Friends, without the Benefits [1/1]
Name: Friends, without the Benefits [1/1]
Fandom: Star Trek XI
Pairing: Kirk/McCoy
Rating: PG
Summary: Somehow McCoy gets saddled with the not-as-awesome-as-it-sounds job of being the Captain's "wife".
Notes: Written for this prompt at the kink meme. Finally got around to archiving it up here. (I should really get around to writing some Spock/Kirk again. Just to even things out, you know? Or maybe some hot threesome action, if I could ever figure out the semantics of that...)
1.) Dissolving Tension
“He’s been like this for days,” Sulu mutters.
“I swear to God,” Uhura says, “if he glares at me one more time I’ll-”
“Consider your next words carefully, Lieutenant,” Spock says, shifting his eyes from left to right, than left again. “While the Captain remains in this disagreeable mood, I would not put it past him to tag you for insubordination.”
The small group at the mess table goes silent, because while the words describe an almost out-of-character nature for Captain James T. Kirk, it is also undeniable that what Spock is saying is true. Kirk has been on the warpath for three days, after a particularly condescending call from Starfleet Command. No one really knows the details of the transmission, but a few unlucky ensigns recall being near the ready room when he received it. Those ensigns are still stuck on shift in the hydroponic lab with the man-eating plant. Actually, nobody’s really heard from them since yesterday.
“Clearly,” Chekov says, “we must find way to get him relaxed.”
Everyone nods. There’s no doubting that.
“Well then. Good look, Dr. McCoy.” Sulu stands, pats McCoy on the shoulder, and leaves the table with his tray.
“Godspeed,” Uhura says, her voice halfway between sarcastic and sincere, and she leaves as well.
McCoy gets different variations of those same well-wishing words of good luck as each member of his lunch group leaves. Even Spock says, “I am hopeful that your methods in helping the Captain release some of his tension are successful.” He gives a curt nod, actually rests a hand on McCoy’s shoulder, then pivots on one heel and exits the mess.
McCoy sits there and stares at his plate for a few seconds, dumbfounded. He slowly raises his head to see the rest of the occupants of the mess hall giving him various looks of admiration, expectation, and determined hope. Someone even gives him a thumbs up.
McCoy stands and moves toward the exit. A slow clap begins to start.
By the time he’s reached the doors, the whole mess has burst into a riotous round of applause.
2.) Diplomatic Exchanges
“For the last time” McCoy struggles to keep his rage restrained, “I am not. A suitable. Bargaining chip.”
The dusky-purple Santelloid shakes its head (it could have shaken its elbow, though, McCoy’s not too sure). “Au contraire, Doctor McCoy.” (How the hell did the universal translator pick up French?) “We have studied your kind, your ship, and its people. We have chosen who we perceive to be the most valuable to the master and his subjects.”
McCoy snorts. If Jim’s his master than… well, actually, McCoy doesn’t really have anything to follow that up with.
It sure does feel great to be called valuable, though. Granted, this comes from an alien being that’s about to flay his skin from his body before boiling him an a tub of what looks like molten bubble gum, but at least he’d been complimented before all of that got started.
Of course, Jim chooses that second to burst into the strange cellar he’s in, sic Spock on them, and shoot the cuffs that are holding McCoy to the wall.
“Bones, you really need to stop getting kidnapped. That’s the third time this month.” Jim chuckles before heading to the entrance of the cellar and contacting the Enterprise to beam them up.
“Yeah,” McCoy mutters as he feels the tell-tale tingle of dematerialization take hold of his body. “People might start to think I’m important or something.”
3.) Bargaining Chip
“So,” Scotty begins as he sits down in the chair at McCoy’s desk, “I need to ask ye a favor, Doctor.”
McCoy arches an eyebrow. “Scott, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I don’t care what you do with the Enterprise when you’re alone in the Jeffries tubes, but if it’s a serious injury then it has to go on file. No matter how embarrassing, unfortunately. Trust me, the Captain’s had a lot of experience-”
“Ah, er, actually…” Scott fumbled his hands in the air for a few seconds before continuing. “This has do with the Cap’n…” he trails off and looks at McCoy. He’s unusually bashful, the doctor decides. Normally Montgomery Scott obliges in giving informative recounts of even the raunchiest sexual encounters without so much as twitching. But here he stands in the small office at the corner of sickbay, actually blushing.
