ceres_libera | Switch 14/50

Title: "Switch" (14/50)
Author:

ceres_libera
Rating: R to NC-17
Summary: The life and times of Leonard H. McCoy MD/PhD … If Leonard McCoy's life could get any fucking weirder, it would be … Jesus, he didn't even want to think what that could possibly mean, because it's already been too fucking weird to make any kind of rational sense.
Canon: Based in the ST:XI universe, but strongly influenced by all canon ST-verses.
Characters: McCoy/Kirk, with eventual appearances by all other ST:XI characters.
Notes: My ~~insanity~~ insomnia continues, and so ... another part. It's hard to believe that I'm 2/3 of the way through my outline, but it's true. In this chapter: angst, revelatory conversation, unnecessary exposition, smirking, swearing, brief sexuality and possible abuse of gender-blind pronouns. As always ... slow burn is slow.

+

Leo hadn’t expected that that would be the last conversation about his sex life, so he wasn’t surprised when the inevitable questions began. What was surprising was how long it took for Jim to start asking them, and the way Jim sometimes looked at him when he thought Leo wasn’t paying attention, as if he found Leo intriguing, like a new alien species, or a talking dog. It was just so fucking bizarre, as if Jim Kirk, hypersexual, had never really considered Leo a sexual being.

Or maybe he’d just thought that Leo was straight, which was also a little strange, because straight guys usually didn’t crawl into bed with one another, even if it was to just sleep. In fact, they generally didn’t sleep in the same bed together unless they actually were brothers, and that habit usually ended in childhood. It all kept leading him back to the same depressing conclusion: that he really had been a substitute for Jim’s lost brother. The question was … what was he now?

+

Jim hadn’t crawled into Leo’s bed for quite a while, nor had he shown up at Leo’s doorstep late at night, bleeding and bruised. He was happy about the latter development, obviously, but the former made his heart ache. There was an odd kind of stutter about Jim’s physicality with him, as if Jim had suddenly become aware of how his actions might be perceived and was consciously holding himself back. It wasn’t that Jim didn’t touch him at all, because he did, but they were the kind of touches that Jim doled out to every person within a specific radius of his being, and therefore impersonal. The thing that Leo missed the most, aside from waking at some point in the night to find Jim beside him or even rolling over in the morning and catching the scent of his skin on the sheets and realizing that somehow Jim had managed to slip into bed and slip out again without waking him, was the way that Jim used to sling an arm around his neck, the way that Jim had used to lean on him in barrooms. The only way that he got any full body contact with Jim these days was fighting with him, and that was never going to be a substitute for the affection that he’d grown used to.

Of course, there was the possibility that Jim’s reticence to touch Leo wasn’t so much about his consciousness of Leo’s sexuality as it was about a kind of trust between them being fractured. When Leo had had time to think about his response to Jim’s questions in the locker room, he had to admit that he’d overreacted. Jim wasn’t responsible for how Leo felt about him, nor was he responsible for the whole gruesome scene at Rick’s, even if he had been an unknowing participant in it. Leo had taken out some of his resentment and anger on him, and harshly established a boundary in their friendship. Not that Jim seemed to resent him for it, at least outwardly. In fact, his line of demarcation had made his sex life and his history all the more interesting to Jim. He could tell by the way Jim watched him, watched who he was looking at when they were out drinking.

Jim was trying to figure him out.

If only Leo knew why.

+

Midterms had just ended, and when Leo entered Finnegan’s after working a shift at the hospital, the place was packed to the rafters. He was later than he expected because he’d had to wait for Patty to get ready to meet her 0, Shohreh. Patty had held firm to her New Year’s resolution of all or nothing, and refused to let Shohreh back into her life halfway. After weeks of no contact and grieving on Patty's part, Shohreh had contacted Patty and asked if they could meet at a restaurant for dinner. Patty was ecstatic; the restaurant was not only elegantly romantic in its setting, but it was located well outside of the historically gay districts of San Francisco. In their past relationship, they’d stuck to small, out-of-the-way places where’d they be less likely to stand out, hiding in plain sight. Patty had high hopes for what this evening would mean.

Leo had stayed late to help her get ready, and to hold her hand while she hyperventilated. He was happy for her, but as he crossed the threshold to Finnegan’s, he couldn’t help but feel a bit sorry for himself at how he’d damaged his friendship with Jim. Jealousy was a part of human nature, he reckoned. After all, he had no romantic designs on Patty, but if she and Shohreh got back together, he knew that he’d lose his partner in commiseration, and that was a real shame, because misery did, in fact, love company, especially when they could laugh and talk and compare notes about how much their lives sucked. If Patty got what she’d wanted, well, he’d be back to being miserable alone.

