Angular Momentum (Kirk/McCoy, NC-17, ST:XI), 3/3

[lindmere]

 

<< Part 2

Captain James T. Kirk looked out the main viewport and saw nothing-a nothing that would have been enlivened considerably by a few Romulan warbirds, or at least a Federation planet perilously close to the Neutral Zone. What it had instead was a Kerr singularity, a type of black hole that apparently was to Vulcans what an exceptionally rare comic book was to a collector. That explained why they were stuck here for another 18 hours when they could have been speeding toward their next assignment, and why Kirk was now being chased off his own Bridge by the science team.

They’d been on enough deep space missions by now that Kirk knew the protocol for killing time: a long session at the gym, a long shower in his quarters, a long enough look around the Rec Room to tell him there was nothing interesting going on. When all those things failed to eat up more than a few hours, he pulled out his ace in the hole and went to the Medical Bay.

Amazingly, McCoy let himself be pulled away with less than his usual ill grace, and to one of his least favorite places on the ship. Kirk felt like he deserved a reward, and did his best to deliver one in the form of a picnic, complete with fried chicken, which Kirk could take or leave but was one of those Southern things McCoy fetishized. They sat, backs propped against the wall, on a blanket with the food spread out between them, watching the stars wheel by as the Enterprise executed another tight orbit.

“I don’t get it,” McCoy said between bites. “Don’t you get enough of staring at the stars up on the Bridge?”

“That’s different.” Kirk didn’t feel particularly hungry, but took a grateful swallow of cold beer. “Up there, I’m always watching for something. Here I can just look at them, look at the ship, it’s-I don’t know, pure, in a way. It makes me wish there were no wars and no trade missions and no bureaucrats, and we could just go explore. See what’s out there.”

McCoy was silent a moment. “Isn’t that what Spock’s doing with that black hole?”

“For fuck’s sake. I mean new worlds, strange creatures, mind-blowing experiences. Where’s your sense of adventure?”

“Must have left it in the pocket of my overalls the morning I left Georgia.” Kirk didn’t have to see McCoy to know he was making that tight-cornered half-smile. “You know, I envy you, Jim. You were made for this. This is the only place you want to be. A year’s gone by and I don’t feel any more comfortable than the day I stepped on that damn shuttle.” The pensive mood seemed to have come over him as well; this was something beyond his usual grousing.

“Hey,” Kirk said, reaching out a hand to pat McCoy’s shoulder and leaving it there. “If it’s any consolation, I don’t think you’d feel comfortable anywhere. But you’re doing a hell of a job, and it wouldn’t be the same without you. I mean that.”

“I didn’t think you were the type to get weepy after one beer.”

“I’m not weepy, I’m happy. I’ve got my ship and my best friend and I saved the drumstick for later. I’m the luckiest guy in the galaxy.”

“Says the guy who doesn’t believe in luck,” McCoy said drily.

“Luck’s what you make of it.” Kirk popped open another beer for McCoy and one for himself, waiting for McCoy to put down his empty and then clinking the bottle rims together like wine glasses. He couldn’t remember now why he’d been so frustrated and impatient just hours before; this was a rare and welcome opportunity to spend some time with his ship, the stars and his friend, who he saw alone so seldom now.

There was a natural quietness about McCoy he found calming. Spock’s serenity seemed well practiced and hard won, the outward result of an internal battle. McCoy’s anxiety originated from without, the constant battering of a hard universe against a heart Kirk had always suspected was deeply and seriously romantic in nature. Kirk had been the source of that anxiety often enough, and in this particular moment could feel tolerably guilty about it. In the comfortable silence, McCoy had fallen into a reverie, staring at the revolving stars, and Kirk took the opportunity to turn his head slowly, sliding his eyes to the side, to study his profile.

“What about me?”

“What?” McCoy’s chin tilted up as he seemed to come back to himself.

“What do you think about me? About the job I’m doing?”

“Damn it, Jim,” he said, sounded a little embarrassed, “Is your ego really that greedy that you have to fish for compliments from me?”

