fic: What you eat, 3/4
Yes it's true that this is all I've been doing with my time. I promise a fascinating update sometime in the distant future. It will be a bean-by-bean summary of various jelly beans I have eaten while my dog destroys my poor stuffed ferret. WOE!
Fandom: Star Trek XI
Pairing: McCoy/Chekov ; mentions of past McCoy/Kirk
Rating: NC-17
Notes: Part III of delighter's birthday gift from a week ago. Note that she has also illustrated it quite delightfully here. Meanwhile, estei gave up sleep and self-respect to tell me what's what. Annnnnnnd, yeah. It's not done yet. Part IV will be sometime this weekend? Just call me the Robert Jordan of Star Trek AU rarepairs. Sry! :/
Words: 5774.
Summary: The restaurant AU. Enterprise is a haute cuisine upstart in San Francisco, owned and operated by one Chef James T. Kirk.
Part I | Part II | Part III | Part IV
PART III.
He wakes up on the couch, his feet hanging off the end, his face shoved into a crevice to hide from the yellow daylight seeping in around the cracks in the blinds. His spine is twisted and his head hurts and just as he’s closing his eyes to pass back out the person at the door knocks again. Lightly, politely.
McCoy lurches off the couch to answer it, but then stops himself three staggered steps later, when his mind flicks awake.
He knows who it is. Or, he knows who he’s afraid it is, anyway. Kirk never knocked that lightly. He never even knocked, unless the lock was turned against him, and then his knuckles were never so demure. The knocking is someone else.
McCoy is hung over, and half asleep, and filled with shame and regret. None of these conditions is new to him. But last night’s cowardice is, and he likes it least of all.
So he opens the door, even though he still has no idea what he’s going to say to Chekov when he sees him.
The kid is dressed in jeans and a pale blue t-shirt that makes his shoulders look even pointier than usual, his chest narrow, his arms spindly and birdish. In one hand he’s holding a plastic shopping bag tied into a tight knot at the top. It’s bulging, and he switches it to his left hand as he stands there, blinking a little.
“Good afternoon,” he says to McCoy.
McCoy still has no words summoned up, so he just stands there, too. Stupidly, maybe, as the silence stretches. Excuses, apologies. Nothing comes to him. He just stares at the kid, throat hollow and dry.
Chekov doesn’t look pissed off or offended. He doesn’t look like he’s come across town to give McCoy shit for insulting his grandmother, or for leading him on, or for lying about coming, or for not calling, or for getting drunk and making a fool of himself, or for everything else that McCoy should be apologizing to him, and others, for.
Chekov doesn’t look angry at all. But he doesn’t look like himself, either. He looks muted. He looks older.
“Here,” he says finally, as it becomes obvious that McCoy has nothing to say, and he proffers the plastic bag. “These are from my grandmother. Her family recipe. To thank you.”
“She has nothing to thank me for,” McCoy doesn’t want them, whatever they are. Baked goods full of dissappointment and censure. His own guilt. The bag is heavy and warm in the crook of his elbow when he takes it. Even if it's just to stop Chekov from looking at him with those bruised blue eyes.
“It’s a thank you for helping me, that’s all,” says Chekov. He shrugs, because it’s simple.
“I told you, I didn’t help you.” McCoy repeats himself. He’s getting angry that all he has to say is the same thing he’s been saying for days. Denials that sound unconvincing, over and over in the face of Chekov’s obstinate Russian resolve. McCoy says: “I haven’t done anything but be rude to you. Or outright offensive. And you show up with - what are these, perogies?”
“Pirozhki. Stuffed with apricot.” Chekov supplies.
“Why would you give me these? You don’t owe me anything.” McCoy tries to make the words sound final. He gestures with one ineloquent, angry hand and says: “You have to stop acting like you can help me.”
Chekov’s eyes don’t waver. He inches forward, like he wants to grab McCoy’s hand, hold it firm between his own. His voice is quiet, steady. “But I can. I can help you.”
It’s the confidence. The total lack of hesitation. The fact that neither of them even bother to deny that McCoy needs help. Chekov stands there and McCoy suddenly realizes that he’s not leaving until he’s invited in. That he isn’t going anywhere, and that McCoy isn’t half as stubborn as he’d need to be to force him out, away, back down the street.
It’s then that McCoy feels a distant part of himself relax. Like a wire that he thought was holding him up has snapped, but left him standing taller than before.
He looks at Chekov, even as he feels himself giving way. Bending instead of breaking, for the first time in years. He wonders if the kid even knows what he’s doing to him. He has this look on his face, open and honest and hopeful.
It’s all McCoy can do to take a step back and say, with as much class as he can muster: “Well. You may as well come in.”
McCoy reflects, as he watches the kid step across his threshold, that he has no idea what he’s doing from now on. It’s all a mystery. He recognizes this feeling, he realizes. It’s curiousity. Mixed in no small part with anticipation.
Granted, his apartment is still a wreck - dishes from their, yeah, their date two nights ago are still sitting on the counter and in the sink, and the whole place smells like sleep and old booze and musty carpet - and for some reason it’s even more embarrassing to let Chekov see it now than it was the first time. McCoy picks up a glass from the coffee table, and puts it with the mess on the counter. Even as he does it he knows it’s a paltry effort, and regrets it.
“I guess-” he says, and trails off as he tries to scrounge some space to put the plastic bag down on.
Chekov is the one who goes to the cupboard and fishes out a dusty platter. “You should shower,” he tells McCoy, taking the bag back and untying it.
McCoy says it, since Chekov evidently won’t: “I smell like a bar. Alright. I know.”
Chekov doesn’t respond, but he smiles as he busies himself at the counter. McCoy glances at him twice as he goes into the bathroom: once over his shoulder and once through the cracked door. The kid keeps smiling to himself. Running water and rummaging for dishsoap.
Somehow, this leaves McCoy smiling.
He steps into the shower and then lingers there, occasionally bumping a thought against the weird feeling that Chekov is actually out there. In his apartment. Moving around and existing. McCoy brushes his teeth, shaves. He even digs an old bottle of aftershave out from below the sink to dab on. With his towel wrapped around his waist, he spends at least half a minute poking at his hair with his fingers and squinting before he realizes what he’s doing and stops himself. Old vain man, he thinks. His hair does look pretty good, though.
Still, McCoy hesitates with his hand on the doorknob before stepping back out. He didn’t bring anything to change into. His dirty clothes are lying in a pile on the floor, damp with condensation and sleep sweat, and his natty old bathrobe is somewhere at the bottom of his closet. He is not a shy man, but this idea that there is a person on the other side of the door waiting for him to open it, someone who has insinuated himself into McCoy’s life - his work, his home - makes him think about his skin, think about his appearance in a way he hasn’t in years. It’s not quite modesty, or vanity, really. But it’s something.
When McCoy opens the door, planning to make a dash to the bedroom, he sees Chekov elbow deep in soapy water, scrubbing pots and stacking dripping dishes in the rack to his right. He’s fast. He’s almost done, in fact, and he twists his neck to look over his shoulder at McCoy, smiling.
“You are a terribly messy man,” he says.
McCoy can’t help but shrug, one hand at the towel at his waist. “It’s a recent affectation.”
Chekov raises an eyebrow, “So in the past you did clear the mold off your plates prior to eating off them?”
