Fic: Hiding in Plain Sight - Part Three

[nikki4noo]

Days passed with little contact from McCoy. They’d only had two more phone calls from him, until the final one which found Jim all dressed up and out on the town with Sulu. Nothing of much interest had been happening. No new leads. Novikov’s information was leading them on a merry chase to nowhere. Sulu and he had worked off some steam on the firing range and then in the gym, but they were still both so antsy and waiting for that lead, the piece of information that would say they weren’t on a wild goose chase and wasting all this energy for nothing.

Pavel and Scotty hadn’t been around to provide much of a distraction for them either, as they had been holed up in one of the meeting rooms working through the past recordings and transcripts with Miss Uhura. Jim had been trying to wrangle his way into the room to ‘help out’ but nope, the door got shut firmly in his face figuratively and literally.

While it had been slow from his end, McCoy seemed to have been kept on tenterhooks by the Russians. Pressure had been put on him about always sticking to the phone calls. It seemed that they wanted him to ramp up his ‘encouragement’. So here Jim was, in a good pair of jeans and a nice shirt, leaning casually against the bar at The Café.

He had already had to rebuff a couple of offers and Sulu, like always in that situation, was chuckling into his beer.

Friday night at The Café was packed; music was thumping through the club and even at this early hour for it, the dance floor was a writhing mass of bodies moving to their own rhythms as well as the beat flowing out from the speakers. There was the requisite muscle boys in their tanks tops and oiled up muscles on show. The bears with their leather jackets and old school style. The ‘handbags’, or the straight girls, from which Jim would normally have singled out the best option amongst them, but not tonight. Tonight he was waiting for a man.

He took another sip out of the bottle when he spied a familiar face in the crowd on the raised balcony area. McCoy’s watchdog, Popov was there. Which meant that the Russians planned to keep a very close eye on their informant. That changed the rules completely for the night.

Jim looked around all the faces, trying to find McCoy’s. He was searching around the dance floor again when he felt a press of a body up against his own.

“Looking for me?” he heard McCoy speak closely into his ear.

Jim turned around and looked McCoy up and down as best he could considering how close they were due to the crowd. Black shirt, open at the neck and almost halfway down his chest. Dark jeans and tanned skin, little hint of dark hairs on his chest.

“You’ll do,” Jim replied.

McCoy snorted in response.

“Heya Hikaru,” he said to Sulu, who was presumably still standing behind Jim.

“McCoy,” Sulu greeted him.

“Leonard, if we are going to be doing this on a regular basis,” McCoy said.

“He can call you Leonard, but I’m gonna call you Bones,” Jim smiled as he took another sip and tried not to laugh at the expression on McCoy’s face.

They had to talk over the music and kept their their faces close together. They had a prime spot at the bar so, of course, others were trying to inveigle their way into the space they had claimed, which meant that McCoy was constantly being pushed into Jim. A lot of pissy looks were being cast other people’s ways from the doctor.

“So, fancy meeting you here,” Jim said.

“Yeah, well, I got told to pump you for information,” McCoy grumpily complained.

“You can pump me anytime, Bones. But normally I get a drink bought for me first,” Jim smirked as he lifted up his almost empty bottle.

Jim noted that the pissy look got even stronger when it was directed his way. There was a roll of the eyes and McCoy turned his attention to Sulu, asking a silent question of him. Sulu held up his own bottle and shook it to show that it was almost empty too.

“Sure,” he agreed.

McCoy turned to the bar and leaned forward slightly over it to get the bartenders attention. Jim let his eyes drift down his lean form, noting the pull of the shirt across his broad shoulders and how it was hanging loosely out over his jeans. Jeans that were well fitting and also pulling slightly and enhancing McCoy’s natural assets.

Jim realized that he was staring a little too intently and turned back to glance around the room, trying to see if he could spot any other familiar faces besides Popov’s. He leaned over toward Sulu, who met him halfway, after he had done a full scan of the room.

“Too many possible ears around here,” he said as quietly as he dared.

Sulu nodded, “Too many variables of people we might not know. Need to keep that in mind.”

“Yup,” Jim agreed. “Think you can get some of your pals to distract Popov at some stage?”

“I reckon I know some who would be up for it,” Sulu agreed.

A hand reaching between them disrupted their conversation. It held two beers between long fingers. Jim smiled up at McCoy as he took one of the beers.

“Thanks,” he said as he took a sip and noticed that McCoy held a glass of dark liquid in his other hand. “What’s your poison?”

“Bourbon, and not that Jack’s shit,” McCoy answered. “Impressed this place has some decent choices,” he continued as he raised the glass to his lips so he could take a sip.

