ST fic: What Changed in His Head [Kirk/McCoy, adult]
Title: What Changed in His Head Author: celandineb Fandom: Star Trek XI Pairing: Kirk/McCoy Rating: adult Length: 3388 words Warnings: both schmoop and angst Summary: Kirk acknowledges that his feelings have changed. Note: Twentieth in the "Heart of the Matter" series. This one is dedicated to inell.
Valentine's Day was coming up, less than a week away now, and Kirk had no idea what if anything he ought to do about it. He had established a pattern of flirting with McCoy in front of their friends, but without intimating anything exclusive since he was still paying attention to women as well. McCoy seemed happy to let everyone think that it was just a flirtation for fun on top of their existing friendship, nothing yet more serious, so if Kirk did anything for him for Valentine's Day it had better be pretty low-key.
He couldn't tell if McCoy was planning anything. He rather suspected not. He had the definite impression that Jocelyn had expected all the traditional trappings like roses and candy and a night out, and McCoy wasn't likely to want to evoke his memory of his ex-wife by doing the same things he'd done with her.
Kirk thought about it. If only mid-February weren't still winter... and then he saw a flyer tacked up for a store that not only sold camping gear, but also rented it, and he hatched a plan.
"Do you have a clinic shift tonight?" he asked McCoy casually as they were hurrying across campus together on the morning of the fourteenth.
"No. Why?" McCoy's eyebrows went up. "Never mind, tell me later. I'm going to be late for my lab. See you." He ducked into the science building.
In his own classroom, Kirk quickly composed a message and sent it to McCoy before turning his attention to the instructor.
Meet me at the Sutro Bath House at 9.
It really should have been 2100 hours, but Kirk knew that McCoy was more comfortable with civilian clocks, and this was hardly Starfleet business.
Well before he had told McCoy to be there, Kirk had spent an hour getting ready. He had rented a tiny pup tent, barely big enough to hold two, plus an inflatable mattress and a sleeping bag. He had also picked up a bottle of McCoy's favorite bourbon, although he now realized he'd forgotten anything to pour it into. He shrugged. They could just drink from the bottle; it wasn't as if they didn't share germs anyway. The tent was set up, after quite a bit of wrestling and swearing at it, the mattress inflated with much more ease using the small electric pump that came with it, the sleeping bag spread out. He'd forgotten cups, but he had remembered both lube and a towel for cleaning up if they needed it. He had nothing left to do but pace, waiting for McCoy to show up.
He checked the time; still ten minutes to wait, assuming McCoy wasn't late, that is. At least he hadn't said he wouldn't come. He sat down on a large rock, considered and discarded the idea of breaking into the bourbon before McCoy arrived, and instead simply jiggled his leg impatiently as he waited.
Kirk had considered making a fire but decided against it, not wanting to risk having a park cop stop by at an unfortunate moment. Fires were not permitted in the park except in designated locations, of which this was not one. Camping wasn't either, for that matter, but the little tent was not likely to catch the eye as a fire would, and anyway Kirk expected they would be gone by midnight. The only lights came from the reflection of the city off the clouds; enough to see McCoy standing there, but not quite enough to discern his expression.
"I brought something to drink, if you'd like," Kirk offered, holding up the bottle. "Although I forgot to bring cups or anything."
McCoy walked over. Kirk was relieved to see that he was smiling. "I won't complain... this time. Give me that." He opened the bottle and took a long swig. "I presume all that," he nodded toward the tent, "is your doing, too?"
"Yeah. We hadn't managed to get together for almost two weeks, and this seemed a lot nicer than one of those rooms by the hour even if it doesn't have amenities like running water."
"True," agreed McCoy. His voice sounded rough, but before Kirk could figure out why that might be, McCoy had put the bottle down and was kissing him.
Kirk overbalanced and slid off his rock, landing rather heavily on the damp ground with McCoy on top of him, but he ignored the twinge of his hip and put his arms around McCoy to kiss him back.
"Jim, Jim," McCoy muttered between kisses. His stubbled cheek scraped against Kirk's neck as he dipped his head to suck at the hollow of Kirk's throat.