“Dammit, man,” McCoy says as his eyes widen, “you don’t-you don’t have feelings for him, do you?”
Scotty actually jumps at that. “Oh! No! No, God no, Doctor-I just wanted ta ask ye.. the annual budget memo for the Enterprise came in yesterday, and I was, ah, wondering if the Cap'n could spare a few credits for some new power couplings.”
McCoy looks at the engineer, really looked at him. He stares, long and hard, until Scotty turns his eyes away and clears his throat nervously at the ceiling.
“Why the hell,” McCoy asks, “are you asking me about the damned budget?”
Scotty flushes even more so, if possible, and starts to wave his hands in the air frantically. “No, it’s just, well, you and the Cap’n at close, ye know, and I’ve got it on good authority that you’re the man to go to when ye need somethin’ from the Cap’n...”
McCoy, again, feels dumbfound. “What?”
“If ye ever need anything special, anything electronic of the sort, I’ll be happy to help,” Scotty says hastily. “Just, ye know, do your thing and then remind the Cap’n that Engineering’s been lookin’ a bit shoddy without those new couplings. Listen,” Scotty leans in close now. “I can get you some a prime brew, some quality scotch or a fine old whiskey, even. We’ve got quite a few secrets hidden in those Jeffries tubes.”
“I’m sure you do,” McCoy says, giving Scotty a look that clearly says ”this-conversation-is-over-and-has-been-over-for-the-past-several-minutes-so-what-the-hell-are-you-still-doing-here.”
McCoy can say a lot with his looks. He feels like he should start getting them patented.
Jim Kirk says so much more with just a smile and a wink, though, which is what McCoy gets when he suggests the new power couplings over their breakfast in the mess together. Jim Kirk says so many things with so little words, and yet McCoy can’t even begin to understand half of what he’s said. He does get one thing, though: a certain Chief Engineer’s going to be feeling rather happy in a few weeks time, and McCoy’s going to be getting drunk on possibly-illegally-obtained liquor soon enough. So everyone wins, right?
4.) Protection
Wrong.
“-the hell?” McCoy shouts as the doors to the Sickbay burst open to reveal some neon orange gelatinous creature that surges forward and begins to overtake the pristine walls of the room.
McCoy would have given the situation a proper cursing (because, really, “the hell?” wasn’t an accurate reaction to the scenario at all) but before he can say any more, he’s tackled by two nurses and dragged toward a supply closet at the other end of the room.
“What the fu-let me go, dammit!” He struggles valiantly, but he’s taken off guard so quickly that his medical staff manages to throw him in the storage room and barricade the door before he can really fight back.
“Sorry, sir,” a nurse’s voice-Nurse Parrel, McCoy remembers-sounds from the other side of the door. “But Kirk would kill us if we ever let anything happen to you.”
McCoy pounds on the door, but the nurse retreats, presumably to save the few patients in the sickbay and fight off the terror that threatens to overwhelm its habitants.
McCoy is finally released from the closet after an hour of banging on the door. He tumbles out as Jim pulls the door open, and before the younger man can say anything, McCoy is striding forth to check on the damage.
Apparently the life form that had entered was some sort of creature that had escaped from the one of the labs on another deck. The science division had been monitoring the organisms growth when it had suddenly accelerated rapidly and overtaken the poor scientists within. Though there were only a few injuries (the creature had been mildly acidic, but brief contact didn’t cause too much damage), McCoy has to complete a headcount on his staff and patients, anyway.
Two are dead. One, a patient who was unfortunate enough to lack the mobility to run from the strange organism and had been almost completely eroded by its strange acidic body mass. The other death was Nurse Parrel, who had apparently fought courageously to keep the creature from advancing further into the sickbay.
At Parrel’s memorial, McCoy says a few words. He didn’t know the man too well beyond his medical skills (he'd been a fairly quiet person), but when he goes to sleep that night, McCoy hears the nurse’s words echo in mind far into the night.