He scanned the room for Jim and finally spotted him all the way across the room, his tall form ringed by a circle of young human women. Jim had been working his bad boy smile on the group but it brightened into a true one when he spotted Leo, who couldn’t help but smile back. Leo felt his shoulders ease down from their tense posture as he decided, right then and there, that he was going to change how he’d been behaving toward Jim. If they were friends, they were friends –- and that meant that he had to learn how to let him in a little more. He’d come to Starfleet with a chip on his shoulder, guarding his secret about his father’s death and his role in it. When he’d met Jim, he’d not wanted to yield a bit in his solitary stance, but Jim had refused to let him be. It wasn’t Jim’s fault that Leo felt more than he let on. Jim confounded him, that was true, but he was willing to bet that Jim felt the same way about Leo’s own mixed signals. One of them would have to change the dynamic between them, and if Jim’s recent reticence with him was because he thought he was unwelcome, well … it was up to Leo to set it right.

Across the floor, Jim scowled and put on a grumpy face, making a gesture that Leo interpreted as ‘where the fuck have you been?’ and Leo shrugged. He pointed at the bar in the universal signal of ‘you ready for another round?’ and Jim nodded, their silent conversation taking place over the heads of the bouncing, grinding mass of Cadets determined to burn off their test-taking stress one way or another. Jim tilted his head and pointed to the back corner, where they usually hung out when they were together, and Leo nodded before turning to push his way through the thick crowd. As he got close to the bar, he found himself getting drunkenly pawed by a young woman at least a decade younger than he was. He returned her grabby hands to her person gently but firmly, only to find her draped over his back while he ordered drinks.

“Hello?” he said over his shoulder.

“You’re nice,” the young woman drunkenly slurred. She was tall enough in her high heels that her head rested on Leo’s shoulder. He could feel the weight of her breasts against his shoulder blade and spine as she settled, resting her slight weight against him.

He sighed, shaking his head. “Not that nice, darling,” he said to her, tilting his head into the light to take a good look at her. She was beautiful, in that raw, ill-defined way that youth can sometimes be. Her unnaturally blue eyes had been tinted to cover up their natural brown, and she’d emphasized the color with heavy eyeliner and long blue eyelashes. The effect was not as pleasing as she suspected, but she was young –- she’d learn what really suited her as she grew up. Ever the doctor, he couldn't resist checking out her reactions to light, as she stared at him, barely focused. Her pupils indicated that she was just very, very drunk, not drunk and high. While he understood the logic behind allowing 18 year-olds, who could vote, wield weapons and fight and die in wars, to drink, he also recognized that sometimes they really lacked the emotional maturity to do so. He slid an arm around the girl to steady her as he turned to face her and she threw her arms around his neck. Leo stifled a grimace.

“Where are your friends, darlin’?” he asked, touching her cheek to rouse her from her stupor.

She pouted. “I wanna stay wi' you,” she said. Her head dropped back onto Leo’s shoulder.

Leo loudly asked if anyone knew who the young woman was, but was met with indifference. “What about you?” he asked the barkeep, a Tellarite.

He nodded toward the dance floor, then put Leo’s drinks on a tray at his request. He tipped the guy, then turned both him and his new friend toward the floor. “Darlin’,” he said to her, and she drunkenly raised her head and smiled. “Your friends are sad without you.”

“I hate 'em,” she announced. “Wanna stay here wi’ you. You’re nice,” he raised his chin to dodge her kiss and she mashed her nose against his throat and mumbled something, pressing her face into his neck.

Leo moved them steadily toward the floor, balancing the tray above his head precariously, while he alternately dragged and lifted the young woman with him. Across the dance floor, he saw Jim’s eyes widen, and then question him across the distance.

Leo shook his head helplessly, and he just caught a glimpse of Jim’s smirk before he lost sight of him in the crowd.

“Darlin’,” he bellowed into the young woman’s ear. “Are these your friends?”

She looked around blearily. “No,” she said, “but I love this song! Dance wi' me?” She came alive and began trying to drag Leo into the crush of dancers.

He planted his heels and counterbalanced her, and she bounced back towards him like a slingshot, thumping against his chest, making his drinks slosh over the sides. “Damn it!”

“I cannot take you anywhere,” he heard Jim say right into his ear, his voice low and amused. Jim snagged the two shots off the tray and downed one, then came around to Leo’s front and held the shot to his lips. “You look like you need this,” he said, eyes twinkling with dark mirth.

