Twice Shy: Part 3 of 4
Title: Twice Shy
Fandom: Star Trek XI
More details in the Masterpost.
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Twice Shy: Part Three
According to legend, werewolves succumb to two things: old age and silver bullets through the heart.
The Titanians' bullets are old-fashioned, lead in copper casing, not a hint of silver.
The wolf awakens to silence and darkness; the light of the colony's moon is barely edging its contours, and he's weak, too weak, but the moonlight is helping. There is a statistic running through the back of his mind, accompanied by an echo of derision from his human counterpart and an image of the pack-mate who is neither-wolf-nor-human.
The scent on the air tells of wood-fired stoves and cordite, with a faint undercurrent of mate, and that is the scent he chooses to follow because it is his first instinct and because his human is quiet, too quiet, and Bones is never quiet around their mate.
There is danger, he knows, because his human is still there, fragile but aware, and Bones knows what happened, can decipher it better than the wolf can, but the wolf translates it into peril and careful, so he slinks through the shadows, grateful for his dark gray fur that cloaks him from casual view, until he finds the structure of cold stone and iron where their mate is kept.
Their mate is curled up on the cold floor, shivering, smelling like desolation and remorse, and there is steel between them, bars of steel, and the floor too hard to dig through. The wolf whines, disconsolate, pushing his snout through the bars, and then his mate, his human, is jerking upright and turning around, suddenly alive and warm and hopeful, and the wolf's human counterpart unfurls at the back of his mind until they're whole again, like they should be.
"Jim," his human counterpart sighs, and that's their mate. Their mate who is waiting for a rescue, which they can help get to him that much sooner. He pushes his nose against Jim's palm before slinking outside, following the trail of the one who is pack-but-not-wolf-and-not-human, until he finds the little flashing thing, and then his human takes over and shifts so that he can speak.
+++
They're barely back on the ship after they've gotten Jim out before the Captain turns up in his quarters. Bones is still bristling from the indignity of having Uhura declare him unfit for duty, even if he knows that he needs a little more time to figure out which parts of him are wolf and which parts are human; the wolf is what saved him on the planet, despite getting shot through the head, and while he hasn't always been fond of werewolf myths turning out to be true he's actually rather happy with this one.
Still, he hasn't quite figured out how to be human yet (again), so he's stalking around his quarters, his claws scrabbling against the metal floor, when the chime sounds and he needs to shift, briefly, before letting Jim in.
Being human right now is almost painful, so he switches back as soon as the door swishes shut behind the Captain, not caring very much that the Captain is staring at him like he's never seen him before.
"Bones," he breathes, looking like he's about to keel over, so the wolf tugs the Captain towards the bed, because at least he can sit there. The Captain follows him meekly, sitting down on the edge of the mattress, still staring at him, until the wolf steps up to him and Jim buries his shaking hands in his fur and whispers, "I thought I lost you," into the silence of his quarters, refusing to let go of him until Bones succumbs and curls up on top of the covers, Jim curving himself around him, and that's how they fall asleep, entwined.
+++
If he'd known all he needed to do to win Jim's trust back was to get himself killed, he'd have done it sooner.
Or maybe not.
Still, the disaster of a mission to Titania seems to have punched through Jim's reservations, in a way that Bones suspects he never would have managed on his own. Thank heavens for small mercies, at least.
Things get easier somehow or other. None of them can quite suss out who precisely invited the Captain into their practice sessions, but once he's there it seems silly to throw him out; Bones has taken a bullet to the head and come out fighting, after all, it's not like they can shock him at this point.
Jim seems awed, most of the time, stunned by the speed Bones and Uhura are fighting at, stunned by the brutality they employ against each other, but perhaps more than anything else, stunned by the precision of Uhura fighting Spock, the way that even when they're moving against each other, they're moving in sync.
Of course, Jim is Jim; this is the way the world works, and while he has graduated from asking Bones stupid questions, his curiosity is obviously not assuaged. Jim likes being around when Bones and Uhura let themselves be subject to the pull of whatever moon they're near, likes curling up with Bones's wolf on the softest patch of floor they can find and tucking his nose into the patch of fur behind Bones's ear.
It seems remarkably contrary to Jim's personality, this quietness, the way he pointedly does not ask how it works anymore. He does occasionally mention the idea of Bones finding a mate, but he mentions it like he's trying to turn the whole idea into a joke and Bones lets himself go along with it because he's pretty willing to trade one set of uncomfortable questions for another. He doesn't push it, because Jim still seems so intensely discomfited with the idea of bonding for life, to the point where he sometimes watches Spock and Uhura like they're specimens under a magnifying glass.
It's Chekov who blithely points out the part of the puzzle that makes all the other pieces fall into place one day when he comes to sickbay for a cut he swears up and down is not from fencing practice. Bones wouldn't buy it even if Sulu wasn't hovering guiltily in the background.
Chekov is trying to deflect Bones’s attention away from the circumstances surrounding his injury by talking about his other packmates, discussing their most recent training session. Since Bones had attended said training session, this would not normally work, but it's the way Chekov describes the Captain that gets his attention.
"Was very cool to watch when you three all fight each other. You and Spock are working better together, I think. Not as well as Spock and Uhura, of course; they are almost like dancer, you agree? We all must watch them with awe, even Keptin. He makes jokes, about how he can't understand they are together, yes, but sometimes I think the Keptin will, how you say? Expire? From his jealousy."
He almost drops the dermal regenerator he's using on Chekov's forearm as his perception of the world tilts, takes a 180° turn and shifts, the universe rearranging itself around him in a way that is entirely different to the way it had been when Chekov came in.
Sweet merciful Jesus.
+++
He almost blows off their training session that afternoon, but he knows Uhura would hunt him down and interrogate him, and then she'd probably try to sympathize, and he just can't take that. Also, she's extremely likely to tell him to talk to Jim, and that's just not happening.
Jim does show up about midway through, when Uhura is sparring with Spock, and Chekov is right, they are like dancers, beautiful and graceful to watch, awe-inspiring, because a misstep from either of them would almost certainly result in blood. He understands being jealous of this, he is jealous of this.
So when Jim sits next to him, where he's winding down from his own fight with Uhura, he breaks all his self-imposed rules and mentions the subject first.
"They're really something, aren't they?" he mumbles, nodding towards the pair.
"They are," Jim says. "They look beautiful together. They're lucky they found each other."
"Ever wish you could find someone like that?" he asks.
Jim hesitates, then smirks. "Well, at least I’m having plenty of fun searching," he says, winking. He smells clean and spicy and earthy, the way only Jim smells, and he suddenly realizes that Jim has been smelling a lot more like Jim and a lot less like other people recently.
"Are you okay?" he asks reflexively, before he can think better of it.
"Hm?" Jim replies, as Uhura manages to catch Spock's elbow and twist his arm down. Spock breaks her hold, but it's tense, and it looked like it hurt. "Sorry," Jim says again, when the pair have resumed their fast steps across the mat. "Why wouldn't I be okay?"
"You're just…" he takes a deep breath. "You don't smell as much of other people, lately," he finally says, somewhat lamely.
Jim whips around to stare at him. "You can…" he starts, then reconsiders. "Of course you can," he amends. He's blushing, and Bones wishes he had an excuse to shift to his wolf right now, because he can smell Jim, true, but he needs the wolf to sort out how emotions smell.
"Get tired of it?" he asks, internally kicking himself for even asking these stupid questions.
"Mmmm," Jim replies, noncommittal, not looking him in the eyes.
On the mat, Uhura falters and isn't quick enough to parry, the heel of Spock's hand thudding against her side. She retaliates, quick and decisive, Spock having gotten in too close, snagging a foot behind his knee and bringing him down fast.
That's about when his comm rings to let him know that apparently a part of the enlisted crew who went planetside for their last shore leave seem to be developing weird symptoms at an alarming rate, and can he please come back to sickbay ASAP?