”Kirk would kill us if we ever let anything happen to you…”
McCoy slips on his uniform before exiting his quarters and heading toward the Sickbay. He won’t sleep tonight. He can’t.
”Kirk would kill us if we ever let anything happen to you…”
Yeah, well, it’s too late for that, McCoy thinks to himself.
5.) Co-host Boring Parties
McCoy stands at Jim’s right and shoots the man a glare as he launches into another diatribe about some botched diplomatic mission that had saved Starfleet’s ass once again. It’s probably hilarious to the crowd of admirals and captains, who laugh quite openly at Jim’s humorous retelling, but put them in a room with six man-eating plants, two wounded security officers, and a plastic knife as a weapon. Let them see how funny it is, McCoy fumes.
He doesn’t even know why the fuck he’s here. All he knows is that when Jim’s called in to host the some Starfleet charity benefit, the crew of the Enterprise had unanimously voted him to be Jim’s co-host/verbal buffer. Unanimously! Four-hundred people had voted fucking unanimously to put him through this torture!
It was about time, McCoy decides, that the crew got around to updating their inoculations. Complete with incredibly invasive health protocol and procedure, when deemed necessary. Nevermind the fact they’d only set out on their five-year journey about year ago.
So he stands on the stage with what he hopes to be a smile on his face, occasionally interjecting Jim’s speech to get him back on topic or steer him away from some details that probably wouldn’t go well with Starfleet Command. You know, the stuff that even Spock had deemed “unnecessary” to report. Unnecessary, in this case, was Vulcan for “will get us all decommissioned and sent to Delta Vega.” (Come to think of it, McCoy thinks, that’s probably why Scotty suddenly looks frightful whenever Spock uses the word.)
After the opening address, Jim gets around to schmoozing with the admiralty while McCoy hovers near the bar and debates whether or not he should get completely shitfaced to avoid the mind-numbing world of politics. He decides against it (wouldn’t look good for the flagship’s CMO to throw up on somebody’s shoes, after all) and instead grasps a small glass of champagne from a passing waitress and sips in moderation.
He jumps slightly when Jim appears by his side, almost like a ghost. “So Bones,” he says, “enjoying the party?” He has that smirk on his face, that trademarked Jim Kirk “I’ve-always-got-everything-under-control” look. It really makes McCoy want to punch it right off his face, sometimes, though sometimes the urge tends less toward punching or more toward kissing that smug look into oblivion…
McCoy stifles that train of thought immediately. It had taken a while for him to recognize his feelings for his best friend. As it turned out, the crew had figured it out long before him. It was only after Parrel’s death that McCoy really began to look at what he meant to Jim Kirk, and what Jim meant to him.
And McCoy has decided that while his affection for his captain borders on something like love, Jim’s feelings toward his CMO are purely platonic. Jim’s smiles and winks and grins may say more than McCoy can properly interpret, but they can’t possibly be anything more than companionable vibes. Jim is smart and strong and sexy and a million other things, and here, when they’re standing at the wall in this wide room full of hundreds of people, Jim is still the center of attention. He can have any one of these people in his bed at a moment’s notice, McCoy thinks, without even trying. So why settle for less? Why settle for Leonard McCoy when he can grab something younger, prettier, more amiable than McCoy can ever hope to be?
He stops this train of thought because it always gets obscenely depressing. He’s resigned to the facts and that’s just about it. Jim is Jim, and he’s always do what he wants. If that includes bedding just about whoever he wants, well… the best McCoy can do is give him hypos and keep him clean for his next encounters. And he’s okay with that, really. Not happy, but okay.
Jim nudges him a bit, and McCoy raises his eyes to meet Jim’s piercing blue. “What’s the matter?” Jim asks, his smirk fading to a slightly concerned expression. “You’re never usually this quiet at these things. I mean, look, there’s a million people to covertly insult and you’re not taking a stab at a single one!”
McCoy shrugs a shoulder, takes a sip of his champagne. “Just not up to it, I guess.”
