Chapter Text
Jim hated to smile at other people’s misfortune, but that’s exactly what he was doing. The professor for his late night Tuesday/Thursday class got sick. So for the first time this semester, Jim had Thursday night free. By ten to seven, Jim was grinning at his good luck outside his own door, when on any other Thursday night, he’d still be in class at nine.
The door slid open with a quiet hiss when Jim entered his access code. Stepping inside, he was greeted with the sight of something he most certainly was not prepared to see.What he expected to see was Bones studying at his desk, or lounging on his bed with his PADD, or maybe even absent to work a shift at the clinic. Instead, he saw Bones laying back on his bed, leisurely thrusting up into a woman with her hands bound behind her back.
Bones’s eyes flickered up, widening in surprise when they locked with Jim’s own wide eyes. He sat bolt upright, nearly knocking heads with the woman in his lap.
“Dammit Jim!” he exclaimed as the woman shrieked.
Jim flashed a grin at his roommate, if only to cover his shock. “I’ll just, uh, wait outside,” he announced, gesturing to the hallway, as if Bones and his lady friend didn’t know where outside was.
As the door slid shut behind him, Jim found himself standing awkwardly in the hall, very aware of the fact that he had just been sexiled. He nodded tensely to a pair of his floormates as they passed by a minute later. Just before Jim made up his mind to sit on the floor and wait it out, the door hissed open, revealing Bones and the woman, the woman fully clothed, Bones wearing only his boxers.
“I look forward to seeing you around, Sweetheart,” Bones told her before kissing her on the cheek, an action Jim thought oddly chaste, considering what he had very recently walked in on them doing.
He waited until the woman was far enough down the hallway to be out of earshot before turning to his friend and saying, “That was fast.”
“Yeah, well, someone ruined the mood,” he muttered as they entered their shared room.
“Sorry about that,” Jim said as he tossed his PADD on the bed and started changing out of his cadet reds. “She was hot.”
Bones snorted. “I noticed. What are you doing here anyway? Thought xenobotany didn’t end till nine.”
“The professor got sick. Class was cancelled last minute. Crappy luck it happened on the one night you actually had a girl over, though.”
Bones threw him a quizzical look, like he didn’t know how to respond to such a statement. “It’s not your fault, kid,” he offered after a moment.
Jim stretched out on his bed, watching Bones as he retreated into the bathroom. Again, Jim hated to smile on others’ misfortunes, especially his best friend’s, but he couldn’t help but find the humor in the unlikelihood that this would happen the one time he had someone over. In fact, Jim couldn’t even believe Bones had someone over at all. Especially not a woman as attractive as that one was.
He’d never really thought about it, but on some level, he regarded Bones as largely celibate. Jim knew that was ridiculous. He knew Bones used to be married, had a daughter somewhere. But he had never actually seen him with a woman. He never heard him talk about dates or girlfriends, so over time, he had come to the conclusion that Bones wasn’t getting any.
Not that he didn’t try. Jim Kirk was a notorious flirt. Everybody knew it. But only Jim seemed to know that Bones wasn’t much better. He rolled his eyes and grumped at Jim’s flirting with everything on two (and sometimes more) legs, but he was just as bad. The only difference was that Jim was better at it. Jim was charming, attractive; he was honest enough to admit it. Not that Bones wasn’t attractive. Not that Bones was attractive. Jim didn’t find Bones attractive or unattractive. But he did know that he wasn’t charming.
Bones would thicken up his accent, then come right out and tell a woman she was as radiant as the moon or some shit. He called girls Darlin’ or Sweetheart, playing up his gentlemanly Southern charm. Jim even once heard Bones tell a woman he almost mistook her for Helen of Troy. Bones laid it on too thick. He tried too hard. And women never fell for it. Well, except for the woman who just left their room, apparently.
Bones’s comm started beeping, and Jim rolled off his bed to answer it, as he could still hear the shower running. He had started answering Bones’s comm a few months prior, after an incident where Bones was occupied and never got the emergency call from the clinic saying they needed extra hands. Bones had then asked Jim always to answer it if he couldn’t.
“McCoy’s comm, can I take a message?”
“Leonard?” asked a woman on the line, presumably the woman who had just left.
“No. This is his roommate. He’s in the shower. Can I take a message?”
“Oh.” She sounded disappointed. “Okay. Just tell him that Missy called and I’m sorry I had to cancel tonight, and that I’ll still be out of town on Tuesday. But if he wants to get together next Thursday I’m free.”
JIm opened his mouth to respond, but nothing came out. She cancelled tonight? Bones had two girls lined up for tonight? And she was supposed to come over on Tuesday? Did Bones bring girls back every time Jim was stuck in class?
“Hello?” the girl asked. “You still there?”
“Yeah,” Jim finally said. “I’m here. You’re sorry for today and also now Tuesday, but you’re free next Thursday. Right?”
“Yes.”
“And it’s Mandy?”
“Missy.”
“Missy. Sorry. Got it.”
“Thanks.” With that, Missy hung up, leaving Jim completely flabbergasted in the middle of the room.
At that moment, Bones strode back into the room, water running down his chest to be absorbed by the towel at his waist. Upon reaching his dresser, he turned to Jim, who was still standing in the center of the room holding the comm, and said “Close your mouth. You’ll catch flies.”
Jim’s mouth snapped shut, but he otherwise ignored the comment. “Missy called,” he told Bones.
“Yeah?” he asked, not looking up from the drawer he was rummaging through. “What’d she say?”
“She apologized for today and said she had to cancel Tuesday, too. But she’s free on Thursday.”
Bones snorted a laugh. “Missy’s a flaky one.”
“Do you do this a lot?” Jim blurted with no preamble.
“Do what a lot, Jim?” Bones asked. He walked toward his bed, now clad in nothing but sweatpants. He swiped the comm from Jim’s hands before laying on his bed. Jim followed suit, laying on his own bed. “Jim?” Bones repeated. “Do I do what a lot?”
“Bring girls back here.”
“Depends on how you define ‘a lot.’”
“As in every Tuesday and Thursday when I’m stuck in xenobotany.”
Bones laughed. “Not every Tuesday and Thursday.”
“But most of them?”
“Yeah,” Bones answered, no longer laughing. “Usually.”
“Is it just Missy and whoever that was today, or…?” Jim trailed off, not quite sure of his phrasing.
“Caitlin. That was Caitlin you saw today. And no, not that it’s really any of your business, but they’re not the only two.”
“How many girls do you bring back here?”
“Dammit Jim. Why do you care?” Bones asked, sitting up to look over at him.
Jim didn’t know why he cared. He didn’t care. Not really. He was just… curious.
He shrugged.
“There’s Missy, Rita, and Kathy. Those are the girls I see somewhat regularly. There’s one nighters, too, like Caitlin today.”
Jim didn’t know what to say, so he settled for simply staring.
“What?” Bones asked. “That surprise you?”
“Yes, actually.”
Bones raised an eyebrow in question.
“I just… I’ve never actually seen you with a girl. So I sort of assumed you weren’t... I don’t know.”
“Yeah you do. Weren’t what?”
“Weren’t getting any.”
Bones barked out a sharp laugh. “I’m probably getting much more than you are, kid.”
Jim rolled over and decided to go to sleep early. But he had to admit it. Bones was definitely getting laid a lot more than he was.