"Maybe we should move inside the tent?" Kirk suggested after a while. Both of their shirts were pretty well rucked up by then, and anyone passing by would have known immediately what they'd been doing. "I think today even the cops might look the other way, but easier for them to do it if we're not actually naked in public."
"Yeah," McCoy said hoarsely. He grabbed the bottle and crawled into the tent after Kirk.
A claustrophobe would have been bothered, but Kirk had done his share of hiding in various tight places. In fact in junior high school he'd had a kind of specialty of locking himself into the double locker he shared with Nate Singleton, working the catch from the inside when he was ready to get out. Small spaces in themselves didn't bother him. He wiggled around to make sure that the lube he'd brought was within reach.
"Jim." McCoy was sucking at his neck again.
"Yeah, Bones, what is it?"
"Probably we should stay mostly dressed, don't you think, just in case?"
"I suppose so," Kirk said, swallowing his disappointment. He liked the feel of McCoy's body naked against his own, bu there would be other times. "Just hands then?"
"I have something better in mind." McCoy tugged at Kirk's trousers until his cock was exposed, thrusting up hard from the opened fabric.
"Gonna suck me then?"
"Nah." Kirk felt rather than saw McCoy's shake of his head. "You have lube, don't you?"
Wordlessly Kirk passed him the bottle and a moment later felt McCoy's hand on him, slicking him.
"Damn," McCoy swore softly.
"What?"
"I was gonna sit on top of you, facing you like we did our last night in Atlanta, but I'd have to take my pants off for that. Guess I'll kneel instead, and you can be behind me." He reached for Kirk's wrist and tugged at him. "Here."
It took a little bit of fumbling to get everything lined up, but then he found the angle he needed and slid inside, the tight heat of McCoy's ass welcoming him.
"That good?"
McCoy's answering groan was very distinctly one of pleasure, so Kirk grabbed onto his hips and started to move. He could have wept at the feel of it, the way McCoy murmured to urge him on, harder-faster-deeper, but he didn't want to come right away. Deliberately he slowed, sliding his hands over McCoy's skin to caress his thighs, his back, his chest, anywhere he could reach while maintaining his steady pace.
In the small space of the tent, there wasn't room to move very much, but between the lack of air and having most of his clothes still on, within moments Kirk felt the trickle of sweat breaking out all over his body. Beneath him McCoy gave soft grunts at his every thrust. Now Kirk reached around McCoy's hip for his dick, and found McCoy's left hand already there. He stilled his own movements to concentrate on McCoy, coaxing him back to full hardness and then continuing with slow firm strokes.
McCoy gasped and groaned and Kirk felt his ass clench even as McCoy's semen wetted his fingers. He groaned, too, relaxing his control and thrusting again, convulsively, one, two, a dozen times, the heat boiling inside him, and then in a rush he too had come.
They sank forward. McCoy twisted so that he was on his side, nudging Kirk over to lie behind him, his cock softening and slipping out of McCoy's ass. He could feel his heart beating in counterpoint to his slowing breath, felt too the beat of McCoy's heart under the hand he had draped over McCoy's chest. It was like curling up with Sam after Frank had strapped them both for some minor offense, was this closeness and calm. It was like being in the womb, if he could remember that although of course he did not, but this was what it must've been like, only this was better.
The words slipped out of his mouth before he could censor them or think about how trite they might sound, on this day of all days.
"I love you."
McCoy's hand fumbled for his, gripped it, pulled it to his mouth. "I love you, too," McCoy murmured against his fingers, almost inaudibly.
Something in Kirk shuddered and broke at that. He'd had plenty of women say that they loved him, but he'd known that they didn't mean it except in a superficial way, as they might love a new handbag or a sinfully rich dessert. The way McCoy had said it, though, there was no question but that he meant it with every fiber of his being, and Kirk realized that he felt the same. His subconscious mind was obviously way ahead of him.
He moved at last with reluctance, reaching for the hand towel he'd left beside the sleeping bag, mopping up the sticky streaks of drying come from McCoy's ass and thighs and his own cock before passing the towel to McCoy to do likewise.
"Thanks."
"We'll have to pack everything up and get going soon." Kirk fumbled to do up his pants. "No overnight camping in the park."
