ST fic: Take a Break [Kirk/McCoy, adult]
Title: Take a Break Author: celandineb Fandom: Star Trek XI Pairing: Kirk/McCoy Rating: adult Length: 4787 words Warnings: some angst and sex Summary: It's spring break at Starfleet Academy. Note: Twenty-first in the "Heart of the Matter" series.
Although he was not cursed with the problem of time on his hands by any means, over the next week McCoy managed to do some searching in the medical databases to see if he could find anything that would help Kirk to tone down – perhaps – his habit of over-appreciative ogling of others.
There was nothing that dealt directly with the issue, as McCoy had rather expected. Surprisingly, the computer pulled up some long-discredited work from the late twentieth and early twenty-first century that purported to "cure" people of same-sex attraction, but that was hardly what was wanted even if there had been any validity to it. More likely to be useful seemed articles on overcoming unwanted habits in general. Those divided roughly into two camps: those that advocated conscious avoidance of the undesired behavior coupled with repetitive practice of the desired behavior; and those that suggested that finding and treating the psychological roots of the behavior was more effective.
McCoy had a reasonably good background in psychology, although he had tended to emphasize xenopsych. His considered opinion was that with Kirk's background, it would take years to untangle and deal with his various psychological wounds. Kirk had developed his own methods of coping with his personal traumas, methods that worked well enough as far as McCoy could tell, and as a doctor he hesitated to disturb that achieved equilibrium without dire cause.
Instead, therefore, he selected a dozen or fifteen articles on repatterning unwanted behavior, and sent the list to Kirk with a note to indicate that this was the best and most useful research he'd found.
The entire situation had him off-balance. On the one hand it was good not to be trying for complete discretion anymore; he wasn't concerned all the time that someone would guess his secret. The idea that Kirk was now checking out other men bothered him more than he had been prepared to admit, however, even though he realized that at least part of it was simply that this was how Kirk behaved with anyone who might be of potential sexual interest. Now that he had acknowledged he could be attracted to men, it was only natural that he would respond to them in very much the same way he had for so long responded to women. It was ridiculous to think that he, McCoy, could or would be the sole exception for an otherwise wholly heterosexual Kirk.
Kirk thanked him for the information that night, and beginning the following day McCoy could tell that Kirk was already making efforts to practice some of the suggested techniques for behavioral modification. McCoy noticed fewer appreciative glances even at the most attractive of the female cadets, and far fewer at the men, although he did still flirt verbally on a regular basis. If he had stopped that altogether he wouldn't have been Jim Kirk. McCoy could live with what he was doing, bolstered by Kirk's assurance that emotionally McCoy was the only person he needed or sought.
Starfleet Academy retained the quaint old tradition of a one-week spring break. Some students took advantage of the chance for a holiday, others availed themselves of one of the optional intensive short courses that the Academy offered over the week. In previous years Kirk had taken freefall and space suit training, and a course on inter-species protocols. McCoy, by contrast, had always just continued to work his usual clinic shifts, otherwise welcoming the chance to catch up on much-needed sleep.
"So, what is everyone doing on their spring break?" Kirk asked with seeming casualness at dinner, the Monday before it began.
"I'm going to do that freefall and space suit training that you mentioned you took," said Sanchez. "It sounded like a good way to get that experience, and I'll need it if I decide to stay in the command track."
"You're thinking of switching?" Adamson asked. "To what?"
"Levibotany," she answered. "That was the part of the intro to spaceships class last fall that I really found fascinating; how to maintain an atmosphere and feed the crew, all in one. I can see myself as the leader of a team of scientists someday, but I'm not sure I'm cut out to make the kinds of decisions that a captain has to. But I'm still going to take the freefall class, just to see what that's like."
"I had it last year," volunteered Sidhu. "The trick is to try to make sure you haven't eaten or drunk anything for several hours beforehand if you can help it. The first few times, anyhow."
