Crowd Surf Off A Cliff [Star Trek XI Slash Kirk/McCoy NC-17]
Title: Crowd Surf Off A Cliff
Author: Verhalten
Pairing: Kirk/McCoy
Rating: NC-17
Summary: Bones worries about Jim.
Author's Notes: The title is almost entirely unrelated to the story (unless you squint just right), but it comes from an Emily Haines and Soft Skeleton song by the same title, which I listened to pretty much non-stop as I wrote this.
It's two weeks before graduation and another five until Jim can officially call himself Captain of the Enterprise, but the news is fresh, albeit laced with a sharp bitter-sweetness, and he's itching to celebrate, so he collects Bones, mid-inoculation, from the infirmary and together they belly up to the first bar that will have them.
Bones can't wrap his head around Jim's apparent surprise, grousing, "What the Hell did you think they were going to do with you after you saved the whole damn planet?" And Jim doesn't have an answer for that, but he offers a sanguine smile and calls out an order for two double shots of something strong and holds his glass up to toast, keeps it there until Bones follows suit.
Jim knocks the rims of their glasses together. "To ... Spock!"
Bones' face registers half a second of shock before he puts it all together, glances over his left shoulder and there's the pointy-eared bastard, himself, standing between them and looking at Jim with something that could almost pass for an expression.
"Hello, Jim," Spock says. "I heard of your impending promotion and I came to--"
"Offer your congratulations," Jim finishes, and Spock primly shuts his face because, yes, that's exactly what he came to do, and Jim's mouth blooms into this wide, happy grin and Bones can't help but wonder how Spock found them so quickly.
To that end, he asks, "How'd you find us so quickly?"
Spock looks blankly at Bones and says, "Why, Jim invited me, of course," and even though that sounds just like Jim Kirk, who never held a grudge against anybody, Bones' head still swivels around to Jim for confirmation, and he finds it.
"Fantastic," Bones says, because it isn't fantastic at all, and then he adds, "Well, here's to you, Jim," and he tosses back his drink, throws down money enough to cover them both, and leaves.
- - - - -
It was Spock who ultimately tracked down Scotty and made him relinquish the recording, but Bones had been there, too. It'd been Scotty's idea of a joke, uploading Jim's voice log from Delta Vega to the Starfleet intranet and spamming it to all the remaining cadets, and he'd even gone to the trouble of editing out the incriminating bits. All that remained was the roar of an icy wind and Jim's breathless shouting about security protocol before he dissolved into a fit of what Scotty termed "girlish screaming directly proceeding our fearless leader hurling himself off an ice mountain."
It'd been Scotty's idea of a joke, and it was funny, to a lot of people, but not to Bones, who'd stood idly by as his friend was jettisoned off the Enterprise and stranded while his world, his entire existence, warped away in the hands of an unfeeling stranger. And Spock? Well, far as Bones could tell, Spock didn't find much of anything funny.
Bones had been standing next to Jim when he cottoned onto the joke, snatching a PADD from a passing cadet. He saw the way Jim's eyes fluttered and his mouth turned down for the span of nothing at all, the closest he's ever seen Jim to panic, before he broke into a sheepish grin and passed the PADD back to its owner. Jim Kirk was nothing if not a good sport.
When Scotty handed over the original recording, which should technically have been considered classified information and earned the loony bastard a court martial, and Spock pocketed it with a curt nod and a serene, "Thank you, Mr. Scott," Bones' fingers ached at his sides, balled into white, bloodless fists.
- - - - -
Once Bones has had a nip it seems pointless to wait for sundown to get serious about his drinking, so he pours two fingers of the only thing he's got in his quarters--something exotically blue and unlabeled, a silver bullet he's been keeping back since the divorce--and then, after a pause, pours the line up even with the rim. It's a celebration, after all.
- - - - -
In truth, Bones had never stopped to consider the risks involved with leaving Jim behind on Delta Vega. It was a Federation planet, after all, and an innocuous one at that. Jim should have been safer there than aboard the Enterprise, and it was only a matter of happy coincidence that the miles-long trek to the nearest outpost would keep him occupied and out of trouble.
