fic: What you eat, 4/4
Fandom: Star Trek XI
Pairing: McCoy/Chekov ; past McCoy/Kirk
Rating: NC-17
Notes: Part IV + epilogue of delighter's birthday gift. The fact that I am so bad at WIPs that I am now posting the last part on my birthday, two months later, is pretty embarrassing. Meanwhile, estei made sure I'm not entirely off-key, even after six weeks of keyboard paralysis.
Words: 6235.
Summary: The restaurant AU. Enterprise is a haute cuisine upstart in San Francisco, owned and operated by one Chef James T. Kirk.
Part I | Part II | Part III | Part IV
PART IV.
McCoy prepares for work the next day by downing a couple of steadying shots at Jonell’s around noon. He doesn’t linger at the bar, he just wants the pick-me-up. But it’s still too early to go in, so he decides to walk, taking a meandering route with his hands in his pockets and his suit jacket folded in the crook of his arm.
He tries to lose his anxiety somewhere along the waterfront. Wants to drop it in the ocean. But it’s getting close to Labor Day, and the tourists are thick on the sidewalks, so it only half works. He gets within a block of the harbor, anyway, before he’s turned back by squalling families and common sense.
He makes it to Enterprise, feeling sweaty and irritated but less outright nervous, only to realize he’s still way too early. He slips in the back door and runs into Sulu, who is slipping out. Probably for a joint, furtive as he looks, but McCoy’s no one to judge.
“Anyone else in yet?” McCoy asks.
“Spock’s prepping the special,” Sulu gestures vaguely backward. “And I think Kirk’s in his office. I mean, he might be. I was pretty sure he was when I came in. But if he was, he hasn’t come out yet. So I don’t know.”
Ominous. McCoy resolves to hide in the wine cellar if need be. He nods at Sulu - who is a good kid by McCoy’s standards, in that he always keeps his mouth shut - and heads inside.
Kirk is not in his office.
Kirk is standing three inches away from Spock, glaring at him with a disembowelled carcass in his hand like it’s a weapon that he badly wants to use. Spock, for his part, is speaking in a calm, precise murmur that disregards Kirk’s raised hackles and strained expression and dead rabbit: “-it might make a passable amuse bouche, were we desperate, but even on a frisée bed I doubt the wisdom of serving what is essentially deep-fried boardwalk-” Spock pauses, all tact “-merde.”
McCoy keeps his eyes straight ahead. “Gentlemen,” he says, beelining for the cellar door.
Kirk guffaws. “Deep-fried? Spock, do we even own a deep-fryer? I’m not talking breaded crabcakes here, these little guys are fresh off the farm-” he shakes his skinned, decapitated rabbit, “-I’m talking polenta and a chimichurri sauce, maybe some fideo pasta on the side-”
“If you are so set on that particular ingredient - one which you know I disapprove of, incidentally - perhaps it would be advisable to frame it as a braciola instead. Braise the leg, and wrap the loin in a serrano ham-” Spock’s fingers are linked behind his back and he’s braced evenly on both feet like a balked mule: he’s not budging, even though his voice still sounds reasonable, logical. McCoy has to give him credit, he does good for a vegetarian chef. He does a lot of metaphorical nose-pinching, but he’s a professional down to the core, never letting his politics interfere with his craft.
On the other hand, Enterprise probably serves more tofu than any other French-influenced menu in the country.
“Yeah, serrano ham. That’s great.” Kirk’s voice is acidic, “Maybe if you’d suggested that last night before I put in the order-”
“Last night you ordered yellowfin tuna for the special,” Spock retorts, unperturbed. “You’ve altered your plans twice now. My suggestion is merely an attempt-”
McCoy changes his mind at the last second and heads for the bar, instead. Locking himself in the cellar only means he’ll have to come back through the kitchen again at some point. And he does not want to be trapped down there, ear pressed to the door, waiting for this argument to end. At least up front he can pour himself some more whisky and hope to god Kirk doesn’t come up front to harass him, too.
Kirk doesn’t let him get that far, though. “Fine,” he says to Spock, dropping the rabbit on the counter. “Screw the croquettes. Screw the yellowfin. Do whatever you want. Make a tofu special, I don’t care. McCoy.”
McCoy turns back as Spock turns away, his shoulders revealing nothing about whether he views the argument as a triumph or a disaster or both.
McCoy tries to keep his voice equally neutral. “Yeah?”
Kirk doesn’t even make eye contact. He says: “Christine’s got her raise, and she’s finding me a few names for a second bartender. Curly’s still barback. Got it?”
McCoy says, “Sure.”
And Kirk says, “Good.” And he goes back into his office.
McCoy looks at Spock, who’s standing at Sulu’s station unwrapping several lengths of butcher’s twine. Spock gazes back, not quite managing to look as placid as he normally does. In fact, the way the string is wrapped so tightly around his fingers that the tips of them are turning white is a good indication that he is not as calm as he’s pretending to be.
For a moment they just frown at each other.
If Spock wants to say anything about Kirk, his professionalism won’t allow it. And McCoy - who can only guess at what the sous-chef knows about the two of them - isn’t about to fuel the fire, either. It’s not his place. And he wishes to hell it wasn’t his problem, either.
Spock’s eyebrow gives the barest twitch, and he turns back to the counter, and the rabbit carcass lying on it.
McCoy shakes his head and goes up front. Honestly, he doesn’t know whether to be relieved that Jim has the grace to not dredge up Monday’s humiliating confession, or to be hurt by the fact that even after that - a spectacular new low - nothing has changed between them.
He settles on relieved, because hurt is too much to think about. And also because twenty minutes later Chekov floats in through the front doors in his checks and clogs, with his jacket slung over his shoulder like a eurotrash popstar. “McCoy,” he grins, coming straight for the bar. “Hello!”
“Hi, kid,” says McCoy, letting himself smile a little at the way Chekov threads through the tables, face-first and eager, with his hips banging chairbacks on the way.
He stops abruptly on the other side of the bar, looking like he kind of wants to jump it. McCoy kind of wants him to, too. But Chekov takes a sly glance around the deserted restaurant and leans forward on his elbows, instead.
“I am looking forward to tonight,” he says, his voice low and confidential. “Our plans still stand, yes?”
McCoy’s plans hadn’t really extended past this moment - seeing those bright blue eyes again - but now he remembers that he basically promised the kid sex. Like other people promise their sweethearts pizza or a movie or a backrub. He clears his throat and nods his head. “Sure.”
“Good.” Chekov says, still grinning. “Because I have prepared.”
McCoy blinks at that, and Chekov pulls himself off the counter and saunters away. He actually saunters, so that McCoy watches him swing his skinny boy hips away through the kitchen doors, all the while wondering what he is doing making promises to horny boys who seem to have more experience with seduction than he does.
Chekov doesn’t stop there. He’s in and out of the kitchen all night. Or at least twice, which is improbable enough for a line cook.
He comes out once to chase down a server who ostensibly left without a plate’s ciabatta and tapenade - impossible, with Spock expediting - and then again to fetch a new roll of ticket tape when the printer in the back runs dry - never mind that there’s a whole box of rolls in Kirk’s office.
And both times, Chekov manages to find a way to brush by McCoy, and with a hiss of a whisper promise things that would made McCoy blush, if only he were still sixteen and capable of it. As it is, his throat goes dry, and he finds himself slowed down, frozen in the middle of doing whatever it was that he was doing. Tapping in Table 16’s corkage fee. Returning wine lists to Scotty’s podium up front. Whatever.
It’s enough that after the second time, McCoy ventures into the kitchen on his own mission - Kirk be damned, he’s standing over a steaming range with his hands moving fast and his attention focused on his entrees, anyway. McCoy heads straight back to the dish pit with a tray of spotty Reidel champagne flutes in his arms.
“Look,” he says to the kid who is supposedly responsible for the stemware, holding one up to the light, and gesturing him closer so he can see it. “Maybe you want to run these through again? And then maybe you can dry them so they don’t look like they belong in a leper colony?”
The kid takes them silently, like he’s accepting the body of an animal he just ran over with his car, and McCoy only feels slightly bad about pushing them on him halfway through the dinner rush. Especially when they’ve been sitting up front since last Friday, untouched, not bothering anyone. It’s kind of a dick move. The kind of move you’d expect from a real sommelier.
