[fic] In A Moment Close To Now (Star Trek: Reboot)
In a Moment Close To Now
Fandom: Star Trek: Reboot
Rating: teen/pg-13
Ship: McCoy/Kirk (with background Kirk/Carol Marcus)
Summary: Bones plans on spending his thirtieth birthday alone with his jazz, his bourbon, and a book. Jim Kirk does not approve of this plan.
A/N: So many thank yous to r-becca: she makes everything, including this fic, better. 3,750 words. Set at the Academy. The title is from Neko Case's "This Tornado Loves You," which is a very McKirk song, IMO.
ETA: Sequel: Heading Straight For A Fall.
The plan was to spend the evening holed up in his room with his music, a bottle of bourbon, and a book. It was a very good plan, and after the week he'd had - nearly every waking hour spent either on call or working cases in the infirmary - he damn well deserved for it to go off without a hitch.
So naturally, when he was two chapters into his book and about a quarter of the way through a bottle of Jim Beam, Jim Kirk showed up. As per usual, he didn't bother to knock, and once again McCoy wondered what madness had induced him to share his access code. He must have been drunk at the time. Very drunk.
"What are you doing?" Jim asked, leaning into the room. He wore a clean pair of jeans, a white t-shirt, and his battered leather jacket; whatever his plans for the evening might be, he meant to steal hearts. He'd also, McCoy noted, clearly spent most of the fine summer day outdoors; his face was darkly tanned - even burned a little at the cheeks and the tip of his nose - and his hair was sun-streaked. "And what the hell are you listening to?"
"It's jazz, you uncultured, uneducated-"
"It's boring."
"It's soothing," McCoy corrected. "You're not. Go away."
As if Jim Kirk could ever be dismissed that easily.
"Come on, old man," he said, hooking his fingertips around the doorframe and leaning in further. If Jim fell on his face, McCoy thought, and broke his goddamn nose, he would not be able to stop laughing long enough to get him to the infirmary. "Get up," Jim announced, "get dressed, get shaved. We're going out."
"I'm as dressed as I plan on getting," McCoy said, indicating his t-shirt, gray sweatpants, and socks. He fingered his stubble. "And I'm not leaving this room unless there's a medical emergency - and every other doctor on campus is somehow incapacitated."
"I can arrange that," Jim offered.
"Get out."
"Grumble, grumble, scowl, scowl. Come on, Bones. You only turn thirty once. It's your birthday, I can't let you sit alone, wallowing in jazz and depression."
"I'm actually not-"
"I'm taking you out," said Jim, "if I have to sedate and drag you. Put the bourbon away. Get changed. Into something nice. Not too nice, though. Don't want anyone to think we're on a date." His sudden grin showed his teeth, almost blindingly white against his tanned skin.
"It's my birthday," McCoy said. "Shouldn't I be allowed to do whatever the hell I want?"
"You have to celebrate. Years from now - if you don't get burned to a crisp by a solar flare or sucked out of an airlock - you'll look back and wish to God you'd done something exciting for your thirtieth birthday. I know you will, because I'll be there and I'll keep reminding you."
"Fuck off," said McCoy, but by then he was more amused - despite himself - than annoyed. Jim was still hanging onto the doorframe and the hem of his t-shirt had ridden up, revealing a flash of washboard abs. Also tanned. He'd been running around without a shirt. Why, McCoy wondered, had he made that particular observation, and why, once made, could he not push it from his mind? "Anyway," he said, trying to scowl, "I already celebrated."
That was a bit of an exaggeration. Aiko, one of the other Starfleet Medical students, had found out that it was his birthday and brought a box of chocolate cupcakes to the infirmary break room.
"Oh." Jim looked crestfallen. "Without me?"
McCoy sighed. God damnit.
*
They took a cab to this Japanese noodle place down on Geary Boulevard. Jim had discovered it shortly after they'd arrived in San Francisco two years ago, when he'd made it his mission to try everything he'd never gotten to try growing up in Middle-of-Fucking-Nowhere, Iowa. ("They don't have replicators in Iowa?" McCoy had asked when Jim tried to drag him along. "It's not the same," Jim had insisted, to which McCoy had replied, "How the hell would you even know?")
It wasn't a fancy restaurant. McCoy didn't feel out of place in his gray Aran sweater and jeans. Jim wanted to sit at the bar but McCoy did not, so they got a well-shadowed booth. They ordered hot sake and big clay bowls filled with thick wheat-flour noodles and broth. Clicking and twirling his metal chopsticks - he'd clearly been practicing - Jim flirted shamelessly with their waitress, who was delicately pretty and seventeen if she was a day. When he wasn't doing that, he was going on about his love life, which, he confided to McCoy, had gotten complicated.
Cradling his sake with one hand, McCoy raised his eyebrows. "Meaning what, exactly? Or do I really want to know?"
