Star Trek fic: Fools Rush In [Kirk/McCoy, adult]
Title: Fools Rush In Author: celandineb Fandom: Star Trek XI Pairing: Kirk/McCoy, Kirk/OFC Rating: adult Length: 3584 words Warnings: sex Summary: Kirk tries to return to his old routines, and finds that it's not so easy. Note: Eighth in the "Heart of the Matter" series. The title is from Alexander Pope's An Essay on Criticism.
The stacked pizza boxes loomed in accusation. Kirk ate a couple of slices for breakfast nonetheless, including one of the sausage and mushroom that he'd gotten for McCoy. He considered washing it down with the remaining bottle of beer, but drinking before eight on a Sunday morning came just a little too close to being an alcoholic for his comfort.
Not that his situation at present was comfortable anyhow. He hadn't exactly been lying when he'd told McCoy he was going to be busy today, but he certainly could manage to see the man if he wanted to. He just didn't know if he did want to, or how to act around McCoy now, after last night. Kirk swallowed. Never before had he understood why some women liked so much to give head; he'd always figured either they did it because they didn't want to have regular penetrative sex for some reason, or because they hoped to have him go down on them too. Which he did, usually, if they asked. It was only fair, and he liked it well enough although all things considered he'd rather put his dick there than his tongue.
Sucking off McCoy had seemed different somehow from going down on a woman, more different than just the anatomical details or even the taste. He had tasted his own come before, so McCoy's wasn't that strange. No, it was something indefinable – or at any rate something he wasn't prepared to define just now.
He showered quickly and started in on his work. There was always a quiz coming up in one class or another, or an assignment due, or a paper to write. He needed to choose a topic for the research paper for his course on the psychology of command, and found himself tempted to write on how various captains had coped with apparently no-win situations. He'd been browsing through the library's databases looking for ideas and had discovered Captain Pike's dissertation on the USS Kelvin; that topic would give him an excuse to read it. Not that he should need an excuse, but he couldn't justify the time it would take to read the thing otherwise, not with all he had to do. Absentmindedly Kirk ate another slice of pizza.
Just before two o'clock he headed for the gym, where he apologized to Instructor Jiang for having missed Thursday's hand-to-hand combat class, and asked if his medical report had come through. It had.
"I realize that in non-training circumstances it could well be the case that I'd need to fight when already injured," Kirk said, "but I was in some pain and my doctor recommended that analgesic. I'm allergic to most of the usual ones. I didn't realize until afterward that the side effects could include some disorientation and dizziness." He flashed the humblest, most apologetic smile he could muster.
"Next time, read the warnings before you take the drug," Jiang grumbled, but he waved Kirk to take his place and began to speak to the class at large.
"All right, everyone, today we are going to simulate fighting after you've sustained an injury to your preferred arm. There are cloth strips in this basket; pair off and one partner help the other bind up his or her arm. We'll practice for thirty minutes, then switch. Once everyone is ready we will begin. Preferred arm, remember."
Kirk helped several students strap their arms before Jiang beckoned to him.
"You'll work with me, be the one with the false injury," Jiang said with a slight smile. "Think you can handle it?"
"Yes. It's not that challenging a simulation, really, since the 'injured' person doesn't have the use of the arm, but isn't in pain either," Kirk pointed out. He didn't bother to mention the many times he'd fought injured, in bar brawls; that would only cast doubt on the excuse he'd offered for having missed Thursday's class.
"True, but I doubt Starfleet would be pleased if we injured students deliberately." Jiang glanced around the room and called out, "If everyone is ready, let us begin."
By the end of the practice session Kirk was sweaty and pleasantly tired. He had fought Jiang briefly, just to show the students some possible moves, then worked with a number of pairs to help them with specific techniques. It had been a good class.
He showered there at the gym, putting on the fresh uniform he'd learned always to bring with him, before heading off to the Xenolinguistics Club meeting. Being treasurer was not quite an honorary position, since he did have to collect the members' dues, but he'd managed to get everyone to transfer the requisite credits to the club account already this term and was able to sit back, relax, and ignore much of the chatter to ponder whether he'd ever be able to convince Cadet Uhura to tell him her first name. Presumably her friends knew it, but she must have warned them not to let Kirk find out. The club roster only listed surname and initial, and knowing her first name began with "N" didn't help much. Maybe he could make nice with her roommate sometime. It didn't really matter, but he hated an unsolved mystery. Kirk pushed aside the thought that the last mystery he'd solved had been the one about who McCoy liked, which had turned out, not badly, but to be problematic.