Jim watched as he flicked his tongue out to moisten his lips before the glass could touch them. The good doctor hadn’t shaved before coming out, just letting his natural growth occur during the day. It was a good look on him, Jim thought.

His eye-line had traveled down towards Bones’ throat as he swallowed, and he realized there was a silver chain around his neck with a pendant of some sort hanging on it, visible just in the v of his shirt.

“Back to the seventies, Bones?” he asked as he nodded toward the necklace.

“Do you really want me to comment on your clothing choices?” he responded.

“What? I look good!” Jim said as he spread his arms as wide as he could within the confined spaces of the bodies around them.

“I’m just gonna say, no wonder they thought certain things about you,” McCoy said with a sly smirk on his face.

“Gotta agree with him there, Jim,” Sulu chuckled.

“It’d be a sin not to show off this fine model of male flesh!” Jim declared.

“He really is deluded,” McCoy commented to Sulu wryly.

“No comment. I have to work with him on a daily basis,” Sulu said before taking another long swig of beer.

“Better you than me,” McCoy responded.

“Hey,” Jim protested. “I’m right here, can’t you at least pretend to be nice to me?”

“Nice doesn’t seem to hold your attention span for very long,” McCoy observed as he himself started to look around the room.

“He’s got you there again, Jim,” Sulu smiled.

“God damn it,” McCoy swore as he turned back towards the pair of them. “They follow me everywhere,” he said as he shook his head.

“Game face,” Jim replied. “We spotted him earlier. Sulu has plans to distract him,” Jim said as he leaned in close to speak directly into McCoy’s ear.

“If he’s here and Hikaru is still around, they won’t think anything I tell them from you is worth anything,” McCoy replied.

“Good point,” Jim agreed. He turned towards his partner. “Sulu, get lost,” Jim told him with a big grin on his face.

Sulu laughed. “Fuck off, I was here first!”

Jim put his beer on the bar and reached over to pluck the glass out of McCoy’s hand.

“Hey!” McCoy protested as he pulled the glass out of the reach of Jim, taking care not to spill a drop. “Don’t get between a man and his bourbon,” McCoy glared at him as he took a sip.

“Drink up then,” Jim ordered. “Or I will take it from you.”

“This is good stuff, you don’t chug it,” McCoy told him as he took another sip.

Jim waited until he started to lower it down before he stole the glass right out of his hand and took a sip himself.

“Not bad,” he said into the glaring face of McCoy.

He handed the drink back. “I left you a bit,” he said in a placating tone.

The expression on McCoy’s face told him in no uncertain terms that it wasn’t good enough.

“You owe me another one,” McCoy told him after taking his final sip and handing the glass to him.

Jim put the glass on the bar and grabbed McCoy by the arm. “C’mon,” he told him as he stepped up close and turned him around.

He nodded at Sulu and then kept pulling McCoy with him as he worked his way through the crowd.

“Where are you going, kid?” McCoy grumbled at him but still kept up with him as Jim let his hand drift down his arm so that he was gripping just above McCoy’s wrist.

McCoy finally realized the direction they were heading towards, “The dance floor? Really?”

“Perfect distraction,” Jim told him. “Plus if they try and get close it’s gonna be obvious.”

“Fine, but I don’t really dance, just warning you,” McCoy said into his ear.

“Don’t ask Sulu about my abilities,” Jim told him.

“Great! We are both gonna look stupid together,” McCoy grumbled as Jim started to wind his way amongst the other dancers on the dance floor. “I’m too old for this shit!”

They were both jostled back and forth between the sweaty heaving bodies as Jim kept pulling them towards the middle of the floor, trying to find a space. He finally managed to find a spot, his abrupt stopping had McCoy literally running into the back of him. Space on the floor was at a premium so Jim just turned around and stayed close to McCoy.

They were both almost of the same height, McCoy seemed to have just a smidgen on him. Jim still had hold of his wrist, so he could feel the heat and a tinge of sweat. All around them, bodies were moving in time and counter point. He could feel the throb of the beat coming up from the floor while the lights pulsed and spun above them as it flickered through the cloying and smokey haze of the atmosphere.

Jim blinked as he realized that they had been standing still on the dance floor for God knows how long. He leaned close again to order McCoy to “just dance.”

Jim felt like an idiot, dancing with a man. He wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do, where he was supposed to brush up against or not. With a woman he knew all the good spots, where to tease and flicker little touches. McCoy was different. His eyes were dark as he too started to move, legs brushing against each other, then a tentative touch, so light Jim wasn’t sure it actually happened or if it was a figment of his imagination, but then it happened again and again. McCoy’s hand was brushing up against his hip as he moved back and forth.