"I think Carol might be the one." There was just the faintest note of astonishment in his tone, like he couldn't believe he was saying the words, as if he hadn't uttered almost those exact words five months earlier. It had been Tanya then.
"Oh, God. All right." McCoy took a fortifying sip of the sake, then set the cup down. "What makes you think she's the one?"
"We haven't had sex yet."
"We," McCoy said, waggling a finger, "haven't had sex yet, either." Shit, why did he say that? It almost sounded like an invitation. The sake, preceded by a quarter of a bottle of bourbon, must have gone to his head faster than he'd realized.
Fortunately, Jim only favored him with a lopsided grin. "I've been on three dates with her. Three, Bones. And we haven't done it. All we do is talk. About I don't know what. Federation politics. Molecular biology and shit. Terraforming. That's her thing. And the weird thing is, it's great because she's fucking brilliant. And beautiful. Bones, her hair is like…it's like…have you ever seen a wheat field when the fucking sun is shining on it?"
"You know," McCoy said, "that was almost poetic. I think you might actually be serious. Or delirious." Later he'd swear his hand moved of its own volition, across the table to feel Jim's forehead. Jim fended him off with the chopsticks.
"I'm not sick. I'm really serious this time. I think. I'll know for sure once we fuck. I gotta do it right, though."
"You have a habit of doing it wrong? Need to borrow my anatomy texts? I can draw you a diagram."
Jim pouted and put a hand over his heart. "Bones, you wound me."
"Good thing I'm a doctor. But isn't Carol Marcus an instructor?"
"Yeah, so?"
"So, aren't there rules? Regulations? And isn't she older than you?"
"She's younger than you," Jim pointed out, ignoring the other questions.
"Everyone's younger than me." He sagged against the back of his seat, his fingers splayed on the table as though he could push it all away, the alcohol, the thirty years of his life, the look on Jim's face. His dark blond eyebrows pinched over the bridge over his nose, making a little crease between them. In the flickering candlelight, his blue eyes were full of sympathy.
"Bones," he said in as gentle a tone as McCoy had ever heard him use, "thirty isn't old. Shit, my father was thirty-two when he died, and everyone talks about how young he was, and what a tragedy, blah blah blah."
McCoy raised his head, intrigued. Generally, Jim was willing enough to talk about his famous father, the late Captain George Kirk, but only if someone else raised the subject. He didn't know what it meant, but he felt oddly privileged.
Still, he shook his head. "It's different, and it's hard to explain. I've had life experiences you haven't. I've been through college, I've been through med school. I've been a husband, I've been a father."
"You're still a father," Jim pointed out.
"Joanna called me this afternoon," McCoy said. "To wish me a happy birthday and to tell me all about the puppy her stepfather got her. Alfred."
Jim looked unimpressed. "Your ex married an Alfred?"
"No, the damn puppy's name is Alfred. She begged us for a puppy and we always said no. I always said no. Who was going to take care of it? Dammit, I barely had time to take care of her. I missed so much of her growing up. The stepfather's a teacher, works normal hours, gets whole damn summers off."
Jim opened his mouth, closed it. The candlelight caught his lowered lashes, lending them such a luster that McCoy had to look down at the table where Jim's hands rested, the long fingers threaded loosely. The knuckles of the right hand were bruised, some of the fingernails broken. McCoy had a sudden urge to cover those hands with his own, and he didn't know why but it annoyed the hell out of him.
"You know what?" Jim said finally. "Fuck it. I dragged you here so you wouldn't wallow, and you're wallowing. Shit, if you keep going on like this, I'm going to start wallowing. I have a stepfather too. Do you know how much shit I gave him when my mom was off-planet?" He fell silent again and his fingertips drummed the table.
"Maybe," McCoy said after a moment had passed, "this was a bad idea and we should head back to the Academy."
The bright lashes rose, revealing summery blue eyes that glinted with…mischief? Malice? McCoy couldn't be sure.
"Oh, fuck, no," said Jim.
*
They headed northward one bar at a time it seemed to McCoy. He had a jumbled impression of dark rooms that reeked of smoke and sweating bodies. There were women, some wearing only scraps of metallic fabric, sequins and glitter in their hair. There were men too, but they didn't engage his interest, possibly because all of them - with one or two exceptions - steered clear of Jim. Colored lights stabbed at his eyes, and the whole world seemed to throb around him like a massive heart. At one point, his eyes narrowed wickedly, his lips slick with beer, Jim might have shouted, "Now this is music, Bones!"