Jim rolls his eyes and a smile breaks out upon his face. “Well, get up to it, then. I brought you here because you’re the only one who’ll keep me sane while I’m forced to lick some admiral’s boots. If it were anyone else, I’d probably have offended half the crowd to tears by now.” He shrugs a shoulder, mimicking McCoy. “Or I’d have set them on fire. Either way, the night would have gone to complete shit.”
McCoy tries to hide his smile, but Jim sees it, and returns it. And then he says something that streals McCoy’s breath away, even if it’s just intended to be an offhanded, friendly remark.
“I need you, Bones.”
McCoy freezes up a bit, turns and looks at Jim with wide eyes. And Jim’s eyes are looking up toward the ceiling, fixed on the chandelier as if it’s the most amazing thing to have been invented since transparent aluminum. He makes no attempt to clarify his words, and in the dim light McCoy can see the faintest tint of red flushing through Jim’s cheeks.
Jim Kirk, blushing. Well, now McCoy won’t be entirely surprised when they show up at a planet where pigs have wings, that’s for certain.
1.) "Relationship"
So McCoy’s been acting sort of like the Captain’s wife in the short year that they’ve been out in the black, but so far he hasn’t gotten any of the benefits besides their friendship. All of the hard work and only some of the benefits, really.
That all changes the night of the charity ball when they get back to the Enterprise.
Jim grasps McCoy’s hand as they step off the shuttle and pulls him through the corridors and up a few decks until they arrive at the Captain’s quarters. McCoy, in his confusion, tries to protest. Each time Jim holds a finger to his lips and smiles a small, sincere smile. When they get to Jim’s quarters, the younger man pulls him into the bedroom and pushes him onto the bed, all in one swift moment.
“Jim,” McCoy is excited and confused and just a little bit scared, because he knows what’s going to happen and he’s powerless to stop it. He’s been powerless against Jim Kirk ever since their meeting on that shuttle. “This is a bad idea, Jim.” He squeezes his eyes shut and prepares to launch into an explanation as to why sleeping together would be a horrible-yet-extremely-appealing idea.
Instead, he hears Jim laughing. Laughing, for Christ’s sake. He cracks open an eye to see Jim wipe a tear of mirth from his eyes. “What the hell’s so funny?” McCoy asks.
“Bones,” Jims says, and that small smile that looks paradoxically innocent on Jim Kirk appears again. “This is a great idea. This the best idea I’ve had in… probably forever, actually.”
McCoy narrows his eyes, turns his head slightly. “What?”
Jim has finally recovered from his laughing fit and he drops onto the bed with a rather unceremonious plop. “Y’know how long I’ve been trying to say that, Bones? What I said at the party… I’ve been trying to say it forever and I could never really find the words…”
“You need me,” McCoy echoes Jim’s earlier words, feeling a little skeptical.
Jim inclines his head slightly as a response. “I need you. Not just to keep me from going insane at diplomatic parties or bouncing off the walls or going psycho on the crew. I need you because you’re my best friend, and because you look after me when I can’t look after myself. Because you sort of anchor me to reality, keep me from floating off and getting lost out there.” He gestures to the port at the edge of his room, where the black of space greets them with unending darkness.
“I need you,” Jim says, and his voice drops an octave, “because I want you.”
McCoy’s breath hitches in his chest.
“Sexually,” Jim adds.
McCoy can’t help it: he snorts at first, then cracks up outright. Jim begins to laugh too. “Way to kill the mood, Casanova,” McCoy manages between cackles.
Jim rolls his eyes. “I’m just trying to get it across that I want you, and I want to, you know, be with you, but I don’t want this to change, us being friends. Because some people get together and when they get intimate, things get weird. They start getting secretive and bitchy and distant, bizarrely enough, and I don’t want us to be like that-“
“I get it, I get it,” McCoy says. And he does get it. How they feel doesn’t have to affect how they act toward each other. They can be madly, hopelessly, ridiculously in love with one other, but first and foremost they’ll be best friends. They always will be, and nothing will change that, even a relationship upgrade like this. He’s been looking after Jim Kirk since the day they’d met, and in his own roundabout way, Jim’s been doing the same.
So maybe he’s always been the Captain’s Wife, in a sense. Now he’s just made it a little more official.