"Paging Kirk," a voice broke through his reverie.
It was one of the other female Xenolinguistics students, not Uhura.
"You seemed a little out of it," she said as Kirk tried to remember her name. Herter, that was it. J. Herter.
"Late night last night," he lied with a grin. "You know how it goes."
"I've heard you're quite the party boy." Herter grinned back. "Care to come have a drink with me? we could practice our conversational Vulcan."
Kirk ignored Uhura, rolling her eyes from across the room. The club meeting was over anyhow. "Lead on, Cadet Herter."
"Jeanne," she said.
"Jeanne," Kirk repeated. "Lead on, Jeanne."
They had the drink, and then another, not in a bar but in her room, and matters progressed in the way Kirk had expected. The Vulcan language was not well-suited to seduction, in Kirk's opinion, but he managed by pretending to confuse the word for "undergarment" with that for "coat." He found that Jeanne favored pink satin lingerie, and he had plenty of chance to see it as he removed each piece.
Her brown hair fanned around her as she lay back, arms reaching for him, and he fell forward gladly. His mouth met hers as he caressed her breasts, their nipples hardening against his palm.
This was familiar, this was easy; he knew exactly what he was doing, how to provoke pleasure in Jeanne as well as himself. She was moist and welcoming around him as he thrust into her, and Kirk watched for the signals that would suggest she had reached orgasm: the flush of sweat-sheened skin, the quiver of muscles around his dick, the sound of pleasure groaned from deep in her throat. The sensations of the moment caught him up as they always did, and he came in a shining rush.
"You're as good as they say you are," Jeanne commented afterward, running her fingers along Kirk's chest as if to test how much effort he had expended by seeing how damp he was with sweat.
"Thank you," said Kirk shortly. He realized how ungracious his tone sounded and quickly added, "You were mighty fine yourself."
Her flirtatious smile left him oddly unmoved. Although he said all the appropriate things, he was glad to get dressed and leave. That was not familiar. Usually he stayed for a while with the women he slept with, laughing and teasing and leaving them happy. Why hadn't he wanted to do so with Jeanne? She was an attractive woman, intelligent and funny, and the sex had been more than satisfying.
Kirk frowned to himself and ran his fingers through his hair. He was restless now, and didn't much feel like going back to his room and studying. It was dinner time but the cafeteria didn't appeal either. He didn't want to have to make conversation with anyone just then, and was especially leery of running into McCoy. Normally he'd have gone first to McCoy, not necessarily to talk about the odd experience with Jeanne but just to be with someone sympathetic, but after the past two nights that seemed far from a good idea.
Abruptly he decided to leave campus, go find some little restaurant for dinner by himself – Chinese, maybe, he knew several hole-in-the-wall places with tasty food – and then walk through the city for a while. Perhaps the exercise would calm him.
Full of hot and sour soup and Sichuan beef, Kirk wandered, sometimes taking a bus for a few blocks and then getting off again, not really paying attention to where he was going, until he realized he'd ended up at Ocean Beach.
Fog obscured the shore. Kirk made his way carefully through the roiling mist, heading toward the Sutro Bath ruins where he'd gone with McCoy. He sat on a damp slab of stone, put his arms around his knees, and listened to the waves hissing as they struck the rocks and slid away.
The crash of the surf and the swirling mist seemed to blend together, soothing Kirk's restlessness as the walking had not. He didn't try to think, just let the sound wash over him until the chill dampness of the air had him shivering too hard to remain any longer. Then he went home to his room.
For the next several days he avoided being alone with McCoy, talking to him only when others were around and keeping the conversation friendly but superficial. When McCoy wasn't looking at him, though, Kirk watched the doctor. McCoy didn't seem much different from usual; perhaps a bit grumpier, but it was hard to tell. Kirk was relieved. The fact that whenever he wasn't carefully distracting himself, or clearing his mind altogether, he was constantly thinking back to their several encounters was Kirk's own problem to solve.
He assumed that his reaction to Jeanne had been a fluke. There had been other women in the past from whom he'd wanted to escape as soon as possible after sex, even when the sex had been good. Jeanne was doubtless just another of those even if he couldn't pin down why.