+++
It takes them three days of non-stop work to figure out how to get ahead of the infection spreading amongst the crew. Sickbay gets full and they end up having to clear out the mess hall closest to them for an auxiliary med bay, and then the large rec-room on the same deck. The mess hall freezer ends up getting used as a spare morgue, and they're just at the point where they need to ask for another room for cold storage when they finally find a drug cocktail that works.
The virus had started its life as food poisoning. Adverse reactions to foreign cuisine were not uncommon after shore leave, so they had been treating the group of enlisted men, who had mostly spent shore leave together, with relatively little alarm, until other people started showing up and Bones's sickbay crew started suffering. They'd had the crew called to general quarters, which seemed to have contained the damage some, but not enough.
In the end he'd commandeered every non-human on the ship - the infection apparently does not travel between species - and had Christine Chapel running a supplementary nursing force from her own sickbed.
The final tally is twenty-three dead, forty-eight needing to spend a few days recuperating, ninety-three able to stagger back to their own quarters for three rotations off, and he's so far beyond exhausted that he falls asleep in his office chair, forehead on his desk.
Four days later, the ship is just about getting back to its normal routine, and he's just about caught up on his sleep. They've relinquished the rec-room, after disinfecting it thoroughly, and they'll be able to let go of the Deck 4 mess hall in a day or so. Jim had shown up in his office and chivvied him off to his bed sometime into day two of watching the cure work. He's pretty certain Jim had used his captain's overrides to make sure nobody disturbed him, since he'd slept without interruption for eighteen hours.
He's having lunch when Spock unexpectedly sits down opposite him.
Their animosity is mostly a thing of the past, for all that neither of them can pretend to understand the other, but they still do not spend a great deal of time together without Uhura there.
"Spock," he says, carefully.
"Dr. McCoy," Spock replies, tearing apart his piece of bread to go with his plomeek soup. "Did you tell the Captain to inquire of me how the bond between me and Lieutenant Uhura works?"
Bones inhales a bit of his coffee by accident, but when he's managed to stop coughing he says, "I told Jim that if he wanted to know how the werewolf bond works from your end, he should ask you, yes. It was a while ago; I'm surprised he waited this long."
Spock looks at him with an expression that is even more unreadable than usual, before nodding slightly. "Very well," he says, and starts eating.
He can't get the exchange out of his head, though, because why the hell is Jim suddenly asking that question?
+++
They have a standing weekly chess match, which is less a competition and more an excuse for them to sit around and drink whiskey. Well, they drink whiskey when they have it, which is less and less the case these days.
This time, Jim shows up with something appallingly purple, which turns out to have a smoky rich flavor - nothing like whiskey, but it's not too bad.
They've had a couple of glasses each, and Jim is trouncing him at chess, which is what he normally does, though he seems distracted. Not that he can tell, much, but Bones notices that he seems to be doing somewhat better than usual.
"What's bugging you?" he asks when Jim moves a pawn out of the otherwise flawless defensive position he's been maintaining.
"Nothing," Jim says, not looking up from the chessboard.
"Oh, come on," he groans, pointedly moving his bishop to precisely where Jim's pawn opened up a line to Jim's king. "Whatever it is, it's not nothing."
Jim stays silent, looking at his hands, for a long while. When he finally looks up, he's wearing an odd expression, one which Bones has never seen before, and he looks oddly vulnerable, his eyes very blue.
"It's me, isn't it?" he says quietly, and Bones's heart plummets towards his stomach.
"What are you talking about?" he asks, but the way Jim's eyes are flashing, he knows he's not going to get very far faking ignorance.
"Don't pretend you don't know exactly what I'm talking about, Bones," he snaps. "I went and asked Spock, of all people. Goddamn. First time we ever met, you knew, didn't you? And you never said a fucking thing."
He takes a sip of his purple not-whiskey before he replies, trying to figure out how to respond to that. "What should I have said? 'Hi, I'm Leonard McCoy and I'm pretty sure you're my mate'?" he finally asks, tired. "It's not exactly what you were looking for, is it?"
"What the fuck do you know about what I was looking for, Bones? You never fucking asked." He's sounding quietly restrained, his voice barely raised.
"Right, Jim, because you didn't make it clear in your first week at the academy just how much fun you were hoping to have," he sighs back, wondering what the hell Jim is hoping to achieve by bringing this up. "It wasn't like you'd been waiting for me your whole Goddamn life, or that you even considered me, much, before moving on to greener pastures."
"Yeah, because I was the only one who did that," Jim says, derisively. "Must've been rough, not really wanting the person you were, 'biologically drawn to', to quote our erstwhile first officer."
Bones knows he's gaping, but considering what Jim just said, he thinks he can be excused. "You think I don't want you?"
"Why else would you avoid doing… whatever it is you do, for all these years? It's not like I would've said no," Jim says, and he's starting to lose his calm.
"You didn't," he replies, quietly, not sure where exactly this is going, but willing to at least try seeing it through.
"That was… it was just a…" Jim stutters. "I gave you a blowjob, that's it. What was it, a test run?"
"Hell of a test run," Bones replies wryly. "I haven't had sex since."
"You…" Jim starts, and then just gapes. Bones almost wishes he had a camera; he's pretty sure Uhura at least would like to see the Captain lost for words.
"…followed you into space, remember?" he says, softly, hoping he's read the situation right, because if not, he's in for a world of hurt.
"But you were going to ask for reassignment," Jim pushes, staring at him. "You were going to…"
"I couldn't leave you if I tried, kid," Bones mutters, before Jim has a chance to finish that thought. "It had been written for half an hour by the time you saw it, but I hadn't submitted it. I don't think I could've."
Jim stares at him over the chessboard, eyes wide and his pulse clearly fluttering in his throat, and Bones is hard pressed not to shift into his wolf to smell what he's feeling. They stare at each other in silence for a long moment, an endless fucking moment, before Jim whispers, sounding small, "But why would you want to…"
And there's only one Goddamn way he's answering that stupid question. He's on his feet and around the table before Jim knows what the hell is happening, yanking the other man to his feet and into a kiss. Jim tastes of surprise and the damn purple alcohol, and it takes him longer than Bones would have thought to kiss him back. He doesn't fight Bones, though, opening up under his mouth, letting himself be kissed, and then his fingers are at the nape of Bones's neck, curling into his hair, pulling him closer.
It takes all he has to end the kiss, and he's breathing hard when they finally break apart, Jim clearly not willing to stop but he's gotta ask, because Jim is too damn reckless and Bones isn't willing to be one of the consequences he never considers.
"You better tell me right now if this isn't what you want, Jim," he breathes, his forehead against Jim's, and he watches the other man's eyes flutter shut from up close, his heart thundering in his chest as he waits for whatever Jim decides to do.
Jim, the idiot, tries to kiss him in response, but that's not going to be good enough, not this time. "Tell me," he growls, a hand on Jim's shoulder, pushing him back, even if all he wants is to pull Jim closer.
"Should've known," Jim mutters, pushing against the hand on his shoulder.
"Don't be cute with me, Jim," he says, not letting him come any closer.
"No, I meant. I should have known. This. This is what I should have known," he replies, bringing up a hand to tangle in Bones's shirt. He looks up and meets his eyes, and Goddamn if he doesn't look like he knows what he's doing. "Want to know what I felt, that day on the shuttle?" he asks, softly, not breaking eye contact, and not waiting for Bones's reply either. "I knew you weren't going to leave me. Couldn't have told you how I knew, but I knew." He brings up a hand to wrap around Bones's wrist on his shoulder and pulls, and Bones lets him, lets him come in closer until they're chest to chest, and then they're kissing again.
