. Then, “But it really is...urgent. Sir.”

Jim feels his cheeks flushing. Is he drinking? There’s no other excuse for putting that sexy voice on in the middle of the day. And damn him because it’s still working, and Jim can see Uhura staring out of the corner of his eye.

“Doctor, perhaps I might be able to assist you?” Spock asks politely.

“No!” they chorus, taking Spock aback. Chekov’s brow wrinkles in confusion. Uhura lets out an unladylike noise behind Jim. She’s definitely figured something out.

Sulu suddenly sits bolt upright and hisses, “Oh my god.” He spins around in his chair. “Excuse me, sir, I’m gonna take my lunch break now.” And he practically runs out off the bridge. Jim waves a hand before Spock can voice his obvious disapproval, though he doesn’t have the first clue what lit a fire under Sulu’s ass.

Bones sends him a few pissed off messages and then there’s radio silence. When Jim gets back to their quarters, he finds a plate of steak and mashed potatoes and a beer waiting for him. Bones apologizes for embarrassing him on the bridge and they have slow, sweet make-up sex, by candlelight, Jim topping and Bones whispering endearments with his legs wrapped around Jim’s waist. Jim feels a twinge in his back and knows he will regret it once the endorphins wear off, but he’s never been good at staying out of his own way.

Sulu shows up on his doorstep the next morning just as Little Bones is nudging hopefully at his thigh. Bones growls as Jim slips out of bed, but he’s still mostly asleep and he just rolls over into the warm spot.

“Hey, man, I need your plant,” Sulu says by way of a greeting.

“Roxanne? Why?”

He grimaces and scratches an ear. His hair is sticking up in crazy tufts all over his head. “So you know how this was an experimental cross-breed? Turns out one of the plants releases a pollen that...affects human behavior.”

Jim stares at him, beginning to get an inkling of what he’s talking about.

“I noted it in the parent plant, but I didn’t think the cutting I gave you would have the trait. Even if it did, you weren’t around when it was in bloom and you didn’t, um, exhibit any of the signs, so I figured I was right and it was safe. I didn’t think of McCoy getting close to it.”

He can see it now, Bones leaning over Roxanne to get the best angle for his photos, inhaling a puff of pollen.

“Sex pollen,” he says aloud, raising his eyes to the ceiling. “And to think, my Alien Flora and Fauna professor said it was a myth.”

“Apparently not.” Sulu gives him a sympathetic look. “Sorry about that. Spock’s working on an antidote now, we should have it ready in a few hours.”

Oh, Bones is going to be thrilled that Spock is in on this. Not that he doesn’t deserve it, since he went and got high off of sex pollen and tried his best to kill the famed James T. Kirk libido. A little shame and Vulcan condescension will be good for him.

Bones’s voice drifts out of the open bedroom door, rough with sleep, the way he sounds when he’s lazily touching himself. “You comin’ back to bed, baby?” Normally that voice makes Jim weak in the knees. Now it just makes his stiff neck spasm.

“So sorry,” Sulu repeats, quickly backing up, Roxanne tucked under his arm. “I’ll go see if Spock can’t speed things up.”

Jim bids a silent farewell to his pet sex pollen plant, Bones calls out to him in a throaty moan, and he seriously considers swiping a tranquilizer hypo from the emergency kit under the bed.





4.

Leonard has always liked cats. His mother’s beloved cat Jake had been a fat, contented creature of advancing years when Leonard was a toddler; he used to let Leonard tug on his ears and pull his tail, never scratching or biting, only looking to the grownups with pleading in his amber eyes when he truly needed rescue. The barn cats at his grandfather’s farm, on the other hand, cut him to ribbons when he tried to play with them. Still, he admired their wary independence and the way they’d sometimes rub up against your hand if you held it out and kept still, accepting affection only on their own terms.

Jim is clearly expecting a fuss when he brings the little gray cat home, but Leonard enjoys being contrary as much as he enjoys cats. He merely asks if it’s house-trained.

"You’re…okay with this?" Jim is studying Leonard suspiciously while the cat noses around their quarters.

"Jim, after every other damn thing we’ve been through, an ordinary tabby cat doesn’t seem like such a bad idea. Besides, it’s kind of traditional, you bein’ a ship’s captain and all." He grins and runs his knuckles down the cat’s spine; it mrows, flicks its tail, and sidles around to meet his hand again. "You name him yet?"

"She, and no, I haven’t." Jim leans back in his desk chair, looking thoughtful. "Why don’t you? She seems to have taken to you."

