#(this is why i shouldn't type long things on my phone lmao. the typos. ; ;)

[muirmarie]

Genuinely sorry for the inherent dubcon but the more I think of it even tho it presumably ends spock/bones/kirk it's REALLY a love letter to bones/everyone???

Anyway accidental long bones/uhura below the cut lmao???

uhura breaks her arm (compound fracture even) while they're planetside and won't be able to get back to the ship for [reasons] for at least a few days, and bones sets it, and is just like. "I'll be able to fix it up properly in a few days, but I know you must be in a helluva lot of pain, and. You have options. You /will/ be fine when we get back to the ship, I just. Whatever you want, Uhura, it's up to you."

"If it's not up to /both/ of us, then it's not on the table," she says, sweat on her brow from the pain, eyes steady on his.

"Don't be absurd," he says gruffly, "if I can help - "

"You /have/ helped," she says, glancing down at the makeshift splint. "Do you think so little of me that you think I'd prefer hurting a friend to bearing some pain myself?"

Bones ducks his head, rubs a hand across the back of his neck, because he hasn't - hasn't thought of it quite like that, hasn't -

"Do you think I'd prefer seeing my friend in pain when the alternative is giving us both a little pleasure?" he says roughly, still not looking her in the eyes.

"Leonard," she says, her good hand reaching up to cup his cheek, and he startles a little, finally looks at her.

"You're a beautiful woman, Lieutenant," he says. "It - it's up to you, because I am...I am willing, is all I mean to say."

"/Willing/," she says with a soft laugh. "What a ringing endorsement! No, no, don't backtrack now, it's already said."

"If you'd prefer to wait until we get back to the ship, I fully understand, and I will not argue the point, but if this is some misguided attempt to protect /me/ - " he says, truly angry now, and her thumb slides over his cheekbone, her hand still cupping his face.

"You'd die for me, Doctor. It's a privilege, and it's a burden, to know that, but I know it all the same. Of course I want to protect you. Just like you want to protect me."

He swallows, but he doesn't speak. She doesn't speak for a long moment either, her gaze caught on his throat.

"I'm not in love with you, Doctor, but I love you all the same. And it would be a lie to say I've never thought about it. Those hands of yours? The way you get so riled up, the way you're so immovable in your convictions? All that passion, directed at one person - oh, it's a heady thought. Have you ever thought about it, Leonard?"

His face is flushed, but he hasn't moved away from her hand. "All those languages," he says, his voice still rough, his gaze drifting from her face. "It makes a man wonder what you sound like when - I'm sorry, that's - "

"I /asked/," she reminds him.

He breathes in, holds it, breathes out. "So you did," he says.

"I'll be okay until we reach the ship," she says. He nods, his gaze back on her face, her thumb still sliding across his cheekbone. "You didn't have to offer."

"I'm not in love with you, but I love you," he says, echoing her words back, and she wonders, for one brief, sharp moment, when the last time he's said those words. It hurts far more than her broken arm, and she has to forcibly push that thought aside.

It's a privilege, isn't it, to be loved by him. He'd die for her. He wouldn't think twice. It's a privilege and a burden both.

"Would it be?" she says, going back to the start. "Some pleasure? For both of us?"

He grins a little at that, his mouth lopsided, his eyes warm. "I've never had any complaints," he says, and she thinks, absurdly, that maybe she's not in love with him, but it wouldn't be such a leap, would it? It wouldn't be an impossibility. That warmth, those hands, that passion, that genuine goodness, the way he's looking at her, right now, like she's the only thing that exists - oh, she's not in love with him, but it wouldn't be hard to get there if she wanted. She doesn't want someone who would die for her, though. She'd want someone who would die /with/ her. But maybe in a different life. A different universe. Maybe they can bridge those universes for a little while. Just this once.

"Leonard," she says. "You have to know the rumors about you."

"Let's not set me up against an impossible challenge!" he protests, still grinning. Still her beloved friend. He's left the brooding back a few paces, now that he thinks she's going to let him help. The weight of the world is still there, but he's so good at hiding that, it would be unnoticeable if she didn't love him so well.

"Oh come on," she says, her tongue purposefully wetting her smile, "I'm sure you're /up/ for any challenge."

His eyes are bright, and some part of her, helplessly, thinks /good/ - this isn't all for her, some part of him must also want -

"Come closer," she says in Vulcan, and his cheeks flush, his skin warmer beneath her palm, and oh, he does like the languages, doesn't he, he wasn't just trying to appease her, and that's -

"Nyota," he says, his voice husky, and that's sends a delightful thrill through her as well, doesn't it? "Nyota, may I kiss you?" he says, and she draws him in in answer, says yes in Klingonaase against his lips, feels the exact moment his caution turns into slow confidence.

"There was a party," he says into her throat, "and we both had a little too much to drink, and your smile was so beautiful," he says. She catches on immediately. She's a storyteller, after all.

"I was smiling because you kept making me laugh," she says. "And it got late, and some people left, but I wanted you to keep making me laugh," she says.

