Reboot Fic: Four Square 4/7 (Draws X)
May. 12th, 2010 11:37 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
syredronningCodes: Pike/Dael/Kirk/McCoy, various OCs and other pairings in passing
Rating: NC-17; warnings: kinky, queer, mixed poly relationship with large age difference
Word count: this part 9.200, complete 60.000 words
Direct links to part 1 - part 2 - part 3 - part 5 - part 6 - part 7
Later, Pike isn't sure how they end in this position from what has been supposed to be a lazy afternoon nap, the dying sun striping the room and their joined bodies in deep red. He sits against the cushioned wall, Dael straddling his lap with her back to him, his dick buried deeply in her tight ass. Until a minute ago he'd had nothing further in mind than to remind her that her ass belongs to him alone, but now he pulls her against his chest in a sudden decision, presenting her for Jim to take. It's fucking hot and all wrong and makes him feel dirtier than he'd ever felt in his life. He almost wishes Dael would make him stop, or Jim wouldn't take up the offer, but she keeps breathing, quick intakes of air, and then utters a broken yes as Jim draws close and kisses her, one hand vanishing between her legs. Pike can feel her trembling in his arms which he'd slung around her upper body, and he cradles her almost invisible breasts. Kirk bends forward, licking and sucking the presented nipples, and Dael moans under the ministrations. Then Kirk finally moves forward, angling for penetration.
Pike had been on the active side of double penetration twice with men. It had always been painfully tight and he'd feared something would break, but he'd also been in awe about the great feeling of connection such a scene evokes.
Now, with Dael between them, Jim and he parted by only a strip of flesh, spreading and taking her in possession together like this is an incredible, mind-blowing feeling. When Kirk moves, they're both moaning, Pike and Dael. There's a first sobbing sound from her, and then she starts crying for real as Kirk rocks into her, heart-breaking sobs from the depths of her heart. The captain's drive falters for a moment.
"Don't stop," she presses out. "It's okay. Don't stop."
Pike nods, and so Kirk moves on, a little cautious for a moment, but she pushes him forward with her hands on his hips.
"So tight," Kirk mutters. "So hot. Damn, you're both so hot. Love you both." He kisses Dael without breaking his stride, then moves one hand to caress Pike's chin, too far away for a kiss. Pike closes his eyes as Kirk fucks them in long strides, his lips close to Dael's face, feeling her tears still running silently.
"All good," he murmurs, not sure himself if it's a question or a suggestive statement. From the way she sounds, aside the crying, all looks well. Slipping his fingers down between her legs, he meets a thumb that instantly withdraws to give him space for his fingers. She's arching against him as he covers her clit in the way she loves best.
"Ah damn!" With a groan, Kirk comes first, surprising everyone including himself, but it's enough to pull Pike with him. With his last willpower, Pike keeps his hand on Dael, using the suddenly added slickness to ease his movements on her clit, the circles he draws.
"Come for me, Dael," he roughly presses out. "Come — now!" It works, and she thrashes against his fingers and whimpers against Kirk's shoulders as she spasms and coils, debauched and messy with semen running down her inner legs. She's crying harder again, here on the spike of her orgasm, and they cradle her between them, holding her close and whispering sweet, calming words into her ears. Kirk slips out but doesn't let go of his hold until she gestures that she needs to move. Pike barely feels his legs when he tries to get up, and so he gives up and sinks back into the cushion. He watches them kiss in front of him, deep and long, before they lie down left and right of him.
It feels perfect, Pike thinks as he cradles them both in his arms for a moment, cherishing the glorious fucked-out-ness of the moment.
Then he realizes that something is amiss – someone, really, who'd been with them in the beginning and must have left some time in between.
"Help me up," he says after a while, and is glad when Kirk steadies him on his first steps.
"Shall we come with you?" Dael asks sleepily, but Pike shakes his head, giving them both a gentle squeeze.
"Just stay here. All is well." He places a kiss on Dael's lips, which she eagerly, sweetly returns, and then walks out of his bedroom.
*
Pike needs a few minutes to find McCoy huddled onto a stool out on the shadowy terrace. He instantly knows something is out of tune just from the way the doc tightly holds his folded legs in his crossed arms, his shoulder muscles corded under the thin shirt. When Pike steps out of the door, McCoy looks up with glittering eyes.