It wasn't until his return, when Jim materialized out of nowhere like some ham-fisted act of God, that the full force of his oversight slammed into Bones' face like a Klingon prizefighter's fist. There were new bruises and scrapes littering his face, probably covering the rest of his body, too, and still he came back with that same fiery dedication to winning smoldering in his eyes. Bones was caught between laughing and crying, both with the relief.
It split him straight down the middle, ripped his insides right out of him, when Jim spared him a sideways glance and scraped out of his bruised throat, "Thanks for the support."
- - - - -
Bones isn't exactly expecting Jim when he stumbles in, well past dark by that point, but he'd realized the inevitability of the thing. True to form, Jim is drunk and bright-eyed and his shirt is askew in a way that clues Bones in to the fact that Jim didn't spend his evening waiting on his return. Not that Bones wanted that, anyway.
"You missed a great party," Jim tells him, voice husky with exhaustion and booze, and leans his back against the door.
Bones is sitting up straight in his chair, ankles crossed on the ottoman, ignoring the PADD in his lap. He feels the corners of his mouth curl up, but there's no trace of a smile in his tone when he says, "Looks like you did, too."
Jim tips his head back against the door, shuts his eyes, and Bones notices there's a bruise coming in just beneath his jaw. Jim grins with teeth and it's aimed straight up at the ceiling and he says, "Yeah."
Bones waits for more. Jim's always generous with the details, much to his own continued despair, but the silence stretches long and dense between them, until Bones is pretty sure Jim's asleep. "Kirk," he barks.
"McCoy," Jim comes back, too fast, and it occurs to Bones that maybe there's more exhaustion than booze in the slump of Jim's shoulders, the slackness in his face. His perception shifts, quite suddenly, and he puts his feet flat on the floor, leans forward.
"Jim," he says, gentler now.
"Bones."
"Dammit, man, what the Hell's wrong with you?" Bones demands, because this is odd behavior for a drunk Jim, never mind a sober one, and it confuses Bones, which invariably translates to ire.
"You don't like Spock very much," Jim says, and the bruise on his throat jumps a little extra on the words 'you' and 'Spock'.
- - - - -
Bones watched as Jim's face turned an angry shade of red and his eyes glistened and bulged in their sockets, his own heart hammering against his ribs and his feet rooted to the floor. He'd said some nasty things, unforgivable things, to Spock and there wasn't any doubt that he'd earned an ass whoopin', but things were getting out of hand. Jim was already near to broken as it was, endured more than any cadet--any man should have to bear, and now Captain Spock was seconds away from crushing Jim's windpipe between his pasty Vulcan hands and it was just too much.
He opened his mouth to protest, wound up sucking in a great heave of recycled air, because Sarek had beat him to it and Spock was forfeiting his command, dropping it onto shoulders already too weary.
- - - - -
"No," Bones says, after lengthy consideration. "I don't."
"He's my friend," Jim says, and Bones actually snorts.
"I assume this is a recent development," Bones says, "since last I checked 'friends' weren't in the habit of trying to murder one another, or deserting one another on hostile planets."
"Aren't they?" Jim says, so quiet Bones could have pretended he didn't even hear it if he wanted to, but his eyes finally break away from that damned bite mark--and, yeah, it's taken him this long to finally determine that's exactly what it is--and snap up to Jim's face, and bright blue eyes are gazing calmly back at him.
"It wasn't my call," Bones says, weakly, because he knows it doesn't hold water. He never lifted a single finger to help Jim. He had to save the Earth all by himself. It should have been their adventure, but Bones had been too paralyzed with fear to even put a hand over his eyes, had to watch, powerless, as the whole thing unfolded.
Jim shrugs. "I landed on my feet," he says, too casual.
"Dammit, Jim, I wanted to--"
"Then why didn't you?"
- - - - -
A single hit from the Narada, and everything had gone to Hell. In a matter of minutes, Bones was promoted to CMO and, apparently, Commander Spock was Captain. Lord knew what had happened to Captain Pike; the sickbay terminals had all fried in the blast and Chekov wasn't broadcasting any updates. It was minutes before Bones could find a working terminal and demand, "Computer, locate Cadet Kirk."
