obstinatrix | Fic: A Question of Cultural Variation

Title: A Question of Cultural Variation
Pairing: Shatnoy
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Shameful lies
Warnings: Flufftastic as hell.
Author's note: This was originally meant to be a five-things fic, in response to this prompt about Shatner kissing his co-stars (information yet to be verified, by the way). As it is, I don't think there are five anythings in here, but it does answer the prompt. Massive thanks to

igrab, who is crazy wonderful and who read this through for me when I was stuck with it, and told me how it had to end.

They've known each other six weeks or so, the first time Leonard sees Bill kiss a man. It's late afternoon, drifting into dusk, and they're smoking contentedly behind the make-up trailer when DeForest appears and announces that he's done for the day. Bill looks up at him, eyes softening, says, "See you tomorrow, De," and kisses him.

The kiss is so glancing, Bill's movements so instinctual - a hand curled on De's elbow; the soft brush of mouth on cheek - that Leonard is inclined to blame the whole thing on the fact that Bill grew up in Montreal. They kiss each other like this, don't they - French Canadians? And Bill is, sort of, almost French Canadian. He sings in French in make-up sometimes, in the rich, nasal, tuneless voice of a native. He spent his whole childhood in the company of Quebecois. Evidently, it has turned his brain.

DeForest, certainly, looks completely unfazed as he walks away, with a staid American goodbye wave to Leonard, which makes Leonard rethink the logic of his double-take.

It's just because Bill grew up in Montreal, he tells himself, and goes back to smoking.

Bill doesn't kiss him goodbye, though, when they part that evening. As he navigates the freeway on the way home, Leonard realises that he hasn't ever. He wonders what that means, and how it relates to his French Canadian theory.

And then he gets home, and there are children to cuddle and comfortable things to eat, and he forgets about it.

*

Over the next few weeks, Leonard comes to the conclusion that, although very French in execution, Bill's kisses are not hello-goodbye defaults. In fact, to his very great frustration, he can't seem to find any skein of connective logic to them at all. Some mornings, he will kiss Nichelle the moment he sees her, almost deferentially, with the air of a country farmboy greeting a princess. Some days, he only tosses her a grin. Variations in his mood, as far as Leonard can tell, do not seem to correlate rationally with these differences of expression.

One day, about halfway through the season, Bill strides onto the set a little ahead of Leonard - they were talking; Bill tosses him a little smile of apology as he breaks off to greet the others - and leans over to kiss Nichelle on the cheek.

George is beside her, as he often is, lounging back against the console while they wait for the director to arrive. George, it seems to Leonard, is less than fond of Bill - and, indeed, of Leonard himself. And if Leonard's noticed this, then Bill surely must have done.

So Leonard is very surprised when Bill doesn't turn away to resume his conversation with Leonard, but proceeds instead to brush a dry-mouthed kiss to George's lips.

It is at this point that Leonard decides to give up seeking a logical explanation.

*

It's gruelling work, sometimes, making a series. The days are long, and his stupid ears itch, and Gene keeps changing his mind about whether he's a Vulcan or a Vulcanian. On the other hand, though, Leonard is finding that there are certain compensations, quite apart from the important issue of monetary security, that derive from spending nine hours a day in the same company.

One Saturday evening, towards the season's close, they go to a baseball game together. Leonard is driving, mainly because Bill insisted that the Buick, being almost as big as the Enterprise, would be the most logical vehicle to arrive in. Bill is sitting in the passenger seat, drumming his fingers on his knee.

"Oh, come on, De," he mutters, characteristically impatient. "You call this seven o'clock?"

"You know De," Leonard says, reasonably. "Give him a minute."

They have to give him five, but he does turn up, making a show of throwing his entire weight on the car door just to wrench it open. "Sorry, sorry, sorry - Carolyn - "

"Never mind," says Bill, waving away the explanation. "You're here now, babe."

De claps Leonard on the shoulder and grins. "Spoken like a sensible man, for once."

Leonard laughs. "For once."