"Missed you in there," Pike says and takes a hold of McCoy, pulling him close against his chest. "What's happening to us?" he whispers, voice breaking. "I thought we were all good."
"I'm not. I'm sorry, Chris, so sorry…" McCoy sags into his embrace, tears of another quality wetting Pike's skin.
"What is it? Tell me."
"Can't stop being jealous that she got you. Got what I wanted."
"Huh?"
"I thought about moving to Earth to live with you. You and me, together."
The idea stuns Pike into silence.
"We could make it," McCoy says, clutching one arm around Pike's hips. "We could."
Yes, Pike thinks. They'd probably really be able to make it work. Get together, stick together happily ever after, plus or minus his health and all the little things that get on your nerves in a dedicated, closed twosome relationship. But they'd make it work. Like with Dael, the thought is such a monumental change to everything he thought he'd established about himself and his way of living that it turns his stomach.
"Let's go for a walk," he says. "Just the two of us."
When Pike goes into the bedroom for his clothes, the two youngsters are asleep, curled around each other. He's trying not to feel jealous of the way Jim holds Dael in his arms, or the way her nose is buried against his neck in her peaceful slumber.
*
They walk hand in hand through the twilight.
"For the last few months, I've thought about transferring to ground duty," McCoy says.
"You'd let Jim go on missions alone?" Pike asks incredulously, more than a little shocked.
"Chris — from all the couples that are constituted of a captain and a senior officer, we're the longest serving together. They either separate or one gets a ground assignment. There have been so many moments when I thought I couldn't do it any longer — couldn't fix him up anymore, couldn't shut down my feelings when I had to do yet another life-saving surgery on my own husband. He means so much to me, but the way we live, it's eating me alive." McCoy smiles sadly. "You once wondered how I can live with Jim being in danger, and I didn't answer because the truth would be that I can't really live with it."
"And still…"
"And still we're out there together, because I couldn't imagine ever leaving him. Maybe something in my subconscious thought we wouldn't live long enough anyway. Or that it would get easier with time, but it doesn't. It gets harder, Chris, and I fear the day when I can't handle it anymore and I make a mistake that could cost someone's life.
"As for Jim… I know there were enough moments when he hesitated to send me somewhere. Enough moments when he was sitting next to my bed when I was injured, and when I could see that it eats him a little too, over time. We're good at fixing us up afterwards, but we're ending with more and more patches and they don't hold together very well anymore."
Pike shakes his head. "Still — I don't think Jim would want you to transfer, ever."
"No, he wouldn't."
"Imagine you would get a ground assignment. If something happened to Jim out there, without you being there…"
"It would be hell," McCoy admits. "But I'm getting closer to the end of my rope. I've known of a few CMOs breaking down, and it's usually in a very critical situation. It always ends messy, and barely any of them ever gets back into a hospital. I don't want to end like that. I want to keep working, but somewhere…safer for me. For my soul."
"And you think coming back to Earth and settling with me would solve everything?" Pike says.
"Not everything. But yeah, I have thought about it. I have imagined how it might be, you and I together. And I've been good at ignoring the idea that it would work rather well, because it would shake up everything."
"And then we'd only have to transfer Dael to the Enterprise, and they could have the same happily-ever-after as we do," Pike says, suddenly angry. "That's your plan, doc?"
McCoy stops him, facing him. "I don't have a plan, Chris. I don't have a solution, and I feel like I'm reaching another bombastic all-going-to-hell point like I did with my first marriage. And I don't want that again." It's the subtle shaking in McCoy's body that completely dispels Pike's anger, because whatever they should do about this mess, he'd do his damnedest to get everyone out of it alive and whole. This might be a no-win situation, but it doesn't have to be an all-lose game either.
"Come here, doc. Leonard." He draws McCoy into another embrace, holding onto him for dear life. There goes the safeness of the nickname and the self-lie that he doesn't have a favorite among them for which he'd raise heaven and hell just a little more than he'd do for all of them. Would he be able to send McCoy away if he knocked on his door? No way, no matter the consequences.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," McCoy half-sobs into his ear. "I don't want you to hate me for ruining everything. I don't want to hurt Jim. I just… "
"I'll never hate you. Leonard. We can't change our feelings. I love you, I love you more than any other being in this universe, and we'll find a solution. I promise." Pike holds him tightly until the trembling subsides; then they slowly walk home.
