the Dalaverse

My contribution to the jim_and_bones Love Letters challenge! I've always loved me some epistolary fic.


Title: Between the Lines
Somehow the letters that don't get sent always end up where they're meant to be anyway.
Author: Dala
Pairing: Kirk/McCoy
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: standard applies
Written for: the Love Letters challenge at jim_and_bones, from kimuracarter's prompt: "A letter that Bones wrote but never intended Jim to actually read. 'Dear Jim, I know you'll never read this, but I wanted to write it down anyway. I wish I could tell you how I feel ...' And Jim does get his hands on the letter."



Between the Lines


“Jeez, Bones, how did I never notice you had so much stuff?”

Bones sat back on his heels, regarding the haphazard piles of his belongings with a sigh. “Not everybody spends their youth wandering the countryside on a bike, Jim.” As soon as the words left his lips he glanced sidelong at Jim, his mouth pulling downward.

It was true enough -- Jim had moved around a lot once he’d left home, finding and losing jobs, and most of the time he’d only had a duffle bag or two. Three and a half years was the longest he’d lived in one place since he was seventeen by quite a margin, and it had still taken him less than an hour to pack this morning. But he could spot Bones’ spoke-before-thinking expression at a hundred paces and knew he was gearing up for an awkward apology, afraid he’d said something hurtful.

So Jim shrugged and leaned over to inspect a neat stack of books. Some were so worn that they had clearly gone through several generations of McCoys (or been pretty expensive). “Were these in the closet? I don’t recognize them.”

“Yeah, saved me the trouble of dusting ‘em.” Bones’ shirt rode up on his stomach as he stretched his back, revealing a thin strip of pale skin. Jim’s eyes flicked over in reflex before he gently lifted the cover of a slim green volume.

“Sonnets? Why Bones, I never figured you for the --”

He broke off as a folded piece of paper fell into his lap.

“Oh hell,” Bones muttered, reaching for Jim’s arm, which shot into the air through no will of his own.

He grinned as Bones began to turn red and his brows drew down into a thunderous furrow. “Now just what would one stash in a book of poetry, hmm?”

Bones lunged for him and Jim jumped onto the bed to evade him. “I’m thinking love letter.” Unfolding the bottom third to see that it was inscribed with Bones’ handwriting, he hopped up and down in victory. Jackpot.

“God damn it, Jim, give it back!”

It was a merry, if short, chase around the small apartment, but Jim had grown up with an older brother so he had the natural advantage in any game of keep-away. Bones was determined, Jim would give him that, but it didn’t do him much good when Jim feinted to the left, dodged right, and darted past him into the bathroom.

“Jim!” Bones pounded on the door, which to Jim’s fortune was an old-fashioned one with a knob. And a lock. To which Bones did not have a key, so far as he knew. He could’ve hacked a keypad, but probably not before Bones entered the code. “Give me that fucking piece of paper!”

“But it’s addressed to me!” Jim hollered back. “I think that makes it mine.”

“It’s not for --”

Jim cleared his throat loudly and began to read over the increasingly profane protests on the other side of the door. “Dear Jim, I know you’ll never read this, but I wanted to write it down anyway. Why Dr. Puri has six reams of good heavy paper in this office, I can’t say, but this seems safer than than anything connected to the ship’s computer.”

He paused, realizing that Bones had fallen silent.

“I wish I could tell you --” Bones had scratched something out here and Jim couldn’t parse it --”how I feel...” He trailed off, his eyes skimming over the page without getting more than a vague impression. Bones hadn’t signed it.

He read on, silently.



Leonard thumped the back of his head against the wall, the dull ache doing little to distract him from the sick churning in his stomach. How could he possibly have forgotten where he’d stashed the letter? He hadn’t forgotten writing it, that was for damned sure -- seemed he hadn’t gone a day without thinking about the things that were on that paper.

Should’ve thrown it out, he thought miserably. Or better yet, burned it. But it was a habit he’d picked up from his mother, who had always tucked the odd, rare handwritten letter or note away in the books she collected. She loved to go back and find them years later. And she always chose her writers carefully, no matter how he tried to tell himself this had been a random selection.

