i won't tell you that i love you, kiss or hug you
Title: And after he's been hooked I'll play the one that's on his heart
Author: eonism
Rating: NC17
Disclaimer: Not mine. I'm just here for the lulz.
Characters/Pairings: Jim Kirk/Leonard McCoy/Gary Mitchell (Star Trek XI)
Word Count: 3,347
Continuity:
Poker-Face
A hard pair we will be
Play the cards with spades to start
Russian Roulette is not the same without the gun
Summary: Everybody gets what they want. That’s what Gary said. It’s true enough, even for a truce struck in strange beds, by strange bedfellows. For now, they know that’s all that really matters.
This is the dingiest bar in San Francisco. Leonard McCoy can say that from experience. He’s on his fifth shot of bourbon, glasses making a sloppy row on the bar. It makes the greasy sheen on the countertop easier to ignore, the flicker from the light above the bar less distracting. After a while he doesn’t notice the cracks in the plaster above the men’s bathroom door or the stickiness of his heels on the tile beneath his stool, from gum, maybe tobacco. On his seventh shot Gary Mitchell walks in. It takes everything Leonard has to not notice, but squaring his shoulders, he does anyway.
It’s an hour before last call, and Gary Mitchell has nowhere better to be than this dingy little bar, saddled up beside Leonard. Out of the corner of his eye Gary is a lean smile in jeans, dark t-shirt and jacket, satisfaction practically bursting out of his clothes, in the way he carries himself. He takes another shot. Gary cants his head and leans in, orders Mexican beer in a tall glass, then turns to look Leonard up and down. Eyes hot, mouth crooked.
“You look like shit,” Gary says.
“If you came here to start something,” Leonard warns, “you can leave right now.”
The helmsman puts on a show of rolled eyes and emphatic scoffs. “Calm down, Princess. I just want to talk.”
“Funny thing is I have nothing to say to you. So why don’t you crawl back under your rock and we can call this a day, alright?”
Gary gets his beer from the bartender with a polite nod and thank you, takes a sip. “Yeah, well. Somehow I doubt that.”
It’s an hour before last call, and Leonard suddenly just feels tired. The drinking makes him tired. The games make him tired. Gary Mitchell’s stupid fucking face makes him tired, so he gives in and asks, “What do you want?”
“I was with Jim last week, you know,” Gary says like it’s nothing. “On leave.”
Hearing it doesn’t curb the sting of it. “Yeah,” Leonard says. “I know.”
He knows because he got a hold of Jim, just after Gary and Jim fucked each other senseless in the back of Gary’s thirty-year-old car. He knows this because Jim can’t lie to him, and Jim’s bad at apologizing, and Leonard knew Jim didn’t have anything left to apologize for. But they didn’t talk about that, or the rough way Jim’s voice sounded when he said “Yeah, no, I’m not busy” and slid out of the car to pretend Leonard couldn’t hear Gary chuckling behind him.
“And I got to thinking about this situation. About us. We have some serious issues to work on, Doctor, if we’re ever going to get you out of this funk.”
Leonard bristles. “There is no us, Mitchell. So get to the point.”
Gary shrugs, makes a gesture with his glass. “So the way I see it, you and me, we want the same thing. It just happens to be Jim Kirk. And Jim? He’s hung up on you. I mean, seriously. That kid can’t go two weeks without your dick in his ass without getting emotional about it. It’s getting kind of pathetic, really.”
“And?” It takes everything Leonard has left not to hit Gary’s smug face.
“And?” Gary shrugs again, affectedly diplomatic. “I see no reason for everybody not to get what they want.”
“What’re you talking about?”
“A compromise.”
Leonard snorts, shakes his head. “No. Absolutely not.”
“It’d be like shared custody. You can have Jim one weekend, I can have him the next, and everybody’s happy.”
“I’m not sharing Jim.”
“You’re already sharing Jim with half the women in town, McCoy. It didn’t bother you then.”
“Yeah, well, it bothers me now.” Leonard straightens up, takes out his wallet to pay his tab.
“He wants to waste his time with you? Fine, he can knock himself out. But I don’t have to be a part of it.”
“No, you just don’t like the idea of Jim with another man.”
“Unbelievable. You are a real piece of work--”
Gary moves in close, crowds Leonard on his stool. Crowds him the way Jim crowds him, which makes this worse. “Admit it. You like being the only guy who gets to fuck him.” His voice drops a note, breath hot on Leonard’s neck. “You like that no matter what or who he does, he still comes back to you. Back to your bed, night after night, begging to be fucked.”
