Fic: Running Up That Hill (1/1)
Title: Running Up That Hill
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Kirk/McCoy
Word Count: 6,821
Summary: Sometimes, relationships are difficult. Sometimes, loving someone is the hardest thing you’ll ever learn to do. For barrowjane at the trek_exchange Fic Exchange; Prompt “Kirk/McCoy; ‘unaware that I'm tearing you asunder’.” Spoilers for Star Trek XI (2009).
Disclaimer: I own nothing but the plot. Title belongs to Kate Bush; inspired by Placebo.
Author’s Notes: For barrowjane: All of your prompt-lyrics were fantastic, but I’ve been trying to write something around this particular song for a really long time, and it happened to finally decide to work itself out at your request. Mostly the product of a crappy sort of week, and this plot bunny I’ve been pondering for some time now - mainly, what exactly a relationship between two complicated, commitment-phobic men with semi-dysfunctional pasts might look like without the rose-colored glasses. It does contain gratuitous amounts of drama, romance, angst, sap, brooding, SAP (in case you didn’t get that the first time), and melancholy - so I really hope you don’t mind those too much. Finally, apologies if it seems rushed at points - this was originally much shorter, not to mention that it was also meant to be something much different. It... got away from me (surprise, surprise).
Running Up That Hill
They start this slow, simple; and it’s foreign to the both of them, because they take this life at the speed of fucking light, and nothing - nothing - is ever simple.
And Jim doesn’t know if it’s actually going to work. He only really agrees to give it a go because Bones seems to like the idea, though part of him suspects that Bones is only into it in the first place because he thinks Jim wants them to be something more serious, something more solid. Which is more than a little absurd, considering who Jim is, but seeing as he isn’t putting up much of a fight, maybe Bones is a little closer to the mark with that assumption than Jim’s willing to admit.
He still doesn’t know if this is going to work.
He really hates not knowing things.
__________________________________
There are all kinds of sexual partners. Jim’s really good at being just about all of them. Strong, silent, forceful, giving. Loud. Soft. Loving. Taking. Needing. Wanting. Invested. Detached. He’s figured out the semantics, the blueprints for each and every act, and while he feels - he always feels - no matter which role he plays, he can always tell what’s real and what isn’t. What pools warm in his gut as opposed to what stretches tight in his chest. Because there’s a difference, there’s a line, and he’s always known where it crosses - so the first thing he did was burn the fucking bridge. Because he’s really good at what he does.
Only it turns out that he’s absolute shit at being the kind of partner who fucks like it means something, sleeps between strong arms, and then wakes up to a cold side of the bed like nothing ever happened. Maybe it’s that Jim’s too accustomed to doing the using, that it seems almost unnatural to end up feeling so fucking used himself. Maybe it takes him too far back, strips him too fucking bare to be left hanging, out of control. Either way, he finds that whilst he’s often excelled at the loving-and-leaving, he’s not exactly okay with being the loved-and-left.
Except that’s not even it, exactly, and he knows it. It’s not as if they’d spelled out what this would be. And it’s not as if Bones avoids him, or ignores him, or treats him any differently, really, when their path cross in the course of a day. In fact, the good doctor sits a little bit closer to him over lunch, waits for him as he replicates his food, even as his own tray’s getting cold, only grumbles every other day when he comes down to kill time in medical - and, for the record, Jim has only been forcibly thrown from sickbay once by his agitated CMO in the past week. And the sex; the sex has always been good between them, but some unspoken surge of... something, changed, sparked between them as soon as it became more than just a quick tumble during finals week, or a little life-affirming fuck after a crisis, some mutual stress relief. Something changed, and Jim’s really fucking glad for that something, because he’ll never say it aloud, but it’s the best he’s ever had. And he’s had a whole shit-ton. So it’s not that he’s being loved-and-left, really. Well, it is; but then again, it’s not.
He doesn’t know what it is.
And besides, love doesn’t even equate here. Love is not what they’re about.
Only Jim can’t really say what it is they are about. He can’t find his line, doesn’t know where he stands, and he can barely breathe for the fist clenching tight around his lungs, playing at his heart and setting his chest on fire, and he doesn’t know what this means, what this is - and what can’t be known can be made to mean anything.
That terrifies him. Always has.
He leaves his quarters after Bones dozes off and sleeps in his ready room to prove a point that night, but the next evening the cycle merely starts again; and heart racing through the night beneath a palm he knows won’t last till morning, he feels distinctly like he’s already lost this battle. And the outlook for the war at large isn’t particularly promising.
Fuck.
__________________________________
Bones had always been aggressive in the bedroom. Or the hallway. Or the nasty fucking bathrooms on some backwater planet’s poor excuse for a pub. Long story short - Jim had spent enough time under the dermal, had passed enough gamma shifts with the vascular regenerator on him for the bites and scrapes and bruises that his uniform couldn’t cover to know what Bones could be like. He’d never thought all the much of it, really, because he was Jim fucking Kirk and he never failed to give what he got back in spades. Plus he’d always kind of liked it, because the push of a man’s hands on his chest, or the scrape of a man’s stubby nails down his spine, or the way a man’s teeth could tear through flesh was always so powerful, so separate from his seemingly-endless string of female partners - who even at their most primal were never quite the same - and it always got him hard; that dichotomy, that difference.
When he wakes in the morning, he studies the punctures, the tears in his skin, watches where they fade from pink to red, the harshest of them centered in violets and taupes, and he traces them across his shoulder blades, down along the line of his clavicle, against his sternum, behind his earlobes, at the jut of his hips, some already fading, already invisible. He stretches, and it stings, and it’s only then that he realizes how fleeting this is, how finite, the threat of its loss singing through him like the soft lament of the stars, ringing in his veins; only then does he realize that this is the only way that Bones knows to talk to him, to tell him the things that no one else can know - he whispers the violent and passionate and heartfelt things he cannot put in words into these marks, these brands, for Jim to find and know in his own time; to comprehend - to cherish - when he’s ready.
And it hurts to recognize that simple fact - more than the pull of serrated skin or the stretch of scar tissue or the residual burn of a good, hard fuck on the floor; it hurts because it poisons the joy that comes from being worthy of the confessions themselves, the very sacred secrets he’s been entrusted to keep.
Hollow fucking victory, that.
__________________________________
It takes two months before Bones stays next to Jim for a whole night. Jim almost panics at the feeling of warm flesh, bare skin and the soft prick of chest hair on his back when he opens his eyes, but the scent calms his nerves, the soft hint of mint and sweat that he knows, that he breathes in as comfort and safety and calm. He settles, noting the time as early enough to close his eyes again, and when the rough creases of a hand slide from his shoulder to the center of his chest, it’s more instinct than an actual choice to fold into the touch, soft and unexpected as it is - the promise of things he’s never been given, never known he’d wanted before now.
He eases awake to the sound of rain just before the ship’s computer rouses him, and he blinks too long before he realizes that someone’s in his shower. He doesn’t know what to think of that, so he goes about replicating some toast - the pear core on the plate already on the countertop, and the half-eaten bowl of grits next to it, sets something pulled to snapping free in him, and he doesn’t know how to feel, how to react; only knows that the toast is too damn crisp and tastes like ash against his tongue when he takes a bite. On a whim, he dips the burnt crust into the corn-mush next to him, and when bites again he can tell the difference, can taste the salt and the butter complementing, canceling out the carbon, white on black as he swallows, and the bread sticks in his throat a little, like it’s trying to make a point, before he washes it down with the cold coffee that’s sitting next to the pear.
He’s not sure what it means, only he’s pretty sure that it means something.