Jim's mouth is hot on his and he's got a hand in Bones's hair, another pulling at his tunic at the small of his back, and he's pressed up close to Jim but not close enough, so he pushes him back a few steps, until he's got him up against the wall of his quarters, Jim leaning back and letting his head hit the wall when Bones kisses and sucks and bites down his neck to his clavicle, exploring all the skin that he's been fantasizing about for years.
Jim's hands get more insistent on his tunic and he finally pulls back just far enough that Jim can pull it over his head - he's wearing a sleeveless undershirt and Jim groans in disappointment when he doesn't get to skin immediately.
"Fucking tease," he mutters into Bones's mouth, which makes Bones laugh, because how Goddamn long has he been waiting for this? And now Jim is frustrated by a fucking shirt. Jim's hands are still scratching at the backs of his shoulders, trying to get enough leverage to pull up the undershirt too, which is not gonna happen while Bones is pressing their groins together like this, Jim's dick hard against him, pressing hot and heavy into his hip, and Jim moans breathlessly when Bones crowds him up against the wall.
There are easier ways to take off shirts than pulling them over someone's heads, and he pulls Jim's shirt apart from the neckline down, the tearing sound loud over their groans. Jim chuckles and breathes something like 'not fair', but it gets lost in his moan when Bones runs a hand firmly down his side, thumbing a nipple on the way.
And then it's just the waistband of Jim's pants, and while tearing Jim's pants off might be amusing, he figures the Captain can always borrow one of his shirts, but pants might present more of a challenge. "Fuck, Bones," Jim says, and takes advantage of the extra couple of inches between them while Bones is undoing his buttons to pull up his undershirt, until Bones has to let go to let Jim draw it off too.
Then Jim's clever, clever hands are all over him, pulling him closer, and he gets distracted, though not bad enough to forget that he's got Jim's pants opened, pushing his hand down until it's wrapped around Jim's cock, pulling gently, making Jim curse under his breath and retaliate by biting down on Bones's shoulder while he rolls a nipple between thumb and forefinger, and Christ, they should have been doing this for years.
He hasn't been kissing Jim for a few minutes, and this suddenly seems like a travesty, so he uses the hand that's not down Jim's pants to pull at Jim's hair until he leans back and Bones can kiss him, hard and bruising, Jim's arms thrown around his neck, blunt fingernails scraping at the top of his spine, and then a hand is fisting in his hair and Jim pushes his dick into Bones's hand sharply, once, twice, and comes, his whole body shivering against Bones's, the smell of it sudden and sharp and overpowering.
"Fuck," Jim sobs into his mouth, suddenly slack and relaxed and leaning into him for support.
"What," Bones murmurs back, mouth still at the corner of Jim's lips because he couldn't stop kissing him if he tried, and he's not willing to put it to the test either. "You think that was it? We haven't even made it to the bed yet."
Jim whimpers, no other word for it, and his fingers scratch the back of Bones's neck as they curl into fists. "You're going to have to carry me, if we're going anywhere," he half-laughs, letting his head fall down onto Bones's shoulder, his breath hot against his chest.
"Not a problem," he replies, wrapping his arms around Jim, pulling him up and against him until Jim gets the idea and wraps his legs around Bones's hips, Bones pulling him up until he's holding him there, and Jim takes the opportunity to tilt his head up and kiss him again, until they're both breathless.
"You need to fuck me up against a wall like this sometime," Jim muses. He's lax in Bones's arms, letting him do most of the work, not that he minds, and just to make that point he pushes off the wall and carries Jim across the floor towards the bedroom.
"Who needs the wall?" Bones asks, smirking, and he can both hear and feel Jim's gasp at that one.
"Christ, you're killing me here," Jim mutters into his neck.
"Half the point," he says, and then they're through to the bedroom and he can throw Jim onto his bed, which, let's face it, he's been wanting to do for quite some time. He curls his fingers into the waistband of Jim's pants and underwear and pulls them down, and Jim helps, lifting his hips and letting Bones peel them off.
"And the other half?" he asks, cheekily, while Bones kicks off the rest of his own clothes, then crawls up into the bed and between his legs.
Bones responds by kissing him, long and deep and sweet, not letting his hands explore, one at the nape of Jim's neck, the other on his jaw, until he's forced to stop by the need to breathe.
"Point taken," Jim whispers when they've gotten their breath back, and he's staring at Bones, looking a little awed.
Jim looks good naked and a little debauched like this, a splatter of come on his stomach, his lips bruised from kissing, a bitemark on his shoulder, marked and his and he pushes himself down the bed again, trailing his mouth over Jim's chest, sucking on a nipple until Jim is making hitching little noises, then moves down to bite at his bellybutton, trailing his fingers down Jim's sides. He's a little surprised when that gets a bigger reaction than his mouth on Jim's stomach and he tries it again, stroking down from ribs to thigh firmly, noticing how Jim's breath changes and catches when he thumbs his hipbones and he smiles when Jim loses his breath entirely when he wraps his hands around his thighs and pulls them apart a little.
"God, Bones, I can't, not yet…" Jim whines, hips still bucking up towards him.
"Who said I was going to suck your cock, Jim?" he murmurs into the top of Jim's treasure trail, sliding his lips down and gently sucking a bruise into the edge of Jim's pubic hair. "I see you're a natural blonde," he teases when he stops, watching the fast rise and fall of Jim's chest. "Give me your hands," he adds, smirking when Jim glowers a little at him for the 'blonde' comment.
Jim looks at him with surprise, but lets Bones take his hands and spread them, palms down, over his abdomen, below his bellybutton. "Keep 'em there," Bones says, and waits for it. It takes a few moments, but then Jim's eyes widen as the warmth of his own hands sinks into the skin of his stomach and down, sending sparks between every single nerve ending in the area.
"Bones," Jim whimpers, and he decides to forestall any complaints, licking up the join between Jim's hip and thigh, biting gently at his hipbone, then licking back down, letting his tongue brush the edge of Kirk's little finger the entire way. Jim bucks up with a cry, surprised, but he keeps his hands right where they're supposed to be.
He trails his tongue lower down the join, until he's mouthing the skin of Jim's balls, gently but surely, and Jim is making hitched sobs whenever he changes direction. He lets inspiration take him wherever; sucking Jim's balls gently, mouthing at the loose skin behind Jim's balls, pressing a thumb down on the spot where the skin is firm until he keens, high in his throat, and Jim's legs shake from the effort of keeping his hips from bucking up.
Jim is moaning a litany of his name and calls to various deities, some of whom are only worshipped in the part of the universe they've been exploring, and Jim’s dick is hard again when he finally stops, pulling Jim's hands away and mouthing his way up Jim's stomach to kiss him hard, careful not to give Jim's dick any friction.
"Christ, Bones, you're an evil sonofabitch," Jim sobs against his mouth, but he's just the way Bones wants him now, pliant and responsive and unbelievably turned on.
"Never said I wasn't," he replies and reaches over to the nightstand to get the lube. "Want to come before or after I fuck you?"
Jim's eyes fly wide open at that and he stops breathing long enough for Bones to almost worry. "Holy shit," Jim finally says, "what sort of fucking question is that?"
"Well," he replies, kissing Jim hard and then going on, "if you don't come now, I won't be letting you while I'm getting you ready. On the other hand, if you come now, you'll need less prep and hell, if I do it right, there might be a third one in it for you." Jim whimpers under his mouth, trying to shake his head without breaking their kiss.
"Fuck, Bones, no way. There's no way in hell; nobody is that good."
Bones smirks, trailing the fingers of one hand down Jim's cheek and neck, stroking over his collarbone. "Want to bet, Jim?" he asks, meeting Jim's eyes. "You should trust me, you know. I'm a doctor."
Jim laughs, shakily, not breaking their gaze. "I… fine, okay, do your worst," he says, looking at him uncertainly.