Watching Jim, Leo opened his mouth and took the shot. It was an awkward angle, and some of the Jack escaped over the edge of the glass and onto Jim’s fingers. Unselfconsciously, Jim licked his long fingers and watched Leo, eyes sliding from him to the young woman plastered to his side. Jim tilted his head and raised an eyebrow.

“The missus is really lovely,” Jim said blandly.

“Fuck you,” Leo snorted.

Jim laughed and took the tray from Leo’s hand, returning a minute later just carrying their two beers. He handed Leo his, and Leo took a long pull.

“Now what?” Jim asked.

“Her friends are out there,” Leo said, moving a little bit closer to the dance floor. “Darlin’,” he bellowed at the drunk. “Do you see your friends?”

She raised her head woozily and looked at Leo as if she’d never seen him before.

“Darlin’?” he asked, concerned.

“Ashley!” The shriek was ear-splittingly high and rendered extra loud for having been made in triplicate.

“Wow,” Jim said, widening his eyes. He put a finger in his ear, as if to clear it.

Meanwhile, something small and hard began smack Leo in the chest, and he raised his beer out of the line of fire.

“Let go of her, you creep!”

Leo was being beaten by a tiny, metallic evening bag being wielded by a tiny young woman, while her two equally tiny friends echoed her every word. The evening bag was a surprisingly effective weapon.

“Stop it,” Ashley said, drunkenly, pushing at her friends, whom she towered over, as Leo rubbed at his sore pectoral. “He’s wunnerful. I’ma stay wi’ him.”

Leo’s eyes were going to roll right out of his head one of these days, honestly. “No, darlin’,” he said, passing her over to her friends' collective embrace. “You stay here with your friends. Bye now.” He turned around and caught a laughing Jim by the elbow, dragging him away over his protests.

“Bones,” he protested, “It was just getting interesting! There was going to be like a cat fight, maybe.”

Leo looked at Jim like he was insane.

“The other two,” Jim said, “they thought you were hot. You coulda gotten some multi-partner action,” he crowed.

Leo rolled his eyes.

“I mean, that would be new and different, right?”

Leo looked at Jim, allowing the tiniest smirk to curve his mouth.

Jim’s mouth positively gaped, his eyes wide. “Bones!” he said, then narrowed his eyes. “You’re totally fucking with me, aren’t you?”

"Where are we goin', Jim?" Leo asked, refusing to answer. He was wearing what he hoped was a secretive smile.

Jim stared at him for a beat longer, then turned to lead the way back toward their usual corner, stopping short and almost spilling Leo's beer again. Goddamnit. They really needed to find a less crowded place with fewer hormonal children in it. Why couldn't they ever go to a nice jazz bar or something?

"Damn it, Jim," Leo said, flinging beer off his fingers.

Over Jim's shoulder, he could see what had stopped his forward progress. Gaila was tucked into the corner of the booth Leo thought of as theirs, her arms full of another young woman. She was inspecting that young woman’s tonsils quite thoroughly, one hand on her face, while the other was out of view, under the other woman's skirt.

Jim whistled softly in appreciation.

"Oh," Gaila said, looking up. "Jim –- I thought you'd left."

Jim cocked his head and Leo looked at his expression. He didn't seem jealous. In fact, he looked … interested.

"Oh …" Gaila purred out. "You found your doctor."

She extended the hand that had been holding the young woman's face, and Leo grasped it, placing a kiss on the back of her hand.

"Miss Gaila," he said.

"Doctor," she answered, stretching sinuously. Her companion hadn't looked away from Gaila once. Instead, she was stroking the smooth skin of the Orion woman's neck, tracing the edges of her rumpled uniform, running her palms over Gaila's breasts. Gaila glanced at her friend, and said, "We're thinking of leaving." She looked at Jim and then at Leo. "Would you two care to join us?"

At the offer, her companion finally seemed to rouse from her stupor. "No," she said firmly. It was clear she wanted Gaila all to herself.

Gaila looked into her eyes, and then nodded. She rose gracefully, pulling the young woman up with her. "Perhaps another time?" she said. She leaned up and kissed Jim on the lips and then turned to Leo, pressing a nipping kiss to his upper lip. "Pity," she sighed, then strolled away through the crowd, holding onto the other woman's hand, and leaving a trail of pheromones in her wake.

Jim shook his head as if to clear it. "Wow," he offered.

"She is something else," Leo said, pushing around Jim to sit down.

Jim crowded into the booth next to him, and Leo felt his whole body relax at the contact. He looked out over the crowd, feeling slightly dizzy from the aftereffects of Gaila's presence.