"Sure," says Leonard, skritching between the cat’s ears. "She’s a regal-looking thing…what about Gaia?"

Jim’s smile is soft. "Homesick, Bones?"

He scoffs, getting to his feet - he’s too old be crouching down like this, it’s a wonder his knees aren’t creaking. "If you don’t like it --"

"I like it," Jim insists. He trails an old bootlace across the floor and laughs when the cat pounces on it. "Gaia it is. And Gaila will be flattered that it's so close to her name."

Gaia’s fairly young and quite a bit livelier than old Jake, but she’s also happy to sit on their laps when she’s tuckered out from playing. Leonard rolls his eyes at the sing-song voice Jim adopts to talk to her, but then again he’s the one feeding her scraps under the table. She sleeps on their bed at night, taking up more than her fair share of surface area as cats are wont to do, and greets them at the door with vocal demands for food and affection. It could get to be a nice routine, Leonard thinks.

They’ve only had her for a few days when the jail breaking starts. Leonard is in the middle of his lunch and an article from an old med school colleague when Gaia saunters through the door and hops up on his desk, nosing at his ham sandwich. Leonard escorts her back to their quarters, figuring she must’ve slipped out when they‘d left for duty that morning -- he was a little distracted by the hickey Jim had just sucked into his neck, and Jim was busy smirking over it. He makes sure the coast is clear before he leaves.

Two days later, they‘re lying around watching one of the loud, exploding movies Jim likes. Leonard leans back against him and dozes while Jim idly traces patterns over his stomach. Gaia springs up onto the arm of the couch and settles down, purring.

"That reminds me," Jim says, nuzzling at Leonard’s ear. "Can you double-check that Gaia doesn’t slip out when you’re leaving by yourself? She snuck onto the bridge this morning."

Leonard frowns. Jim got up early to go to the gym and Leonard had been absolutely certain the cat was still inside when he left -- in fact, he could hear the jingle of the toy mouse Uhura had made her as the door slid shut.

"I know she didn’t get out, Jim. I made sure of it, because she got out a couple days ago and paid me a visit in my office."

Jim huffs a breath against his neck. "Huh. Weird."

"You think someone could’ve gotten in here?" Leonard twists around in his arms. Jim shakes his head.

"Only you and Spock would have the clearance for that. Still…Computer, report all access to the captain’s quarters within the last twenty-four hours."

The computer assures them in its cool voice that they were the only people to enter and exit the captain’s quarters.

"Now I’m really curious," Jim mutters, nudging Leonard upright. He goes with a grumble. Jim peers at Gaia. "What are you up to, Miss Kitty?"

She blinks sleepily at him and stretches her front legs out, hooking her claws lightly into the fabric without snagging it. Jim walks over to the computer terminal and sits down, cracking his knuckles. "Let’s see if we can’t find out."

Gaia is entered into the system so her life sign won’t register as an intrusion, but the computer doesn’t track her the way it does the crew. Jim fixes that and adds an alert to be sent to his comm if she strays outside the captain’s quarters. He also sets up several monitors to record in the common room. Leonard gets the full report by the end of the day, in a semi-formal meeting in Jim’s ready room.

"Let me get this straight. You’re telling me we have a teleporting cat?"

Jim and Scotty nod eagerly; Spock says, "Correct, Doctor"; Chekov is busy scratching out equations on a padd.

"That’s why I couldn’t get a straight answer on where she came from," Jim says, tapping his index finger on the table. "I got her from Janice, who confiscated her from Ensign Yang, who took her from Lieutenant Corbett because turns out he has allergies, and Corbett just found her napping in Rec Room Four one day. She must have, you know, gotten herself aboard when we stopped in at Betazed last week.”

"Or when we rendezvoused with the Kennedy," Scotty points out. "Cats’re hardy little beasts, she could’ve been wandering about the ship for some time before somebody picked ‘er up."

Leonard shakes his head, feeling like he’s had one too many. The barn cats might've been feral but at least they couldn't get in and out of locked rooms. "How is it even possible?"

Scotty and Chekov exchange looks. "We don’t know, sir," says Chekov. "If it is inborn trait, or the result of genetic engineering, perhaps. We have placed a tracker on her collar, but it has no effect on her ability to transport."

Jim beams at Leonard. "Isn’t it cool, though?"

"No," said Leonard slowly, catching Spock’s eye. He looks pained, which on a Vulcan resembles mild constipation, but Leonard can read him pretty well by now. "Jim, it’s really -- she can’t stay on the ship."