Bones smirks at him before kissing his way back down Jim's body, staying away from his cock but mouthing his balls instead, until Jim is fisting the coverlet and moaning; then he kisses and licks up the skin towards the root of Jim's dick, and keeps going, licking up the underside of Jim's cock until he's reached the tip. Jim all but shouts underneath him, and when he bucks up, Bones takes his dick in, sucking him down to the very root.
"Fuck," Jim groans, and Bones slides his hands around his hips, pulling him upwards until Jim gets the point and pushes deeper, fucking into Bones's mouth with sharp, wild thrusts and Bones relaxes his throat and takes him, licking him hard on the upstroke, using his tongue to sweep across the sensitive ridge of the glans when Jim pulls out and it doesn't take much until Jim is shouting, "Oh, God, fucking… Leonard," and coming.
He waits until Jim is looking at him to swallow.
"Christ," Jim says, disentangling his hands from the coverlet and throwing an arm over his eyes.
"How long has it been since you last called me by my name?" Bones asks, then takes Jim by the hip and turns him over onto his stomach. He takes the opportunity to push Jim's hips apart and lick up from his balls to the top of his ass, noticing that Jim positively jumps when he does it.
"Bones…" he starts uncertainly, muttering into the pillow but trailing off with a moan when Bones lubes up two fingers and pushes inside, trailing the fingertips firmly over Jim's prostate.
"Some other time, Jim," Bones says. "This will do for now." He pushes deeper, pushing his fingers apart but making sure they never stray very far from Jim's sweet spot, pressing down on it more or less continuously even as he stretches him. Jim's ready for a third finger pretty soon, relaxed from two orgasms, and he's gasping now, pushing himself back onto Bones's hand, which tells him that Jim's enjoying this a hell of a lot, even if he's probably not hard yet.
Bones takes it slow, both because Jim deserves that, but also because he's only human and can only hold out so long once they're fucking. He listens to the way the noises Jim is making get shorter, higher, more breathy, and smirks to himself when they turn from moans and mutters to outright begging.
"God, Bones, please," Jim grinds out, "please, please, please fuck me, Bones, please."
"Get up on your hands and knees," he says, finally, pulling his fingers out and slicking himself up, and Jim responds quickly, though he gets up onto his elbows only and rests his forehead on his wrists.
He smiles to himself as he strokes both hands up Jim's spine and then down his sides, until he's pulling Jim back by the hips, sinking into him slowly but firmly, until he's buried to the hilt. Jim is shaking beneath him, from the intensity or from the effort of holding himself up on his knees, and he sobs when Bones rocks into him, utterly incoherent now.
"Oh God, Jim," he moans, keeping his thrusts slow and steady and angled very firmly onto Jim's prostate, keeping the other man securely on the edge between pain and pleasure, between too much and not enough. "Never thought I'd get to do this with you," he whispers and bends over Jim's arched spine to kiss his shoulder.
Jim whimpers beneath him and manages the first proper word he's said in a few minutes. "Idiot," he breathes, making Bones laugh.
"Yeah," he sighs into Jim's shoulder, before straightening up, and then pulling Jim back onto him by the shoulders, until the other man is sitting in his lap, shaking from sensation.
He pushes up and into him and he knows that from this angle he'll be hitting Jim's sweet spot without any effort whatsoever, so he lets himself lose a little of his control, fucking into him hard and fast until Jim is a wild thing in his arms, rocking back and crying out sharply every time Bones pushes into him, so he presses a hand into Jim's lap and curls it around Jim's dick, jacking him slowly until Jim lets him take over entirely, head fallen back onto Bones's shoulder, mouth open and eyes closed, and he's just breathing now, barely making any noise.
"Come for me," he whispers into Jim's shoulder when he feels himself start tensing up, the pleasure at the bottom of his stomach beginning to coil tighter, his thrusts getting wilder. "Jim, please," and Jim does, tensing around him until the world goes white around the edges and he bites down on Jim's shoulder as he comes, too, and Jim is crying out, "Oh, God, fuck, yes, Bones, I…" before going utterly lax in his arms, his head still on Bones's shoulder, his eyes only a sliver of blue beneath his lashes.
It's possibly the most gorgeous fucking thing Bones has ever seen.
He has to lift Jim off his lap and push him down into the bed, and Jim seems to almost be in a fugue state, but his eyes are open, if heavy-lidded, and he watches Bones when he goes to get a wet cloth from the bathroom and when he cleans them up. When Bones slides into bed, Jim doesn't say anything, just crawls closer until he's lying half on top of him, his head on Bones's chest.
They lie like that for a while, hands idly trailing over skin, just touching. "Jim," he finally says, when his head is straight enough to think again.
Jim looks up and meets his eyes. "Don't you fucking dare ask," he says casually, but there's an undertone of danger in his voice.
"I wasn't going to…" Bones starts, suddenly feeling defensive.
"Oh, you were," Jim says, and then there is a spike of… worrywantlovehurt at the back of his mind.
"Holy shit," Bones whispers, staring back at him. "That was you?"
Jim looks down. "Yeah." There's a long silence before he goes on. "Spock could probably break it if…" alarmfearlovelonely "… we want."
"Not a chance," he replies, finally tilting Jim's chin up so that he can meet his eyes when Jim won't look up himself. "You hearing me? Not a chance." He tries to send out reassurance and determination and affection and then Jim's eyes widen slightly and he knows he's been heard this time.
"So," he goes on. "You feeling a little… headachy?" He smirks, and Jim just looks baffled.
"No, apart from being, you know, tired," which he manages to say with a leer, "I'm fine."
"Hmmm," Bones sighs. "Pity. I was hoping we'd have to take a few days off to work through the… complications."
Jim stares at him like he's grown an extra head. "The complications of wha…" then he gets it. "Oh, you mean the complications. Yes, yes, I do think I agree with you. Maybe you should arrange for medical leave."
Spock nearly develops a facial expression when Bones calls him to put himself and Jim on stand down for medical reasons.
+++
Uhura turns up on the second day of their 'medical' leave. Bones is a little surprised she managed to restrain herself that long, but he supposes it's the influence of Spock - he's probably an advocate for patience.
She takes one sniff of the air in the room and breaks out in the widest grin Bones has ever seen on her face, giving him an exaggerated wink. It makes Jim groan from where he's sitting on the sofa, reading some sort of report from Engineering.
"Taking a break between rounds?" Uhura asks, positively leering at him. Jim glares.
"It's none of your…" he stops, stares, and then sighs. "You're going to be insufferable, aren't you?" he asks, eyeing her.
"Turnabout is fair play!" she says, grinning evilly. "So, how good is Bones?"
"What did I do to deserve this?" Bones asks before Jim can say anything.
Uhura looks contrite. "You're right. I'll only interrogate him when you're not around, Leonard."
"That makes me feel so much better," he mutters, but it's not like he'd ever stop her from tormenting Jim, now that she finally has ammo.
"For the record," Jim interjects, "I would not actually have minded answering that question." He smirks. "Good. Really good."
Uhura just laughs and elbows him in the side. "Trust me; it gets better."
Jim looks like Christmas has come early. "How so?" he asks, putting down the PADD and with it any pretense of disinterest.
"Well," she says, "that is sort of what I came to talk to you about."
"Yes," Bones says, as dryly as he can make it, "I was a little surprised when Jim could suddenly read my mind."
"Oh, come off it, Leonard," she replies. "You've seen me and Spock do it often enough. And besides, you're exaggerating; right now you have a low-level empathetic connection at best."
"Yes, but I had…"
"Attributed most of it to him being Vulcan?" Uhura raises an eyebrow.
"Humans aren't naturally psi-compatible," he says, feeling a little foolish.
"True. And I and Spock are a unique case. But I still grew up among wolves, so I know what the two of you can expect."
"So what you're saying is…"
She smirks, and shoots Jim a glance. "The more you use it, the faster you get used to it."
Jim definitely seems to be getting the hint.