He’s the cheshire fucking cat as Bones emerges in a cloud of condensation, towel slung low on his hips and hair wet in a way that’s downright sinful as it slides over his forehead, teasing against his brows. Jim reaches out to slap the ass that saunters past him, the resultant chuckle following him as he goes to shower himself. The door’s already sliding closed behind him as a towel snakes through to snap at his hip, sending the mechanism in reverse at the motion trip and giving Jim a full view of Bones in his god-given glory, still rosy from the heat and smirking like anything before Jim tosses the towel back at him with a good natured “Fucker” shot under his breath before he strips down and climbs beneath the spray. And he thinks that maybe, in some unidentified, indeterminate future, he could get used to this. He could figure this out.
Tugging down his undershirt as he emerges from the restroom some time later, he thinks at first that he’s alone. It’s not until he catches the scuff of shoes dropping to the floor that he turns, taking in Bones where he’d been reclining in Jim’s favorite chair, feet on the coffee table and hands folded behind his head, simply watching. Waiting, maybe. For what, though, Jim doesn’t know.
He feels hazel eyes following him as he shrugs on his command golds and pulls on his boots, wondering why in the hell Bones hasn’t left yet, because the man is intrinsically punctual in ways Jim couldn’t quite wrap his head around, and according to the computer, he’s pushing a mere ten minutes early for shift, if he leaves right then and sprints to medbay like a Klingon was coming after his ass. Jim gives him a strange look as he walks past, pausing to appreciate the way Bones’s legs are spread where he sits, the way his trousers run along his thighs, seams tucked against the outline of that fantastic cock. Jim licks his lips as he walks towards the door, sparing one last look towards the chair, where Bones is standing now, face blank enough to tell Jim something’s up, but not showing any indication of following Jim out. The little nagging voice in the back of his head tells him to stop, just for a moment, and so he does, just inside the open door, eyes narrowed as he watches Bones seem to debate, to ponder before taking one careful step, another, crossing the room to stand toe-to-toe with Jim and burning hard, retina to retina, for the intensity of the other man’s gaze upon him. He can feel Bones’s breath on his lips, and it stirs things in him he doesn’t want to understand; and for the life of him, all he can think of is that they don’t stand face to face enough, they don’t look into each other’s eyes anymore, and he thinks he knows why, because those eyes are startling, and they see fucking everything, and maybe they both have things to hide now that hadn’t been there before. He can see flashes of his own baby blues in those seas of murky green, flashing like brilliant streaks of sky through the trees, and he has to focus on breathing, every single breath, because he’s dizzy and he’s lightheaded and he’s beginning to forget what it means to inhale.
They’re so close, so fucking close, that when he manages a breath as he wets his lips, he nearly strokes Bones’s mouth with his tongue in the process, and for the barest of instants Jim feels like himself, feels in control. He pulls back just the slightest bit, desperate to keep the balance, just enough that air comes easier to him; enough that he can see the swift and subtle change in his friend that speaks volumes, that sinks in the pit of his stomach with the weight of warning and guilt before he can ever place the whys.
“Have a good day, Captain.” Voice gruff and face strangely open for being so damn trained, so fucking stoic, Bones is around him and halfway down the corridor before Jim can so much as blink twice. And all he can wonder is what the hell the good doctor had been waiting around for in the first place if he’d been in such a fucking hurry.
__________________________________
Later, he’s on the bridge, and whisking through the black, he has a few minutes to simply sit and stare, to ponder without interruption. His eyes catch on any number of things: the straight line of Chekov’s slender back, Hannity’s hair starting to fall with the passing of the hours, Sarvora’s blue scales catching the lighting, the way Uhura stands next to Spock, close enough to feel his heartbeat, to taste him on the air, he’s sure of it. He watches them from the corner of his eye, trying to be nonchalant, and he recognizes even across the distance the intensity of her gaze, the meaning in her posture as she stands firm and wills her lover to pay her mind. The effort of resistance on his XO’s part is admirable, but it’s short lived - he glances around hesitantly, and Jim makes certain to be staring resolutely forward when Spock looks his way, before angling back to watch as an exceptionally talented human mouth touches softly, swiftly to the flush of Vulcan cheeks, so quick it barely happens, so suddenly that no one notices. Only Jim.
And something clicks, leaves him staring through the pair, past them, because fuck all, it makes sense.
In retrospect, he realizes that Bones had been waiting for a kiss.
The fingers of his left hand dig into the armrest as his right hand covers his eyes, thumb and forefinger sliding down to pinch the bridge of his nose as everything falls into place, as the morning that had seemed so simple and foreign and so complex takes on new significance in his head, and it becomes startlingly clear that Jim just isn’t equipped to deal with this shit if he can’t even realize when the man he’s been sleeping with for weeks wants a fucking kiss.
And thinking about it now, recalling the hard, concentrated throb of his heart as he’d stood, caught in the intricate web of those motherfucking eyes - he’s pretty sure that the intention should have been obvious. To anyone else.
Goddamnit.
__________________________________
Bones doesn’t even come to him the next night, and Jim nearly puts a hole through the fucking wall for the tremble, the fear - fucking fear, and worse than that, the blinding, wrenching fear of that fear - it sends through him to be alone again. It’s an anger he can’t place, because it’s not the same sort of rush that sends him brawling over barstools, breaking bottles of José and Tanqueray; and it’s not the type that drives him to run, guns blazing, into the fray to save one of his own, that sheer sense of violation that leads him to disregard all else, to simply get his people back. It’s not the anger of neglect, or of disappointment, and it’s not the anger that had fueled him through his teenage years, that smoldering rebellion that scalded his lungs and sent him running, fucking running to the ends of the earth. But if it’s close to anything, it’s closest to that. The running. It tastes of the same emptiness, the same prick in his gut that it’s all useless, so goddamned useless.
Jim doesn’t remember what it’s like to depend on someone - to need someone other than himself; it’s been so long since he’s had to, and longer still since he could, even before that. But if he could remember, he imagines it would feel like this.
Bones is back the next night, though. And Jim doesn’t say anything, just lets Bones wrap around him from behind and sync his breathing to Jim’s own; but inside, he nearly collapses, crumbles at the way the adrenaline leaves him, at the knowledge that if he’d ever had an Achilles heel, this was it.
__________________________________
It takes another three weeks before Jim sleeps with a woman on shore leave, crowded in a seedy hotel in East-Bumfuck, Alpha Centauri, because it’s as far as he can get from the guilt that sinks in his gut like lead with every sloppy kiss, every thrust between that heady tightness, that wet heat - every time he refuses to look at her, refuses to so much as meet her eyes.
He’s back all of three minutes, the clang of his keys on the table still echoing as Bones approaches, datapad between his fingers and hair mussed from where he’d been lounging on the sofa, and Jim realizes with a pang that the man in front of him’s beautiful. Really fucking beautiful. When Bones leans in, Jim does all he can not to stiffen, not to shake, because he’s done some abysmally stupid things in his life, but this one? This one doesn’t quite compare. There’s guilt with this one.
Maybe Bones won’t notice.
“Chanel.”
The floor gives out beneath him, and Jim feels a bit like he’s been sucker-punched. The tip of Bones’s nose drags teasingly along Jim’s jaw, and this time Jim can’t suppress the shiver, because suddenly he’s cold, so fucking cold, and the burn of that breath on his skin is excruciating. Due punishment.
“Shower, yeah?” Bones murmurs against his cheek, the quirk of his lips pulling at Jim’s skin as he smirks, his fingers light on Jim’s hip as he brushes around him. “My ex wore that,” he leans into the crook of Jim’s neck and breathes deep, stealing all the air from the room and leaving none of it for Jim, whose world freezes until everything seems stagnant, and very far away; “You smell like her.”