“I used to clean my silverware in an autoclave.” McCoy drifts over to grab a pair of clean mugs that won’t fit onto the crowded drying rack. He takes the tea towel off of Chekov’s shoulder and wipes their insides with it. “I was a zealot.”
“An extremist, certainly,” Chekov agrees. He doesn’t say a word about McCoy’s towel, but just hands him a skillet for the same treatment before turning and wiping down the countertops with his rag.
McCoy reaches and puts the mugs away, then bends to find space for the skillet beside the stove. His cabinets are shockingly empty. He finds this embarassing, too, somehow. More revealing than the towel, for sure. Like Chekov can somehow see the destruction that raged through here when Jim left, leaving only mismatched cutlery and dollar-store bakeware.
There’s no way Chekov can see it. But if he can, he pretends not to. He plucks the little sunburst pirozhki one by one from the bag and arranges them in casual disarray on the platter he took out earlier, which is no longer dusty. It’s a pretty, summertime blue, scalloped around the edges. McCoy doesn’t remember acquiring it, doesn’t remember it being Jim’s, either. For all intents and purposes, it’s entirely new. It holds the little golden pastries like it treasures them.
“They are still warm,” Chekov tells McCoy. “Will you try one?”
McCoy can only oblige. He puts one in his mouth and lets himself close his eyes just briefly. The pastry falls to pieces on his tongue. It’s a delicate fried crust that is sticky with egg glaze, wrapped around toasted pecans and caramelized apricot that taste of brandy and ginger. It’s a small masterpiece, all on its own. He can taste the work, the devotion that went into just the one, with its pinched edges and bubble body.
“Very nice,” McCoy says, surprised not that they’re good, but that they are so telling. About their maker, about her love for her grandson. They are infused with it.
“Really?” Chekov lights up with pleasure. He hovers over the platter watching as McCoy picks up a second.
McCoy tries to contextualize his statement in real terms, normal ones: “I haven’t eaten anything this good out of a plastic bag in my life, and it beats half the desserts I’ve eaten off bone china, too. They’re perfect.”
“I am so glad you like them,” says Chekov. “They were my favorite as a boy.”
“Well, don’t bring these to Uhura unless you want your grandmother kidnapped and set to work making these by the hundred in the wine cellar,” McCoy advises. Then he nudges the plate, “You have one,” he says.
Chekov smiles a little shyly, and then selects one for himself. He eats it neatly and delicately in two bites, watching McCoy the entire time. “So you do like them?” he asks again, when he’s done.
“I do.”McCoy says, slightly bemused. His affirmation lights the kid up all over again. McCoy feels like he could puff Chekov on up into the sky just by eating and exclaiming over the pastries. Chekov’s entire being is transparent. His face is bright and shining.
McCoy decides to kiss him, instead.
McCoy says, “You have some on your lip,” which is a lie, a ruse. He leans forward as Chekov raises a hand to his face, and McCoy kisses that upturned bow of a mouth with a gentleness that surprises them both. He kisses the corner of those lips, and then as Chekov’s mouth parts in a surprised intake of breath, he kisses more fervently, more insistently.
They step into each other, standing on the linoleum, with their hips knocking against the countertop. Chekov’s hands go to McCoy’s waist, his bare skin dried in the air, the damp edge of his towel. The touch raises the skin all up McCoy’s waist, his chest, his arms, into goosebumps.
McCoy shivers into the kiss, and breaks it even as Chekov’s warm palms run straight up his sides. He knows his look is wild when he seeks out Chekov’s eyes. “I am so glad,” the kid says softly. Like he’s been holding his breath, waiting for this.
“Just you wait,” McCoy growls. He can’t even register where this decision lies on the scale of poor decision-making that measures his life. It could be anywhere. The continuum is a mystery with this kid. But he doesn’t even think about pulling away. He is not in the habit of tossing away second chances. Much less thirds. Fourths.
And anyway, immediately Chekov’s fingertips dig into his sides and he pulls McCoy back in. Chekov tips his face and parts his lips and pushes into McCoy’s towelled crotch with one narrow little hip. “Please keep kissing me,” he asks. So polite.
McCoy does. McCoy kisses him, harder and longer and forcing them around so that Chekov’s palms are splayed back onto the counter for balance and McCoy is pressed heavy against him, towel working itself loose while Chekov’s jeans get tighter and tighter. He makes these sounds when McCoy presses in, like he’s pained. Like he’s happy.
McCoy can feel where this is going. He remembers it, he knows it and wants it. He wants to memorize the look on Chekov’s face: intent and hungry and consumed by open-mouthed want, like a baby bird.
“You want me to keep going?” he asks. Because he has to, and also because he wants to hear the answer as much as he wants what’s coming.
“Please yes, yes,” Chekov hisses, pushing his face up, exposing his throat, melting down into McCoy’s hands. “Yes, keep going.”
McCoy falls slowly: mouthing his way down the throat, pulling at the shirt to suck at the clavicle and then pushing at it to find a heated engine of a ribcage, nipples hard and belly taut. McCoy finds Chekov’s sharp hipbones, and then his own knees touch the kitchen floor, and with one hand he thumbs Chekov’s left hip like a handhold, while, with the other, he undoes all the intervening buttons. He rubs his face against the denim, then the briefs, feeling the kid’s erection burning through the cloth next to his cheek.
He inhales the scent of fresh laundry, and also of sweat and soap and warm skin. He pulls Chekov’s jeans down to his knees, and pushes his face in as Chekov’s thighs spread. He grunts, and through the briefs, he digs his nose into the kid’s balls, and pushes his face up to pull up along the length of his dick. He mouths it through the briefs, he grips into Chekov’s ass with his hands, he nuzzles in with eager sounds in his throat.
He loves it. He loves rucking down the underwear with his fingers - exposing skin and fine curling hairs and taking Chekov’s cock into his mouth as it emerges, long and straight and flushed deep pink.
He is good at this, he knows. He takes it all, then sucks slowly off it. Licks the whole thing over in three different directions. He suckles on the head till he thinks his eyes might pop out of his skull and then, as Chekov’s knees start shaking and the thump of his elbows on the countertop signal the next level of abandon, McCoy starts blowing the kid in earnest.
He sucks and moans, glancing up occasionally to see Chekov’s bright, flushed face looking back at him with total incomprehension. His eyebrows twisted up in a knot and his fists clenched and his spine arched away from the cabinetry - not vertical, not horizontal, just as fucking close as he can get his cock to McCoy’s mouth - it is obvious that he is straining not to come. He’s biting off his gasps, working silently to focus on this one task: do not let it end.
McCoy is not interested in helping him. It’s been too long since he’s heard a wail of release that wasn’t his own, choked into a pillowcase. So he moves faster, up and down Chekov’s cock, creating a wet slick that coats his chin and his face and Chekov’s curling hair, dripping down to his balls. McCoy hammers the dick into the back of his own throat, and reaches a hand up and rubs Chekov’s spit-wet balls firmly back, pushes two wet fingers towards his hole.
Chekov’s cry is agonized, full-throated, mindless. He digs his heels into the lino and shoots straight down McCoy’s throat, pushing into him hard with every spasm.
McCoy’s mouth is full of come, and he swallows over and over, trying to take it all and failing, feeling it seeping out of the corners of his mouth as Chekov keeps thrashing, getting weaker and weaker until he pulls out by sheer force of gravity.