McCoy doesn’t dwell, though, he just makes sure it’s worth it: he heads back out by way of the salad station, where Chekov is juggling arugala and handfuls of that spiky, tousled frisée. He has a half dozen glass bottles with pour tops scattered around his station and a bowlful of crushed - not cranked - peppercorns at his elbow. He looks as sure and fast as any of the other cooks, and his focus is just as sharp.
McCoy pauses behind him, just as Chekov reaches for something in the lowboy under the counter. And when the kid straightens up, they’re just close enough that if anyone were to look twice, it would be obvious what unprofessional parts of them are touching.
McCoy says to the damp, prickling skin on the back of Chekov’s neck, under the line of his cap, the beads of sweat raised there: “Wine cellar, after service.”
And he leaves quickly. Because it’s Jim’s kitchen, and also because he wants to leave marks on that neck with his teeth, and because those two thoughts cannot coexist.
As soon as the covers start slowing down - a hundred and fifty by 11:00, which is ridiculous for a Wednesday, the Chronicle buzz is still going strong - McCoy starts writing up a huge liquor order.
Christine gives him a dubious eyebrow when she sees the clipboard. “We’re doing September inventory on Monday, you know,” she tells him.
“Yes,” he says. “But I’ve been getting a lot of requests for De Profundis.”
Christine’s eyebrow goes higher and she makes a small sound of disgust. “That pear brandy? God. We are getting snobby.”
“It costs two hundred a bottle, we’ll charge forty a glass and all our kids will grow up asking why homeless people don’t get jobs.” McCoy marks down another case of Stoli - the crew goes through it like water. “You don’t have to tell me I’m a genius.”
Christine scowls at him. “Don’t worry, I won’t,” she says. She gestures at the clipboard, and hoists her bag over her shoulder: “And I’m not helping you with that, either.”
McCoy shrugs, and waves Curly off, too. He isn’t an idiot. He’ll conveniently lose the order until well after Monday. Although he is kind of curious about the brandy. Twenty years old and only three hundred bottles in the world. People will fall over themselves ordering it if he can convince Uhura to match it up with a dessert. Toffee something. Or something traditional like Belgian chocolate. Whatever she wants to do with that.
He’s squatting down, inspecting the back bottom shelves just for thoroughness’ sake, when Scott slaps him on the back. “House is clear,” he announces, referring to the servers. “It’s just you and the ghosts.”
“Thanks,” McCoy tells him. “I’ll pass that on to Kirk.”
“Such a gentleman,” Scott says, like it’s no big deal. Like it’s not entirely obvious that no one is talking to Kirk these days unless they have to.
McCoy nods, so that they can both pretend it’s perfectly normal.
Scott makes his exit out the front.
When McCoy heads back into the kitchen, it’s quiet. The boombox over the prep counter is playing the only CD it ever plays, an old Ramones greatest hits, and the dishwashers are still at work in the back, but McCoy doesn’t see anyone else.
He brings his clipboard down into the cellar with him anyway, just in case. Plausible deniability.
Chekov is waiting for him.
He’s almost surprised by that. He’s so nervous, all of a sudden, that he wants to laugh, and Chekov is smiling too, scooting up to him.
The kid’s lost his jacket somewhere, so he’s in another ragged old tshirt, and his hair is sticking up in ungainly tufts from where he’s run his hands through it, only half-correcting the atrocity his chef’s cap left behind. Still, he is beautiful in the dim light, all pale shining skin and dark wide eyes. “McCoy,” he whispers, thrilled, “we could get caught down here.”
McCoy doesn’t bother to cast another glance around the cellar before he closes in. He’s a little rough: grabs Chekov by the arm and puts a hand up through his curls, which are stiffened with salt and still damp at the neck. He puts his face close and murmurs in a pink ear: “You weren’t afraid of getting caught earlier.”
Chekov snorts, “You mean during service? That was nothing. No one-”
“No one noticed the massive hard-on I got every time you whispered in my ear, but it wasn’t for lack of trying on your part.”
Chekov’s little laugh is triumphant, and he turns his face into McCoy’s, smiling a kiss onto McCoy’s scowl. “I’m glad I was effective.”
“Who knew you were such a tease.”
If Chekov tries to deny it, his words get lost in a whimper as McCoy backs him into a wine rack. McCoy isn’t careless: he picks the one braced against the scuzzy old brick wall of the cellar. It’s also unfortunately squarely in the sight of anyone who comes down the stairs.
Part of McCoy vows he’ll keep it quick, and part of him doesn’t fucking care who sees them.
The bottles are snug in their cribs, they barely jostle as he kisses Chekov, and Chekov squirms back up against him, making all the happy, eager sounds that McCoy is learning to recognize. They urge him on: tongue deeper, hands firmer. Chekov knows what he wants.
And McCoy can admit that he desperately wants to give it to him.
He knows, in the back of his mind, that he wants to treat this kid right. Yes, there are all of those questions still floating around. He still imagines the talk they’ll have, like they’re a couple of middle-aged queens ready to sign a pre-nup. He’s been picturing a sit-down on a couch somewhere. Coffee, or beer, or hard liquor. Something to take the edge off the awkwardness of sharing your life story with someone you met half a week ago. In his head, McCoy counts backwards: it’s entirely possible he lost his virginity before this kid was born.
But this picture of respectful honesty disintegrates when Chekov latches his mouth onto McCoy’s ear and starts sucking his earlobe. And when he says - or gasps, because McCoy has dug his teeth into the thin skin of his collarbone - “I brought condoms,” it’s all McCoy can do to not flip him around, strip him down, and fuck him right there.
“Not here,” McCoy growls, pushing his forehead into Chekov’s shoulder.
“Yes, here,” Chekov’s knees give and he sinks against the wine rack, eyes huge and urgent. He works his mouth back under McCoy’s: “Right here,” he begs into it.
And what can McCoy do but let the kid push the issue for a little bit longer? It’s too sweet, being down here like this, with him. This morgue of ancient bottles; a shrine to an art he’s never cared about.
McCoy knows he’s being asinine, adolescent, but lord he wants to defile this place.
His suit jacket is on the dusty ground with his clipboard, his lemon yellow tie hanging loose, and his formerly crisp cotton shirt has lost two buttons at the neck to Chekov’s fingers. The kid has already moved on to fussing with McCoy’s fly, slipping a slim wrist inside to run strong fingers up and down the length of McCoy’s dick. He sighs in satisfaction when he touches it, matching McCoy’s own huff of breath.
Chekov pulls McCoy in close while he jacks him off, rubbing his own erection against McCoy’s hip and making begging noises into McCoy’s mouth. “Now,” he whines, “Won’t you fuck me now?”
The correct, honest and respectful answer to that question, McCoy realizes, is yes.
He flips Chekov to press face-first against the wine rack. Chekov’s hands scrabble against bottles, bumping their tops as he tries to find a shelf to grip, to hold himself off them. McCoy doesn’t like the care he’s taking: he ruts up against the kid’s ass just to force him harder against them. “Yes, I’ll fuck you,” he says to the back of Chekov’s neck, and this time he can indulge himself: he licks the sweat off the knuckles of Chekov’s spine, and then sinks his teeth into the smooth muscle beside it.
The trapezius, his mind supplies inanely. And a bottle hits the floor.
It disintegrates into shards, wine splashing up their pant legs and spreading over the dirty cement. McCoy doesn’t even look at the label, just the empty crib beside Chekov’s shocked and guilty hand.
Just as automatic, his mind supplies: the Louis Latour Chambertin 1985.
“Oh,” says Chekov. He’s turned to stare at McCoy, looking for a clue as to how bad the damage is. Of course Enterprise covers all the price points: it could’ve been a nine dollar Napa merlot, instead of a four hundred dollar Grand Cru.
McCoy nudges the dark, jagged glass with a foot. “Don’t sweat it, kid.”
Chekov doesn’t look convinced, he drops to his knees as if he might be able to resuscitate the bottle. He sees the label: “1985,” he groans.