And Jim just stands there, as Bones retreats to the bedroom, blinking through things he can’t see, and knowing that it’s all an exercise in futility. What’s done is done, and it doesn’t even fucking matter what he thinks he knows, what he’s realized, what he wants. The sting of the shower spray is brutal, angry - a litany of regret coming down on his skin, and he tries like hell to remember the feeling, the high of the experience to at least soothe the ache; but it’s like there never was one, like it hadn’t even happened - like a hangover you feel for the whole next day from a night you know couldn’t have been worth it.
He uses every soap they have to scrub away his transgression, to wash away the scent, but he can still find its ghost on the air every time. It’s so fucking wrong.
Jim doesn’t expect Bones to be in the bed when he gets out, doesn’t expect that endearing half-snore to be coloring the sound of his steady breathing, the soft music of an honest moonlit night. He hesitates, taking longer to strip than necessary, throwing the clothes he takes off into the trash because there’s still a part of him that thinks it’s worth something to do it, thinks that he can actually make up for this - that contrition, that bone-deep remorse is enough to fix what he’s broken, what he always seems to break.
But Bones - he understands long before Jim does that this was never about a woman, wasn’t ever about some piece of ass, some tight cunt, yielding soft and sweet beneath him; no, this was about Jim understanding something, knowing something true about himself - about figuring out if what he has is real. If what he has is worth it.
Bones understands, and that only makes it all the worse when Jim gasps, sobs without tears into the sheets as the night passes away - interminable, unending - with Bones’s arm slung patiently across his waist.
__________________________________
The first thing on his mind as he wakes with the dawn are words, and nothing more.
There are seven words.
The steam on the mirror turns his reflection opaque, like watercolors on the snow; viscous and burning, a venom in his lungs as he tries to focus past the layer of condensation to stare into his own eyes, to memorize his own lips, to watch as the syllables distort his traitorous mouth with a truth that spikes his pulse and makes his blood run cold to even think of, let alone to name:
“I don’t even know what love is.”
And the knowledge of it burns in him like the sun, like the depths of hell, because for the first time in his whole fucking life, he wants to know. He wants to know what it’s like to give yourself to someone, to hold nothing back. He wants to know what trust feels like, what hope feels like, what devotion and fidelity and all that other sappy fucking shit might be like for him, might feel like against his fingertips and taste like against his tongue. He wants to know what it is that his mother mourned for so long, what had broken in her; he wants to know what his father died for. And he doesn’t think it’s so damn much to ask of the universe that he’s allowed just a taste, just a piece of it. He doesn’t even need it for long. Just enough so that he can understand what lies beneath the constant ache in him, the pull just below his chest. Just a moment, if that’s all he can have.
He hears the spray of the shower stutter, and there are six words.
“I don’t know how this works.”
Because he’s only good at the pleasure, the instant gratification. He doesn’t bode so well with the concept of extension, of prolonging that magic. He doesn’t know how to build something that lasts - no one ever taught him how. He’s been living in a house of cards for so damn long that he can’t even fathom what it could mean to survive the storm intact.
He runs a moist finger across the glass, tracing a long line and letting it drip with the condensation, following it down, and when the steam fills in the break once more, he wonders cynically what the point is, to make a thing that lasts when nothing lasts for long; wonders even as everything in him wants to try, wants him to put his heart into crafting something indestructible, something immortal in the face of death.
The water cuts, breaks, stops; there are five words.
“I can’t feel like this.”
He doesn’t know how to function like this, with so much weight, so little grounding - like gravity let go of him and left him to flounder. He sees the broad span of Bones’s damp chest as he steps out, reflected in the mirror like the French impressionists might portray his frame, his light. There are four words.
“It’s too fucking much.”
The brush of skin, the bud of a nipple pressed into his shoulder blade, and his breath catches, hitches at the contact, that sudden warmth; three words.
“Like I’m suffocating...”
And he doesn’t want it to stop, he doesn’t want to breathe, never wants to breathe. There’s a palm molded to the globe of his shoulder, strong and solid and steady, and Jim’s eyes slide shut because he doesn’t know what it looks like in a world where he isn’t in control, where he’s lost to something bigger than himself, something he cannot predict, cannot comprehend; cannot know, cannot trust.
“It’s everything.”
“You okay?” Bones’s voice is just below his ear, soft enough to send a shiver up his spine, and Jim knows that this is the world he’s fallen into, head over goddamn heels against his own best advice; knows that this is a world he doesn’t know how to survive in.
Bones nuzzles a bit into the hollow of his throat, reaching forward for his toothbrush on the countertop, and Jim doesn’t think as he bows his head to press his lips to the line of Bones’s jaw - Bones pauses for a moment, but it’s discreet, and Jim’s grateful.
“It’s nothing,” Jim breathes into the creases of his lover’s neck, his tongue trailing through the dips, eyes lowered as he grabs for the cloth at the side of the sink, drawing the damp corner of it down his cheek, outlining his eyes, wondering when the fuck the person behind them had changed so damn much, had turned into a someone he didn’t recognize; into someone who looked haggard, desperate, scared shitless, and more like a man than Jim had ever looked before.
There is just one word.
“Nevermind.”
He averts his eyes, and there is silence. And fuck all, but it ain’t golden.
__________________________________
When push comes to shove, Jim knows that he’s only ever been good for one thing. It’s in his blood, his genes - the Kirks, they don’t mean to, but they always end up leaving.
It’s what Jim was made for, what he’s meant for.
Only this time, he doesn’t want to. With every fiber of his being calling, aching to fucking run, for the first time in his life, he wants nothing more than to stay put, right where he is.
It’s a routine supply run that leads him to the deserts of Revoira III, the blue sands swirling against the pale peach sky, and Jim almost thinks it looks like the clouds back home as he kicks the grains with every sullen step, meandering through the wasteland surrounding the outpost they’d beamed down to. The exchange would be completed soon - he should be heading back, but he needs this, needs to soak this in. He’s felt more alone than this before, more hollow, but never more solitary, like the last living soul in the universe. When he breathes, it rubs against his throat, raw and feral, and his eyes drift closed against the wind - there’s so little light, but all he can see is hazel under his lids. It’s in his nature to run, even from the things that he needs most. He’s never understood it; he only knows its force, its pull over him. The spark in his legs, his arms - it tells him to move. To flee. Run away.
Something else, though, something deeper - it agrees that he needs to leave, and quickly; it’s just telling him to go back, instead. Run back. Not to leave, but to stay. To remain and endure and commit. To devote. To... love.
And he’s never known that compulsion, that desire before. Never like this.
He feels the immediate need to see Bones.
And so runs like the devil’s chasing him, barely sees the blur of people and the transporter pad and the lines of silver and white as he returns to the ship in a haze, making his way by muscle memory to his rooms. He comes back, and for an instant he can breathe again; but Bones is gone, and there’s a dive in his stomach that sinks ever-deeper through the long, dragging minutes before the door finally slides open and he’s there, thank fucking god, and Jim’s so fucking lost in his own mind, in his own doubts, that he doesn’t struggle when Bones comes closer, embracing him roughly, palm to shoulder bade as he draws him close - Jim doesn’t even fight it, barely even thinks to.
He wonders how Bones knows what he needs, how Bones always seems to know. He wonders if that should have been the first clue in all of this, the first red flag. Or maybe the first green light, all things considered.