Chekov slides down the last few inches to collapse onto McCoy’s legs, straddling them, with his own back to the cupboard doors. He tilts his head back to catch his breath while McCoy swallows again and goes to wipe his mouth with the heel of his hand.
Instead, Chekov zeroes in on him, and catches McCoy’s mouth with his own. He skirts his tongue around McCoy’s mouth, looking to find a taste of himself. He cleans McCoy thoroughly: kissing up the come and spit and eyeing him for more, after.
McCoy remembers what it feels like to be that young. That hungry.
“Kid-” he says.
And Chekov goes, “Please,” again, in that same voice. That same air of having waited so long, having been starved for this.
McCoy shifts where he’s kneeling - his knees ache, his thighs are burning - and pushes back to brace his hands on the floor. Chekov follows him, inch for inch. McCoy’ ass is on the damp towel on the floor, but he is otherwise entirely naked, and Chekov seems intent on prowling over him in fractions.
Those chef’s hands - burned and callused, knife marks less scars than just a crosshatch of experience - can only be so gentle. Chekov kicks his own rucked jeans off his ankles and straddles McCoy more tightly. He touches everything. Cheekbones, earlobes, the dragging ends of an old haircut over the nape of McCoy’s neck. He traces the dark socket of one eye with his rough thumb. McCoy closes his eyes and presses into it.
He can’t help but writhe underneath Chekov’s body, trying to press up with his dick, with the whole length of himself. He wants to be touched. He wants to be touched everywhere, he’s missed it for so long, and Chekov obliges, moving up and down him with colonizing hands. A rough and thorough exploration. It makes McCoy whimper, the way Chekov’s fingers float up his stomach, then back down along the grooves of his pelvis. Angling.
Chekov smiles at the sound, “Won’t you fuck me?” he whispers to McCoy. He is already adjusting himself, pushing McCoy’s dick tight against his ass. He says it louder: “Won’t you fuck me right here?”
McCoy wants to. Oh god, McCoy wants to push in right now and fuck him raw. But there are a dozen questions to ask, and a dozen more that Chekov should be asking him and no, there are no condoms in this apartment and the last bottle of lube he had was so crusted and old that he’d thrown it out without a thought.
He is too old to be so stupid, McCoy knows. Even though he can see that Chekov is already getting hard again, riding into McCoy’s stomach like this. It makes him growl with frustration.
“Yes, I want to fuck you,” McCoy tells him, rocking back to sit up, and tilting until Chekov falls into his lap, his face just a few inches above McCoy’s. “I want to fuck you into the floor right now.”
Chekov says, “Yes, yes,”
But instead, McCoy kisses him. Slowly, sucking Chekov’s bottom lip and groaning with the jolt it sends down his own spine. He slows it down even more - gentle, easy, light. And when Chekov tries to press in, tries to push deeper, McCoy pulls back, and re-engages on his terms. Light, glancing kisses. And a final, silly, patronizing one on the nose.
He tries very hard to not think about his cock’s own urgent agenda when he says, “Get dressed.”
Chekov blinks, and goes to shake his head, push back in for more.
“No,” says McCoy, raising an arm to bar the kid at his chest. “I said clothes. C’mon.”
Chekov climbs off him grudgingly. And McCoy goes into the bedroom to find something half-clean that isn’t work clothes. He fails. He has grungy tshirts and jeans, or immaculate suits with crisp-collared shirts. He goes for half and half: a pressed shirt, a pair of decrepit jeans. He has to breathe slowly for a few seconds as he locks his erection away under cotton and denim.
When he comes back out, Chekov is dressed again too, the tag on his tshirt poking out behind his neck.
McCoy tucks it in for him. “It’s five p.m.,” he says. “I need some breakfast.”
They go to Bar Tartine down in the Mission. Honestly, McCoy never goes there - it’s simultaneously too trendy and too touristy and feels too much like work - but he knows the general manager, and it’s easy to make a phone call and get her to put a deuce aside for them. Easy, even though Xelina gives him crap about stealing her servers. Apparently Janice Rand is a roller, and a catch, and McCoy has to make nice just to get her to shut up about it. Still, Chekov is impressed. Which is maybe the only reason McCoy picked it to begin with.
That, and it’s a beautiful little place - it can handle maybe half the covers that Enterprise does, but not everyone can be the city’s flagship gastro experience - with a reputation for food that matches the caliber of its clientele. That is, rich and new and maybe trying a little too hard.
Even so, this early in the evening Xelina has no problem letting Chekov in wearing his graceless old t-shirt. “He’s a chef?” she says, and shrugs, nodding at the dining clubs and tourists already seated. “He may as well be a ballerina. Don’t worry about it.”
She gives them the table by the window, and McCoy sits quietly while Chekov peruses the menu. He does make an attempt to glance at the wine list and takes note of a few names, but mostly he just watches Chekov’s face. It’s the same expression he’d been wearing the first day they met. When he’d been examining the liquor collection, or memorizing it. Or devouring it.
When Chekov looks up, he catches McCoy’s smirk, and blushes. He says, “What do you recommend?”
McCoy shrugs, “I’m not the cook here. I can’t even read this menu.” He could, maybe, if the whole thing wasn’t printed in a font that’s supposed to look hand-scrawled. One of the entrees reads sank dase in spicy brown butter or possibly pond dafs. It’s hard to tell. The only thing legible on the whole thing is the explanation of the city’s health care initiative and a list of their local suppliers. Pretentious asses.
Chekov looks back down at it. “Maybe the squab,” he says.
“You’re kidding.” McCoy had almost forgotten what it’s like to eat with a chef. They can never just go for the goddamn rib steak.
“Yes.” Chekov says, speculative. “Or maybe the sand dab.”
“Is that what that says?” McCoy sighs.
When the server comes by again he tells her that they’ll have the Welsh rarebit and the olives to start, then the pigeon and the fish, and that a bottle of the Obispo County Roussanne is fine, just bring it on out.
Chekov has a funny smile on his face as the server retreats, and McCoy glares at him, annoyed that he had to order such stupid nouvelle food. They could’ve gone to Bodego Bistro down the street from his place and got the salt and pepper crab, way more normal and delicious than the molecular crap that the chef here is into. Thank god they didn’t order the pea soup with bacon foam. Bacon foam.
McCoy’s mood doesn’t improve when the wine is poured. He waves off the server’s tasting process, takes a sip and wishes he’d just ordered a screwdriver instead.
“How did you come to work in restaurants?” Chekov asks as soon as the server is gone. “You do not seem to like them very much.”
“Don’t I?” says McCoy. “Maybe I just have a problem with how unsanitary they are.”
Chekov almost chokes on his wine, nods to signal his wordless appreciation. He sets his glass down carefully. “You don’t like the food. You don’t like the wine.”
McCoy shakes his head. “I like eating just fine. Wine’s alright in small doses. It’s the people that ruin it. It’s the complaining and the delusions and,” he waves a hand around at the polished granite bar, the well-dressed diners and the reclaimed wood tabletops, “the whole cult of luxury.”
Chekov frowns at his need to be so overly complex. “They come to eat the food,” he simplifies. “That is all.”
“I disagree. I say they come to eat the chef’s ego. The restaurant’s reputation. They don’t even taste the food, ninety percent of them are too drunk or distracted,” McCoy shakes his head. “It’s useless. It’s all hot air.”
