Celandine's Chronicle (celandineb) wrote in cels_fic_haven, @ 2010-06-15 19:26:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | star trek fic hotm, star trek fic kirk/mccoy |
ST fic: If at First You Don't Succeed [Kirk/McCoy, adult]
Title: If at First You Don't Succeed
Author: celandineb
Fandom: Star Trek XI
Pairing: Kirk/McCoy
Rating: adult
Length: 3573 words
Warnings: if 69 needs a warning, consider yourself warned
Summary: McCoy is somewhat concerned about Kirk and the Kobayashi Maru test.
Note: Twenty-third in the "Heart of the Matter" series.
Kirk's plan to re-jigger the assignment program of Starfleet's main computer so that the two of them would be placed together had McCoy worried. He knew that Kirk was smart enough to do it, and without leaving any evident tracks – hell, it was always possible that they could end up assigned to the same ship anyhow, so it wasn't as if anyone would have cause to suspect – but there was always the chance that his interference with the subroutines would somehow be discovered.
Still, there was really nothing McCoy could do about it. He couldn't pretend to Kirk that he didn't want them to be together, and if Kirk was willing to take whatever the risk was, there was no way that McCoy would be able to persuade him otherwise. Kirk might nod and pretend to agree, but he would do what he thought was best, regardless.
"Only a few more weeks now," said Matthews, interrupting McCoy's thoughts.
"Yeah," said McCoy, pushing his PADD away and turning to his roommate. "Are you ready?"
"Ready to be through with the Academy," said Matthews, shaking his head. "Three years is enough. I'm glad I'm not on the command track; those poor bastards have five years or even longer."
"Usually," McCoy reminded him. "Jim's finishing in three, although I think that's a record." He felt ridiculously proud of Kirk, saying that, in much the same way that he was proud of Joanna's success so far in her pre-pilot training.
"True, true. Although I'm not sure which would be worse, taking five years to get through that program or cramming it into three. I swear I don't know how he finds time to sleep." Matthews yawned and stretched, his spine cracking audibly. "Just thinking about it makes me tired."
McCoy yawned, too. "Neither do I, but I suppose not needing much sleep or else being able to function all right without enough is a good characteristic for a person aiming at command."
"For doctors, too," said Matthews. "If there's an emergency, wouldn't you be on call at any hour?"
"Yes, you're right about an emergency, but even a small ship normally has more than one person with some medical training, so otherwise it's not likely. Thank goodness." McCoy yawned again. "And now all this talk about not sleeping has made me sleepy myself just thinking about it. You about ready to hit the sack?"
That was the biggest drawback to sharing a room, McCoy felt. He didn't especially mind a lack of privacy, or even that it was difficult for Kirk and him to spend discreet time together. What he found most problematic was having to try to coordinate sleep schedules, so that neither of them disturbed the other more than necessary. Matthews being in all those astronomy courses didn't help.
"Oh, sure." Matthews shut off his PADD. "First dibs on the bathroom."
McCoy pulled on his pajamas and lay down on his bed to wait for Matthews to come out of the bathroom so that he could brush his teeth. He dozed off for a moment, but woke when Matthews touched his shoulder.
"Your turn, Doc."
"Thanks." McCoy sat up and went to brush his teeth. He rather liked that Matthews and his other friends and acquaintances here mostly called him "Doc." It was the biggest part of his identity, after all, and something he'd worked hard to achieve. "Leonard" was the name his mother had always used to scold him, "Lenny" was far too juvenile, and "Len" was what Jocelyn had called him, by the end breaking it into two exasperated syllables. He'd considered "Leo" briefly, but he didn't feel like a Leo. So all in all, "Doc" was fine... or, from Kirk, "Bones." Kirk had started in with that nickname almost as soon as they'd met, although McCoy couldn't quite remember how it had happened. It didn't really matter anyway.
Teeth brushed, he went to bed and fell asleep to the sound of Matthews's light snores from the other side of the room.
Word was out now that there was something more between McCoy and Kirk than just friendship, although McCoy at least downplayed the seriousness of their involvement, not denying it but not making a big deal of it either. It was known well enough, though, that the rest of their friends now automatically left the place next to Kirk open at the cafeteria tables, and no one else batted an eye when Kirk patted McCoy's ass as he went to sit down, although McCoy still felt his face heat up.
"Has anyone heard when they're going to start administering the Kobayashi Maru tests?" Kirk asked the table at large.
"I heard that sign-ups will start today, and the testing will begin next week," said Baden.
