Trek fic: Hand-Eye Coordination, Pike/McCoy, NC-17
I doubt that anyone much remembers my A Mighty Fine Man series (here on AO3), a Pike/McCoy Academy saga written two years ago. I always meant for it to follow canon and so face up to the events of the Narada. I realise that for it to have any readers at all, it needs to be finished before the new movie comes out. So here is the fourth in the series, two more will follow in the next few weeks.
Title: Hand-Eye Coordination
Series: A Mighty Fine Man (story 4/6)
Pairing: Pike/McCoy (+ Kirk/cupcakes)
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: phaser-play, breath-play
Word count: around 4600
Summary: McCoy is battling to master firing a phaser. Can Pike find a way to help?
Author's Note: Inspired by the gloriously hot SGA John/Rodney gun porn story, Target Practice, by Cathalin.
Pike pushed open the door of his apartment and then stopped as the smell of chicken wafted through from his little kitchenette. Presumably there were households where it was a simple pleasure to come back to a home-cooked meal, but given the complicated relationship his mercurial boyfriend had with the comfort cooking of his southern heritage, Pike knew it probably meant McCoy had royally pissed off yet another of his instructors.
He hung up his jacket and then leaned against the wall with a sigh, rubbing at his forehead. He’d hoped for a quiet evening at home, a chance to sort through some delivery delays that were hampering progress on the fitting out of the Enterprise. By the time he’d finished reading through the terse note from Commander Nori that had arrived late that afternoon, he’d known he wasn’t going to get it, but he’d not realized that McCoy would be this stressed out by it all.
He cautiously poked his head round the corner of the kitchenette, trying to get a feel for the situation. It had been a surprise when it had turned out that Leonard, who could be so disdainful about domesticity at times, was an accomplished cook. Pike enjoyed good food and he paid attention to diet and nutrition for the sake of his health and fitness, but in the end it was just fuel and before Leonard had entered his life, he’d mostly eaten at the officers’ canteen. He had been astonished that Leonard could cook multi-course meals and produce a creative range of baked goods in a kitchenette where Pike could barely manage toast and coffee.
Southern fried chicken and corn bread by the look of it, well, that wasn’t too bad. And it did mean Pike would get a decent meal before having to broach the awkward topic of the day. Then he spotted the tray of cupcakes cooling under a cloth and his heart sank. Baking was never a good sign, no matter how delicious the output might be. Some of their most pointless arguments had centered around food, before they’d manage to negotiate their very different cultural contexts. For McCoy cooking was a sign of caring and pushing yet one more cupcake onto him was a way of expressing love. For Pike it was just more unnecessary calories that would have to be run off tomorrow.
McCoy had had to learn that Pike saying no to a cupcake was not saying no to their relationship. Pike had had to concede that that a bit of fat and sugar in his diet wasn’t going to prevent him fitting into the captain’s chair on the Enterprise. They’d both come to realise that McCoy venting his frustrations by baking in Pike’s kitchen was vastly preferable to McCoy pissing off yet another of his instructors. And that excess cupcakes could always be disposed of by feeding them to the bottomless pit that was a young and energetic Jim Kirk.
Of course that got complicated when Jim generously gave the rest away to his wide circle of female friends. This had sadly led many of them to think Jim was a bit of a homebody under the rebel exterior, and that they would be the one to finally tame the wild child, and lead him to a life of monogamy and domesticity. This had led to a lot of broken hearts, none of them Jim’s. But honestly, that wasn’t Pike’s problem right now.
Pike edged round into the kitchen and peered more closely at the cupcakes. Cinnamon ones, stuffed with apple pie filling and topped with luscious caramel frosting, damn but he did love those. He’d managed to sneak one out and take a bite before McCoy noticed his presence. “Hands off!” He got his wrist slapped with a dishcloth. “The meal is almost ready.”
Pike grinned back at him, despite his concern over the evening ahead. The sight of McCoy in the domestic goddess apron Jim had so kindly gifted him with always made him want to laugh. “So does this burst of domesticity have anything to do with your inability to fire a phaser straight?” Pike noticed the way McCoy’s back immediately stiffened.
“What would you know about that?” he demanded.
“Well, for some inexplicable reason, when your instructors get annoyed with you, they all come whining to me. So Nori sent me an interesting note this afternoon,” replied Pike, taking advantage of McCoy’s back to finish the cupcake.
“I’m a doctor, dammit,” retorted McCoy. “There’s no reason I should have to use a phaser. I’m supposed to put them back together, not take them apart.”
“Yes, you’re a doctor, a very good one. I’ve seen vids of you operating. I know what you can do with a laser scalpel. How on earth can you find it difficult to handle a phaser?”
“Lay the table,” snapped McCoy. “It’s nearly ready.”
Pike sighed, even as he complied. McCoy being this tense was never a good sign. He let them get most of the way through the meal before bringing up the topic again. He might as well have a stomach full of delicious food before embarking on the fight he suspected was in their future.
In the ten months they had been together, they had bickered often, McCoy needling Pike for being too fond of authority, Pike trying to get McCoy to be less head-strong and think more tactically. When it came to small issues, Leonard exploded abruptly and forgave quickly and Chris prided himself on not getting riled in the first place. When they genuinely fought, it tended to be short and nasty, both of them being highly articulate with an incisive knowledge of how hurt the other. Then they’d retreat, with Pike going running and McCoy pulling back-to-back shifts at the hospital. The only thing that really annoyed Pike about it all was the fact that somehow he was the one who always had to initiate a reconciliation
He pushed his empty plate away and leaned back in his chair, inwardly bracing himself against the coming confrontation. “You know you have to show basic competence with a phaser.”