“People under my command tell me what they think I want to hear,” Kirk said, shrugging. “The Admiralty tells me what they think I need to hear. Nobody tells me what they really think. So here’s your opportunity: free pass for whatever you want to tell me, as long as it’s the honest truth.”

“You mean I could tell you anything?”

“Anything.”

“And you won’t hold it against me, like when I told that girl in the bar you had Coridian genital rot?”

“I held that against you because there’s no such thing,” Kirk said reasonably. “Otherwise I could hardly have objected”

“All right. What I really think.” He paused long enough for Kirk to wonder how bad it was really going to be. ”If you’re not the best captain in the fleet, you’re on your way there. You’re not only one hell of a strategist, you’re a good commander. You’re managing a thousand people and they all feel like they have a personal relationship with you. None of them want to be anywhere but on the Enterprise.”

Kirk felt himself flushing. “But?”

“You’re burning yourself out. There’s not a fire in the quadrant you haven’t jumped into feet first. The Admiralty acts like Enterprise is its only ship, and you act like you’ve got to fill twenty crew roles as well as your own. This Kalan Seven thing, for instance-how many hours of sleep have you gotten in the last three nights?”

“Sleep is overrated,” Kirk said dismissively. "It’s a waste of valuable time.”

“I really don’t think you ever remember I’m a doctor.”

“Besides, the workload-that’s kind of the point of the Kalan Seven thing. If I don’t fuck it up, maybe the Admiralty will send us on more missions like that.”

“Bullshit. That will be a whole, new category of things that only you and the Enterprise can do. And that’s exactly how you want it. It’s no different from the Academy, is it?” McCoy didn’t wait for his reply. “Hell, I’ll bet you were the best juvenile delinquent in the Midwest. You’re actually in competition with yourself, and that’s some scary, universe-ending paradox if I ever heard one. Not to mention a recipe for disaster. You won’t ever be satisfied, and it’s going to kill you sooner or later.”

“I hate to tell you,” Kirk said mildly, “but that kind of comes with the territory. There are two ways to make admiral: do the political thing for, oh, about 30 years, or do something big and heroic, preferably losing a limb or two in the process. Personally, I’d prefer option three, which is to do something really useful, not lose any limbs, but probably heavily piss off the Admiralty in the process. I guarantee you I’ll be court martialed a long time before I go bananas from the stress.”

“Jim, what scares me isn’t so much what you just said, but that you apparently meant it to be reassuring.”

“I know worrying comes as naturally to you as breathing, but here’s some advice from experience: worrying is much more likely to make you make the fuck up you’re stressing about. You know how sometimes you make that impossible basket, or throw your sock into the laundry chute from across the room, and then when you try to do it again, you can’t? People call that beginner’s luck, but that’s what you could be doing all the time, if only you didn’t psyche yourself out about it.”

“There’s nothing worse than pep talks on personal achievement from people who’re good at everything,” McCoy said sullenly.

“I’m not talking about talent. I’m talking about understanding what you need to do, and then doing it. Let me show you.” He groped around and grabbed the nearest thing at hand, and found the cap he’d sprung off his last beer. “OK, how much time over the last four years do you think I’ve spent learning to throw bottle caps?”

“Probably less than the time you’ve spent programming the replicator to make Southern fried chicken,” McCoy said, trying to change the subject. Kirk wouldn’t allow it.

“And do you think bottle cap throwing is something I have a natural talent for?”

“Not to the best of my knowledge.”

“And there’s no reason to think my ability to throw a bottle cap at-“ he glanced around “-that little shelf thing by the viewport is inextricably linked with some special destiny or fate or something?”

“Can we skip the fucking Socratic dialogue and get to the point?”

“If I consider the geometry of it, the weight and drag of the cap, the angle of the throw, I should be able to land this bottle cap on that shelf nine times out of ten, as long as I haven’t convinced myself that I can’t.” He waited patiently for McCoy to get it, but McCoy looked stubbornly unconvinced. “All right, let’s bring it out of the realm of the theoretical. If I miss, I’ll-I don’t know, suggest something.”

