bone, meet pick (skeleton, lay in)

"I love Spock," Jim had said.

"I know," Bones had said. "I can't hardly help it, the way you two hang all over each other."

"Spock? Hanging all over me? Even for you, McCoy, that's a stretch."

Funny. Cute. Amusing. Tender, in a moment. Grating, after a while.

"Exactly my point. For that Vulcan, anything he does that remotely resembles regular, everyday human kindness is a signal that he's smitten, clear as a bell."

It was a judgement of Spock in particular, of Spock as a creature and a comfort, yet its macabre glint flickered malovently over that very same mould of "regular, everyday human kindness" that loose talk and small conversation tried to fit.

Jim's face hardened - of course, almost imperceptibly, but what this meant for James T. Kirk and any humanoid environs was that you noticed it if you were a friendly, and if you weren't...I think not.

"Oh, come on now, Bones, I thought we were training you out of all that good, old-timey Southern feeling."

"Southern feeling?" questioned Leonard, in a guiltily-cautious drawl.

"The racism, Bones, the racism."

"Well, for his boyfriend you don't seem particularly irate."

"On the contrary. It incenses me every time, but I just don't feel like getting angry about it."

"Why not? He teach you some of that mind control stuff, now?"

Jim's jaw worked, again beyond open perception.

"Well, maybe. But mostly you're just too good a friend of mine to get me acting harshly that way. With diplomats, it's something different - there's no time for gentle, idle nudges at the point I'm trying to make, except for the fact that that's actually all there's time for."

"But for me, you'll take your sweet druthers?"

Oh, for pete's sake, we're all lying to each other!

"For you, I'm trying to be patient. Because I think it's worth it. And because I think you know just how much you appreciate him, and not only for the way he manages to mitigate harm done to me, with whom you have no xenoracial bones to pick."

Learn some shame, and get over yourself, if you must - I never said he's more important than you.

"Aw, hell, Jim. I'm starting to think I'd rather you just did get angry, instead of acting all calm about it."

But he doesn't have...this. Juvenile discomfort.

"There we go, McCoy. I have faith in you. You'll get around to it."