Hearing tumblers turn in the lock, Leonard closed his eyes. The door opened, and Jim came out, and Leonard could sense him standing there but kept his eyes shut tight. Maybe this was a conversation that had been a long time coming, but he wasn’t too optimistic about the state he’d be in when it was finished.

Jim’s voice, when he spoke, was low and even.

“You’re an idiot.”

Leonard swept a hand over his face and let out a dry chuckle. “Hardly a revelation.”

“You’re an idiot,” Jim repeated, “but you got one thing right.”

He was startled into responding when Jim’s knees hit the floor in front of him. “I -- what?”

“You’ll be by my side,” he said, holding Leonard’s gaze, his eyes the blue of a warp core firing to life. “Because you got me here, Bones, as much as I got you, maybe more. We’re in this together, and I don’t mean as just captain and CMO because fuck that.”

Jim seized his hand and clasped it so tightly his knuckles turned white. It was a grip that should have hurt but didn’t, because Leonard couldn’t feel anything past the pressure building in his chest. Jim bent forward until their noses were an inch apart, the letter buckling in his free hand.

“I don’t care about what’s supposed to happen,” he whispered fiercely, “because if I’m not supposed to love you then none of it means a goddamned thing.”

Jim’s voice broke on the last few words and Leonard’s stillness broke with it. He pitched forward to press their mouths together.

The air around Jim was still so charged with tension that for a moment Leonard feared he’d come away with a bloody lip; but Jim was not about to let him get that far. He didn’t break the kiss or take his hands off Leonard’s body even as they were fumbling to their feet and backwards.

Only when he tripped over an empty box did Jim pause. Breathing like he'd just come back from a run, he bent down to pick up the book of sonnets. He smoothed out the crumpled piece of paper, folded it more or less to its original dimensions, and slipped it back between the pages.

Then, with a smile Leonard had somehow convinced himself he could live without -- one of the most damn fool things he'd ever done, and it didn't suffer for competition -- Jim put the little book on the nightstand and pulled him down to the bed.



Dear Jim,

I know you’ll never read this, but I wanted to write it down anyway. Why Dr. Puri has six reams of good heavy paper in this office, I can’t say, but this seems safer than than anything connected to the ship’s computer.

I wish I could tell you how I feel. I’ve wanted to for a long time, since I realized you were much more than a best friend to me, although you’re that too. You’re...I never would’ve made it through these three years without you, kid, do you realize that? I was such a wreck when we met, after the divorce and what happened with my daddy. I was headed nowhere good and I was headed there fast. Then I got on that shuttle and there you were, cocky and bright-eyed and bruised, and that was it for me. Starfleet gave me a new purpose, yeah, but it’s always been wrapped up in you, in your purpose, your dream. Somewhere along the way your dream became my dream and now I don’t believe I could cut us loose with my best laser scalpel.

So here we are, sooner and scarier than I ever thought, and I want more than ever to tell you this, but I know I won’t. I can’t, because there is this great big path ahead -- not just in your mind or mine, but in the pages of history books in some other universe. I won’t pretend to understand everything you told me, but I got enough. I watched your eyes and I believed you. And I feel a little bit smug about it, I’ll admit, because I always knew you were going to do great things but it’s nice to hear it confirmed.

I know you’ve thought a lot about it the past few days, that Jim Kirk who knew his father, about what his life was like and what it means for yours. That’s why, no matter how much I

God, why am I still stumbling over this? It’s not like you’re ever gonna read it.

I love you.

I’m in love with you.

I want to march straight to your quarters and tell you so, kiss you until my hands stop shaking, take you to bed and not leave it until we reach orbit.

But I won’t, because you’re the captain and I’m your doctor and there are so many souls depending on us, and that’s always going to come first. We have what looks an awful lot like proof of that, now. Starfleet is going to ask so much of you, maybe more than you’ll be able to give -- no I’m not, we’re still too far out in space to think like that.

I’ll be at your side, Jim, just like you planned even when I was rolling my eyes about it.. But I am not going to ask you for more. I’m not that selfish.

If things were


Fuck, I should end this, alpha shift’s almost over.