“I don’t see why,” grumbled Leonard. “Did I mention I’m a doctor, not a soldier? Let the dumb-ass ensigns deal with it.”
“You’re being deliberately difficult,” said Pike tightly, doing his best not to let his annoyance show. “If you were going for a starbase posting, you could get away with being incompetent at defense but not if you’re hoping for a posting on a constitution-class starship. Our mission may be peaceful but Starfleet is an armada, as you well know.”
“You’re gonna be my captain, the crew list is at your discretion. What’s the problem?” demanded McCoy.
“You know exactly what the problem is,” snapped Pike, now increasingly exasperated. “No one doubts your capability as a doctor, but there are other standards you need to meet, fitness, weapons handling, you know the drill.” He leant forward, putting his arms on the table, tightly focused on McCoy. “Yes, I’m the captain and I’m not having anyone on my ship who can’t do basic self-defense and protect his shipmates. Besides, you know there are people in the Admiralty watching for any slip by you or by me. You have to be assigned to the Enterprise because you’re the best of the best, not because you’re warming my bed.”
McCoy’s front of belligerence abruptly collapsed, as it generally did when it looked like something he was doing might actually threaten Pike’s career. He buried his face in his hands, his long fingers pushing into his thick dark hair. “I don’t know why I find it so goddamned difficult,” he muttered eventually. “I just hate phasers. I spend too much time fixing the confounded damage they do to be happy inflicting it myself.”
“Come on,” Pike said gently. “Let’s go over to the range now and let me see if I can help you. I can take you into the officers’ section, that’ll be deserted at this time of the evening.”
McCoy’s shoulders hunched forward miserably. “I’m sorry,” he said softly, speaking down to his hands. “I don’t mean to be so much trouble.”
Pike rose and came round the table to pull McCoy up out of his seat. He knew that it was easier to see the ways in which he could help McCoy cope with the demands of Starfleet service than to see the ways in which McCoy’s lust for life enlivened his own overly controlled existence. He cupped McCoy’s face in both his hands and gently rubbed their noses together. “I happen to like trouble, you know that.”
McCoy huffed with amusement and then surged forward to seize Pike’s mouth in a heated kiss. “You’re a strange, strange man.”
“Takes one to know one.” Pike grabbed McCoy’s arm with one hand, seized a cupcake with other and herded his exasperating lover towards the door.
* * *
“Hmm, you really do have problems with this,” said Pike, trying to keep the dismay out of his voice as he regarded the target which sat complacently at the far end of the booth, as yet completely unscathed. Every one of McCoy’s shots had gone hopelessly wide. Privately, Pike was horrified. McCoy would never qualify for any starship posting, let alone the flagship, unless he got his act together.
Although nothing short of an intervention from another dimension would pry the Enterprise out of Pike’s hands at this point in his career, he was aware that his infatuation with Leonard was deepening with every month that passed. The thought of spending five years apart from him was simply unacceptable. Somehow he had to find a way to improve McCoy’s marksmanship.
“You can’t just wave it around like some snake you’re trying to hold as far away from yourself as possible, Leonard. You have to take ownership of it. Here, let me show you.” He stepped in behind McCoy, standing right up against him, chest touching his warm back, and ran his hands down McCoy’s awkwardly outstretched arms until he could take each hand in his own. “Deep breaths,” he said softly, his mouth close to McCoy’s ear. “Calm down, steady yourself. Then remember - breathe, sight, breathe, squeeze.”
“Easy for you to say,” muttered McCoy as he sucked in great gulps of breath, then tensed up as if expecting a blow and fired the phaser with his eyes squeezed half-closed. At least this time he manage to clip the outer edge of the target.
“Dammit, Leonard, try to relax,” said Pike. “Here, watch me do it for a minute.” He took the phaser out of McCoy’s hand and repositioned himself in his natural shooting stance. He placed his other hand on McCoy’s stomach, pulling the man back against him, trying to show him how to stand. Then he took one long level look at the target and began to fire.
Pike had always enjoyed shooting, loving the contained violence of it. As he punched out shot after shot, firing a neat figure of eight into the target, he had to admit that he was showing off, just a little. For all he out-ranked McCoy and had many years of deep space experience, he was somewhat in awe of McCoy’s skills as a doctor and a surgeon. He’d saved lives many times in his career, but seldom with the same godlike immediacy of the operating theatre. Most of his skill-set really shone in the black and Leonard had only ever known him as a rather frustrated instructor and recruiter back here on Earth. He wanted McCoy to see him being good at this.
When he finally stopped, the ensuing silence echoed loudly around him. Through it he could hear the quick rhythm of his own pulse and rapid panting coming from McCoy. It was a sound he was more used to hearing when pressed face-down into the pillow with McCoy covering his back and about to do unmentionable things to his ass. Suddenly curious, he let his free hand slide down Leonard’s stomach to find his pants unmistakably tented.
“Leonard? You’re turned on by this? I thought you hated violence?”
“Gah,” managed McCoy at last. “Violence, not so much. But competence and power? Fuck me.”
He pressed back against Chris in a way that suggested it was as much an invitation as an expletive. McCoy was wearing a short-sleeved shirt and on a whim Pike clicked on the safety and then ran the barrel of the phaser up McCoy’s exposed forearm. He was unprepared for the full-body shudder that rippled through his lover. Curious now, he pushed the nose of the phaser against the soft skin in the crook of the elbow. McCoy was beginning to pant again. Pike run the phaser up over his shirtsleeve and past his collar, to rub it softly against that sensitive tendon behind McCoy’s ear. He could usually reduce the mouthy doctor to moaning incoherence by sucking on that spot and it seemed like the phaser was doing much the same job.