And maybe it was. Maybe in this weird new world into which he'd fallen, this pounding noise was music. McCoy wasn't sure of anything until he found himself at the edge of the Pacific Ocean sometime much later. His feet were bare - where had his shoes and socks gone? - and both the damp sand and the water were icy cold. Jim, he saw, was standing a few feet away. His shoes and socks were gone too, his jeans were rolled up to mid-calf, and he was standing ankle-deep in the water. He had a strange look on his face, half-determined, half-confused, as if he too had no idea what he was doing there, but every intention of plunging in.
"Don't," McCoy heard himself say over the rustle of the waves. "Are you crazy? You'll freeze to death."
Jim tilted his head sideways and laughed. "I wasn't going to dive in! I was just thinking…"
"You were? That's new."
But Jim looked out to sea again, and McCoy shrugged. He'd given up trying to figure out Jim Kirk a long time ago. Jim Kirk just…happened, and did not necessarily require explanations.
McCoy looked around at the beach. He couldn't be sure because his head was still fogged from the alcohol and Jim's idea of music, but he thought they were at the southern end of Baker Beach. He squinted north toward where the Golden Gate Bridge ought to have been, but it was too dark and at some point while he'd been semi-conscious a thick fog had come swirling in. He couldn't see a single star or even the moon. There was no one else on the beach. No one he could see, anyway. When he inhaled, he tasted the ocean's briny tang, and he smelled the remnants of bonfires.
"Fuck," Jim said at length, "this water's cold." And he came splashing out of it, past McCoy and a little ways up the beach, where he threw himself against the sand with a force that made McCoy wince. He flopped over onto his back, pushed himself up on his elbows, and lay there studying McCoy for what felt like a long time. When he spoke again, his voice was low-pitched, steady. "All right, listen. You've been a mess all evening, and I don't know if it's because it's your birthday or what, but I'm going to tell you something. As your friend, I feel like it's my duty. I'm going to tell you something about you. You, Leonard Horatio McCoy…"
McCoy waited.
"…Have the least sexy name I have ever heard in my entire fucking life." And he fell back laughing against the sand. "Leonard Horatio?" he spluttered, his body quivering. "What were your parents thinking?"
"Damnit, Jim." McCoy stalked over to where he lay and gave his twitching legs a kick. "James Tiberius. You're a fucking idiot, did you know that? You're probably some kind of genius, but you're also a fucking idiot. Shut up and let's go. I don't have time for this crap."
Jim stopped laughing abruptly. His arms and legs went limp and he gazed up at McCoy almost solemnly. "Yes, you do, Bones. That's what I've been trying to tell you all evening. You have plenty of time. You're young. Jesus, you're young. You've got about three-quarters, no - like, five-sixths of your life still to live. Do you have any idea how old Admiral Archer is? Or those other retired admirals who are still doddering around at the Academy for some reason or another? Shit, you're young. Sit down. I'm going to tell you more about you."
McCoy wasn't really interested in listening to more of Jim's drunken theories on life, but what else was he supposed to do? Resigned, he tried to mimic Jim's casual grace as he lowered himself to the sand, but he landed heavily and with a grunt. Hugging his knees to his chest, wondering what he'd done with his shoes and socks, he said gruffly, "All right. I'm listening. But I swear to God-"
"You're a good doctor," Jim said seriously, as if he were ten years McCoy's senior instead of six years his junior. "A really good doctor. Despite the number of times I've ended up in the infirmary, I really don't know shit about the medical profession, but I know you're good. Which is good for me because - right now, I can't feel my feet."
Wordlessly, McCoy unfolded his legs, shifted closer to Jim, and grasped him by the ankles. Since he had no memory of arriving at the beach, he had no idea how long Jim had been standing in the water. His feet were white and pinched with cold. In the bars, McCoy had regretted the sweater; now, as he tried to massage some warmth back into Jim's feet, he was rather glad of it.
"Okay," said Jim. "Now they just hurt."
"They're supposed to hurt. And you're an idiot."
"Love you too." The words, uttered so casually, sent a shiver up McCoy's spine. He let go of Jim's feet. "Anyway," Jim went on, seemingly oblivious, "you're more than a good doctor. You honestly give a shit. I mean about helping people. I've heard you in class, arguing with instructors. I've proofread all your damn reports. You honestly give a shit, and I can see you rushing to the aid of some plague-ridden world at the other end of the galaxy, Prime Directive be damned. And God, I want to be there because I want to see the look on your face when you realize I'm fucking right. That's you, Leonard Horatio Bones McCoy. That's why you're with Starfleet. It's not because of the ex-wife, it's not because you couldn't get your kid a goddamned puppy. You have to do what's right. Starfleet needs you. There really are plague-ridden worlds out there and you have to go where you're needed. You just have to. Somewhere in that brain of yours, amid all the neuroses, you know that. Happy Birthday."
Schooling his expression, McCoy muttered, "That all?"