+++
Masterpost || One || Two || Three || Epilogue
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Fandom: Star Trek XI
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Twice Shy: Part Three
According to legend, werewolves succumb to two things: old age and silver bullets through the heart.
The Titanians' bullets are old-fashioned, lead in copper casing, not a hint of silver.
The wolf awakens to silence and darkness; the light of the colony's moon is barely edging its contours, and he's weak, too weak, but the moonlight is helping. There is a statistic running through the back of his mind, accompanied by an echo of derision from his human counterpart and an image of the pack-mate who is neither-wolf-nor-human.
The scent on the air tells of wood-fired stoves and cordite, with a faint undercurrent of mate, and that is the scent he chooses to follow because it is his first instinct and because his human is quiet, too quiet, and Bones is never quiet around their mate.
There is danger, he knows, because his human is still there, fragile but aware, and Bones knows what happened, can decipher it better than the wolf can, but the wolf translates it into peril and careful, so he slinks through the shadows, grateful for his dark gray fur that cloaks him from casual view, until he finds the structure of cold stone and iron where their mate is kept.
Their mate is curled up on the cold floor, shivering, smelling like desolation and remorse, and there is steel between them, bars of steel, and the floor too hard to dig through. The wolf whines, disconsolate, pushing his snout through the bars, and then his mate, his human, is jerking upright and turning around, suddenly alive and warm and hopeful, and the wolf's human counterpart unfurls at the back of his mind until they're whole again, like they should be.
"Jim," his human counterpart sighs, and that's their mate. Their mate who is waiting for a rescue, which they can help get to him that much sooner. He pushes his nose against Jim's palm before slinking outside, following the trail of the one who is pack-but-not-wolf-and-not-human, until he finds the little flashing thing, and then his human takes over and shifts so that he can speak.
+++
They're barely back on the ship after they've gotten Jim out before the Captain turns up in his quarters. Bones is still bristling from the indignity of having Uhura declare him unfit for duty, even if he knows that he needs a little more time to figure out which parts of him are wolf and which parts are human; the wolf is what saved him on the planet, despite getting shot through the head, and while he hasn't always been fond of werewolf myths turning out to be true he's actually rather happy with this one.
Still, he hasn't quite figured out how to be human yet (again), so he's stalking around his quarters, his claws scrabbling against the metal floor, when the chime sounds and he needs to shift, briefly, before letting Jim in.
Being human right now is almost painful, so he switches back as soon as the door swishes shut behind the Captain, not caring very much that the Captain is staring at him like he's never seen him before.
"Bones," he breathes, looking like he's about to keel over, so the wolf tugs the Captain towards the bed, because at least he can sit there. The Captain follows him meekly, sitting down on the edge of the mattress, still staring at him, until the wolf steps up to him and Jim buries his shaking hands in his fur and whispers, "I thought I lost you," into the silence of his quarters, refusing to let go of him until Bones succumbs and curls up on top of the covers, Jim curving himself around him, and that's how they fall asleep, entwined.
+++
If he'd known all he needed to do to win Jim's trust back was to get himself killed, he'd have done it sooner.
Or maybe not.
Still, the disaster of a mission to Titania seems to have punched through Jim's reservations, in a way that Bones suspects he never would have managed on his own. Thank heavens for small mercies, at least.
Things get easier somehow or other. None of them can quite suss out who precisely invited the Captain into their practice sessions, but once he's there it seems silly to throw him out; Bones has taken a bullet to the head and come out fighting, after all, it's not like they can shock him at this point.
Jim seems awed, most of the time, stunned by the speed Bones and Uhura are fighting at, stunned by the brutality they employ against each other, but perhaps more than anything else, stunned by the precision of Uhura fighting Spock, the way that even when they're moving against each other, they're moving in sync.
Of course, Jim is Jim; this is the way the world works, and while he has graduated from asking Bones stupid questions, his curiosity is obviously not assuaged. Jim likes being around when Bones and Uhura let themselves be subject to the pull of whatever moon they're near, likes curling up with Bones's wolf on the softest patch of floor they can find and tucking his nose into the patch of fur behind Bones's ear.
It seems remarkably contrary to Jim's personality, this quietness, the way he pointedly does not ask how it works anymore. He does occasionally mention the idea of Bones finding a mate, but he mentions it like he's trying to turn the whole idea into a joke and Bones lets himself go along with it because he's pretty willing to trade one set of uncomfortable questions for another. He doesn't push it, because Jim still seems so intensely discomfited with the idea of bonding for life, to the point where he sometimes watches Spock and Uhura like they're specimens under a magnifying glass.
It's Chekov who blithely points out the part of the puzzle that makes all the other pieces fall into place one day when he comes to sickbay for a cut he swears up and down is not from fencing practice. Bones wouldn't buy it even if Sulu wasn't hovering guiltily in the background.
Chekov is trying to deflect Bones’s attention away from the circumstances surrounding his injury by talking about his other packmates, discussing their most recent training session. Since Bones had attended said training session, this would not normally work, but it's the way Chekov describes the Captain that gets his attention.
"Was very cool to watch when you three all fight each other. You and Spock are working better together, I think. Not as well as Spock and Uhura, of course; they are almost like dancer, you agree? We all must watch them with awe, even Keptin. He makes jokes, about how he can't understand they are together, yes, but sometimes I think the Keptin will, how you say? Expire? From his jealousy."
He almost drops the dermal regenerator he's using on Chekov's forearm as his perception of the world tilts, takes a 180° turn and shifts, the universe rearranging itself around him in a way that is entirely different to the way it had been when Chekov came in.
Sweet merciful Jesus.
+++
He almost blows off their training session that afternoon, but he knows Uhura would hunt him down and interrogate him, and then she'd probably try to sympathize, and he just can't take that. Also, she's extremely likely to tell him to talk to Jim, and that's just not happening.
Jim does show up about midway through, when Uhura is sparring with Spock, and Chekov is right, they are like dancers, beautiful and graceful to watch, awe-inspiring, because a misstep from either of them would almost certainly result in blood. He understands being jealous of this, he is jealous of this.
So when Jim sits next to him, where he's winding down from his own fight with Uhura, he breaks all his self-imposed rules and mentions the subject first.
"They're really something, aren't they?" he mumbles, nodding towards the pair.
"They are," Jim says. "They look beautiful together. They're lucky they found each other."
"Ever wish you could find someone like that?" he asks.
Jim hesitates, then smirks. "Well, at least I’m having plenty of fun searching," he says, winking. He smells clean and spicy and earthy, the way only Jim smells, and he suddenly realizes that Jim has been smelling a lot more like Jim and a lot less like other people recently.
"Are you okay?" he asks reflexively, before he can think better of it.
"Hm?" Jim replies, as Uhura manages to catch Spock's elbow and twist his arm down. Spock breaks her hold, but it's tense, and it looked like it hurt. "Sorry," Jim says again, when the pair have resumed their fast steps across the mat. "Why wouldn't I be okay?"
"You're just…" he takes a deep breath. "You don't smell as much of other people, lately," he finally says, somewhat lamely.
Jim whips around to stare at him. "You can…" he starts, then reconsiders. "Of course you can," he amends. He's blushing, and Bones wishes he had an excuse to shift to his wolf right now, because he can smell Jim, true, but he needs the wolf to sort out how emotions smell.
"Get tired of it?" he asks, internally kicking himself for even asking these stupid questions.
"Mmmm," Jim replies, noncommittal, not looking him in the eyes.
On the mat, Uhura falters and isn't quick enough to parry, the heel of Spock's hand thudding against her side. She retaliates, quick and decisive, Spock having gotten in too close, snagging a foot behind his knee and bringing him down fast.
That's about when his comm rings to let him know that apparently a part of the enlisted crew who went planetside for their last shore leave seem to be developing weird symptoms at an alarming rate, and can he please come back to sickbay ASAP?