They pull apart too soon, Jim thinks, their separate selves divided, and he feels the loss like a phantom limb, the ghost of something that was, that should be. Bones reaches out a hand and runs deft fingers through the strands of Jim’s hair where they fall against his temple, studying him with eyes that tell Jim more than they mean to, and Jim’s almost tired enough of fighting this that he gives in at that very moment, that everything in him surrenders to the man in his arms; except that Jim’s only survived this long by keeping a part of himself hidden, tucked away. He’s not ready to give up just yet.
But he’s so fucking tired of being alone.
And Bones knows that it’s there now, that part of Jim that he keeps so close, so safe, so lonely - and Jim thinks he should probably be a little more concerned than he is by the hunger in that gaze, the determination shining in those depths.
Truth is, though, that he’s kind of looking forward to it. Weird.
__________________________________
Jim’s never been afraid of death; still, he’s never been more grateful to be alive than in this moment, in this very space in time.
It had been a close thing, too; closer than even Jim was accustomed to - Bones hadn’t said it of course, but Jim could read it in his gaze, hadn’t needed for Chapel to tell him before she released him, because he’d seen it in the way his lover’s eyes were too damn bright, the bruises of stress and insomnia too deep beneath them.
He’d died on them. Maybe more than once.
So when Jim makes his way back to his quarters, where Bones is seated on the edge of the bed - their bed, he can say it now: their bed - with his boots still on and his head in his hands, Jim stumbles a little, trips not because he’d cheated death, not because he needs to rest, but because there’s an agony that radiates across the room and into him, and it rattles him to the very core.
He’s crossed the room before he knows he’s done it, kneels on the floor before he can process what it means, but he does know, quite intimately, when he takes Bones’s hands in his own, peeling them from his face and staring for a second suspended across the cosmos, just looking at him, drinking him in and seeing the strain, the worry, the way his heart had stretched thin over the days of uncertainty, of refusing to give up - how pale his skin looked, how dead his eyes were, drowning in tears he was too proud to give in to, floundering in the pool of a grief he’d been steeling himself against, but hadn’t needed in the end, to their mutual relief; and it’s that relief alone that lightens his weighted countenance, the gaunt and hollow expression that faces Jim without shame. And Jim; all he can do is hope that he can somehow make it right again.
His mouth is on Bones’s before either of them can breathe in anticipation of the heat, the need in it, in them. Jim’s hand snakes around Bones’s neck and draws them closer, so not even the threat of air can separate them. Jim surges upward, fitting into the space between Bones’s thighs; Bones bends his knees, resting the heels of his boots on the sheets, and never breaking contact, Jim fumbles them off, tossing them across the room and barely registering the force with which they impact the wall. They’re sprawled on the bed within moments, the omnipresence of their roaming, wild hands only outstripped by the desperate want of their mouths, and where Bones is tasting to make sure Jim’s there, to affirm that he’s alive - sucking at his pulse points and kissing up and down his chest, over and over again - Jim is less picky, less focused; he’s everywhere, and it’s still not enough.
His hands tangle with Bones’s as they fight to tear off undershirts and slide off trousers while still savoring one another’s taste, and when they’re flush and hard against each other - Jim’s thigh tucked at the back of Bone’s while Bones draws Jim in with a knee hooked around his hip - Bones grabs at Jim’s waist and coaxes him upward, sliding down to settle in between his thighs, tilting his head to take Jim’s length along his tongue, wetting the hot shaft without devouring him wholly, slicking him from base to tip without pushing any further, resisting the encouragement of Jim’s moans, the buck of his hips that he tries to restrain. Bones is quick, moving eye to eye with Jim as soon as he’s done; and Jim realizes with something of a shock that he gets it, that he understands.
So Jim doesn’t even have to think as he slides into Bones, just knows from the peak of his chest on down that this is something bigger than the sex, than the passion, than the feeling - this is life, happening and unfolding and real and safe, so fucking safe and strong, not about to be snuffed out or stolen because it’s burning too damn hot for that, shining too damn bright. His heart pounds harder, quicker than he’s used to, quicker than it should, like it’s desperate to escape something - his chest, his fears, his reservations, the cage he’s kept around it for so fucking long to keep himself intact - and with each and every beat, it strains against the binds, bruising flawlessly, mercilessly, beautifully - virgin blushes like crawling veins, encasing him like vines, like wings, and Jim searches the fever-bright eyes of his lover from where he hovers above him, desperate for an anchor, and somehow he hears it, feels it, sees it in that stare - it’s okay, it’ll all be okay.
They move together in ways that Jim knew they could, knew they had before, but somehow it had never meant in the past what it does in this moment - great sex had never equated such a synchronicity before, such a sheer realization of another will, another soul, and it strikes him with a force that trills through his veins and sends him over the edge premature, hard and fast and too fucking soon - but then, all of this seems to be happening faster than he’s prepared for, seems to be coming at him before he’s ready to catch it.
The world flashes white, and he feels his muscles tense, feels Bones clench around him, the spill of heat pooling, but it’s all distant; he reaches between them and strokes, pumps Bones through his release, and it’s all happening apart from himself until his eyes open, and he has to let go, has to brace himself at the sides of his lover’s head, hands pushed hard into the mattress as his chest heaves, as the world spins with something promising and frighting and so very, very real.
He shivers at the touch of a silken tongue to the pulse in his wrist, plush like velvet with every tantalizing lick, and that velvet restrains, holding him - keeping him from toppling over the edge, so soft and so sure - and Jim aches suddenly with every silent plea, every faded intention of fleeing, of leaving it all behind; every passing thought that’s ever flickered from his mind towards his soul with a pang. His ribs shudder with the bitter timbre, and he learns once more what he’s known all along - there is no after, there is no other, there is no out.
And only a fool would ever wish otherwise.
Because goddamn, but he’s lead along by a tenuous thread in this life, and it’s only the presence, the affection of the man beneath him that keeps that thread from becoming a noose.
He breaks at that soft mouth on the heels of his palms, and it’s without warning when all the fight, all the strength leaves him in a rush, and he collapses against Bones, who tightens his hold on his hands and eases him down, turning them so that his head rests against Jim’s chest as they both struggle for breath, for footing in a dissolving universe. Jim stares at the ceiling, dazed and overwhelmed, and all he knows in the world is the way that Bones clings to him, with a weakness that’s almost pitiable, his body spent, yet with a Herculean strength, a force from somewhere else that swells in Jim and leaves him humbled, awed to know that it’s his.
How he ever questioned this is beyond him, because this; this is all there is.
He sighs against sweat-slick hair, raising his hand, and Bones doesn’t let go, fingers slipped between his own, knuckles to palm as Jim lifts Bones’s chin, dipping his own to bring their lips together once more, slow and steady and filled with the unnamable things they know by instinct, by experience, but cannot yet define; and it’s sweet on the edges and bitter on the inside with all the blood they’ve spilled to get here, but it’s exquisite and addicting and Jim refuses to give it up, even if it kills him.
He doesn’t trust it yet, won’t test it with his weight, because whatever this is between them, it’s young, yet, all passion and flame; the sort that burns before it breathes, smolders until it smothers itself for want of air - it’s fervent and frantic and god, it’s fucking beautiful, but they have to learn to pace it, learn to let it stand if it’s ever going to last. It’s dangerous, untamed, and it’s not solid enough to catch Jim’s fall, not yet; not strong enough to save him.
But it will be. He knows that it will be. It has to be.
This is everything he cannot lose.
__________________________________
He still wonders, sometimes, still doubts - they both kind of do - but it’s a subtle thing, like the breeze through autumn leaves or the hint of winter on the wind - cruel, and biting, but nothing they won’t overcome in the end; nothing they can’t survive.
