Chapter Text
Leonard was going to tell him. He was going to tell Jim that he was in love with him. It was a risk, he knew that. Jim was always a flight risk, although significantly less so now than he had been when they first met, but despite this Leonard trusted his best friend. Sure, he may end up regretting it, there was a significant possibility that nothing would come of it, but the more he thought about it the more he realized the reward was worth the risk. He trusted Jim more than he’d trusted anyone before, and knew that even if Jim freaked out a bit in the short term, something like this wasn’t going to ruin their friendship. And, frankly, he was going crazy keeping it to himself. He never had been all that good at keeping secrets, and he’d gotten so used to having this completely open relationship with Jim that keeping something this big from his best friend was making him crazy. So, shortly after the two men reunited with a probably too long hug at the shuttle port after Jim’s summer practicum, Leonard decided he was going to tell Jim how he felt. If only he could figure out how to do it.
Try as he might, Leonard couldn’t seem to come up with a good way to go about telling his best friend about his feelings. He thought about it all the time, even caught himself practicing particularly promising confessions in front of the mirror like a child, only to realize in the end that those weren’t right either. By midway through the fall semester of their third year, he decided to try a different method of practice. After all, the fact that Leonard was still incredibly in love with Jim despite Jim’s recent fixation on and complete inability to shut up about the damn Kobayashi Maru proved that whatever this was, it had staying power. If listening to Jim rant incessantly about some stupid test did nothing to Leonard’s feelings, he wasn’t sure anything could. So, he took to trying different phrasings of the near inevitable confession of feelings out when Jim was actually around. Just, obviously, not when Jim could hear him.
He knew it was probably in bad form to take advantage of the fact that if he was facing away from Jim, and across the room, then his friend wouldn’t have a clue what he was saying, but he was building to something here, and this was helping. Maybe. In truth, he was no closer to figuring out how to go about this than when he’d started, and Jim was convinced he’d developed an odd habit of talking to himself a lot, but he was at least more comfortable saying the words out loud. And if Jim thought he’d lost it, then so be it.
“Jim, I need to talk to you about something. And I want it to be clear I ain’t expecting anything from you...shit, no that’s not right,” Leonard said to himself as he made dinner in the little kitchen of the little apartment that was almost more like a dorm it was so small. Jim sat on the counter, being exactly zero help while he had his face buried so deep in a PADD Leonard thought maybe he wouldn’t even notice if he was slapped across the face. It was as good of a time to practice as any.
“Jim, I know how you feel about relationships…” he shook his head. He’d tried that one out before, and kept coming to the conclusion that it sounded too judgmental. Besides, it was best not to jump to conclusions.
“Talking to yourself again, Bones?” Jim asked, so out of nowhere that it made Leonard jump. He apparently wasn’t as focused on whatever he was reading as Leonard thought he had been. “Ya know, I’ve heard that as long as the voices in your head don’t talk back, you’re not crazy.”
“How reassuring, thanks,” Leonard said dryly, “Can’t a man talk to himself in peace?”
“Sorry, sorry,” Jim grinned then looked back down at his PADD, “Carry on with your crazy ramblings.”
Leonard smiled as he turned back away from Jim, and muttered,
“God, Jim, you make me so happy, I never thought I’d love like this.”
That was maybe a bit better. More natural. Lately he was leaning towards something a bit more organic and…
“Go on,” Jim said abruptly, and Leonard spun around on his heels to face his friend, who was grinning at him and swinging his legs off the side of the counter. Leonard raised an eyebrow,
“What the hell are you talkin’ about, kid?”
“Bones, the replicator is reflective,” Jim said casually, and Leonard froze. Well and truly froze. If he was holding something, he probably would’ve dropped it. Fuck. Fuck . He’d been standing in front of the replicator, which had an exterior so shiny it was nearly a mirror, and had confessed his love to Jim. Who was sitting right behind him. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Suddenly, there was no longer any time to decide how he wanted to play this. Jim was looking at him expectantly and fucking grinning and months of trying to figure out the perfect way to say it had apparently all amounted to this. Whatever this was.
“Weren’t you supposed to be reading something?” Leonard asked, for lack of anything else to say. Maybe he could buy himself some time.
Jim’s grin turned into a smirk, but slightly less wolfish and self-satisfied than the one he displayed in public. Oh, he thought he was hot shit, no doubt about it, but there was something akin to joy in those bright blue eyes, and just a touch of shyness in his smile. If he weren’t so busy worrying about what the hell he was going to say next, that look may have wrecked Leonard to his very core. It still did, a little.
Smirk still in place, Jim hopped down from the counter.
“I’ve been curious what the hell you’ve been saying to yourself the past couple weeks,” Jim admitted, taking a step towards Leonard, who still stood at the opposite end of the tiny kitchen, barely three paces away from his friend. “So I figured I’d try to figure it out myself.” Another step. “Imagine my surprise when I find out you’ve told everything in the house that you love me.” Another step, and Jim was suddenly very much in Leonard’s space. As if that somehow wasn’t enough for him, Jim leaned in, resting his hands on the cabinet on either side of Leonard’s face, then looked up, blue eyes wide as he finished, “Except me.”
The two men were so close their noses were touching, and their breaths intermingled. Leonard swallowed hard. This wasn’t at all how it was supposed to go, but with Jim so close he found he had a hard time caring.
“Jim,” he said, surprised by how husky his own voice sounded.
“Are you going to deny it, Bones?” Jim challenged, but Leonard knew him well enough to see through the bravado on his features. There was some part of Jim that worried that he’d massively overplayed his hand, that he’d interpreted what Leonard had said wildly incorrectly. And that just couldn’t do, could it? So before he could think his way out of it, Leonard closed the remaining centimeters between them and pressed his lips to Jim’s.
Kissing Jim was nothing like how he’d imagined, but somehow even better than he thought. All the cocky confidence somehow flew out the window as Jim sunk into Leonard’s lips, and though Jim’s lips were soft and his mouth hot and sweet, just as he always imagined, Leonard never would’ve guessed that self-proclaimed Academy playboy Jim Kirk kissed like this . It was foolish, really, because he probably could’ve imagined his best friend Jim kissing like this, all sweet and soft and so full of joy and wonder that Leonard knew, absolutely knew in that moment that Jim loved him back. Suddenly, he was struck with the need to make sure Jim knew just how confident and sure Leonard was of his feelings, so he pulled back, laughing a little at the small and startled whine that Jim made when their lips separated.
He pulled back just enough for Jim to be able to see his lips as he spoke,
“Jim, I love you.”
“I know,” Jim smiled, then his face fell and he scrunched up his brows, “Shit. I mean I love you too. Fuck.”
Leonard really couldn’t help but laugh at that, despite the rush of warmth that came with hearing Jim saying those words back. He really didn’t think it would be that easy. “Wow, you really ain’t as smooth as I thought you were, kid.”
“Maybe I’m a bit more invested in this than I would be with some random hookup,” Jim admitted, biting his lip as he told Leonard all he really needed to know for now. Jim really felt the same way, he wanted to give this a shot too. This may be going very differently than how Leonard had planned, but that was mostly because he never allowed himself to dream it would go this well.
“And what is this?” Leonard asked, more out of curiosity than concern. In only two short sentences, Jim had made it pretty clear that he wasn’t just trying to shift them over to friends with benefits.
“Everything, Bones,” Jim said, blue eyes wide with a world’s worth of happiness, devotion, and love . Leonard didn’t think he’d ever seen Jim as wide open and genuine as he was seeing him right now. And, really, the only reasonable response to that was for Leonard to kiss him again. So he did.