So he tried again, Tuesday night and Wednesday as well, going to bars and picking up another cadet one night, a townie the other. Both times he had similar reactions; he enjoyed the flirting, the thrill of pursuit, and the physical release, but afterward he felt as though something was missing, some satisfaction unachieved.
Thursday evening he went out again with a group of friends, including McCoy although Kirk wasn't the one who'd asked him along, Sidhu had. McCoy drank steadily, dismissing the suggestion that he slow down. Kirk watched him uneasily. When he asked McCoy if he needed help back to his dorm, McCoy sneered.
"I can find my own damned way home. Can you? Or do you just follow whatever pussy leads you on?"
He stood, swaying ever so slightly, but walked steadily enough to the men's room. When he emerged he headed for the door without another glance at the group of cadets.
"Do you think one of us should go with him?" Sidhu asked with concern. "I think he's drunker than he looks. I lost count of how many he had."
Kirk was still annoyed over McCoy's last remark, but hell, despite what had happened last week and whatever McCoy said, they'd been best friends since the day they came to Starfleet Academy, and he didn't want McCoy to get mugged while he was incapacitated, or to fall and injure himself.
"I'll go," he said in resignation. "See you later."
McCoy was already a block away, and Kirk hurried to catch him up. He was a little light-headed himself and had to pause and apologize when he accidentally bumped into another pedestreian. Then he took off after McCoy again.
"Wait up," he called when he was only a few yards behind.
"Oh, it's you." Disgust filled McCoy's tone. "Go away, Jim, I can get myself home, thank you very much. I don't need you as nursemaid."
"Not a chance," Kirk replied firmly.
McCoy rolled his eyes and continued walking. Kirk kept pace with him. They were only perhaps a foot apart, but it felt like a mile.
"Lunch tomorrow?" Kirk ventured when they reached the edge of campus.
Silence was his only answer until McCoy was standing before the door to his building.
"I don't know what it is about you," McCoy said then. "Do you even know what you're doing?"
"What I'm doing? What do you mean?"
McCoy sighed. "Evidently not. Jim, why do you want to have lunch with me tomorrow?"
"Because we always do, on Fridays. Because we're friends," said Kirk, confused. McCoy didn't sound nearly as drunk as he'd thought.
"Friends." McCoy's chuckle held a bitter tinge. "Right. And if I say no, you'll just pester me about it, won't you, bat those baby blues at me till I give in. Fine." He seemed almost to be talking to himself. "Lunch tomorrow. Lunch with Jim Kirk on Friday, as always. Why not?"
He fumbled open the door and let it bang shut behind him before Kirk could say another word.
All right, so they hadn't been on the best of terms this week, but that had been downright rude, Kirk grumbled to himself as he made his way back to his own dorm. He was tempted to skip tomorrow's lunch altogether, but that would make him look like an idiot after he'd made such a point of asking about it.
When Kirk spotted McCoy on the quad the next day at noon, McCoy was in deep conversation with a woman whom Kirk didn't recognize. McCoy didn't introduce her either, just said, "See you Saturday," and watched for a moment as she walked away.
"Got a date?" Kirk asked casually on the way to the cafeteria.
"What? No. She's one of the nurses. God, you really do only think about one thing, don't you?" McCoy sounded more sad than angry, despite his words.
"It was a natural assumption," Kirk protested, choosing a roast pork sandwich and taking green beans and an apple as well.
"Natural for you, but given that I haven't gone out on a date with anyone since you've known me..." McCoy's shoulders rose and fell. "Never mind. There's an empty table. I'll grab it."
Kirk paused to pick up a glass of milk and followed slowly.
"Bones, I'm sorry I've been avoiding you this week," he said in a low voice as he set his tray down. He was pretty sure that was what was bothering McCoy, and best to get the apology over with and done and move on.
McCoy just looked at him, taking a bite of his chicken cutlet.
"I was a dick. I apologize."
"You have been, yes." McCoy set down his knife and fork. "I can't say I was surprised, but that didn't make it any better."
McCoy had expected him to behave as he had? Kirk frowned and stabbed at a bean, uncertain what to say next, but McCoy kept speaking anyhow.
"Look, Jim. It was a mistake, this whole thing. I should never have been so careless in my behavior as to let you guess my feelings. You haven't acted like yourself since you figured things out last week, and I feel badly about that." McCoy looked down, picking up his fork again but not eating. "If this has fucked up our friendship, it's my fault."