+++
It takes them three days of non-stop work to figure out how to get ahead of the infection spreading amongst the crew. Sickbay gets full and they end up having to clear out the mess hall closest to them for an auxiliary med bay, and then the large rec-room on the same deck. The mess hall freezer ends up getting used as a spare morgue, and they're just at the point where they need to ask for another room for cold storage when they finally find a drug cocktail that works.
The virus had started its life as food poisoning. Adverse reactions to foreign cuisine were not uncommon after shore leave, so they had been treating the group of enlisted men, who had mostly spent shore leave together, with relatively little alarm, until other people started showing up and Bones's sickbay crew started suffering. They'd had the crew called to general quarters, which seemed to have contained the damage some, but not enough.
In the end he'd commandeered every non-human on the ship - the infection apparently does not travel between species - and had Christine Chapel running a supplementary nursing force from her own sickbed.
The final tally is twenty-three dead, forty-eight needing to spend a few days recuperating, ninety-three able to stagger back to their own quarters for three rotations off, and he's so far beyond exhausted that he falls asleep in his office chair, forehead on his desk.
Four days later, the ship is just about getting back to its normal routine, and he's just about caught up on his sleep. They've relinquished the rec-room, after disinfecting it thoroughly, and they'll be able to let go of the Deck 4 mess hall in a day or so. Jim had shown up in his office and chivvied him off to his bed sometime into day two of watching the cure work. He's pretty certain Jim had used his captain's overrides to make sure nobody disturbed him, since he'd slept without interruption for eighteen hours.
He's having lunch when Spock unexpectedly sits down opposite him.
Their animosity is mostly a thing of the past, for all that neither of them can pretend to understand the other, but they still do not spend a great deal of time together without Uhura there.
"Spock," he says, carefully.
"Dr. McCoy," Spock replies, tearing apart his piece of bread to go with his plomeek soup. "Did you tell the Captain to inquire of me how the bond between me and Lieutenant Uhura works?"
Bones inhales a bit of his coffee by accident, but when he's managed to stop coughing he says, "I told Jim that if he wanted to know how the werewolf bond works from your end, he should ask you, yes. It was a while ago; I'm surprised he waited this long."
Spock looks at him with an expression that is even more unreadable than usual, before nodding slightly. "Very well," he says, and starts eating.
He can't get the exchange out of his head, though, because why the hell is Jim suddenly asking that question?
+++
They have a standing weekly chess match, which is less a competition and more an excuse for them to sit around and drink whiskey. Well, they drink whiskey when they have it, which is less and less the case these days.
This time, Jim shows up with something appallingly purple, which turns out to have a smoky rich flavor - nothing like whiskey, but it's not too bad.
They've had a couple of glasses each, and Jim is trouncing him at chess, which is what he normally does, though he seems distracted. Not that he can tell, much, but Bones notices that he seems to be doing somewhat better than usual.
"What's bugging you?" he asks when Jim moves a pawn out of the otherwise flawless defensive position he's been maintaining.
"Nothing," Jim says, not looking up from the chessboard.
"Oh, come on," he groans, pointedly moving his bishop to precisely where Jim's pawn opened up a line to Jim's king. "Whatever it is, it's not nothing."
Jim stays silent, looking at his hands, for a long while. When he finally looks up, he's wearing an odd expression, one which Bones has never seen before, and he looks oddly vulnerable, his eyes very blue.
"It's me, isn't it?" he says quietly, and Bones's heart plummets towards his stomach.
"What are you talking about?" he asks, but the way Jim's eyes are flashing, he knows he's not going to get very far faking ignorance.
"Don't pretend you don't know exactly what I'm talking about, Bones," he snaps. "I went and asked Spock, of all people. Goddamn. First time we ever met, you knew, didn't you? And you never said a fucking thing."
He takes a sip of his purple not-whiskey before he replies, trying to figure out how to respond to that. "What should I have said? 'Hi, I'm Leonard McCoy and I'm pretty sure you're my mate'?" he finally asks, tired. "It's not exactly what you were looking for, is it?"
"What the fuck do you know about what I was looking for, Bones? You never fucking asked." He's sounding quietly restrained, his voice barely raised.
"Right, Jim, because you didn't make it clear in your first week at the academy just how much fun you were hoping to have," he sighs back, wondering what the hell Jim is hoping to achieve by bringing this up. "It wasn't like you'd been waiting for me your whole Goddamn life, or that you even considered me, much, before moving on to greener pastures."
"Yeah, because I was the only one who did that," Jim says, derisively. "Must've been rough, not really wanting the person you were, 'biologically drawn to', to quote our erstwhile first officer."
Bones knows he's gaping, but considering what Jim just said, he thinks he can be excused. "You think I don't want you?"
"Why else would you avoid doing… whatever it is you do, for all these years? It's not like I would've said no," Jim says, and he's starting to lose his calm.
"You didn't," he replies, quietly, not sure where exactly this is going, but willing to at least try seeing it through.
"That was… it was just a…" Jim stutters. "I gave you a blowjob, that's it. What was it, a test run?"
"Hell of a test run," Bones replies wryly. "I haven't had sex since."
"You…" Jim starts, and then just gapes. Bones almost wishes he had a camera; he's pretty sure Uhura at least would like to see the Captain lost for words.
"…followed you into space, remember?" he says, softly, hoping he's read the situation right, because if not, he's in for a world of hurt.
"But you were going to ask for reassignment," Jim pushes, staring at him. "You were going to…"
"I couldn't leave you if I tried, kid," Bones mutters, before Jim has a chance to finish that thought. "It had been written for half an hour by the time you saw it, but I hadn't submitted it. I don't think I could've."
Jim stares at him over the chessboard, eyes wide and his pulse clearly fluttering in his throat, and Bones is hard pressed not to shift into his wolf to smell what he's feeling. They stare at each other in silence for a long moment, an endless fucking moment, before Jim whispers, sounding small, "But why would you want to…"
And there's only one Goddamn way he's answering that stupid question. He's on his feet and around the table before Jim knows what the hell is happening, yanking the other man to his feet and into a kiss. Jim tastes of surprise and the damn purple alcohol, and it takes him longer than Bones would have thought to kiss him back. He doesn't fight Bones, though, opening up under his mouth, letting himself be kissed, and then his fingers are at the nape of Bones's neck, curling into his hair, pulling him closer.
It takes all he has to end the kiss, and he's breathing hard when they finally break apart, Jim clearly not willing to stop but he's gotta ask, because Jim is too damn reckless and Bones isn't willing to be one of the consequences he never considers.
"You better tell me right now if this isn't what you want, Jim," he breathes, his forehead against Jim's, and he watches the other man's eyes flutter shut from up close, his heart thundering in his chest as he waits for whatever Jim decides to do.
Jim, the idiot, tries to kiss him in response, but that's not going to be good enough, not this time. "Tell me," he growls, a hand on Jim's shoulder, pushing him back, even if all he wants is to pull Jim closer.
"Should've known," Jim mutters, pushing against the hand on his shoulder.
"Don't be cute with me, Jim," he says, not letting him come any closer.
"No, I meant. I should have known. This. This is what I should have known," he replies, bringing up a hand to tangle in Bones's shirt. He looks up and meets his eyes, and Goddamn if he doesn't look like he knows what he's doing. "Want to know what I felt, that day on the shuttle?" he asks, softly, not breaking eye contact, and not waiting for Bones's reply either. "I knew you weren't going to leave me. Couldn't have told you how I knew, but I knew." He brings up a hand to wrap around Bones's wrist on his shoulder and pulls, and Bones lets him, lets him come in closer until they're chest to chest, and then they're kissing again.
Jim's mouth is hot on his and he's got a hand in Bones's hair, another pulling at his tunic at the small of his back, and he's pressed up close to Jim but not close enough, so he pushes him back a few steps, until he's got him up against the wall of his quarters, Jim leaning back and letting his head hit the wall when Bones kisses and sucks and bites down his neck to his clavicle, exploring all the skin that he's been fantasizing about for years.
