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By his sixth bourbon, Leonard McCoy had had enough.
Which isn’t to say he’s had enough to drink, never enough to forget. Just enough of this talk, enough of the sales pitch from the smug uniform still sharing his corner table without permission. Just, enough.
‘Think you should go now.’ He didn’t think his mumble was near as strong as it could have been, and the other man’s twisting smile proved it.
‘Why’s that? Afraid you might say yes?’
McCoy sneered to hide the leaping sense of anxiety snarling his guts. That was part of it, at least insofar as he was deathly afraid of flying and he suspected that aviaphobia and Starfleet would make a nasty combination, no matter how much praise this Captain Pike threw in his direction. With the humiliation of his recently-signed divorce papers still bleeding out from his faltering ego, there had been something bolstering about hearing all his medical accomplishments laid out so matter-of-fact bare in Pike’s sternly confident tone, something flattering in knowing that this recruiting officer had been hunting him through all of Georgia like some highly coveted prize.
Then again, it was hard to feel good about Pike’s fervent pursuit when all his leads had tracked McCoy here to Charlie Dufresne’s backwater dive of a bar where he’d been nursing free drinks for the past few days. With only a scant handful of credits left to his name, he couldn’t afford to pay, but Dufresne owed him after that ordeal with his little lady, all hush-hush now but everyone back home knew Dufresne would always have the doctor’s back after that particular unpleasantness.
Dufresne was the only thing the ex-wife hadn’t taken in that damn divorce. Not that she’d want any part of him.
‘Nah,’ McCoy drawled, ‘you should go because I’m done listening.’ He smoothly drained his bourbon. ‘And I want to enjoy my next drink in peace.’
Pike tilted back in his chair and cocked his head to the side, narrowed blue eyes watching McCoy as he waved his empty glass in Dufresne’s direction, silently beckoning for a refill.
‘Sorry, Doc. No can do.’
‘What?’ Confusion cut through the comfortable haze of alcohol; he twisted around in his seat and winced at a sudden bout of dizziness. ‘Damn it, man, why the hell not?’
‘Because you’re drunk.’ Dufresne leaned over his bar, planting his prodigious weight on two braced fists. ‘And your tab is through the fucking roof.’
‘My tab? What d’you mean, my…’ McCoy trailed off with a rasping chuckle, shaking his head in disbelief. ‘C’mon, Charlie, you said…’
‘I said a couple of days, Doc.’
‘It’s only been…’ He hesitated, staring at the sticky floor while he counted on soundless lips.
‘Six goddamn days.’ There was a note of something like pity behind Dufresne’s frustrated bellow that made McCoy flinch. ‘Sorry, but you’re cut off until you pay up.’
Swallowing hard around the awkward lump rising in his throat, McCoy snapped his head back around and scowled at his empty glass. His fingers trembled ever so slightly around its sleek circumference, tightened angrily with a faint squeak of friction against the glass. He tried to focus on that, and not the prickling awareness of that Starfleet captain’s gaze burning into him. Judging him.
Not such a shiny prize now, am I?
‘Perhaps,’ Pike suggested quietly, ‘I could cover off what you owe here-’
‘Fuck you.’ He jumped to his feet too quickly, overturning his chair and setting off another unpleasant lurch of nausea but he could still muster strength enough to fix Captain Christopher-fucking-Pike with a loathing glare before charging towards the door, driven on by a hollering Dufresne and the murmuring handful of onlookers making him feel like a cheap sideshow…
There was no relief in the thick humidity outside, stifling McCoy’s shaky breaths as he stumbled around the exterior walls of the bar and into the relative cool of the thin copse of trees out back, the sticky autumn heat cut through by the damp scent of the earth shifting beneath his boots. He sagged against the broad trunk of an overgrown willow, fist pressed to his mouth and eyes squeezed shut as he struggled to compose himself, to drown out the disdain of the bar’s other patrons at the miserable sight of their disgraced doctor, divorced and drunk off his ass even though he couldn’t even afford to pay, not when the wife got his clinic and the medical board got his damn license suspended and it didn’t matter if it was six months or sixty years before he could earn a living again, not when his father…oh God… Papa…
‘McCoy?’ Slow footsteps dragging through the heat-crisped grasses announced Pike’s approach as clearly as the man’s voice. Sucking in a sharp, choked breath, McCoy tensed against the tree at his back, pressing his thumb and forefinger hard into the corners of his eyes.
‘What part of “fuck you” don’t you understand?’ he rasped bitterly.
The faintest sigh touched the edge of his hearing, enough to know that Pike had come in close under the exhausted willow boughs. ‘Look, I get it. I shouldn’t have offered to pay your tab, you’re not the sort who’d take well to a hand-out…’
McCoy shook his head in disgust, drawing several deep, steadying breaths. Beneath the familiar scents of sweating earth and night-hot air, the sharp bite of Pike’s aftershave slipped down the back of his throat.