McCoy pulls him back up by the shoulders, “You’ll cut yourself,” he says. “Leave it alone, I’ll handle it in the morning.”
But Chekov won’t stop looking at the broken bottle. “I’m sorry,” he says at it, “I’m so clumsy.”
McCoy steps over the bottle, physically places himself in Chekov’s line of sight, “It’s fine,” he says, and repeats it again as he bends his knees and angles in a soft, but insistent kiss. He straightens them both back up with a hand on Chekov’s waist, the other one guiding his shoulder so they can move away, get out of here.
He kisses Chekov again, once, to prove this doesn’t matter. He kisses him softly. Warm, reassuring.
And then Kirk says, “McCoy?”
McCoy jerks to look up: Kirk’s standing halfway down the steps, hands gripping the trap door’s frame, stooping to peer down into the cellar. His voice is strangely questioning. Like he’s not sure that it’s actually McCoy standing there guilty and dishevelled with the new garde manger and a murdered bottle of burgundy.
“Right here.” McCoy steps away from Chekov. Just enough to face Jim head-on. But he doesn’t take his hand from Chekov’s back. He keeps it there.
Kirk takes one more step down, and then retracts it. His face is backlit, but the light from the dim cellar bulb is enough to let McCoy know that he doesn’t actually want to see his expression in any more detail.
“It’s fine,” Kirk says. “Never mind.”
He goes back up the steps, but he doesn’t close the trap door behind him.
McCoy realizes his hand is still bracing Chekov’s back, and that they are both frozen and unmoving in a way that makes the touch seem unnatural, superficial.
Chekov steps away, looks at McCoy with an expression like that of a convict facing sentence. His analysis is matter-of-fact: “So. Now I will be fired.”
“No, you won’t.” McCoy is confident in that, at least. Not even the bottle of Chambertin is enough to derail this kid’s place here. And comparatively, McCoy knows Kirk won’t even register the loss.
Chekov doesn’t look convinced. He glances at the stairs, like he might go after Kirk. “I will see-” he starts.
But McCoy cuts him off. “Just wait for me out front. I’ll talk to him.”
He doesn’t wait to let Chekov argue with him, just starts up the stairs, grabbing his jacket and brushing it off on the way. He knows he can’t fix this - god knows he’s spent the last five years trying - but he knows he has to do something.
Jim is in his office. The door is shut - a warning - but McCoy straightens his clothing outside, bracing himself for a screaming match.
He doesn’t get one.
Jim is standing in the middle of the floor. He’s facing a shelf of tinned tomatoes with his eyes closed, his posture slumped. “Yup?” he says, in the normalest of normal voices, like McCoy’s just come in to get his sign-off on the liquor order.
McCoy still doesn’t know what he’s come to say. He does know that he doesn’t want to talk to Jim with his eyes closed against him, all vulnerable and vacant. But he doesn’t want those eyes open, either. Looking back at him so that there’s no way to avoid each other.
“I’m sorry you saw that,” is what comes out of McCoy’s mouth. It sounds tawdry as soon as it hits the air. Full of insinuations. McCoy wishes he could keep the distance between them clear of the usual static. He wants things simple and clear, in a way they never are with Jim.
And for a second Jim doesn’t respond. He just stands there with a hand braced on the shelf and his eyes shut like he can make the whole world disappear by sheer force of will. When he opens them, he doesn’t meet McCoy’s eyes. His gaze seems to land somewhere around McCoy’s throat - his bedraggled tie, those two popped buttons, the grime from the cellar floor on his jacket shoulders.
“It’s fine,” Jim says.
He stops, reconsiders.
“I mean - it’s not. Not in my restaurant. Not with one of my cooks-” he tosses a hand up. Like he can’t even list all the reasons it’s actually not even remotely fine, so just those two will have to do. “But you - that’s fine. Of course I’m happy if you- I mean. Like I said. Fine.”
McCoy doesn’t even try to sort out Jim’s varying degrees of fine, he just nods. “I agree - here, Chekov. I made a bad choice. It won’t happen again.”
“Good. That’s great.” Jim straightens up, glancing at his desk like he has pressing work to attend to. “So let’s forget about it then. Today. Monday. Let’s drop it.”
McCoy is still standing outside the little office, unable to step in, unwilling to get any closer. He is very tempted to just agree. Walk away. Keep the boat steady in the water.
But that’s not why he came up here. Or why he said what he did on Monday. That day, the sentence should have started with I still love you and ended with so I’m leaving. They both know this ship has to sink before anything between them will change.
So McCoy takes a small step forward. He says, “Well, no. Not exactly.”
Jim looks at him again, and his face is guarded, but McCoy can still read him. Easy. The text on Jim’s face reads: don’t do this.
But McCoy has to say it. He meets Jim’s eyes when he says, “I can’t work here anymore.”
Jim at least doesn’t look surprised. Unhappy, maybe, and a little outraged, a little panicky. But not surprised. He keeps it all under control. “That’s not what I want.”
McCoy shrugs. “You know you can afford to pay someone much better at this than I am. That jerkoff Bauer always complains about the wine list whenever he mentions us, anyway. It’s a good move.”
“I don’t care about that,” says Jim.
McCoy shrugs. “Either do I.”
“So what, then?” Jim shoves himself off of his desk in irritation. “If it’s because I’m an asshole you sure waited long enough to notice.”
“I always knew you were an asshole, Jim.” McCoy retorts. He doesn’t know how to answer the rest of the question. Especially when they both know the damn answer and it’s just Jim’s pigheadedness making him say it out loud. Instead, McCoy just leans there in the doorframe, stubborn as rocks, and they scowl at each other.
And like always, neither of them is willing to give.
Instead, Jim asks, eventually: “So what, two weeks?” Acidic. Not like he’s admitting defeat. Just like he’s maybe humoring McCoy in his delusion. “Or are you just going to walk out on me now?”
“Yeah, two weeks.” McCoy agrees. “They’ll be banging down your door to replace me.”
Jim shakes his head, sits down on his milk crate stool. “I don’t want them.”
McCoy can’t answer that. Not when he’s already made his decision. He has to ignore it, move on.
He turns to go.
“Bones,” Jim calls, and when McCoy pauses he asks in a mocking tone that can’t hide the strain of the question: “You didn’t make me hire that kid just because you were messing around with him, did you?”
“I didn’t make you hire him.” McCoy retorts, riled because it feels like the two hundredth time he’s said it. “I couldn’t have if I tried.”
“Is that a no?” Kirk asks.
McCoy raises his eyebrows, “Hell yes, it’s a no. Jesus, Jim.”
Jim frowns, unsatisfied with the answer. “So I guess you want me to keep him around, then.”
“If I was at all kind, I’d tell you to fire him so as to spare him the trials of your personality.” McCoy feels the need to add: “But that would probably break his heart.”
“That’s fine.” Kirk shrugs. And then he smirks: “So have you slept with him?”
“Christ almighty, Jim.” McCoy rolls his eyes, and makes it halfway down the hall before he stops, shakes his head, and turns back to poke his nose back into Kirk’s office. “We also broke the last bottle of ’85 Chambertin while we were down there.”
Kirk just stares back at him, and McCoy retreats again, a little more smug this time.
Chekov is waiting for him outside.
He’s standing with his dirty white jacket in his hands, like he’s holding it for someone. He doesn’t look up from his shoes until McCoy says his name, puts a hand out to touch his shoulder.
“Is he angry with you?” is his first concern. Chekov’s eyes are wide, his brow furrowed up to the hairline. In the streetlight, he looks terrified, shocked, like an earthquake survivor.
McCoy snorts, “Don’t you want to hear about your job, first?”
Chekov doesn’t even register the dig, he just cranes closer. “Just tell me the worst,” he says.
“No one got fired,” McCoy says, choosing his words. “I couldn’t name a burgundy worth a good garde manger anyway.”
“But he’s angry,” Chekov insists. “Jealous.”
“Jealous!” McCoy says it like it’s a word Chekov just made up on the spot. He gives a good chortle, and starts them walking down the street, one hand on Chekov’s back. “I don’t know where you got that from, kid.”
“McCoy.” Chekov gives him a look, and McCoy reaches up to scratch an eyebrow just to avoid it. “Even if I was an idiot, the servers still gossip like village babushkas. I heard about you and Chef Kirk on my first day.”