Jim's hands get more insistent on his tunic and he finally pulls back just far enough that Jim can pull it over his head - he's wearing a sleeveless undershirt and Jim groans in disappointment when he doesn't get to skin immediately.
"Fucking tease," he mutters into Bones's mouth, which makes Bones laugh, because how Goddamn long has he been waiting for this? And now Jim is frustrated by a fucking shirt. Jim's hands are still scratching at the backs of his shoulders, trying to get enough leverage to pull up the undershirt too, which is not gonna happen while Bones is pressing their groins together like this, Jim's dick hard against him, pressing hot and heavy into his hip, and Jim moans breathlessly when Bones crowds him up against the wall.
There are easier ways to take off shirts than pulling them over someone's heads, and he pulls Jim's shirt apart from the neckline down, the tearing sound loud over their groans. Jim chuckles and breathes something like 'not fair', but it gets lost in his moan when Bones runs a hand firmly down his side, thumbing a nipple on the way.
And then it's just the waistband of Jim's pants, and while tearing Jim's pants off might be amusing, he figures the Captain can always borrow one of his shirts, but pants might present more of a challenge. "Fuck, Bones," Jim says, and takes advantage of the extra couple of inches between them while Bones is undoing his buttons to pull up his undershirt, until Bones has to let go to let Jim draw it off too.
Then Jim's clever, clever hands are all over him, pulling him closer, and he gets distracted, though not bad enough to forget that he's got Jim's pants opened, pushing his hand down until it's wrapped around Jim's cock, pulling gently, making Jim curse under his breath and retaliate by biting down on Bones's shoulder while he rolls a nipple between thumb and forefinger, and Christ, they should have been doing this for years.
He hasn't been kissing Jim for a few minutes, and this suddenly seems like a travesty, so he uses the hand that's not down Jim's pants to pull at Jim's hair until he leans back and Bones can kiss him, hard and bruising, Jim's arms thrown around his neck, blunt fingernails scraping at the top of his spine, and then a hand is fisting in his hair and Jim pushes his dick into Bones's hand sharply, once, twice, and comes, his whole body shivering against Bones's, the smell of it sudden and sharp and overpowering.
"Fuck," Jim sobs into his mouth, suddenly slack and relaxed and leaning into him for support.
"What," Bones murmurs back, mouth still at the corner of Jim's lips because he couldn't stop kissing him if he tried, and he's not willing to put it to the test either. "You think that was it? We haven't even made it to the bed yet."
Jim whimpers, no other word for it, and his fingers scratch the back of Bones's neck as they curl into fists. "You're going to have to carry me, if we're going anywhere," he half-laughs, letting his head fall down onto Bones's shoulder, his breath hot against his chest.
"Not a problem," he replies, wrapping his arms around Jim, pulling him up and against him until Jim gets the idea and wraps his legs around Bones's hips, Bones pulling him up until he's holding him there, and Jim takes the opportunity to tilt his head up and kiss him again, until they're both breathless.
"You need to fuck me up against a wall like this sometime," Jim muses. He's lax in Bones's arms, letting him do most of the work, not that he minds, and just to make that point he pushes off the wall and carries Jim across the floor towards the bedroom.
"Who needs the wall?" Bones asks, smirking, and he can both hear and feel Jim's gasp at that one.
"Christ, you're killing me here," Jim mutters into his neck.
"Half the point," he says, and then they're through to the bedroom and he can throw Jim onto his bed, which, let's face it, he's been wanting to do for quite some time. He curls his fingers into the waistband of Jim's pants and underwear and pulls them down, and Jim helps, lifting his hips and letting Bones peel them off.
"And the other half?" he asks, cheekily, while Bones kicks off the rest of his own clothes, then crawls up into the bed and between his legs.
Bones responds by kissing him, long and deep and sweet, not letting his hands explore, one at the nape of Jim's neck, the other on his jaw, until he's forced to stop by the need to breathe.
"Point taken," Jim whispers when they've gotten their breath back, and he's staring at Bones, looking a little awed.
Jim looks good naked and a little debauched like this, a splatter of come on his stomach, his lips bruised from kissing, a bitemark on his shoulder, marked and his and he pushes himself down the bed again, trailing his mouth over Jim's chest, sucking on a nipple until Jim is making hitching little noises, then moves down to bite at his bellybutton, trailing his fingers down Jim's sides. He's a little surprised when that gets a bigger reaction than his mouth on Jim's stomach and he tries it again, stroking down from ribs to thigh firmly, noticing how Jim's breath changes and catches when he thumbs his hipbones and he smiles when Jim loses his breath entirely when he wraps his hands around his thighs and pulls them apart a little.
"God, Bones, I can't, not yet…" Jim whines, hips still bucking up towards him.
"Who said I was going to suck your cock, Jim?" he murmurs into the top of Jim's treasure trail, sliding his lips down and gently sucking a bruise into the edge of Jim's pubic hair. "I see you're a natural blonde," he teases when he stops, watching the fast rise and fall of Jim's chest. "Give me your hands," he adds, smirking when Jim glowers a little at him for the 'blonde' comment.
Jim looks at him with surprise, but lets Bones take his hands and spread them, palms down, over his abdomen, below his bellybutton. "Keep 'em there," Bones says, and waits for it. It takes a few moments, but then Jim's eyes widen as the warmth of his own hands sinks into the skin of his stomach and down, sending sparks between every single nerve ending in the area.
"Bones," Jim whimpers, and he decides to forestall any complaints, licking up the join between Jim's hip and thigh, biting gently at his hipbone, then licking back down, letting his tongue brush the edge of Kirk's little finger the entire way. Jim bucks up with a cry, surprised, but he keeps his hands right where they're supposed to be.
He trails his tongue lower down the join, until he's mouthing the skin of Jim's balls, gently but surely, and Jim is making hitched sobs whenever he changes direction. He lets inspiration take him wherever; sucking Jim's balls gently, mouthing at the loose skin behind Jim's balls, pressing a thumb down on the spot where the skin is firm until he keens, high in his throat, and Jim's legs shake from the effort of keeping his hips from bucking up.
Jim is moaning a litany of his name and calls to various deities, some of whom are only worshipped in the part of the universe they've been exploring, and Jim’s dick is hard again when he finally stops, pulling Jim's hands away and mouthing his way up Jim's stomach to kiss him hard, careful not to give Jim's dick any friction.
"Christ, Bones, you're an evil sonofabitch," Jim sobs against his mouth, but he's just the way Bones wants him now, pliant and responsive and unbelievably turned on.
"Never said I wasn't," he replies and reaches over to the nightstand to get the lube. "Want to come before or after I fuck you?"
Jim's eyes fly wide open at that and he stops breathing long enough for Bones to almost worry. "Holy shit," Jim finally says, "what sort of fucking question is that?"
"Well," he replies, kissing Jim hard and then going on, "if you don't come now, I won't be letting you while I'm getting you ready. On the other hand, if you come now, you'll need less prep and hell, if I do it right, there might be a third one in it for you." Jim whimpers under his mouth, trying to shake his head without breaking their kiss.
"Fuck, Bones, no way. There's no way in hell; nobody is that good."
Bones smirks, trailing the fingers of one hand down Jim's cheek and neck, stroking over his collarbone. "Want to bet, Jim?" he asks, meeting Jim's eyes. "You should trust me, you know. I'm a doctor."
Jim laughs, shakily, not breaking their gaze. "I… fine, okay, do your worst," he says, looking at him uncertainly.
Bones smirks at him before kissing his way back down Jim's body, staying away from his cock but mouthing his balls instead, until Jim is fisting the coverlet and moaning; then he kisses and licks up the skin towards the root of Jim's dick, and keeps going, licking up the underside of Jim's cock until he's reached the tip. Jim all but shouts underneath him, and when he bucks up, Bones takes his dick in, sucking him down to the very root.
