Fic : Knots (McCoy/Chekov NC17)
Title : Knots
Characters : McCoy/Chekov
Rating : NC17
Genre : Angst
Word count : 1799
Thanks to sylargrrrl for cheerleading, this is for weehobbit who bought me for Hope For Haiti
There's a knot, and it's been there for weeks. It sits just between his shoulder blades, drawing in all the muscles in his back like some kind of suture. There are sharp pains under the skin at his ribcage and his hands, the ones that should be sure and steady, well, they're just weak, as if the bones in his fingers are held together with nothing more than string.
There's another knot, one in his head, and it pulls at him every time he lets his mind wander. Chekov.
God knows where this came from, but now the thought of that...Bones still hesitates on the word man but who is he to judge?....that man in his bed, warming a spot on the cold sheets where Bones still can't bring himself to stretch out even after a good few years of having no-one next to him. He'd started out okay, with a single man's quarters. Now he'd inherited this double bed, looking huge and empty so he fills it with a man, a boy some would say, and suddenly he feels better. He still scowls and moans and grumbles and drinks and yells, won't say 'I love you' and won't cuddle after Chekov falls asleep. Still won't call him Pavel, or Pasha, not even when he should be so incoherent that he wouldn't have a conscious choice. Still calls him Chekov, even when he's keening beneath him, his thin, long fingers squeezing his hand and digging the nails in as they fuck. Still doesn't really relax until Chekov is dead to the world and he can lie awake worrying about what they've just done.
He's so tired. Medicine is tiring, no medic expects to be relaxed and care-free but this? Everything exhausts him, the flow of patients never ends because if they're not on mission and getting injured and killed they're coming to him for general complaints like skin disorders and insomnia and even counselling now and then. He's not a counseller, he fixes the tangible parts like the liver and the spleen and the patella. Still they come to him though, using words like 'closure' and 'acceptance' and 'process' and he feels useless, like a sounding board for their neuroses. He wants to say "Pull yourself together" but even he knows that's wrong.
He wonders if that's why the crying started. He never cried before, not before this ship. Now, every few weeks, something in him gives way and he feels like symptoms come up on him. Lip wobbling, stinging behind his eyes, nostrils flaring, and then, to his disgust, the hot tears rolling down his cheeks and turning cold as they drip from his chin. He doesn't just cry though, he sobs. He shakes and tenses and pants through his tears with a barking noise pounding a rhythm into his pillow. He lets loose the occasional whine and drools when he is so paralysed that he can't even take a breath and shut his mouth. When he's done, he goes to the bathroom and washes his face. He flings the soaked pillow case into the laundry and lies back in bed, feeling much better. He knows that tomorrow the knots will start to pull again but....no, he should stop letting himself get dragged back in to his own misery. Have one night where he just lets go.
The knots do start to pull, and honestly, it's getting to him. Soon it feels like everyone has a string, and they're all pulling at him - Jim, Christine, Chekov, the staff, Starfleet, everyone. Chekov notices something's up, but Bones doesn't say a word, doesn't let him in, and when he notices the kid starting to look sad he just files it under "another thing that's somehow my problem" and the next time he cries he thinks of him. He knows why Chekov comes to him, it's because he's a man, an older man who'll boss him around and make him feel safe and dominate him. He doesn't want a weeping milksop.
He's a little ashamed of himself the next time Chekov comes calling. He treats him like a whore, not a lover, not a colleague, hell, not even a human being. He yells at him for trying to talk, tells him to occupy that mouth of his better. He's rough and dismissive of his needs, and the kid comes but he doesn't smile. He takes deep breaths and that's when Bones knows he's acting like a bastard. He knows the sound of those deep breaths, they're the ones he takes when he's trying not to start bawling. That's when he decides that something has to give,and Bones being Bones, he punishes himself and Chekov by telling him don't come around any more.
It makes no damn difference, he still cries, this time there are more reasons to add to the pile. He sees the kid in the corridors and nods to him, knowing that as he passes Chekov will feel a pain in his chest and a sickness in his stomach. Physical symptoms of an emotional distress. He knows because he feels it too. Three times he makes it halfway to Chekov's quarters before he changes his mind and goes back to his own to drink or sob. It's getting worse.
