Fic: True Blue (Kirk/McCoy, STXI, PG)
Title: True Blue
Author: sail_aweigh
Rating: PG
Words: 2450
Prompt: nail polish, Bones receiving
Summary: Bones spends a reluctant day in a spa with Jim chasing after fool's gold; but what he finds at the end of the day is true blue.
Notes/Warnings: No warnings apply. Written for km_anthology round three. This is a sequel to my round one entry, Cotton Candy Floss, but you don't really need to have read it to enjoy this one. Betad by the lovely and talented feels_like_fire.
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"Jim, what are we doing here?" Leonard's steps slowed down as they approached the store front. He looked at the discreet gold lettering next to the door and came to a dead stop. Why had Jim brought him to a spa of all places? "I don't need to get my torso wrapped in seaweed or have some nasty concoction that probably has Mulvaren mud fleas in it slapped on my face."
"Well, I thought it was time you learned how to take a little better care of yourself, Bones." Jim slowed and came to a stop next to Leonard, placing his hand under Leonard's elbow. "You let yourself go to hell; look at those bags under your eyes. And your nails are all cracked and ragged. You may as well be a hobo for all the care you take of yourself."
Leonard scowled at Jim. He didn't need to rub it in; Leonard had been studying hard for finals. And the labs required a lot of application of antiseptic; the harsh chemicals he worked with took their toll on his skin. "I take care of myself just fine. Been doing it since my mama quit wiping my ass for me as a matter of fact."
"Not what I mean, old man. Yeah, you eat healthy, you get your sixty minutes of exercise three times a week, but you don't care for yourself. You dress yourself, but barely. You run around in sweats and flannels any chance you can get. Your hair is out of regs half the time and when you do get it cut, it looks like someone took a weed-whacker to it." Jim's neat dissection of Leonard's appearance was cut short by Leonard snatching his arm away.
"What's wrong with the way I dress?" he demanded. "My clothes are clean. I bathe regularly. Hell, I even use a depilatory on my face near every day for you so I don't have to hear you whine about beard burn. What do you want from me?" Leonard turned and started walking the other way, his shoulders hunched up by his ears, his whole body rejecting the proposed activity and Jim's words.
Jogging to catch up with him, Jim grabbed Leonard around the bicep to hold him in place. "It's not what I want from you, Bones; it's what I want for you. Finals are over; you can relax. Take some time to care for yourself. When's the last time you read something for fun, or just sat in a chair listening to your favorite music? When's the last time to really paid attention to your needs and not those of your instructors or your lab partners?"
Leonard's eyebrows rose from where they'd been bunched together in anger. He looked at Jim, took in the pleading look on his face and the pinched concern around his eyes. Leonard let his face relax and his shoulders slump down in acceptance. "You're right, kid. It feels like since the twelfth of never. What have you got planned? I reserve the right to bail on anything that smells of roses or jasmine. Or requires me to put my face in something that will freeze it like this forever."
Jim reached up and cradled Leonard's jaw with his hand, rubbing his thumb along his cheekbone. "Babe, this is the best your face is every going to be, I swear."
The smirk that spread across Jim's face made him curse internally, but the bounce in his friend's step as the turned back to the spa door lifted his own heart. Jim was actually simple to please, if he just stopped to listen to him. And right now, Leonard had the time to listen.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Leonard looked at the list of services included in the package that Jim had selected for the both of them. He wasn't sure why Jim had chosen the Essential spa day. Most of it sounded like it would be fine, but he doubted that something called a chakra balancing treatment could really be of any therapeutic benefit.
"Jim, why do we have to get the Essential package when there is a perfectly fine half day package for men?" Leonard pointed to the more attractive-sounding offering.
All he got was a shake of the head and a snort.
"What? What's wrong with a gentleman's facial? I'm sure it's some manly scent that won't leave me feeling like my Nana spayed me with her toilet water." Leonard shuddered, remembering his first cotillion.
"Bones, you need this, okay. Especially the chakra balancing." Jim patted him on the shoulder. "It will help even more than that acupuncture you tried."
"I didn't try that, you snake oil salesman; you dragged me to it because you thought it would help my acid reflux."
"Well, it did!" Jim smacked his shoulder. "Nary a burp out of you at bedtime since then."
Leonard sighed. "Jim, I quit eating pork rinds before bed; that's what reduced the belching."
Jim's face fell. "Not the acupuncture?"
Leonard gave him a pitying look. "It's all whoo-whoo, Jim. Just like that incense that you insist will increase your virility. All it does is stink up the room and make me cough."