"No," Jim said. "Not quite." His palms flat on the sand, he pushed himself up further until his face was maybe a foot away from McCoy's. Jim was looking at him with intense curiosity, as if he'd just figured something out but couldn't quite believe it. His warm breath fanned McCoy's lips and chin, and later McCoy would think he should have guessed what Jim had in mind, but later still he'd decide that no, he shouldn't have, because Jim was impossible to predict. He couldn't have guessed that Jim would, quite casually, reach up and clasp his shoulder, then pull him down into a kiss.
It caught him off guard, to say the least. He tipped forward, lost his balance, and sprawled, landing heavily on top of Jim, who evidently took that as a sign of enthusiasm, because he chuckled low in his throat, wrapped his arms around McCoy's shoulders, and deepened the kiss.
Jim could kiss. That came as no surprise. McCoy had seen him latch onto female cadets any number of times, hadn't missed the way they'd reacted. What surprised him was his own response. Jim could kiss; his mouth just sort of took hold and his tongue did this thing, and McCoy was simply caught. He kissed Jim back while his hands moved entirely of their own volition, under Jim's t-shirt, over his flat belly, then downward to the short hairs that curled above the waistband of his jeans. Amazing. He'd been so damn tired just a moment ago. Now he felt alive and alight and hard as hell. He bucked against Jim's thigh; the friction felt fantastic.
Jim's laughter buzzed against his lips. "I knew it. I knew you wanted this. Why the hell didn't you say something?"
"What the hell was I supposed to say?" McCoy wondered, cupping Jim through his jeans, making him hiss with pleasure. "I didn't know."
"Everyone wants me."
It was an honest observation, made without a trace of smugness, but it chilled McCoy abruptly. He jerked back, away from Jim. He scrubbed at his mouth with the back of his hand, as if he could remove every trace of the kiss.
"Oh, now what?"
"Now what?" McCoy said raggedly. "Now what? What the hell were you even saying before? What about Carol? I thought she was the one."
"She doesn't have to be."
"And before her, Tanya. And before her-" He wasn't even angry. Just dismayed that he'd allowed himself to be snared by the Kirk charm. Jim was irresistible, and utterly unresisting. Everyone knew that. What the hell had he been thinking? Now he was cold again, and tired. His temples were beginning to throb.
Jim hadn't moved. "So, what are you saying? You're saying you're only interested in a committed relationship?"
McCoy deflected the question: "You don't know the meaning of the word commitment."
"You're not old, Bones," he said tonelessly. "You're old-fashioned."
McCoy shook his head, ran his tongue over his lips. He could still taste Jim. "Maybe. This is ridiculous. Let's go."
"You go. I can't move."
McCoy looked down at him. "You're just going to lie there all night? On the beach? In the fog?"
"It'll be morning soon enough. You should go, if you want. I'm sorry I sort of kidnapped you before."
"Huh." The plan was to get up, find his shoes and socks, and head back to campus. They couldn't be too far from a major road. He could get a cab. It was a good plan, he told himself, but for some reason he couldn't get his knees to bend, and his hands didn't seem to want to push him off the sand. With a sigh of defeat he lay back, lacing his fingers together behind his head. He couldn't see anything due to the fog. Off to his right, he could hear Jim's steady breathing. Farther off, the waves crashed up the beach, carrying bits of glass, pebbles, and broken shells, flinging foam onto the sand.
It would be morning soon enough.
*
He woke just as the sky was beginning to lighten. His throat was parched and his head ached dully. Blinking the crust from his eyes, he started to sit up, but found that he couldn't because something was holding him down. Something heavy and limp, that moaned faintly when he pushed at it.
Great.
In the thin gray light, Jim seemed pale despite his tan, the hand that rested on McCoy's chest oddly fragile. It was the bruised hand, McCoy realized, the one with all the cracked fingernails. How had he done that? Had he hit someone or something? Or fallen while playing football with some of the other cadets in his squad? Best not to wonder, he decided. When it came to getting injured, Jim could be quite creative. Knowing precisely what he was doing and what it meant, McCoy covered Jim's hand with his own. With his other hand, he very, very gently stroked the fine, short hairs at the base of Jim's skull. The back of his neck was warm and flecked with dry sand.
"Jesus, you're young," McCoy murmured. "And yes, of course I give a shit."
Jim didn't stir, not even when McCoy craned his neck to kiss the top of his head.
Lying back, McCoy looked to the north. The fog was lifting. He could just make out the red line of the bridge. Close by, plovers and sandpipers hopped about in the sand, looking for food amid the rocks and tangled seaweed that had washed ashore. Overhead, the sky was a pearly gray, becoming blue.
Anything can happen.
The thought just came to him, and it amazed him. That he could wake up thirty and feel younger than when he'd gone to sleep. That he could lie on the edge of the ocean, under a blue sky that hid a galaxy of stars and planets. That there were people who needed him and one of them lay asleep in his arms, breathing softly against his neck.