"I could have left you alone," Kirk pointed out. "It was my choice first to try to get you laid, and then to work out why you weren't interested in that. You can't take all the blame even if you want to. What's the saying, fools rush in where angels fear to tread? I was the fool here, I rushed in without thinking that maybe you had good reasons for what you were doing, why you were keeping secrets."
"Whatever." McCoy shrugged. "It doesn't really matter. I let things slip, you figured them out, we did what we did and, well. You warned me, I can't say you didn't. I guess I couldn't quite put away hope, that's all. Twice is more than most women get of Jim Kirk; I should be flattered."
He looked defeated, sitting there, shoulders slumped. Abruptly Kirk decided to tell him the truth about what had been going on that week.
"About the women..." he began, but McCoy broke in again.
"I understand that you like women. It's normal. I don't hold it against you, believe me. When you made your offer I was astonished you'd even consider it."
"Shut up, Bones." Kirk glared at him. "Just listen for a minute, okay? Yes, I've always liked women, that's hardly a secret. But since last Saturday, I've been with three women –"
"Par for the course," McCoy muttered.
"Let me finish," snapped Kirk.
McCoy gave him a startled look, then subsided.
"Since Saturday, I've been with three women, and it wasn't the way it has always been for me. Not that I didn't enjoy having sex with them," he said, deliberately blunt, "but afterward, I didn't want to talk the way I've always done, just to round out the encounter, you know? Leave them feeling appreciated. All I could think about was getting out of there as fast as I could. Three times, Bones. Once, even twice, could be a fluke. Three times says something's changed, and I don't know quite what or how, but I don't think the timing's a coincidence. I can't get you out of my head," Kirk wound down.
McCoy sat very still. Finally he said, "Why do you think that's happening?"
"Because there's something about being with you, something that feels right to me. You know all my weaknesses, and it's not that you don't judge them, or don't call me on them, because you certainly do that. I guess I feel like you forgive them," he added uncertainly.
"Not forgive so much as accept." McCoy's voice was quiet. "You are who you are, and infuriating as that can be sometimes, I admire you for it."
He took a deep breath. "But the thing is, Jim, I need stability. Not total certainty – I'm a doctor, I know how unpredictable life is, and death – but honestly, I'd rather know that all you wanted from me was friendship, and be done with it. Sex is the icing on the cake, maybe, but I'm not one for too many sweets. I'd rather have honest bread. It's more nourishing anyhow."
Kirk cocked his head. "What if friendship isn't all that I want, though?"
"Damn it, don't play games!" McCoy flushed, glanced around, and lowered his voice to repeat, "Don't play games, don't fuck with my head. I can't take it right now. Just tell me plain and simple what it is you do want."
And that was the question Kirk had been avoiding answering all week... but when it came to the point, the answer was simple.
"I want you," Kirk said.
Honesty compelled him to continue, "I'm still not gonna make any promises, because, well, in my head rules are made to be broken. Even my own rules. But if you still want to make this more than friendship, then I'll try my best to do what you want."
McCoy's throat worked. "I'll have to think about it."
Kirk's disappointment must have shown on his face, because McCoy said, "I'm tempted. I really am. But I have to think about whether for me the risks are worth the gain. This past week..." He shook his head.
"I understand," said Kirk, and he did, although he didn't like it. But that was McCoy all over, thinking things through where Kirk would have just rushed in like the fool he'd called himself earlier. It was surprising really that McCoy had unbent enough to have had sex with Kirk last weekend; the fact that he had gave Kirk hope that McCoy might decide to take another leap of faith this time. "Um. Not to pressure you or anything –"
"Because you'd never do that," said McCoy sarcastically, but a smile tugged at his lips.
"– but there's some Asian festival, or I don't know what, this Sunday, and Sidhu's going to be gone pretty much all day, not back till evening," Kirk finished doggedly. "So if you had an answer of the positive sort by Sunday, we could take advantage of the opportunity."
"I'll think about it," McCoy repeated, and glanced up at the clock on the wall. "You, by the way, are going to be late for class unless you get your ass out of here right now."
"Shit!" yelped Kirk, scraping his chair back from the table.
"I'll take your tray up to the hatch. Go on," commanded McCoy, and Kirk did.
Hurrying across campus, he determined not to bother McCoy for an answer until Sunday morning, if he didn't get one earlier. He could wait that long... with a little assistance from his right hand if necessary. Picking up a woman wasn't an option until he had that answer.