"Excellent." Kirk grinned around a bite of corn muffin.
"No one's ever passed that test," said Chen, shaking his head. "Why are you so excited about taking it? I'd be nervous as hell."
Kirk cocked his head. "No one passes it, yet everyone graduates... so obviously it doesn't matter whether or not you pass, not to finish the program. Besides, I like a challenge. Maybe I'll be the first ever to succeed."
"Maybe, but if wishes were starships, the whole world would fly," McCoy said with a shake of his head.
Later that evening, though – Sidhu had offered to study in the library, so they were in Kirk's room – McCoy was drawn back to the question of the Kobayashi Maru test and just what Kirk was planning to do about it.
"It would be great if you passed it, of course," he said, "but since no one ever has, it's hardly going to reflect badly on you if you don't. Has it ever occurred to you that maybe it doesn't matter if you pass, that it's all right not to win the encounter?"
"No." Kirk's face, usually so boyish, was set into lines of grim determination that made him look suddenly much older. "I don't believe in – what was it Captain Pike called them, no-win scenarios? There's always a way out, if you look hard enough, and I'm going to find it."
"Okay," said McCoy in resignation. When Kirk was this set on something, there was no way to dissuade him, at least not overtly.
"Yeah." Kirk pulled McCoy into a closer embrace. "Don't worry, I'm not going to do anything stupid, 'cause if I did, I'd lose you."
"Okay," McCoy repeated, not because he was satisfied but because he couldn't think of anything else to say just then. "So what are you going to do about the test?"
"I haven't decided yet." Kirk frowned. "I'm still evaluating all the past years' tests, but it's looking very much as though there is no set of correct choices for any of them."
"You mean they're designed to be unwinnable? It's not just that they're extremely difficult, but actually impossible?"
"That's what I'm saying." said Kirk. "But I'm going to figure out something, Bones. I may not be able to do it before I take the test, but I've read over the rules very carefully, and there's nothing to say that I can't take it twice, or even three times or more, if I want."
"You're crazy, Jim," said McCoy, but he said it in a voice that mingled affection with exasperation. "And I'd better get going. I have a test of my own to study for, tomorrow, and I'm pretty sure mine's one that we are expected to pass."
"Okay. See you at breakfast?" Kirk was already reaching for his PADD, no doubt to work on the problem of the Kobayashi Maru again.
"Breakfast," McCoy agreed, and left.
Kirk was one of the first, if not the first, to sign up for the test the following week. To McCoy's surprise, Kirk opted for the very earliest slot. McCoy would have thought that he would prefer to wait and hear how it had gone for others before taking it himself.
"Why would I?" Kirk asked when McCoy brought up the question. "I already know more details about the setup from studying the old tests and their results than anyone going in blind could ever notice. No, I just need my own experience of this year's test and its particular quirks – and I wouldn't bother with that except that security on the current test is very high. I could get around it eventually, if I needed to, but seeing it for myself is simpler and faster."
Kirk's insouciant attitude toward hacking into the Academy's computer system worried McCoy. Although Kirk might say, had said, that he wouldn't knowingly do anything that would risk separating them – and expulsion would certainly do that – McCoy also recognized the extent of Kirk's stubbornness if he were doggedly after something.
"Do you think that's a good idea?" he probed.
"Damn it, Bones, don't get all mother-hen-ish on me. I'm not one of your patients and you can't order me around."
McCoy tried to defuse the situation with a chuckle. "Well, you know you are one of my patients, technically, since you chose me to be your physician of record."
"I don't care; I'm not ill or sick or injured and you still can't tell me what to do." Kirk glared.
Whatever was triggering Kirk's overreaction to McCoy's concerns, it was probably best to just leave him alone at this point, McCoy decided. "I don't want to fight with you." McCoy had finished his lunch anyhow. He piled up his dirty dishes on the tray. "Good luck with the test tomorrow. You can tell me how it was at dinner with everyone."
The argument with Kirk bothered him. The whole situation encapsulated so many of the traits that made Kirk himself: cocksureness, stubbornness, independence. But taken to extremes... McCoy shook his head. He wouldn't want Kirk to be anyone but who he was, the man with whom he'd started to fall in love back when they first met on the shuttle, and yet he feared that those very characteristics that defined Kirk would prove to be his undoing.
The next day at dinner Kirk said surprisingly little about how the test had gone, despite being peppered with questions from their other cadet friends, none of whom had taken it yet and several of whom would, either this year or another. He ate his dinner, and participated in general conversation, but it was with most of his attention turned inward in contemplation.