‘Too smart for that, aren’t you? No doubt you can rack up all the credits you’ll need to get by without Starfleet’s help.’
The hint of sarcasm in Pike’s voice was unmistakable, the underlying scorn making him wince. McCoy dropped his hand to his side and narrowed dry, burning eyes on Pike’s smug face. ‘Don’t you fucking know when to quit?’
‘After all, you’re a talented young man.’ Pike kept talking as though McCoy hadn’t said a word, his feet carrying him closer still. ‘I’m sure that pretty mouth alone would earn you at least a few hundred a night.’
His tone was so indifferent that it took the touch of fingertips tracing his lower lip to nail the words home. Beyond shocked, McCoy fumbled for a blistering retort that died with the hard press of lips claiming his mouth.
Pike kissed without tenderness, his tongue quick to penetrate him and lash fiercely at the inside of his mouth between sharp flares of teeth, his face held captive by a hand gripping his unshaven jaw hard enough to bruise. His other hand shoved its way through McCoy’s hair and tugged hard, forcing his head to tilt sideways into the kiss and sending a frisson of shocked arousal down his body, involuntarily arching his spine and tensing through his thighs. He hadn’t been touched like this in so long, long before the divorce, and the helpless intensity of his desire horrified him.
Growling deep in his throat, McCoy snarled his fists into Pike’s tidy uniform and quickly, unthinkingly, reversed their positions, shoving Pike back into the tree. ‘I’m no goddamn whore,’ he spat sharply, even as he threw his weight into the other man’s body, shoving his thigh hard between Pike’s legs. He dove in to attack Pike’s mouth before he had a chance to fight him off, biting his way along Pike’s jaw, sinking his teeth into the flesh beneath his ear to stifle a moan when Pike reached down to grab his ass, fingers digging hard into tense muscle.
‘That’s right… I know what you are… know what you’re made of...’ McCoy bucked hard beneath his hand, his erection driving hard at Pike’s hip, and moaned in quiet approval when Pike rocked his body into the demanding movement and tipped his head back, inviting anything and everything with an expectant quirk of his mouth.
‘Come on,’ he demanded, and McCoy swept in again, captured those taunting lips in a filthy-wet kiss, slower and less violent than before, tongues sliding hot and slick with near-pornographic promise. Backing off was no longer an option, if only because he was drunk and frustrated and his body was so damn touch-starved that he was downright weeping with want. This had nothing to do with the scent of Pike’s aftershave or his teasing cornflower eyes or the power the other man exuded like a wall that McCoy yearned to claw down with his bare hands. Absolutely nothing.
They were racing together now, hands fumbling to find hot and ready flesh, and McCoy growled with feral triumph at the quickness with which he wrapped his knowing surgeon’s fingers around Pike’s throbbing length. The other man’s hand was working just as quickly at his own trousers, but he forced him to stop short, captured Pike’s hand by the wrist and brought it to his panting mouth, tongue laving wet over his palm and fingers before dragging the spit-slick hand back down to his own desperate erection. Pike sucked in a sharp breath before following his lead, eyes hot and open as he slid his wet palm over McCoy’s cock, jerking him in time to the thrust of his hips against McCoy’s hand.
They were far too close to make this easy, and McCoy’s wrist was aching from the effort of working Pike’s cock in the narrow gap between their bodies. He gasped and grunted, drove his whole body into it and somehow managed to make them fit together, his fingers clutching around both their dicks at once. Between his hard fisting and their erratic frotting, the friction was near unbearable but then Pike made this noise, oh God, like a rasping, bottomless gasp, like he was damn near dying and McCoy laid into him harder and faster, attacked his throat again with his mouth, hoping that the hard scrape of his two-day stubble on that smooth skin burned and Pike spasmed into his hand with a rough cry, his hand clutching at his ass hard enough to bruise.
The spill of semen between them eased the awkward friction somewhat, but not enough, not quite… McCoy grit his teeth, hips shuddering into Pike’s smoothly moving hand, too far gone to worry about that pathetic, needy sound keening from the back of his throat – a whine that turned into a sigh when Pike slid his hand upward from his ass, laying a familiar caress up his spine and clasping him close by the back of his neck.
‘Shhh, it’s alright… you’ve still got this.’ Pike whispered harsh and low into his ear, his other hand still stroking steady and sure over his cock. ‘No matter what this world throws at you, you’ve still got this body…your brilliant mind, your stubborn pride, your bones…’
McCoy quaked helplessly as his release flooded hot into Pike’s hand, burying a choked sob into the captain’s shoulder as the shock of the other man’s tenderness overcame him. Stray tears soaked into the synth fibres of Pike’s uniform but if Pike noticed, he had the decency to say nothing about it, save for a suspiciously gentle hand combing through his hair that only added to the confusion that was now coiling its way through diminishing rage and lust.