Leonard leans away, all but growls at him, “You don’t know the first thing about me. Or about Jim. So fuck off, Mitchell.”
“I know well enough, Doctor.” Gary’s eyes flick from Leonard’s eyes, to his mouth and back up. He smiles. “Or I could let you both off the hook completely, and you can go back to gazing longingly into each other’s eyes or whatever the fuck it is that you two do.”
Leonard doesn’t want to ask. After a moment, he swallows. “And you leave us alone? For good?”
“Scout’s honor.” Gary holds up three fingers. “Just one stipulation.”
He’s going to regret this. “What?”
“I want both of you. One night, in my quarters, then we all go our separate ways.”
The sound travels to Leonard’s dick like an electric shock. He says nothing about that, not to Gary. “Fuck you, Mitchell.”
“Everybody gets what they want, and then you never have to see me again.”
Leonard shakes his head again. “What are you getting out of this?”
Gary smiles, waggles his eyebrows. “A cheap thrill. What about you?”
“It’s not.” He doesn’t have to explain himself, but he’s compelled to anyway. To put this in a nice neat box so Gary will get out of his face. “Me and Jim, we’re not like that.”
“Well, whatever you’re like, make a decision. Because I’ve got Jim back at my room, and you know how he is when he gets all stir-crazy.” Gary wobbles a little on his seat, like a cat playing with a dead mouse. “Never know where he’ll end up next. He’s probably already crawled out the window by now--”
The palm Leonard slams on the bar-top makes a bigger racket than he’d intended, but it wipes the smug look off Gary’s face just the same. “Alright. Fine.”
“Back to my place, then?”
“Yeah.” Leonard lets a breath, tries to get his head on straight. “No. Let me talk to him first.”
“Ah.” Gary slides off his stool, finishes his beer in one long swallow. “What, are you going to warn him to stay away from me?” Claps a hand on Leonard’s shoulder to squeeze, getting close to his ear to mutter, “Or are you going to soften him up before I get my turn?”
Leonard’s face is hot, too hot to think. So he doesn’t, just grabs his jacket and follows Gary out instead.
--
It was well past last call and Jim is in the bed he’d appropriated for himself in Gary Mitchell’s bunk. He’d gone out for a while earlier in the night. To some clean-looking little cadet bar a few blocks from the dorms, with pretty girls and nice waitresses, the usual hunting grounds. He went out, because that was what he always did, and that should’ve made it easy. It wasn’t, and sitting alone in a crowded bar, he could practically hear Bones’ voice in his head. The soft laughter after he’s had a few, or he’s been kissing Jim, all strong hands and playfully nipping teeth.
You’re kidding me, right? Jim Kirk, not hitting on everything in the room? I never thought I’d see the day.
But that was just stupid, hearing Bones’ voice in his head. Jim Kirk didn’t need a new conscience, and Leonard McCoy had lost that privilege when he decided to fuck Gary Mitchell behind Jim’s back. After Jim had fucked Gary behind Bones’ back, and what did any of it matter. Either way, Jim paid for his one beer (Gary’s brand, because he can’t drink bourbon when Bones isn’t around) and left quietly before anyone noticed him.
The ding at the door tells him there’s somebody there. It’s probably Gary, so Jim doesn’t move. He doesn’t want to look like he’s been awake this whole time, thinking about Bones. Thinking about Bones, thinking about Gary, thinking about him. Jim has a reputation to think about, and it’s not looking so hot these days. The knock at the door tells him it isn’t Gary, and Jim finally gets up to answer Leonard is there, leaning in the doorway, looking tired and pissed and maybe just a little bit sorry. Gary is next to him, back to the wall, looking off like he doesn’t care.
“Bones?” That’s not relief in Jim’s voice. Not really. “What is this? What’s going on?”
“Jim, we need to talk.”
“Tell him, Bones,” Gary sing-songs from the hallway. “You won’t like it if I tell him.”
“Tell me what?”
Leonard sighs and leaves Gary outside with a warning glare. The door slides shut behind him. Jim’s not sure what he wants to do when it does, whether he’s going to throw a punch or shove Leonard on the bed and fuck him. With Leonard this close for the first time in weeks, looking as haggard as he does, it’s hard to know for sure. Then Leonard runs a hand through his hair, licks his bottom lip, and Jim doesn’t have to do anything but listen.
“Look, this has gotten out of hand, alright? Maybe I’m not happy about you and Gary, but I don’t get to make up the rules as we go.”