He stops himself there. It’s been a while since he’s let himself snap about the industry. This business Jim Kirk dragged him down into. Most days he doesn’t let himself think that he hates it. It’s unhealthy, he knows, to nurture such vitriol. McCoy takes another sip of his wine, and then puts it down, resolved to let the rest of it sit until his fried bottomfeeder is sitting in front of him. Maybe he’ll like it more then.
“Then why do it?” Chekov remains unoffended, but he’s not done with the conversation. He’s leaning forward in his chair. “What did you used to do?”
“I was a doctor.” McCoy says it so flat that for a second he finds it hard to believe it’s come out of his mouth. The first time he’s ever said it in the past tense. “For a little while.”
“Oh,” says Chekov. It’s an unsatisfactory response. He prepares another question that McCoy can already tell he won’t want to answer: “Where? Here, in San Francisco?”
“Yes.” McCoy says. He also knows that he can’t help but answer anything Chekov asks him. He has to be honest. He wants to be. But still, he doesn’t want to say it. He doesn’t want to confess again to the mistake he made. He’s already done the inquiry, the press, and they each drilled it all out of him, so now it’s all a matter of public record. Because it’s so easy to make a decision at two in the afternoon on a slow Tuesday when your boyfriend is waiting for you at home and the patient’s family is eating in the cafeteria and the chart is clear and the nurse is out of the room and so you go ahead and inject into the spine instead of the vein and a day later a boy is dead and you’re negligent in the most terrible, final sense of the word. The whole world deserves to hear that story, according to the Chronicle, according to the Times, according to all the papers and networks who picked it up as a prime example of the horrors of health care. But McCoy doesn’t want to tell a single other person. He’d rather not even know himself.
“Okay.” It’s strange, to see how Chekov just kind of shrugs off the conversation. Without even a frown, like he knows just enough to know he doesn’t want to learn any more. He takes McCoy’s monosyllable without further comment and turns a pleasant smile to the server when she appears with their appetizers.
They sit in silence for a long while, spearing the marinated olives, big as robin’s eggs, and rolling them with the pancetta and the hot, airy bread that came with them. The rarebit is rich and cheesy, and the heirloom tomatoes that flank it are so tasty that McCoy reconsiders his stance on the menu’s conceit, and tries to decide whether they more likely came from Marin Sun or Soul Food Farm.
“These tomatoes,” he eventually says to Chekov.
“Mm.” Chekov replies, spooning more of the sauce onto his toast. “They are top notch.”
They only talk about the food, then. McCoy’s fish is delicate and spiced, but comes with this ridiculous aoli that only pretends to be a step above tartar sauce. Chekov pronounces the entire dish misguided. The pigeon, on the other hand, is plated like it’s a quail or something equally roasted, glazed and haute, and it passes muster by merit of its deep, accented flavor. Still, the mashed parsnips and raisins on the side are probably the best, most straightforward thing they eat all night. So even as they’re snipping the last tatters of meat off the bone, McCoy makes sure to tell Chekov that there’s a place by his house where you can get deep-fried squab for seven bucks, best in the city, and that that is the place to go for good garbage bird.
Chekov perks up. He says, “We should go there now.”
And McCoy says, “What, for another dinner?”
And Chekov says, “No, but let’s find dessert.”
McCoy has to put his foot down. “I want ice cream. Or pie. Only those two things.”
Chekov smiles and reaches across the table to pat his hand in affirmation. “Of course.”
McCoy pays the bill - despite Chekov’s protests - and they go. “Thanks for the table,” McCoy says to Xelina, who’s still monitoring servers and guarding the door against a hipster overload. “Make sure you drop by for a drink sometime, okay?”
“Don’t tempt me. If I have to look Janice in the face I will cry and beg,” Xelina says. She smiles and nods at Chekov to include him in her parting wave. “Just leave me in peace, McCoy.”
They step out into the mild air and fading light of a late August evening, and although McCoy can still feel the tension in his back from their aborted conversation earlier, he is warm and content and comfortably full, and with his perpetual hangover slightly eased by the wine. He is awkward when Chekov shifts to walk closer to him and threads an arm through his as they meander up the sidewalk towards Market Street.
But he gets used to it. Just a few blocks, and McCoy is horrified by how much he likes it. Walking like that. Like they’re together. Like they’re in love. Chekov snuggles closer, resting his cheek on McCoy’s shoulder as they pause at a crosswalk.
“Pie,” he sighs.
“On second thought,” McCoy says, “I say we head straight back home for more of those little perogies.”
“Pirozhki,” Chekov corrects, ever patient. “They are delicious with ice cream, too.”
“Yes,” says McCoy. “Absolutely.”
Neither of them says a word about how the sun is setting and thickening the light to something mauve and heavy, or how the bus they take back up to the Tenderloin is going the wrong way for Chekov. McCoy is afraid to ask, but he is hoping Chekov will sleep over again. He wants them to spend the night in the same bed. Maybe that will shore up some of his courage a bit, maybe that will draw them tighter together.
They get off the bus early so they can pick up eight ounces of coconut gelato, and another eight of double-churned vanilla ice cream from the bakery down the street.
As they pass the local pharmacy, and then a series of convenience stores, McCoy sets his mouth against the urge to buy a pack of condoms, just in case. He knows he can’t live with the temptation to use them. But then, he knows already - from the way that Chekov starts to say something, then stops himself - that he won’t get any help in holding out, with or without them.
He can’t move too quickly. He knows he’s an old man, compared to Chekov. Maybe it’s old-fashioned, but he wants to nurture this feeling that he gets from having the kid on his arm before he can move on to anything else, no matter what his dick wants.
Either way, he needs to keep them both safe. He was a doctor for long enough that he can’t ignore certain subjects. Previous partners, past experiences, safe practices, tests. He won’t like asking those questions, but he’ll do it. It’s his responsibility to do it.
As they reach the stairs to the walkup, Chekov pulls back, lingering. “Maybe we-”
“Ice cream,” says McCoy, turning his key in the glass door to the foyer. “Then bed. Work tomorrow.”
Chekov smiles. “Yes,” he says, “Bed. Then ice cream. Then I have to go.”
“Go,” says McCoy. “Go where?”
“Home.” Chekov tilts his head, “My grandmother expects me.”
“You should stay,” McCoy says, coming back down a step, still holding the door open. “Call her and let her know.”
Chekov chuckles, “Honestly, I do not think she wants to know.”
McCoy frowns, “You know what I mean.”
“I cannot stay. I want to, but I can’t.” Chekov’s face is earnest. “Don’t be disappointed.”
McCoy shakes his head. “I’m not,” he lies. “You’re right. Just come upstairs for a little while.”
Chekov nods, and maybe it’s a little strained, the way he stands in McCoy’s kitchen and eats the pastries and the gelato in tiny little bird bites. Quiet, eyes down. McCoy can tell he feels bad, now. That he wants to give him what he wants, but feels the other obligation just as keenly.
It’s fair enough, and McCoy wants it to be fair. Because he wasn’t going to give Chekov what he wanted, either. He just selfishly wanted that warm, lithe body in his bed with him all night. A face to wake up to. Human comfort.
“It’s okay,” McCoy tells him, as he scrapes around the melted ice cream with his spoon. “Maybe tomorrow night.”
Chekov looks up, face bright again, obviously relieved to have an opportunity to make it up. “Yes,” he exclaims. “Tomorrow night!”