Anything could happen.
6/4/2009
Fandom: Star Trek: Reboot
Rating: teen/pg-13
Ship: McCoy/Kirk (with background Kirk/Carol Marcus)
Summary: Bones plans on spending his thirtieth birthday alone with his jazz, his bourbon, and a book. Jim Kirk does not approve of this plan.
A/N: So many thank yous to r-becca: she makes everything, including this fic, better. 3,750 words. Set at the Academy. The title is from Neko Case's "This Tornado Loves You," which is a very McKirk song, IMO.
ETA: Sequel: Heading Straight For A Fall.
The plan was to spend the evening holed up in his room with his music, a bottle of bourbon, and a book. It was a very good plan, and after the week he'd had - nearly every waking hour spent either on call or working cases in the infirmary - he damn well deserved for it to go off without a hitch.
So naturally, when he was two chapters into his book and about a quarter of the way through a bottle of Jim Beam, Jim Kirk showed up. As per usual, he didn't bother to knock, and once again McCoy wondered what madness had induced him to share his access code. He must have been drunk at the time. Very drunk.
"What are you doing?" Jim asked, leaning into the room. He wore a clean pair of jeans, a white t-shirt, and his battered leather jacket; whatever his plans for the evening might be, he meant to steal hearts. He'd also, McCoy noted, clearly spent most of the fine summer day outdoors; his face was darkly tanned - even burned a little at the cheeks and the tip of his nose - and his hair was sun-streaked. "And what the hell are you listening to?"
"It's jazz, you uncultured, uneducated-"
"It's boring."
"It's soothing," McCoy corrected. "You're not. Go away."
As if Jim Kirk could ever be dismissed that easily.
"Come on, old man," he said, hooking his fingertips around the doorframe and leaning in further. If Jim fell on his face, McCoy thought, and broke his goddamn nose, he would not be able to stop laughing long enough to get him to the infirmary. "Get up," Jim announced, "get dressed, get shaved. We're going out."
"I'm as dressed as I plan on getting," McCoy said, indicating his t-shirt, gray sweatpants, and socks. He fingered his stubble. "And I'm not leaving this room unless there's a medical emergency - and every other doctor on campus is somehow incapacitated."
"I can arrange that," Jim offered.
"Get out."
"Grumble, grumble, scowl, scowl. Come on, Bones. You only turn thirty once. It's your birthday, I can't let you sit alone, wallowing in jazz and depression."
"I'm actually not-"
"I'm taking you out," said Jim, "if I have to sedate and drag you. Put the bourbon away. Get changed. Into something nice. Not too nice, though. Don't want anyone to think we're on a date." His sudden grin showed his teeth, almost blindingly white against his tanned skin.
"It's my birthday," McCoy said. "Shouldn't I be allowed to do whatever the hell I want?"
"You have to celebrate. Years from now - if you don't get burned to a crisp by a solar flare or sucked out of an airlock - you'll look back and wish to God you'd done something exciting for your thirtieth birthday. I know you will, because I'll be there and I'll keep reminding you."
"Fuck off," said McCoy, but by then he was more amused - despite himself - than annoyed. Jim was still hanging onto the doorframe and the hem of his t-shirt had ridden up, revealing a flash of washboard abs. Also tanned. He'd been running around without a shirt. Why, McCoy wondered, had he made that particular observation, and why, once made, could he not push it from his mind? "Anyway," he said, trying to scowl, "I already celebrated."
That was a bit of an exaggeration. Aiko, one of the other Starfleet Medical students, had found out that it was his birthday and brought a box of chocolate cupcakes to the infirmary break room.
"Oh." Jim looked crestfallen. "Without me?"
McCoy sighed. God damnit.
*
They took a cab to this Japanese noodle place down on Geary Boulevard. Jim had discovered it shortly after they'd arrived in San Francisco two years ago, when he'd made it his mission to try everything he'd never gotten to try growing up in Middle-of-Fucking-Nowhere, Iowa. ("They don't have replicators in Iowa?" McCoy had asked when Jim tried to drag him along. "It's not the same," Jim had insisted, to which McCoy had replied, "How the hell would you even know?")
It wasn't a fancy restaurant. McCoy didn't feel out of place in his gray Aran sweater and jeans. Jim wanted to sit at the bar but McCoy did not, so they got a well-shadowed booth. They ordered hot sake and big clay bowls filled with thick wheat-flour noodles and broth. Clicking and twirling his metal chopsticks - he'd clearly been practicing - Jim flirted shamelessly with their waitress, who was delicately pretty and seventeen if she was a day. When he wasn't doing that, he was going on about his love life, which, he confided to McCoy, had gotten complicated.
Cradling his sake with one hand, McCoy raised his eyebrows. "Meaning what, exactly? Or do I really want to know?"