Jim's face falls. He sits back in his chair. "What? Why not?"

Oh great, now the bastard’s avoiding eye contact altogether, thereby leaving it up to Leonard to break Jim’s heart. He loves that cat, dammit, and Leonard’s grown pretty fond of her too.

"Think about it, Jim," he says gently. "We’re talking about a being whose movements can’t be predicted or controlled. She came to see me at lunchtime -- what if I’d been in surgery and she walked through a sterile field? What if she popped onto the bridge during an engagement and jumped on the weapons console? Or teleported herself off the ship when we’re on a mission and got lost, or --"

"I get it," Jim snaps. Leonard falls silent, knowing the scowl is a defense mechanism. "You’re right." He sighs heavily and pinches the bridge of his nose. "Of course you’re right."

"Captain, shall we set a return course to Betazed? I have researched their genetics laboratories and found several with a focus on experimental protocol. The cat will no doubt make an interesting research subject."

Leonard glares across the table. The lack of tact is still astonishing to him even after all this time. And after they’ve heard all about that fanged teddy bear of his, too -- the sehlat? Sehlek? He could show Jim some goddamn compassion, is Leonard’s point.

Jim waves a hand in dismissal, his shoulders slumped. "Yes, Mr. Spock, please address the crew to notify them of the detour. But don’t mention the cat, okay? Everybody likes her too much. Just...make something up."

Spock’s eyebrows draw together and Leonard swears to god, if he says anything insensitive or starts talking about Gaia being a research subject again --

But Spock merely nods and says, "Yes, Jim."





5.

Okay, so Jim admits he's had some bad luck in the pet department, and made Bones's life slightly more difficult in the process. But who could possibly say no to fish? They don't make noise, they don't require much attention, they don't try to get freaky with their owners. They exist only to beautify their surroundings.

And these fish are definitely beautiful. He picked three up from a tide pool on the unnamed, uninhabited planet of the week: one small and quick and bright green, one with vivid silver and black stripes and long, spiky fins, and a blue one that looks like a many- armed starfish but moves with the languid grace of a jellyfish. Jim names them Tiberius, Livingston, and Horatio. The water filtration system in their tank makes a noise that Jim can just barely hear but finds almost soothing.

Bones doesn't object to the fish, but he doesn't show much interest in them either. "Pretty," he says with a shrug when Jim points out how the tank light ripples over Livingston's scales. Jim shakes his head and returns to watching his fish. It's funny because they don't do much -- really, they don't do anything -- but he can sit and watch them for what feels like hours. He's actually late for his shift once or twice because he loses track of time.

At least it's not just him; Chapel comes by one afternoon to ask Bones something and ends up sitting next to Jim on the sofa, mesmerized by the fish. By the time Bones gets back to find them staring at the tank, she's forgotten the question.

Jim even finds himself thinking about the fish during working hours, relaxing his gaze into the starfield until he can almost see the tank in front of him. It's kind of what he figures meditation might be like; in any case, it’s peaceful. Too peaceful, at times. Rand has to ask him twice to sign off on some paperwork; Spock nearly resorts to physical contact to catch his attention about some ship-wide scan he wants to run. At night he falls asleep to the sound of Bones' snores but dreams of racing through deep, dark waters, crushing helpless smaller creatures in his jaws for the sheer pleasure of it.

At some point Bones tells him that he's been quiet and distant lately, but it's not an accusation; he wonders if Jim is unhappy with their relationship, if he's changed his mind, if this whole thing is too much for him. Jim takes his hand and says that maybe they should spend a little time apart, just to make sure that this is what they really want. He looks past the pain and resignation on Bones's open face to see Horatio turning languid cartwheels, and smiles.

He asks Scotty if it might be possible to build a swimming pool on the Enterprise, maybe in one of the rec rooms. Scotty scratches his head and says he could do it, but it's not exactly regulation. Jim slaps his shoulder and says Starfleet doesn't have to know.

He's started taking gamma shift on the grounds that it will give the junior officers a chance to get more familiar with their commanding officer; it also means less conversation on the bridge, fewer interruptions. One night his usual vision of calm oceans in the stars is slashed through with bright red, the color of blood, blinding him even after he closes his eyes. Then there is pain, sharp and sudden at his temples, the back of his skull -- and darkness.

"Jim?"

Bones is generally the first thing Jim sees when he fights his way out of unconsciousness, but this time it's different. This time, it's as if he hasn't seen him in weeks.