“Heard what?” says McCoy, and then changes tack as soon as he catches Chekov’s insulted glance. “I mean, look. It was so long ago that there’s nothing left to gossip about.”
It sounds like an evasion because it is. McCoy keeps walking, and Chekov makes a small, irritated sound.
But after half a block he puts his hand in McCoy’s, and they walk together in a silence that slips from irate to something almost comfortable, after a while.
For all his dodging the subject, McCoy wants to say something to make the kid feel better. He opens his mouth four separate times as they walk along, starting to say something, but always changing his mind when his tongue stumbles over the first word, whether it’s he, or I, or you.
They get to his building, and McCoy gallantly holds open the glass door in the lobby, follows Chekov up the stairs. When he unlocks the apartment door, though, Chekov balks. He shifts his weight in the dim light of the hall, looking sorry and stubborn.
“You would tell me if something happened, yes?” he says, quietly enough that the neighbors might not even complain about a noise disturbance.
McCoy, foot half in the door, hand on the lightswitch, turns back to him. He tries his best to not look like the request is an unreasonable one, but doesn’t know how well he succeeds. He doesn’t want to talk about Kirk anymore. He’s done with that. It’s over.
He glances into the apartment - clean and bright and tidy for all its shabby furniture and worn out floorboards - and says, “Nothing worth mentioning, kid. I promise.”
Epilogue
It’s a Saturday in November, and McCoy ducks into the foyer off Polk Street with his overcoat on his arm and his tie loose around his neck. The wind off the street closes the heavy door with force and McCoy scoots in a little more quickly than is dignified. It’s still early, yet, barely even six, but through the mottled glass the dining room is white and warm and noisy with people, all cozy against the darkening autumn evening outside.
Scotty’s standing at his podium, consulting a schedule and negotiating with a pair of servers McCoy doesn’t even recognize. He grins a greeting at McCoy as soon as he notices him.
“Our prodigal wine boy!” he declares, arms wide. “Three months hiatus, tell me you’re coming back now. We’re lost without him, eh girls?”
The servers smile politely.
McCoy gives them a guarded nod. “Just in for a bite. Making sure the place hasn’t burned to the ground without me.”
“No reservation?” Scotty says, with a token glance at his ledger. “Will I even be able to squeeze you in?”
“The bar’s just fine.” McCoy says.
“So you say now,” Scotty says, gesturing him along. “I give you ten minutes before you’re back there rearranging the shelves and rewriting the cocktail menu.”
“Cocktails.” McCoy growls, a little disgusted by the notion. “I’m sure Christine’s doing just fine.”
“I agree with you there,” Scotty says. “She’s running the place, that’s for sure. Kirk never hired a new sommelier, you know.”
“Stubborn bastard,” McCoy did know that, actually, as Chekov keeps him informed.
He notes that Scott wasn’t exactly joking about the squeezing: miraculously, the only seat clear along the whole length of the bar is his old perch at the end by the kitchen doors, behind the microbrew taps.
Christine - suited and sashed now, blonde curls pulled up over her pressed collar - grins and nods at him from the ladder that runs up the twelve foot display rack. She’s retrieving a local chardonnay from somewhere near the top, and when McCoy looks, he sees Curly’s been promoted to cocktails and there’s a pair of new barbacks running for the servers.
Scotty pats his shoulder and says, “I’ve got to go play pet monkey, but you stick around tonight and we’ll break open the bottles like old times, eh?”
McCoy makes an acquiescent sound that Scotty may or may not have caught, and smiles at Janice as she slides a menu in front of him, “Spock’s special is wild mushroom and goat brie quinoa in baked crepes over roasted beets and stuffed zucchini,” she tells him. “So far no one’s ordered it.”
McCoy snorts. “Give me the duck. And whatever Chekov’s salad is. And pie.”
“It’s kind of a southwestern bean and spinach deal, warm and minty. And Uhura just did a bunch of cayenne pumpkin pies.” Janice tells him. She gestures vaguely toward the wine display: “Christine’s got your drink?”
“No doubt she does,” McCoy says, and Janice slips off with a nod.
Christine doesn’t even ask, she just brings up a bottle of single malt straight from below the bar as soon as she steps behind it. “Good to see you again, McCoy,” she says, pouring him a tumbler. “Some of us were beginning to think Chekov had slit your throat, stashed the body and started lying about your great sex life.”
“I hope you didn’t lose too much to the betting pool,” McCoy returns. He tips his glass at her before he downs it.
“Just a couple of car payments,” Christine thumbs her collar. “You know it’s a goddamn mess down in that cellar of yours? I’ve been working overtime for a month trying to clear it off so a person can read the labels.”
“You’re not supposed to read the labels.” McCoy tells her, pushing his glass forward for another thumb of whisky. “There’s a system.”
“Well, dewey decimal doesn’t exactly cut it when you’re sending nineteen year old dishwashers down to grab the bottles. We’ve been so goddamn busy lately.”
McCoy shrugs, noncommittal. “I’m sure you sorted it all out.”
“Damn right I did,” she tells him, and pours him his third.
He gets his duck and Christine leaves the bottle with him. By eight, he’s getting fidgety and Enterprise is just getting busier. He considers leaving, coming back, but right there in the middle of the rush Kirk appears in his stained jacket and sweaty cap.
“Bones. I heard you were out here,” he says, “How’d you like the duck?”
“Decent enough,” says McCoy. “Needs more pineapple. You sell any of Spock’s specials yet?”
“Three,” Kirk admits. He looks pained. “The worst part is, they’re really good.”
“Tell him to put some bacon in it next time. People will eat anything with bacon.”
“I’ll pass that on,” Kirk raises an unthrilled eyebrow, and for a second he looks so much like Spock that McCoy has to laugh.
“What?” Kirk asks, even though he knows exactly what McCoy is laughing at. And then: “How’s the new gig going? Do you miss us yet?”
McCoy shakes his head. “I drink lattes all day instead of whisky. It’s probably good for me.”
“Yeah,” Kirk doesn’t seem to agree at all, but he looks like he can tolerate not saying so to McCoy’s face, anyway.
Tutoring pre-meds under the table isn’t exactly a step up in his eyes, McCoy knows. But he likes it. Or, he doesn’t mind it. And if it doesn’t drive him to drink, it’s a good deal.
Kirk shifts on his feet, smiles cheerily: “Well look, you sticking around? You can come make it up to your liver after service with us.”
“I might,” says McCoy. That’s all. He smiles back at Kirk, swirling the liquor in his glass.
Kirk pauses for a second more, and then he says, “I’ve been doing good, too. Just so you know.”
“Yeah,” McCoy says. “Pavel told me.”
Kirk snorts. Like he’d almost forgotten, even though he obviously hadn’t. He gives McCoy a parting grin, one that’s only half-believable, but still strong and warm with that gut-level pull that’s always kept people close to him.
It’s classic Jim Kirk: willing the world into existence, keeping it spinning on his terms.
McCoy knows there’s no better way: and from the tight, agile machinations of the front of house staff, the jokes about the special, the smiles on their faces, he knows that Kirk succeeds better than anyone else when it comes to getting his way. Enterprise is back on an even keel, just because he decided it should be again.
When Chekov comes out, it’s early still, barely ten, but he’s got his jacket off and his cap in his pocket. “I need a favor,” he says as he comes and stands at the bar, “I promised my grandmother you’d bring her out for dinner tomorrow. It’s her anniversary, you know.”
“Sure thing,” McCoy says. “I’ll get a nice romantic table at Barbounia.”
Chekov smiles, “Don’t make me jealous.”
“Anything else?” McCoy asks. “Or are you going to sit down and have a drink?”
Chekov fidgets where he stands, looks towards the doors - both the entrance and the kitchen - and sighs. “Kirk let me go early for something. I don’t know what.”
McCoy shrugs, “You must be sucking up pretty good.”
Chekov looks scandalized, and McCoy laughs.
“Take a seat,” McCoy repeats. “Keep me company. We’ll go home soon.”
“Alright,” Chekov says. He sits. He picks at the remains of McCoy’s pie.