“Never subject me to a tedious philosophical discussion under the guise of a friendly picnic?”

“How about I go horseback riding with you?” Kirk made a face.

“Deal,” McCoy said, grinning.

“And what do I get?”

“For a one in ten shot at seeing James T. Kirk fall off the back of a Tennessee Walking Horse? Anything you want. Just name it.”

“Fine.” Kirk took no more than a moment to heft the cap in his hand, get a rough idea of the trajectory and drag, and then purposely, without waiting to second-guess himself, tossed it like a discus toward the protrusion in the frame of the viewport. It glinted in a flash from the running lights, for that moment, perhaps, the only spaceborne object in that small solar system guided entirely by will and volition. It hit the shelf with a tinny smack at the perfect angle to absorb all the momentum of its flight, and stuck as if glued.

Kirk gave a little whoop of victory, drowning out McCoy’s disbelieving groan.

“Damn it, Jim,” he said, cracking a smile. “I feel like the magician just gave away all his tricks, and I’m still not sure I get it.”

“We’ll keep working on it. For now, just admire. Oh, and pay up.”

“Right,” McCoy said good-naturedly. “Whaddya want?”

Kirk felt that he had earned the thing that he actually wanted. He felt that it was, indeed, a moral imperative to demonstrate to Bones how he put his philosophy in action, how he could assemble from disparate pieces the thing he desired and bring it about by will. Bones was his good and faithful friend, his loyal shipmate, his trustworthy doctor. He was, moreover, a handsome man who seemed bent on wasting the best years of his life in a penitential regret that frustrated Kirk in more ways than one.

There was a breathless moment in which Kirk was conscious of choosing, making a million other possibilities fall away like shards of broken glass.

“Kiss me,” he said.

“What?” McCoy’s amazement was pure, without a touch of shock or indignation.

“Or let me kiss you. It works out the same in the end.” McCoy’s lips were parted, perhaps in wordless astonishment, but it was a passable simulation of invitation, and Bones was a man of honor in any case. Kirk braced himself with a hand on the floor so he could lean in smoothly and inexorably, as though Bones’ mouth were the point everything else had collapsed into and the gravity were pulling him in. His lips felt as soft as Kirk expected, but everything else was completely new: the taste of his mouth, the slight scratch of his beard, the way the tendons flexed in the back of his neck when Kirk wrapped a hand around it.

He swept the remains of the picnic away with his arm, sending the little lamp and the empty bottles rolling away, and launched himself at Bones, knocking him over. It wasn’t graceful, but it was effective; he landed more or less where he wanted, half on top of him, mouth pressing down on his, hand reaching up under his uniform, unable to get skin under his hands fast enough.

“Wait, wait,” McCoy gasped wetly, pushing at his shoulders, trying to form words in the milliseconds when his lips weren’t otherwise engaged.

“What?” Kirk paused, all coiled tension waiting to start again, releasing only his mouth.

“You better mean this,” McCoy hissed, enough of the familiar Bones indignation to focus Kirk’s wandering attention. “You better not be fucking around.”

“I do. I’m not.” Kirk said with unfeigned sincerity. “I swear, Bones, I wouldn’t do that to you.” He punctuated it with a kiss, on the cheek this time. “I’ve thought about it, a lot, and it never seemed like the right time, but now- Shit, can’t we talk about this later?”

It wasn’t eloquent, or philosophical, but it seemed to be all the persuasion he needed. “OK. Sure,” Bones said. He shot his fingers through Kirk’s hair and pulled him down, kissing him with will and purpose, while Kirk traced the familiar planes of his chest and belly with his hands for the first time.

“Take your shirt off,” Kirk whispered urgently.

“Take your shirt off.” McCoy’s eyes, when Kirk paused to look, were wild, challenging; they held the promise of a sexual fearlessness that escalated Kirk’s expectations so sharply that he gasped.