In a way, what happens is serendipitous, but it's still a God damned inconvenience too. He's part way through a good cry when there's a chime from the door. Without thinking he yells that he's busy, but it's Chekov, and he won't take no for an answer. Bones panics. His face is tear stained so he barks to hold on a minute and then goes to the bathroom to splash his face, and leaves the towel around his neck as if he's been disturbed from his normal ablutions. Nothing to see here.
He should have known. This is Chekov, after all. He came to the academy as a 14 year old, homesick and bullied. He's had experience at hiding tears. The second he gets in the room he knows that Bones has been crying, knows the puffiness around the eyes and the over compensation in his voice and demeanour. "What's wrong?" he asks, and the answer comes back as 'nothing'. "What's wrong?" he asks again, and the answer is still 'nothing, didn't you hear?'. The third time he asks Bones gets angry, and the fourth time he pretends to laugh. The fifth time the laughs turns into a choking sob and he crumbles. Everything blurs into firm hands on his back and the chatter of Russian which Bones doesn't understand but can guess at. There there, he's saying, it's alright. Like a mother to a child and Bones can't stand it. He tries to wriggle free but Chekov won't let him. Instead he's encouraging him over to the bed and telling the computer to dim the lights.
Face down on the bed, Bones can feel the still damp pillow under his cheek and has to flip it over so Chekov can't see. He sighs and lets some of the tension go, feeling Chekov pull at his clothes and allowing his limbs to be pulled out of them, still on their strings. His bare chest is allowed to rest on the still warm sheets and he relaxes - one more hole off the figurative belt that's been round his chest for the last few months. Chekov is silently undressing him and honestly Bones just wants him to go. He doesn't want to be alone but he doesn't want Chekov to keep watching this sad unravelling of a man he once thought was attractive. The tears are threatening again but just as the little sparks start to go off behind his eyes there are soft fingers on the join between his neck and his shoulders, and he sighs again, despite himself. It's such an intimate touch, gentle but purposeful, Chekov's fingertips massaging him, his thumbs pressing on those knots over and over until they disappear.
Another hole on the belt. Now Chekov's fingers are lower, little knots still melting away. Bones tenses as he realises that the next touches will come to his lower back, where he'll get twinges, but the pain never comes. There's a hand underneath his body, pressing up on his stomach, and then a pillow slides beneath him as he instinctively lifts his hips. Warm hands on his hips now, and his back feels like it did when he used to lie in the fallow fields, staring up at the sky wishing there was a cloud he could make into an elephant or a rocket. He closes his eyes and breathes, listens to himself breathing. Thumbs are moving on his ass and it tickles and soothes at the same time. Chekov is still talking, Russian stuff. Bones feels no shake in the man's hands as he starts to prepare him. He pushes back against Chekov's fingers and hears a gasp escape his lips. Yes, he thinks, I want it, I'm saying yes.
Chekov's inside him now, burning, stretching. His hand strokes against Bones's hip and he feels a callous on his finger. From engineering maybe, or that way he taps on the the console when he's thinking about something. Chekov is moving slowly, gripping his hips and breathing heavy and wet against his back. Bones squirms, wanting him deeper, and it's like the boy knows. He pushes gently on the backs of his thighs tilhe moves, and then he's so deep, so close. Bones can hear himself talk, he's begging, crying, thanking him. The words all come out, the ones he's been holding inside because they're wrong and desperate. He's saying love and need and want. And it's Pasha now. Pasha. Pasha.
Bones doesn't even notice himself coming. It's just another physical reaction in a string of them, and it's the least important. He lets out a long breath and the belt around his chest is gone. He's weightless, suddenly very aware that below a few metres of metal and wire is just space, cold and silent. When his vision clears he sees Chekov. Pavel. His forehead is wrinkled like it always is, the weight of the world on him as he patiently awaits the fallout. Bones can only twitch his fingers, beckoning him to fall on his chest where he belongs. He holds Pavel in his arms and buries his face in those curls, breathing them in like they're the first hit of the country air on a summer's day. He's not up to thanking him right now, nor talking, nor confirming what he said during the last five minutes. So he just squeezes Pavel tight, pecks him on the top of the head, and closes his eyes, knowing that Pavel understands.