He hadn’t realized that Jim was staring at him until he felt Jim's fingers against the skin of his throat. He looked over at him and Jim was smirking, rubbing something between his fingers. He pulled a napkin from below an empty drink and wiped his hands. He held up the napkin. "Blue's your color, Bones," he said.

Leo stared at the napkin, not comprehending right away. When he did, he raised his chin, baring his throat to Jim. "Didja get it all?"

"No," Jim said, and this time, he leaned in as close as he ever had, to wipe Ashley's makeup off Leo's neck.

+

Two hours later, the bar had only cleared out a little and Leo was definitely buzzed. Jim was still sitting next to him in the corner booth, but he wasn't pressed up against his side. This wasn't disturbing him, because Jim wasn’t pressed up against him because he was turned toward Leo, studying his face, calculating his next question about Leo’s past sexual experiences. And Leo had to admit it – he was enjoying the hell out of tormenting him by being mysterious.

Jim had started out by asking him if Rick was the first guy he’d been with, which Leo had answered by just staring at him for a while.

When Jim had pressed the question, Leo’d wondered aloud why, when Jim has always been really clear that he was bound by neither gender nor species, that he would find it so odd that Leo has had lovers of different genders.

Jim had made a face at the use of the word ‘lovers.’

“What’s up with that?” Leo asked.

“What?” Jim said.

“When I brought up my lovers,” he pointed at Jim, “you just did it again.”

“It’s just … lovers,” Jim said, emphasizing the word. “What does that even mean?”

Leo looked at Jim in real surprise. “You have had sex, right?”

Jim rolled his eyes at Leo.

“Well,” Leo said, in an exaggerated Southern accent, “when you have feelings about the person that you’re having sex with,” Jim rolled his eyes again and opened his mouth to speak, but Leo only spoke louder, “aside from how hot they are, and you have a relationship that sex is a part of but not the only thing, that’s when you have a lover. Also, when part of the sexual relationship is figuring out what that person really likes because you want to give them the most pleasure possible.” He paused. “Although it’s entirely possible to have a lover that you just have sex with, but it’s still about mutual gratification, but more about the sex.” Jim looked startled. “But it’s a multiple kind of thing. Not that kind of multiple,” he added severely. “I mean, not a one-time thing.”

“I have repeaters,” Jim said grouchily.

Leo grunted.

“So, how many lovers,” Jim said the word as if it tasted bad coming out of his mouth, “have you had?”

“Enough, Jim,” Leo said smugly.

“What, are you done or something?” Jim asked.

Leo smirked at him in a ‘wouldn’t you like to know’ sort of way.

“So, you’ve had long-term lovers that were men?” Jim asked.

“Not all of them were long-term,” Leo said. “But, yes.”

Jim just stared at him, digesting this information.

“Spit it out, kid,” Leo said, taking a swig of his beer.

“I … it just surprised me, Bones,” Jim said.

“That I’ve had sex?” he asked grouchily.

“No!” Jim said, punching him in the shoulder. “I mean – you were married.”

Leo drew his brows down at Jim’s emphasis on the word, and he hastened to explain.

“I mean, you married young, Bones,” Jim said seriously and paused, but Leo wasn’t going to disagree. He had been young, only a few months older than Jim was now. “So, I just had this idea that you were Southern, and you’re always yelling at me about STIs and casual sex and I just thought …”

Jim’s sentence kind of drifted away unfinished and it took Leo a second to comprehend what Jim was really saying to him. When his brain caught up, he laughed out loud, surprising the hell out of Jim, who looked startled and then gaped, before he smiled and finally chuckled.

“Jim,” Leo said, after a few minutes, “did you think I was a virgin who got married so I could have sex or something? I mean, shit, you know me well enough to know that I am the farthest thing from religious, right?”

Jim shook his head helplessly, “But you’re old-fashioned,” he said, “and you’re always talking about doing the right thing and the moral thing,” Leo was still laughing a little, and Jim added, “and you said that there were some things that should be sacred.”

Leo shook his head. “If I did, Jim, I was talking about love,” he said. “Love is sacred.”

Jim rolled his eyes.

“You don’t believe that love is sacred,” Leo said.

“I don’t know if I believe that it even fucking exists,” Jim said, and there was such a hardness in his tone that Leo felt the words like a blow. “Or if it’s worth it, if it does.”

“Why would you say that?” Leo asked, truly curious.

“Why wouldn’t you?” Jim said. “The first time I met you, you were half-crazy about everything you’d lost. Why would you want to do that over and over again?”