Amused now, Pike pulled away the phaser and whispered hotly into McCoy’s ear. “How the hell do phasers end up being this much of a turn-on for you?”
“Not phasers as such,” gasped McCoy at last. “You. And your phaser. And-- umm-- space westerns.”
Pike stepped back so he could get a clearer view of McCoy’s face. “What?”
“Damned space westerns,” grumbled McCoy, trying to hide his blush with his best bitching voice. “We used to watch them together, me and Mama, Daddy and Grammy. Mama thought they were cheesy, she’d make all these caustic comments under her breath, but Daddy and Grammy loved ‘em, straight up, no irony. And me, well, they always featured a buff, brave space hero, waving his phaser around in an utterly phallic manner while he rescued some distressed maiden. I’m sure my Grammy thought they were great role models for me, but I may’ve been focused on the wrong things entirely, thinking about them late at night with my hands down my pants.”
Pike shook his head in disbelief, torn between annoyance and amusement, as he so often was with McCoy. “So you wanted to be rescued by the big, buff hero, did you?”
“Kinda,” admitted McCoy reluctantly. “Actually I think I was more interested in being tied up and at the mercy of the cool, buff villains.”
“Huh.” Pike regarded McCoy curiously. This was not where their sex life normally went. McCoy generally took charge in bed, sometimes using mild bondage and blindfolds. Pike enjoyed the chance to step aside from the relentless control he exercised in the rest of his life, but there was nothing formalized about it, they didn’t use a safeword beyond ‘no more’ or ‘enough’ and Pike absolutely refused to think of himself and ‘submissive’ in the same sentence.
He knew McCoy got a perverse pleasure out of provoking authority figures and got some kind of kick out of Pike’s rank. He teased Pike with ‘sir’ and ‘Captain’ just a little too often not be getting something from it. But Pike had never considered actively trying to use his authority over McCoy. From his very first days in the Academy he had learnt that authority was an honor, not a right, and that it had to be exercised with care and humility. He’d learnt what abuse of power looked like at the hands of his own father and he’d sworn to himself that he’d never inflict such abuse on another being.
However, in his months together with McCoy, he’d also come to learn that some of the barriers that he’d erected around himself were unnecessarily rigid. Breaking through them, abetted by Leonard with his delight in defying authority, had led to some of their hottest, tenderest moments together.
He moved behind McCoy again, wrapping his left arm tightly around the other man’s torso, letting just a little of his combat-hardened strength show through. He checked once more that he had the safety engaged and then he rubbed the side of the phaser across the scruff on McCoy’s cheek. “You thought about this, did you? Being held at phaser-point, ordered to do unspeakable acts by the villain?”
“Guh. Maybe. Just a bit.”
Pike ran the barrel of the phaser across McCoy’s full lips, watching as they parted with a light gasp. “And if I ordered you to lick it?”
There was a breathless pause, and then McCoy’s soft tongue slid across the cool grey metal, long luscious licks and Pike knew only too well how those felt on his own cock. Then McCoy’s tongue slid down the barrel to find the top of Pike’s thumb. He licked around it and then sucked it into his hot mouth. Pike swallowed hard. He’d not expected this to be anything like so arousing. He twisted the phaser so that the tip of the barrel was pushed up against McCoy’s mouth.
“Suck it.”
And McCoy, who was never without a smart-ass comment or a whippet-quick line in back-chat, simply opened his plush lips and sucked down the deadly tube. Pike could see the outline of the barrel pressed against the inside of McCoy’s cheek. He was achingly hard and he rubbed his throbbing prick against the generous swell of McCoy ass, using his other hand to keep McCoy pressed tightly against him.
It suddenly occurred to him that literally any of the other officers on the Academy campus could walk in on them like this, walk in on the future captain of the Enterprise forcing a cadet into sexual favors at phaser-point. He should stop this at one. Or at the very least take it back to the privacy of his apartment. Or.... He swallowed hard. Fuck it. Just this once.
He released McCoy with his left hand and fumbled for the padd hanging on his belt. With a few quick taps of his thumb, he put in the override that locked down the officers’ section of the shooting range. Abuse of power, welcome on in! But he was beyond caring right now. He dropped the padd on the floor, wrapped his left hand around Leonard’s throat, and hissed into his ear, low and menacing. “You suck so beautifully, you’re just made for it, with those plush lips of yours. Best way I’ve ever found to shut up your crap. Down on your knees, cadet, while I decide if you’re going to suck my dick or my phaser.”
He wasn’t sure he’d get away with it, he half-expected McCoy to start laughing and call him out for having terrible taste in cheesy dialogue. Instead the other man simply twisted round gracefully and sunk down onto his knees, burying his face in the crook of Pike’s thigh, next to the pulsing bulge of his erection and crossing his hands behind his back. So Pike wasn’t the only one getting off on this. He sucked in a shaky breath and tried to work out how to proceed.
“Unzip me, pull me out. Then hands behind your back again.”
McCoy complied with a silent obedience that was so unlike him that it was almost eery. Pike looked down at the top of dark-haired head of his lover, framed between his leaking cock and his slim grey phaser. He grabbed his cock with one hand and pushed his phaser against McCoy’s cheek with the other, trapping the man between the two, feeling the rough burn of McCoy’s stubble on his cock and one his hand holding the phaser.
“So which one shall I have you suck?” he said. “Which one shall I shove down your throat until you choke on it?”
McCoy simply moaned and twisted his head to mouth at Pike’s heavy hanging balls. Pike slapped him on the cheek with the side of the phaser, feeling the metal connect against his cheekbone. “No fucking initiative from you, cadet. You’ll do as you‘re told. Face forward, eyes up and let’s see how deep you take that phaser down your throat.”