Jim sighs. “Bones, look, I just--”
“No. I’m trying to tell you doesn’t matter anymore. It doesn’t. I just want things the way they were before. You and me. Alright?”
It puts a weird pit in Jim’s stomach, somewhere between surprise and dread. “You and me, like, how?”
“Like I want you back, stupid.” Leonard almost laughs, but it gets lost in translation. “Whatever that means. I don’t give a shit about sharing you, Jim, I just want you back with me at the end of the day. Just me. Alright?”
“What about Gary?” Jim looks at the door, licks his lips.
“Gary’s going to get lost after this. We just.” Leonard sighs, closes his eyes to gather himself. It makes Jim a little uneasy. “It’s one night, Jim. Then he’s gone.”
“One night?”
“We made a deal.” Before Jim can react, Leonard puts his hands up. “Look, I know. I know, I know. That’s why I wanted to run it by you before he did.”
“So one night, then he’s gone? Like, for good?”Jim clarifies. “And you and me, we’re straight then, right?”
Leonard nods, still looking sorry.
The implications whirl around Jim’s head for a minute, then he nods, says, “Okay. Yeah. Yeah, I’ll do it.”
Leonard sighs again. “Jim.”
“No, Bones. It’s not for him. Okay?”
The wet look in Jim’s eyes does something to Leonard that he can’t put a name on. So he nods his head dumbly and says, “Okay.”
The door slides open in a chime. Gary’s in the doorway looking wolfish. “So are we all in agreement, or do you need some time to spoon?”
Leonard and Jim trade one last look before Jim walks to Gary, a fire in his step that neither of them had seen since the road-trip and the back of Gary’s car. He grabs Gary by the collar of his jacket and pulls him forward to kiss, all heat and tongue and teeth. The door slides shut and Gary tugs a handful of Jim’s hair, grins into his lips.
“Easy there, Tiger. We’ve got all night.”
--
They make quick use of Jim’s borrowed bed, clothes dispatched by rough hands and greedy teeth. Leonard can’t keep his mouth off Jim and that’s okay, because Gary’s had Jim all to himself and he’s more interested in the finger he has working in Jim’s tight little entrance. The noise Jim makes in Leonard’s mouth is obscene and Leonard just swallows it, tucks it away, holding Jim by the arms to keep him still.
“It’s okay, Baby,” he says like he’s talking to a startled horse, “I got you. It’s good, I got you.”
“Such a romantic,” Gary purrs out in a laugh.
“I swear to god, Gary,” Jim breathes out. “Shut up.”
Gary laughs again and sinks his teeth into the fleshy part of Jim’s shoulder, works another finger into him. To the first knuckle, then the second, all the way in until Jim’s bucking around, dick already leaking, looking for some kind of leverage. Leonard wraps a strong hand around the root of Jim’s dick and tugs, once, twice, getting Jim’s attention and keeping it. Gary’s well-oiled fingers scissor Jim open, spread wide enough to slide home in one full thrust. He presses Jim forward at the shoulder blades, across the bed to his elbows and knees, a hand on the small of Jim’s back to steady him.
Leonard moves back because there’s no room for him like this. The kiss Gary bites across his mouth surprises him, free hand tangling in his hair to drag him close. Before he can shove Gary away, Gary’s grinning and pressing their foreheads together, intimate in way they shouldn’t be.
“You can wait your turn,” he says into Leonard’s chin, thrusting hard enough to make Jim groan under them. “Or you can join the fun. I don’t think Jim here will mind too much.”
Before he can think better of it, Leonard swallows hard, nods his head. The compromise they come to puts Jim on his back, knees tucked under Gary’s armpits while Gary fucks him wide open. Leonard kisses him, licks him and bites him, and he strokes Jim off until Jim’s seeing stars and spurting hot stripes across his chest. Jim is wrecked, falling apart, and kisses Leonard like it’s breathing or sunshine, like it’s what he needs to keep above water.
In the back of his mind, Leonard forgets why it ever got to this point. He doesn’t say anything about that. Not to Jim and most especially not to Gary, because Gary’s voice thins out in a murmur, wet with sweat and sex.
“Christ,” he says, “you two are so fucking pretty together.”
Everybody gets what they want. That’s what Gary said. It’s true enough, even for a truce struck in strange beds, by strange bedfellows. For now, they know that’s all that really matters.
--
“I swear to god, you’re worse than a woman about the foreplay.”