Fandom: Star Trek XI
Pairing: Kirk/McCoy
Rating: PG
Summary: Somehow McCoy gets saddled with the not-as-awesome-as-it-sounds job of being the Captain's "wife".
Notes: Written for this prompt at the kink meme. Finally got around to archiving it up here. (I should really get around to writing some Spock/Kirk again. Just to even things out, you know? Or maybe some hot threesome action, if I could ever figure out the semantics of that...)
1.) Dissolving Tension
“He’s been like this for days,” Sulu mutters.
“I swear to God,” Uhura says, “if he glares at me one more time I’ll-”
“Consider your next words carefully, Lieutenant,” Spock says, shifting his eyes from left to right, than left again. “While the Captain remains in this disagreeable mood, I would not put it past him to tag you for insubordination.”
The small group at the mess table goes silent, because while the words describe an almost out-of-character nature for Captain James T. Kirk, it is also undeniable that what Spock is saying is true. Kirk has been on the warpath for three days, after a particularly condescending call from Starfleet Command. No one really knows the details of the transmission, but a few unlucky ensigns recall being near the ready room when he received it. Those ensigns are still stuck on shift in the hydroponic lab with the man-eating plant. Actually, nobody’s really heard from them since yesterday.
“Clearly,” Chekov says, “we must find way to get him relaxed.”
Everyone nods. There’s no doubting that.
“Well then. Good look, Dr. McCoy.” Sulu stands, pats McCoy on the shoulder, and leaves the table with his tray.
“Godspeed,” Uhura says, her voice halfway between sarcastic and sincere, and she leaves as well.
McCoy gets different variations of those same well-wishing words of good luck as each member of his lunch group leaves. Even Spock says, “I am hopeful that your methods in helping the Captain release some of his tension are successful.” He gives a curt nod, actually rests a hand on McCoy’s shoulder, then pivots on one heel and exits the mess.
McCoy sits there and stares at his plate for a few seconds, dumbfounded. He slowly raises his head to see the rest of the occupants of the mess hall giving him various looks of admiration, expectation, and determined hope. Someone even gives him a thumbs up.
McCoy stands and moves toward the exit. A slow clap begins to start.
By the time he’s reached the doors, the whole mess has burst into a riotous round of applause.
2.) Diplomatic Exchanges
“For the last time” McCoy struggles to keep his rage restrained, “I am not. A suitable. Bargaining chip.”
The dusky-purple Santelloid shakes its head (it could have shaken its elbow, though, McCoy’s not too sure). “Au contraire, Doctor McCoy.” (How the hell did the universal translator pick up French?) “We have studied your kind, your ship, and its people. We have chosen who we perceive to be the most valuable to the master and his subjects.”
McCoy snorts. If Jim’s his master than… well, actually, McCoy doesn’t really have anything to follow that up with.
It sure does feel great to be called valuable, though. Granted, this comes from an alien being that’s about to flay his skin from his body before boiling him an a tub of what looks like molten bubble gum, but at least he’d been complimented before all of that got started.
Of course, Jim chooses that second to burst into the strange cellar he’s in, sic Spock on them, and shoot the cuffs that are holding McCoy to the wall.
“Bones, you really need to stop getting kidnapped. That’s the third time this month.” Jim chuckles before heading to the entrance of the cellar and contacting the Enterprise to beam them up.
“Yeah,” McCoy mutters as he feels the tell-tale tingle of dematerialization take hold of his body. “People might start to think I’m important or something.”
3.) Bargaining Chip
“So,” Scotty begins as he sits down in the chair at McCoy’s desk, “I need to ask ye a favor, Doctor.”
McCoy arches an eyebrow. “Scott, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I don’t care what you do with the Enterprise when you’re alone in the Jeffries tubes, but if it’s a serious injury then it has to go on file. No matter how embarrassing, unfortunately. Trust me, the Captain’s had a lot of experience-”
“Ah, er, actually…” Scott fumbled his hands in the air for a few seconds before continuing. “This has do with the Cap’n…” he trails off and looks at McCoy. He’s unusually bashful, the doctor decides. Normally Montgomery Scott obliges in giving informative recounts of even the raunchiest sexual encounters without so much as twitching. But here he stands in the small office at the corner of sickbay, actually blushing.