*
When they return home, the others are waiting for them, instantly realizing that something is wrong.
"You're making me nervous. You're making us nervous," Kirk states, his face unusually tense and serious as they all sit in the living room, Pike and McCoy on the couch, the others on armchairs. "Please, talk to us."
It's already us and you, Pike notes, his heart aching before they even start speaking. He'd always assumed they'd reach some breaking point sooner or later but he'd not expected it when it had looked all so comparatively easy; four people who worked well together, more or less in love with each other and knowing each other so well… But if he even doesn't know himself so often, how should anyone know anything better?
"Maybe I should leave you alone," Dael murmurs.
"No, I don't think so," Kirk answers instantly. "You're a part of us. You're an important part of Chris' life." As her uneasy gaze remains, he adds more seriously, "When the three of us got together, we were the first lovers in ten years who were allowed to cross the threshold of his apartment. We were the only ones until you, Dael. That correct, Chris? John was never here, right?"
Pike nods. "Only the two of you and Dael."
"And you don't just sleep here once in a while, you basically moved in."
She shakes her head a little but remains put in her chair, body folded with arms tightly around her knees.
Kirk nods and turns to his husband. "Bones. Please. I know you've been in a bad mood lately and I couldn't find out what exactly the problem was. Since we're here all seemed to be okay, but now… please talk to me."
"I —" McCoy starts but visibly doesn't find the words. "Jim…"
Pike presses the doc's hand, the hand he barely let go off during the last hour. "Say what's eating you, Leonard. Just say it."
"I can't be your CMO any longer," McCoy blurts out, like an erupting volcano. "I just can't."
"Okay, because?" Kirk replies unnaturally calmly.
"It's tearing me apart, every time I've got to operate on you. Every time you're away on a planet and I don't hear from you for hours. Every time they bring you in, those first seconds when I'm not sure if you're even still alive and if I've got any chance to rescue you. It's fine as long as you're on my table but when the waiting starts, it's just killing me again. It's eating me alive, feeling secure with you and then seeing you all but ripped apart from me a second later, and it never gets better, it only gets worse." McCoy pulls away from Pike and slumps forward on the couch, hands twisted into each other between his slightly spread knees. "I can't go on like this."
"And what do you think is the solution?" Kirk asks.
"I thought about a transfer. A transfer to Earth. Chris didn't know, only told him a few minutes ago, but I thought about coming back here and moving in with him. Started to think about that before Dael even came into the picture." McCoy looks at her. "Don't want to take him away from you, girl. Never wanted to do that. I'm so damn glad that you saved his life and I know that he loves you. I don't want to steal him, but I couldn't stop the idea from developing, how it might be with me on Earth with him. To have a place where I wouldn't have to fear for the worst every second."
"You know that that's a little unrealistic, given that Chris might have another health breakdown any moment." Kirk puts into words what Pike thinks, and it hurts but it's only the truth.
"I know. But it still feels like a calculated risk. On the Enterprise, it's like roulette, and I feel like I'm working against the odds every day. And I can't bear the thought of losing you, Jim," McCoy says, voice starting to shake. "I can't live anymore with the constant fear that you could die because I don't manage to save you. That it might be my fault when you die, because I'm too weak and my hands shake and I'm just not good enough." His voice fails.
Kirk briefly closes his eyes, then opens them to look into the round, including all of them. "It's not like I didn't think about that before — of how it would be if Bones went to Earth to live with you, Chris. And damn if it wouldn't be good for him. I know that; I can see that, the two of you living together, busy but embedded in a routine that's manageable and not putting such a strain on Bones." McCoy looks at Kirk with a light frown. "Bones — don't think I'd ever think you're weak. I've been in your place a few times, waiting for the results of your surgery, and it almost killed me. And I told Chris that when the news about his accident came in, I was busy cheering you all up but inside of me, it ate me like it ate you. I was just better at hiding it.
"So yes — it would be better for you if you transferred. And I know that." With two quick steps, Kirk walks to him and goes down on his knees in front of his husband. "But I'm also selfish, Bones. I need you. I don't think I could really live without you by my side, and I'd surely not be the captain I need to be without you. So I thought what I could offer you in exchange — yes, I thought about that a few times already — and this is what I could offer: In about two years, the Enterprise is due for a major refit — right, Chris?"