Jim leaned in close so that he could speak into McCoy’s ear, tongue and lips almost touching the smooth skin of the shell of it.

“So how does it work?” Jim asked.

“What?” McCoy confusedly replied.

“The bisexual thing,” Jim explained.

There was a stunned look from McCoy before he shook his head and leaned in close to Jim. Closer than Jim had gotten. As he spoke Jim could feel his lips actually touching his ear, which distracted him enough that his brain wasn’t able to fully parse what was being said to him.

“Well, it’s real simple, kid. When a boy likes another boy, or even if a boy likes a girl or that girl likes another girl there is generally a dick going into a nice warm, soft entrance and things start to feel real good,” McCoy drawled heavily into his ear.

“Wait, what?” Jim pulled back slightly so he could look McCoy in the face.

The song had changed to an old school classic that had many in the club waving their arms in the air and singing along in the highest pitch they could muster that they all “feel love”. The accompanying lighting effect bathing all on the dance floor was a soft yellow light.

The color was not one that should have looked good on McCoy’s face but Jim couldn’t tear his eyes away. “Surely not with the girls? You as a doc should know they don’t have the right parts,” Jim said.

“Seriously, you’ve never heard of SOS? You really are vanilla aren’t you?” McCoy snorted at him. That eyebrow of disdain made its presence known.

“Am not!” Jim protested which just made the smirk on McCoy’s face grow and the eyebrow get higher. “SOS?”

McCoy kept smiling slyly at him. “Strap on sex, Jim-Boy,” he drawled.

Jim’s brain went from protesting to determined even before he cottoned on to its intention. All he knew was that the next thing he did was kiss a man. Not just any man, but one that he had been thinking of on a regular basis for a couple of months. The scary part was that he was being kissed back and at some stage he had wrapped his arm around McCoy’s back and was gripping his ass. He had also slid his other hand down so that he could wrap his hand with McCoy’s. All this came to him when McCoy pulled away from the kiss. Lips disengaging and Jim just wanted to chase after them again. To feel the soft pressure of them, taste the little tease of bourbon he got from the long but too brief kiss.

“Jim?” McCoy was looking at him with a confused expression on his face.

“Fuck it, Bones,” Jim whispered before he closed the gap and kissed him again, opening his lips slightly and licking his way inside.

McCoy...Bones...was gripping his ass and pulling him in close. He could feel the beat move through their bodies. The sounds of the club were dulled as he tried to concentrate on the man who was making an attempt to meld their bodies into one, be it via their hands, their lips or their hips as Jim felt something brush up against him that he never had before. He sucked at the tongue invading his mouth and could feel the stubble rubbing against his face as they moved back and forth trying to find the best angle. It wasn’t a perfect kiss. Teeth clashed and they sometimes didn’t quite fit together perfectly but Jim only wanted more.

He slid his palm up from the curve of Bones’ ass, maneuvered it under his shirt and found bare skin. Hot, moist, bare skin. Bones groaned into his mouth and pressed in harder with everything he had. Jim heard nothing but white noise, could feel nothing but hot breath and smooth skin. All he could think was that this better not end. Ever.

“Jim! Jim!” he heard his name being called and felt a hand on his shoulder shaking him.

“Wha...What?” Jim blinked as he pulled away. The sights and sounds of the club came rushing back to all his senses.

Bones had tried to pull away slightly and was looking down at the floor.

The hand on Jim’s shoulder and the voice in his ear belonged to his partner. His partner who had just seen him kissing someone. Sulu had seen him in action a few times before and Jim had witnessed Sulu making his own moves. This was different though, and the look on Sulu’s face held many a question Jim wasn’t sure if he knew the answers to.

“Time to make your escape,” Sulu said instead as he nodded towards the raised balcony.

Sure enough, Sulu had encouraged a few of his pals to waylay Popov and the man was blocked from seeing them as he was trying to fend off some very interested admirers.

“See you tomorrow,” Sulu said as he nodded towards the door, a serious look on his face.

“C’mon Bones,” Jim said as he tugged on their joined hands.

Jim found he had a very pliant and quiet accomplice as they made their way towards the front door. He took a longer route around some pillars, keeping them both as far out of sight for Popov as possible just in case he did manage to break away from the horde.

As they headed down the stairs and neared the front door, the cooler air from outside could be felt. “Night,” one of the bouncers said as they exited the club.