“Dammit, man,” McCoy says as his eyes widen, “you don’t-you don’t have feelings for him, do you?”
Scotty actually jumps at that. “Oh! No! No, God no, Doctor-I just wanted ta ask ye.. the annual budget memo for the Enterprise came in yesterday, and I was, ah, wondering if the Cap'n could spare a few credits for some new power couplings.”
McCoy looks at the engineer, really looked at him. He stares, long and hard, until Scotty turns his eyes away and clears his throat nervously at the ceiling.
“Why the hell,” McCoy asks, “are you asking me about the damned budget?”
Scotty flushes even more so, if possible, and starts to wave his hands in the air frantically. “No, it’s just, well, you and the Cap’n at close, ye know, and I’ve got it on good authority that you’re the man to go to when ye need somethin’ from the Cap’n...”
McCoy, again, feels dumbfound. “What?”
“If ye ever need anything special, anything electronic of the sort, I’ll be happy to help,” Scotty says hastily. “Just, ye know, do your thing and then remind the Cap’n that Engineering’s been lookin’ a bit shoddy without those new couplings. Listen,” Scotty leans in close now. “I can get you some a prime brew, some quality scotch or a fine old whiskey, even. We’ve got quite a few secrets hidden in those Jeffries tubes.”
“I’m sure you do,” McCoy says, giving Scotty a look that clearly says ”this-conversation-is-over-and-has-been-over-for-the-past-several-minutes-so-what-the-hell-are-you-still-doing-here.”
McCoy can say a lot with his looks. He feels like he should start getting them patented.
Jim Kirk says so much more with just a smile and a wink, though, which is what McCoy gets when he suggests the new power couplings over their breakfast in the mess together. Jim Kirk says so many things with so little words, and yet McCoy can’t even begin to understand half of what he’s said. He does get one thing, though: a certain Chief Engineer’s going to be feeling rather happy in a few weeks time, and McCoy’s going to be getting drunk on possibly-illegally-obtained liquor soon enough. So everyone wins, right?
4.) Protection
Wrong.
“-the hell?” McCoy shouts as the doors to the Sickbay burst open to reveal some neon orange gelatinous creature that surges forward and begins to overtake the pristine walls of the room.
McCoy would have given the situation a proper cursing (because, really, “the hell?” wasn’t an accurate reaction to the scenario at all) but before he can say any more, he’s tackled by two nurses and dragged toward a supply closet at the other end of the room.
“What the fu-let me go, dammit!” He struggles valiantly, but he’s taken off guard so quickly that his medical staff manages to throw him in the storage room and barricade the door before he can really fight back.
“Sorry, sir,” a nurse’s voice-Nurse Parrel, McCoy remembers-sounds from the other side of the door. “But Kirk would kill us if we ever let anything happen to you.”
McCoy pounds on the door, but the nurse retreats, presumably to save the few patients in the sickbay and fight off the terror that threatens to overwhelm its habitants.
McCoy is finally released from the closet after an hour of banging on the door. He tumbles out as Jim pulls the door open, and before the younger man can say anything, McCoy is striding forth to check on the damage.
Apparently the life form that had entered was some sort of creature that had escaped from the one of the labs on another deck. The science division had been monitoring the organisms growth when it had suddenly accelerated rapidly and overtaken the poor scientists within. Though there were only a few injuries (the creature had been mildly acidic, but brief contact didn’t cause too much damage), McCoy has to complete a headcount on his staff and patients, anyway.
Two are dead. One, a patient who was unfortunate enough to lack the mobility to run from the strange organism and had been almost completely eroded by its strange acidic body mass. The other death was Nurse Parrel, who had apparently fought courageously to keep the creature from advancing further into the sickbay.
At Parrel’s memorial, McCoy says a few words. He didn’t know the man too well beyond his medical skills (he'd been a fairly quiet person), but when he goes to sleep that night, McCoy hears the nurse’s words echo in mind far into the night.