Gary’s sitting on his bed, wearing the jeans he found at the doorway to go to the bathroom and wash up. His sense of dignity is a little misplaced, but nobody says anything about it. On Jim’s bed Leonard licks the little spot behind Jim’s balls, the one that gets him moaning, and dips his tongue back into Jim’s loosened hole. It’s soft now, wet from the lube on Gary’s fingers and the condom he wore, because Leonard wasn’t doing anything with Gary Mitchell if he had to clean up after him.
That was one of those compromises. Either this or nothing, and Gary could expect a hit in the jaw before he could expect a truce. So, yeah, whatever, it’s a compromise. So Leonard likes to give, and Jim likes to receive, and Gary doesn’t really care either way.
Gary, who watches them with clinical interest, like he's taking notes for class. The way Jim looks, ass-up, hands fisted in the sheets, letting Leonard eat him out, fucking him with his tongue. Like he needs it, well-fucked as he is, but it’s kind of sweet just the same. It stops being so sweet when Leonard fucks Jim fiercely with a few hard slaps on the ass, tugs his hair the way Jim likes. Milks him for everything he’s worth, emptying into the condom for all the nights he let Jim fuck Gary instead.
And Gary just watches. The pageantry of it, absently stroking the bulge in his jeans, and waits his turn.
--
If Jim gets fucked anymore he’s not going to be able to see straight. Maybe that’s why he forgets the condom before he pulls Leonard’s knees up and pushes home, keeps his eyes open long enough to see the look on Leonard’s face when he does. Cheeks pink, hair stuck to his forehead by sweat, mouth swollen from being fucked by Gary, while Jim waited for the feeling to return to his fingers, stiff from gripping the sheets. And maybe he kind of liked seeing it, kind of kept his distance, kind of let it happen. Leonard’s seen him with Gary twice now, and Jim’s never seen Leonard with anybody else.
Nobody’s in any condition to say anything about it, the condom or anything else. Not Gary and certainly not Leonard. Maybe it’s better that way, because then Jim feels like he’s laying his claim. Like maybe this, the way Leonard looks and the way he takes Jim, takes every inch of him, is his.
Even when Leonard’s head is in Gary’s lap, Gary’s smearing the come across Leonard’s mouth with his thumb, and Leonard can’t help but suck it into his mouth to keep himself quiet, well. Leonard knows where he sleeps at night. Jim knows where he sleeps at night, too. Gary doesn’t matter anymore. So Gary watches this, too, and leans forward to kiss Jim. Thoroughly at first, then soft, like he’s signing his name, signing a contract.
It’s the last time Gary kisses Jim. Maybe he’s laying a claim of his own, but it gets lost in the soft slap of flesh and chorus of primal sounds. Jim fucks Bones like he always does, like they’re the only ones there and nothing else matters, and Gary knows the game is over.
--
It’s morning. The initial panic in Leonard’s gut when he wakes settles, realizing he’s in Jim’s bed, Jim’s head on his chest. Jim’s arm at his hip, under Jim’s sheets, Jim the reason he’s still sore. Gary’s bed is empty next to them, the sheets rumpled from sleep but obviously shaken out, in some half-hearted attempt at housekeeping. The room is quiet and there’s a note on the dresser across the room. Leonard finds his clothes, pulls them on, and picks up the note.
Went out for some coffee. You can shower if you want, but you’re free to go. See you around.
He’s not sure if that creeping feeling in his gut is relief or apprehension. He decides he doesn’t care, folds the note up and tosses it. When Jim wakes there’s no talking, just finding clothes, shoes and belts, trying to leave without being noticed by anybody in the hall outside. Leonard’s room - their room, Jim thinks, when his head finally clears - is on the other side of the dormitory complex, through of a small courtyard where cadets tend to gather before and after classes to talk. Nobody notices them there either. It feels good for some reason.
Outside the sunlight illuminates the bruises on Jim’s neck, the teeth-marks in Leonard’s shoulder, and the hundred other little reminders of fingers and lips, tongues and teeth that are hiding under their clothes. They’re not going to talk about that. Instead Jim’s the one who breaks the silence to ask, “So are we good?”
Leonard doesn’t say anything at first. Can’t think of much to say, mouth still cottoned, brain a little fuzzy.
“I mean. Us.” Jim makes a stupid gesture that’s supposed to mean something important. “Are we good?”
Catharsis is supposed to be cathartic, closure closer to the vest than this, the weird off-color feeling of sunlight through the edges of his hangover. But for what it may or may not be worth saying, it does feel good. Having Jim this close again feels good. So Leonard nods his head.