Jim reaches out in panic, making a choked sound low in his throat. Bones holds onto his trembling hands and bends over him, shielding him from the harsh lights of sick bay with his body. "It's all right," he's saying as Jim gasps and tries to cut through the fog of memory, "it's all right now, darlin', shhh, I got you."

"What -- what happened?" Jim asks when he's managed a state of relative calm, though he still feels wildness running through his veins.

Bones glances up at the ceiling like he‘s trying to figure out how to start. "Do you remember Spock asking your permission to test the crew for psi-ability, because he was sensing the presence of another mind-reader and it didn't match up with our records?"

Jim nods, then shakes his head -- he does remember, vaguely, but it didn't sound as alarming then as it does now.

Bones' mouth twists bitterly. "It was those goddamned fish, Jim. They're psychic predators and they grow a hell of a lot bigger on their world -- it's just there weren't any big ones in the survey because they'd started dying off. They were looking for a new planet to colonize, and they were using us -- using you to do it."

"How?" Jim croaks.

"Spock got the gist of it, before he -- destroyed them," says Bones tightly. "I guess the -- the mental link between your mind and theirs was severed. That's when you passed out." He rakes a hand through his disheveled hair, hazel eyes haunted. "God, Jim, I'm so sorry, I should've known something was wrong --"

Jim squeezes his hand. "Not your fault, Bones. But..." He's starting to remember more of it now, like he's coming up for air after being underwater for a long time. Which, he supposes, is more or less accurate.

"What, Jim?"

Jim reaches up to trace the worry lines he loves so much, even as he feels guilty for putting them there.

"Can you move your stuff back before you let me out of here?"

Bones smiles and kisses the palm of Jim's hand. "Yeah, kid, I can do that."





+1.

Jim gives up the idea of keeping a pet after that. Leonard can't blame him, and he doesn't mind coming home to just the two of them after a long shift or a bad mission. If Jim still feels like there's something missing, he doesn't mention it.

Six months after the incident with the fish, the Enterprise receives orders to warp to a nearby Class L planet with a colony of six thousand settlers. In recent months their crop production had begun to slow, but the citizens' council declined evacuation assistance, insisting they could stick it out in the unforgiving landscape. A week ago, the Federation lost all contact with them. The orders come from Admiral Pike himself and Leonard understands why; he suspects they include a private note for Jim which he chooses not to share. Leonard hopes it was an apology.

There is no Kodos on this world and the loss isn't as bad as they'd feared. But most everyone left is sick and starving, a good number of them unable to leave their beds, and Leonard knows they'll lose more before this is over. He throws himself into triage and treatment, leaving Jim and Spock to draw up the duty rosters so his med team gets as much help as possible. He barely sleeps or eats for four days, until the captain personally threatens to hypospray his ass if he doesn't get some rest.

"Plank in your eye, Jim," says Leonard with a heat he doesn't feel. Jim is just as haggard as the rest of them and he's got all those ghosts in his past besides.

Spock cocks his head. "Matthew 7, verse 3, I believe." Leonard nods, too exhausted to make any of the smart remarks that come to mind.

"And a point well-taken." Jim gives him a weary, watery smile and puts an arm around his shoulders. It's an intimacy that he wouldn't normally indulge with the healthier colonists bustling in and out of their dank little command center, but one they both sorely need. "I'll join you as soon as I finish this log, Bones."

Leonard heads off to the sleeping quarters he was appointed when they arrived but hasn't yet seen. They're spartan but clean and quiet, and he falls onto the bed before he even gets his boots off. He wakes a little while later to Jim pulling them free and sliding in next to him. Leonard tries to gather his wits enough to speak, but Jim shakes his head: not now. So Leonard draws him close, kisses his bruised eyelids, and goes back to sleep.

On the eighth day he breaks, wakes up screaming in Leonard's arms. His face is hot and damp against Leonard's skin, his words of regret and guilt and pain burning like a brand. Leonard holds him tight until the shaking stops. Suddenly Jim is kissing him fiercely, roughly, shifting and grasping in frustration until he's got Leonard's full weight atop him, pressing him down into the thin mattress. All the fight goes out of him then. He laces their fingers together and breathes out Leonard's name. Leonard kisses his mouth and moves against him, rocking their hips together until Jim comes with a hoarse cry. Burying his face in the curve of Jim's neck, Leonard follows him.

They're on Carrferus for a month, three other Starfleet vessels joining them to replenish the Enterprise’s supplies and transport the refugees. To no one's surprise, Jim chooses to take the orphaned children aboard his own ship. He sets up cots in the rec rooms so they can stay together, asking for volunteers to serve as their caretakers for the journey. So many crew members sign up that he has to put them on rotations.