Characters : McCoy/Chekov
Rating : NC17
Genre : Angst
Word count : 1799
Thanks to sylargrrrl for cheerleading, this is for weehobbit who bought me for Hope For Haiti
There's a knot, and it's been there for weeks. It sits just between his shoulder blades, drawing in all the muscles in his back like some kind of suture. There are sharp pains under the skin at his ribcage and his hands, the ones that should be sure and steady, well, they're just weak, as if the bones in his fingers are held together with nothing more than string.
There's another knot, one in his head, and it pulls at him every time he lets his mind wander. Chekov.
God knows where this came from, but now the thought of that...Bones still hesitates on the word man but who is he to judge?....that man in his bed, warming a spot on the cold sheets where Bones still can't bring himself to stretch out even after a good few years of having no-one next to him. He'd started out okay, with a single man's quarters. Now he'd inherited this double bed, looking huge and empty so he fills it with a man, a boy some would say, and suddenly he feels better. He still scowls and moans and grumbles and drinks and yells, won't say 'I love you' and won't cuddle after Chekov falls asleep. Still won't call him Pavel, or Pasha, not even when he should be so incoherent that he wouldn't have a conscious choice. Still calls him Chekov, even when he's keening beneath him, his thin, long fingers squeezing his hand and digging the nails in as they fuck. Still doesn't really relax until Chekov is dead to the world and he can lie awake worrying about what they've just done.
He's so tired. Medicine is tiring, no medic expects to be relaxed and care-free but this? Everything exhausts him, the flow of patients never ends because if they're not on mission and getting injured and killed they're coming to him for general complaints like skin disorders and insomnia and even counselling now and then. He's not a counseller, he fixes the tangible parts like the liver and the spleen and the patella. Still they come to him though, using words like 'closure' and 'acceptance' and 'process' and he feels useless, like a sounding board for their neuroses. He wants to say "Pull yourself together" but even he knows that's wrong.
He wonders if that's why the crying started. He never cried before, not before this ship. Now, every few weeks, something in him gives way and he feels like symptoms come up on him. Lip wobbling, stinging behind his eyes, nostrils flaring, and then, to his disgust, the hot tears rolling down his cheeks and turning cold as they drip from his chin. He doesn't just cry though, he sobs. He shakes and tenses and pants through his tears with a barking noise pounding a rhythm into his pillow. He lets loose the occasional whine and drools when he is so paralysed that he can't even take a breath and shut his mouth. When he's done, he goes to the bathroom and washes his face. He flings the soaked pillow case into the laundry and lies back in bed, feeling much better. He knows that tomorrow the knots will start to pull again but....no, he should stop letting himself get dragged back in to his own misery. Have one night where he just lets go.
The knots do start to pull, and honestly, it's getting to him. Soon it feels like everyone has a string, and they're all pulling at him - Jim, Christine, Chekov, the staff, Starfleet, everyone. Chekov notices something's up, but Bones doesn't say a word, doesn't let him in, and when he notices the kid starting to look sad he just files it under "another thing that's somehow my problem" and the next time he cries he thinks of him. He knows why Chekov comes to him, it's because he's a man, an older man who'll boss him around and make him feel safe and dominate him. He doesn't want a weeping milksop.
He's a little ashamed of himself the next time Chekov comes calling. He treats him like a whore, not a lover, not a colleague, hell, not even a human being. He yells at him for trying to talk, tells him to occupy that mouth of his better. He's rough and dismissive of his needs, and the kid comes but he doesn't smile. He takes deep breaths and that's when Bones knows he's acting like a bastard. He knows the sound of those deep breaths, they're the ones he takes when he's trying not to start bawling. That's when he decides that something has to give,and Bones being Bones, he punishes himself and Chekov by telling him don't come around any more.
It makes no damn difference, he still cries, this time there are more reasons to add to the pile. He sees the kid in the corridors and nods to him, knowing that as he passes Chekov will feel a pain in his chest and a sickness in his stomach. Physical symptoms of an emotional distress. He knows because he feels it too. Three times he makes it halfway to Chekov's quarters before he changes his mind and goes back to his own to drink or sob. It's getting worse.