‘Why…’ He cleared his throat around the broken sound, but Pike answered before he could continue.
‘My wife divorced me. Some ten years ago now, but there’s no forgetting what that’s like.’ His hand remained firm on the back of McCoy’s neck, keeping him too close for eye contact while he spoke. ‘Tried to work around it, tried to ignore it, but they took my ship in the end. Been stuck planetside working for the Academy ever since.’
‘Could be worse,’ McCoy mumbled. It was getting hard to breathe with his face jammed into the crook of Pike’s neck and shoulder; he wriggled awkwardly, drawing a slow breath as Pike released his hold.
‘You’re right,’ he agreed easily, bracing back against the willow as he set about refastening his trousers. ‘It wasn’t the end of the world, after all. I did what I needed to do to survive, and now they’ve got a brand new bride waiting for me at the Riverside shipyard in Iowa.’ He smirked proudly at McCoy’s questioning eyebrow. ‘New flagship in the ‘Fleet, McCoy. The Enterprise will be ready in three years’ time, and I’ll be captain on her maiden voyage.’
McCoy rolled his eyes, unimpressed. ‘Congrats.’
‘Makes me feel like a dirty old man.’
‘Don’t think that has anything to do with the ship.’
Pike barked a laugh, his smile warm as he watched McCoy straighten his clothing. ‘Maybe not,’ he admitted, blue eyes tracking lazily up and down McCoy’s body. The raw appreciation in his leering gaze was enough to make his neck grow hot.
‘She’s gonna be one proud, beautiful lady,’ Pike continued softly. ‘She could use a doctor to match.’
McCoy ducked his head with a weary chuckle. ‘Gotta give you points for effort,’ he groaned, shaking his head derisively because he knew Pike had him now and the very idea was still completely fucked up.
‘With your training, you could qualify as a senior-level medical officer by the time she’s ready to fly.’ Pike pushed away from the tree and closed in on him, digging in his pockets. ‘Can’t promise you CMO right away, but put in the work and I promise, I’ll have you on my crew when the time comes.’
He pressed something small and cold into his hand. Glancing down, McCoy narrowed his eyes at the credit chip nestled in his palm. ‘What’s this?’
‘Next shuttle for new recruits leaves from Riverside in six days’ time,’ Pike explained. ‘That’ll cover your transport to Iowa, plus food and lodgings until your departure.’
His stomach lurched nauseously. Shuttle…?
‘Don’t go thinking of it as a hand-out, either.’ Pike seemed to have misread his anxiety, judging from his sudden, defensive speech. ‘It’s an investment, and I’m sure you’ll find a way to return the favour some day…’
The threat of space-sickness twisted into something ugly centered around his aching groin, the bite of the credit chip in his clenched fist. ‘Damn it, man,’ he snarled. ‘I’m a doctor, not a concubine.’
‘You damn prickly bastard,’ Pike sneered back, catching his fist before it had a chance to throw the credit chip away. ‘I didn’t mean it like that.’ His other hand caught McCoy by the chin, forcing his gaze. ‘You’ll earn your way onto my ship the same as any other man, with your brains and your wits and nothing else, got it? I’m just giving you the same shot as the rest of those brats, so don’t go thinking it means you’ve got to drop to your knees and open your mouth every time I snap my fingers just because of… this.’ The angry toss of his head was surprisingly suggestive of all their recent sordid deeds. ‘Understood?’
McCoy nodded brusquely, his eyes shamefully averted. ‘Yeah,’ he conceded sourly.
‘Good.’ Pike’s eyes seemed to search his face for a long pause before he lowered his hand and turned away. ‘I’ll see you in six days then, Doctor.’
The tall grasses rustled around their feet, Pike drifting away to leave McCoy staring down at the tiny chip in his hand, his teeth worrying his already-bruised lower lip. He hesitated, rolled his eyes heavenward, then dared to look over his shoulder.
‘Captain?’
Pike slowed, glanced cautiously back. ‘Christopher will do for now.’
‘Christopher.’ He tried it out at a slow drawl, testing the name on his tongue. ‘I…well, if you did snap your fingers?’
The tilt of Pike’s head was surprised, a little hopeful. ‘You wouldn’t…?’
‘I’d think about it.’
Those lips quirked into that lazy smirk. ‘Six days?’
McCoy nodded his assurance. ‘I’ll be there.’
He watched the captain disappear beyond the tired boughs and breathed the night air, too heavy to bear without the tang of aftershave and arrogance to temper the oppressive heat. The credit chip in his palm was so cool and sleek, sharp against his thumb.
Perhaps he had finally had enough of this world.