"I'll get rid of it," Jim muttered. "C'mon, let's get started on our package. I paid for it, and you're going to do it because you need it. Trust me."
Leonard shrugged. "If it means that much to you, okay. Besides, as you said, it's your dime. Who am I to come between a fool and his folly?" Squaring his shoulders, he marched up to the counter to be directed to his spa room and attendant. He just hoped Jim didn't cop an allergic reaction to anything after they went their separate ways.
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Leonard woke with a start, the PADD he'd been reading that displayed the current issue of Wine & Spirits magazine having slipped off his lap and onto the floor. It appeared he'd finally succumbed to the lethargy the previous treatments had induced in him. The first treatment of the day had initially been a combination of pain and pleasure; the deep-tissue massage working out every one of the kinks that hunching over PADDS, medical journals, microscopes and lab specimens had left with him over the past few weeks.
Feeling such sheer relief when the massage was finished, Leonard hadn't even grumbled when he was told to sit on a mat with his legs crossed, eyes closed and start imagining that various areas of his body were different colors. By the end of the guided meditation, though, he'd felt so relaxed they could have poured him into a fishbowl and he would have taken the shape of it for himself.
He'd even sat, uncomplaining, while a stylist had tutted over his hair and started fluffing it with his fingers, pulling it from one side of his forehead to the other. It appeared from the look of displeasure on the stylist's face that his part was too strong to allow for much out of the way of the style the Star Fleet barber's usually gave him. Apparently, this was harshing on the stylist's creative options. Nevertheless, it was now a lot shorter around the hairline, gelled up a little so you could actually see his widow's peak. It made him feel a little exposed, but he got a lot of second looks from the other spa attendants as he was led to the row of spa chairs for his manicure/pedicure, so he supposed it must be flattering. He hadn't felt this good about himself in years and he grudgingly admitted to himself he'd have to thank Jim for bringing him here. Wherever the hell he was.
Leonard, with some kind of fruity alcoholic concoction in a coconut, had finally been seated in one of the black leather chairs with their whirlpool foot baths for the final treatment of the day. There were one or two other patrons getting their hands and feet attended to, but none of them were Jim. He gave a mental shrug, figuring Jim probably would take all day to get his chakras balanced; the kid had more kinks than a slinky. When the nail technologist asked him what colors he wanted for his fingers and toes, he barked at him in gruff denial of needing any such frou-frou accessories. The attendant looked downcast, then offered that he could just buff them to a nice shine and add a single layer of strengthener to keep them from cracking; it was, after all, what many of their male clients preferred. Leonard nodded a grudging assent, then buried his nose in a PADD while first his hands and then his feet were massaged with a sugar scrub, dipped in wax, massaged with a minty lotion, dipped in cuticle softener, buffed with a pumice stone and then left to soak before being buffed out and polished.
Now, having woken up, he realized he must have fallen asleep before they'd gotten to the polish on his toes. Leonard could see that his fingernails were neatly trimmed, no cracks, splits or ragged edges; the nails themselves had a healthy, pink glow from the blood underneath, but they looked just as he'd asked for and as he remembered before he'd gone off to lala land.
His toes, though, were an entirely different matter. Leonard's feet had been propped up on the edge of the empty foot bath and he had pink spongy things stuck between his toes to hold them apart. He could see many patrons sitting in the same situation, obviously waiting for the polish to dry. Leonard stared at his toes in horror and decided right then his nail tech was getting no damn tip out of him, no matter how good his fingernails looked. A voice from his left startled him out of his contemplation of the joy he'd get from removing the attendant's fingernails one at a time.
"Bones! How are you feeling? Looks like you really enjoyed yourself. You were making these cute little lip-smacking sounds in your sleep. Pleasant dreams of a certain someone, I hope." Jim sounded too damn chipper, by far. It made Leonard feel suspicious. Especially in conjunction with the slight leer he gave as he looked Leonard up and down.
"I'm feeling pretty damn betrayed, is how I feel, Jim. Just how long have you been here monitoring my treatment?" Leonard declined looking directly at Jim, instead pointing to his toes with a stabbing motion of his forefinger. "Did you have anything to do with that, that abomination?"
He finally glanced over at Jim for some sign of guilty confirmation, but merely saw a look of deep disappointment on his face.
"Is it really that bad? Have you hated the whole experience? Hated it so much you slept through it? Tell me that you are capable of having a little fun and just going with the flow when it means everyone has a good time." Jim moved the foot that was closest to Leonard over next to his and he could see that his toes, too, were painted. In fact, they were a shimmery metallic brown with variegated flecks of bronze and gold floating on top. It was a little like looking into a tiger's eye gemstone that flashed and sparkled in the sun. Jim's hair had that sparkle; it was one of the things that had first attracted Leonard to him. It gave lie to the saying that all that glittered was not gold, because Jim--Jim was pure heart's gold to Leonard.