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Kirk/McCoy
Word Count: 6,821
Summary: Sometimes, relationships are difficult. Sometimes, loving someone is the hardest thing you’ll ever learn to do. For barrowjane at the trek_exchange Fic Exchange; Prompt “Kirk/McCoy; ‘unaware that I'm tearing you asunder’.” Spoilers for Star Trek XI (2009).
Disclaimer: I own nothing but the plot. Title belongs to Kate Bush; inspired by Placebo.
Author’s Notes: For barrowjane: All of your prompt-lyrics were fantastic, but I’ve been trying to write something around this particular song for a really long time, and it happened to finally decide to work itself out at your request. Mostly the product of a crappy sort of week, and this plot bunny I’ve been pondering for some time now - mainly, what exactly a relationship between two complicated, commitment-phobic men with semi-dysfunctional pasts might look like without the rose-colored glasses. It does contain gratuitous amounts of drama, romance, angst, sap, brooding, SAP (in case you didn’t get that the first time), and melancholy - so I really hope you don’t mind those too much. Finally, apologies if it seems rushed at points - this was originally much shorter, not to mention that it was also meant to be something much different. It... got away from me (surprise, surprise).
Running Up That Hill
They start this slow, simple; and it’s foreign to the both of them, because they take this life at the speed of fucking light, and nothing - nothing - is ever simple.
And Jim doesn’t know if it’s actually going to work. He only really agrees to give it a go because Bones seems to like the idea, though part of him suspects that Bones is only into it in the first place because he thinks Jim wants them to be something more serious, something more solid. Which is more than a little absurd, considering who Jim is, but seeing as he isn’t putting up much of a fight, maybe Bones is a little closer to the mark with that assumption than Jim’s willing to admit.
He still doesn’t know if this is going to work.
He really hates not knowing things.
__________________________________
There are all kinds of sexual partners. Jim’s really good at being just about all of them. Strong, silent, forceful, giving. Loud. Soft. Loving. Taking. Needing. Wanting. Invested. Detached. He’s figured out the semantics, the blueprints for each and every act, and while he feels - he always feels - no matter which role he plays, he can always tell what’s real and what isn’t. What pools warm in his gut as opposed to what stretches tight in his chest. Because there’s a difference, there’s a line, and he’s always known where it crosses - so the first thing he did was burn the fucking bridge. Because he’s really good at what he does.
Only it turns out that he’s absolute shit at being the kind of partner who fucks like it means something, sleeps between strong arms, and then wakes up to a cold side of the bed like nothing ever happened. Maybe it’s that Jim’s too accustomed to doing the using, that it seems almost unnatural to end up feeling so fucking used himself. Maybe it takes him too far back, strips him too fucking bare to be left hanging, out of control. Either way, he finds that whilst he’s often excelled at the loving-and-leaving, he’s not exactly okay with being the loved-and-left.
Except that’s not even it, exactly, and he knows it. It’s not as if they’d spelled out what this would be. And it’s not as if Bones avoids him, or ignores him, or treats him any differently, really, when their path cross in the course of a day. In fact, the good doctor sits a little bit closer to him over lunch, waits for him as he replicates his food, even as his own tray’s getting cold, only grumbles every other day when he comes down to kill time in medical - and, for the record, Jim has only been forcibly thrown from sickbay once by his agitated CMO in the past week. And the sex; the sex has always been good between them, but some unspoken surge of... something, changed, sparked between them as soon as it became more than just a quick tumble during finals week, or a little life-affirming fuck after a crisis, some mutual stress relief. Something changed, and Jim’s really fucking glad for that something, because he’ll never say it aloud, but it’s the best he’s ever had. And he’s had a whole shit-ton. So it’s not that he’s being loved-and-left, really. Well, it is; but then again, it’s not.
He doesn’t know what it is.
And besides, love doesn’t even equate here. Love is not what they’re about.
Only Jim can’t really say what it is they are about. He can’t find his line, doesn’t know where he stands, and he can barely breathe for the fist clenching tight around his lungs, playing at his heart and setting his chest on fire, and he doesn’t know what this means, what this is - and what can’t be known can be made to mean anything.
That terrifies him. Always has.
He leaves his quarters after Bones dozes off and sleeps in his ready room to prove a point that night, but the next evening the cycle merely starts again; and heart racing through the night beneath a palm he knows won’t last till morning, he feels distinctly like he’s already lost this battle. And the outlook for the war at large isn’t particularly promising.
Fuck.
__________________________________
Bones had always been aggressive in the bedroom. Or the hallway. Or the nasty fucking bathrooms on some backwater planet’s poor excuse for a pub. Long story short - Jim had spent enough time under the dermal, had passed enough gamma shifts with the vascular regenerator on him for the bites and scrapes and bruises that his uniform couldn’t cover to know what Bones could be like. He’d never thought all the much of it, really, because he was Jim fucking Kirk and he never failed to give what he got back in spades. Plus he’d always kind of liked it, because the push of a man’s hands on his chest, or the scrape of a man’s stubby nails down his spine, or the way a man’s teeth could tear through flesh was always so powerful, so separate from his seemingly-endless string of female partners - who even at their most primal were never quite the same - and it always got him hard; that dichotomy, that difference.
When he wakes in the morning, he studies the punctures, the tears in his skin, watches where they fade from pink to red, the harshest of them centered in violets and taupes, and he traces them across his shoulder blades, down along the line of his clavicle, against his sternum, behind his earlobes, at the jut of his hips, some already fading, already invisible. He stretches, and it stings, and it’s only then that he realizes how fleeting this is, how finite, the threat of its loss singing through him like the soft lament of the stars, ringing in his veins; only then does he realize that this is the only way that Bones knows to talk to him, to tell him the things that no one else can know - he whispers the violent and passionate and heartfelt things he cannot put in words into these marks, these brands, for Jim to find and know in his own time; to comprehend - to cherish - when he’s ready.
And it hurts to recognize that simple fact - more than the pull of serrated skin or the stretch of scar tissue or the residual burn of a good, hard fuck on the floor; it hurts because it poisons the joy that comes from being worthy of the confessions themselves, the very sacred secrets he’s been entrusted to keep.
Hollow fucking victory, that.
__________________________________
It takes two months before Bones stays next to Jim for a whole night. Jim almost panics at the feeling of warm flesh, bare skin and the soft prick of chest hair on his back when he opens his eyes, but the scent calms his nerves, the soft hint of mint and sweat that he knows, that he breathes in as comfort and safety and calm. He settles, noting the time as early enough to close his eyes again, and when the rough creases of a hand slide from his shoulder to the center of his chest, it’s more instinct than an actual choice to fold into the touch, soft and unexpected as it is - the promise of things he’s never been given, never known he’d wanted before now.
He eases awake to the sound of rain just before the ship’s computer rouses him, and he blinks too long before he realizes that someone’s in his shower. He doesn’t know what to think of that, so he goes about replicating some toast - the pear core on the plate already on the countertop, and the half-eaten bowl of grits next to it, sets something pulled to snapping free in him, and he doesn’t know how to feel, how to react; only knows that the toast is too damn crisp and tastes like ash against his tongue when he takes a bite. On a whim, he dips the burnt crust into the corn-mush next to him, and when bites again he can tell the difference, can taste the salt and the butter complementing, canceling out the carbon, white on black as he swallows, and the bread sticks in his throat a little, like it’s trying to make a point, before he washes it down with the cold coffee that’s sitting next to the pear.
He’s not sure what it means, only he’s pretty sure that it means something.