Again McCoy complied with breathtaking obedience, lifting his hazel eyes to lock with Pike’s blue ones and then sucking down the barrel so deep Pike was briefly afraid he’d damage himself on it. And wouldn’t that be something to explain on an emergency visit to the Academy clinic. He watched McCoy’s cheeks hollow around the barrel, watched his long throat work as he swallowed around it, watched him slide his full lips along the cool metal. He kept his leaking cock pressed against McCoy’s cheek, letting his precome smear translucent stains across the other man’s skin.
“Now my prick.”
McCoy swopped wordlessly from one to the other, and now his mouth was filled with Pike’s cock, and the saliva-slick phaser barrel was sliding along his cheek. Pike shuddered with the rush of power than came with having this beautiful man kneeling at his feet, mouth stuffed with his throbbing prick, held there at the point of a phaser. He swopped back and forth, teasing himself by pulling out of McCoy’s lush mouth each time he felt the rising surge of orgasm, watching the slick phaser barrel slip through those swollen lips instead.
“Fuck, Chris,” muttered McCoy at last as Pike pulled his cock out once more. “Let me finish you, please.”
“That’ll be sir to you, cadet,” replied Pike, trying to come across as authoritative but mostly just managing to sound breathless. “Do you want me to fill up your mouth with my come, watch it drip down from your greedy lips?”
“Yes sir, please, whatever you want.” McCoy looked up at him through long dark lashes, his voice a rough rasp after all the sucking.
“Finish me,” ordered Pike, plunging his left hand into McCoy’s thick hair and pulling the man onto his cock until he could feel that he was pushed hard against the soft palette. He slid the phaser barrel under McCoy’s chin so it added another dimension to the choking fullness and, with eyes nearly closed, he let himself surf on the sound of McCoy’s ragged gasps, the feel of his soft tongue and throat and the hard edge of the phaser digging into the palm of his hand.
Orgasm rushed over him in a golden-edged wave and he held McCoy tightly against his groin until he could see pearly strands of his own come beginning to spill out between McCoy’s lips and drip down onto the phaser still held under his chin. McCoy finally pulled back and even as he was still gasping for breath, he had spat some of Pike’s come onto his palms, stuck his hands down his pants and was jerking off his turgid purple prick with brutal strokes. In less than a minute he was splattering over his hands, with his face buried against Pike’s thigh.
* * *
Pike leaned his head back against the wall of the shooting booth with eyes closed, sucking in deep breaths, trying to bring his racing pulse under control. Eventually he tipped his head forward to look down at his lover, who was still kneeling at his feet, rubbing his face lazily against Pike’s thigh, inches away from the phaser Pike held laxly in his hand. Pike still couldn’t quite believe he’d actually done this thing.
“Dammit, Leonard, I used to be a model officer before I met you!”
McCoy lifted his face to smirk up at Pike, his green-hazel eyes alight with mischief. “You used to be a boring old fart before you met me. Isn’t life just so much more interesting now?”
Pike thumped his head back against the wall and groaned. The trouble was that he really had no good rebuttal to that. McCoy levered himself up onto his feet and hustled close against Pike, trying to lean in for a kiss. Pike turned his head to brush his lips across McCoy’s cheek instead. He was never going to admit it, given that he was determined to be as good at gay sex as any man McCoy had ever fucked with, but he didn’t actually like the taste of come. He was perfectly happy to blow McCoy, the act had a transgressive edge to it that always sent a fine thrill of rebellion up his spine, but frankly he’d much rather spit it out at the end. However, he didn’t consider that to be gentlemanly so he swallowed fast and tried to get his hands on a drink directly afterwards.
The trouble was the Leonard loved sucking him, although that bit wasn’t actually troublesome, the awkward bit was that McCoy, with his oral fixation, loved sharing afterwards through long, deep kisses. Pike mostly managed to distract him by tickling him until he squirmed away laughing. This time McCoy had too many clothes on for that to work, so he ran the phaser up McCoy’s bare forearm instead, chuckling when that simple act made McCoy gasp. “Not quite so anti phasers now, are you?”
“I just needed to change how I think about them. I still not happy with them as killing machines, but as sex toys - well now, that’s quite another matter.” McCoy took the phaser from Pike and ran his broad hands over it, fondling the barrel in what was frankly a rather disturbing manner. “You know,” he said, his eyes catching Pike’s with the glare of challenge, “given the shape, there are other things one could do with a phaser.” He raised an eyebrow suggestively.
“No! Just no, Leonard. No. Fucking. Way.”
Although.... Pike found himself stopping to reconsider. He had plenty of experience in incentivising lazy cadets and recalcitrant ensigns. He managed to keep McCoy fit enough for his physicals by dragging him out running three times a week, which meant putting up with non-stop bitching all the way and providing shower handjobs afterwards, but it worked. “Okay,” he said slowly, “maybe. I’ll think about it, but you’ll have to get perfect scores in your final phaser assessment.”
“No maybe about it,” shot back McCoy, jumping on the idea with an eagerness that left Pike a little worried and, secretly, more than a little aroused. “I get perfect scores, I get you and your phaser for an entire weekend, to do with exactly as I will.”
“It’s not easy to get perfect scores, Leonard,” warned Pike. “You haven’t exactly shown much aptitude up until now.”
McCoy grinned back at him with total confidence while casually stroking the phaser. “Surgeon, darlin’. Exceptional hand-eye coordination. I just needed a little something to get me motivated. Strangely enough, Commander Nori never came up with this particular plan.”