"I didn't figure so," McCoy agreed, stretching so that Kirk heard his joints pop. "So shall I give you a hand?"
Irrationally Kirk resented the matter-of-fact tone of McCoy's voice. Surely an acknowledgment such as they had made deserved more attention? Then common sense reasserted itself. He'd been the one to change the subject, and anyhow, they could hardly sit there saying "I love you" over and over.
"Sure," he answered aloud. "Let's roll up the sleeping bag first and get that out of here – don't forget to rescue the bourbon either – and deflate the mattress. Then the tent should collapse pretty easily."
"I think it would be easier if we pull the sleeping bag out and roll it up outside," said McCoy, suiting actions to words.
Kirk helped, holding up one end while McCoy rolled from the other. The air mattress was almost as simple as the sleeping bag, once it had been deflated. The tent was easier to take down than it had been to put up, but figuring out how to fold it up so that it fit into its pouch was somewhat more tricky. All three items fit together on a lightweight metal frame. Kirk picked it up and slipped the straps over his shoulders.
"Back to campus, I guess."
McCoy put a hand out to stop him. "Jim."
"Yeah, Bones?"
McCoy's lips brushed his. "Happy Valentine's Day. I... I never thought I would enjoy this day again. Thanks."
"Yeah. Um. You're welcome," said Kirk awkwardly.
Riding the bus back with McCoy, Kirk felt a calm contentment that he'd rarely experienced before.
The strange thing was that, the next day, Kirk found himself looking at other men and speculating idly what they might be like in bed, in the same way he had always looked at women – not objectifying them so much as appreciating them physically. It had never occurred to him before that the cadets' fitness requirement meant that they were all in reasonably good shape and therefore potentially attractive. Faces aside, of course, but Kirk had long since found that pretty faces in girls could be deceptive. Standards for male attractiveness were a lot more flexible anyhow, and based more on body appearance than on the face.
When he realized that he was checking out other men, he made an effort to stop. McCoy had made it very clear that although he accepted Kirk would continue his habit of flirtation with women, he very much did not want him do the same with men, and Kirk had promised he would not. At that time he hadn't expected that he would want to do so; McCoy had been the only man he'd recognized an attraction to. Now that had changed, and Kirk didn't know why. He only knew that he was not entirely comfortable with it, more on McCoy's account than his own.
If this change in attitude had occurred a year earlier, or even six months, it would have been McCoy that Kirk would probably have gone to in order to talk it over. That was one downside of the development of this relationship. He hadn't lost McCoy as a friend, but now there were things he was less comfortable talking about, because he didn't want to hurt him.
Then he reconsidered. McCoy was not exactly slow on the uptake, and giving appreciative glances and flirting was something Kirk did so automatically that sooner or later he was bound to slip up and start flirting with Sharpe or Adamson or Matthews or Sidhu or one of their other male friends without consciously intending to. Better to talk to McCoy before that happened. Maybe he could help Kirk figure out what was going on. In any case Kirk could try to explain and assure him that he didn't have the same emotional reaction to anyone but McCoy.
It wasn't quite as difficult to find a place and time where they could talk privately and undisturbed as it was to find an opportunity for sex, but it still wasn't easy, and several days passed before Kirk managed it by dint of booking one of the small group study rooms at the library. McCoy's eyebrows went up when Kirk asked him to study there with him that evening, but he came along willingly enough after dinner.
The room had windows facing the hallway, presumably so that latecomers could locate the rest of their study group if they'd forgotten the room number, and McCoy gestured at them. "Do you mind if I lower those blinds? I don't like people passing by and watching me."
"Absolutely." Kirk pulled out books and PADDs, arranging them on the table as McCoy adjusted the blinds. He sat down and twiddled with one of the PADDs until McCoy had finished and also taken a chair. "Bones."
"Let me guess, you didn't just want to study. I'll tell you now, though, that I'm not going to risk doing more than a little kissing here." McCoy jerked a thumb at a corner of the ceiling, where a security camera was mounted. "I don't know if that's continuously monitored or not, but I don't want to put on a show for some security guard."