"I'm close," was all he would say when McCoy asked him about the test later, when they were alone. "I'm signed up for a second go in a few days."
"Shall I sign up to be on that mock crew?" McCoy asked cautiously. Officially other cadets signed up to play crew members for whomever was taking the test at a given time, without knowing who that would be, but unofficially they usually did know. McCoy wasn't sure if Kirk would want him there to watch, however, not if he wasn't certain he would pass the test.
A shrug from Kirk. "If you want. They always need more crew."
"I'll do it," McCoy decided. "What day and time?"
"Thursday, at three."
"Damn. If I remember, you have to sign up for a two-hour slot, since the length of the test depends on how the test-taker does, and I have a clinic shift that day which starts at four."
"It's okay, Bones. Really." Kirk smiled, looking more like the cheerful man he had been last fall than he had in a long time. McCoy smiled back.
"I'll see if someone else from the group can do it and maybe tell me what it was like afterward. That'll be good enough, I suppose."
None of their close friends, as it turned out, were able to act as crew for Kirk's second attempt at the Kobayashi Maru test, but McCoy found out that a cadet who was on the fringes of their group, a young pilot called Hikaru Sulu, had been there. He made a point of looking Sulu up and asking him what Kirk's test had been like.
"Why do you want to know?" Sulu looked faintly puzzled.
"I'm his... friend." McCoy let the pause last just long enough so that Sulu could read it to mean that they were something more than just friends. "And it was his second time, but he never told anyone much about the first. So I wondered."
Sulu shrugged. "He was in command the whole time, no question of that: not panicking or anything like someone I saw take the test earlier this week. I suppose, since it was his second time, that was why he didn't seem surprised when the Klingons defeated us, just angry. He ordered a lot of maneuvering. Not just defensive moves, either, but some that were really more offensive, and that's pretty unorthodox for that kind of situation. It was as if he wanted to draw out the engagement as long as he could, regardless of whether it would help. Is that the kind of thing you wanted to know?"
"Yes," McCoy said. "I wanted to be there myself but it was impossible for me."
"It's always like that, isn't it?" said Sulu. He broke into a smile. "I'm glad I could help. For what it's worth, even though I've heard some mixed things about Jim Kirk, after seeing him in action, I think he'll be a good commander and I wouldn't mind serving under him sometime."
"I don't think I'll tell him that, if you don't mind." McCoy grinned back. "Jim has enough problems with an oversized ego as it is."
"Yeah, that's what I hear. Nice guy though. See you around, McCoy."
It was reassuring to know that someone like Sulu thought that Kirk showed good leadership, but McCoy also managed to find time to look up Kirk's reported results for himself. The specifics of the test were secured, as were the criteria according to which the cadets taking it were evaluated, but a summary of each test-taker's actions during the test and the duration of it were openly reported. McCoy was able to discover that Kirk had kept his vessel intact and in fighting order longer than anyone else so far this year by some minutes. He wasn't sure if the results were comparable from year to year, since the test was changed regularly, but from what he could tell, Kirk's record was considerably better than anyone's from the previous few years, too.
He said as much to Kirk, cautiously, a little worried that he might take offense at the idea that McCoy had been checking up on him.
"I know," Kirk said. "One of the instructors – Kishlansky, you know, the one with the blond mustache? – said something about that when I was leaving."
"So you should be satisfied now," probed McCoy.
Kirk shrugged and changed the subject. "When's Matthews supposed to get back tonight?"
McCoy glanced at the time. "Not for another couple of hours."
"Well, then. I think we should put a little of that interval to good use, don't you?" He stood up and grabbed McCoy's hand, pulling him towards the bed.
Although he wasn't especially in the mood and had a lot of studying he needed to do, McCoy went along with it. One reason that Jocelyn had left him, so she said, was that he was selfish, putting his own needs before hers every time. Or putting his patients' needs first, but she saw that an excuse – which, to be fair, it occasionally had been. At any rate, McCoy didn't want to fall into the same pattern with Kirk. Better to cooperate sometimes even if he didn't really feel like it, so that when it was a real problem for him to feel in the mood, Kirk would be more willing to understand.
Besides, he had to admit when they were both naked and kissing, when you got down to it, sex with Kirk was always pretty good. He squeezed Kirk's ass, and Kirk responded with a chuckling growl, biting harder at McCoy's throat.
