Fic: Hearts of Three 1/2
Title: Hearts of Three 1/2
Fandom: Star Trek XI
Pairing: McCoy/Spock and Kirk/Spock
Rating: NC-17
Word count: ~3100
Summary: Sometimes two friends fall in love with the same man.
Warnings: Sad. Non-graphic sexual situations. Language.
Notes: Written on a prompt from FFN dweller winsista
“I’m in love with him.”
McCoy blinks, then stares.
“Come again?”
Jim looks at him so seriously that it looks like he’s snagged that expression from someone.
“I’m in love with Spock,” he repeats. “I think.”
“You think?”
Jim plunges into a babbling explanation about his mixed feelings and crossed signals, and how Spock’s never been easy to read, but he can feel they’re meant to be together, star-crossed lovers, soulmates and all that jazz. He talks and talks, spilling words like a regurgitating black hole, but McCoy doesn’t listen.
He thinks about another conversation. It took place right here, two months earlier. And Jim wasn’t there.
“It is difficult for me to talk about emotions,” Spock says. “But I have encountered a difficulty I cannot work out through meditation. I have been sexually attracted to the captain for some time. I believe I might have developed deeper feelings for him as well.”
Trust Spock to put the most delicate thing ever so bluntly. McCoy looks at him, looks at the slightly stooped line of his usually painfully straight shoulders, takes in the haunted, pained look in those usually impenetrable dark eyes - and wants to hit him.
Yes, Jim Kirk is his best friend, and McCoy’s totally stupid about him, but it doesn’t mean he doesn’t know Jim.
Jim, who’s not a bad person at all, but who’d still sleep with anything that moves. Jim, who says insensitive shit to his closest friends while drunk and then makes his puppy dog eyes at them in the morning, not always bothering with an apology. Jim, who told McCoy when they had just started on their five-year mission that Spock and Uhura were totally hot and he’d have a threesome with them anytime at all. Jim, who takes nothing seriously, not even his life.
“Doctor?” And suddenly Spock’s looking at him with such trust that it hurts. “I know you and I don’t often see eye to eye, but... I am in need of advice. I find myself... confused.”
McCoy closes his eyes, because if Spock has come for advice to him, he’s really in, deep. The very thought of how much it cost Spock to say those words to him throws him.
It’s been over two years since McCoy first called Spock a pointy-eared bastard. He’s still that, McCoy thinks, but also so much more. Spock is a lot of things - a lot of things Jim will never see.
Spock talks like a heartless son of a bitch, but acts like Robin Hood was his childhood hero. Spock thinks Surak would have liked the Rubaiyat. Spock stands up when a woman walks into the room. Spock has a thing for soft cheeses he is embarrassed to admit that’s why he never eats them. Spock can play his harp from dusk to dawn to a dying child in McCoy’s Sick Bay. Spock throws himself on the line for everyone and bitches when someone gets there first.
“I’m sorry, Spock, but I’m not the right person for you to talk to about this,” McCoy says bitterly. “It’s not that I don’t want to help you. It’s just that I’m... biased.”
Spock stares at him for a long time, and there’s no accusation in his face nor anger.
“You are in love with Jim?”
“No,” McCoy says and forces himself to look Spock in the eye. “I’m in love with you.”
For two and a half years, it has been his wildest dream to come up with something that would shut Spock up forever. If only he knew it would be so easy...
“You are being serious.”
McCoy grits his teeth. Spock couldn’t sound any more incredulous. Why is it so hard for him to believe McCoy can actually love him?
“Like a heart attack.”
“I...” Spock pauses. “I have feelings for you, also. But... I am not certain as to what they are.”
“You’re confused,” McCoy nods. “I get it.”
“You are intelligent,” Spock says. “Physically attractive.” McCoy blushes. “Your mannerisms are annoying, albeit entertaining. Your emotional reactions-”
“Spock,” McCoy cuts him off. “I’m not pressing you for anything, but please don’t dissect me to my face. You’re confused. Go figure it out, then we’ll talk.”
And just like that, Spock leaves.
Three days later, they pick up a passenger, a Federation envoy, who’s blonde, tall, and bitchy. Jim hits on her like he’s Zeus and she’s Europa. She’s bitchy, but not stupid, so she makes him do cartwheels before actually letting him into her bed.
Spock watches the spectacle for two days then turns up at McCoy’s doorstep.
“I will not lie to you,” he says.
“I will not ask you to,” McCoy replies.
No words are said after that except for some most simplistic ones. The night is sleepless, but eventful. It’s the first one of many.
Jim is still talking. McCoy watches his mouth move and entertains himself by trying to read his lips. He’s still incapable of actually hearing anything Jim is saying.
