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It isn’t like it’s weird to let himself into Bones’ apartment and find Bones on the couch. It is, well… Bones’ apartment, something he should probably remind himself of more often considering how rarely his dorm bed has been slept in.
Bones who doesn’t acknowledge his barging in unannounced, per his norm, is weird. And uncomfortable. They’ve got a rhythm by now, one that hinges on Bones grumbling about the intrusion but rarely bothering to kick him out, and the rare times he does are usually after they’ve had dinner and only if Jim promises to comm him when he makes it back to the dorm. Bones not acknowledging his coming in has only really happened once, and god, he doesn’t like the reminder of that night at all.
Still, the lights are on and when he eases closer to the couch Jim takes a quick visual survey of the coffee table and sees no alcohol, just a half-full water glass and…
“Embroidery floss? ”
“Fuck!” is the rejoinder he gets to that, followed by Bones whipping around to face him and a sniped, “Kid, how long have you been standing there?”
“Like, forty-five seconds! You didn’t hear the door and as you remind me almost every Saturday night, I sound like… what was the last way you put it… a herd of inebriated elephants coming through the door, so that’s on you.”
“Maybe so, but Christ, you do not get to startle me with a needle in my hand.”
“As implements to stab yourself with go that’s a comparatively minor one; I wouldn’t worry about it.”
“Yeah. You wouldn’t.”
“Whatcha making with that needle, anyway?” Jim drawls, not having gotten a good enough look at whatever Bones had been holding in his lap, and he doesn’t wait for Bones to answer, just makes his way around the couch to plop down on one of the cushions and dropping his bag to the floor. Bones makes no effort to hide the project, simply passing him a wooden hoop and a PADD.
“Warning,” Jim reads, off the stitches lining the fabric cinched into the wooden hoop, “this is proof I have the… patience to stab something 1,000 times,” he finishes, off the PADD he holds a bit further out from his face. “You stitched this?”
“Working on it. Why do you sound surprised?” Bones prises the hoop gently out of his fingers. “I’m a man of many talents. And can your farsighted ass please start wearing the reading glasses I got you?”
“I’ll put them on before I do my First Contact seminar reading if it’ll stop you bitching. You really don’t stop doctoring… so, bartending, surgery, horseback riding, cooking and baking… cross stitch.”
“Hand sewing, too. Well, antique suturing techniques, but the skills are transferable. I make a mean pair of pants. And judging by the way your shirts get torn, that was a dangerous admission, if I don’t want to end up with a pile of your mendin’.”
“What I just heard was I’d love to, Jim, thanks for the Sunday morning project. … why haven’t I seen you do this before?”
“You think after a night out at the bar I’m gonna say hey, Jim, I’m just gonna cross stitch for an hour while we sober up?”
“I mean, you could have.”
“Huh.” Bones makes a slight face, nods a little as if to say noted . “Jo actually sent this one over,” he says, after a moment. “Teddy found it, sent it her way. Made her laugh, apparently. Thought I’d get it done before she visits next.”
“Mush.” But he’s teasing and Bones knows it, if the smack he gets to his knee is any indication. Before Bones can pick the needle he’d let dangle back up, Jim clears his throat.
“Funny. Makes a good opening for me to give you something. I wasn’t sure if... I mean, I thought…” He can’t quite figure out where the embarrassment has come from, not when Bones is giving him a quizzical look he can read easily, bafflement that he’s nervous. It isn’t the first time he’s stumbled over his words in Bones’ place, and fuck, it isn’t even the first time he’s done that recently. What is that?
To stop himself rambling, he reaches into the zippered pocket of his bag and pulls out the gift, making himself drop it into Bones’ confusedly outstretched hand. Bones picks up the other end of the bracelet with his other hand and holds it up, surveying the colors--pink, purple, blue--with a slight quirk of his lips.
“What’s this for, Jim?” he asks softly, not meanly, and Jim lets out a breath. Bones didn’t laugh, which had been the worry, the reason why he’s been carting the damn thing around in his bag for the better part of three weeks instead of just giving it to him.