McCoy has to laugh at him. And at the door again, downstairs, he kisses him goodbye, still smiling.
(Part IV)
Fandom: Star Trek XI
Pairing: McCoy/Chekov ; mentions of past McCoy/Kirk
Rating: NC-17
Notes: Part III of delighter's birthday gift from a week ago. Note that she has also illustrated it quite delightfully here. Meanwhile, estei gave up sleep and self-respect to tell me what's what. Annnnnnnd, yeah. It's not done yet. Part IV will be sometime this weekend? Just call me the Robert Jordan of Star Trek AU rarepairs. Sry! :/
Words: 5774.
Summary: The restaurant AU. Enterprise is a haute cuisine upstart in San Francisco, owned and operated by one Chef James T. Kirk.
Part I | Part II | Part III | Part IV
PART III.
He wakes up on the couch, his feet hanging off the end, his face shoved into a crevice to hide from the yellow daylight seeping in around the cracks in the blinds. His spine is twisted and his head hurts and just as he’s closing his eyes to pass back out the person at the door knocks again. Lightly, politely.
McCoy lurches off the couch to answer it, but then stops himself three staggered steps later, when his mind flicks awake.
He knows who it is. Or, he knows who he’s afraid it is, anyway. Kirk never knocked that lightly. He never even knocked, unless the lock was turned against him, and then his knuckles were never so demure. The knocking is someone else.
McCoy is hung over, and half asleep, and filled with shame and regret. None of these conditions is new to him. But last night’s cowardice is, and he likes it least of all.
So he opens the door, even though he still has no idea what he’s going to say to Chekov when he sees him.
The kid is dressed in jeans and a pale blue t-shirt that makes his shoulders look even pointier than usual, his chest narrow, his arms spindly and birdish. In one hand he’s holding a plastic shopping bag tied into a tight knot at the top. It’s bulging, and he switches it to his left hand as he stands there, blinking a little.
“Good afternoon,” he says to McCoy.
McCoy still has no words summoned up, so he just stands there, too. Stupidly, maybe, as the silence stretches. Excuses, apologies. Nothing comes to him. He just stares at the kid, throat hollow and dry.
Chekov doesn’t look pissed off or offended. He doesn’t look like he’s come across town to give McCoy shit for insulting his grandmother, or for leading him on, or for lying about coming, or for not calling, or for getting drunk and making a fool of himself, or for everything else that McCoy should be apologizing to him, and others, for.
Chekov doesn’t look angry at all. But he doesn’t look like himself, either. He looks muted. He looks older.
“Here,” he says finally, as it becomes obvious that McCoy has nothing to say, and he proffers the plastic bag. “These are from my grandmother. Her family recipe. To thank you.”
“She has nothing to thank me for,” McCoy doesn’t want them, whatever they are. Baked goods full of dissappointment and censure. His own guilt. The bag is heavy and warm in the crook of his elbow when he takes it. Even if it's just to stop Chekov from looking at him with those bruised blue eyes.
“It’s a thank you for helping me, that’s all,” says Chekov. He shrugs, because it’s simple.
“I told you, I didn’t help you.” McCoy repeats himself. He’s getting angry that all he has to say is the same thing he’s been saying for days. Denials that sound unconvincing, over and over in the face of Chekov’s obstinate Russian resolve. McCoy says: “I haven’t done anything but be rude to you. Or outright offensive. And you show up with - what are these, perogies?”
“Pirozhki. Stuffed with apricot.” Chekov supplies.
“Why would you give me these? You don’t owe me anything.” McCoy tries to make the words sound final. He gestures with one ineloquent, angry hand and says: “You have to stop acting like you can help me.”
Chekov’s eyes don’t waver. He inches forward, like he wants to grab McCoy’s hand, hold it firm between his own. His voice is quiet, steady. “But I can. I can help you.”
It’s the confidence. The total lack of hesitation. The fact that neither of them even bother to deny that McCoy needs help. Chekov stands there and McCoy suddenly realizes that he’s not leaving until he’s invited in. That he isn’t going anywhere, and that McCoy isn’t half as stubborn as he’d need to be to force him out, away, back down the street.
It’s then that McCoy feels a distant part of himself relax. Like a wire that he thought was holding him up has snapped, but left him standing taller than before.
He looks at Chekov, even as he feels himself giving way. Bending instead of breaking, for the first time in years. He wonders if the kid even knows what he’s doing to him. He has this look on his face, open and honest and hopeful.
It’s all McCoy can do to take a step back and say, with as much class as he can muster: “Well. You may as well come in.”
McCoy reflects, as he watches the kid step across his threshold, that he has no idea what he’s doing from now on. It’s all a mystery. He recognizes this feeling, he realizes. It’s curiousity. Mixed in no small part with anticipation.
Granted, his apartment is still a wreck - dishes from their, yeah, their date two nights ago are still sitting on the counter and in the sink, and the whole place smells like sleep and old booze and musty carpet - and for some reason it’s even more embarrassing to let Chekov see it now than it was the first time. McCoy picks up a glass from the coffee table, and puts it with the mess on the counter. Even as he does it he knows it’s a paltry effort, and regrets it.
“I guess-” he says, and trails off as he tries to scrounge some space to put the plastic bag down on.
Chekov is the one who goes to the cupboard and fishes out a dusty platter. “You should shower,” he tells McCoy, taking the bag back and untying it.
McCoy says it, since Chekov evidently won’t: “I smell like a bar. Alright. I know.”
Chekov doesn’t respond, but he smiles as he busies himself at the counter. McCoy glances at him twice as he goes into the bathroom: once over his shoulder and once through the cracked door. The kid keeps smiling to himself. Running water and rummaging for dishsoap.
Somehow, this leaves McCoy smiling.
He steps into the shower and then lingers there, occasionally bumping a thought against the weird feeling that Chekov is actually out there. In his apartment. Moving around and existing. McCoy brushes his teeth, shaves. He even digs an old bottle of aftershave out from below the sink to dab on. With his towel wrapped around his waist, he spends at least half a minute poking at his hair with his fingers and squinting before he realizes what he’s doing and stops himself. Old vain man, he thinks. His hair does look pretty good, though.
Still, McCoy hesitates with his hand on the doorknob before stepping back out. He didn’t bring anything to change into. His dirty clothes are lying in a pile on the floor, damp with condensation and sleep sweat, and his natty old bathrobe is somewhere at the bottom of his closet. He is not a shy man, but this idea that there is a person on the other side of the door waiting for him to open it, someone who has insinuated himself into McCoy’s life - his work, his home - makes him think about his skin, think about his appearance in a way he hasn’t in years. It’s not quite modesty, or vanity, really. But it’s something.
When McCoy opens the door, planning to make a dash to the bedroom, he sees Chekov elbow deep in soapy water, scrubbing pots and stacking dripping dishes in the rack to his right. He’s fast. He’s almost done, in fact, and he twists his neck to look over his shoulder at McCoy, smiling.
“You are a terribly messy man,” he says.
McCoy can’t help but shrug, one hand at the towel at his waist. “It’s a recent affectation.”
Chekov raises an eyebrow, “So in the past you did clear the mold off your plates prior to eating off them?”
“I used to clean my silverware in an autoclave.” McCoy drifts over to grab a pair of clean mugs that won’t fit onto the crowded drying rack. He takes the tea towel off of Chekov’s shoulder and wipes their insides with it. “I was a zealot.”