Enterprise whirls on around them.
Pairing: McCoy/Chekov ; past McCoy/Kirk
Rating: NC-17
Notes: Part IV + epilogue of delighter's birthday gift. The fact that I am so bad at WIPs that I am now posting the last part on my birthday, two months later, is pretty embarrassing. Meanwhile, estei made sure I'm not entirely off-key, even after six weeks of keyboard paralysis.
Words: 6235.
Summary: The restaurant AU. Enterprise is a haute cuisine upstart in San Francisco, owned and operated by one Chef James T. Kirk.
Part I | Part II | Part III | Part IV
PART IV.
McCoy prepares for work the next day by downing a couple of steadying shots at Jonell’s around noon. He doesn’t linger at the bar, he just wants the pick-me-up. But it’s still too early to go in, so he decides to walk, taking a meandering route with his hands in his pockets and his suit jacket folded in the crook of his arm.
He tries to lose his anxiety somewhere along the waterfront. Wants to drop it in the ocean. But it’s getting close to Labor Day, and the tourists are thick on the sidewalks, so it only half works. He gets within a block of the harbor, anyway, before he’s turned back by squalling families and common sense.
He makes it to Enterprise, feeling sweaty and irritated but less outright nervous, only to realize he’s still way too early. He slips in the back door and runs into Sulu, who is slipping out. Probably for a joint, furtive as he looks, but McCoy’s no one to judge.
“Anyone else in yet?” McCoy asks.
“Spock’s prepping the special,” Sulu gestures vaguely backward. “And I think Kirk’s in his office. I mean, he might be. I was pretty sure he was when I came in. But if he was, he hasn’t come out yet. So I don’t know.”
Ominous. McCoy resolves to hide in the wine cellar if need be. He nods at Sulu - who is a good kid by McCoy’s standards, in that he always keeps his mouth shut - and heads inside.
Kirk is not in his office.
Kirk is standing three inches away from Spock, glaring at him with a disembowelled carcass in his hand like it’s a weapon that he badly wants to use. Spock, for his part, is speaking in a calm, precise murmur that disregards Kirk’s raised hackles and strained expression and dead rabbit: “-it might make a passable amuse bouche, were we desperate, but even on a frisée bed I doubt the wisdom of serving what is essentially deep-fried boardwalk-” Spock pauses, all tact “-merde.”
McCoy keeps his eyes straight ahead. “Gentlemen,” he says, beelining for the cellar door.
Kirk guffaws. “Deep-fried? Spock, do we even own a deep-fryer? I’m not talking breaded crabcakes here, these little guys are fresh off the farm-” he shakes his skinned, decapitated rabbit, “-I’m talking polenta and a chimichurri sauce, maybe some fideo pasta on the side-”
“If you are so set on that particular ingredient - one which you know I disapprove of, incidentally - perhaps it would be advisable to frame it as a braciola instead. Braise the leg, and wrap the loin in a serrano ham-” Spock’s fingers are linked behind his back and he’s braced evenly on both feet like a balked mule: he’s not budging, even though his voice still sounds reasonable, logical. McCoy has to give him credit, he does good for a vegetarian chef. He does a lot of metaphorical nose-pinching, but he’s a professional down to the core, never letting his politics interfere with his craft.
On the other hand, Enterprise probably serves more tofu than any other French-influenced menu in the country.
“Yeah, serrano ham. That’s great.” Kirk’s voice is acidic, “Maybe if you’d suggested that last night before I put in the order-”
“Last night you ordered yellowfin tuna for the special,” Spock retorts, unperturbed. “You’ve altered your plans twice now. My suggestion is merely an attempt-”
McCoy changes his mind at the last second and heads for the bar, instead. Locking himself in the cellar only means he’ll have to come back through the kitchen again at some point. And he does not want to be trapped down there, ear pressed to the door, waiting for this argument to end. At least up front he can pour himself some more whisky and hope to god Kirk doesn’t come up front to harass him, too.
Kirk doesn’t let him get that far, though. “Fine,” he says to Spock, dropping the rabbit on the counter. “Screw the croquettes. Screw the yellowfin. Do whatever you want. Make a tofu special, I don’t care. McCoy.”
McCoy turns back as Spock turns away, his shoulders revealing nothing about whether he views the argument as a triumph or a disaster or both.
McCoy tries to keep his voice equally neutral. “Yeah?”
Kirk doesn’t even make eye contact. He says: “Christine’s got her raise, and she’s finding me a few names for a second bartender. Curly’s still barback. Got it?”
McCoy says, “Sure.”
And Kirk says, “Good.” And he goes back into his office.
McCoy looks at Spock, who’s standing at Sulu’s station unwrapping several lengths of butcher’s twine. Spock gazes back, not quite managing to look as placid as he normally does. In fact, the way the string is wrapped so tightly around his fingers that the tips of them are turning white is a good indication that he is not as calm as he’s pretending to be.
For a moment they just frown at each other.
If Spock wants to say anything about Kirk, his professionalism won’t allow it. And McCoy - who can only guess at what the sous-chef knows about the two of them - isn’t about to fuel the fire, either. It’s not his place. And he wishes to hell it wasn’t his problem, either.
Spock’s eyebrow gives the barest twitch, and he turns back to the counter, and the rabbit carcass lying on it.
McCoy shakes his head and goes up front. Honestly, he doesn’t know whether to be relieved that Jim has the grace to not dredge up Monday’s humiliating confession, or to be hurt by the fact that even after that - a spectacular new low - nothing has changed between them.
He settles on relieved, because hurt is too much to think about. And also because twenty minutes later Chekov floats in through the front doors in his checks and clogs, with his jacket slung over his shoulder like a eurotrash popstar. “McCoy,” he grins, coming straight for the bar. “Hello!”
“Hi, kid,” says McCoy, letting himself smile a little at the way Chekov threads through the tables, face-first and eager, with his hips banging chairbacks on the way.
He stops abruptly on the other side of the bar, looking like he kind of wants to jump it. McCoy kind of wants him to, too. But Chekov takes a sly glance around the deserted restaurant and leans forward on his elbows, instead.
“I am looking forward to tonight,” he says, his voice low and confidential. “Our plans still stand, yes?”
McCoy’s plans hadn’t really extended past this moment - seeing those bright blue eyes again - but now he remembers that he basically promised the kid sex. Like other people promise their sweethearts pizza or a movie or a backrub. He clears his throat and nods his head. “Sure.”
“Good.” Chekov says, still grinning. “Because I have prepared.”
McCoy blinks at that, and Chekov pulls himself off the counter and saunters away. He actually saunters, so that McCoy watches him swing his skinny boy hips away through the kitchen doors, all the while wondering what he is doing making promises to horny boys who seem to have more experience with seduction than he does.
Chekov doesn’t stop there. He’s in and out of the kitchen all night. Or at least twice, which is improbable enough for a line cook.
He comes out once to chase down a server who ostensibly left without a plate’s ciabatta and tapenade - impossible, with Spock expediting - and then again to fetch a new roll of ticket tape when the printer in the back runs dry - never mind that there’s a whole box of rolls in Kirk’s office.
And both times, Chekov manages to find a way to brush by McCoy, and with a hiss of a whisper promise things that would made McCoy blush, if only he were still sixteen and capable of it. As it is, his throat goes dry, and he finds himself slowed down, frozen in the middle of doing whatever it was that he was doing. Tapping in Table 16’s corkage fee. Returning wine lists to Scotty’s podium up front. Whatever.
It’s enough that after the second time, McCoy ventures into the kitchen on his own mission - Kirk be damned, he’s standing over a steaming range with his hands moving fast and his attention focused on his entrees, anyway. McCoy heads straight back to the dish pit with a tray of spotty Reidel champagne flutes in his arms.
“Look,” he says to the kid who is supposedly responsible for the stemware, holding one up to the light, and gesturing him closer so he can see it. “Maybe you want to run these through again? And then maybe you can dry them so they don’t look like they belong in a leper colony?”
The kid takes them silently, like he’s accepting the body of an animal he just ran over with his car, and McCoy only feels slightly bad about pushing them on him halfway through the dinner rush. Especially when they’ve been sitting up front since last Friday, untouched, not bothering anyone. It’s kind of a dick move. The kind of move you’d expect from a real sommelier.
