Celandine's Chronicle (celandineb) wrote in cels_fic_haven, @ 2009-06-20 13:32:00 |
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Entry tags: | star trek fic hotm, star trek fic kirk/mccoy |
Star Trek fic: Under Quiet Attack [Kirk/McCoy, general]
Title: Under Quiet Attack
Author: celandineb
Fandom: Star Trek XI
Pairing: Kirk/McCoy
Rating: general
Length: 2615 words
Warnings: some language
Summary: Kirk has insisted on talking, but McCoy dreads the conversation.
Note: Fifth in the "Heart of the Matter" series. Thanks to aome for the series title suggestion! The title of this fic is taken from the Duran Duran song "Finest Hour."
If only he hadn't let Kirk drag him to that bar last week – or if he hadn't left early and made Kirk curious about why he'd done so – then he wouldn't be in this position. McCoy sighed. He supposed it was bound to have happened eventually; he'd managed to conceal his feelings for the better part of three years, which was moderately impressive, considering how sharp Kirk was when he was paying attention. He'd probably only managed that long because the idea of having another man, a friend, wanting to grope his ass was so foreign to anyone as hopelessly straight as Kirk.
And now Kirk wanted to talk. Insisted on it, no less. McCoy shuddered at the thought. He couldn't imagine a more wretched or painful conversation.
To give him credit, Kirk hadn't seemed as appalled as McCoy had assumed he would be a finding out that McCoy was attracted to him as more than just a friend, but McCoy sincerely doubted that anything positive could result from discussing the matter. It was unavoidable, however. He'd heard that stubborn note in Kirk's voice – a quality that McCoy admired, sometimes, but found exasperating equally as often.
Tomorrow, he'd said. McCoy rolled over restlessly in his bed, tangling the sheets. He sat up and flicked them smooth again, then lay back down and started mentally going through both his own schedule and Kirk's. If Kirk didn't race across campus after the command simulation exercises to catch McCoy when his afternoon class on synthesizing non-human tissues let out, McCoy might be able to duck into the library and lose himself in the stacks. He almost never studied there; Kirk wouldn't think to look for him in the library, surely, not before he had to go to his advanced self-defense class at six, and then McCoy could slip out again and be safe for another day.
Not that he could put off this conversation forever, he knew that, but perhaps just a little longer. Just until he could resign himself to the end of their friendship.
McCoy blamed the half-bottle of bourbon he'd drunk for the stinging in his eyes as he finally fell into an uneasy sleep.
The following afternoon, he looked cautiously around before stealing out a side door of the science building, and chose a route to the library that would mostly keep him out of sight from the central quad where Kirk was likely to be crossing campus.
He made it without incident and found a carrel tucked far back amongst the shelves of English literature. Why did they even have English literature in the Starfleet library, he wondered to himself. It was hardly a field of study useful in training for space. Still, he didn't have to read any of it – he had his PADD with him and could work on that – and Kirk would never find him here.
At six-thirty, when Kirk's self-defense class would be well underway, McCoy decided that he had better go find himself some dinner. The cafeteria was moderately crowded at that hour, but he managed to find himself an unoccupied table for two and sat moodily eating his anemic lasagne. Several of his friends tried to wave him over to join them; he shook his head each time, preferring to sit alone tonight so that he could eat quickly and get out.
He was prodding at dessert – it had been labeled as banana pudding, but it was nothing like the rich sweet custard that his grandmother had used to make when he visited her in Georgia – when Kirk's voice cut across his preoccupied thoughts.
"I figured you'd turn up here eventually, Bones," Kirk said cheerfully, turning the other chair at the table around and straddling it. "Nice of you to save me a seat." He folded his arms across the back of the chair and grinned at McCoy.
"Aren't you supposed to be learning to beat people up?" McCoy set his spoon down with resignation.
"Skipped class. I meant what I said last night, about talking – this is more important than self-defense." Kirk sounded unaccustomedly serious.
"Damn it, Jim," McCoy began to expostulate, then huffed out a sigh.
"Nope, I'm not going to give up," said Kirk, anticipating him. "But the cafeteria probably isn't the best place, is it?"
McCoy shook his head. "Let me get rid of this tray."
Coming back empty-handed, he asked, "You waited for me here?"
Kirk shrugged. "It was a pretty safe bet that you'd decide to eat sooner or later, and if I hadn't spotted you by nine or so, I was going to go camp by your room. I figured either Matthews would let me in, or I'd get someone else in the building to do it."