“An extremist, certainly,” Chekov agrees. He doesn’t say a word about McCoy’s towel, but just hands him a skillet for the same treatment before turning and wiping down the countertops with his rag.
McCoy reaches and puts the mugs away, then bends to find space for the skillet beside the stove. His cabinets are shockingly empty. He finds this embarassing, too, somehow. More revealing than the towel, for sure. Like Chekov can somehow see the destruction that raged through here when Jim left, leaving only mismatched cutlery and dollar-store bakeware.
There’s no way Chekov can see it. But if he can, he pretends not to. He plucks the little sunburst pirozhki one by one from the bag and arranges them in casual disarray on the platter he took out earlier, which is no longer dusty. It’s a pretty, summertime blue, scalloped around the edges. McCoy doesn’t remember acquiring it, doesn’t remember it being Jim’s, either. For all intents and purposes, it’s entirely new. It holds the little golden pastries like it treasures them.
“They are still warm,” Chekov tells McCoy. “Will you try one?”
McCoy can only oblige. He puts one in his mouth and lets himself close his eyes just briefly. The pastry falls to pieces on his tongue. It’s a delicate fried crust that is sticky with egg glaze, wrapped around toasted pecans and caramelized apricot that taste of brandy and ginger. It’s a small masterpiece, all on its own. He can taste the work, the devotion that went into just the one, with its pinched edges and bubble body.
“Very nice,” McCoy says, surprised not that they’re good, but that they are so telling. About their maker, about her love for her grandson. They are infused with it.
“Really?” Chekov lights up with pleasure. He hovers over the platter watching as McCoy picks up a second.
McCoy tries to contextualize his statement in real terms, normal ones: “I haven’t eaten anything this good out of a plastic bag in my life, and it beats half the desserts I’ve eaten off bone china, too. They’re perfect.”
“I am so glad you like them,” says Chekov. “They were my favorite as a boy.”
“Well, don’t bring these to Uhura unless you want your grandmother kidnapped and set to work making these by the hundred in the wine cellar,” McCoy advises. Then he nudges the plate, “You have one,” he says.
Chekov smiles a little shyly, and then selects one for himself. He eats it neatly and delicately in two bites, watching McCoy the entire time. “So you do like them?” he asks again, when he’s done.
“I do.”McCoy says, slightly bemused. His affirmation lights the kid up all over again. McCoy feels like he could puff Chekov on up into the sky just by eating and exclaiming over the pastries. Chekov’s entire being is transparent. His face is bright and shining.
McCoy decides to kiss him, instead.
McCoy says, “You have some on your lip,” which is a lie, a ruse. He leans forward as Chekov raises a hand to his face, and McCoy kisses that upturned bow of a mouth with a gentleness that surprises them both. He kisses the corner of those lips, and then as Chekov’s mouth parts in a surprised intake of breath, he kisses more fervently, more insistently.
They step into each other, standing on the linoleum, with their hips knocking against the countertop. Chekov’s hands go to McCoy’s waist, his bare skin dried in the air, the damp edge of his towel. The touch raises the skin all up McCoy’s waist, his chest, his arms, into goosebumps.
McCoy shivers into the kiss, and breaks it even as Chekov’s warm palms run straight up his sides. He knows his look is wild when he seeks out Chekov’s eyes. “I am so glad,” the kid says softly. Like he’s been holding his breath, waiting for this.
“Just you wait,” McCoy growls. He can’t even register where this decision lies on the scale of poor decision-making that measures his life. It could be anywhere. The continuum is a mystery with this kid. But he doesn’t even think about pulling away. He is not in the habit of tossing away second chances. Much less thirds. Fourths.
And anyway, immediately Chekov’s fingertips dig into his sides and he pulls McCoy back in. Chekov tips his face and parts his lips and pushes into McCoy’s towelled crotch with one narrow little hip. “Please keep kissing me,” he asks. So polite.
McCoy does. McCoy kisses him, harder and longer and forcing them around so that Chekov’s palms are splayed back onto the counter for balance and McCoy is pressed heavy against him, towel working itself loose while Chekov’s jeans get tighter and tighter. He makes these sounds when McCoy presses in, like he’s pained. Like he’s happy.
McCoy can feel where this is going. He remembers it, he knows it and wants it. He wants to memorize the look on Chekov’s face: intent and hungry and consumed by open-mouthed want, like a baby bird.
“You want me to keep going?” he asks. Because he has to, and also because he wants to hear the answer as much as he wants what’s coming.
“Please yes, yes,” Chekov hisses, pushing his face up, exposing his throat, melting down into McCoy’s hands. “Yes, keep going.”
McCoy falls slowly: mouthing his way down the throat, pulling at the shirt to suck at the clavicle and then pushing at it to find a heated engine of a ribcage, nipples hard and belly taut. McCoy finds Chekov’s sharp hipbones, and then his own knees touch the kitchen floor, and with one hand he thumbs Chekov’s left hip like a handhold, while, with the other, he undoes all the intervening buttons. He rubs his face against the denim, then the briefs, feeling the kid’s erection burning through the cloth next to his cheek.
He inhales the scent of fresh laundry, and also of sweat and soap and warm skin. He pulls Chekov’s jeans down to his knees, and pushes his face in as Chekov’s thighs spread. He grunts, and through the briefs, he digs his nose into the kid’s balls, and pushes his face up to pull up along the length of his dick. He mouths it through the briefs, he grips into Chekov’s ass with his hands, he nuzzles in with eager sounds in his throat.
He loves it. He loves rucking down the underwear with his fingers - exposing skin and fine curling hairs and taking Chekov’s cock into his mouth as it emerges, long and straight and flushed deep pink.
He is good at this, he knows. He takes it all, then sucks slowly off it. Licks the whole thing over in three different directions. He suckles on the head till he thinks his eyes might pop out of his skull and then, as Chekov’s knees start shaking and the thump of his elbows on the countertop signal the next level of abandon, McCoy starts blowing the kid in earnest.
He sucks and moans, glancing up occasionally to see Chekov’s bright, flushed face looking back at him with total incomprehension. His eyebrows twisted up in a knot and his fists clenched and his spine arched away from the cabinetry - not vertical, not horizontal, just as fucking close as he can get his cock to McCoy’s mouth - it is obvious that he is straining not to come. He’s biting off his gasps, working silently to focus on this one task: do not let it end.
McCoy is not interested in helping him. It’s been too long since he’s heard a wail of release that wasn’t his own, choked into a pillowcase. So he moves faster, up and down Chekov’s cock, creating a wet slick that coats his chin and his face and Chekov’s curling hair, dripping down to his balls. McCoy hammers the dick into the back of his own throat, and reaches a hand up and rubs Chekov’s spit-wet balls firmly back, pushes two wet fingers towards his hole.
Chekov’s cry is agonized, full-throated, mindless. He digs his heels into the lino and shoots straight down McCoy’s throat, pushing into him hard with every spasm.
McCoy’s mouth is full of come, and he swallows over and over, trying to take it all and failing, feeling it seeping out of the corners of his mouth as Chekov keeps thrashing, getting weaker and weaker until he pulls out by sheer force of gravity.
Chekov slides down the last few inches to collapse onto McCoy’s legs, straddling them, with his own back to the cupboard doors. He tilts his head back to catch his breath while McCoy swallows again and goes to wipe his mouth with the heel of his hand.