With a huff of exasperation, Pike buried his face in the thick dark hair of his lover. Honestly, the things he had to put up with to get this man onto the Enterprise.
- THE END -
The sequel: The Call of Duty
Title: Hand-Eye Coordination
Series: A Mighty Fine Man (story 4/6)
Pairing: Pike/McCoy (+ Kirk/cupcakes)
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: phaser-play, breath-play
Word count: around 4600
Summary: McCoy is battling to master firing a phaser. Can Pike find a way to help?
Author's Note: Inspired by the gloriously hot SGA John/Rodney gun porn story, Target Practice, by Cathalin.
Pike pushed open the door of his apartment and then stopped as the smell of chicken wafted through from his little kitchenette. Presumably there were households where it was a simple pleasure to come back to a home-cooked meal, but given the complicated relationship his mercurial boyfriend had with the comfort cooking of his southern heritage, Pike knew it probably meant McCoy had royally pissed off yet another of his instructors.
He hung up his jacket and then leaned against the wall with a sigh, rubbing at his forehead. He’d hoped for a quiet evening at home, a chance to sort through some delivery delays that were hampering progress on the fitting out of the Enterprise. By the time he’d finished reading through the terse note from Commander Nori that had arrived late that afternoon, he’d known he wasn’t going to get it, but he’d not realized that McCoy would be this stressed out by it all.
He cautiously poked his head round the corner of the kitchenette, trying to get a feel for the situation. It had been a surprise when it had turned out that Leonard, who could be so disdainful about domesticity at times, was an accomplished cook. Pike enjoyed good food and he paid attention to diet and nutrition for the sake of his health and fitness, but in the end it was just fuel and before Leonard had entered his life, he’d mostly eaten at the officers’ canteen. He had been astonished that Leonard could cook multi-course meals and produce a creative range of baked goods in a kitchenette where Pike could barely manage toast and coffee.
Southern fried chicken and corn bread by the look of it, well, that wasn’t too bad. And it did mean Pike would get a decent meal before having to broach the awkward topic of the day. Then he spotted the tray of cupcakes cooling under a cloth and his heart sank. Baking was never a good sign, no matter how delicious the output might be. Some of their most pointless arguments had centered around food, before they’d manage to negotiate their very different cultural contexts. For McCoy cooking was a sign of caring and pushing yet one more cupcake onto him was a way of expressing love. For Pike it was just more unnecessary calories that would have to be run off tomorrow.
McCoy had had to learn that Pike saying no to a cupcake was not saying no to their relationship. Pike had had to concede that that a bit of fat and sugar in his diet wasn’t going to prevent him fitting into the captain’s chair on the Enterprise. They’d both come to realise that McCoy venting his frustrations by baking in Pike’s kitchen was vastly preferable to McCoy pissing off yet another of his instructors. And that excess cupcakes could always be disposed of by feeding them to the bottomless pit that was a young and energetic Jim Kirk.
Of course that got complicated when Jim generously gave the rest away to his wide circle of female friends. This had sadly led many of them to think Jim was a bit of a homebody under the rebel exterior, and that they would be the one to finally tame the wild child, and lead him to a life of monogamy and domesticity. This had led to a lot of broken hearts, none of them Jim’s. But honestly, that wasn’t Pike’s problem right now.
Pike edged round into the kitchen and peered more closely at the cupcakes. Cinnamon ones, stuffed with apple pie filling and topped with luscious caramel frosting, damn but he did love those. He’d managed to sneak one out and take a bite before McCoy noticed his presence. “Hands off!” He got his wrist slapped with a dishcloth. “The meal is almost ready.”
Pike grinned back at him, despite his concern over the evening ahead. The sight of McCoy in the domestic goddess apron Jim had so kindly gifted him with always made him want to laugh. “So does this burst of domesticity have anything to do with your inability to fire a phaser straight?” Pike noticed the way McCoy’s back immediately stiffened.
“What would you know about that?” he demanded.
“Well, for some inexplicable reason, when your instructors get annoyed with you, they all come whining to me. So Nori sent me an interesting note this afternoon,” replied Pike, taking advantage of McCoy’s back to finish the cupcake.
“I’m a doctor, dammit,” retorted McCoy. “There’s no reason I should have to use a phaser. I’m supposed to put them back together, not take them apart.”
“Yes, you’re a doctor, a very good one. I’ve seen vids of you operating. I know what you can do with a laser scalpel. How on earth can you find it difficult to handle a phaser?”
“Lay the table,” snapped McCoy. “It’s nearly ready.”
Pike sighed, even as he complied. McCoy being this tense was never a good sign. He let them get most of the way through the meal before bringing up the topic again. He might as well have a stomach full of delicious food before embarking on the fight he suspected was in their future.
In the ten months they had been together, they had bickered often, McCoy needling Pike for being too fond of authority, Pike trying to get McCoy to be less head-strong and think more tactically. When it came to small issues, Leonard exploded abruptly and forgave quickly and Chris prided himself on not getting riled in the first place. When they genuinely fought, it tended to be short and nasty, both of them being highly articulate with an incisive knowledge of how hurt the other. Then they’d retreat, with Pike going running and McCoy pulling back-to-back shifts at the hospital. The only thing that really annoyed Pike about it all was the fact that somehow he was the one who always had to initiate a reconciliation
He pushed his empty plate away and leaned back in his chair, inwardly bracing himself against the coming confrontation. “You know you have to show basic competence with a phaser.”
“I don’t see why,” grumbled Leonard. “Did I mention I’m a doctor, not a soldier? Let the dumb-ass ensigns deal with it.”