“I was reading, uh, this book… I mean, you can only read so much about Romulan social mores before you want to bleed out of your eyes so I went hunting for leisure reading in the stacks and there was this book with--pictures. Old San Francisco Pride parades? And I saw the bi flag and I just thought--look, I still… I wanted to apologize, Bones, because I… skirted it, kind of, without meaning to. What you said, about telling me, about not really telling people because they assume, when they hear about Jocelyn… I didn’t mean to do that, too. And that I didn’t mean to doesn’t change that I did. Hell, I don’t know how I didn’t see it when I met Teddy. You’re so--at your ease, with him and Gene…”
“Jim. Slow down for a second. I think you just gave me about a hundred odd words for somethin’ you coulda said in ten.” Bones is biting a lip a little, smiling in a way Jim thinks is fond and maybe a little teasing and god, he doesn’t know when the hell to shut up, does he?
“So run that back a little,” Bones nudges. “You made me this--”
“Friendship bracelet,” Jim half-mumbles, and goddammit, he’s always blushing at shit like this--
“--friendship bracelet. In the old bi pride flag colors. To… apologize for not realizing I was anything, before I came out to you?”
“It’s stupid, right?” He blurts it out without meaning to, hastily. “Yeah. That’s--I mean, that’s why I’ve just… had it in my bag all this time--”
“All this time?”
“The past few weeks. I just--kept thinking about it, and I wanted to bring it up with you again, but not without something to--make up for it, so--bracelet--”
“Kid,” Bones interrupts, and this time there’s a hand on his knee, the other hand closed gently around the better part of the bracelet. “This time I’m not gonna say slow down. Just shut up a second, and let me talk. Okay?”
Jim nods, chastened, and Bones laughs, softly. “First of all, I was teasing when I said I forgive you, okay? Jim, you weren’t being malicious, assuming. It’s just what people do. Not like I’m not people, too. I know you just didn’t think about it. And with… hell, I’m sorry for bringin’ it up, but with what you said about Frank, I ain’t surprised. It’s a hell of a position you were in, kid, and I hate that for you. And here’s somethin’ I didn’t say, that night--Jim, that you trusted me with what you did? I’m not blind what that means. And what this means.” A soft shake of the bracelet. “Friendship. I gather that’s tough going on your end. Been that way for me, too. The short of it is… I’d be honored to wear it, Jim. Thank you.”
“Yeah?” When Bones nods, Jim breathes out a little, laughs. Bones squeezes his knee and Jim runs a hand back through his hair, letting himself watch out the corner of his eye as Bones somehow ties the bracelet on one-handed, fingers nimble from years of surgical experience.
“I made one for myself,” he admits, after a beat of silence, unclenching the hand he’d tucked it away in. Bones grins a little at the sight of the pink, yellow, and blue thread.
“Think you’ll wear it around?”
“Maybe.” Jim squeezes his eyes shut a second, lets out another breath. “No. Um… no maybe. I’d like to. I keep--keep thinking I shouldn’t, but… Frank’s not here. I can start… sorting out that shit in my head, you know? Especially with… with everything you’ve been helping with. I’d… I’d like to do that.”
“Then gimme your wrist, kid.” Bones rolls his eyes. “You can’t tie a knot for shit. I’ll put it on for you.”
He holds out his wrist and the bracelet, and for a moment all there is, is Bones’ fingers--warmer than his always-chilled ones, sure of what they’re doing, sure of how to be around him--working over his wrist, tying a secure knot. He can’t really work out why his heart’s beating harder--it’s Bones, for Christ’s sake, and if he lets that cardiac idiocy go any further he’ll turn into a rambling mess again--but he doesn’t quite want to pull away from the touch, for a reason he can’t discern.
And Bones doesn’t shoo him away, not even when he picks the embroidery hoop back up and sets the PADD with the pattern back on the arm of the couch. He just waves his hand vaguely in a gesture Jim takes to mean what it has before. He reaches back into his bag and pulls out the PADD with his seminar assignment and the case for his reading glasses, eases out of his shoes.
He lies back and rests his head in Bones’ lap, and the good thing is, with Bones so focused on stitching, he doesn’t have to admit the reading glasses are a boon for reading the miniscule text of the seminar PDF. There’s companionable silence and if his eyes wander sometimes from the PADD to the hoop above him, so he can watch Bones’ hands working stitches over the fabric, well, it’s only because he’s learned Bones is even more talented than he’d guessed. And if he watches long enough, maybe he’ll learn about another one.