Well, now. Leo hoped his mouth wasn’t gaping open as he digested that statement. "I think," he said, "that most of us hope that we won't have to keep doing it over and over, that we'll find the right person –"

Jim snorted. "Because that always works out so well, even when that happens," he said sarcastically. Jim shook his head and brought his beer up for a long drink. “And don’t give me that crap about how much better sex feels when you're in love. You're always telling me that a lot of things that feel good are really bad for you. And the way people talk about love –- it's like it’s a drug,” he said. “I’m not taking it.”

And like he always did whenever Leo got too close to something that he really didn’t want to discuss further, Jim asked Leo if he’d been late because he’d a bad case at the hospital that evening.

Leo considered whether or not he should let Jim change the subject, but figured that he had enough to dwell on for a while. He felt overwhelmed by Jim’s answer, and wondered what kind of men his mother had married after his father’s death, if her two divorces had convinced him that love was just a joke. Or maybe it was that she’d never been able to move on past the loss of Jim's father. God knew that his own father never could transcend his mother's death.

“Actually, I was with another friend of mine,” Leo said. A muscle in Jim’s jaw ticked, which he found interesting. Jim might not believe in love, but he certainly subtly expressed some of the emotions associated with it, like jealousy. The way he'd acted that night in the locker room had initially read a lot like jealousy, like Jim was afraid that if Leo took a male lover, that he'd be out … of whatever this thing was between them

“Am I gonna meet him?” Jim asked, playing at being supportive. He was looking at his drink, and not Leo.

“Her,” Leo corrected. “And I’m sure you will, at some point.” Jim looked at him curiously. “She had a big date tonight,” Leo continued, “wanted opinions on what looked best on her, what would impress her lover,” he said decidedly, “the most.”

Jim’s flinch was fairly contained. “Now you’re just being an asshole,” he said. “Although it’s very nice of you to help her dress up for some other dude.”

“Her lover’s not a dude,” Leo drawled, and Jim looked intrigued. "Don’t get too excited, kid. Unlike Miss Gaila, I don't think she'd invite you to watch, or participate." Before Jim could ask him another question, Leo asked one of his own. "It doesn't bother you that Gaila left with someone else?"

Jim looked at him as if the idea had never occurred to him. Curious and curiouser. "No," he said plainly. "She's not my lover," he said with exaggerated emphasis.

"But she's one of your repeaters," Leo clarified.

Jim shrugged. "We have fun sometimes," he said, as if it were all that simple. "Aliens are … different," he said in a kind of vaguely paternalistic fashion, "but I guess you'd have to had sex with an offworlder to understand –" He broke off abruptly and stared at Leo, who had involuntarily twitched in annoyance at Jim's casual condescension. "Oh my God, Bones," he said, eyes wide. "You have!"

Leo just smiled serenely at him. Two could play at the smug bastard game, and when he finally did tell Jim about Tharis and Talea – hell, he'd even cop to Teara, although technically, they'd never actually gotten it on, but zhe'd been there, so, zhe counted – he was willing to bet that he'd blow Jim's tiny little mind.

"Bones!" Jim warned, his hand on Leo's thigh, digging in. "Tell me."

"Why, Jim –" Leo began, all honeyed drawl and flirtatious charm, "what makes you so sure that I have something to tell. After all, I was married and …" Leo lost his train of thought when he saw a woman working her way through the crowd, looking around frantically, obviously distressed. "Jesus, God," he said. It was Patty, and she looked … she looked wild-eyed and crazy and utterly destroyed. "Jim," he said, urgently, already standing up. "I gotta go."

"Bones –" Jim protested, “what the fuck?”

Leo turned around and looked back at Jim, putting a hand on his shoulder and squeezing it to let him know that he wasn't just being an asshole. "I'm sorry, Jim," he said, raising his voice to account for the distance between them. Jim wrapped a hand around his wrist. "It's an emergency," he said.

He looked back over his shoulder to where Patty had come to a stop at the edge of the dance floor. As he watched, she spotted him and it was as if all the momentum she had had to move herself forward just deserted her. She wavered unsteadily and her face crumpled. Under her open coat, Leo could see the green silk dress that she'd picked out so carefully, so hopefully, and his heart broke for her.

"I gotta go," he said to Jim. He pulled his hand away after giving Jim's shoulder one last squeeze before he walked across the floor, arms already opened up to catch Patty in his embrace.

When he got home hours later in the dark morning, exhausted and worn down by Patty’s sorrow, he knew that Jim had been there before he even got into the bed.

This time, he’d left a note on Leo’s console that said, “More proof that love is awesome, right? JTK”

+

Switch 15/?