"So if you took that course already, what are you doing this year?" asked Baden.
"Since this is my last year, I'm going to go home and see my family," he said. "Space travel isn't nearly so dangerous as it was in the early days, but you never know what will happen, and any way, depending on what class of ship you're assigned to, some of them don't come back to Earth more than every two or three years at best."
"Makes sense to do that, then." Chen nibbled on a carrot. "I'll visit my family in my final year, maybe, but that's not for at least two more years, more if I change specialties again."
McCoy shook his head. Chen was already notorious for having somehow convinced the Powers That Be at the Academy to let him switch tracks three times, or maybe it was four now. "And you're studying what exactly now?"
"Primary specialty in astrophysics, secondary in xenosociology." Chen grinned. "I convinced them that my diverse interests and skills required a unique track."
"You're crazy," said Sanchez, but her tone was more admiring than disapproving.
"Yeah. That's why I'm taking a real vacation over the break this year, though; I'm going to Hawaii to spend the week surfing. Hey Jim, what are you going to do?"
"Well, I've mostly been a good boy and taken classes the last two years over spring break, not to mention summers; so I think I'll also be doing a little R&R if I can persuade someone to help me out with that." Kirk cocked his head and looked deliberately around the table, his gaze lingering on each of the women a fraction longer than on any of the men, until he reached McCoy and said, "How about it Bones? Want to aid a hard-working Iowa farm boy in his attempts to improve his pelvic tilt?"
McCoy knew he was blushing; Kirk had never been quite so open in front of their friends before, but he tried to take it in good grace by replying, "I could always prescribe corrective surgery if you're having trouble."
"Would a less radical therapy be effective? I'm not excited about invasive surgery; a little, hm, warmer and more personal kind of invasion could be good." His grin was positively dazzling, but not at all innocent.
McCoy felt his face grow even hotter. He reached for his water glass to give himself time to think of a reply, but Baden cut in.
"Jim, you're incorrigible. If you really want to convince the doc to let you jump him, or whatever, I think you'd better liquor him up a little first."
"I may just take your advice, Sonia," said Kirk, his voice respectful but still with that shit-eating grin on his face. "Bones, you're on notice that I want to discuss this further, soon."
McCoy took a deep breath and nodded, his lips pressed tightly together.
Later, when the group had broken up and he could speak with Kirk alone, heading back across campus, he said, "Could you be more obvious, Jim? You practically had your hand down my pants right there at the table."
Kirk stopped walking, so McCoy was forced to stop, too, and turned to face him.
"Bones, that's who I am and how I act, and you know that. Maybe I took it a little far tonight, but you may not have noticed that were the only person I flirted with in any serious way at all. Can't you give me any credit for trying to stick to you?"
McCoy winced. It was true, and Kirk was right; overall he had toned down his flirtatiousness quite a bit, and perhaps he, McCoy, was just oversensitive about the whole thing. "I'm sorry."
Kirk gave him a long level look, then a decisive nod. "All right. Apology accepted. Now, do you know your clinic schedule for next week? Because since I'm not doing anything in particular, just studying and writing papers and so on, I'm pretty flexible." He winked. "As you know."
Rolling his eyes, McCoy said, "Yeah, I know, you overgrown teenage delinquent. We got next week's schedule last night, but I haven't read it carefully yet. Come on back to my room and take a look."
Matthews wasn't there, and Kirk took advantage of that fact to pin McCoy to his bed and kiss him for a while – not that McCoy objected. Since he didn't know when Matthews would be back he didn't let things go further, which meant that both of them ended up with hard-ons and couldn't do much about them.
"Next week," Kirk breathed in his ear, rutting against his thigh.
"Yes," agreed McCoy, rocking back. He drew in a deep shuddering breath and wrapped his arms around Kirk, holding him tight. "Matthews is going to be gone – up at the spacedock, learning to use some new kind of instrumentation, I don't remember what. But we'll be able to be either here or in your room, since it sounds like Sidhu will be away too."