"Oh, shut up, both of you," protests Bill. He twists himself around and leans over into the backseat. "C'mere, you," he instructs.

Out of the corner of his eye, Leonard sees DeForest lean forward into Bill's embrace; sees Bill pat him affectionately on the cheek. And then he sees Bill kiss DeForest's mouth, close-lipped, but firmly; and De's little quirk of fond tolerance tells him immediately that Bill's done this before. From the look on De's face, he's done it fairly often.

How is it, then, that Leonard's never seen him do it?

Why is it that Bill has never so much as air-kissed Leonard's cheek?

He turns his face away, making a production of peering out of the driver's side window so they won't notice the tightness of his expression. "All right, guys: seatbelts," he says curtly, and puts his foot down.

*

When they return to work, after a long and empty summer of sticky Saturday barbeques and poorly-executed soccer matches, there's a new face on the Enterprise. He's very young, and sweetly diminutive, and he has this grin that's got everybody charmed; and somehow when Leonard spots Bill kissing Walter goodbye, he's oddly unsurprised.

Which isn't to say he's pleased about it.

He stands in the shadows at the edge of the set, script clasped loosely in his hand, and watches them: Bill's fingers brushing Walter's jaw, tipping his face upwards; Bill breathing, "See you tomorrow," his best Kirkian smirk playing about his lips. When they kiss, Leonard distinctly notes the brief clinging of their lips as Bill pulls away. Walter looks a little surprised, a little flustered, but not annoyed, or disgusted, or any of the things Leonard somehow suddenly wishes he were. Bill smiles at him again, and slips out without glancing in Leonard's direction, and Leonard stands there glowering at Walter's back and feeling a vague urge to kick something.

This is even more illogical than Bill's Rules For Kissing Co-Actors, but he storms off anyway and kicks the front tyre of his Buick, and tries not to ask himself what exactly he's upset about.

*

They drive out one evening in late September, just Leonard and Bill, soaring out of the city limits to the wild expanse beyond. They stop the car somewhere - it doesn't matter where - and throw themselves down in the parched grass, the sky drifting warmly above them like a spangled tapestry. Bill is blowing smoke rings, his eyes dark and shining. Leonard can't quite manage it, and Bill is laughing at him; and eventually Leonard gives up telling him unconvincingly to shut up, and simply pounces him deftly, pinning him by the wrists.

"I said - "

"Leonard," Bill protests, twisting and kicking and squirming beneath him. "What are you - would you just - "

His laughter puffs warmly against Leonard's neck. The bones in his wrists are fragile, like those of a bird. At length, Leonard relents, going limp against him, and to his surprise, Bill does not draw away, but curls himself half onto Leonard's chest, throwing an arm across his waist. The evening lengthens into night like that, the two of them easily, lazily together, and Leonard wishes it were Saturday night instead of Wednesday, with a zero-hour makeup call to dread in the morning.

Still, as they drive home, Leonard can't help feeling that they've had a more or less perfect evening. They draw up outside Bill's house, and Bill unfastens his seatbelt, and Leonard thinks: if Bill were a girl, I'd be kissing him right about now.

Bill smiles at him, that soft slow smile, and he can't help but catch his breath. His eyes feel curiously inclined to close themselves. There couldn't be a more unambiguous expression on that open, handsome face; he knows exactly what Bill is going to do. Bill is going to kiss him. And Leonard is going to let him. Bill is going to kiss him, finally, finally; and suddenly Leonard wants it like he's never wanted before.

"Night, Len," Bill says gently, touching his shoulder, his wrist. The silence rubs itself between them like a cat; like a caress.

And then Bill opens the door, and gets out of the car, and walks away without a backward glance.

*

In makeup the next day, Bill avoids his eyes, talking over his head to De and flirting outrageously with one of the hairdressers. Leonard doesn't know what's going on, but it's evident that something is, and Bill knows it as well as he does. All morning, Leonard's acting is off - too much eyebrow, not enough sarcasm: misplaced concentration. Bill, who is supposed to be falling over, keeps flinging himself to the floor as if he's been struck by lightning, causing the director to sigh and request a retake, over and over again. Something, Leonard thinks, is not right.

