browngirl | Study Habits (Star Trek XI, Kirk, McCoy, PG)

Title: Study Habits
Fandom: Star Trek XI
Rating: PG
Pairing: Kirk&McCoy, and maybe that ampersand is becoming a slash. Others mentioned.
Summary: Leonard goes looking for Jim, and finds him.
Content Advisory: None whatsoever, really.
Acknowledgements:

re_white, who should remember why, and

blcwriter, because.
Disclaimer: None of these characters or their settings belong to me.

It takes three days for McCoy to figure out what's wrong, and when he does he could just punch himself in the jaw. It's been Reading Period's for those three days, and he hasn't seen Jim Kirk since it began, which is the longest he's gone without the company of that blond trouble magnet since they staggered off the recruits' shuttle side-by-side. Leonard did not divest himself of his entire life (even if it was mostly reduced to smoking remnants) and sign himself over to Starfleet just to find someone else to be caretaker of, but the moment his brain tallies up the hours and announces seventy-six in an impossible throb, his notes tangle and blur before his eyes and he can't concentrate on one more word or diagram.

So Leonard jots down a list of the other people he's seen Jim repeatedly hassle and starts making calls. Most of them try to dictate messages, Zerippe and Jellico independently report breakups, and no one's seen Jim any more recently than four days ago. When he finds himself contemplating contacting Captain Pike, Leonard sets his comm down, stares at it, and tries to pick up his padd again, but instead gets on his console and starts asking around San Francisco's main ERs if anyone's admitted a patient fitting Jim's general description.

In the end, it takes him another day and a half of searching, punctuated by his Comparative Anatomy exam, three rushed and nauseous attempts to eat, and six hours of fitful sleep. No James T. Kirks have turned up in any city hospitals or lock-ups, and when the Academy intranet confirms that Jim is still on campus, Leonard does smack his face into his palm hard enough to sting. Maybe if he hadn't panicked he could've looked there first and saved himself time and stomach upset.

It lists Jim's location as RRGKML, and that takes some long minutes to chase down on its own: the Richard Robau & George Kirk Memorial Library, third through fifth floors of a wing in the Command Complex. Reckless with relief and frantic with suspense, Leonard searches the stacks and desks as quietly as he can; he nearly rushes past his goal, whose tarnished-gold head is bent over a console, hand twirling a stylus over a stack of data chips. "Jim?" Leonard stage-whispers, and Jim's shoulders twitch before he smoothly lifts his head and gives his usual sunny smile.

"Hey, Bones," Jim murmurs, waving him over. "Don't we have Rules & Regs tomorrow?" He keeps smiling as Leonard approaches, a bright-faced cadet in undress grays, but there's something hectic about his expression, something wide and dark in his eyes.

"What're -- are you studying?" It's honestly the first time Leonard's seen Jim study properly; what Jim refers to as 'studying' or 'doing some work' usually seems to consist of idly skimming text on his padd while lounging on Leonard's bed, chattering distractingly, and half the time munching something that generates a messy shower of crumbs. But here Jim is, stylus in one hand, padd beneath the other, as studious as any other Academy cadet, those thick eyebrows pulling down over his stormy blue eyes.

"What else would I be doing?" Jim's smile flattens out to a line. "Did you think I'd spend Finals in a bar somewhere?"

Leonard opens his mouth to assure Jim that of course he thought no such thing, and promptly says, "...Yeah?" Jim rocks back a little in his chair, lips parting, eyebrows tilting, and goddammit but he looks hurt. After five months of bearing witness to Jim's carousing it's a perfectly reasonable conclusion for Leonard to draw, but his prickle of defensiveness founders quickly into seething guilt. "I mean... I..."

Jim waves as if knocking the words away, glances down a moment and looks up again with sunshine in his eyes. "Oh, Bones, you do give a shit!" he teases, but his smile's not a smirk, and Leonard's chest eases with reprieve.

So he smiles back, just for a moment, and whispers, "I'm too used to you bothering me all the time, you're disrupting my routine."

Jim's smile widens to a grin that tightens Leonard's chest in an entirely different way. "Pull up a chair, then."

The desk's not really wide enough, but Leonard does it, glancing around at the scattering of other students amidst the stacks around them. "Why here?"

That tense ripple of muscle through Jim's shoulders again, and his lashes shield his eyes as he stares fixedly at the console controls and tweaks them aimlessly. "It's my library."

Leonard blinks, considering the names over the entrance, and Jim's meaning snaps into focus. "Oh," is all he comes up with, pathetic and floundering.

Jim tilts his head, smile tipping sideways and indulgent. "Since I'm the Littlest Survivor and all." Leonard can hear the capital letters. "Besides, I haven't had sex in these stacks." Leonard just stares; apparently reverence on Jim looks like practicality might on someone ordinary. "Anyway. Studied yet? Want my breakdown of topic headings by number?" He scoops up his padd, pulling up the appropriate list with a few long-fingered keystrokes, and nudges his shoulder against Leonard's as he passes it over.

"Sure, thanks." Leonard accepts Jim's padd, swallowing over the ridiculous warmth blooming in his chest, and makes himself settle down to study, but he keeps the corner of his eye towards Jim's smile.