Kirk pressed a kiss to McCoy's neck. "I can't wait."
The next several days were busy for everyone, finishing things up for the break. McCoy welcomed the distraction. He was looking forward to the chance to spend good chunks of time alone with Kirk. Atlanta had been wonderful, but a large part of his attention then had been on Joanna, of course.
Was there perhaps something special that he could do for Kirk next week? The Valentine's Day "camp" that Kirk had arranged had been awfully sweet. Somehow McCoy hadn't realized that Kirk had such a broad streak of romance in him. McCoy doubted he could come up with anything to match it, but perhaps he could find a nice intimate restaurant or something and take Kirk out to dinner one night. He had several night shifts at the clinic over the break, but there should be an opportunity.
He asked one of the other doctors at the clinic, preferring to be discreet. Vera Drake had been a physician there for something over twenty years, he knew, and lived in the city; he assumed she would have a restaurant suggestion or two.
"Restaurant?" she asked, and took a bite of one of the energy bars that were all she ever seemed to eat on shift. She claimed that she preferred something that was unquestionably just a means of refueling, with reasonable nutrition, to the mediocre food available in the cafeteria, which was why McCoy hoped her judgment of restaurants would be good. "What sort of place were you thinking of – seafood, ethnic, expensive, cheap?"
"Not cheap, but not a place that would cost an entire month's student credit, either," said McCoy.
"The sort of place you would go with a special somebody?" Dr. Drake's glance was sharp but kind. At McCoy's nod, she said, "I think I know just the place. Sort of a pan-Asian cuisine, and heavy emphasis on seafood and local ingredients, although at this time of year that means a more limited range, mostly from greenhouses. Definitely not cheap, but not unreasonable, either. It's called Ichiban."
"That sounds perfect," said McCoy with gratitude. "Thank you."
She shrugged. "No trouble. I hope you have a good time with whoever it is."
McCoy had an overnight shift on Saturday, but then he was off duty at the clinic until Monday at noon. Kirk, hearing that, had suggested that he come over to McCoy's room late Sunday afternoon, "So you can get your beauty sleep," as he put it. "I'll bring some pizza along too; that way we won't have to worry about dinner. And maybe beer."
"Sounds good," McCoy agreed.
He hoped for an easy night Saturday, but that was not to be. At about two in the morning, seven men and two women were brought in, all of them suffering from multiple lacerations. There had been an extensive brawl involving a good deal of broken glass in one of the nearby bars. McCoy and the other doctors on duty spent a long time patching them up, somewhat hampered by the police who were taking statements and trying to figure out who had been the original instigator.
There had been a moment or two when the first of the casualties came in when McCoy feared that Kirk would be among them. For something this extreme, expulsion from the Academy would be the probable result, and McCoy knew it was not impossible that Kirk could have been mixed up in just such a brawl. It was not until after everything had settled down again and there was only an hour till the end of his shift that McCoy thought about it and realized that in fact Kirk had not gotten into any serious fights since October – not since he'd first become aware of McCoy's feelings for him. A punch thrown, maybe, once or twice, and he certainly collected plenty of contusions in his hand-to-hand combat practices, but there'd been no serious brawls.
McCoy nodded thoughtfully. Correlation wasn't causation, of course, but still, it was indicative that Kirk really was toning down his behavior.
At eight o'clock, weary, he went back to his room and showered in the hottest water he could stand. He was about to crawl into bed when he saw the signal that meant he had a message waiting, and looked to see who it was from. Joanna. He listened through it once to assure himself that there was no crisis that required his immediate attention, and was relieved that there was not; just Joanna asking if he could call back sometime that day. He decided he would do so in the afternoon, once he'd had a few hours sleep and before Kirk came over. He'd be better able to give his daughter the attention she deserved once he'd had some rest.
The buzz of the door signal woke him at four-thirty, and he blinked, disoriented, then cursed softly as he responded to let Kirk in. He'd forgotten to set the alarm.