He’s the cheshire fucking cat as Bones emerges in a cloud of condensation, towel slung low on his hips and hair wet in a way that’s downright sinful as it slides over his forehead, teasing against his brows. Jim reaches out to slap the ass that saunters past him, the resultant chuckle following him as he goes to shower himself. The door’s already sliding closed behind him as a towel snakes through to snap at his hip, sending the mechanism in reverse at the motion trip and giving Jim a full view of Bones in his god-given glory, still rosy from the heat and smirking like anything before Jim tosses the towel back at him with a good natured “Fucker” shot under his breath before he strips down and climbs beneath the spray. And he thinks that maybe, in some unidentified, indeterminate future, he could get used to this. He could figure this out.
Tugging down his undershirt as he emerges from the restroom some time later, he thinks at first that he’s alone. It’s not until he catches the scuff of shoes dropping to the floor that he turns, taking in Bones where he’d been reclining in Jim’s favorite chair, feet on the coffee table and hands folded behind his head, simply watching. Waiting, maybe. For what, though, Jim doesn’t know.
He feels hazel eyes following him as he shrugs on his command golds and pulls on his boots, wondering why in the hell Bones hasn’t left yet, because the man is intrinsically punctual in ways Jim couldn’t quite wrap his head around, and according to the computer, he’s pushing a mere ten minutes early for shift, if he leaves right then and sprints to medbay like a Klingon was coming after his ass. Jim gives him a strange look as he walks past, pausing to appreciate the way Bones’s legs are spread where he sits, the way his trousers run along his thighs, seams tucked against the outline of that fantastic cock. Jim licks his lips as he walks towards the door, sparing one last look towards the chair, where Bones is standing now, face blank enough to tell Jim something’s up, but not showing any indication of following Jim out. The little nagging voice in the back of his head tells him to stop, just for a moment, and so he does, just inside the open door, eyes narrowed as he watches Bones seem to debate, to ponder before taking one careful step, another, crossing the room to stand toe-to-toe with Jim and burning hard, retina to retina, for the intensity of the other man’s gaze upon him. He can feel Bones’s breath on his lips, and it stirs things in him he doesn’t want to understand; and for the life of him, all he can think of is that they don’t stand face to face enough, they don’t look into each other’s eyes anymore, and he thinks he knows why, because those eyes are startling, and they see fucking everything, and maybe they both have things to hide now that hadn’t been there before. He can see flashes of his own baby blues in those seas of murky green, flashing like brilliant streaks of sky through the trees, and he has to focus on breathing, every single breath, because he’s dizzy and he’s lightheaded and he’s beginning to forget what it means to inhale.
They’re so close, so fucking close, that when he manages a breath as he wets his lips, he nearly strokes Bones’s mouth with his tongue in the process, and for the barest of instants Jim feels like himself, feels in control. He pulls back just the slightest bit, desperate to keep the balance, just enough that air comes easier to him; enough that he can see the swift and subtle change in his friend that speaks volumes, that sinks in the pit of his stomach with the weight of warning and guilt before he can ever place the whys.
“Have a good day, Captain.” Voice gruff and face strangely open for being so damn trained, so fucking stoic, Bones is around him and halfway down the corridor before Jim can so much as blink twice. And all he can wonder is what the hell the good doctor had been waiting around for in the first place if he’d been in such a fucking hurry.
__________________________________
Later, he’s on the bridge, and whisking through the black, he has a few minutes to simply sit and stare, to ponder without interruption. His eyes catch on any number of things: the straight line of Chekov’s slender back, Hannity’s hair starting to fall with the passing of the hours, Sarvora’s blue scales catching the lighting, the way Uhura stands next to Spock, close enough to feel his heartbeat, to taste him on the air, he’s sure of it. He watches them from the corner of his eye, trying to be nonchalant, and he recognizes even across the distance the intensity of her gaze, the meaning in her posture as she stands firm and wills her lover to pay her mind. The effort of resistance on his XO’s part is admirable, but it’s short lived - he glances around hesitantly, and Jim makes certain to be staring resolutely forward when Spock looks his way, before angling back to watch as an exceptionally talented human mouth touches softly, swiftly to the flush of Vulcan cheeks, so quick it barely happens, so suddenly that no one notices. Only Jim.
And something clicks, leaves him staring through the pair, past them, because fuck all, it makes sense.
In retrospect, he realizes that Bones had been waiting for a kiss.
The fingers of his left hand dig into the armrest as his right hand covers his eyes, thumb and forefinger sliding down to pinch the bridge of his nose as everything falls into place, as the morning that had seemed so simple and foreign and so complex takes on new significance in his head, and it becomes startlingly clear that Jim just isn’t equipped to deal with this shit if he can’t even realize when the man he’s been sleeping with for weeks wants a fucking kiss.
And thinking about it now, recalling the hard, concentrated throb of his heart as he’d stood, caught in the intricate web of those motherfucking eyes - he’s pretty sure that the intention should have been obvious. To anyone else.
Goddamnit.
__________________________________
Bones doesn’t even come to him the next night, and Jim nearly puts a hole through the fucking wall for the tremble, the fear - fucking fear, and worse than that, the blinding, wrenching fear of that fear - it sends through him to be alone again. It’s an anger he can’t place, because it’s not the same sort of rush that sends him brawling over barstools, breaking bottles of José and Tanqueray; and it’s not the type that drives him to run, guns blazing, into the fray to save one of his own, that sheer sense of violation that leads him to disregard all else, to simply get his people back. It’s not the anger of neglect, or of disappointment, and it’s not the anger that had fueled him through his teenage years, that smoldering rebellion that scalded his lungs and sent him running, fucking running to the ends of the earth. But if it’s close to anything, it’s closest to that. The running. It tastes of the same emptiness, the same prick in his gut that it’s all useless, so goddamned useless.
Jim doesn’t remember what it’s like to depend on someone - to need someone other than himself; it’s been so long since he’s had to, and longer still since he could, even before that. But if he could remember, he imagines it would feel like this.
Bones is back the next night, though. And Jim doesn’t say anything, just lets Bones wrap around him from behind and sync his breathing to Jim’s own; but inside, he nearly collapses, crumbles at the way the adrenaline leaves him, at the knowledge that if he’d ever had an Achilles heel, this was it.
__________________________________
It takes another three weeks before Jim sleeps with a woman on shore leave, crowded in a seedy hotel in East-Bumfuck, Alpha Centauri, because it’s as far as he can get from the guilt that sinks in his gut like lead with every sloppy kiss, every thrust between that heady tightness, that wet heat - every time he refuses to look at her, refuses to so much as meet her eyes.
He’s back all of three minutes, the clang of his keys on the table still echoing as Bones approaches, datapad between his fingers and hair mussed from where he’d been lounging on the sofa, and Jim realizes with a pang that the man in front of him’s beautiful. Really fucking beautiful. When Bones leans in, Jim does all he can not to stiffen, not to shake, because he’s done some abysmally stupid things in his life, but this one? This one doesn’t quite compare. There’s guilt with this one.
Maybe Bones won’t notice.
“Chanel.”
The floor gives out beneath him, and Jim feels a bit like he’s been sucker-punched. The tip of Bones’s nose drags teasingly along Jim’s jaw, and this time Jim can’t suppress the shiver, because suddenly he’s cold, so fucking cold, and the burn of that breath on his skin is excruciating. Due punishment.
“Shower, yeah?” Bones murmurs against his cheek, the quirk of his lips pulling at Jim’s skin as he smirks, his fingers light on Jim’s hip as he brushes around him. “My ex wore that,” he leans into the crook of Jim’s neck and breathes deep, stealing all the air from the room and leaving none of it for Jim, whose world freezes until everything seems stagnant, and very far away; “You smell like her.”