"And I wanted to keep seeing you smile," he says. Her hand has slid from his cheek to his shoulder, her nails pressing lightly against his shirt.

"I invited you back for a nightcap," she says, shivering a little at the way his breath brushes her ear. They're not in a cave. She doesn't have a broken arm. She's not forcing - she's not making - he's not obligated -

They're friends. They're kind of drunk. They're kind of lonely. They love each other. This could have happened. If she'd known how he kissed, she thinks, laughing at herself, she'd have done her best to /make/ it happen.

"I couldn't help myself," he says, his hands on her neck, on her waist, and still so careful not to jostle her arm. "I turned when I walked in, and leaned into you. Waited. Hoped I hadn't overstepped, that you wouldn't hate me, that - "

"And I kissed you," she says, because she would have done, wouldn't she. Is doing so right now. "And here we are," she says. "Right here, right now. I could never hate you, Leonard," she says, because it seems like he needs it to be said, even if hers feels like the far greater transgression. "Just a little pleasure for us both, right?"

He pulls back a little, until their faces are mere inches apart, his words ghosting over her lips.

"Nyota," he says, steady, like he's on solid footing for the first time since this began, since he found her: arm broken, bone peeking out, since he half-carried her to this cave, since their supplies went missing and their comms stopped working and the Enterprise wasn't due back for two more days, since he'd taken off his outer shirt and tucked it over her bare legs to keep her warm, since he'd carefully used a sharp rock to whittle some sticks into something that could be used as a splint.

Since he'd bound her arm in the splint, his hands so steady, his eyes so worried as she'd breathed through the mounting pain. Since he'd done all he could normally do, and stood up, and begun pacing. Since she'd waited in his silence. Waited for him to offer. Known, since the first of it, that he would. Hadn't known how she'd answer.

"Nyota," he says, "this may not be ideal circumstances, but I sure as hell better be able to give you a lot more than a /little/ pleasure."

His eyes are dark; his mouth is soft.

(He'd die for her, but oh, all she wants is to save him.)

She laughs, a little, because he's right. They might as well have some fun, after all.

It's never been a burden to love /him/, after all. That's always been the easy part.

"C'mon then, Leonard," she says. "Let's see some stars."

.

I started to do the thing I like to do where I write a couple rough sketches of a story I want to find the shape of but not actually write? And then it got too long????

Anyway the gist of it was (tw: consent issues/dub-cob) st:tos triumvirate (kirk/bones/spock)

due to a translation error and some ~scientific~ magic powers, bones gets a literal magical healing cock, simply because I cannot imagine a man less disposed to sexing up his friends on a whim, but who would probably fuck his ENEMY if it saved their life?? kirk purposefully hamming it up/leering to make bones feel more normal, uhura kissing his cheek afterwards and seriously asking him if she can brag about how good he is, scotty absolutely not asking for permission to brag and fully regaling the engineering dept with "doctor's hands are clever things" nonsense, chekov gets a puppy crush and decides bones must be part russian because only a russian could kiss like that, sulu treats it like the medicine it's intended as and takes it upon himself to bodily drag chekov away from the good doc until he gets over himself -

and of course: spock. spock, obviously fatally injured, and the inevitable dub-con inherent in that on BOTH their sides (and on kirk's because kirk is there in the moments before it happens, because he, too, is worried like bones is that spock'll refuse, but he, unlike bones, is not willing to accept that answer, so he forcefully talks them into it, even tho both feel like they're forcing the other - )

and then spock, hunting bones down in the aftermath to apologize, as if he's a burden, as if bones was somehow unwilling to do that and more, as if -

"I am well aware of your propensity to lay all blame at your own feet, doctor, but the idea of you blaming yourself for saving my life, at personal cost to you, is -"

"You cannot be that stupid, Spock, that you think I wouldn't do anything to - "

"Your martyr complex is hardly a secret, doctor. Rest assured that I know what lengths you'll go to save others-"

"To save /you/, Spock. As aggravating as you are, there's nothing I wouldn't do to save /you/, you green-blooded hobgoblin!"

Even the short version of this got too long lmao, anyway unestablished ot3 when kirk walks in like, "oh are we talking about the fact I forced you two to have sex to save spock's life?" and both of these known kirk apologists IMMEDIATELY have to defend him, like, excuse me, we are adults, we make our own choices, it was hardly a hardship, and kirk jumps in with both feet like NOT A HARDSHIP, HUH? BECAUSE IT WASN'T A HARDSHIP TO WATCH, EITHER, ALTHO NEXT TIME YOU TWO WANNA TANGO MAYBE DO IT WITH LESS DYING, SO I CAN ACTUALLY ENJOY IT, and anyway they all have sex, obviously, and the magical healing cock thing DOES fade, but the ship generally agrees that while they're very glad bones is better, and that all moral conundrums re: his healing powers are no longer on the table, it was kinda nice to have the long-running lore of bones being THEE best lover finally confirmed once and for all

Why do I have so much plot in my head for such a ridiculous idea. Why.