There was a terrifying pause and then, "Cadet Kirk is not on board the Enterprise at this time."
- - - - -
Bones sighs. "Dammit, Jim, I'm a doctor, not a soldier."
"Meaning?"
Bones struggles to his feet, ignoring the way the room sways with him and silently grateful he'd only made it through half his drink. The PADD clatters to the floor and Bones ignores that, too, sidestepping it and heading straight for Jim. He's met with a look that stops him cold, though, which is just as well, because he has no idea what exactly he was going to do.
"I'm not like you, Jim," he says, standing awkwardly in the middle of the room with nothing to do with his hands but angry gesticulation. "I can't watch people get torn apart and just--" He stops himself, changes direction. "You just have to throw yourself into the middle of everything."
"So you let Spock maroon me on that hunk of ice because you were worried about me?" Jim says, incredulous.
"He was acting captain, dammit. What was I supposed to do, exactly?"
Something gives and Jim smiles, slow and smug, and Bones can actually feel the room thaw. "You were worried."
Bones throws his hands up. "Oh, shut the Hell up. You're drunk."
"No, I'm not," Jim says, and Bones actually kind of believes him. "Could be, though," he adds with a sly glance in the direction of the Romulan ale, and Bones can tell by the look on his face that he knows exactly what it is. He doesn't really feel like sharing a drink with Jim, but the moment feels too brittle to withstand a single beat of discord, so Bones does the only thing he can think to do and pours a drink.
A moment later, the damned fool is tossing back his head and Bones is reaching out, "Jim, slow down," but it's too late, glass empty, and Jim's eyes are glistening and his head is sort of weaving side to side before Bones can even get out a long suffering sigh.
"Jackass," he says, and Jim stumbles over to the couch and sprawls out. Bones claims the opposite end and, what the hell, takes a long pull off the glass and the room goes instantly fuzzy around the edges.
- - - - -
"Well, Bones, it looks like this is it," Jim said, and that had been the first time, standing outside the shuttle, Bones with his bag and Jim with nothing but the clothes on his back. There were bruises all over his face, exhaustion beneath that, and Bones couldn't help thinking that Jim looked on the outside exactly how he felt on the inside.
"Bones," he repeated, and a little chuckle punched out of him. "Kid, you're all right."
Jim's mouth quirked up at the corner and he said, "Yeah," and then, when neither of them made to move right away, he added, "Wanna get a drink later?"
Bones said no, actually, but Jim had ignored his wishes and found him, regardless, which pretty much set the tone for the next three years.
- - - - -
"So about Spock," Jim says, breaking through a long and almost comfortable silence.
"Jesus, Jim, just drop it," Bones says, because he's drunk and edging on content and there's nothing he'd rather talk about less.
"He's a good guy," Jim says. "Wound a little tight, sure, but he lost a lot. His whole planet--"
"I remember," Bones cuts in.
"Then maybe you could cut him a little slack."
Bones shuts his eyes, puts his head back against the couch, and sighs. He knows Jim's not going to let this go. He's like a dog with a bone when he thinks he's right and, Hell, he is right. Spock doesn't deserve Bones' disdain--exactly the opposite, in fact--but that doesn't keep his hackles from rising every time he walks into the room or passes him on the stairs or his name is simply mentioned out loud and Jim's face goes soft and open and fond.
"Bones."
"I'll try," he says, and means it. Then, "Why's it so important to you, anyway?"
Jim says absently, staring into his empty glass, "Don't know. Kind of inconvenient if my Chief Medical Officer and my First aren't on speaking terms."
Bones snaps to attention, eyes open and staring at Jim. "You mean--"
"C'mon, man," Jim says. "Who else was it gonna be?"
"And Spock? Really?"
Jim's mouth turns down at the corners. "That a deal breaker for you?"
"Would it matter?" Bones snaps back, before he can stop himself, and he's already broken his promise to try, but it's just too much to swallow. Irrational fondness is one thing, but Jim elevating the man who attempted to have him expelled, marooned him on a hostile planet, and tried to kill him to the rank of First Officer is over the line. If there was any doubt that Spock was some kind of genius, it's erased now, because the guy's got to be damned smooth to pull one over on Jim like this and if Bones--
"Bones, man, of course it matters. What are you even--" Jim cuts himself off, cants his head to the side and fixes Bones with a narrow eyed stare. He recognizes it as Jim's thinking face. Strategy comes so naturally to Jim that he's usually reacting and computing simultaneously, but every once in a while he's faced with a real puzzle and he has to stop and take a step back. Bones fights the urge to squirm.