And Jim just stands there, as Bones retreats to the bedroom, blinking through things he can’t see, and knowing that it’s all an exercise in futility. What’s done is done, and it doesn’t even fucking matter what he thinks he knows, what he’s realized, what he wants. The sting of the shower spray is brutal, angry - a litany of regret coming down on his skin, and he tries like hell to remember the feeling, the high of the experience to at least soothe the ache; but it’s like there never was one, like it hadn’t even happened - like a hangover you feel for the whole next day from a night you know couldn’t have been worth it.
He uses every soap they have to scrub away his transgression, to wash away the scent, but he can still find its ghost on the air every time. It’s so fucking wrong.
Jim doesn’t expect Bones to be in the bed when he gets out, doesn’t expect that endearing half-snore to be coloring the sound of his steady breathing, the soft music of an honest moonlit night. He hesitates, taking longer to strip than necessary, throwing the clothes he takes off into the trash because there’s still a part of him that thinks it’s worth something to do it, thinks that he can actually make up for this - that contrition, that bone-deep remorse is enough to fix what he’s broken, what he always seems to break.
But Bones - he understands long before Jim does that this was never about a woman, wasn’t ever about some piece of ass, some tight cunt, yielding soft and sweet beneath him; no, this was about Jim understanding something, knowing something true about himself - about figuring out if what he has is real. If what he has is worth it.
Bones understands, and that only makes it all the worse when Jim gasps, sobs without tears into the sheets as the night passes away - interminable, unending - with Bones’s arm slung patiently across his waist.
__________________________________
The first thing on his mind as he wakes with the dawn are words, and nothing more.
There are seven words.
The steam on the mirror turns his reflection opaque, like watercolors on the snow; viscous and burning, a venom in his lungs as he tries to focus past the layer of condensation to stare into his own eyes, to memorize his own lips, to watch as the syllables distort his traitorous mouth with a truth that spikes his pulse and makes his blood run cold to even think of, let alone to name:
“I don’t even know what love is.”
And the knowledge of it burns in him like the sun, like the depths of hell, because for the first time in his whole fucking life, he wants to know. He wants to know what it’s like to give yourself to someone, to hold nothing back. He wants to know what trust feels like, what hope feels like, what devotion and fidelity and all that other sappy fucking shit might be like for him, might feel like against his fingertips and taste like against his tongue. He wants to know what it is that his mother mourned for so long, what had broken in her; he wants to know what his father died for. And he doesn’t think it’s so damn much to ask of the universe that he’s allowed just a taste, just a piece of it. He doesn’t even need it for long. Just enough so that he can understand what lies beneath the constant ache in him, the pull just below his chest. Just a moment, if that’s all he can have.
He hears the spray of the shower stutter, and there are six words.
“I don’t know how this works.”
Because he’s only good at the pleasure, the instant gratification. He doesn’t bode so well with the concept of extension, of prolonging that magic. He doesn’t know how to build something that lasts - no one ever taught him how. He’s been living in a house of cards for so damn long that he can’t even fathom what it could mean to survive the storm intact.
He runs a moist finger across the glass, tracing a long line and letting it drip with the condensation, following it down, and when the steam fills in the break once more, he wonders cynically what the point is, to make a thing that lasts when nothing lasts for long; wonders even as everything in him wants to try, wants him to put his heart into crafting something indestructible, something immortal in the face of death.
The water cuts, breaks, stops; there are five words.
“I can’t feel like this.”
He doesn’t know how to function like this, with so much weight, so little grounding - like gravity let go of him and left him to flounder. He sees the broad span of Bones’s damp chest as he steps out, reflected in the mirror like the French impressionists might portray his frame, his light. There are four words.
“It’s too fucking much.”
The brush of skin, the bud of a nipple pressed into his shoulder blade, and his breath catches, hitches at the contact, that sudden warmth; three words.
“Like I’m suffocating...”
And he doesn’t want it to stop, he doesn’t want to breathe, never wants to breathe. There’s a palm molded to the globe of his shoulder, strong and solid and steady, and Jim’s eyes slide shut because he doesn’t know what it looks like in a world where he isn’t in control, where he’s lost to something bigger than himself, something he cannot predict, cannot comprehend; cannot know, cannot trust.
“It’s everything.”
“You okay?” Bones’s voice is just below his ear, soft enough to send a shiver up his spine, and Jim knows that this is the world he’s fallen into, head over goddamn heels against his own best advice; knows that this is a world he doesn’t know how to survive in.
Bones nuzzles a bit into the hollow of his throat, reaching forward for his toothbrush on the countertop, and Jim doesn’t think as he bows his head to press his lips to the line of Bones’s jaw - Bones pauses for a moment, but it’s discreet, and Jim’s grateful.
“It’s nothing,” Jim breathes into the creases of his lover’s neck, his tongue trailing through the dips, eyes lowered as he grabs for the cloth at the side of the sink, drawing the damp corner of it down his cheek, outlining his eyes, wondering when the fuck the person behind them had changed so damn much, had turned into a someone he didn’t recognize; into someone who looked haggard, desperate, scared shitless, and more like a man than Jim had ever looked before.
There is just one word.
“Nevermind.”
He averts his eyes, and there is silence. And fuck all, but it ain’t golden.
__________________________________
When push comes to shove, Jim knows that he’s only ever been good for one thing. It’s in his blood, his genes - the Kirks, they don’t mean to, but they always end up leaving.
It’s what Jim was made for, what he’s meant for.
Only this time, he doesn’t want to. With every fiber of his being calling, aching to fucking run, for the first time in his life, he wants nothing more than to stay put, right where he is.
It’s a routine supply run that leads him to the deserts of Revoira III, the blue sands swirling against the pale peach sky, and Jim almost thinks it looks like the clouds back home as he kicks the grains with every sullen step, meandering through the wasteland surrounding the outpost they’d beamed down to. The exchange would be completed soon - he should be heading back, but he needs this, needs to soak this in. He’s felt more alone than this before, more hollow, but never more solitary, like the last living soul in the universe. When he breathes, it rubs against his throat, raw and feral, and his eyes drift closed against the wind - there’s so little light, but all he can see is hazel under his lids. It’s in his nature to run, even from the things that he needs most. He’s never understood it; he only knows its force, its pull over him. The spark in his legs, his arms - it tells him to move. To flee. Run away.
Something else, though, something deeper - it agrees that he needs to leave, and quickly; it’s just telling him to go back, instead. Run back. Not to leave, but to stay. To remain and endure and commit. To devote. To... love.
And he’s never known that compulsion, that desire before. Never like this.
He feels the immediate need to see Bones.
And so runs like the devil’s chasing him, barely sees the blur of people and the transporter pad and the lines of silver and white as he returns to the ship in a haze, making his way by muscle memory to his rooms. He comes back, and for an instant he can breathe again; but Bones is gone, and there’s a dive in his stomach that sinks ever-deeper through the long, dragging minutes before the door finally slides open and he’s there, thank fucking god, and Jim’s so fucking lost in his own mind, in his own doubts, that he doesn’t struggle when Bones comes closer, embracing him roughly, palm to shoulder bade as he draws him close - Jim doesn’t even fight it, barely even thinks to.
He wonders how Bones knows what he needs, how Bones always seems to know. He wonders if that should have been the first clue in all of this, the first red flag. Or maybe the first green light, all things considered.
