Moving Day (RP)

[sharpestscalpel]

It was easy enough to empty sickbay out. Most of the wounds coming in were superficial – the real power struggle would take a few more days while alliances and allegiances shook themselves out of the wash. Uhura looked good in the chair and she’d already held it – with a knife blade so lazy from Chekov that the whole defense would have been an insult to the assassin if he hadn’t gurgled out his last breaths onto the floor at Uhura’s booted heels.

McCoy motioned to the last of the nurses and they scattered to take their positions in the halls. It wasn’t that McCoy trusted them. It was that they damn well knew better than to try anything on him or he’d make them wish he’d killed them before he fucked them.

Now it was just a matter of getting Kirk out the door. He hadn’t given the man any warning – it was more fun to keep him guessing.

The probes opened the door to the iso room at McCoy’s approach.

He was smiling.

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[sharpestscalpel.livejournal.com]

"Why not more?"

[behnd-blueyes.livejournal.com]

"What?"

The word was involuntary, choked out of him in his surprise. He'd already been regretting his honesty, terse as it was, obvious as it had to be. You didn't just spill your plans unless you had some call to believe the hearer could help you. And you held back, knowing they would, as well. He'd recovered enough of himself to start yearning for life again, for something, to start regretting not just his dire circumstances but what his folly had cost him. What the future did not hold. He'd yet to make himself believe he had more to offer anyone than his bones, and McCoy seemed like the only person who could possibly have use for them.

Maybe not.

"You have to start somewhere," he said slowly. What did McCoy have on the back burner? What did it have to do with him? "And that's further back than ever."

[sharpestscalpel.livejournal.com]

McCoy smirked.

Jos had always told him his eyes weren't big enough to fill his stomach. But he had some ideas for this one....

"Here's the thing, Blue. The lay of the land has... changed quite a bit in the last few days."

[behnd-blueyes.livejournal.com]

He didn't know if was the amber liquid or McCoy's apparent confidence that started the glow inside, but Kirk leaned forward, waiting. This was what he wanted to know. Needed to know. He was starting to think, more than ever, he needed a direction. He'd lost something, something symbolic, even.

He needed to replace it. He'd barely begun to consider making another play, once McCoy was eating out of his hand. And this... He didn't know what to make of it yet.

"Pike," he said.

[sharpestscalpel.livejournal.com]

"Gone."

[behnd-blueyes.livejournal.com]

The surge of adrenaline surprised him, and he covered it with another sip.

Gone.

Just like that. And McCoy staring at him intensely, his eyes never relaxed though his posture often was. He thought furiously. McCoy could only be telling him this because he thought something could be done.

"Uhura?"

[sharpestscalpel.livejournal.com]

"The Enterprise will never be yours, boy."

Uhura had taken to the probes like some people took to fucking right out in the open spaces of nature: like it was the most natural thing in the world to command the very fabric of the ship.

"But there's an entire goddamn Empire on the other side of it."

[behnd-blueyes.livejournal.com]

McCoy was too quick. But he had more or less confirmed that Uhura was in charge. Fucking bitch. Left him high and dry.

"You don't strike me," he said carefully, "as the imperial type." McCoy liked his haven, his cozy den that he controlled entirely. He was a big fish in a big enough pond. Or so Kirk had pegged him.

[sharpestscalpel.livejournal.com]

"I don't strike a lot of people as a lot of things, that is entirely fucking true."

He tipped his head back against the headrest of the chair, boneless and relaxed.

"Tell me, James Tiberius goddamn Kirk, what did Uhura see in you? Did you fuck her?"

[behnd-blueyes.livejournal.com]

Kirk's mouth twitched, almost a frown. The warm glow was still there, radiating outward, but it hadn't pulled a veil over the wasteland his life had become.

"It's not my only quality, but it's not the least of them," he said. "We had plans." Plans she was moving on without him. With whom? he wondered. Sulu? Chekov? "You need a mover," he guessed. Stupid. Idiotic. Beyond the Enterprise... McCoy had to be insane. "Maybe something else besides."

He took a large swallow and rose, the bourbon lending him a kind of steadiness for now as he crossed to McCoy, eyes that never left his bright in his gaunt face.

[sharpestscalpel.livejournal.com]

McCoy looked, steady in his chair.

"What do you think I need, Blue?"

[behnd-blueyes.livejournal.com]

Kirk cocked his head, looking down at him. He had to ignore how grotesque he thought he himself looked--wasn't the point, now, if McCoy saw something he liked.

"You need someone who'll put himself out there," he said. "Someone to take the risks while you consolidate power." He took a risk and a step closer. "You want me."

[sharpestscalpel.livejournal.com]

"And what makes you think that?"

He wouldn't say no. But he wasn't saying yes. It wasn't the time for any of that - not until Kirk wanted it. Begged for it. Thought it was his own idea and that he held something valuable.