"Persistent bastard," grumbled McCoy.
"You know it," said Kirk with a dazzling, shit-eating grin. "So where do you want to go to talk?"
"Not my room," said McCoy firmly. "Matthews will probably be in tonight, he said something about a test tomorrow, so he'll be studying."
He also didn't want to have the memory of the ending of this friendship associated with the place where he'd have to keep sleeping for the next few months, although he saw no reason to share that with Kirk.
"I think Sidhu is going to be in our room," Kirk said. "So mine's out too." He seemed to hesitate. "Ocean Beach?"
It would be private, certainly, but on the other hand, there'd be that bus ride back together after... after whatever.
"Come on," Kirk urged, putting his hand on the small of McCoy's back to guide him. "I know you liked the place, it's very peaceful. We'll stop and you can grab a jacket this time."
"Oh, all right," McCoy sighed, as he tried to suppress his reaction to the touch. He found the appealing look in those blue eyes as hard to resist as ever.
They didn't talk much on the way to the ocean, watching their fellow passengers and listening to the squeak and rattle of the bus. The wind off the water was brisk when they alighted and McCoy was half-sorry that he'd brought the jacket, remembering how last time Kirk had put his arm around him to warm him, even if tonight that might have been a bad idea.
The ruined baths sprawled out near the edge of the water. Kirk led the way to the same spot where they'd gone before, sheltered somewhat from the breeze.
"We're here. Now what did you want to say so badly?" McCoy growled ungraciously, trying to disguise his apprehension.
Kirk looked younger even than he was, his expression oddly vulnerable in the clouded moonlight.
"How long have you felt this way about me?" he asked quietly.
McCoy froze. From the moment I met you. "Quite a while," he hedged. "I didn't want you to know. And you have to believe me, I never expected anything from you, not like that."
"Why not?" Kirk sounded genuinely curious.
"Why not?" repeated McCoy. "Jim, come on. You're the most notorious womanizer in our class. Hell, in the whole of the Academy, possibly in all of Starfleet. You're practically a legend– and always with women. I'd have to have an ego the size of – " yours, he didn't say, "a starship to think I'd hold any interest for you."
He studied Kirk's face a moment, and decided to lay the rest of his cards on the table. "And even if I did interest you – you're not the monogamous type. I am. My marriage might have fallen apart, but I learned that much about myself in the course of it. So I don't see how we could ever get on together as anything but friends. If we can even manage to stay friends after this."
"I hope we can," said Kirk. "I want to. I've been thinking about you a lot, the past few days, ever since the night I dragged you out to try to get you laid, and you weren't having any of it. Do you know why I was trying to do that?"
"So my dick wouldn't fall off?" McCoy managed a smile, remembering what Kirk had said that night.
Kirk laughed. "Yeah. No, seriously. You're my," he swallowed, "my friend, Bones. Probably the best friend I've had in my whole life. You keep me from being too reckless, most of the time anyhow, and when you can't it's not your fault. I appreciate that, I really do, even if I bitch about it. You make me feel like I can do anything if I just go at it the right way.
"Hell, I was able to figure out it was me you liked, eventually, once I started working on the question. Pretty good to deduce a secret you'd been hiding for months, or years, however long it's really been; don't think I didn't notice that you didn't say. Anyhow. Since you're my friend, I wanted to get you to do something to make yourself relax and feel good, and I thought getting you laid would do that, since it does me. But I guess I was wrong."
"Yeah, I'm afraid you were." McCoy shifted his position. He wasn't as young as he used to be, and the cold stone was not the most comfortable thing to sit on. "I mean, I like sex – or at least I used to." He grimaced. "It's been awhile since..."
"Since it was with someone else, not your own right hand," Kirk supplied.
"Left hand." McCoy flushed and cleared his throat. "What I meant was that it wasn't a bad idea, in principle, just that the... implementation wasn't something that worked for me, that's all."
"Because it would have been a one night stand, and you don't do those, or because it wouldn't have been me?" Kirk asked.
The blunt question gave McCoy pause.
"I don't know," he admitted after he'd considered for a few minutes, glad that the dim light meant Kirk probably couldn't see the heat in his face. "I wasn't exactly thinking that clearly by that fourth glass of bourbon. Or before then for that matter."
"Okay." Kirk leaned back against one of the tumbled stones and stretched his legs out, for all the world like a coon hound getting ready to snooze on a summer night. "I have to ask you about a couple of things, here."