They pull apart too soon, Jim thinks, their separate selves divided, and he feels the loss like a phantom limb, the ghost of something that was, that should be. Bones reaches out a hand and runs deft fingers through the strands of Jim’s hair where they fall against his temple, studying him with eyes that tell Jim more than they mean to, and Jim’s almost tired enough of fighting this that he gives in at that very moment, that everything in him surrenders to the man in his arms; except that Jim’s only survived this long by keeping a part of himself hidden, tucked away. He’s not ready to give up just yet.
But he’s so fucking tired of being alone.
And Bones knows that it’s there now, that part of Jim that he keeps so close, so safe, so lonely - and Jim thinks he should probably be a little more concerned than he is by the hunger in that gaze, the determination shining in those depths.
Truth is, though, that he’s kind of looking forward to it. Weird.
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Jim’s never been afraid of death; still, he’s never been more grateful to be alive than in this moment, in this very space in time.
It had been a close thing, too; closer than even Jim was accustomed to - Bones hadn’t said it of course, but Jim could read it in his gaze, hadn’t needed for Chapel to tell him before she released him, because he’d seen it in the way his lover’s eyes were too damn bright, the bruises of stress and insomnia too deep beneath them.
He’d died on them. Maybe more than once.
So when Jim makes his way back to his quarters, where Bones is seated on the edge of the bed - their bed, he can say it now: their bed - with his boots still on and his head in his hands, Jim stumbles a little, trips not because he’d cheated death, not because he needs to rest, but because there’s an agony that radiates across the room and into him, and it rattles him to the very core.
He’s crossed the room before he knows he’s done it, kneels on the floor before he can process what it means, but he does know, quite intimately, when he takes Bones’s hands in his own, peeling them from his face and staring for a second suspended across the cosmos, just looking at him, drinking him in and seeing the strain, the worry, the way his heart had stretched thin over the days of uncertainty, of refusing to give up - how pale his skin looked, how dead his eyes were, drowning in tears he was too proud to give in to, floundering in the pool of a grief he’d been steeling himself against, but hadn’t needed in the end, to their mutual relief; and it’s that relief alone that lightens his weighted countenance, the gaunt and hollow expression that faces Jim without shame. And Jim; all he can do is hope that he can somehow make it right again.
His mouth is on Bones’s before either of them can breathe in anticipation of the heat, the need in it, in them. Jim’s hand snakes around Bones’s neck and draws them closer, so not even the threat of air can separate them. Jim surges upward, fitting into the space between Bones’s thighs; Bones bends his knees, resting the heels of his boots on the sheets, and never breaking contact, Jim fumbles them off, tossing them across the room and barely registering the force with which they impact the wall. They’re sprawled on the bed within moments, the omnipresence of their roaming, wild hands only outstripped by the desperate want of their mouths, and where Bones is tasting to make sure Jim’s there, to affirm that he’s alive - sucking at his pulse points and kissing up and down his chest, over and over again - Jim is less picky, less focused; he’s everywhere, and it’s still not enough.
His hands tangle with Bones’s as they fight to tear off undershirts and slide off trousers while still savoring one another’s taste, and when they’re flush and hard against each other - Jim’s thigh tucked at the back of Bone’s while Bones draws Jim in with a knee hooked around his hip - Bones grabs at Jim’s waist and coaxes him upward, sliding down to settle in between his thighs, tilting his head to take Jim’s length along his tongue, wetting the hot shaft without devouring him wholly, slicking him from base to tip without pushing any further, resisting the encouragement of Jim’s moans, the buck of his hips that he tries to restrain. Bones is quick, moving eye to eye with Jim as soon as he’s done; and Jim realizes with something of a shock that he gets it, that he understands.
So Jim doesn’t even have to think as he slides into Bones, just knows from the peak of his chest on down that this is something bigger than the sex, than the passion, than the feeling - this is life, happening and unfolding and real and safe, so fucking safe and strong, not about to be snuffed out or stolen because it’s burning too damn hot for that, shining too damn bright. His heart pounds harder, quicker than he’s used to, quicker than it should, like it’s desperate to escape something - his chest, his fears, his reservations, the cage he’s kept around it for so fucking long to keep himself intact - and with each and every beat, it strains against the binds, bruising flawlessly, mercilessly, beautifully - virgin blushes like crawling veins, encasing him like vines, like wings, and Jim searches the fever-bright eyes of his lover from where he hovers above him, desperate for an anchor, and somehow he hears it, feels it, sees it in that stare - it’s okay, it’ll all be okay.
They move together in ways that Jim knew they could, knew they had before, but somehow it had never meant in the past what it does in this moment - great sex had never equated such a synchronicity before, such a sheer realization of another will, another soul, and it strikes him with a force that trills through his veins and sends him over the edge premature, hard and fast and too fucking soon - but then, all of this seems to be happening faster than he’s prepared for, seems to be coming at him before he’s ready to catch it.
The world flashes white, and he feels his muscles tense, feels Bones clench around him, the spill of heat pooling, but it’s all distant; he reaches between them and strokes, pumps Bones through his release, and it’s all happening apart from himself until his eyes open, and he has to let go, has to brace himself at the sides of his lover’s head, hands pushed hard into the mattress as his chest heaves, as the world spins with something promising and frighting and so very, very real.
He shivers at the touch of a silken tongue to the pulse in his wrist, plush like velvet with every tantalizing lick, and that velvet restrains, holding him - keeping him from toppling over the edge, so soft and so sure - and Jim aches suddenly with every silent plea, every faded intention of fleeing, of leaving it all behind; every passing thought that’s ever flickered from his mind towards his soul with a pang. His ribs shudder with the bitter timbre, and he learns once more what he’s known all along - there is no after, there is no other, there is no out.
And only a fool would ever wish otherwise.
Because goddamn, but he’s lead along by a tenuous thread in this life, and it’s only the presence, the affection of the man beneath him that keeps that thread from becoming a noose.
He breaks at that soft mouth on the heels of his palms, and it’s without warning when all the fight, all the strength leaves him in a rush, and he collapses against Bones, who tightens his hold on his hands and eases him down, turning them so that his head rests against Jim’s chest as they both struggle for breath, for footing in a dissolving universe. Jim stares at the ceiling, dazed and overwhelmed, and all he knows in the world is the way that Bones clings to him, with a weakness that’s almost pitiable, his body spent, yet with a Herculean strength, a force from somewhere else that swells in Jim and leaves him humbled, awed to know that it’s his.
How he ever questioned this is beyond him, because this; this is all there is.
He sighs against sweat-slick hair, raising his hand, and Bones doesn’t let go, fingers slipped between his own, knuckles to palm as Jim lifts Bones’s chin, dipping his own to bring their lips together once more, slow and steady and filled with the unnamable things they know by instinct, by experience, but cannot yet define; and it’s sweet on the edges and bitter on the inside with all the blood they’ve spilled to get here, but it’s exquisite and addicting and Jim refuses to give it up, even if it kills him.
He doesn’t trust it yet, won’t test it with his weight, because whatever this is between them, it’s young, yet, all passion and flame; the sort that burns before it breathes, smolders until it smothers itself for want of air - it’s fervent and frantic and god, it’s fucking beautiful, but they have to learn to pace it, learn to let it stand if it’s ever going to last. It’s dangerous, untamed, and it’s not solid enough to catch Jim’s fall, not yet; not strong enough to save him.
But it will be. He knows that it will be. It has to be.
This is everything he cannot lose.
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He still wonders, sometimes, still doubts - they both kind of do - but it’s a subtle thing, like the breeze through autumn leaves or the hint of winter on the wind - cruel, and biting, but nothing they won’t overcome in the end; nothing they can’t survive.