"I hadn't even thought of doing that," said Kirk honestly. "I wanted to talk, that's all."
McCoy frowned. "Talk about what?"
Before that steady gaze, Kirk almost hesitated, but he forced himself to say what he'd planned. ""I meant what I said at Ocean Beach on Valentine's Day. I wanted to be sure that you know that."
"I meant it too." McCoy's face was flushed and his voice rough as he spoke. "More than I've ever meant saying it to anybody before."
Kirk took a deep breath. "But something weird has been happening to me, the last few days. I never looked at other guys before, you know, the way I check out women, but lately I have been. It's not," he stumbled, "not meaningful, not like with you, but..." He shrugged, feeling helpless to explain further or more clearly.
McCoy went white to the lips. He stared at Kirk.
"Look, I'm not going to go out there and start sleeping with every man in sight," said Kirk, a little desperately. "Any more than I'm sleeping with women these days either. I'm just... I don't know, aware of men that way now, where I didn't ever used to be. I don't know what changed in my head. I wasn't gonna tell you, but I figured you would guess anyhow, since you always noticed me flirting with women, so you'd be bound to notice with men." Kirk wound down, watching McCoy, waiting for him to respond somehow.
"I don't know what to say." McCoy was staring at his own hands, clenched on the edge of the table. His voice was soft, defeated. "I guess I should have known better than to think you'd be happy with just me."
"Bones." Kirk leaned forward and gripped McCoy's arm. "You weren't listening. I. Don't. Want. To. Have. Sex. With. Any. Other. Man," he enunciated each word. "That's the bottom line. I love you, like I said." The words still weren't entirely easy to say, though he knew them to be true, but the misery on McCoy's face overrode any embarrassment he felt. "If you have any ideas for how I could manage to not look, not pay attention or notice when someone's attractive, believe me, I'd love to hear it, but in any case I'll swear by anything you like that just looking and being appreciative doesn't at all change how I feel about you."
The fine lines around Bones's mouth and eyes showed distinctly in the harsh light as he finally looked up at Kirk. "You mean that."
"Yes, I mean it. Even without the sex, you're my best friend, have been for getting on for three years now, and I wouldn't deliberately hurt you."
McCoy let out a long, shuddering sigh, and he turned his hand to interlace his fingers with Kirk's. "You know I've been with a few other men. Before Jocelyn," he said after a moment.
Kirk nodded.
"I think maybe if I'd been honest with myself, I'd have known that Jocelyn, that any woman, was more the exception than the rule for me. I like women just fine, mind you, and my sex life with Jocelyn always seemed okay. At least that wasn't one of the obvious reasons why we split up. Maybe, though, if she'd been a man I would have made more of an effort in that area... I don't know. Anyhow, what I mean is that since I've certainly been attracted to other men, in the past anyway, I shouldn't be surprised if you are, too, and if you're not doing anything but looking, I don't have much ground to be upset about it. It just really took me by surprise to hear you say you were." He stroked his thumb over Kirk's knuckles.
"Okay." Kirk squeezed gently in response.
McCoy managed a somewhat shaky grin. "Although I think maybe I will do a little research to see if I can find some strategy for toning down your flirtatiousness a bit. My god, man, you are on the command track, and once you have some authority, it'll be inappropriate at best, and very possibly a discipline-worthy infraction of the rules, if you flirt in a noticeable way with your subordinate officers. Myself excepted, naturally, if I'm lucky enough to serve with you," and now the smile was more genuine.
"I would actually appreciate that," admitted Kirk. "Seriously, it's just a habitual response at this point, and half the time I don't realize that what I say, or even how I look at someone, is going to be taken as a come-on or flirtation."
"I don't think you could or would want to eliminate the behavior entirely; part of it is just the Jim Kirk charm. But maybe we can figure out how to get you to tone it down." McCoy reached for one of the PADDs. "I'll make a note to do some research on it, tomorrow maybe."
"Suits me." Kirk pulled his books closer. "I suppose now we should get some of that studying done that I lured you here to... although I wouldn't mind a little of that kissing that you suggested earlier."
McCoy leaned over and brushed his lips across Kirk's cheek. "Me, either."