"Hey there." Kirk's smile was infectious and McCoy found himself grinning back.
"That pizza smells good. All I've had since last night was an energy bar, plus a banana at the end of my clinic shift."
"Yeah. That's why I brought it, because you are definitely going to need to keep your energy up." Kirk's grin broadened even further. "I have plans for you, Bones."
"Can we put them on hold for just a little while? Joanna called, and I was too beat to call back this morning, so I figured I'd do after I slept but then forgot to set the alarm and didn't wake up till just now."
"Sure. You want to be private, or can I stay here?"
"You can stay," said McCoy quickly. "Eat, have one of those beers, whatever. In fact I think I'll grab a slice myself: Joanna won't mind." He flipped open the box – mushroom and sausage, wonderful – and picked up a slice, folding it over lengthwise so that it wouldn't bend down and drip cheese and tomato sauce everywhere. Then he pulled his desk chair over to the telephone and made the call.
Jocelyn answered. "Hello?"
"It's Leonard, Jocelyn. Joanna phoned earlier today and asked me to call her back. Is she there?"
"I'll get her."
There was a pause, then –
"Hello, daddy."
"Hello, sweetheart. How are you?" McCoy took a bite of his pizza. It was delicious.
"I'm fine."
"Tell me what you've been up to," said McCoy, swallowing.
"Are you eating?"
"Yes," he admitted. "I was on the night shift last night, and I slept all day. Jim just brought me pizza. But I can eat while you tell me what's been going on with you, okay?"
"Okay." Joanna launched into a recital of what she'd been learning, her enthusiasm evident in every word. She was still excited about the after school pre-pilot training and spent a long time explaining what it entailed.
McCoy had eaten two slices of his pizza as Joanna did most of the talking, and was preparing to end the conversation – Atlanta was three time zones ahead, after all, and tomorrow was a school day for her – when Joanna asked unexpectedly, "Is Jim still there? Could I say hello to him?"
"Sure, honey," said McCoy with considerable surprise. "Just a minute."
He beckoned Kirk over. "Joanna wants to talk to you."
"She does? Okay," said Kirk, crossing the room and reaching for the telephone. "Hi, Joanna, how's it going?"
McCoy stood up, mouthing, "Give me the phone back when you're done," and pointing at the phone and then himself to be sure that Kirk got it. Kirk nodded and flapped his hand, listening hard to Joanna. McCoy opened a beer and drank off about a third of it, a smile touching his lips as he watched Kirk speaking with his daughter. He had never imagined that the two of them would get along so well.
"Okay, let me give you back to your dad so he can say goodbye," said Kirk. "Good talking to you, Joanna." He handed the phone to McCoy with a smile.
"Hi, sweetheart."
"Hi, Daddy. Mama says I should get off the phone now," said Joanna, with a pouting note in her voice.
"Your mama is in charge while you live with her, so we'd better let you go then. I love you, Joanna. I'll talk to you again soon," said McCoy.
"I love you too, Daddy. Goodbye."
"Goodbye." McCoy hung up the phone, and slowly turned around to see Kirk watching him with a peculiar expression on his face. "What?"
Kirk gave a one-shouldered shrug. "Nothing. Joanna is lucky, that's all."
"You think so?" McCoy wouldn't necessarily have agreed, but maybe Kirk was right.
"Oh yes. Definitely lucky... and so am I." Kirk held out his hands to McCoy and pulled him up and out of his chair again, drawing him into an embrace. "She has a parent who tells her he loves her," he said so quietly that McCoy barely heard it.
There was nothing McCoy could really say to that. He had never met Winona Kirk – he wondered why she'd changed her name to that of her first husband, but not her second – and didn't know what her feelings for her younger son really were. Parents were assumed to love their children, but that was not always the case, and even when there was love it could also be mixed with many other emotions. A wave of sadness broke over McCoy and he held Kirk tighter.