In a way, what happens is serendipitous, but it's still a God damned inconvenience too. He's part way through a good cry when there's a chime from the door. Without thinking he yells that he's busy, but it's Chekov, and he won't take no for an answer. Bones panics. His face is tear stained so he barks to hold on a minute and then goes to the bathroom to splash his face, and leaves the towel around his neck as if he's been disturbed from his normal ablutions. Nothing to see here.
He should have known. This is Chekov, after all. He came to the academy as a 14 year old, homesick and bullied. He's had experience at hiding tears. The second he gets in the room he knows that Bones has been crying, knows the puffiness around the eyes and the over compensation in his voice and demeanour. "What's wrong?" he asks, and the answer comes back as 'nothing'. "What's wrong?" he asks again, and the answer is still 'nothing, didn't you hear?'. The third time he asks Bones gets angry, and the fourth time he pretends to laugh. The fifth time the laughs turns into a choking sob and he crumbles. Everything blurs into firm hands on his back and the chatter of Russian which Bones doesn't understand but can guess at. There there, he's saying, it's alright. Like a mother to a child and Bones can't stand it. He tries to wriggle free but Chekov won't let him. Instead he's encouraging him over to the bed and telling the computer to dim the lights.
Face down on the bed, Bones can feel the still damp pillow under his cheek and has to flip it over so Chekov can't see. He sighs and lets some of the tension go, feeling Chekov pull at his clothes and allowing his limbs to be pulled out of them, still on their strings. His bare chest is allowed to rest on the still warm sheets and he relaxes - one more hole off the figurative belt that's been round his chest for the last few months. Chekov is silently undressing him and honestly Bones just wants him to go. He doesn't want to be alone but he doesn't want Chekov to keep watching this sad unravelling of a man he once thought was attractive. The tears are threatening again but just as the little sparks start to go off behind his eyes there are soft fingers on the join between his neck and his shoulders, and he sighs again, despite himself. It's such an intimate touch, gentle but purposeful, Chekov's fingertips massaging him, his thumbs pressing on those knots over and over until they disappear.
Another hole on the belt. Now Chekov's fingers are lower, little knots still melting away. Bones tenses as he realises that the next touches will come to his lower back, where he'll get twinges, but the pain never comes. There's a hand underneath his body, pressing up on his stomach, and then a pillow slides beneath him as he instinctively lifts his hips. Warm hands on his hips now, and his back feels like it did when he used to lie in the fallow fields, staring up at the sky wishing there was a cloud he could make into an elephant or a rocket. He closes his eyes and breathes, listens to himself breathing. Thumbs are moving on his ass and it tickles and soothes at the same time. Chekov is still talking, Russian stuff. Bones feels no shake in the man's hands as he starts to prepare him. He pushes back against Chekov's fingers and hears a gasp escape his lips. Yes, he thinks, I want it, I'm saying yes.
Chekov's inside him now, burning, stretching. His hand strokes against Bones's hip and he feels a callous on his finger. From engineering maybe, or that way he taps on the the console when he's thinking about something. Chekov is moving slowly, gripping his hips and breathing heavy and wet against his back. Bones squirms, wanting him deeper, and it's like the boy knows. He pushes gently on the backs of his thighs tilhe moves, and then he's so deep, so close. Bones can hear himself talk, he's begging, crying, thanking him. The words all come out, the ones he's been holding inside because they're wrong and desperate. He's saying love and need and want. And it's Pasha now. Pasha. Pasha.
Bones doesn't even notice himself coming. It's just another physical reaction in a string of them, and it's the least important. He lets out a long breath and the belt around his chest is gone. He's weightless, suddenly very aware that below a few metres of metal and wire is just space, cold and silent. When his vision clears he sees Chekov. Pavel. His forehead is wrinkled like it always is, the weight of the world on him as he patiently awaits the fallout. Bones can only twitch his fingers, beckoning him to fall on his chest where he belongs. He holds Pavel in his arms and buries his face in those curls, breathing them in like they're the first hit of the country air on a summer's day. He's not up to thanking him right now, nor talking, nor confirming what he said during the last five minutes. So he just squeezes Pavel tight, pecks him on the top of the head, and closes his eyes, knowing that Pavel understands.