When they break for lunch, he heads straight for Bill's dressing room. When Bill arrives, looking tight-lipped and irritable, Leonard is waiting for him, perched on a plastic chair with his hands crossed in his lap.

"Wait," Leonard says, before Bill can recover his equilibrium. "Sit."

Bill draws himself up, indignant. "Leonard," he begins icily, "this is my dressing room. You do not break into my dressing room and tell me to sit."

Leonard raises an eyebrow. "Sit down, Bill," he says, more gently. "Please."

Bill wavers for a second. Then, abruptly, the tension flees his face and he collapses onto the edge of the couch, like an old coat falling from a peg. He looks suddenly, horribly tired.

"Late night?" Leonard comments, wryly. To his great relief, Bill smiles.

"You know it was," he says, and rubs a hand across his eyes. "God, I'm tired. I've been like a zombie all day."

And he looks up at Leonard, all frank wide golden eyes, as if that's all it is. Staring back at him, Leonard almost, for the moment, believes it.

"And I'm starving," Bill continues, petulantly. "Let's go to lunch."

The afternoon goes marginally better than the morning did, although this is, really, no great achievement. Leonard is on his way out of make-up with his ears red and tingling, casting about for Bill with the intention of asking him out for a drink or something, just to talk, when he spots something that pulls him up short in his tracks.

It is, unmistakeably, the back of Bill's head. The set is full of pillars, for some reason Leonard has yet to discover, and the rest of Bill is mostly behind one of them, but he would recognise that hair anywhere, curtailing neatly above the collar of Kirk's gold shirt. Taken on its own, there is, of course, no reason why Bill's head should not still be on the set, provided that it's accompanied by the rest of him. What stops Leonard dead is the fact that there is a hand cupping Bill's nape, fingers creeping up into his hair, wrist disappearing into a red sleeve.

What stops Leonard dead is the fact that Bill is clearly kissing a redshirt, apparently - (another hand snakes around to the small of Bill's back, and Leonard presses his lips together) - apparently with clinging and panting and tongue. Leonard's never warranted so much as a Montreal coffeehouse airkiss, and Bill is kissing a fucking redshirt.

This is the last straw.

The expression on Bill's face as Leonard grips him roughly by the shoulder would have been, at any other time, sheer comic gold; but, as it is, neither of them is in the mood for laughing. Leonard doesn't say anything because he doesn't know what to say; Bill, looking almost frightened, simply stands there and stares at him, as if awaiting judgement. The redshirt - whom Leonard recognises as an actor they've used numerous times, in countless different roles - pulls swiftly out of Bill's arms and slips away, blushing.

For a long, aching moment, they look at each other. Bill's mouth is blurred from kissing, dampness glistening on his swollen lower lip. Leonard wants to lean down and bite that mouth, not playfully, but hard; he wants to make Bill feel that teasing hurts.

"Why do you do that?" His voice is tight and cold, foreign in his ears. He wonders what Bill thinks he is thinking. Is that even something Bill would wonder about?

"Why do I do what?"

"Kiss everyone!" Leonard bursts out. Abruptly, he takes Bill by the shoulders, and Bill flinches exactly as if he'd been slapped.

"I don't - "

"You fucking do!" Leonard counters, gripping Bill's upper arms fully hard enough to bruise him. "You do it all the damn time! You get to work in the morning and you kiss people hello; you go home, and you kiss goodbye. You kiss De and Nichelle and Walter - you even kiss George, for Christ's sake. Hell - " Leonard gives him a little shake - "you even kiss the goddamn redshirts, Bill: why? What are you playing at?"

Bill's face, Leonard notices, has gone white to the lips. This strikes him as odd, because Bill is, generally, inclined to flush when moved, his colour rising in anger or embarrassment or joy. Now, he is strangely colourless, like a garment washed too long in boiling water. He says, "It's just - it's the way I was brought up, Leonard."

Leonard drops his hands and breathes in deep. "You were brought up to make out with bit-part actors in the middle of the set?"