The moment passed, and Kirk pulled away. "Another slice of pizza?"
"Not for me right now." McCoy watched Kirk close the box. "We have all the time we want, tonight; how about you tell me what you'd like to do, and we can do it?"
"Mm." Kirk stretched. "I don't know... no, wait. How do you feel about giving backrubs? And then we can go from there."
"If that's what you want, sure." McCoy shrugged. "I'll have to use regular lotion, though, because I don't have any massage oil."
"Lotion, whatever," said Kirk, starting to strip down. "I've been thinking about having those big warm hands of yours on me all day," he added, his voice slightly muffled by the shirt he was removing.
McCoy flushed. "I'll get the lotion," he muttered.
It was in the bathroom, and he glanced in the mirror to make sure he didn't have tomato sauce on his cheek or a piece of basil stuck between his teeth. He considered briefly brushing them, but decided it was unnecessary since Kirk hadn't brushed his. Mutual pizza and beer was better than one of them tasting of toothpaste and the other not. Quickly he urinated, washed his hands, and grabbed the lotion.
Kirk was sprawled out on the bed – well, as sprawled as a grown man could get on such a narrow mattress – with his head turned towards McCoy. Damn, but he looked fine like that. McCoy was still at times astonished that this had happened between them, after all the many months he'd spent imagining it.
"I think you should get naked, too," said Kirk with a hint of laughter in his voice.
"Oh. I guess so," McCoy agreed. He put down the lotion bottle on the nightstand and undressed, hesitating for a moment about whether to leave his underwear on, but finally chucking it, too. Then he got onto the bed and knelt with his knees on either side of Kirk's hips and pumped some lotion into his hand, rubbing it between his palms briefly to warm it before he spread it on Kirk's back. He inched up a little so that he could reach Kirk's shoulders and neck more easily, which left his cock and balls brushing the warm swell of Kirk's ass. He ignored that for the time being, concentrating instead on finding the knots of tension under his fingertips and coaxing them one by one to relax.
"That's really nice, Bones," Kirk murmured into the pillow. "Really nice."
"Thanks." McCoy continued. He found a particularly stubborn spot between Kirk's left shoulder blade and his spine, and smoothed on a little more lotion as he used a firm circular stroke to knead the knot into submission.
Gradually he worked his way down, going back several times to ensure that the tension hadn't returned to where he had already been, until he was at the base of Kirk's spine. He moved his body backward, his thighs protesting as he settled onto his ankles rather than putting his weight on the back of Kirk's knees. His movement jostled his rigid dick, and a drop of pre-come fell on to Kirk's thigh. Once again he pumped lotion into his palm, and then began to knead Kirk's ass. The muscles were firm and resilient under his fingers, and he adjusted his own position so that he could nudge Kirk's thighs slightly further apart, enabling him to reach between them to brush the back of Kirk's balls and then work his finger into the crack, fingertip grazing the tight pucker of Kirk's asshole.
"Go ahead," said Kirk softly.
"I forgot to grab the lube," McCoy admitted.
"Well, get it now, then."
The bottle was only in the drawer of the nightstand, but to find it McCoy had to scramble off the bed and rummage, mentally cursing himself for forgetting and thereby breaking the mood, even if only a little bit. Kirk shifted, his hand underneath him to adjust his dick, grinning at McCoy.
"Found it." McCoy returned to where he'd been and let a good dollop of lube drip into Kirk's crack. Patiently he teased the tight entrance into opening to him, using his other thumb to massage Kirk's perineum at the same time.
"You really want this?" he asked. "I know it's not usually top of your list, after all."
"Tonight it is. Don't you want it too?" Kirk's eyes were dark as he looked over his shoulder at McCoy.
"God, yes," said McCoy hoarsely, as he looked at Kirk spread out before him. "Just making sure, that's all." He took his dick in his hand and slicked it up with more lube before pressing the tip to Kirk's hole. It was tight, so tight as he slid in, careful to take it slowly, to let Kirk adjust to the intrusion.