"Fuck," Jim groans, and Bones slides his hands around his hips, pulling him upwards until Jim gets the point and pushes deeper, fucking into Bones's mouth with sharp, wild thrusts and Bones relaxes his throat and takes him, licking him hard on the upstroke, using his tongue to sweep across the sensitive ridge of the glans when Jim pulls out and it doesn't take much until Jim is shouting, "Oh, God, fucking… Leonard," and coming.
He waits until Jim is looking at him to swallow.
"Christ," Jim says, disentangling his hands from the coverlet and throwing an arm over his eyes.
"How long has it been since you last called me by my name?" Bones asks, then takes Jim by the hip and turns him over onto his stomach. He takes the opportunity to push Jim's hips apart and lick up from his balls to the top of his ass, noticing that Jim positively jumps when he does it.
"Bones…" he starts uncertainly, muttering into the pillow but trailing off with a moan when Bones lubes up two fingers and pushes inside, trailing the fingertips firmly over Jim's prostate.
"Some other time, Jim," Bones says. "This will do for now." He pushes deeper, pushing his fingers apart but making sure they never stray very far from Jim's sweet spot, pressing down on it more or less continuously even as he stretches him. Jim's ready for a third finger pretty soon, relaxed from two orgasms, and he's gasping now, pushing himself back onto Bones's hand, which tells him that Jim's enjoying this a hell of a lot, even if he's probably not hard yet.
Bones takes it slow, both because Jim deserves that, but also because he's only human and can only hold out so long once they're fucking. He listens to the way the noises Jim is making get shorter, higher, more breathy, and smirks to himself when they turn from moans and mutters to outright begging.
"God, Bones, please," Jim grinds out, "please, please, please fuck me, Bones, please."
"Get up on your hands and knees," he says, finally, pulling his fingers out and slicking himself up, and Jim responds quickly, though he gets up onto his elbows only and rests his forehead on his wrists.
He smiles to himself as he strokes both hands up Jim's spine and then down his sides, until he's pulling Jim back by the hips, sinking into him slowly but firmly, until he's buried to the hilt. Jim is shaking beneath him, from the intensity or from the effort of holding himself up on his knees, and he sobs when Bones rocks into him, utterly incoherent now.
"Oh God, Jim," he moans, keeping his thrusts slow and steady and angled very firmly onto Jim's prostate, keeping the other man securely on the edge between pain and pleasure, between too much and not enough. "Never thought I'd get to do this with you," he whispers and bends over Jim's arched spine to kiss his shoulder.
Jim whimpers beneath him and manages the first proper word he's said in a few minutes. "Idiot," he breathes, making Bones laugh.
"Yeah," he sighs into Jim's shoulder, before straightening up, and then pulling Jim back onto him by the shoulders, until the other man is sitting in his lap, shaking from sensation.
He pushes up and into him and he knows that from this angle he'll be hitting Jim's sweet spot without any effort whatsoever, so he lets himself lose a little of his control, fucking into him hard and fast until Jim is a wild thing in his arms, rocking back and crying out sharply every time Bones pushes into him, so he presses a hand into Jim's lap and curls it around Jim's dick, jacking him slowly until Jim lets him take over entirely, head fallen back onto Bones's shoulder, mouth open and eyes closed, and he's just breathing now, barely making any noise.
"Come for me," he whispers into Jim's shoulder when he feels himself start tensing up, the pleasure at the bottom of his stomach beginning to coil tighter, his thrusts getting wilder. "Jim, please," and Jim does, tensing around him until the world goes white around the edges and he bites down on Jim's shoulder as he comes, too, and Jim is crying out, "Oh, God, fuck, yes, Bones, I…" before going utterly lax in his arms, his head still on Bones's shoulder, his eyes only a sliver of blue beneath his lashes.
It's possibly the most gorgeous fucking thing Bones has ever seen.
He has to lift Jim off his lap and push him down into the bed, and Jim seems to almost be in a fugue state, but his eyes are open, if heavy-lidded, and he watches Bones when he goes to get a wet cloth from the bathroom and when he cleans them up. When Bones slides into bed, Jim doesn't say anything, just crawls closer until he's lying half on top of him, his head on Bones's chest.
They lie like that for a while, hands idly trailing over skin, just touching. "Jim," he finally says, when his head is straight enough to think again.
Jim looks up and meets his eyes. "Don't you fucking dare ask," he says casually, but there's an undertone of danger in his voice.
"I wasn't going to…" Bones starts, suddenly feeling defensive.
"Oh, you were," Jim says, and then there is a spike of… worrywantlovehurt at the back of his mind.
"Holy shit," Bones whispers, staring back at him. "That was you?"
Jim looks down. "Yeah." There's a long silence before he goes on. "Spock could probably break it if…" alarmfearlovelonely "… we want."
"Not a chance," he replies, finally tilting Jim's chin up so that he can meet his eyes when Jim won't look up himself. "You hearing me? Not a chance." He tries to send out reassurance and determination and affection and then Jim's eyes widen slightly and he knows he's been heard this time.
"So," he goes on. "You feeling a little… headachy?" He smirks, and Jim just looks baffled.
"No, apart from being, you know, tired," which he manages to say with a leer, "I'm fine."
"Hmmm," Bones sighs. "Pity. I was hoping we'd have to take a few days off to work through the… complications."
Jim stares at him like he's grown an extra head. "The complications of wha…" then he gets it. "Oh, you mean the complications. Yes, yes, I do think I agree with you. Maybe you should arrange for medical leave."
Spock nearly develops a facial expression when Bones calls him to put himself and Jim on stand down for medical reasons.
+++
Uhura turns up on the second day of their 'medical' leave. Bones is a little surprised she managed to restrain herself that long, but he supposes it's the influence of Spock - he's probably an advocate for patience.
She takes one sniff of the air in the room and breaks out in the widest grin Bones has ever seen on her face, giving him an exaggerated wink. It makes Jim groan from where he's sitting on the sofa, reading some sort of report from Engineering.
"Taking a break between rounds?" Uhura asks, positively leering at him. Jim glares.
"It's none of your…" he stops, stares, and then sighs. "You're going to be insufferable, aren't you?" he asks, eyeing her.
"Turnabout is fair play!" she says, grinning evilly. "So, how good is Bones?"
"What did I do to deserve this?" Bones asks before Jim can say anything.
Uhura looks contrite. "You're right. I'll only interrogate him when you're not around, Leonard."
"That makes me feel so much better," he mutters, but it's not like he'd ever stop her from tormenting Jim, now that she finally has ammo.
"For the record," Jim interjects, "I would not actually have minded answering that question." He smirks. "Good. Really good."
Uhura just laughs and elbows him in the side. "Trust me; it gets better."
Jim looks like Christmas has come early. "How so?" he asks, putting down the PADD and with it any pretense of disinterest.
"Well," she says, "that is sort of what I came to talk to you about."
"Yes," Bones says, as dryly as he can make it, "I was a little surprised when Jim could suddenly read my mind."
"Oh, come off it, Leonard," she replies. "You've seen me and Spock do it often enough. And besides, you're exaggerating; right now you have a low-level empathetic connection at best."
"Yes, but I had…"
"Attributed most of it to him being Vulcan?" Uhura raises an eyebrow.
"Humans aren't naturally psi-compatible," he says, feeling a little foolish.
"True. And I and Spock are a unique case. But I still grew up among wolves, so I know what the two of you can expect."
"So what you're saying is…"
She smirks, and shoots Jim a glance. "The more you use it, the faster you get used to it."
Jim definitely seems to be getting the hint.
+++
Masterpost || One || Two || Three || Epilogue
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Masterpost || One || Two || Three || Epilogue