Instead, Chekov zeroes in on him, and catches McCoy’s mouth with his own. He skirts his tongue around McCoy’s mouth, looking to find a taste of himself. He cleans McCoy thoroughly: kissing up the come and spit and eyeing him for more, after.
McCoy remembers what it feels like to be that young. That hungry.
“Kid-” he says.
And Chekov goes, “Please,” again, in that same voice. That same air of having waited so long, having been starved for this.
McCoy shifts where he’s kneeling - his knees ache, his thighs are burning - and pushes back to brace his hands on the floor. Chekov follows him, inch for inch. McCoy’ ass is on the damp towel on the floor, but he is otherwise entirely naked, and Chekov seems intent on prowling over him in fractions.
Those chef’s hands - burned and callused, knife marks less scars than just a crosshatch of experience - can only be so gentle. Chekov kicks his own rucked jeans off his ankles and straddles McCoy more tightly. He touches everything. Cheekbones, earlobes, the dragging ends of an old haircut over the nape of McCoy’s neck. He traces the dark socket of one eye with his rough thumb. McCoy closes his eyes and presses into it.
He can’t help but writhe underneath Chekov’s body, trying to press up with his dick, with the whole length of himself. He wants to be touched. He wants to be touched everywhere, he’s missed it for so long, and Chekov obliges, moving up and down him with colonizing hands. A rough and thorough exploration. It makes McCoy whimper, the way Chekov’s fingers float up his stomach, then back down along the grooves of his pelvis. Angling.
Chekov smiles at the sound, “Won’t you fuck me?” he whispers to McCoy. He is already adjusting himself, pushing McCoy’s dick tight against his ass. He says it louder: “Won’t you fuck me right here?”
McCoy wants to. Oh god, McCoy wants to push in right now and fuck him raw. But there are a dozen questions to ask, and a dozen more that Chekov should be asking him and no, there are no condoms in this apartment and the last bottle of lube he had was so crusted and old that he’d thrown it out without a thought.
He is too old to be so stupid, McCoy knows. Even though he can see that Chekov is already getting hard again, riding into McCoy’s stomach like this. It makes him growl with frustration.
“Yes, I want to fuck you,” McCoy tells him, rocking back to sit up, and tilting until Chekov falls into his lap, his face just a few inches above McCoy’s. “I want to fuck you into the floor right now.”
Chekov says, “Yes, yes,”
But instead, McCoy kisses him. Slowly, sucking Chekov’s bottom lip and groaning with the jolt it sends down his own spine. He slows it down even more - gentle, easy, light. And when Chekov tries to press in, tries to push deeper, McCoy pulls back, and re-engages on his terms. Light, glancing kisses. And a final, silly, patronizing one on the nose.
He tries very hard to not think about his cock’s own urgent agenda when he says, “Get dressed.”
Chekov blinks, and goes to shake his head, push back in for more.
“No,” says McCoy, raising an arm to bar the kid at his chest. “I said clothes. C’mon.”
Chekov climbs off him grudgingly. And McCoy goes into the bedroom to find something half-clean that isn’t work clothes. He fails. He has grungy tshirts and jeans, or immaculate suits with crisp-collared shirts. He goes for half and half: a pressed shirt, a pair of decrepit jeans. He has to breathe slowly for a few seconds as he locks his erection away under cotton and denim.
When he comes back out, Chekov is dressed again too, the tag on his tshirt poking out behind his neck.
McCoy tucks it in for him. “It’s five p.m.,” he says. “I need some breakfast.”
They go to Bar Tartine down in the Mission. Honestly, McCoy never goes there - it’s simultaneously too trendy and too touristy and feels too much like work - but he knows the general manager, and it’s easy to make a phone call and get her to put a deuce aside for them. Easy, even though Xelina gives him crap about stealing her servers. Apparently Janice Rand is a roller, and a catch, and McCoy has to make nice just to get her to shut up about it. Still, Chekov is impressed. Which is maybe the only reason McCoy picked it to begin with.
That, and it’s a beautiful little place - it can handle maybe half the covers that Enterprise does, but not everyone can be the city’s flagship gastro experience - with a reputation for food that matches the caliber of its clientele. That is, rich and new and maybe trying a little too hard.
Even so, this early in the evening Xelina has no problem letting Chekov in wearing his graceless old t-shirt. “He’s a chef?” she says, and shrugs, nodding at the dining clubs and tourists already seated. “He may as well be a ballerina. Don’t worry about it.”
She gives them the table by the window, and McCoy sits quietly while Chekov peruses the menu. He does make an attempt to glance at the wine list and takes note of a few names, but mostly he just watches Chekov’s face. It’s the same expression he’d been wearing the first day they met. When he’d been examining the liquor collection, or memorizing it. Or devouring it.
When Chekov looks up, he catches McCoy’s smirk, and blushes. He says, “What do you recommend?”
McCoy shrugs, “I’m not the cook here. I can’t even read this menu.” He could, maybe, if the whole thing wasn’t printed in a font that’s supposed to look hand-scrawled. One of the entrees reads sank dase in spicy brown butter or possibly pond dafs. It’s hard to tell. The only thing legible on the whole thing is the explanation of the city’s health care initiative and a list of their local suppliers. Pretentious asses.
Chekov looks back down at it. “Maybe the squab,” he says.
“You’re kidding.” McCoy had almost forgotten what it’s like to eat with a chef. They can never just go for the goddamn rib steak.
“Yes.” Chekov says, speculative. “Or maybe the sand dab.”
“Is that what that says?” McCoy sighs.
When the server comes by again he tells her that they’ll have the Welsh rarebit and the olives to start, then the pigeon and the fish, and that a bottle of the Obispo County Roussanne is fine, just bring it on out.
Chekov has a funny smile on his face as the server retreats, and McCoy glares at him, annoyed that he had to order such stupid nouvelle food. They could’ve gone to Bodego Bistro down the street from his place and got the salt and pepper crab, way more normal and delicious than the molecular crap that the chef here is into. Thank god they didn’t order the pea soup with bacon foam. Bacon foam.
McCoy’s mood doesn’t improve when the wine is poured. He waves off the server’s tasting process, takes a sip and wishes he’d just ordered a screwdriver instead.
“How did you come to work in restaurants?” Chekov asks as soon as the server is gone. “You do not seem to like them very much.”
“Don’t I?” says McCoy. “Maybe I just have a problem with how unsanitary they are.”
Chekov almost chokes on his wine, nods to signal his wordless appreciation. He sets his glass down carefully. “You don’t like the food. You don’t like the wine.”
McCoy shakes his head. “I like eating just fine. Wine’s alright in small doses. It’s the people that ruin it. It’s the complaining and the delusions and,” he waves a hand around at the polished granite bar, the well-dressed diners and the reclaimed wood tabletops, “the whole cult of luxury.”
Chekov frowns at his need to be so overly complex. “They come to eat the food,” he simplifies. “That is all.”
“I disagree. I say they come to eat the chef’s ego. The restaurant’s reputation. They don’t even taste the food, ninety percent of them are too drunk or distracted,” McCoy shakes his head. “It’s useless. It’s all hot air.”