"You're jealous," Jim says at last.
"You're out of your mind," Bones shoots back.
"You are," Jim says, and where Bones would have expected him to be smug and triumphant, there's nothing of that in Jim's voice. There's wonder there, and quiet surprise. "You're jealous. Of Spock."
"He's a bastard," Bones says, like it's any kind of defense against the accusation.
"And you're jealous of that bastard," Jim repeats, simply, so confident that he's hit the nail on the head that he doesn't even try to state a case, which is infuriating, because there's nothing there for Bones to refute.
"Stow it, kid," Bones snaps, sharper than he'd intended. "You're drunk."
Jim nods. "Yeah," he agrees easily, and, thank the stars, lapses into another silence.
- - - - -
"Ow," Jim said. "Do you have to do it so hard?"
"Stop whining," Bones said, moving his fingertips up the column of Jim's throat. "Half the damn universe is Hell bent on strangling you to death, not a peep out of you. But when your attending physician administers a routine check-up, that's when you fall to pieces. Brilliant." He stepped back, scooped the tricorder off the bed, and ran one last scan.
"Miraculously," Bones concluded, "there's no permanent damage. No thanks to you."
"See, Spock?" Jim said, glancing over Bones' shoulder. His voice was rough, which was to be expected, but his tone was light and he was grinning ear to ear. "You can stop fussing."
Bones glanced back just in time to catch Spock bristling. "I do not believe I was fussing, Captain. Starfleet Regulation stipulates that any crew member returning from an unscheduled away mission, up to and including the captain, must obtain release from Medical before resuming his duties. I was merely--"
"Save it, Spock," Bones groused. "You'll sooner dance a jig than convince Jim Kirk to come willingly to sickbay."
"Actually," Jim said, obviously pleased with himself, "you'll be happy to know that Spock only had to ask me once."
Bones quirked a brow at Jim, switched off his tricorder, and said, "You're cleared for duty. Now get the Hell out."
- - - - -
"He's with Uhura, you know," Jim says, like it's meant to be reassuring.
"I'd gathered," Bones says through his teeth.
"Wait, you knew?" Jim sits up straight. "How--"
"Doctor, Jim. I know more than I care to about a lot of things."
Jim smiles. "So you're saying Spock's got some kind of Vulcan venereal disease and you had to hear about it from Uhura," he says gleefully.
"No," Bones says, and then, "Grow up."
"Not likely."
And that's just more truth than Bones can handle in his current state so he puts his glass down on the coffee table, gets to his feet, and jerks his chin in the direction of the door. "It's late."
Jim shoots Bones a pathetic look that's probably conned half of the Academy into acting against their better judgment at some point or another over the past three years and says, "You're kicking me out?"
Fortunately, Bones is immune. "Yes."
Jim pouts in his own Jim way, which is to say he nods and stands up and shuffles his way to the door, eyes downcast and shoulders slumped, and Bones follows to lock up behind him. He nearly mows Jim over when he stops short, sways to catch himself, and then Jim's turned and looking up at him, face suddenly serious and more alert than the ale should permit. "What--"
"You're my best friend," Jim says, intense and so damned earnest and the exact thing Bones was hoping to avoid tonight. And, well, for the rest of his life.
"Good God, man, just get ou--"
He's silenced by Jim's mouth crashing into his, hard and clumsy, more of an attack than a kiss, and Bones is caught off guard, stumbles and catches himself on Jim's arms, fingers digging hard into his biceps, and that's probably going to bruise later, but Jim's got to be used to that by now, and Hell, Bones can't be expected to actually think when there's a tongue licking heat into his mouth. It's not as if he's been pining for Jim--he's a goddamn adult, after all--but he has wanted this, and that's got to be the only reason that Bones doesn't put a stop to it sooner, his own mouth reflexively welcoming Jim's, canting his head for a better angle, stooping his shoulders to make up for the height difference.