“You’re being deliberately difficult,” said Pike tightly, doing his best not to let his annoyance show. “If you were going for a starbase posting, you could get away with being incompetent at defense but not if you’re hoping for a posting on a constitution-class starship. Our mission may be peaceful but Starfleet is an armada, as you well know.”
“You’re gonna be my captain, the crew list is at your discretion. What’s the problem?” demanded McCoy.
“You know exactly what the problem is,” snapped Pike, now increasingly exasperated. “No one doubts your capability as a doctor, but there are other standards you need to meet, fitness, weapons handling, you know the drill.” He leant forward, putting his arms on the table, tightly focused on McCoy. “Yes, I’m the captain and I’m not having anyone on my ship who can’t do basic self-defense and protect his shipmates. Besides, you know there are people in the Admiralty watching for any slip by you or by me. You have to be assigned to the Enterprise because you’re the best of the best, not because you’re warming my bed.”
McCoy’s front of belligerence abruptly collapsed, as it generally did when it looked like something he was doing might actually threaten Pike’s career. He buried his face in his hands, his long fingers pushing into his thick dark hair. “I don’t know why I find it so goddamned difficult,” he muttered eventually. “I just hate phasers. I spend too much time fixing the confounded damage they do to be happy inflicting it myself.”
“Come on,” Pike said gently. “Let’s go over to the range now and let me see if I can help you. I can take you into the officers’ section, that’ll be deserted at this time of the evening.”
McCoy’s shoulders hunched forward miserably. “I’m sorry,” he said softly, speaking down to his hands. “I don’t mean to be so much trouble.”
Pike rose and came round the table to pull McCoy up out of his seat. He knew that it was easier to see the ways in which he could help McCoy cope with the demands of Starfleet service than to see the ways in which McCoy’s lust for life enlivened his own overly controlled existence. He cupped McCoy’s face in both his hands and gently rubbed their noses together. “I happen to like trouble, you know that.”
McCoy huffed with amusement and then surged forward to seize Pike’s mouth in a heated kiss. “You’re a strange, strange man.”
“Takes one to know one.” Pike grabbed McCoy’s arm with one hand, seized a cupcake with other and herded his exasperating lover towards the door.
* * *
“Hmm, you really do have problems with this,” said Pike, trying to keep the dismay out of his voice as he regarded the target which sat complacently at the far end of the booth, as yet completely unscathed. Every one of McCoy’s shots had gone hopelessly wide. Privately, Pike was horrified. McCoy would never qualify for any starship posting, let alone the flagship, unless he got his act together.
Although nothing short of an intervention from another dimension would pry the Enterprise out of Pike’s hands at this point in his career, he was aware that his infatuation with Leonard was deepening with every month that passed. The thought of spending five years apart from him was simply unacceptable. Somehow he had to find a way to improve McCoy’s marksmanship.
“You can’t just wave it around like some snake you’re trying to hold as far away from yourself as possible, Leonard. You have to take ownership of it. Here, let me show you.” He stepped in behind McCoy, standing right up against him, chest touching his warm back, and ran his hands down McCoy’s awkwardly outstretched arms until he could take each hand in his own. “Deep breaths,” he said softly, his mouth close to McCoy’s ear. “Calm down, steady yourself. Then remember - breathe, sight, breathe, squeeze.”
“Easy for you to say,” muttered McCoy as he sucked in great gulps of breath, then tensed up as if expecting a blow and fired the phaser with his eyes squeezed half-closed. At least this time he manage to clip the outer edge of the target.
“Dammit, Leonard, try to relax,” said Pike. “Here, watch me do it for a minute.” He took the phaser out of McCoy’s hand and repositioned himself in his natural shooting stance. He placed his other hand on McCoy’s stomach, pulling the man back against him, trying to show him how to stand. Then he took one long level look at the target and began to fire.
Pike had always enjoyed shooting, loving the contained violence of it. As he punched out shot after shot, firing a neat figure of eight into the target, he had to admit that he was showing off, just a little. For all he out-ranked McCoy and had many years of deep space experience, he was somewhat in awe of McCoy’s skills as a doctor and a surgeon. He’d saved lives many times in his career, but seldom with the same godlike immediacy of the operating theatre. Most of his skill-set really shone in the black and Leonard had only ever known him as a rather frustrated instructor and recruiter back here on Earth. He wanted McCoy to see him being good at this.
When he finally stopped, the ensuing silence echoed loudly around him. Through it he could hear the quick rhythm of his own pulse and rapid panting coming from McCoy. It was a sound he was more used to hearing when pressed face-down into the pillow with McCoy covering his back and about to do unmentionable things to his ass. Suddenly curious, he let his free hand slide down Leonard’s stomach to find his pants unmistakably tented.
“Leonard? You’re turned on by this? I thought you hated violence?”
“Gah,” managed McCoy at last. “Violence, not so much. But competence and power? Fuck me.”
He pressed back against Chris in a way that suggested it was as much an invitation as an expletive. McCoy was wearing a short-sleeved shirt and on a whim Pike clicked on the safety and then ran the barrel of the phaser up McCoy’s exposed forearm. He was unprepared for the full-body shudder that rippled through his lover. Curious now, he pushed the nose of the phaser against the soft skin in the crook of the elbow. McCoy was beginning to pant again. Pike run the phaser up over his shirtsleeve and past his collar, to rub it softly against that sensitive tendon behind McCoy’s ear. He could usually reduce the mouthy doctor to moaning incoherence by sucking on that spot and it seemed like the phaser was doing much the same job.
Amused now, Pike pulled away the phaser and whispered hotly into McCoy’s ear. “How the hell do phasers end up being this much of a turn-on for you?”