He stops himself there. It’s been a while since he’s let himself snap about the industry. This business Jim Kirk dragged him down into. Most days he doesn’t let himself think that he hates it. It’s unhealthy, he knows, to nurture such vitriol. McCoy takes another sip of his wine, and then puts it down, resolved to let the rest of it sit until his fried bottomfeeder is sitting in front of him. Maybe he’ll like it more then.
“Then why do it?” Chekov remains unoffended, but he’s not done with the conversation. He’s leaning forward in his chair. “What did you used to do?”
“I was a doctor.” McCoy says it so flat that for a second he finds it hard to believe it’s come out of his mouth. The first time he’s ever said it in the past tense. “For a little while.”
“Oh,” says Chekov. It’s an unsatisfactory response. He prepares another question that McCoy can already tell he won’t want to answer: “Where? Here, in San Francisco?”
“Yes.” McCoy says. He also knows that he can’t help but answer anything Chekov asks him. He has to be honest. He wants to be. But still, he doesn’t want to say it. He doesn’t want to confess again to the mistake he made. He’s already done the inquiry, the press, and they each drilled it all out of him, so now it’s all a matter of public record. Because it’s so easy to make a decision at two in the afternoon on a slow Tuesday when your boyfriend is waiting for you at home and the patient’s family is eating in the cafeteria and the chart is clear and the nurse is out of the room and so you go ahead and inject into the spine instead of the vein and a day later a boy is dead and you’re negligent in the most terrible, final sense of the word. The whole world deserves to hear that story, according to the Chronicle, according to the Times, according to all the papers and networks who picked it up as a prime example of the horrors of health care. But McCoy doesn’t want to tell a single other person. He’d rather not even know himself.
“Okay.” It’s strange, to see how Chekov just kind of shrugs off the conversation. Without even a frown, like he knows just enough to know he doesn’t want to learn any more. He takes McCoy’s monosyllable without further comment and turns a pleasant smile to the server when she appears with their appetizers.
They sit in silence for a long while, spearing the marinated olives, big as robin’s eggs, and rolling them with the pancetta and the hot, airy bread that came with them. The rarebit is rich and cheesy, and the heirloom tomatoes that flank it are so tasty that McCoy reconsiders his stance on the menu’s conceit, and tries to decide whether they more likely came from Marin Sun or Soul Food Farm.
“These tomatoes,” he eventually says to Chekov.
“Mm.” Chekov replies, spooning more of the sauce onto his toast. “They are top notch.”
They only talk about the food, then. McCoy’s fish is delicate and spiced, but comes with this ridiculous aoli that only pretends to be a step above tartar sauce. Chekov pronounces the entire dish misguided. The pigeon, on the other hand, is plated like it’s a quail or something equally roasted, glazed and haute, and it passes muster by merit of its deep, accented flavor. Still, the mashed parsnips and raisins on the side are probably the best, most straightforward thing they eat all night. So even as they’re snipping the last tatters of meat off the bone, McCoy makes sure to tell Chekov that there’s a place by his house where you can get deep-fried squab for seven bucks, best in the city, and that that is the place to go for good garbage bird.
Chekov perks up. He says, “We should go there now.”
And McCoy says, “What, for another dinner?”
And Chekov says, “No, but let’s find dessert.”
McCoy has to put his foot down. “I want ice cream. Or pie. Only those two things.”
Chekov smiles and reaches across the table to pat his hand in affirmation. “Of course.”
McCoy pays the bill - despite Chekov’s protests - and they go. “Thanks for the table,” McCoy says to Xelina, who’s still monitoring servers and guarding the door against a hipster overload. “Make sure you drop by for a drink sometime, okay?”
“Don’t tempt me. If I have to look Janice in the face I will cry and beg,” Xelina says. She smiles and nods at Chekov to include him in her parting wave. “Just leave me in peace, McCoy.”
They step out into the mild air and fading light of a late August evening, and although McCoy can still feel the tension in his back from their aborted conversation earlier, he is warm and content and comfortably full, and with his perpetual hangover slightly eased by the wine. He is awkward when Chekov shifts to walk closer to him and threads an arm through his as they meander up the sidewalk towards Market Street.
But he gets used to it. Just a few blocks, and McCoy is horrified by how much he likes it. Walking like that. Like they’re together. Like they’re in love. Chekov snuggles closer, resting his cheek on McCoy’s shoulder as they pause at a crosswalk.
“Pie,” he sighs.
“On second thought,” McCoy says, “I say we head straight back home for more of those little perogies.”
“Pirozhki,” Chekov corrects, ever patient. “They are delicious with ice cream, too.”
“Yes,” says McCoy. “Absolutely.”
Neither of them says a word about how the sun is setting and thickening the light to something mauve and heavy, or how the bus they take back up to the Tenderloin is going the wrong way for Chekov. McCoy is afraid to ask, but he is hoping Chekov will sleep over again. He wants them to spend the night in the same bed. Maybe that will shore up some of his courage a bit, maybe that will draw them tighter together.
They get off the bus early so they can pick up eight ounces of coconut gelato, and another eight of double-churned vanilla ice cream from the bakery down the street.
As they pass the local pharmacy, and then a series of convenience stores, McCoy sets his mouth against the urge to buy a pack of condoms, just in case. He knows he can’t live with the temptation to use them. But then, he knows already - from the way that Chekov starts to say something, then stops himself - that he won’t get any help in holding out, with or without them.
He can’t move too quickly. He knows he’s an old man, compared to Chekov. Maybe it’s old-fashioned, but he wants to nurture this feeling that he gets from having the kid on his arm before he can move on to anything else, no matter what his dick wants.
Either way, he needs to keep them both safe. He was a doctor for long enough that he can’t ignore certain subjects. Previous partners, past experiences, safe practices, tests. He won’t like asking those questions, but he’ll do it. It’s his responsibility to do it.
As they reach the stairs to the walkup, Chekov pulls back, lingering. “Maybe we-”
“Ice cream,” says McCoy, turning his key in the glass door to the foyer. “Then bed. Work tomorrow.”
Chekov smiles. “Yes,” he says, “Bed. Then ice cream. Then I have to go.”
“Go,” says McCoy. “Go where?”
“Home.” Chekov tilts his head, “My grandmother expects me.”
“You should stay,” McCoy says, coming back down a step, still holding the door open. “Call her and let her know.”
Chekov chuckles, “Honestly, I do not think she wants to know.”
McCoy frowns, “You know what I mean.”
“I cannot stay. I want to, but I can’t.” Chekov’s face is earnest. “Don’t be disappointed.”
McCoy shakes his head. “I’m not,” he lies. “You’re right. Just come upstairs for a little while.”
Chekov nods, and maybe it’s a little strained, the way he stands in McCoy’s kitchen and eats the pastries and the gelato in tiny little bird bites. Quiet, eyes down. McCoy can tell he feels bad, now. That he wants to give him what he wants, but feels the other obligation just as keenly.
It’s fair enough, and McCoy wants it to be fair. Because he wasn’t going to give Chekov what he wanted, either. He just selfishly wanted that warm, lithe body in his bed with him all night. A face to wake up to. Human comfort.
“It’s okay,” McCoy tells him, as he scrapes around the melted ice cream with his spoon. “Maybe tomorrow night.”
Chekov looks up, face bright again, obviously relieved to have an opportunity to make it up. “Yes,” he exclaims. “Tomorrow night!”
McCoy has to laugh at him. And at the door again, downstairs, he kisses him goodbye, still smiling.
(Part IV)