“Yeah, Kid,” he says. “We’re good.”
Author: eonism
Rating: NC17
Disclaimer: Not mine. I'm just here for the lulz.
Characters/Pairings: Jim Kirk/Leonard McCoy/Gary Mitchell (Star Trek XI)
Word Count: 3,347
Continuity:
Poker-Face
A hard pair we will be
Play the cards with spades to start
Russian Roulette is not the same without the gun
Summary: Everybody gets what they want. That’s what Gary said. It’s true enough, even for a truce struck in strange beds, by strange bedfellows. For now, they know that’s all that really matters.
This is the dingiest bar in San Francisco. Leonard McCoy can say that from experience. He’s on his fifth shot of bourbon, glasses making a sloppy row on the bar. It makes the greasy sheen on the countertop easier to ignore, the flicker from the light above the bar less distracting. After a while he doesn’t notice the cracks in the plaster above the men’s bathroom door or the stickiness of his heels on the tile beneath his stool, from gum, maybe tobacco. On his seventh shot Gary Mitchell walks in. It takes everything Leonard has to not notice, but squaring his shoulders, he does anyway.
It’s an hour before last call, and Gary Mitchell has nowhere better to be than this dingy little bar, saddled up beside Leonard. Out of the corner of his eye Gary is a lean smile in jeans, dark t-shirt and jacket, satisfaction practically bursting out of his clothes, in the way he carries himself. He takes another shot. Gary cants his head and leans in, orders Mexican beer in a tall glass, then turns to look Leonard up and down. Eyes hot, mouth crooked.
“You look like shit,” Gary says.
“If you came here to start something,” Leonard warns, “you can leave right now.”
The helmsman puts on a show of rolled eyes and emphatic scoffs. “Calm down, Princess. I just want to talk.”
“Funny thing is I have nothing to say to you. So why don’t you crawl back under your rock and we can call this a day, alright?”
Gary gets his beer from the bartender with a polite nod and thank you, takes a sip. “Yeah, well. Somehow I doubt that.”
It’s an hour before last call, and Leonard suddenly just feels tired. The drinking makes him tired. The games make him tired. Gary Mitchell’s stupid fucking face makes him tired, so he gives in and asks, “What do you want?”
“I was with Jim last week, you know,” Gary says like it’s nothing. “On leave.”
Hearing it doesn’t curb the sting of it. “Yeah,” Leonard says. “I know.”
He knows because he got a hold of Jim, just after Gary and Jim fucked each other senseless in the back of Gary’s thirty-year-old car. He knows this because Jim can’t lie to him, and Jim’s bad at apologizing, and Leonard knew Jim didn’t have anything left to apologize for. But they didn’t talk about that, or the rough way Jim’s voice sounded when he said “Yeah, no, I’m not busy” and slid out of the car to pretend Leonard couldn’t hear Gary chuckling behind him.
“And I got to thinking about this situation. About us. We have some serious issues to work on, Doctor, if we’re ever going to get you out of this funk.”
Leonard bristles. “There is no us, Mitchell. So get to the point.”
Gary shrugs, makes a gesture with his glass. “So the way I see it, you and me, we want the same thing. It just happens to be Jim Kirk. And Jim? He’s hung up on you. I mean, seriously. That kid can’t go two weeks without your dick in his ass without getting emotional about it. It’s getting kind of pathetic, really.”
“And?” It takes everything Leonard has left not to hit Gary’s smug face.
“And?” Gary shrugs again, affectedly diplomatic. “I see no reason for everybody not to get what they want.”
“What’re you talking about?”
“A compromise.”
Leonard snorts, shakes his head. “No. Absolutely not.”
“It’d be like shared custody. You can have Jim one weekend, I can have him the next, and everybody’s happy.”
“I’m not sharing Jim.”
“You’re already sharing Jim with half the women in town, McCoy. It didn’t bother you then.”
“Yeah, well, it bothers me now.” Leonard straightens up, takes out his wallet to pay his tab.
“He wants to waste his time with you? Fine, he can knock himself out. But I don’t have to be a part of it.”
“No, you just don’t like the idea of Jim with another man.”
“Unbelievable. You are a real piece of work--”
Gary moves in close, crowds Leonard on his stool. Crowds him the way Jim crowds him, which makes this worse. “Admit it. You like being the only guy who gets to fuck him.” His voice drops a note, breath hot on Leonard’s neck. “You like that no matter what or who he does, he still comes back to you. Back to your bed, night after night, begging to be fucked.”