But eventually his senses do come back to him, a little belatedly considering Jim's got his fingers buried in Bones' hair and the other hand's creeping around his back, fisting in his shirt, and that's when he musters the will power to push him back to arm's length, holding Jim there with his hands still wrapped around his arms.
"Bones," Jim says first, and he's breathing hard, lips red, eyes bright and hungry.
"Have you lost your mind?" Bones bellows over the thudding in his ears, panic rising hot in his throat. "You can't just do that."
Jim moves to kiss him again, but Bones holds him fast. He could break free if he wanted, but he settles instead, cocks his head and says, "Why not?"
"We're friends," Bones says, knowing full well that Jim manages to remain friends with most, if not all, of his partners. But this is different. Or maybe it isn't different at all, and that thought hits him low in the gut.
A little breath of laughter shakes loose from Jim, Bones can feel it beneath his fingers. "What, you're afraid I won't respect you in the morning?"
Bones fights a losing battle against laughing, too, mouth twisting up with the effort before he finally just lets it go, and he lets Jim go, too. For just a moment, he's tired of being angry and paranoid and miserable. "Maybe," he admits, pushes a hand through his hair to erase the damage Jim's fingers left in their wake. "Something like that."
"It's you and me, man," Jim says, serious again, and Bones is getting sick of chasing after his mood shifts tonight, but he kind of gets it, too.
"Exactly," Bones says, not entirely certain what he means by that, needing Jim to understand him, anyway. It's too big, too important. Jim has bumbled and teased and bullied his way into Bones' life and through all Bones' bluster, he's got to know how necessary he is. He just has to.
"Oh." And it happens just like that. Jim gives up. Bones can see it in the set of his shoulders, the frayed quality of his smile, the way he's looking everywhere but at Bones. "Can't blame me for trying?"
- - - - -
He made it exactly seventeen steps toward the shuttle, and despite all the calamity, he could still sense Jim like he was right there at his back, looking sad and pathetic and utterly lost. He brought it down on himself, sabotaging the Kobayashi Maru just to prove a point that didn't need proving to anyone but Jim. He didn't need Bones' sympathy. What he needed was someone to shake a little sense into him, and maybe that someone was Commander Spock, and maybe Jim deserved to be grounded from his very first mission.
It just felt wrong leaving him behind. It was supposed to be their adventure, and Lord knew what sort of trouble he'd get up to without Bones to keep him in check. And if the Board ruled against Jim in the meantime, what then? Bones would return to a Starfleet Academy short one Jim Kirk, and that idea burned a path straight to his stomach and soured it.
Bones was going to be brought up on disciplinary charges, he'd put money on it, but it was almost worth it for the look of confusion mingled with hope that Jim aimed up at him when he took his arm and muttered, "Come with me."
- - - - -
"Ah, Hell," Bones says and Jim has half a beat to look up at him, eyebrows raised, before Bones has him backed into the door, chests pressed flush together, and he kisses him like he means it this time. Jim tastes like Romulan ale and he smells kind of flowery, like a woman's perfume, and it should be filthy, and it sort of is that, but it's also so perfectly Jim that Bones can't be bothered to mind. He's got his hands braced against the door on either side of Jim's head, and Jim's doing this thing with his hips that isn't exactly thrusting, but it gets his point across all the same and Bones can't blame the ale this time for the way the room tilts on its axis and his temperature spikes.
"Yeah," Jim hisses when Bones drags his attention lower, to that damned hickey that Jim picked up God-knows-where, and fastens his mouth around it and sucks. And okay, in just this moment, Bones can admit to himself that maybe he was a little jealous, because the idea of covering that mark with one of his own is inordinately gratifying. And the fact that Jim's apparently on board? Has his cock leaping in his trousers.
Bones picks his head up, takes a tiny step back, still leaning hard on the door and breathing like he ran a damn marathon, right into Jim's face, and Jim's in a similar state, but there's a frown creasing his brow, and a little fear creeping into his expression. Bones wipes it away with a single, hoarse word.
"Bedroom."
Cheekily, Jim says, "Why, Bones, I'm not that kind of - guh!"