McCoy doesn’t dwell, though, he just makes sure it’s worth it: he heads back out by way of the salad station, where Chekov is juggling arugala and handfuls of that spiky, tousled frisée. He has a half dozen glass bottles with pour tops scattered around his station and a bowlful of crushed - not cranked - peppercorns at his elbow. He looks as sure and fast as any of the other cooks, and his focus is just as sharp.
McCoy pauses behind him, just as Chekov reaches for something in the lowboy under the counter. And when the kid straightens up, they’re just close enough that if anyone were to look twice, it would be obvious what unprofessional parts of them are touching.
McCoy says to the damp, prickling skin on the back of Chekov’s neck, under the line of his cap, the beads of sweat raised there: “Wine cellar, after service.”
And he leaves quickly. Because it’s Jim’s kitchen, and also because he wants to leave marks on that neck with his teeth, and because those two thoughts cannot coexist.
As soon as the covers start slowing down - a hundred and fifty by 11:00, which is ridiculous for a Wednesday, the Chronicle buzz is still going strong - McCoy starts writing up a huge liquor order.
Christine gives him a dubious eyebrow when she sees the clipboard. “We’re doing September inventory on Monday, you know,” she tells him.
“Yes,” he says. “But I’ve been getting a lot of requests for De Profundis.”
Christine’s eyebrow goes higher and she makes a small sound of disgust. “That pear brandy? God. We are getting snobby.”
“It costs two hundred a bottle, we’ll charge forty a glass and all our kids will grow up asking why homeless people don’t get jobs.” McCoy marks down another case of Stoli - the crew goes through it like water. “You don’t have to tell me I’m a genius.”
Christine scowls at him. “Don’t worry, I won’t,” she says. She gestures at the clipboard, and hoists her bag over her shoulder: “And I’m not helping you with that, either.”
McCoy shrugs, and waves Curly off, too. He isn’t an idiot. He’ll conveniently lose the order until well after Monday. Although he is kind of curious about the brandy. Twenty years old and only three hundred bottles in the world. People will fall over themselves ordering it if he can convince Uhura to match it up with a dessert. Toffee something. Or something traditional like Belgian chocolate. Whatever she wants to do with that.
He’s squatting down, inspecting the back bottom shelves just for thoroughness’ sake, when Scott slaps him on the back. “House is clear,” he announces, referring to the servers. “It’s just you and the ghosts.”
“Thanks,” McCoy tells him. “I’ll pass that on to Kirk.”
“Such a gentleman,” Scott says, like it’s no big deal. Like it’s not entirely obvious that no one is talking to Kirk these days unless they have to.
McCoy nods, so that they can both pretend it’s perfectly normal.
Scott makes his exit out the front.
When McCoy heads back into the kitchen, it’s quiet. The boombox over the prep counter is playing the only CD it ever plays, an old Ramones greatest hits, and the dishwashers are still at work in the back, but McCoy doesn’t see anyone else.
He brings his clipboard down into the cellar with him anyway, just in case. Plausible deniability.
Chekov is waiting for him.
He’s almost surprised by that. He’s so nervous, all of a sudden, that he wants to laugh, and Chekov is smiling too, scooting up to him.
The kid’s lost his jacket somewhere, so he’s in another ragged old tshirt, and his hair is sticking up in ungainly tufts from where he’s run his hands through it, only half-correcting the atrocity his chef’s cap left behind. Still, he is beautiful in the dim light, all pale shining skin and dark wide eyes. “McCoy,” he whispers, thrilled, “we could get caught down here.”
McCoy doesn’t bother to cast another glance around the cellar before he closes in. He’s a little rough: grabs Chekov by the arm and puts a hand up through his curls, which are stiffened with salt and still damp at the neck. He puts his face close and murmurs in a pink ear: “You weren’t afraid of getting caught earlier.”
Chekov snorts, “You mean during service? That was nothing. No one-”
“No one noticed the massive hard-on I got every time you whispered in my ear, but it wasn’t for lack of trying on your part.”
Chekov’s little laugh is triumphant, and he turns his face into McCoy’s, smiling a kiss onto McCoy’s scowl. “I’m glad I was effective.”
“Who knew you were such a tease.”
If Chekov tries to deny it, his words get lost in a whimper as McCoy backs him into a wine rack. McCoy isn’t careless: he picks the one braced against the scuzzy old brick wall of the cellar. It’s also unfortunately squarely in the sight of anyone who comes down the stairs.
Part of McCoy vows he’ll keep it quick, and part of him doesn’t fucking care who sees them.
The bottles are snug in their cribs, they barely jostle as he kisses Chekov, and Chekov squirms back up against him, making all the happy, eager sounds that McCoy is learning to recognize. They urge him on: tongue deeper, hands firmer. Chekov knows what he wants.
And McCoy can admit that he desperately wants to give it to him.
He knows, in the back of his mind, that he wants to treat this kid right. Yes, there are all of those questions still floating around. He still imagines the talk they’ll have, like they’re a couple of middle-aged queens ready to sign a pre-nup. He’s been picturing a sit-down on a couch somewhere. Coffee, or beer, or hard liquor. Something to take the edge off the awkwardness of sharing your life story with someone you met half a week ago. In his head, McCoy counts backwards: it’s entirely possible he lost his virginity before this kid was born.
But this picture of respectful honesty disintegrates when Chekov latches his mouth onto McCoy’s ear and starts sucking his earlobe. And when he says - or gasps, because McCoy has dug his teeth into the thin skin of his collarbone - “I brought condoms,” it’s all McCoy can do to not flip him around, strip him down, and fuck him right there.
“Not here,” McCoy growls, pushing his forehead into Chekov’s shoulder.
“Yes, here,” Chekov’s knees give and he sinks against the wine rack, eyes huge and urgent. He works his mouth back under McCoy’s: “Right here,” he begs into it.
And what can McCoy do but let the kid push the issue for a little bit longer? It’s too sweet, being down here like this, with him. This morgue of ancient bottles; a shrine to an art he’s never cared about.
McCoy knows he’s being asinine, adolescent, but lord he wants to defile this place.
His suit jacket is on the dusty ground with his clipboard, his lemon yellow tie hanging loose, and his formerly crisp cotton shirt has lost two buttons at the neck to Chekov’s fingers. The kid has already moved on to fussing with McCoy’s fly, slipping a slim wrist inside to run strong fingers up and down the length of McCoy’s dick. He sighs in satisfaction when he touches it, matching McCoy’s own huff of breath.
Chekov pulls McCoy in close while he jacks him off, rubbing his own erection against McCoy’s hip and making begging noises into McCoy’s mouth. “Now,” he whines, “Won’t you fuck me now?”
The correct, honest and respectful answer to that question, McCoy realizes, is yes.
He flips Chekov to press face-first against the wine rack. Chekov’s hands scrabble against bottles, bumping their tops as he tries to find a shelf to grip, to hold himself off them. McCoy doesn’t like the care he’s taking: he ruts up against the kid’s ass just to force him harder against them. “Yes, I’ll fuck you,” he says to the back of Chekov’s neck, and this time he can indulge himself: he licks the sweat off the knuckles of Chekov’s spine, and then sinks his teeth into the smooth muscle beside it.
The trapezius, his mind supplies inanely. And a bottle hits the floor.
It disintegrates into shards, wine splashing up their pant legs and spreading over the dirty cement. McCoy doesn’t even look at the label, just the empty crib beside Chekov’s shocked and guilty hand.
Just as automatic, his mind supplies: the Louis Latour Chambertin 1985.
“Oh,” says Chekov. He’s turned to stare at McCoy, looking for a clue as to how bad the damage is. Of course Enterprise covers all the price points: it could’ve been a nine dollar Napa merlot, instead of a four hundred dollar Grand Cru.
McCoy nudges the dark, jagged glass with a foot. “Don’t sweat it, kid.”
Chekov doesn’t look convinced, he drops to his knees as if he might be able to resuscitate the bottle. He sees the label: “1985,” he groans.
McCoy pulls him back up by the shoulders, “You’ll cut yourself,” he says. “Leave it alone, I’ll handle it in the morning.”