"I think Carol might be the one." There was just the faintest note of astonishment in his tone, like he couldn't believe he was saying the words, as if he hadn't uttered almost those exact words five months earlier. It had been Tanya then.
"Oh, God. All right." McCoy took a fortifying sip of the sake, then set the cup down. "What makes you think she's the one?"
"We haven't had sex yet."
"We," McCoy said, waggling a finger, "haven't had sex yet, either." Shit, why did he say that? It almost sounded like an invitation. The sake, preceded by a quarter of a bottle of bourbon, must have gone to his head faster than he'd realized.
Fortunately, Jim only favored him with a lopsided grin. "I've been on three dates with her. Three, Bones. And we haven't done it. All we do is talk. About I don't know what. Federation politics. Molecular biology and shit. Terraforming. That's her thing. And the weird thing is, it's great because she's fucking brilliant. And beautiful. Bones, her hair is like…it's like…have you ever seen a wheat field when the fucking sun is shining on it?"
"You know," McCoy said, "that was almost poetic. I think you might actually be serious. Or delirious." Later he'd swear his hand moved of its own volition, across the table to feel Jim's forehead. Jim fended him off with the chopsticks.
"I'm not sick. I'm really serious this time. I think. I'll know for sure once we fuck. I gotta do it right, though."
"You have a habit of doing it wrong? Need to borrow my anatomy texts? I can draw you a diagram."
Jim pouted and put a hand over his heart. "Bones, you wound me."
"Good thing I'm a doctor. But isn't Carol Marcus an instructor?"
"Yeah, so?"
"So, aren't there rules? Regulations? And isn't she older than you?"
"She's younger than you," Jim pointed out, ignoring the other questions.
"Everyone's younger than me." He sagged against the back of his seat, his fingers splayed on the table as though he could push it all away, the alcohol, the thirty years of his life, the look on Jim's face. His dark blond eyebrows pinched over the bridge over his nose, making a little crease between them. In the flickering candlelight, his blue eyes were full of sympathy.
"Bones," he said in as gentle a tone as McCoy had ever heard him use, "thirty isn't old. Shit, my father was thirty-two when he died, and everyone talks about how young he was, and what a tragedy, blah blah blah."
McCoy raised his head, intrigued. Generally, Jim was willing enough to talk about his famous father, the late Captain George Kirk, but only if someone else raised the subject. He didn't know what it meant, but he felt oddly privileged.
Still, he shook his head. "It's different, and it's hard to explain. I've had life experiences you haven't. I've been through college, I've been through med school. I've been a husband, I've been a father."
"You're still a father," Jim pointed out.
"Joanna called me this afternoon," McCoy said. "To wish me a happy birthday and to tell me all about the puppy her stepfather got her. Alfred."
Jim looked unimpressed. "Your ex married an Alfred?"
"No, the damn puppy's name is Alfred. She begged us for a puppy and we always said no. I always said no. Who was going to take care of it? Dammit, I barely had time to take care of her. I missed so much of her growing up. The stepfather's a teacher, works normal hours, gets whole damn summers off."
Jim opened his mouth, closed it. The candlelight caught his lowered lashes, lending them such a luster that McCoy had to look down at the table where Jim's hands rested, the long fingers threaded loosely. The knuckles of the right hand were bruised, some of the fingernails broken. McCoy had a sudden urge to cover those hands with his own, and he didn't know why but it annoyed the hell out of him.
"You know what?" Jim said finally. "Fuck it. I dragged you here so you wouldn't wallow, and you're wallowing. Shit, if you keep going on like this, I'm going to start wallowing. I have a stepfather too. Do you know how much shit I gave him when my mom was off-planet?" He fell silent again and his fingertips drummed the table.
"Maybe," McCoy said after a moment had passed, "this was a bad idea and we should head back to the Academy."
The bright lashes rose, revealing summery blue eyes that glinted with…mischief? Malice? McCoy couldn't be sure.
"Oh, fuck, no," said Jim.
*
They headed northward one bar at a time it seemed to McCoy. He had a jumbled impression of dark rooms that reeked of smoke and sweating bodies. There were women, some wearing only scraps of metallic fabric, sequins and glitter in their hair. There were men too, but they didn't engage his interest, possibly because all of them - with one or two exceptions - steered clear of Jim. Colored lights stabbed at his eyes, and the whole world seemed to throb around him like a massive heart. At one point, his eyes narrowed wickedly, his lips slick with beer, Jim might have shouted, "Now this is music, Bones!"
And maybe it was. Maybe in this weird new world into which he'd fallen, this pounding noise was music. McCoy wasn't sure of anything until he found himself at the edge of the Pacific Ocean sometime much later. His feet were bare - where had his shoes and socks gone? - and both the damp sand and the water were icy cold. Jim, he saw, was standing a few feet away. His shoes and socks were gone too, his jeans were rolled up to mid-calf, and he was standing ankle-deep in the water. He had a strange look on his face, half-determined, half-confused, as if he too had no idea what he was doing there, but every intention of plunging in.