He loves Jim. He really does. Jim Kirk is a man of extremes. He’s either a bastard or an angel at any given time, and people either love him or hate him with a passion. Seeing that insufferable smirk on his lips, one either wants to smack him or kiss him, but nobody just shrugs and goes.
The thing is, McCoy knows Jim, he really does. He’d seen Jim hop from bed to bed, being only gentleman enough not to forget the name until the thanks-for-the-fuck kiss. He knows, too, why Jim is like that, that he’s messed-up, and insecure, and everything, and McCoy really wants to help.
It’s not that he doesn’t believe that Jim can stop being a douchebag and actually fall in love. It’s just - how does he know this is it? How does he know Spock isn’t just a shiny new toy for Jim, unattainable and therefore twice as wanted? With anyone else, McCoy would tell Jim to suck it up and try to make it work. With Spock... He isn’t ready to risk Spock.
It dawns on him then that Jim isn’t asking for his permission, but for advice. Jim doesn’t know about him and Spock. Unlike Jim, both Spock and McCoy are uncompromising introverts, born with the instinct to be discreet. Jim knows that Spock and McCoy don’t get along. He always has to referee for them, on the bridge or planetside, acting like a buffer between his XO and his CMO.
What Jim doesn’t know is that Spock comes to McCoy’s cabin roughly every night. Jim doesn’t know that the two of them can actually be in a room together and not talk at all. Jim doesn’t know that they can talk, too, and that Spock is probably the only person who’s ever heard Leonard H. McCoy speak in that voice or about those things. Jim isn’t there when their banter turns into foreplay, and the next day when they are in public, they start their slow built anew, and the comments go right over Jim’s head.
I should have told him, McCoy thinks. He should have told Jim about him and Spock after it became clear that it wasn’t a one-night stand. He should have - but he didn’t. Jim would have teased them both to death, and for all his snark, McCoy didn’t want Spock to go through that.
Spock never speaks about his feelings again, confused or otherwise. McCoy doesn’t ask him. If there was a last nail to be hammered into his coffin and make him lose any hope of ever not being in love with Spock, it was sleeping with him. And they hit it in just fine.
Spock’s lips melting under his. Spock’s body pliant and burning in his arms. Spock’s hands branding his skin, touching more than just his body. The sound Spock makes when he comes. The way Spock trembles through his orgasm, vulnerable and trusting his lover to hold him, guide him, keep him safe.
McCoy shuts his eyes briefly. He will never understand how Uhura could have let Spock go. The woman is either saint or insane. And Jim. Can he give Spock to Jim? Does he even have a choice?
Spock and Jim are still thick as thieves, and McCoy knows, just knows that the moment Jim gathers enough courage and confesses his feelings, Spock will be gone. McCoy knows he won’t even be in the competition.
“Bones? Have you heard a word I said?”
Oh God. Jim is his best friend. His best friend. He’d die for him if need be. He actually did, a couple of times.
Spock is...
Goddammit! If only he could be certain that if he walks out, they’d live happily ever after. If only he could be certain that if Jim fucks it up, there would be enough pieces left of Spock to collect. Maybe then he’d have some reassurance that he won’t fall to pieces himself when Spock leaves him for Jim. And if Spock doesn’t... Will Jim ever forgive him?
“I’m sorry, kid, my head’s just killin’ me. Must be the whiskey.”
Jim smirks. “Had too much of your own medicine?”
“Something like that.”
“It’s okay, Bones. I was just rambling anyway. About your favorite hobgoblin.”
“He’s not my favorite,” McCoy snaps before he thinks. “He’s just the only one.”
Jim gives him a strange look, then gets up and leaves, wishing him goodnight.
McCoy drops his head to his hands and groans.
Spock doesn’t ask him when McCoy presses him against the wall in his cabin and shoves his tongue down his throat. He doesn’t even give McCoy an eyebrow, but he knows something is wrong. He must know. He’s a shrewd bastard and McCoy always makes love to him with refined sophistication, Valmont style. He never grabs and takes, but he does now, and Spock must suspect something.
But he doesn’t ask.
He doesn’t ask when McCoy does a quick job on their clothes and rips Spock’s tunic in his haste. He doesn’t ask when McCoy sinks his teeth into his skin, bites, licks, and marks him all over. He doesn’t ask when McCoy swats away his hand reaching for the lube and uses nothing but his spit instead.
And then Spock just holds him while he cries silently and ceaselessly, like it’s his job, and listens to the endless, desperate litany of, I love you.
Iloveyouloveyouloveyou
Part 2