Feeling a little shame-faced, Leonard looked back to his own toes, which were a rich royal blue with just a hint of gold dust that sparkled up at him as if from the bottom of a clear running stream; it was mesmerising. But it also reminded him that if he wanted to mine that gold for himself, he was going to have to dig deep. He cleared his throat, "Yeah, Jim, I can. These look really great."
Jim's face transformed with that slow smile that tilted just the very corners, the shy little boy smile that he saved just for Leonard and usually for the bedroom. He leaned over towards Leonard and confided in a low tone, "I'm wearing that blue flutter lace tanga with the gold edging on the frill. I thought I'd let you take them off me when we get home. Can I help it if I like us to be color co-ordinated?"
Leonard's mouth went dry when he thought about that particular pair of panties. It was one of the few that Jim always insisted he leave intact. Just about every other pair of panties that Leonard had bought him had the crotch ripped out, when Jim begged him to enter him now. The manhandling left Jim a sobbing, shivering puddle in most cases. It was a state of affairs they both thoroughly enjoyed ever since that first pair of pink panties caught Jim's eyes.
Leonard inched as close as the spa chair would let him, his near hand reaching over to twitch Jim's spa robe open barely enough to see a flash of blue high up on his hip. The sight galvanized him.
Reaching down, Leonard ripped the pink sponges out from between his toes, shoving his feet into the flip-flops that were lined up neatly by the foot tub. He turned and did the same to Jim's feet, allowing himself to smile widely in response to the one stretching from ear to ear on Jim's face.
"I take it you approve." Jim moved to close his robe to a more modest position, but was stayed by Leonard's hand. Bending down, Leonard blew a quick breath of air up the split in Jim's robe and then straightened, smirking as Jim's breath left him in a whooshing sound. Leonard grabbed Jim's hand and yanked, pulling him out of his chair and along behind him toward the dressing room where his clothes were located.
"Darlin', you did pay in advance, didn't you?" Leonard heard Jim's delighted laughter and snuck another look at the smile on his face and decided that what had started out looking like chasing fool's gold had instead struck a deep vein of pure gold that would last him forever.
Also may be read at: AO3 or DW
Author: sail_aweigh
Rating: PG
Words: 2450
Prompt: nail polish, Bones receiving
Summary: Bones spends a reluctant day in a spa with Jim chasing after fool's gold; but what he finds at the end of the day is true blue.
Notes/Warnings: No warnings apply. Written for km_anthology round three. This is a sequel to my round one entry, Cotton Candy Floss, but you don't really need to have read it to enjoy this one. Betad by the lovely and talented feels_like_fire.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Jim, what are we doing here?" Leonard's steps slowed down as they approached the store front. He looked at the discreet gold lettering next to the door and came to a dead stop. Why had Jim brought him to a spa of all places? "I don't need to get my torso wrapped in seaweed or have some nasty concoction that probably has Mulvaren mud fleas in it slapped on my face."
"Well, I thought it was time you learned how to take a little better care of yourself, Bones." Jim slowed and came to a stop next to Leonard, placing his hand under Leonard's elbow. "You let yourself go to hell; look at those bags under your eyes. And your nails are all cracked and ragged. You may as well be a hobo for all the care you take of yourself."
Leonard scowled at Jim. He didn't need to rub it in; Leonard had been studying hard for finals. And the labs required a lot of application of antiseptic; the harsh chemicals he worked with took their toll on his skin. "I take care of myself just fine. Been doing it since my mama quit wiping my ass for me as a matter of fact."
"Not what I mean, old man. Yeah, you eat healthy, you get your sixty minutes of exercise three times a week, but you don't care for yourself. You dress yourself, but barely. You run around in sweats and flannels any chance you can get. Your hair is out of regs half the time and when you do get it cut, it looks like someone took a weed-whacker to it." Jim's neat dissection of Leonard's appearance was cut short by Leonard snatching his arm away.
"What's wrong with the way I dress?" he demanded. "My clothes are clean. I bathe regularly. Hell, I even use a depilatory on my face near every day for you so I don't have to hear you whine about beard burn. What do you want from me?" Leonard turned and started walking the other way, his shoulders hunched up by his ears, his whole body rejecting the proposed activity and Jim's words.