“Not phasers as such,” gasped McCoy at last. “You. And your phaser. And-- umm-- space westerns.”
Pike stepped back so he could get a clearer view of McCoy’s face. “What?”
“Damned space westerns,” grumbled McCoy, trying to hide his blush with his best bitching voice. “We used to watch them together, me and Mama, Daddy and Grammy. Mama thought they were cheesy, she’d make all these caustic comments under her breath, but Daddy and Grammy loved ‘em, straight up, no irony. And me, well, they always featured a buff, brave space hero, waving his phaser around in an utterly phallic manner while he rescued some distressed maiden. I’m sure my Grammy thought they were great role models for me, but I may’ve been focused on the wrong things entirely, thinking about them late at night with my hands down my pants.”
Pike shook his head in disbelief, torn between annoyance and amusement, as he so often was with McCoy. “So you wanted to be rescued by the big, buff hero, did you?”
“Kinda,” admitted McCoy reluctantly. “Actually I think I was more interested in being tied up and at the mercy of the cool, buff villains.”
“Huh.” Pike regarded McCoy curiously. This was not where their sex life normally went. McCoy generally took charge in bed, sometimes using mild bondage and blindfolds. Pike enjoyed the chance to step aside from the relentless control he exercised in the rest of his life, but there was nothing formalized about it, they didn’t use a safeword beyond ‘no more’ or ‘enough’ and Pike absolutely refused to think of himself and ‘submissive’ in the same sentence.
He knew McCoy got a perverse pleasure out of provoking authority figures and got some kind of kick out of Pike’s rank. He teased Pike with ‘sir’ and ‘Captain’ just a little too often not be getting something from it. But Pike had never considered actively trying to use his authority over McCoy. From his very first days in the Academy he had learnt that authority was an honor, not a right, and that it had to be exercised with care and humility. He’d learnt what abuse of power looked like at the hands of his own father and he’d sworn to himself that he’d never inflict such abuse on another being.
However, in his months together with McCoy, he’d also come to learn that some of the barriers that he’d erected around himself were unnecessarily rigid. Breaking through them, abetted by Leonard with his delight in defying authority, had led to some of their hottest, tenderest moments together.
He moved behind McCoy again, wrapping his left arm tightly around the other man’s torso, letting just a little of his combat-hardened strength show through. He checked once more that he had the safety engaged and then he rubbed the side of the phaser across the scruff on McCoy’s cheek. “You thought about this, did you? Being held at phaser-point, ordered to do unspeakable acts by the villain?”
“Guh. Maybe. Just a bit.”
Pike ran the barrel of the phaser across McCoy’s full lips, watching as they parted with a light gasp. “And if I ordered you to lick it?”
There was a breathless pause, and then McCoy’s soft tongue slid across the cool grey metal, long luscious licks and Pike knew only too well how those felt on his own cock. Then McCoy’s tongue slid down the barrel to find the top of Pike’s thumb. He licked around it and then sucked it into his hot mouth. Pike swallowed hard. He’d not expected this to be anything like so arousing. He twisted the phaser so that the tip of the barrel was pushed up against McCoy’s mouth.
“Suck it.”
And McCoy, who was never without a smart-ass comment or a whippet-quick line in back-chat, simply opened his plush lips and sucked down the deadly tube. Pike could see the outline of the barrel pressed against the inside of McCoy’s cheek. He was achingly hard and he rubbed his throbbing prick against the generous swell of McCoy ass, using his other hand to keep McCoy pressed tightly against him.
It suddenly occurred to him that literally any of the other officers on the Academy campus could walk in on them like this, walk in on the future captain of the Enterprise forcing a cadet into sexual favors at phaser-point. He should stop this at one. Or at the very least take it back to the privacy of his apartment. Or.... He swallowed hard. Fuck it. Just this once.
He released McCoy with his left hand and fumbled for the padd hanging on his belt. With a few quick taps of his thumb, he put in the override that locked down the officers’ section of the shooting range. Abuse of power, welcome on in! But he was beyond caring right now. He dropped the padd on the floor, wrapped his left hand around Leonard’s throat, and hissed into his ear, low and menacing. “You suck so beautifully, you’re just made for it, with those plush lips of yours. Best way I’ve ever found to shut up your crap. Down on your knees, cadet, while I decide if you’re going to suck my dick or my phaser.”
He wasn’t sure he’d get away with it, he half-expected McCoy to start laughing and call him out for having terrible taste in cheesy dialogue. Instead the other man simply twisted round gracefully and sunk down onto his knees, burying his face in the crook of Pike’s thigh, next to the pulsing bulge of his erection and crossing his hands behind his back. So Pike wasn’t the only one getting off on this. He sucked in a shaky breath and tried to work out how to proceed.
“Unzip me, pull me out. Then hands behind your back again.”
McCoy complied with a silent obedience that was so unlike him that it was almost eery. Pike looked down at the top of dark-haired head of his lover, framed between his leaking cock and his slim grey phaser. He grabbed his cock with one hand and pushed his phaser against McCoy’s cheek with the other, trapping the man between the two, feeling the rough burn of McCoy’s stubble on his cock and one his hand holding the phaser.
“So which one shall I have you suck?” he said. “Which one shall I shove down your throat until you choke on it?”
McCoy simply moaned and twisted his head to mouth at Pike’s heavy hanging balls. Pike slapped him on the cheek with the side of the phaser, feeling the metal connect against his cheekbone. “No fucking initiative from you, cadet. You’ll do as you‘re told. Face forward, eyes up and let’s see how deep you take that phaser down your throat.”