Bill makes a small, frustrated sound. "I was brought up to think of kissing as a viable greeting! Maybe my parents didn't do it, but everybody else did. When I was at school, we'd kiss each other every morning when we met up in the schoolyard; you just kiss everyone, it doesn't mean anything. It just - "

"So why," Leonard interrupts, in a voice whose evenness surprises him, “have you never kissed me, Bill? Huh? If it doesn’t mean anything, and you just kiss everyone. What the hell’s wrong with me?”

Bill, who had been working himself up into an apoplexy of protest, goes suddenly, abruptly still. His hands, raised for emphasis, fall to his sides. A little colour creeps back into his cheeks, stealing outwards from his nose to the lobes of his ears. There is a look in his eyes like breaking dawn, understanding swelling like the sunrise. Leonard watches the transformation in his face, and is annoyed to feel himself trembling.

“Leonard,” Bill says, very gently. “There’s nothing wrong with you.”

“Then why?” repeats Leonard, flatly. “I’m sorry to keep harping on it, Bill, but I’ve just got to know what it is about me that makes you disinclined just to peck me hello and goodbye like everybody fucking - mmph -”

He staggers a little under the sudden onslaught of Bill, throwing up his hands automatically to shield himself and finding them full of assorted bits and pieces of his friend: his elbow, then his waist, then the hard point of a hipbone through thin fabric. Bill is kissing him, not cordially, but deep and fierce and wet, their mouths slipping against each other in the way of all first kisses, unpractised and earnest and desiring. It is wholly unexpected, and yet somehow exactly what he’s wanted from Bill for months, now, without ever quite admitting it outright to himself, and he’s already moving to pull Bill closer when he feels himself abruptly abandoned. He stares at Bill in confusion, a pulse thrumming wildly in his throat.

“That’s why,” says Bill. His voice is a little hoarse with kissing. Leonard wants to hear his name cried out like that, all throaty and husky and deep. Bill shakes his head a little, eyes wide and dark; deerlike. “That’s why I didn’t kiss you: are you happy now? I couldn’t have pecked you hello if my life depended on it; I couldn’t - “ he breaks off, pressing a hand to his eyes. “Len, I couldn’t -”

Before Leonard even knows what he’s doing, he’s gathering Bill into his arms again, feathering kisses to his cheek and his ear and the fine curve of bone between temple and eyebrow. “Don’t, then,” he mutters, as if it were that simple. “Just kiss me,” he says, licking at Bill’s jaw; nipping at his ear. “Kiss me,” he breathes into the hollow of it, in a voice too soft to be called a whisper.

And, with a sharp clear sound, Bill does, fingers digging into Leonard’s back, mouth as quick as silver. It’s slick and hot and too damn hard, too full of slips of teeth and tongue and Leonard can feel every twitch of Bill’s; every breath. It’s a ridiculous place for it, out here with only a polystyrene pillar between them and the world, but Bill’s lips are warm and soft and a little chapped, the taste of them flavourless, inexpressible; and his body aches with wanting this, and nobody has to find out about it. Bill may kiss everyone, anyone, hello and good morning and well done and good luck, but his mouth under Leonard’s is gentle and nervous and he knows, now, with a sudden blinding clarity, that he doesn’t kiss anybody else like this, like it means something.

Eventually, they adjourn to Leonard’s dressing room, and it’s messy and cramped and clandestine, and perfect. Leonard drives Bill home, kissing him in the warm dark of the car in the street outside his house.

Bill’s wife is in that house. Bill’s kids. Leonard knows, as he heads onwards along the freeway towards his own apartment, that it can’t be easy, this thing; it isn’t straightforward, or comprehensible, or right. But Bill kisses him like nobody’s ever kissed him, like he’s food and water and beauty and happiness and God, and that’s enough for him, for now, because Bill doesn’t kiss anyone else that way: he couldn’t.

So he’s smiling to himself as he drives home in the dark, because his mouth tastes like Bill and cigarettes, and he’s finally, for whatever reason, satisfied.