But Chekov won’t stop looking at the broken bottle. “I’m sorry,” he says at it, “I’m so clumsy.”
McCoy steps over the bottle, physically places himself in Chekov’s line of sight, “It’s fine,” he says, and repeats it again as he bends his knees and angles in a soft, but insistent kiss. He straightens them both back up with a hand on Chekov’s waist, the other one guiding his shoulder so they can move away, get out of here.
He kisses Chekov again, once, to prove this doesn’t matter. He kisses him softly. Warm, reassuring.
And then Kirk says, “McCoy?”
McCoy jerks to look up: Kirk’s standing halfway down the steps, hands gripping the trap door’s frame, stooping to peer down into the cellar. His voice is strangely questioning. Like he’s not sure that it’s actually McCoy standing there guilty and dishevelled with the new garde manger and a murdered bottle of burgundy.
“Right here.” McCoy steps away from Chekov. Just enough to face Jim head-on. But he doesn’t take his hand from Chekov’s back. He keeps it there.
Kirk takes one more step down, and then retracts it. His face is backlit, but the light from the dim cellar bulb is enough to let McCoy know that he doesn’t actually want to see his expression in any more detail.
“It’s fine,” Kirk says. “Never mind.”
He goes back up the steps, but he doesn’t close the trap door behind him.
McCoy realizes his hand is still bracing Chekov’s back, and that they are both frozen and unmoving in a way that makes the touch seem unnatural, superficial.
Chekov steps away, looks at McCoy with an expression like that of a convict facing sentence. His analysis is matter-of-fact: “So. Now I will be fired.”
“No, you won’t.” McCoy is confident in that, at least. Not even the bottle of Chambertin is enough to derail this kid’s place here. And comparatively, McCoy knows Kirk won’t even register the loss.
Chekov doesn’t look convinced. He glances at the stairs, like he might go after Kirk. “I will see-” he starts.
But McCoy cuts him off. “Just wait for me out front. I’ll talk to him.”
He doesn’t wait to let Chekov argue with him, just starts up the stairs, grabbing his jacket and brushing it off on the way. He knows he can’t fix this - god knows he’s spent the last five years trying - but he knows he has to do something.
Jim is in his office. The door is shut - a warning - but McCoy straightens his clothing outside, bracing himself for a screaming match.
He doesn’t get one.
Jim is standing in the middle of the floor. He’s facing a shelf of tinned tomatoes with his eyes closed, his posture slumped. “Yup?” he says, in the normalest of normal voices, like McCoy’s just come in to get his sign-off on the liquor order.
McCoy still doesn’t know what he’s come to say. He does know that he doesn’t want to talk to Jim with his eyes closed against him, all vulnerable and vacant. But he doesn’t want those eyes open, either. Looking back at him so that there’s no way to avoid each other.
“I’m sorry you saw that,” is what comes out of McCoy’s mouth. It sounds tawdry as soon as it hits the air. Full of insinuations. McCoy wishes he could keep the distance between them clear of the usual static. He wants things simple and clear, in a way they never are with Jim.
And for a second Jim doesn’t respond. He just stands there with a hand braced on the shelf and his eyes shut like he can make the whole world disappear by sheer force of will. When he opens them, he doesn’t meet McCoy’s eyes. His gaze seems to land somewhere around McCoy’s throat - his bedraggled tie, those two popped buttons, the grime from the cellar floor on his jacket shoulders.
“It’s fine,” Jim says.
He stops, reconsiders.
“I mean - it’s not. Not in my restaurant. Not with one of my cooks-” he tosses a hand up. Like he can’t even list all the reasons it’s actually not even remotely fine, so just those two will have to do. “But you - that’s fine. Of course I’m happy if you- I mean. Like I said. Fine.”
McCoy doesn’t even try to sort out Jim’s varying degrees of fine, he just nods. “I agree - here, Chekov. I made a bad choice. It won’t happen again.”
“Good. That’s great.” Jim straightens up, glancing at his desk like he has pressing work to attend to. “So let’s forget about it then. Today. Monday. Let’s drop it.”
McCoy is still standing outside the little office, unable to step in, unwilling to get any closer. He is very tempted to just agree. Walk away. Keep the boat steady in the water.
But that’s not why he came up here. Or why he said what he did on Monday. That day, the sentence should have started with I still love you and ended with so I’m leaving. They both know this ship has to sink before anything between them will change.
So McCoy takes a small step forward. He says, “Well, no. Not exactly.”
Jim looks at him again, and his face is guarded, but McCoy can still read him. Easy. The text on Jim’s face reads: don’t do this.
But McCoy has to say it. He meets Jim’s eyes when he says, “I can’t work here anymore.”
Jim at least doesn’t look surprised. Unhappy, maybe, and a little outraged, a little panicky. But not surprised. He keeps it all under control. “That’s not what I want.”
McCoy shrugs. “You know you can afford to pay someone much better at this than I am. That jerkoff Bauer always complains about the wine list whenever he mentions us, anyway. It’s a good move.”
“I don’t care about that,” says Jim.
McCoy shrugs. “Either do I.”
“So what, then?” Jim shoves himself off of his desk in irritation. “If it’s because I’m an asshole you sure waited long enough to notice.”
“I always knew you were an asshole, Jim.” McCoy retorts. He doesn’t know how to answer the rest of the question. Especially when they both know the damn answer and it’s just Jim’s pigheadedness making him say it out loud. Instead, McCoy just leans there in the doorframe, stubborn as rocks, and they scowl at each other.
And like always, neither of them is willing to give.
Instead, Jim asks, eventually: “So what, two weeks?” Acidic. Not like he’s admitting defeat. Just like he’s maybe humoring McCoy in his delusion. “Or are you just going to walk out on me now?”
“Yeah, two weeks.” McCoy agrees. “They’ll be banging down your door to replace me.”
Jim shakes his head, sits down on his milk crate stool. “I don’t want them.”
McCoy can’t answer that. Not when he’s already made his decision. He has to ignore it, move on.
He turns to go.
“Bones,” Jim calls, and when McCoy pauses he asks in a mocking tone that can’t hide the strain of the question: “You didn’t make me hire that kid just because you were messing around with him, did you?”
“I didn’t make you hire him.” McCoy retorts, riled because it feels like the two hundredth time he’s said it. “I couldn’t have if I tried.”
“Is that a no?” Kirk asks.
McCoy raises his eyebrows, “Hell yes, it’s a no. Jesus, Jim.”
Jim frowns, unsatisfied with the answer. “So I guess you want me to keep him around, then.”
“If I was at all kind, I’d tell you to fire him so as to spare him the trials of your personality.” McCoy feels the need to add: “But that would probably break his heart.”
“That’s fine.” Kirk shrugs. And then he smirks: “So have you slept with him?”
“Christ almighty, Jim.” McCoy rolls his eyes, and makes it halfway down the hall before he stops, shakes his head, and turns back to poke his nose back into Kirk’s office. “We also broke the last bottle of ’85 Chambertin while we were down there.”
Kirk just stares back at him, and McCoy retreats again, a little more smug this time.
Chekov is waiting for him outside.
He’s standing with his dirty white jacket in his hands, like he’s holding it for someone. He doesn’t look up from his shoes until McCoy says his name, puts a hand out to touch his shoulder.
“Is he angry with you?” is his first concern. Chekov’s eyes are wide, his brow furrowed up to the hairline. In the streetlight, he looks terrified, shocked, like an earthquake survivor.
McCoy snorts, “Don’t you want to hear about your job, first?”
Chekov doesn’t even register the dig, he just cranes closer. “Just tell me the worst,” he says.
“No one got fired,” McCoy says, choosing his words. “I couldn’t name a burgundy worth a good garde manger anyway.”
“But he’s angry,” Chekov insists. “Jealous.”
“Jealous!” McCoy says it like it’s a word Chekov just made up on the spot. He gives a good chortle, and starts them walking down the street, one hand on Chekov’s back. “I don’t know where you got that from, kid.”
“McCoy.” Chekov gives him a look, and McCoy reaches up to scratch an eyebrow just to avoid it. “Even if I was an idiot, the servers still gossip like village babushkas. I heard about you and Chef Kirk on my first day.”