"Hey, careful, no marks please. I don't want to look like I've been attacked by a vampire," McCoy said.
Kirk stopped and looked at him with a wicked smile tugging at his lips. "No? How about a little sucking elsewhere, then? In fact, I was thinking it would be fun to try doing it at the same time, a 69, you know."
"Okay," McCoy said, although he had always felt that position was overrated. If you paid proper attention to what you were doing to your partner, it was hard to enjoy what that person was doing to you; and if you focused on your own pleasure, you were liable to either slack on your efforts or else bite by accident, which was worse.
Curled up on the bed, though, it was better than remembered, maybe because he was with a man – more room to breathe, it seemed like – or maybe because it was not just any man, but Kirk. He sucked at just the tip of Kirk's dick to begin with, only gradually letting more of the shaft slide between his lips, using his hands to rub the base and caress Kirk's balls. He could feel the wet suction of Kirk's mouth on his own balls, Kirk's tongue massaging the loose skin. When Kirk stroked with gentle pressure over his perineum and back to his asshole, McCoy did have to pause briefly in his own ministrations as he became accustomed to the additional sensation, but as Kirk established a slow rhythm of strokes there, McCoy was able to relax into the feeling and return his attention to pleasing Kirk. He bobbed his head up and down, the trained doctor in his mind cataloging both of their physiological responses but the greater part of his brain occupied merely with pleasure, and how to both get and give more of it.
He was quite content with the steady pattern of caresses, pulling him on a slow but inexorable path up toward orgasm, when Kirk unexpectedly groaned and came, semen spurting into McCoy's throat. McCoy choked and coughed, pulling away to try to breathe. Usually he could tell from Kirk's responses if he was about to come, but not tonight, and with no verbal warning either, he hadn't had a chance to prepare himself.
"Shit, Bones, I'm sorry," said Kirk, his apologetic face appearing in front of McCoy. "I didn't mean to do that."
"I know," McCoy managed to say, his eyes streaming. He coughed once more, swallowed a couple of times, and shook his head. "I just wasn't quite ready for it yet, is all. No big deal."
"Ready for me to go finish you off?" asked Kirk.
"Sure." McCoy inhaled carefully a couple of times and stretched out again. He sucked in another breath as Kirk's mouth closed once again around his dick. He twisted his hands into the bed sheets as he felt Kirk's fingertip flirting again with his asshole, and said, "Yeah, put it in," in a ragged voice, sighing with relief when Kirk did so. That was the reason he'd been disappointed when Kirk had come so soon, really; he loved it when Kirk fucked him. Not that this was at all bad, of course. Kirk's finger inside and thumb outside on his perineum between them were sending delicious shocks up his spine, and that mouth...! Kirk was sucking a little harder now, his head bobbing up and down, lavishing his tongue over McCoy's rigid dick.
"Jim, Jim," McCoy muttered, unclenching one hand to reach down and touch Kirk's head.
Kirk glanced up, the skin around his eyes crinkling with the smile his mouth could not at that moment make, and stroked a little harder, sucked a little deeper.
"Yeah – god, Jim – gonna come," babbled McCoy, and felt his muscles tense as he spurted down Kirk's throat. Kirk stayed on him through the last aftershocks of orgasm, nuzzling him clean before crawling up the bed to press his body against McCoy's.
"That was fantastic." McCoy put his arms around Kirk. "You've spoiled me, you know. I can't even imagine being with anyone else. Not that I had been in a long time anyhow, as you know. But still."
"Mm. When we're together like this I can't, either."
Tiny warning bells rang in McCoy's mind at hearing that qualification, but he ignored them. Except for some kissing and groping with women, which he, McCoy, had more or less encouraged, Kirk had been monogamous since last fall, as far as McCoy knew. There was no real reason for concern. They'd just had some pretty damn fine sex, and were getting along fine out of bed too, allowing for end-of-program stresses. He put the idea out of his mind and patted Kirk's ass.
"Can't lie around too long, kid. Matthews will be back and you know how he gets embarrassed if he sees anything. He doesn't mind that stuff goes on, he just doesn't want to have to see any evidence."
"Yeah, yeah." But Kirk sat up and began putting his uniform back on.
After a moment, McCoy got up and did likewise. One thing to be said about a mutual blow job, there was virtually no cleanup necessary.
By the time Matthews got back to the room, Kirk was gone and McCoy was intent on his studying.
#22: No Substitute for Our Rendezvous | #24: Not Go Tamely