Bones has no patience for Jim's jokes or his defense mechanisms or the ridiculous notion that James T. Kirk ever possessed one ounce of chastity, so he takes him by the scruff of the neck and hauls him bodily toward the bedroom, and for all that Jim's a stubborn, immovable bastard, he gets his feet to working pretty quickly and then it's Bones left behind, coming around the corner just in time to catch Jim's uniform top in the face.
"Ass," Bones says, and peels away his own shirt, dragging the hem of his undershirt along with it. He balls them up in his hands and lobs them at Jim, who bats them out of the air with practically no effort, and then it's a race to shuck out of their pants and Bones takes a moment to feel slightly superior when Jim tips over onto the bed after his boots get caught up in his trousers.
Jim's impossible beneath him, can't keep his hands still, twists and gasps when Bones finally gets a hand around him, and so he uses his other one to catch Jim by the wrists and pin them to his chest, and for all that Jim has enough experience getting his ass kicked that he ought to be more than a match for Bones, he struggles for only a moment before he slams his head back and just moans, low and dirty and fantastic. Bones gives an involuntary thrust against Jim's thigh, and that's the ballgame.
All pretense at finesse is suddenly gone. Bones had plans for Jim, plans involving a lot of careful preparation and Jim praising his skill with shocked delight, opening his eyes to the benefit of an older, more experienced lover, but Bones doesn't feel particularly experienced right now. Or old, for that matter.
"Just fuck me, man," Jim says, and Bones about falls off the bed in his mad scramble for the nightstand, gets some slick on his fingers and shoves three up Jim's ass without preamble, as close to the knuckle as they'll go this way, and Jim makes this noise that punches the air right out Bones' lungs and would probably embarrass Jim if he was even aware that he was doing it, but he doesn't appear to be. And Bones has always known that Jim is kind of a slut, but this doesn't even seem real, the future captain of the Enterprise twisting and whimpering on his fingers, arm thrown carelessly across his face, his mouth just visible beneath it, bottom lip caught up in his teeth. Bones gets lost in it.
"Bones," Jim prompts, some time later. "Bones, I'm ready, just do it already." And Bones cannot, nor does he have any desire to argue with that, so he slicks up his own cock and hooks Jim's legs over his shoulders, and there's no way this is going to be any good for Jim like this, it just can't be, but captain's orders and everything. He fucks in slow, watching Jim's mouth peeking out from beneath his arm.
"Dammit, Jim, look at me," he barks, because he needs to see that this is good for him, too, because Jim's ass is hot and tight around his dick and he's not going to last as long as his age should imply, and he needs to drag Jim along with him, no matter what.
When Jim finally looks up at him, arm moved up over his head and braced against the wall, there's the sight Bones was hoping for. Jim's eyes are cloudy and dazed and his face is flushed and there's this desperate quality to the set of his eyebrows, like he's caught between sobbing and laughing, utterly debauched, and Bones can only think, yes and you.
It's a flurry of motion then, Bones pitching forward and getting an arm under Jim's back and dropping his head so he can look at Jim's cock, wrapped in Jim's hand, leaking and flushed and gorgeous. Jim puts his legs around Bones' back, hooks his ankles together, and arches, and they're crashing into one another with a violent urgency, Jim's arm the only thing keeping his head from going straight through the wall.
"Bones," Jim says, barely audible, and then he's coming, and it's - fuck, it's everything, Jim splashing hot and thick between them, Bones tumbling after with a low noise from the back of his throat that he's not sure he'll ever be able to make again, though he really hopes he will.
Bones loses several minutes after, but when he's come back to himself, he's sprawled on his back, barely panting now, and staring up at the ceiling, reeling. It occurs to him, belatedly, that he's going to be ruined after this, that there is no substitute in this universe for Jim Kirk, and that it's going to take him apart when he finally gets bored and they're probably going to be stuck together on a starship when it happens.
He says, before the breathing next to him evens, "I've got an early morning, kid. You should beat it." He can feel Jim looking at him, but he keeps his eyes resolutely on the ceiling.
"Bones?" Jim says, and Bones answers with a grunt. "Shut the Hell up and move over."