“Whatever you say.” Kirk stripped off both uniform shirts and tossed them away, waited while McCoy struggled back to a seated position and did the same. A second later McCoy wrapped his arms around him, as desperate for the touch of skin as Kirk was himself. The embrace was tight enough for Kirk to feel the shape of his muscles, feel them flex as they exerted pressure, and it was wonderful.

“More,” he whispered. “Just like that.”

McCoy did as he asked, tightening his grip just short of crushing, and Kirk felt his  arms begin to tremble.

“Oh my god, Jim,” McCoy gasped into his shoulder.

“I know,” Kirk said, running a hand up through his hair. “Me too. It’s OK.” McCoy let up enough that he could drop his mouth into the curve between Kirk’s neck and shoulder, kissing and grazing with his teeth, circling around to the hollow at the base of his throat and back again.

“I have a thing for your neck,” he said between kisses, as if an explanation were needed.

Kirk laughed hoarsely. “I hope you also have a thing for other things of mine.” He ran his hands down the curve of McCoy’s spine, smooth and cool thanks to the chill of space that even the ship’s prodigious environmental systems couldn’t keep out of the air. He stopped when his hands hit the waistband of McCoy’s pants, and said, “These. Off. Now,” clear as an order.

It had taken Kirk all of three days in Starfleet to conclude that there was no graceful way to get out of a uniform. Apparently McCoy knew it, too; they separated long enough to strip off boots, pants, and briefs, Kirk with quiet efficiency, Bones with the half-distracted intensity that characterized almost everything he did without a tricorder in his hand. Kirk fleetingly regretted the lack of a bed, wanting to see Bones stretched out before him, nothing higher than his erection, before this moment as rare in his sight as a San Francisco snow; the lack of light, in which he could have seen the shape and shading of his skin. He made use of what he had, which were his hands and the weight of his body, pushing McCoy over and under him, his favorite place for his lovers, not because of a need for control but because it left all his options open. Kirk worked best within the full range of the possible. But McCoy, contrary as ever, had other ideas; he put one hand behind Kirk’s shoulder and the other on his waist and flipped him, using a technique that wouldn’t have gone far in Spock’s annoyingly asexual Vulcan wrestling demonstrations, but was more than effective against a completely willing subject.

Kirk landed on his back light as a feather, buoyant with bubbling arousal at the thought of McCoy, assertive, demanding, wanting to take something or anything that Kirk might have. When McCoy, bracing himself with one arm, reached toward his own groin with the other, Kirk thought for a deliciously shocked moment that he might have been planning to jerk off on him; but when he felt McCoy’s hand graze the underside of his cock, gasping when he felt his fingers close around both their lengths, pressing them together, it was so perfectly sweet that he regretted not leaving everything to McCoy from the beginning.

It couldn’t last long; things that good never did. In any case, the thin carpeting was scratchy under his back, and Bones’ left arm, strong as it was, would soon get tired of holding his weight. Bones closed his hand around them both, squeezing, not jerking because they had no lubrication. But the pressure was more than enough; the pressure and the mass of Bones’ body above his, the little helpless sounds he was making, the whirl of stars over his shoulder, and beneath it all the bass of the ship’s engines, the cosmic hum of this particular little universe.

He decided to come, and did. It had been more intense before, but never more perfect. McCoy, startled, gripped a bit more tightly, no doubt struggling to process so many things at once, the sudden warmth and wetness at his groin, the way Kirk’s fingertips were tracing over his chest and tugging lightly at his nipples. Kirk hated to see him struggle when it was all so easy.

“Come,” he whispered. “Come now.”

A wordless breath, and he did: Kirk could feel the ripple go through Bones’ body, the contraction of his muscles. He lost his grip and Kirk was directly in the line of fire, and it was wonderful to feel him shoot like that, as if Kirk were coming again himself. McCoy’s arm gave out and he collapsed against Kirk, heavy and warm and sticky and human, so good to feel after the cool, odorless, filtered air.