”Kirk would kill us if we ever let anything happen to you…”
McCoy slips on his uniform before exiting his quarters and heading toward the Sickbay. He won’t sleep tonight. He can’t.
”Kirk would kill us if we ever let anything happen to you…”
Yeah, well, it’s too late for that, McCoy thinks to himself.
5.) Co-host Boring Parties
McCoy stands at Jim’s right and shoots the man a glare as he launches into another diatribe about some botched diplomatic mission that had saved Starfleet’s ass once again. It’s probably hilarious to the crowd of admirals and captains, who laugh quite openly at Jim’s humorous retelling, but put them in a room with six man-eating plants, two wounded security officers, and a plastic knife as a weapon. Let them see how funny it is, McCoy fumes.
He doesn’t even know why the fuck he’s here. All he knows is that when Jim’s called in to host the some Starfleet charity benefit, the crew of the Enterprise had unanimously voted him to be Jim’s co-host/verbal buffer. Unanimously! Four-hundred people had voted fucking unanimously to put him through this torture!
It was about time, McCoy decides, that the crew got around to updating their inoculations. Complete with incredibly invasive health protocol and procedure, when deemed necessary. Nevermind the fact they’d only set out on their five-year journey about year ago.
So he stands on the stage with what he hopes to be a smile on his face, occasionally interjecting Jim’s speech to get him back on topic or steer him away from some details that probably wouldn’t go well with Starfleet Command. You know, the stuff that even Spock had deemed “unnecessary” to report. Unnecessary, in this case, was Vulcan for “will get us all decommissioned and sent to Delta Vega.” (Come to think of it, McCoy thinks, that’s probably why Scotty suddenly looks frightful whenever Spock uses the word.)
After the opening address, Jim gets around to schmoozing with the admiralty while McCoy hovers near the bar and debates whether or not he should get completely shitfaced to avoid the mind-numbing world of politics. He decides against it (wouldn’t look good for the flagship’s CMO to throw up on somebody’s shoes, after all) and instead grasps a small glass of champagne from a passing waitress and sips in moderation.
He jumps slightly when Jim appears by his side, almost like a ghost. “So Bones,” he says, “enjoying the party?” He has that smirk on his face, that trademarked Jim Kirk “I’ve-always-got-everything-under-control” look. It really makes McCoy want to punch it right off his face, sometimes, though sometimes the urge tends less toward punching or more toward kissing that smug look into oblivion…
McCoy stifles that train of thought immediately. It had taken a while for him to recognize his feelings for his best friend. As it turned out, the crew had figured it out long before him. It was only after Parrel’s death that McCoy really began to look at what he meant to Jim Kirk, and what Jim meant to him.
And McCoy has decided that while his affection for his captain borders on something like love, Jim’s feelings toward his CMO are purely platonic. Jim’s smiles and winks and grins may say more than McCoy can properly interpret, but they can’t possibly be anything more than companionable vibes. Jim is smart and strong and sexy and a million other things, and here, when they’re standing at the wall in this wide room full of hundreds of people, Jim is still the center of attention. He can have any one of these people in his bed at a moment’s notice, McCoy thinks, without even trying. So why settle for less? Why settle for Leonard McCoy when he can grab something younger, prettier, more amiable than McCoy can ever hope to be?
He stops this train of thought because it always gets obscenely depressing. He’s resigned to the facts and that’s just about it. Jim is Jim, and he’s always do what he wants. If that includes bedding just about whoever he wants, well… the best McCoy can do is give him hypos and keep him clean for his next encounters. And he’s okay with that, really. Not happy, but okay.
Jim nudges him a bit, and McCoy raises his eyes to meet Jim’s piercing blue. “What’s the matter?” Jim asks, his smirk fading to a slightly concerned expression. “You’re never usually this quiet at these things. I mean, look, there’s a million people to covertly insult and you’re not taking a stab at a single one!”
McCoy shrugs a shoulder, takes a sip of his champagne. “Just not up to it, I guess.”