Leonard leans away, all but growls at him, “You don’t know the first thing about me. Or about Jim. So fuck off, Mitchell.”
“I know well enough, Doctor.” Gary’s eyes flick from Leonard’s eyes, to his mouth and back up. He smiles. “Or I could let you both off the hook completely, and you can go back to gazing longingly into each other’s eyes or whatever the fuck it is that you two do.”
Leonard doesn’t want to ask. After a moment, he swallows. “And you leave us alone? For good?”
“Scout’s honor.” Gary holds up three fingers. “Just one stipulation.”
He’s going to regret this. “What?”
“I want both of you. One night, in my quarters, then we all go our separate ways.”
The sound travels to Leonard’s dick like an electric shock. He says nothing about that, not to Gary. “Fuck you, Mitchell.”
“Everybody gets what they want, and then you never have to see me again.”
Leonard shakes his head again. “What are you getting out of this?”
Gary smiles, waggles his eyebrows. “A cheap thrill. What about you?”
“It’s not.” He doesn’t have to explain himself, but he’s compelled to anyway. To put this in a nice neat box so Gary will get out of his face. “Me and Jim, we’re not like that.”
“Well, whatever you’re like, make a decision. Because I’ve got Jim back at my room, and you know how he is when he gets all stir-crazy.” Gary wobbles a little on his seat, like a cat playing with a dead mouse. “Never know where he’ll end up next. He’s probably already crawled out the window by now--”
The palm Leonard slams on the bar-top makes a bigger racket than he’d intended, but it wipes the smug look off Gary’s face just the same. “Alright. Fine.”
“Back to my place, then?”
“Yeah.” Leonard lets a breath, tries to get his head on straight. “No. Let me talk to him first.”
“Ah.” Gary slides off his stool, finishes his beer in one long swallow. “What, are you going to warn him to stay away from me?” Claps a hand on Leonard’s shoulder to squeeze, getting close to his ear to mutter, “Or are you going to soften him up before I get my turn?”
Leonard’s face is hot, too hot to think. So he doesn’t, just grabs his jacket and follows Gary out instead.
--
It was well past last call and Jim is in the bed he’d appropriated for himself in Gary Mitchell’s bunk. He’d gone out for a while earlier in the night. To some clean-looking little cadet bar a few blocks from the dorms, with pretty girls and nice waitresses, the usual hunting grounds. He went out, because that was what he always did, and that should’ve made it easy. It wasn’t, and sitting alone in a crowded bar, he could practically hear Bones’ voice in his head. The soft laughter after he’s had a few, or he’s been kissing Jim, all strong hands and playfully nipping teeth.
You’re kidding me, right? Jim Kirk, not hitting on everything in the room? I never thought I’d see the day.
But that was just stupid, hearing Bones’ voice in his head. Jim Kirk didn’t need a new conscience, and Leonard McCoy had lost that privilege when he decided to fuck Gary Mitchell behind Jim’s back. After Jim had fucked Gary behind Bones’ back, and what did any of it matter. Either way, Jim paid for his one beer (Gary’s brand, because he can’t drink bourbon when Bones isn’t around) and left quietly before anyone noticed him.
The ding at the door tells him there’s somebody there. It’s probably Gary, so Jim doesn’t move. He doesn’t want to look like he’s been awake this whole time, thinking about Bones. Thinking about Bones, thinking about Gary, thinking about him. Jim has a reputation to think about, and it’s not looking so hot these days. The knock at the door tells him it isn’t Gary, and Jim finally gets up to answer Leonard is there, leaning in the doorway, looking tired and pissed and maybe just a little bit sorry. Gary is next to him, back to the wall, looking off like he doesn’t care.
“Bones?” That’s not relief in Jim’s voice. Not really. “What is this? What’s going on?”
“Jim, we need to talk.”
“Tell him, Bones,” Gary sing-songs from the hallway. “You won’t like it if I tell him.”
“Tell me what?”
Leonard sighs and leaves Gary outside with a warning glare. The door slides shut behind him. Jim’s not sure what he wants to do when it does, whether he’s going to throw a punch or shove Leonard on the bed and fuck him. With Leonard this close for the first time in weeks, looking as haggard as he does, it’s hard to know for sure. Then Leonard runs a hand through his hair, licks his bottom lip, and Jim doesn’t have to do anything but listen.
“Look, this has gotten out of hand, alright? Maybe I’m not happy about you and Gary, but I don’t get to make up the rules as we go.”