Kirk stroked down his back, already feeling the rebel insinuations of next time. Next time, there would be a bed, and a light, and he’d be able to see McCoy’s face, feel the shape of his mouth when he came. Next time there’d be lube and hot water and if the thing on Kalan Seven worked out right, maybe a few hours’ shore leave and a bed that didn’t have a comm panel half a meter away. He’d be able to get Bones to hold him down like he meant it, fuck him long and hard, and afterward they could clean up and fall asleep in the same bed. Next time.

Bones’ weight was becoming distracting; Kirk was afraid he might be falling asleep. “Hey,” he said, gentling prodding a rib with his finger.

“Mmm. Sorry.” Bones rolled off, a glutinous detachment that had them both making little “eww” noises and chuckling. Kirk inched over so he could rest his head on McCoy’s shoulder. McCoy stroked his hair lazily.

“Still happy?” McCoy asked, voice thick and dreamy.

“No, I’m pissed. We could have been doing this for four years.”

“Everything happens for a reason,” McCoy said vaguely.

“No, it doesn’t. Things happen; either you let them happen, or you make them happen. That’s all there is for a reason.”

“Fine. Then I’m glad you made this happen.” Kirk noted, for future reference, how indulgently amenable McCoy was after sex.

“Wasn’t me.”

“Who, then?” Bones must have felt his smile in some twitch of muscle deep in his body, because he said, “Oh, no. You’re going to say the ship, or space, or something. That’s not fair. You can’t give me shit for believing in destiny and then personify some pile of bolts. You want romantic claptrap? Talking about a ship like it’s a woman is ten times worse than talking about a woman like she’s a woman.”

“No,” Kirk said slowly, the endorphins finally ebbing and leaving him cleansed and warm as a beach at low tide. “I wasn’t going to say weird, inappropriate things about the ship.” That wasn’t strictly true; she was looking beautiful tonight, her familiar lines barely visible in soft glows and flashes of white and blue, engines dormant while she slept in the arms of gravity and the stars glided by. It was as peaceful as an Iowa night, when he used to lie on the grass and think about his mother out there somewhere, the ship she was on no more than an idea in his head, a picture that he kept taped above his bed.

Bones seemed more than content to lie there, running a hand lightly over the parts of Kirk’s body within reach, leaning over occasionally to place a nuzzling kiss against his hair. His post-coital affection and the fact that he didn’t seem interested in sleep (and therefore might be interested in something else, again, very soon), were simply two more pieces of evidence that this had been a very good idea. For now, though, it was sufficient unto itself, and he had no desire to move, only to keep admiring his ship, his life, and his stars.

Under the dark wing of the Enterprise, a cluster of stars appeared. They were beautiful, and they hadn’t been there before.

Kirk sat suddenly bolt upright. Bones, startled, gave a little reviving huff and propped himself up on his elbows.

“What is it? Forgot a meeting?”

“No,” Kirk said frowning, but not at him. “It’s our orbit. It’s all wrong.”

“How can you tell?”

“That cluster of stars, it’s-- Also, the shape of the-It doesn’t matter, I just know.” Without waiting for McCoy’s objection, Kirk scrambled to his feet and bolted for the door.

“Jim! Clothes!”

“Oh, right.” It seemed like a trivial worry with so much at stake, but tradition demanded certain protocols be observed. He grudgingly pulled on his pants and undershirt, grabbed his boots, and rushed out, bare feet thudding on the metal decking as he sprinted down the corridors, which had never seemed so long. Luckily, there were plenty of comm panels in Engineering. He skidded to a halt at the first one he saw and pounded his fist against it.

“Kirk to Bridge.”

“Sulu here.” Of course. Sulu would have stayed for the “fun.”

“Pull out us out of the orbit of the black hole immediately, full impulse power. Do you understand?”

“Aye, captain. Engaging impulse engines.” Kirk had never felt such gratitude that, among his unusually mouthy Bridge crew, Sulu at least knew how to follow an order. He spared a moment to pull on his boots and another to watch McCoy clanging toward him, uniform shirt caught in his waistband and hair falling in his eyes.