Jim rolls his eyes and a smile breaks out upon his face. “Well, get up to it, then. I brought you here because you’re the only one who’ll keep me sane while I’m forced to lick some admiral’s boots. If it were anyone else, I’d probably have offended half the crowd to tears by now.” He shrugs a shoulder, mimicking McCoy. “Or I’d have set them on fire. Either way, the night would have gone to complete shit.”
McCoy tries to hide his smile, but Jim sees it, and returns it. And then he says something that streals McCoy’s breath away, even if it’s just intended to be an offhanded, friendly remark.
“I need you, Bones.”
McCoy freezes up a bit, turns and looks at Jim with wide eyes. And Jim’s eyes are looking up toward the ceiling, fixed on the chandelier as if it’s the most amazing thing to have been invented since transparent aluminum. He makes no attempt to clarify his words, and in the dim light McCoy can see the faintest tint of red flushing through Jim’s cheeks.
Jim Kirk, blushing. Well, now McCoy won’t be entirely surprised when they show up at a planet where pigs have wings, that’s for certain.
1.) "Relationship"
So McCoy’s been acting sort of like the Captain’s wife in the short year that they’ve been out in the black, but so far he hasn’t gotten any of the benefits besides their friendship. All of the hard work and only some of the benefits, really.
That all changes the night of the charity ball when they get back to the Enterprise.
Jim grasps McCoy’s hand as they step off the shuttle and pulls him through the corridors and up a few decks until they arrive at the Captain’s quarters. McCoy, in his confusion, tries to protest. Each time Jim holds a finger to his lips and smiles a small, sincere smile. When they get to Jim’s quarters, the younger man pulls him into the bedroom and pushes him onto the bed, all in one swift moment.
“Jim,” McCoy is excited and confused and just a little bit scared, because he knows what’s going to happen and he’s powerless to stop it. He’s been powerless against Jim Kirk ever since their meeting on that shuttle. “This is a bad idea, Jim.” He squeezes his eyes shut and prepares to launch into an explanation as to why sleeping together would be a horrible-yet-extremely-appealing idea.
Instead, he hears Jim laughing. Laughing, for Christ’s sake. He cracks open an eye to see Jim wipe a tear of mirth from his eyes. “What the hell’s so funny?” McCoy asks.
“Bones,” Jims says, and that small smile that looks paradoxically innocent on Jim Kirk appears again. “This is a great idea. This the best idea I’ve had in… probably forever, actually.”
McCoy narrows his eyes, turns his head slightly. “What?”
Jim has finally recovered from his laughing fit and he drops onto the bed with a rather unceremonious plop. “Y’know how long I’ve been trying to say that, Bones? What I said at the party… I’ve been trying to say it forever and I could never really find the words…”
“You need me,” McCoy echoes Jim’s earlier words, feeling a little skeptical.
Jim inclines his head slightly as a response. “I need you. Not just to keep me from going insane at diplomatic parties or bouncing off the walls or going psycho on the crew. I need you because you’re my best friend, and because you look after me when I can’t look after myself. Because you sort of anchor me to reality, keep me from floating off and getting lost out there.” He gestures to the port at the edge of his room, where the black of space greets them with unending darkness.
“I need you,” Jim says, and his voice drops an octave, “because I want you.”
McCoy’s breath hitches in his chest.
“Sexually,” Jim adds.
McCoy can’t help it: he snorts at first, then cracks up outright. Jim begins to laugh too. “Way to kill the mood, Casanova,” McCoy manages between cackles.
Jim rolls his eyes. “I’m just trying to get it across that I want you, and I want to, you know, be with you, but I don’t want this to change, us being friends. Because some people get together and when they get intimate, things get weird. They start getting secretive and bitchy and distant, bizarrely enough, and I don’t want us to be like that-“
“I get it, I get it,” McCoy says. And he does get it. How they feel doesn’t have to affect how they act toward each other. They can be madly, hopelessly, ridiculously in love with one other, but first and foremost they’ll be best friends. They always will be, and nothing will change that, even a relationship upgrade like this. He’s been looking after Jim Kirk since the day they’d met, and in his own roundabout way, Jim’s been doing the same.
So maybe he’s always been the Captain’s Wife, in a sense. Now he’s just made it a little more official.