“Heard what?” says McCoy, and then changes tack as soon as he catches Chekov’s insulted glance. “I mean, look. It was so long ago that there’s nothing left to gossip about.”
It sounds like an evasion because it is. McCoy keeps walking, and Chekov makes a small, irritated sound.
But after half a block he puts his hand in McCoy’s, and they walk together in a silence that slips from irate to something almost comfortable, after a while.
For all his dodging the subject, McCoy wants to say something to make the kid feel better. He opens his mouth four separate times as they walk along, starting to say something, but always changing his mind when his tongue stumbles over the first word, whether it’s he, or I, or you.
They get to his building, and McCoy gallantly holds open the glass door in the lobby, follows Chekov up the stairs. When he unlocks the apartment door, though, Chekov balks. He shifts his weight in the dim light of the hall, looking sorry and stubborn.
“You would tell me if something happened, yes?” he says, quietly enough that the neighbors might not even complain about a noise disturbance.
McCoy, foot half in the door, hand on the lightswitch, turns back to him. He tries his best to not look like the request is an unreasonable one, but doesn’t know how well he succeeds. He doesn’t want to talk about Kirk anymore. He’s done with that. It’s over.
He glances into the apartment - clean and bright and tidy for all its shabby furniture and worn out floorboards - and says, “Nothing worth mentioning, kid. I promise.”
Epilogue
It’s a Saturday in November, and McCoy ducks into the foyer off Polk Street with his overcoat on his arm and his tie loose around his neck. The wind off the street closes the heavy door with force and McCoy scoots in a little more quickly than is dignified. It’s still early, yet, barely even six, but through the mottled glass the dining room is white and warm and noisy with people, all cozy against the darkening autumn evening outside.
Scotty’s standing at his podium, consulting a schedule and negotiating with a pair of servers McCoy doesn’t even recognize. He grins a greeting at McCoy as soon as he notices him.
“Our prodigal wine boy!” he declares, arms wide. “Three months hiatus, tell me you’re coming back now. We’re lost without him, eh girls?”
The servers smile politely.
McCoy gives them a guarded nod. “Just in for a bite. Making sure the place hasn’t burned to the ground without me.”
“No reservation?” Scotty says, with a token glance at his ledger. “Will I even be able to squeeze you in?”
“The bar’s just fine.” McCoy says.
“So you say now,” Scotty says, gesturing him along. “I give you ten minutes before you’re back there rearranging the shelves and rewriting the cocktail menu.”
“Cocktails.” McCoy growls, a little disgusted by the notion. “I’m sure Christine’s doing just fine.”
“I agree with you there,” Scotty says. “She’s running the place, that’s for sure. Kirk never hired a new sommelier, you know.”
“Stubborn bastard,” McCoy did know that, actually, as Chekov keeps him informed.
He notes that Scott wasn’t exactly joking about the squeezing: miraculously, the only seat clear along the whole length of the bar is his old perch at the end by the kitchen doors, behind the microbrew taps.
Christine - suited and sashed now, blonde curls pulled up over her pressed collar - grins and nods at him from the ladder that runs up the twelve foot display rack. She’s retrieving a local chardonnay from somewhere near the top, and when McCoy looks, he sees Curly’s been promoted to cocktails and there’s a pair of new barbacks running for the servers.
Scotty pats his shoulder and says, “I’ve got to go play pet monkey, but you stick around tonight and we’ll break open the bottles like old times, eh?”
McCoy makes an acquiescent sound that Scotty may or may not have caught, and smiles at Janice as she slides a menu in front of him, “Spock’s special is wild mushroom and goat brie quinoa in baked crepes over roasted beets and stuffed zucchini,” she tells him. “So far no one’s ordered it.”
McCoy snorts. “Give me the duck. And whatever Chekov’s salad is. And pie.”
“It’s kind of a southwestern bean and spinach deal, warm and minty. And Uhura just did a bunch of cayenne pumpkin pies.” Janice tells him. She gestures vaguely toward the wine display: “Christine’s got your drink?”
“No doubt she does,” McCoy says, and Janice slips off with a nod.
Christine doesn’t even ask, she just brings up a bottle of single malt straight from below the bar as soon as she steps behind it. “Good to see you again, McCoy,” she says, pouring him a tumbler. “Some of us were beginning to think Chekov had slit your throat, stashed the body and started lying about your great sex life.”
“I hope you didn’t lose too much to the betting pool,” McCoy returns. He tips his glass at her before he downs it.
“Just a couple of car payments,” Christine thumbs her collar. “You know it’s a goddamn mess down in that cellar of yours? I’ve been working overtime for a month trying to clear it off so a person can read the labels.”
“You’re not supposed to read the labels.” McCoy tells her, pushing his glass forward for another thumb of whisky. “There’s a system.”
“Well, dewey decimal doesn’t exactly cut it when you’re sending nineteen year old dishwashers down to grab the bottles. We’ve been so goddamn busy lately.”
McCoy shrugs, noncommittal. “I’m sure you sorted it all out.”
“Damn right I did,” she tells him, and pours him his third.
He gets his duck and Christine leaves the bottle with him. By eight, he’s getting fidgety and Enterprise is just getting busier. He considers leaving, coming back, but right there in the middle of the rush Kirk appears in his stained jacket and sweaty cap.
“Bones. I heard you were out here,” he says, “How’d you like the duck?”
“Decent enough,” says McCoy. “Needs more pineapple. You sell any of Spock’s specials yet?”
“Three,” Kirk admits. He looks pained. “The worst part is, they’re really good.”
“Tell him to put some bacon in it next time. People will eat anything with bacon.”
“I’ll pass that on,” Kirk raises an unthrilled eyebrow, and for a second he looks so much like Spock that McCoy has to laugh.
“What?” Kirk asks, even though he knows exactly what McCoy is laughing at. And then: “How’s the new gig going? Do you miss us yet?”
McCoy shakes his head. “I drink lattes all day instead of whisky. It’s probably good for me.”
“Yeah,” Kirk doesn’t seem to agree at all, but he looks like he can tolerate not saying so to McCoy’s face, anyway.
Tutoring pre-meds under the table isn’t exactly a step up in his eyes, McCoy knows. But he likes it. Or, he doesn’t mind it. And if it doesn’t drive him to drink, it’s a good deal.
Kirk shifts on his feet, smiles cheerily: “Well look, you sticking around? You can come make it up to your liver after service with us.”
“I might,” says McCoy. That’s all. He smiles back at Kirk, swirling the liquor in his glass.
Kirk pauses for a second more, and then he says, “I’ve been doing good, too. Just so you know.”
“Yeah,” McCoy says. “Pavel told me.”
Kirk snorts. Like he’d almost forgotten, even though he obviously hadn’t. He gives McCoy a parting grin, one that’s only half-believable, but still strong and warm with that gut-level pull that’s always kept people close to him.
It’s classic Jim Kirk: willing the world into existence, keeping it spinning on his terms.
McCoy knows there’s no better way: and from the tight, agile machinations of the front of house staff, the jokes about the special, the smiles on their faces, he knows that Kirk succeeds better than anyone else when it comes to getting his way. Enterprise is back on an even keel, just because he decided it should be again.
When Chekov comes out, it’s early still, barely ten, but he’s got his jacket off and his cap in his pocket. “I need a favor,” he says as he comes and stands at the bar, “I promised my grandmother you’d bring her out for dinner tomorrow. It’s her anniversary, you know.”
“Sure thing,” McCoy says. “I’ll get a nice romantic table at Barbounia.”
Chekov smiles, “Don’t make me jealous.”
“Anything else?” McCoy asks. “Or are you going to sit down and have a drink?”
Chekov fidgets where he stands, looks towards the doors - both the entrance and the kitchen - and sighs. “Kirk let me go early for something. I don’t know what.”
McCoy shrugs, “You must be sucking up pretty good.”
Chekov looks scandalized, and McCoy laughs.
“Take a seat,” McCoy repeats. “Keep me company. We’ll go home soon.”
“Alright,” Chekov says. He sits. He picks at the remains of McCoy’s pie.
Enterprise whirls on around them.