Jogging to catch up with him, Jim grabbed Leonard around the bicep to hold him in place. "It's not what I want from you, Bones; it's what I want for you. Finals are over; you can relax. Take some time to care for yourself. When's the last time you read something for fun, or just sat in a chair listening to your favorite music? When's the last time to really paid attention to your needs and not those of your instructors or your lab partners?"
Leonard's eyebrows rose from where they'd been bunched together in anger. He looked at Jim, took in the pleading look on his face and the pinched concern around his eyes. Leonard let his face relax and his shoulders slump down in acceptance. "You're right, kid. It feels like since the twelfth of never. What have you got planned? I reserve the right to bail on anything that smells of roses or jasmine. Or requires me to put my face in something that will freeze it like this forever."
Jim reached up and cradled Leonard's jaw with his hand, rubbing his thumb along his cheekbone. "Babe, this is the best your face is every going to be, I swear."
The smirk that spread across Jim's face made him curse internally, but the bounce in his friend's step as the turned back to the spa door lifted his own heart. Jim was actually simple to please, if he just stopped to listen to him. And right now, Leonard had the time to listen.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Leonard looked at the list of services included in the package that Jim had selected for the both of them. He wasn't sure why Jim had chosen the Essential spa day. Most of it sounded like it would be fine, but he doubted that something called a chakra balancing treatment could really be of any therapeutic benefit.
"Jim, why do we have to get the Essential package when there is a perfectly fine half day package for men?" Leonard pointed to the more attractive-sounding offering.
All he got was a shake of the head and a snort.
"What? What's wrong with a gentleman's facial? I'm sure it's some manly scent that won't leave me feeling like my Nana spayed me with her toilet water." Leonard shuddered, remembering his first cotillion.
"Bones, you need this, okay. Especially the chakra balancing." Jim patted him on the shoulder. "It will help even more than that acupuncture you tried."
"I didn't try that, you snake oil salesman; you dragged me to it because you thought it would help my acid reflux."
"Well, it did!" Jim smacked his shoulder. "Nary a burp out of you at bedtime since then."
Leonard sighed. "Jim, I quit eating pork rinds before bed; that's what reduced the belching."
Jim's face fell. "Not the acupuncture?"
Leonard gave him a pitying look. "It's all whoo-whoo, Jim. Just like that incense that you insist will increase your virility. All it does is stink up the room and make me cough."
"I'll get rid of it," Jim muttered. "C'mon, let's get started on our package. I paid for it, and you're going to do it because you need it. Trust me."
Leonard shrugged. "If it means that much to you, okay. Besides, as you said, it's your dime. Who am I to come between a fool and his folly?" Squaring his shoulders, he marched up to the counter to be directed to his spa room and attendant. He just hoped Jim didn't cop an allergic reaction to anything after they went their separate ways.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Leonard woke with a start, the PADD he'd been reading that displayed the current issue of Wine & Spirits magazine having slipped off his lap and onto the floor. It appeared he'd finally succumbed to the lethargy the previous treatments had induced in him. The first treatment of the day had initially been a combination of pain and pleasure; the deep-tissue massage working out every one of the kinks that hunching over PADDS, medical journals, microscopes and lab specimens had left with him over the past few weeks.
Feeling such sheer relief when the massage was finished, Leonard hadn't even grumbled when he was told to sit on a mat with his legs crossed, eyes closed and start imagining that various areas of his body were different colors. By the end of the guided meditation, though, he'd felt so relaxed they could have poured him into a fishbowl and he would have taken the shape of it for himself.
He'd even sat, uncomplaining, while a stylist had tutted over his hair and started fluffing it with his fingers, pulling it from one side of his forehead to the other. It appeared from the look of displeasure on the stylist's face that his part was too strong to allow for much out of the way of the style the Star Fleet barber's usually gave him. Apparently, this was harshing on the stylist's creative options. Nevertheless, it was now a lot shorter around the hairline, gelled up a little so you could actually see his widow's peak. It made him feel a little exposed, but he got a lot of second looks from the other spa attendants as he was led to the row of spa chairs for his manicure/pedicure, so he supposed it must be flattering. He hadn't felt this good about himself in years and he grudgingly admitted to himself he'd have to thank Jim for bringing him here. Wherever the hell he was.
Leonard, with some kind of fruity alcoholic concoction in a coconut, had finally been seated in one of the black leather chairs with their whirlpool foot baths for the final treatment of the day. There were one or two other patrons getting their hands and feet attended to, but none of them were Jim. He gave a mental shrug, figuring Jim probably would take all day to get his chakras balanced; the kid had more kinks than a slinky. When the nail technologist asked him what colors he wanted for his fingers and toes, he barked at him in gruff denial of needing any such frou-frou accessories. The attendant looked downcast, then offered that he could just buff them to a nice shine and add a single layer of strengthener to keep them from cracking; it was, after all, what many of their male clients preferred. Leonard nodded a grudging assent, then buried his nose in a PADD while first his hands and then his feet were massaged with a sugar scrub, dipped in wax, massaged with a minty lotion, dipped in cuticle softener, buffed with a pumice stone and then left to soak before being buffed out and polished.