"Don't," McCoy heard himself say over the rustle of the waves. "Are you crazy? You'll freeze to death."
Jim tilted his head sideways and laughed. "I wasn't going to dive in! I was just thinking…"
"You were? That's new."
But Jim looked out to sea again, and McCoy shrugged. He'd given up trying to figure out Jim Kirk a long time ago. Jim Kirk just…happened, and did not necessarily require explanations.
McCoy looked around at the beach. He couldn't be sure because his head was still fogged from the alcohol and Jim's idea of music, but he thought they were at the southern end of Baker Beach. He squinted north toward where the Golden Gate Bridge ought to have been, but it was too dark and at some point while he'd been semi-conscious a thick fog had come swirling in. He couldn't see a single star or even the moon. There was no one else on the beach. No one he could see, anyway. When he inhaled, he tasted the ocean's briny tang, and he smelled the remnants of bonfires.
"Fuck," Jim said at length, "this water's cold." And he came splashing out of it, past McCoy and a little ways up the beach, where he threw himself against the sand with a force that made McCoy wince. He flopped over onto his back, pushed himself up on his elbows, and lay there studying McCoy for what felt like a long time. When he spoke again, his voice was low-pitched, steady. "All right, listen. You've been a mess all evening, and I don't know if it's because it's your birthday or what, but I'm going to tell you something. As your friend, I feel like it's my duty. I'm going to tell you something about you. You, Leonard Horatio McCoy…"
McCoy waited.
"…Have the least sexy name I have ever heard in my entire fucking life." And he fell back laughing against the sand. "Leonard Horatio?" he spluttered, his body quivering. "What were your parents thinking?"
"Damnit, Jim." McCoy stalked over to where he lay and gave his twitching legs a kick. "James Tiberius. You're a fucking idiot, did you know that? You're probably some kind of genius, but you're also a fucking idiot. Shut up and let's go. I don't have time for this crap."
Jim stopped laughing abruptly. His arms and legs went limp and he gazed up at McCoy almost solemnly. "Yes, you do, Bones. That's what I've been trying to tell you all evening. You have plenty of time. You're young. Jesus, you're young. You've got about three-quarters, no - like, five-sixths of your life still to live. Do you have any idea how old Admiral Archer is? Or those other retired admirals who are still doddering around at the Academy for some reason or another? Shit, you're young. Sit down. I'm going to tell you more about you."
McCoy wasn't really interested in listening to more of Jim's drunken theories on life, but what else was he supposed to do? Resigned, he tried to mimic Jim's casual grace as he lowered himself to the sand, but he landed heavily and with a grunt. Hugging his knees to his chest, wondering what he'd done with his shoes and socks, he said gruffly, "All right. I'm listening. But I swear to God-"
"You're a good doctor," Jim said seriously, as if he were ten years McCoy's senior instead of six years his junior. "A really good doctor. Despite the number of times I've ended up in the infirmary, I really don't know shit about the medical profession, but I know you're good. Which is good for me because - right now, I can't feel my feet."
Wordlessly, McCoy unfolded his legs, shifted closer to Jim, and grasped him by the ankles. Since he had no memory of arriving at the beach, he had no idea how long Jim had been standing in the water. His feet were white and pinched with cold. In the bars, McCoy had regretted the sweater; now, as he tried to massage some warmth back into Jim's feet, he was rather glad of it.
"Okay," said Jim. "Now they just hurt."
"They're supposed to hurt. And you're an idiot."
"Love you too." The words, uttered so casually, sent a shiver up McCoy's spine. He let go of Jim's feet. "Anyway," Jim went on, seemingly oblivious, "you're more than a good doctor. You honestly give a shit. I mean about helping people. I've heard you in class, arguing with instructors. I've proofread all your damn reports. You honestly give a shit, and I can see you rushing to the aid of some plague-ridden world at the other end of the galaxy, Prime Directive be damned. And God, I want to be there because I want to see the look on your face when you realize I'm fucking right. That's you, Leonard Horatio Bones McCoy. That's why you're with Starfleet. It's not because of the ex-wife, it's not because you couldn't get your kid a goddamned puppy. You have to do what's right. Starfleet needs you. There really are plague-ridden worlds out there and you have to go where you're needed. You just have to. Somewhere in that brain of yours, amid all the neuroses, you know that. Happy Birthday."
Schooling his expression, McCoy muttered, "That all?"