Jim sighs. “Bones, look, I just--”
“No. I’m trying to tell you doesn’t matter anymore. It doesn’t. I just want things the way they were before. You and me. Alright?”
It puts a weird pit in Jim’s stomach, somewhere between surprise and dread. “You and me, like, how?”
“Like I want you back, stupid.” Leonard almost laughs, but it gets lost in translation. “Whatever that means. I don’t give a shit about sharing you, Jim, I just want you back with me at the end of the day. Just me. Alright?”
“What about Gary?” Jim looks at the door, licks his lips.
“Gary’s going to get lost after this. We just.” Leonard sighs, closes his eyes to gather himself. It makes Jim a little uneasy. “It’s one night, Jim. Then he’s gone.”
“One night?”
“We made a deal.” Before Jim can react, Leonard puts his hands up. “Look, I know. I know, I know. That’s why I wanted to run it by you before he did.”
“So one night, then he’s gone? Like, for good?”Jim clarifies. “And you and me, we’re straight then, right?”
Leonard nods, still looking sorry.
The implications whirl around Jim’s head for a minute, then he nods, says, “Okay. Yeah. Yeah, I’ll do it.”
Leonard sighs again. “Jim.”
“No, Bones. It’s not for him. Okay?”
The wet look in Jim’s eyes does something to Leonard that he can’t put a name on. So he nods his head dumbly and says, “Okay.”
The door slides open in a chime. Gary’s in the doorway looking wolfish. “So are we all in agreement, or do you need some time to spoon?”
Leonard and Jim trade one last look before Jim walks to Gary, a fire in his step that neither of them had seen since the road-trip and the back of Gary’s car. He grabs Gary by the collar of his jacket and pulls him forward to kiss, all heat and tongue and teeth. The door slides shut and Gary tugs a handful of Jim’s hair, grins into his lips.
“Easy there, Tiger. We’ve got all night.”
--
They make quick use of Jim’s borrowed bed, clothes dispatched by rough hands and greedy teeth. Leonard can’t keep his mouth off Jim and that’s okay, because Gary’s had Jim all to himself and he’s more interested in the finger he has working in Jim’s tight little entrance. The noise Jim makes in Leonard’s mouth is obscene and Leonard just swallows it, tucks it away, holding Jim by the arms to keep him still.
“It’s okay, Baby,” he says like he’s talking to a startled horse, “I got you. It’s good, I got you.”
“Such a romantic,” Gary purrs out in a laugh.
“I swear to god, Gary,” Jim breathes out. “Shut up.”
Gary laughs again and sinks his teeth into the fleshy part of Jim’s shoulder, works another finger into him. To the first knuckle, then the second, all the way in until Jim’s bucking around, dick already leaking, looking for some kind of leverage. Leonard wraps a strong hand around the root of Jim’s dick and tugs, once, twice, getting Jim’s attention and keeping it. Gary’s well-oiled fingers scissor Jim open, spread wide enough to slide home in one full thrust. He presses Jim forward at the shoulder blades, across the bed to his elbows and knees, a hand on the small of Jim’s back to steady him.
Leonard moves back because there’s no room for him like this. The kiss Gary bites across his mouth surprises him, free hand tangling in his hair to drag him close. Before he can shove Gary away, Gary’s grinning and pressing their foreheads together, intimate in way they shouldn’t be.
“You can wait your turn,” he says into Leonard’s chin, thrusting hard enough to make Jim groan under them. “Or you can join the fun. I don’t think Jim here will mind too much.”
Before he can think better of it, Leonard swallows hard, nods his head. The compromise they come to puts Jim on his back, knees tucked under Gary’s armpits while Gary fucks him wide open. Leonard kisses him, licks him and bites him, and he strokes Jim off until Jim’s seeing stars and spurting hot stripes across his chest. Jim is wrecked, falling apart, and kisses Leonard like it’s breathing or sunshine, like it’s what he needs to keep above water.
In the back of his mind, Leonard forgets why it ever got to this point. He doesn’t say anything about that. Not to Jim and most especially not to Gary, because Gary’s voice thins out in a murmur, wet with sweat and sex.
“Christ,” he says, “you two are so fucking pretty together.”
Everybody gets what they want. That’s what Gary said. It’s true enough, even for a truce struck in strange beds, by strange bedfellows. For now, they know that’s all that really matters.
--
“I swear to god, you’re worse than a woman about the foreplay.”