"Correct," Pike agrees with a nod.
Kirk looks back at Bones. "When it happens, I offer to step down as captain of the Enterprise so that I can come with you. I'd follow you wherever you wanted to go. It would be your choice — here with Chris on Earth or somewhere else, some planet with the best medical research — whatever you need, Bones. It's your choice." Kirk captures his partner's hands. "If that doesn't work for you, we'd have to talk and see what other solution we could find, but that would be my preference. To step down with you in two years and then live together somewhere." He glances at Pike.
"I could even see us on a farm, the three or four of us, having horses and some land and — children." Kirk laughs a little roughly. "I know you all hate the idea but I say it anyway because this is a moment of truth." He gets up, walking in a circle and meeting eyes with all of them. "We could have children, be a real family. They could be Dael's or someone else's, maybe adopted — it's not about biology, it would be about what we feel for each other and for them. Think about it!"
A sudden, dead silence falls over the room as Kirk stops, his challenge in the air.
Pike closes his eyes, pressing the heel of his hand against his temple. The image of Jim and him sitting on a fence suddenly returns, and what Tom had said about Jim playing with the kids, and how much McCoy misses his daughter, and how much Dael is craving the emotional stability she'd once found in her family. Maybe it would be for all the wrong reasons if they did it, but this is obviously the day for throwing old ideas over board and facing new ones, no matter how strange, and damn if he can't see it.
"Sounds like a great idea," Pike says slowly, and opens his eyes. He meets Dael's completely unreadable gaze, and tries to give her a little smile to show that he includes her in the plan. "The four of us on a farm, raising children — yes."
"You're crazy," McCoy says with a shaky laugh. "You can't be serious. You never even wanted children!"
"I was never given the choice," Pike corrects him. "The one partner who thought of children brought the theme up when he was already breaking up with me. Before that, he had never as much as hinted at the possibility." Pike looks at Dael. "I agree with Jim, this wouldn't be about biological children, so you shouldn't feel forced in any way, Dael. You're just at the beginning of your career."
She nods with a frown, but doesn't say a thing.
"Living on a farm — you'd die of boredom!" McCoy stares at his husband.
"I'm not saying that we've got to become full time farmers." Kirk smiles. "You'd be working in a hospital or a research facility, and there are many things I could do — I could work in the HQ like Chris does, or I could see if there are other career options outside of the 'fleet." He takes a deep breath. "I just wanted to show that there are options for the future, Bones, other options besides staying on the Enterprise forever, and that I'm willing to go for these options." Returning to McCoy, he goes down on one knee again. "The most important thing in my life is you, Bones, and I want you to be happy. And I'm willing and able to give up the Enterprise for that, but I'd prefer to do so in two years. Do you think you'd be able to live with that?"
McCoy blinks, his eyes unnaturally shining in the low light of the room. "I think I could do that, Jim. Guess I could, yes. Jesus, just talking about it took so much of the weight from me. Thank you so much." With something close to a sob he pulls Kirk into a bear hug, and they're laced into each other for a long moment.
At last, Kirk draws a little away and looks at Pike. "You're happy with that solution too, Chris? I know how much you love Bones…"
"You belong together," Pike says calmly. "You've once said you're a package deal, and while I can't deny that I wouldn't ever be able to close my door to Leonard if he needs me, I feel much better with the prospect that you're both on the Enterprise. Any solution that leaves you both happy and together is the solution I could settle with best. I never wanted to come between the two of you."
"There's always a risk in having this kind of relationship," Kirk says, then turns back at McCoy. "I love you so much, Bones. I'd give the universe for you if I could."
"Shit, Jim, I know." McCoy sinks forward until their foreheads rest against each other's. "I love you too…"
Pike waves Dael, and they quietly leave the room.
*
"Are you really okay with that?" Dael asks when they are in the corridor. "I know that you love Leonard very much."
Pike pulls her close with a little sigh. "And I love you. And I love Jim, and the idea of the two separating with me being part of the reason is terrible for me. After the last days, I can see us all living together in the future, but it's got to be in a way that keeps us together. Leaving nobody behind."