Now, having woken up, he realized he must have fallen asleep before they'd gotten to the polish on his toes. Leonard could see that his fingernails were neatly trimmed, no cracks, splits or ragged edges; the nails themselves had a healthy, pink glow from the blood underneath, but they looked just as he'd asked for and as he remembered before he'd gone off to lala land.
His toes, though, were an entirely different matter. Leonard's feet had been propped up on the edge of the empty foot bath and he had pink spongy things stuck between his toes to hold them apart. He could see many patrons sitting in the same situation, obviously waiting for the polish to dry. Leonard stared at his toes in horror and decided right then his nail tech was getting no damn tip out of him, no matter how good his fingernails looked. A voice from his left startled him out of his contemplation of the joy he'd get from removing the attendant's fingernails one at a time.
"Bones! How are you feeling? Looks like you really enjoyed yourself. You were making these cute little lip-smacking sounds in your sleep. Pleasant dreams of a certain someone, I hope." Jim sounded too damn chipper, by far. It made Leonard feel suspicious. Especially in conjunction with the slight leer he gave as he looked Leonard up and down.
"I'm feeling pretty damn betrayed, is how I feel, Jim. Just how long have you been here monitoring my treatment?" Leonard declined looking directly at Jim, instead pointing to his toes with a stabbing motion of his forefinger. "Did you have anything to do with that, that abomination?"
He finally glanced over at Jim for some sign of guilty confirmation, but merely saw a look of deep disappointment on his face.
"Is it really that bad? Have you hated the whole experience? Hated it so much you slept through it? Tell me that you are capable of having a little fun and just going with the flow when it means everyone has a good time." Jim moved the foot that was closest to Leonard over next to his and he could see that his toes, too, were painted. In fact, they were a shimmery metallic brown with variegated flecks of bronze and gold floating on top. It was a little like looking into a tiger's eye gemstone that flashed and sparkled in the sun. Jim's hair had that sparkle; it was one of the things that had first attracted Leonard to him. It gave lie to the saying that all that glittered was not gold, because Jim--Jim was pure heart's gold to Leonard.
Feeling a little shame-faced, Leonard looked back to his own toes, which were a rich royal blue with just a hint of gold dust that sparkled up at him as if from the bottom of a clear running stream; it was mesmerising. But it also reminded him that if he wanted to mine that gold for himself, he was going to have to dig deep. He cleared his throat, "Yeah, Jim, I can. These look really great."
Jim's face transformed with that slow smile that tilted just the very corners, the shy little boy smile that he saved just for Leonard and usually for the bedroom. He leaned over towards Leonard and confided in a low tone, "I'm wearing that blue flutter lace tanga with the gold edging on the frill. I thought I'd let you take them off me when we get home. Can I help it if I like us to be color co-ordinated?"
Leonard's mouth went dry when he thought about that particular pair of panties. It was one of the few that Jim always insisted he leave intact. Just about every other pair of panties that Leonard had bought him had the crotch ripped out, when Jim begged him to enter him now. The manhandling left Jim a sobbing, shivering puddle in most cases. It was a state of affairs they both thoroughly enjoyed ever since that first pair of pink panties caught Jim's eyes.
Leonard inched as close as the spa chair would let him, his near hand reaching over to twitch Jim's spa robe open barely enough to see a flash of blue high up on his hip. The sight galvanized him.
Reaching down, Leonard ripped the pink sponges out from between his toes, shoving his feet into the flip-flops that were lined up neatly by the foot tub. He turned and did the same to Jim's feet, allowing himself to smile widely in response to the one stretching from ear to ear on Jim's face.
"I take it you approve." Jim moved to close his robe to a more modest position, but was stayed by Leonard's hand. Bending down, Leonard blew a quick breath of air up the split in Jim's robe and then straightened, smirking as Jim's breath left him in a whooshing sound. Leonard grabbed Jim's hand and yanked, pulling him out of his chair and along behind him toward the dressing room where his clothes were located.
"Darlin', you did pay in advance, didn't you?" Leonard heard Jim's delighted laughter and snuck another look at the smile on his face and decided that what had started out looking like chasing fool's gold had instead struck a deep vein of pure gold that would last him forever.
Also may be read at: AO3 or DW