"Bones." His name sighed ragged out of Kirk's mouth as he filled him, and for an instant he worried that he'd hurt Kirk despite his care, but then Kirk repeated, "Yes, Bones," and he realized that it was quite the opposite. He looked down at where their bodies were joined, in an odd flash of recall remembering what his freshman biology teacher had pointed out, that the entire digestive system was topologically outside, being nothing more than a very long and complicated tube. He had always liked that insight, somehow. Now, though, he pushed the thought away as distracting and stroked Kirk's skin as he thrust, noticing the faded stripes, pale against flushed skin, last remnants of Kirk's childhood. McCoy bent to kiss Kirk's shoulder blade.
"Tell me how you want it."
"Hard," Kirk responded, "so that I'm sore tomorrow, so that whenever I sit down for the next three days I remember this."
McCoy didn't ask if he meant it; he just did as Kirk asked, making his motions as rough, even savage, as he dared. Kirk groaned and pushed his hips back to meet McCoy, his voice rising as he egged McCoy on, interspersing his name with filthy details of just how good it felt to be fucked in that way.
It was a side of Kirk that McCoy had never seen before and wasn't sure he was entirely comfortable with, but he could ask about that later. For now he bucked and grunted and sweated, trying to give Kirk what it seemed he needed or at least wanted tonight, for whatever reason.
He was so focused on Kirk that his own orgasm caught him by surprise, his toes curling and cramping as the heat rushed through him in blessed release. He managed not to collapse onto Kirk, instead rolling to his right side and tugging Kirk's body over with him, reaching to wrap his left hand around Kirk's dick. It was hot, almost dry as he stroked, feeling it swell rapidly back to full erection. "Lube?" he whispered, but Kirk shook his head.
"Like this is good."
Rough was the order of the day, then, so McCoy stepped up the tempo of his stroke and was soon rewarded by the jets of Kirk's come through his fingers. He gave a last few caresses to coax out any last drops, then left his hand loosely cupping Kirk's dick and with some difficulty wriggled his other arm underneath Kirk to embrace him.
"Was that what you wanted?" he asked after a while.
"Yeah." Kirk was quiet for a few minutes, and McCoy almost dozed off despite his earlier nap. "Bones."
"What?" McCoy's eyelids popped open.
"What are we going to do? I mean, after graduation, if we're not assigned to the same ship? I was thinking about that today; I've always known in an intellectual way that it was possible, even likely, but somehow today it really hit me that I couldn't just blithely assume we'd be together, and how much it'll hurt if we're not." Kirk's voice cracked a little as he spoke.
McCoy sighed, shifting so that he had both arms tight around Kirk's chest, pressing close to him, regardless of the damp mess between them. "I don't know, Jim," he said quietly. "It worries me too. I'm not such a romantic as to believe in one true love – if I ever was, Jocelyn would've cured me of that – but that doesn't mean it won't hurt like hell if we have to say goodbye."
"We could," Kirk began, then stopped.
McCoy gave a gulping chuckle. "If you were gonna say that we could promise to be faithful to each other or something like that, forget it. Five-year tour of duty? It wouldn't be fair to either of us and it would only make it more difficult."
"You're right, I know." Kirk sounded glum. "I guess I'll just try not to think about it, because there's really nothing I can do."
"That's true," McCoy agreed. "We just have to enjoy what time we can together, and hope. Speaking of enjoying time together, by the way, you don't have any other plans for Tuesday night, do you?"
Kirk wriggled around so that he faced McCoy. "Nope. This week I'm doing some studying, but whenever you're free, any time you want me, I'm all yours." He didn't say the words "I love you" but the meaning was plain on his face.
"Good, because I'm planning to take you out to dinner that night... and then I'll let you drag me off to bed and have your wicked way with me." McCoy let his lips twitch up in a smile. "Sound like a deal?"