[behnd-blueyes.livejournal.com]

The question was very nearly rhetorical; it seemed obvious to Kirk that he did, for whatever reason, and examining why was irrelevant. He watched McCoy, the carefully relaxed pose--open, inviting in a way. Deceptively so.

"I'm not at my best," he understated. "Doesn't mean I'm a complete moron." He remembered words from days or weeks ago, he couldn't remember now. You make the right people love you... Well, that was asking a lot. But he could use what he had, use that hardon he'd seen, use whatever fucking interest this sick fuck had in him. "I'm here for a reason."

Sure, he was still scared. Uncertain. But he'd been outnumbered before. He'd made alliances and survived. McCoy wanted him. That was what he had now.

[sharpestscalpel.livejournal.com]

McCoy took a considering sip of his bourbon, looked at Kirk where he stood between McCoy's open legs.

Then he placed his drink on the side table and gathered himself up until he was standing, way too close for it to be anything other than what it was about to become. He fisted the loose fabric of Kirk's shirt and pulled until their mouths were only a fraction of an inch apart. When he spoke, his warm breath, slightly sweet from the drink, brushed over Kirk's lips.

"You have no goddamn idea what I want. You figure you got me mapped out?"

Now he was ghosting warmth exhales over Kirk's cheek, not touching him in any other way.

"Blue, you don't even know. But I suspect you fucking will. Come see me again when that happens. In the meantime -"

Here, he released Kirk, stepped back and around him, picking up his drink and walking with it to the head.

"In the meantime, you're staying here for the duration. Couch pulls out. Welcome to your new shitting home."

[behnd-blueyes.livejournal.com]

Kirk did not, in actual fact, figure he had McCoy mapped out. He knew that if he waited to do that, he'd never act. And maybe that was part of why he was here; Kirk didn't tend to look before he leapt, because more often than not his instincts caught him before he plummeted.

But that hadn't happened this time. McCoy had caught him, for purposes yet unknown, and Kirk was just twisting in his web. He could fight all he wanted. He might even pull himself free enough to think he was acting on his own. But he wasn't capable of seeing all the threads.

He felt nothing at McCoy's proximity that could be termed sexual. Slight fear. Confusion. What anticipation there was was pure instinct, his mind readying himself for what he knew he needed to do, utterly divorced from desire. He could not feel it. Perhaps never would again. But he hadn't on Tarsus either, hadn't with Pike, hadn't in countless situations where it wasn't about what he wanted on a physical level but what he was reaching for beyond it. Climbing bodies like a ladder. He could do this, master his own self-loathing, long enough to pull McCoy in among those sticky strands too and claw his way out.

And then McCoy was gone, Kirk's poorly insulated body suddenly cold though it didn't register. He stared back at the couch, all his focus gone with McCoy's removal. No. He didn't know. Didn't understand. McCoy, for whatever fucked up reason, wanted him here.

But not for that?

Fucking him, making him service McCoy like the nurses did, made sense. Humiliation and power he understood. But that could all be done in that iso room, with a lot less inconvenience to McCoy himself. Why he'd tolerate, let alone want, Kirk in his own room was beyond him. Some new humiliation? If it was, it was elaborate.

McCoy couldn't possibly care. Couldn't like him. Kirk knew very well that McCoy, somehow, in some corner of his twisted brain, found Kirk either amusing, useful, or both. The trick was figuring out which and playing on it. For now, he grabbed his drink, downed the rest (not, probably, a great idea) and took a closer look at the room. The photos were impersonal, though they showed taste. The relics were various degrees of unsettling, but Kirk was used to that.

The one photo, however, was interesting. The women in it was gorgeous, unbearably so if Kirk had still been in a position to worry about the tightness of his pants. As it was, she only reminded him of what he'd lost, and it wasn't the kid he was thinking about. He wondered if the photo meant what he thought it did. And what it had to do with McCoy being on this ship.

[sharpestscalpel.livejournal.com]

In the bathroom, McCoy stripped out of his uniform, drink on the counter, and ran the shower water until it was hot enough to nearly scald. When it was finally the right temperature, he stepped in and hissed as the water streamed over his closed eyes.

He'd have to fucking settings so Kirk didn't run through the water ration - twisting more out of Gaila was fun but he didn't have time for those goddamn reindeer games right the fuck just now.

Just the fuck now, the game was finally getting interesting. And Kirk didn't even know it.

It was good that McCoy was a patient man. He used the shampoo to scrub something crusty out of his hair and considered.

He'd bring Chapel in one night. Maybe Chapel and Rien both. Nothing like a little show to twist the metaphorical damn knife in Kirk's side.

[behnd-blueyes.livejournal.com]

He knew McCoy was playing with him. He just didn't know the game yet. And he knew McCoy knew that, knew he was delighting in keeping him off-balance, but Kirk couldn't afford to care.