Jim, of course, is unofficially working through all those shifts whenever he's off-duty. Leonard finds him in Rec Room Six a few days after they've disembarked, holding court to a group of wide-eyed kids. They’re all looking a helluva lot better after a month of proper nutrition and they’re hanging on his every word.

"...and then I found a hollow plant to load the powder in, and boom!" He throws his hands up to simulate an explosion, startling the small boy perched on his knee. Leonard rolls his eyes, but a smile tugs at the corners of his mouth.

Jim catches his eye and grins. Hoisting the boy -- Liam, age five and a half, if Leonard recalls correctly -- off his lap, he says, "Hang on, guys, I've got to talk to Doctor McCoy for a sec." Leonard can hear one little girl muttering, "But did he kill the Gorn?" to another as Jim jogs over to him.

"What's up, Bones?"

"Got something to show you.” Leonard leads him down the hallway to one of the myriad little anterooms connected by Jeffries tubes. Jim’s expression of puzzlement shifts instantly to delight when they duck inside.

“Thanks, Nyota,” Leonard says, taking the leash she’s holding out.

“She piddled in the corner. I cleaned it up; you’re welcome.” But she’s smiling as she steps around Jim, who has crouched down by her feet.

He offers Uhura a distracted thanks and peers up at Leonard, looking more than a bit like the little boy who’d just been sitting on his lap . “Bones, what is this?”

“Your new dog, if you want her.” He kneels down next to them, letting the puppy sniff his hands. “The land couldn’t support livestock, but some families brought their pets. Of course most of the animals...didn’t make it through the drought.” A muscle works in Jim’s jaw; he knows better than Leonard the measures hungry people will take to survive. “But this little girl here, she’s a survivor.”

The puppy rolls onto her back, wriggling in delight as Jim rubs her belly. He still looks a little shell-shocked. “You know, I always wanted a dog most of all. Uncle Frank wouldn’t let me have any pets, but he was allergic to dogs. Mom too; I don’t know how that one skipped me. And after I left home, I was never in the same place very long -- it wouldn’t have been fair to put an animal through that.”

This was always Leonard’s position on having pets aboard a starship, but he’s learned a lot of things about space. It’s Jim’s home, for one, and he deserves all the things a home should have: people he can count on, work that means something, someone who loves him. And the dog he never got to have as a lonely kid.

“It’s a big commitment,” Jim points out, raising an eyebrow. “I mean I’m happy to take on all the work, but she’ll be living in our quarters -- she’ll be yours, too.”

“Jim,” Leonard sighs, scratching behind the pup’s long, silky ears, “after a tribble, an over-friendly tentacle thing, a libido-enhancing house plant, a teleporting cat, and evil psychic fish, a puppy’s going to seem like a walk in the park.” Speaking of which, he needs to figure out how to talk Sulu into giving up a corner of the greenhouse lab as soon as possible. Maybe he can still cash in on the whole sex pollen thing.

Jim throws his arms around Leonard, nearly knocking them both to the deck. “Thank you, Bones. This is --” He gives up on speech and kisses Leonard instead, a measure of gratitude he is always willing to accept.

The puppy whines, trying to recapture Jim’s full attention, and braces her paws on his thighs so she can lick his face. Jim laughs, his blue eyes shining, and Leonard’s heart skips a beat. Yeah, a chewed-up slipper or two is definitely worth making Jim this kind of happy.

They decide to name her Georgia. She leaves Leonard’s slippers alone but eats Jim’s socks. Jim says it’s because Leonard’s feet are toxic and she knows one bite would kill her, and Leonard says it’s because he’s always leaving his socks lying around and maybe the damn dog will finally be able to train him where Leonard’s failed to do so for going on two years now. Georgia gets excitable when they argue, so they settle it the way they settle most everything these days: Leonard sighs in defeat and pulls Jim into a hug so she’ll calm down. She immediately flops down in her basket, tongue lolling, gazing up at them with the perfect equanimity of a contented dog.

“At least she’s an impartial referee,” Leonard remarks wryly.

“Good girl, Georgie!” Jim turns in Leonard’s arms, covering his mouth to stage-whisper, “It’s okay, I know you love me best.”

Leonard snorts and props his chin on Jim’s shoulder, winking at Georgia. She cocks her head to the side and wags her tail. Jim gloats, convinced she’s agreeing with him, and Leonard tucks a smile into the corner of his mouth.