“Yeah,” Jim replied as his ears adjusted to the outside cool and open air. The line for the club stretched along the building, so Jim pulled Bones to follow him back up Market and away from the line.

He was able to make it almost one block and hadn’t found a taxi, when the cool air seemed to finally snap Bones out of his pliancy. He stopped dead and pulled on their joined hands so that Jim had to stop too or lose his grip.

“Jim, what the fuck was that?” he asked quietly. His voice even huskier than normal, whether from the smokey atmosphere of the club or maybe from something else.

Jim thought about some smart ass brush off remark, but he was loath to let go of Bones’ hand, so he stepped up close and stared into the face which was looking back at him slightly warily.

“You said I was vanilla and yet you don’t know what a kiss is?” Jim asked in reply instead.

Bones looked away as he growled a little bit under his breath. It was an incredibly sexy sound and had Jim leaning in and pressing a kiss to the side of his neck that was exposed.

“Jim,” Bones breathed out. “Don’t.”

“Why not?” Jim asked as he pressed another kiss, this time under his ear and he felt Bones shiver. He blinked to himself as he realized that at some stage during that kiss he no longer considered this man to be McCoy, an undercover agent. He was now Bones and it meant something completely different. Jim maybe wasn’t as straight as he thought he was. He flicked his tongue out and licked at the ear lobe that was teasing him and asking for it.

“Jim,” Bones groaned his name. “We are on a street,” he reminded him.

“So?” Jim asked as he sucked at the lobe before following the shape upwards with his tongue and teasing into his ear.

Bones grabbed at him and pulled him closer as he groaned again. “Anyone can see,” he managed to breath out.

“Don’t care. Want to kiss you,” Jim admitted as he pulled away to stare at Bones and those lips of his.

He leaned toward them, drawn by some force. At the last possible second, Bones pulled away again.

“No,” he said as he sucked his lower lip into his mouth, and then released it out again. All moist and plump.

“Bones,” Jim groaned as he leaned in again so he could breathe against that tempting pout. “It’s the Castro. Pretty sure they have seen guys kissing on the street before around here.”

“Jim, the Russians aren’t around here, you don’t have to pretend anymore,” Bones explained. “Don’t call me that stupid nickname.”

“Bones, Bones, Bones,” Jim recited to him. “Suits you. That is most definitely a boner I feel right there,” Jim said as he rubbed their groins together. “Mind you if it isn’t, then way to make a guy feel inadequate!”

“Jim!” Bones angrily said, but Jim detected a hint of something else in his voice too. Possibly a hint of fear. He was as affected by what had happened as Jim was. Jim knew that he should probably be freaking out right now about how turned on he was by the man in front of him, but all he wanted was to be somewhere he could explore and see where this was going. He could freak out about it tomorrow.

Jim jumped off the cliff, as he was wont to do on many an occasion. Mostly it was with some calculation that he knew where he was going to land. This was a blind jump where he didn’t know what was over that cliff, but he really hoped it was going to end in a nice soft landing. Preferably a bed.

He kissed him again. It was even better, if that was possible. Jim groaned Bones’ name into his mouth as he teased and invited Bones’ tongue to follow and lead.

“Why?” Bones asked when they finally broke for air. Their breathes mingled and blended in the cool of the evening. The chill was enough that they could see the hot air from their mouths escaping out and away.

Jim was rubbing his hard on up against Bones’ groin. “Ain’t fucking pretending,” Jim declared.

Bones closed his eyes as he tilted his head up towards the night sky.

“And I’m too fucking old to get off in some dirty, dank and disgusting alley,” Bones said quietly.

“Good,” Jim agreed as he looked around the street.

It was his lucky night, a cab had just dropped off a couple of revelers and Jim waved at the driver to get his attention.

“Good?” Bones asked confusedly.

The driver saw his arm waving and moved his car towards them slowly.

“C’mon,” Jim said as he started to walk towards the cab.

“Jim? What?” Bones was still a little behind on what they were doing.

“Get in,” Jim ordered as they reached the cab and the driver pulled it to a stop. Jim opened the back door and started to get in, still not wanting to let go of Bones’ hand.

Mercifully Bones did as he was told. It was only once Jim had given directions to the driver and the door shut that he let go of Bones’ hand so that he could pull the seat belt on.

The ride to his apartment was made in silence, with Jim occasionally glancing over at Bones who was resolutely watching outside the window. Jim wanted to touch him again, but he let Bones be for the moment. So far when they had touched each other, rational thought kinda made a run for the hills. Jim was trying to be mature and shit, but on the plus side, his libido said they were going to his apartment and it would be hard for Bones to avoid him there.

Part four this way