"What?"
"You've been with men before." Kirk didn't quite put it as a question, so McCoy waited. "I know what two guys can do, pretty much."
McCoy was almost sure that Kirk was blushing now too, though it was hard to tell in this light.
"What I want to know is, whether it's as good as with women?"
"That depends," said McCoy honestly. He'd only had sex with other men a handful of times in his life, all of them semi-drunken encounters, but two had been memorable indeed. And he'd certainly had sex with women, including his ex-wife, that was only moderately enjoyable – no more fun than jacking off by himself. Okay, but nothing special.
"On what, whether it's a serious relationship?" The tone of Kirk's voice was hard to identify.
"No." McCoy winced. "All that I've done with men was years ago, before I was married. Mostly random bar pickups, one-night stands."
"So then how do you know that you wouldn't be all right with a one-off with me?" Kirk asked in his most reasonable and persuasive voice.
"I don't know, from that perspective, but when I was twenty-two I wasn't particularly inclined toward monogamy with women, either. That's something that changed for me over the years and I really don't think the sex of the person I'm attracted to makes any difference."
Kirk was quiet for a few minutes. Then he said, "If I was ever going to have sex with another man, you'd be the one."
McCoy swallowed hard. "I would?"
"Yeah, you would. But the thing is – you'd want it to be exclusive, wouldn't you, and I just don't know if I can do that. I never have. Every girlfriend I had back in Iowa broke up with me because I wouldn't promise not to sleep around. Just flirting with other girls always pissed them off, and I sure as hell wasn't going to stop doing that."
"Why does that not surprise me?" McCoy asked wryly. "I didn't expect your current behavior patterns came out of nowhere."
"What I'm saying, Bones, if you'll listen, is that since the very fact that you're attracted to me and I know it now is going to change our friendship, especially since it's made me realize I feel something of the same toward you, I'm willing to give us a chance to be something more. I just can't promise to be someone I'm not. So I leave it up to you." Kirk turned to face McCoy and raised one shoulder in a half-shrug. "If you want to try this..." He left the sentence unfinished.
For once Kirk was looking before he leaped – and McCoy could have smacked him for it, for now it was McCoy who was in the position of having to plunge blindly, or know himself to be a coward, damn it, because if he was being offered something he'd wanted for so long, how could he say no simply because it wasn't everything he wanted?
"Jim – " he began, intending to say that he would have to think it over a bit, but then Kirk put a hand on his leg and he stopped, trembling. He reached for Kirk's hand and threaded their fingers together. If Kirk could think things through, admit his limitations honestly, then McCoy ought to be able to seize the moment, right? All of this was turning them both upside down.
The pounding of his heart was so strong that Kirk could surely feel the stuttering pulse in his wrist as he said, "All right."
Kirk nodded slowly, almost seeming surprised that McCoy had agreed, and then he leaned forward and brought his mouth to McCoy's in a kiss that was everything McCoy had dreamed of and more. Kirk's tongue teased at his, prodding, exploring, sending waves of heat through McCoy's body, and he tried to give back as good as he got, although he frankly doubted it was possible.
"Here? Now?" Kirk drew his mouth away just far enough to speak.
"No," McCoy said quickly, denying his own urgency. If this was going to end up as a one-shot deal, he wanted better than a quickie in a semi-public spot. He deserved more than that, after all this time. Even if somehow they managed – if Kirk managed, because by god McCoy would be more than willing to do it – to make this a relationship more serious than friends-who-fuck, he wanted the first time to mean something. "Not here, not tonight. Tomorrow?"
"Yeah, that'll work." Kirk gave a little grin. "Tomorrow's Friday – a week since I tried to get you laid."
"A week's delay is a lot less than I've had in recent months," McCoy noted. "Although for you, I suppose a day's delay is a long time."
"It is, you tease. Is Matthews going to be around tomorrow? I don't know about Sidhu."
"I'll find out and let you know." McCoy kissed Kirk once more, then reluctantly stood up. "I have an eight a.m. class tomorrow with a quiz that I haven't finished studying for."
Kirk laughed and jumped up too, grabbing McCoy's hand and hauling him off toward the bus stop. "Of course you do. So have I. We'll meet at lunch as usual and figure out our plans then."
Our plans. McCoy felt a smile spread across his face, unbidden.
#4: Process of Deduction | #6: Curtains Are Pulled Back