“Jim, what the hell-“

“Bridge. Now.” Not quite at a run but still with all due speed, Kirk made his way to the nearest turbolift. It was a testament to his crew-or perhaps a reflection on their captain-that his sudden, half-undressed appearance provoked no more than a few raised eyebrows.

The turbolift doors swished shut and Kirk found himself with a scant 20 seconds to remedy McCoy’s exceedingly suspicious appearance. He freed McCoy’s shirt, wiped his sweaty forehead with his sleeves, brushed his hair back into the closest approximation he could manage without the aid of whatever alien goo McCoy used. He bore it all with no reaction except a slightly stunned expression until Kirk finished with a quick kiss on the lips.

“Are you nuts?” At least he sounded completely normal.

“Sorry. That was for luck.” A second later the door opened onto the Bridge, and the faces of a half-dozen unfamiliar scientists bracketed by Spock, Uhura and Sulu. Kirk headed straight for his chair.

“Sulu, where are we?”

“We’re 4.46 AUs from the black hole, bearing 41 mark 124, holding at inertial cruising speed, captain.”

“Good job, Mr. Sulu.” Kirk let out a breath he felt like he’d been holding since the Engineering deck. He could feel McCoy hovering a meter behind his left shoulder, and at least three pairs of wide eyes watching him with intense curiosity. Naturally, it was Spock who broke the pregnant silence.

“Captain, I infer that you believe that the ship was in danger while in orbit around the black hole.”

“You infer correctly, Mr. Spock.” He waited for the barrage of gracefully worded objections; now that they were safe, it didn’t matter.

“I can only deduce that you were monitoring the same real-time observational data as the science team. In that case, I must congratulate you. Dr. Saxena had just reached the conclusion that our path was not following any of the known patterns for orbit around a ring singularity. It is an important discovery but one that suggests we could not have predicted the Enterprise’s future position with certainty.” As usual, it took Kirk a few moments to unwrap the layers of Spock’s speech. It might have been a sarcastic comment on Kirk’s known lack of interest in astrophysics, an elliptical apology for having inadvertently put the ship in danger, or, most charitably, a welcome cover story the captain’s dishabille and sudden appearance with his equally disheveled CMO. Whatever it was, Kirk was content that he appeared at least slightly less crazy than he had a minute earlier. He was, in fact, content with every aspect of his local reality at this particular moment: his ship safe, her controls under his hands, the warm afterimage of McCoy’s body on his, Uhura trying and failing to hide a grin behind her hand.

Into the silence came the faint but unmistakable sound of McCoy zipping up his fly.

Kirk smiled; it was the nature of things not to remain perfect. Change was the only constant, after all.

“Mr. Sulu, resume our original course to Kalan Seven when ready. Lieutenant Uhura, inform Kalan Base once we have a new arrival time. And Dr. McCoy?”

“Yes, captain?” McCoy took a few steps forward, to where Kirk could see him. He looked as relaxed as Kirk had ever seen him on the Bridge.

“I think I owe you a rematch. Best two out of three?”

+++++

Nerdy Note #1: As far as I know, there are no blueprints out yet for the Alternate!1701, so I based the deck plan more or less on the 1701a. The Engineering Observation Platform does not exist on those plans, but it doesn’t not exist, either.

Nerdy Note #2: Kerr black holes (also called rotating black holes or ring singularities) are a theoretical construct of the physicist Roy Kerr. Since an object with angular momentum cannot collapse into a single point, a spinning black hole would be 0 thickness but have some radius, making it theoretically possible to pass through without getting all spaghettified. To this, the physicist brings up all sorts of objections, such as how you’d get ripped apart by tidal forces first, and how they’re unlikely to form in the first place (they are not currently known to actually exist). The sci fi writer says “traversable black hole! OMG time travel!11!” IF they existed and IF you could travel through them and IF the result would be to send you to a different time, that time would be the future. But still. Kerr black holes are of course quite different from Orci-Kurtzman singularities, which form out of tiny drops of not particularly dense liquid matter, are traversable (except when they’re not), and send you into random times in the past.