He knew that he was vulnerable. Out there, he was disgraced, weak, unmanned. He had no protection. Nothing, now, but whatever McCoy was willing to provide. Which seemed to be his own room. It meant being under his eye, and that of those probe fuckers.

But it sure beat the fuck out of dying.

The shower was going in the other room, and Kirk tried to muster some resentment at McCoy's obvious message: Kirk was harmless. McCoy had nothing to fear, even exposed naked in the shower. Nor was he worried about Kirk leaving, or messing with his things. Because he didn't think Kirk was capable? or because he had nothing to lose or hide?

It wasn't trust.

Warmed by the bourbon but no less confused, Kirk pulled his eyes away from the photo and the books and scattered personal effects and moved to the sofa. He activated the conversion. No point in running. Not now. There was nowhere to go. And if McCoy was going to leave him unsupervised, Kirk might as well earn the trust that, for now, was appearances only.

[sharpestscalpel.livejournal.com]

He continued his clean up, long strokes over wet skin with an old-fashioned bar of soap, suds forming and sliding down his legs under the spray.

McCoy was patient - but he wasn't a saint and he wasn't immune. He'd been accused of being a hedonist before. And he had no interest in self-denial for the sake of self-denial.

Turning down Kirk's offer had been delicious - the confusion in Kirk's eyes coming slow and only after McCoy was several steps away. Had anyone ever turned that kid down? McCoy didn't know - he suspected Uhura had, as much as Kirk hadn't answered the damn question. But the ship was a rumor mill and Pike was... predictable. Kirk had gotten here on the strength of his smarts but also the strength of how well he took it.

The water and soap slicked his skin and McCoy ran hands over his chest, then braced one against the wall as the other stroked his slowly hardening cock.

[behnd-blueyes.livejournal.com]

McCoy was taking his sweet ass time. It struck Kirk to wonder if he was jerking off in there, or just wanted him to think he was; the man was a first class pervert and while that could be useful to Kirk, he hadn't proved predictable so far. Kirk was tired, but the alcohol had gone straight to his head and he had been kept so long between various sets of identical walls that he could not resist another turn of the room, trying to gather any clue at all.

But there was only one photo with people in it, and the hot chick was pissing him off, and the books were in Vulcan. He wandered over to the terminal, on the off chance that McCoy didn't have it locked down even more than usual. He had no real hope, but he knew well enough that assuming things like that led to missing the fact the door was wide open. As expected, the screen denied him rudely and Kirk figured there wasn't enough time to do anything about it before McCoy emerged again. Likewise closets and drawers. His cursory examination revealed standard fare: uniforms, civvies, a few relatively tame sex toys. The door, when he approached, did not open.

He suspected, too, that those things were waiting.

Kirk returned to the sofa bed and sat. Still softer than the biobed, and not beeping. But there seemed to be some rule about pull-out beds being crap, and this was no exception. Or so Kirk would have noted, had it not been infinitely preferable to a floor in the brig.

What was McCoy doing? Not just in the shower. What game was he playing? Why was he waiting? What was Kirk supposed to offer?

He sat, contemplating that, but did not lie down.

[sharpestscalpel.livejournal.com]

He had no shortage of shortage of objects for his sexual energies. He could call Chapel or Ritchies or, hell, even M'Benga, let him earn some goodwill back, and they'd be in the shower on their knees before he finished the goddamn comm.

But the indulgence of masturbation, he relished it. The pressure just right as he eased into a regular rhythm, no instructing or guarding against unwary teeth, just the familiar slip slide slick of his palm on the smooth skin of the shaft of his erection, the brush of fingertips grazing over the head.

Kirk would be wandering around, baffled. There was nothing for him to find, nothing that McCoy cared about him seeing. Would Kirk ask about the photo? Jos and Jo, a long time ago.

Jos, with her sweetass cunt and her filthy mouth. Kirk with his sharp ribs and his defeated eyes that were trying so hard to spark. McCoy wanted to be there when they caught flame. Jos would like that one.

The steamy air felt good as his breaths deepened and his pace increased.

[behnd-blueyes.livejournal.com]

Something gleamed as Kirk turned his head, his gaze circling the room yet again for anything he'd missed, and this time he rose, startled. Oh. The mirror in the closet. Standard issue, full-length. He'd managed to avoid it in his first cursory perusal of the room, but he must not have closed the door all the way.

He hadn't seen a mirror in... Well. Not since any of this had happened. He didn't want to know, didn't want that image of himself to replace the one in his mind, the true Jim Kirk, the one he would be again. If he believed it hard enough, the scarecrow he was now would disappear all the faster. He wouldn't have to address it. Much like the smooth area below his dick that would scar but wouldn't ever, really, heal.