Again McCoy complied with breathtaking obedience, lifting his hazel eyes to lock with Pike’s blue ones and then sucking down the barrel so deep Pike was briefly afraid he’d damage himself on it. And wouldn’t that be something to explain on an emergency visit to the Academy clinic. He watched McCoy’s cheeks hollow around the barrel, watched his long throat work as he swallowed around it, watched him slide his full lips along the cool metal. He kept his leaking cock pressed against McCoy’s cheek, letting his precome smear translucent stains across the other man’s skin.
“Now my prick.”
McCoy swopped wordlessly from one to the other, and now his mouth was filled with Pike’s cock, and the saliva-slick phaser barrel was sliding along his cheek. Pike shuddered with the rush of power than came with having this beautiful man kneeling at his feet, mouth stuffed with his throbbing prick, held there at the point of a phaser. He swopped back and forth, teasing himself by pulling out of McCoy’s lush mouth each time he felt the rising surge of orgasm, watching the slick phaser barrel slip through those swollen lips instead.
“Fuck, Chris,” muttered McCoy at last as Pike pulled his cock out once more. “Let me finish you, please.”
“That’ll be sir to you, cadet,” replied Pike, trying to come across as authoritative but mostly just managing to sound breathless. “Do you want me to fill up your mouth with my come, watch it drip down from your greedy lips?”
“Yes sir, please, whatever you want.” McCoy looked up at him through long dark lashes, his voice a rough rasp after all the sucking.
“Finish me,” ordered Pike, plunging his left hand into McCoy’s thick hair and pulling the man onto his cock until he could feel that he was pushed hard against the soft palette. He slid the phaser barrel under McCoy’s chin so it added another dimension to the choking fullness and, with eyes nearly closed, he let himself surf on the sound of McCoy’s ragged gasps, the feel of his soft tongue and throat and the hard edge of the phaser digging into the palm of his hand.
Orgasm rushed over him in a golden-edged wave and he held McCoy tightly against his groin until he could see pearly strands of his own come beginning to spill out between McCoy’s lips and drip down onto the phaser still held under his chin. McCoy finally pulled back and even as he was still gasping for breath, he had spat some of Pike’s come onto his palms, stuck his hands down his pants and was jerking off his turgid purple prick with brutal strokes. In less than a minute he was splattering over his hands, with his face buried against Pike’s thigh.
* * *
Pike leaned his head back against the wall of the shooting booth with eyes closed, sucking in deep breaths, trying to bring his racing pulse under control. Eventually he tipped his head forward to look down at his lover, who was still kneeling at his feet, rubbing his face lazily against Pike’s thigh, inches away from the phaser Pike held laxly in his hand. Pike still couldn’t quite believe he’d actually done this thing.
“Dammit, Leonard, I used to be a model officer before I met you!”
McCoy lifted his face to smirk up at Pike, his green-hazel eyes alight with mischief. “You used to be a boring old fart before you met me. Isn’t life just so much more interesting now?”
Pike thumped his head back against the wall and groaned. The trouble was that he really had no good rebuttal to that. McCoy levered himself up onto his feet and hustled close against Pike, trying to lean in for a kiss. Pike turned his head to brush his lips across McCoy’s cheek instead. He was never going to admit it, given that he was determined to be as good at gay sex as any man McCoy had ever fucked with, but he didn’t actually like the taste of come. He was perfectly happy to blow McCoy, the act had a transgressive edge to it that always sent a fine thrill of rebellion up his spine, but frankly he’d much rather spit it out at the end. However, he didn’t consider that to be gentlemanly so he swallowed fast and tried to get his hands on a drink directly afterwards.
The trouble was the Leonard loved sucking him, although that bit wasn’t actually troublesome, the awkward bit was that McCoy, with his oral fixation, loved sharing afterwards through long, deep kisses. Pike mostly managed to distract him by tickling him until he squirmed away laughing. This time McCoy had too many clothes on for that to work, so he ran the phaser up McCoy’s bare forearm instead, chuckling when that simple act made McCoy gasp. “Not quite so anti phasers now, are you?”
“I just needed to change how I think about them. I still not happy with them as killing machines, but as sex toys - well now, that’s quite another matter.” McCoy took the phaser from Pike and ran his broad hands over it, fondling the barrel in what was frankly a rather disturbing manner. “You know,” he said, his eyes catching Pike’s with the glare of challenge, “given the shape, there are other things one could do with a phaser.” He raised an eyebrow suggestively.
“No! Just no, Leonard. No. Fucking. Way.”
Although.... Pike found himself stopping to reconsider. He had plenty of experience in incentivising lazy cadets and recalcitrant ensigns. He managed to keep McCoy fit enough for his physicals by dragging him out running three times a week, which meant putting up with non-stop bitching all the way and providing shower handjobs afterwards, but it worked. “Okay,” he said slowly, “maybe. I’ll think about it, but you’ll have to get perfect scores in your final phaser assessment.”
“No maybe about it,” shot back McCoy, jumping on the idea with an eagerness that left Pike a little worried and, secretly, more than a little aroused. “I get perfect scores, I get you and your phaser for an entire weekend, to do with exactly as I will.”
“It’s not easy to get perfect scores, Leonard,” warned Pike. “You haven’t exactly shown much aptitude up until now.”
McCoy grinned back at him with total confidence while casually stroking the phaser. “Surgeon, darlin’. Exceptional hand-eye coordination. I just needed a little something to get me motivated. Strangely enough, Commander Nori never came up with this particular plan.”
With a huff of exasperation, Pike buried his face in the thick dark hair of his lover. Honestly, the things he had to put up with to get this man onto the Enterprise.
- THE END -
The sequel: The Call of Duty