Gary’s sitting on his bed, wearing the jeans he found at the doorway to go to the bathroom and wash up. His sense of dignity is a little misplaced, but nobody says anything about it. On Jim’s bed Leonard licks the little spot behind Jim’s balls, the one that gets him moaning, and dips his tongue back into Jim’s loosened hole. It’s soft now, wet from the lube on Gary’s fingers and the condom he wore, because Leonard wasn’t doing anything with Gary Mitchell if he had to clean up after him.
That was one of those compromises. Either this or nothing, and Gary could expect a hit in the jaw before he could expect a truce. So, yeah, whatever, it’s a compromise. So Leonard likes to give, and Jim likes to receive, and Gary doesn’t really care either way.
Gary, who watches them with clinical interest, like he's taking notes for class. The way Jim looks, ass-up, hands fisted in the sheets, letting Leonard eat him out, fucking him with his tongue. Like he needs it, well-fucked as he is, but it’s kind of sweet just the same. It stops being so sweet when Leonard fucks Jim fiercely with a few hard slaps on the ass, tugs his hair the way Jim likes. Milks him for everything he’s worth, emptying into the condom for all the nights he let Jim fuck Gary instead.
And Gary just watches. The pageantry of it, absently stroking the bulge in his jeans, and waits his turn.
--
If Jim gets fucked anymore he’s not going to be able to see straight. Maybe that’s why he forgets the condom before he pulls Leonard’s knees up and pushes home, keeps his eyes open long enough to see the look on Leonard’s face when he does. Cheeks pink, hair stuck to his forehead by sweat, mouth swollen from being fucked by Gary, while Jim waited for the feeling to return to his fingers, stiff from gripping the sheets. And maybe he kind of liked seeing it, kind of kept his distance, kind of let it happen. Leonard’s seen him with Gary twice now, and Jim’s never seen Leonard with anybody else.
Nobody’s in any condition to say anything about it, the condom or anything else. Not Gary and certainly not Leonard. Maybe it’s better that way, because then Jim feels like he’s laying his claim. Like maybe this, the way Leonard looks and the way he takes Jim, takes every inch of him, is his.
Even when Leonard’s head is in Gary’s lap, Gary’s smearing the come across Leonard’s mouth with his thumb, and Leonard can’t help but suck it into his mouth to keep himself quiet, well. Leonard knows where he sleeps at night. Jim knows where he sleeps at night, too. Gary doesn’t matter anymore. So Gary watches this, too, and leans forward to kiss Jim. Thoroughly at first, then soft, like he’s signing his name, signing a contract.
It’s the last time Gary kisses Jim. Maybe he’s laying a claim of his own, but it gets lost in the soft slap of flesh and chorus of primal sounds. Jim fucks Bones like he always does, like they’re the only ones there and nothing else matters, and Gary knows the game is over.
--
It’s morning. The initial panic in Leonard’s gut when he wakes settles, realizing he’s in Jim’s bed, Jim’s head on his chest. Jim’s arm at his hip, under Jim’s sheets, Jim the reason he’s still sore. Gary’s bed is empty next to them, the sheets rumpled from sleep but obviously shaken out, in some half-hearted attempt at housekeeping. The room is quiet and there’s a note on the dresser across the room. Leonard finds his clothes, pulls them on, and picks up the note.
Went out for some coffee. You can shower if you want, but you’re free to go. See you around.
He’s not sure if that creeping feeling in his gut is relief or apprehension. He decides he doesn’t care, folds the note up and tosses it. When Jim wakes there’s no talking, just finding clothes, shoes and belts, trying to leave without being noticed by anybody in the hall outside. Leonard’s room - their room, Jim thinks, when his head finally clears - is on the other side of the dormitory complex, through of a small courtyard where cadets tend to gather before and after classes to talk. Nobody notices them there either. It feels good for some reason.
Outside the sunlight illuminates the bruises on Jim’s neck, the teeth-marks in Leonard’s shoulder, and the hundred other little reminders of fingers and lips, tongues and teeth that are hiding under their clothes. They’re not going to talk about that. Instead Jim’s the one who breaks the silence to ask, “So are we good?”
Leonard doesn’t say anything at first. Can’t think of much to say, mouth still cottoned, brain a little fuzzy.
“I mean. Us.” Jim makes a stupid gesture that’s supposed to mean something important. “Are we good?”
Catharsis is supposed to be cathartic, closure closer to the vest than this, the weird off-color feeling of sunlight through the edges of his hangover. But for what it may or may not be worth saying, it does feel good. Having Jim this close again feels good. So Leonard nods his head.
“Yeah, Kid,” he says. “We’re good.”