No. That wasn't who he was. Kirk didn't deny his own reality; he denied his inability to change the future. He'd achieved nothing by hiding from himself. Arrogant he might be, but he was also confident, and it wasn't blind. He needed to know what he was working with. What McCoy saw when he looked at him.

He approached slowly, listening for the shower, and shoved the closet open. Blue eyes stared back at him, unchanged though they looked large and haunted in that face. A face he didn't recognize at all. His hair, though too long, was thin. The shape of his face had changed, the contours altered, lips more pronounced. His cheekbones would have been enviable in a face less gaunt and ravage.

The clothes McCoy had brought him hung off him still, and Kirk grabbed the hem of his sweatshirt and pulled up. Not off--the shower could fall silent at any moment--but slowly he revealed what he had glimpsed but only from above. His hipbones jutted out above the elastic band of his pants, his waist sharply defined and his ribs sticking out like denuded branches. And this was after all the eating he'd been doing. With the sores and rashes mostly cleared up.

The bourbon was offering him a modicum of distance, a hazy vantage point from which to view himself. But he was still fucking hideous. No muscle. A spindly bundle of sticks bound together under tight skin. He'd seen this before, on Tarsus. And vowed not to be this man.

He let the shirt fall and tugged now at his pants, shoving them down to mid-thigh. He could pull them up again in a moment. And made himself look.

Kirk stared, intently, purposefully, attempting to inure himself to the sight. There was progress, too. No urge to vomit. Just the gut-level sensation that it was wrong, all wrong, not that he could help but be reminded when he pissed or itched or hell, moved.

No, look at it, he told himself. Look at yourself. Get used to it. Nothing's going to change. But you can change the rest. You can make it not matter. Figure out what McCoy wants. Give it to him, keep giving it to him until there's nothing more he can give you. Maybe he's got a plan. What do you have? If you fail, it can't be any worse. If you don't... if you don't, you can make sure this shit doesn't matter at all.

Fucking freak, was what he was now. But there was someone out there for anything you could possibly sell. Maybe he hadn't been handed to McCoy, he thought. Maybe McCoy had been handed to him, and just didn't know it yet. It was a place to start, anyway.

He snapped the pants back into place and shut the closet door.

[sharpestscalpel.livejournal.com]

He stroked himself through it, leaning more heavily on the arm bracing him against the wall, forehead coming to rest against the cool tile, the temperature a contrast that just heightened the responses of his nerves and wound him tighter, coiled the spring winding tight in his belly.

McCoy had waited for Pike to tire of Spock – and it hadn’t happened. The fucker had, of all things, fallen in love with his calculator. Kirk hadn’t counted on that to be returned. McCoy might not think much of the softer emotions but they were goddamn useful. Kirk would learn that. He wouldn’t be caught blind again, not after what it had cost him.

Such an intriguing price. McCoy had tended the wound, puckered pink skin scarring over but still soft, still delicate, smoother than the skin around it and slightly shiny. He wanted to suck on it.

The thought of it left him thrusting into his fist now, grunting his pleasure as the climax washed over him and then was washed away down the drain.

McCoy slumped, his whole chest pressed against the wall now to hold himself upright. He reached for his drink and took a deep pull from the glass, careful to shield it from the cooling spray. His ration was almost up. He might have to pay Gaila a visit after all.

[behnd-blueyes.livejournal.com]

Kirk could hear nothing from the shower, no hint of anything but water. Enough water that it was suspicious, made him wonder how McCoy had rated so much of it, and what he was trying to prove by demonstrating it.

He swayed on his feet now, tension and drink mixing with his already delicate state to send him crashing as he waited for some new signal from McCoy. He made it to the pulled-out sofabed before he physically gave out, settling against the back and drawing his knees up to his chest in a now-habitual gesture of fetal watchfulness. He would not fall asleep, he told himself. Too dangerous. Wouldn't show weakness. Didn't know what McCoy would want when he emerged. Didn't know what he expected. Had to be ready for anything.

His brain felt fuzzy from exhaustion and liquor, and he fought it, dulled blue eyes trained on the bathroom door.

[sharpestscalpel.livejournal.com]

McCoy turned off the water and stayed in the shower stall, back against the wall, a moment longer to finish his drink. Finally, muscles loose, finally relaxed, he stood up from his slumped posture and reached for a towel.

After all, he had a house guest. Wouldn't do to take too long and be rude.

Not when there were so many other ways to get his point across. McCoy tended to the rest of his bedtime rituals before he dragged the towel over his hair, rubbed at it to get most of the wet, and then draped the terry cloth around his neck.

The inrush of cold air hit him when he opened the door, prickling his skin with goosebumps.

"Fucking colder in here than I thought. You want it warmer?"

He eyed Kirk, curled up on the sofa bed, as he walked naked to his own bed.