"No," Jim said. "Not quite." His palms flat on the sand, he pushed himself up further until his face was maybe a foot away from McCoy's. Jim was looking at him with intense curiosity, as if he'd just figured something out but couldn't quite believe it. His warm breath fanned McCoy's lips and chin, and later McCoy would think he should have guessed what Jim had in mind, but later still he'd decide that no, he shouldn't have, because Jim was impossible to predict. He couldn't have guessed that Jim would, quite casually, reach up and clasp his shoulder, then pull him down into a kiss.
It caught him off guard, to say the least. He tipped forward, lost his balance, and sprawled, landing heavily on top of Jim, who evidently took that as a sign of enthusiasm, because he chuckled low in his throat, wrapped his arms around McCoy's shoulders, and deepened the kiss.
Jim could kiss. That came as no surprise. McCoy had seen him latch onto female cadets any number of times, hadn't missed the way they'd reacted. What surprised him was his own response. Jim could kiss; his mouth just sort of took hold and his tongue did this thing, and McCoy was simply caught. He kissed Jim back while his hands moved entirely of their own volition, under Jim's t-shirt, over his flat belly, then downward to the short hairs that curled above the waistband of his jeans. Amazing. He'd been so damn tired just a moment ago. Now he felt alive and alight and hard as hell. He bucked against Jim's thigh; the friction felt fantastic.
Jim's laughter buzzed against his lips. "I knew it. I knew you wanted this. Why the hell didn't you say something?"
"What the hell was I supposed to say?" McCoy wondered, cupping Jim through his jeans, making him hiss with pleasure. "I didn't know."
"Everyone wants me."
It was an honest observation, made without a trace of smugness, but it chilled McCoy abruptly. He jerked back, away from Jim. He scrubbed at his mouth with the back of his hand, as if he could remove every trace of the kiss.
"Oh, now what?"
"Now what?" McCoy said raggedly. "Now what? What the hell were you even saying before? What about Carol? I thought she was the one."
"She doesn't have to be."
"And before her, Tanya. And before her-" He wasn't even angry. Just dismayed that he'd allowed himself to be snared by the Kirk charm. Jim was irresistible, and utterly unresisting. Everyone knew that. What the hell had he been thinking? Now he was cold again, and tired. His temples were beginning to throb.
Jim hadn't moved. "So, what are you saying? You're saying you're only interested in a committed relationship?"
McCoy deflected the question: "You don't know the meaning of the word commitment."
"You're not old, Bones," he said tonelessly. "You're old-fashioned."
McCoy shook his head, ran his tongue over his lips. He could still taste Jim. "Maybe. This is ridiculous. Let's go."
"You go. I can't move."
McCoy looked down at him. "You're just going to lie there all night? On the beach? In the fog?"
"It'll be morning soon enough. You should go, if you want. I'm sorry I sort of kidnapped you before."
"Huh." The plan was to get up, find his shoes and socks, and head back to campus. They couldn't be too far from a major road. He could get a cab. It was a good plan, he told himself, but for some reason he couldn't get his knees to bend, and his hands didn't seem to want to push him off the sand. With a sigh of defeat he lay back, lacing his fingers together behind his head. He couldn't see anything due to the fog. Off to his right, he could hear Jim's steady breathing. Farther off, the waves crashed up the beach, carrying bits of glass, pebbles, and broken shells, flinging foam onto the sand.
It would be morning soon enough.
*
He woke just as the sky was beginning to lighten. His throat was parched and his head ached dully. Blinking the crust from his eyes, he started to sit up, but found that he couldn't because something was holding him down. Something heavy and limp, that moaned faintly when he pushed at it.
Great.
In the thin gray light, Jim seemed pale despite his tan, the hand that rested on McCoy's chest oddly fragile. It was the bruised hand, McCoy realized, the one with all the cracked fingernails. How had he done that? Had he hit someone or something? Or fallen while playing football with some of the other cadets in his squad? Best not to wonder, he decided. When it came to getting injured, Jim could be quite creative. Knowing precisely what he was doing and what it meant, McCoy covered Jim's hand with his own. With his other hand, he very, very gently stroked the fine, short hairs at the base of Jim's skull. The back of his neck was warm and flecked with dry sand.
"Jesus, you're young," McCoy murmured. "And yes, of course I give a shit."
Jim didn't stir, not even when McCoy craned his neck to kiss the top of his head.
Lying back, McCoy looked to the north. The fog was lifting. He could just make out the red line of the bridge. Close by, plovers and sandpipers hopped about in the sand, looking for food amid the rocks and tangled seaweed that had washed ashore. Overhead, the sky was a pearly gray, becoming blue.
Anything can happen.
The thought just came to him, and it amazed him. That he could wake up thirty and feel younger than when he'd gone to sleep. That he could lie on the edge of the ocean, under a blue sky that hid a galaxy of stars and planets. That there were people who needed him and one of them lay asleep in his arms, breathing softly against his neck.
Anything could happen.
6/4/2009