She leans into his embrace, her body a little stiff. He rubs down her back, wondering whether this is only about him and the doc, or something else.
"Would you want to serve on the Enterprise?" he asks.
"No," she says instantly. "I like Jim a lot, and sometimes I look at us from outside and marvel about how I can feel like an equal to someone who's a big hero to everyone. But if I were on the Enterprise, we wouldn't be equal anymore. Nothing would be like here."
"True." Pike rubs her neck, cradling her head against his shoulder. "My darling…"
"Really?" She looks at him a little uneasy.
"Yes. And all mine right now." He pulls her into the bedroom, not giving in to her playful resistance and her claim that she's really done.
"This isn't about sex," he says as they curl around each other in bed. "This is about me reminding you that there's a reason why you are in my life."
"Is there?"
Pike wonders — there's a lingering, unvoiced insecurity that seems to run deeper than the easy question. "Why do you ask like that?"
"Just… ah, doesn't matter." She closes her eyes, snuggling closer.
"It sounds as if it matters," he says quietly, stroking through her hair that's gone to enchantingly new levels of messy and spiky over the last days.
"Not right now." There's a tiny smile on her face, growing as she relaxes under his caresses. They fall asleep like this.
*
After the emotional ride of the last evening, it's probably logical that the couples keep to each other at first on this new morning, Pike spooning Dael for sex and Kirk giving McCoy a blowjob, beautiful noises of arousal filling the room. But they're still close to each other, exchanging gazes, running errant hands over nearby bodies.
Suddenly, Pike has an idea so hot that just thinking of it makes his orgasm spike. He groans and shudders, coming inside of Dael with his hand on her clit, but not finishing her off. She whimpers in a wordless complaint, but stills as he protectively puts his palm on her sex. He pulls out and wraps one of his legs around her right one to spread her open on her back.
Next to them, Kirk stops his actions, leaving the doc just as heavily breathing. Pike captures Kirk's gaze, receiving a smirk and a nod. When Kirk withdraws from the doc's dick, Pike says to McCoy, "Lick her."
McCoy's eyes snap open as the order registers.
"Please…" the doc gasps, his forehead creasing over some inner battle.
"You want him to lick you?" Pike asks Dael, because McCoy needs to hear it from her lips. Pike is sure that she wants more of the doc but never would dare to ask. He can only hope she gives the right answer now.
She sucks in a quick breath, then nods. "Yes."
"You heard the lady," Kirk whispers into Bones' ear, eyes gleaming. "Don't let her wait."
Pike expects more of a struggle, but the doc gives in surprisingly fast, rolling over and dropping down to angle his head between her legs, giving her a first tentative lick along the length of her clit. His tongue plays over the hot red nub and around it, and Pike can't stop watching it because he's never seen Leonard do that for a woman. The doc is working determined and straight-forward, his administrations quickly answered by her low gasps. She curves into the touch, biting her bottom lip as she fights off orgasm.
"Look at her, Bones," Kirk breathes. "Look how she loves you doing it."
McCoy sweeps his gaze over Dael's face, contorted in arousal, and it seems to add to his own agitation as he returns to his task with a groan, rotating his hips against the mattress. When she comes, her groin jerks against his mouth in a motion of riding, and he keeps working with his tongue and lips until she's curling away from the touch, over-sensitive and spent.
"Lovely," McCoy whispers, placing a few wet kisses along Dael's thighs before getting up on his knees. Pike throws him a towel, and McCoy self-consciously wipes his face before carefully rubbing her dry.
"Come here," Pike says and pulls McCoy down between himself and Dael. Kirk follows swiftly, kneeling down over McCoy's legs.
"Your time to enjoy yourself," Pike says.
"Yes," Kirk says with vibrant blue eyes. "Let us please you. Let her please you."
On McCoy's side, Dael starts stroking his chest.
"Would you like that, Dael?" Pike asks.
"Yes, very much."
"No," McCoy says instantly, shaking his head. "Not that."
"You're sure?" Dael gets up on one elbow, looking at him. "I really would like to do something for you. Just tell me what." She puts a chaste kiss on his lips, and McCoy answers it, but when they break apart, he shakes his head once more.
"Thanks for the offer, Dael. I appreciate it but I'm sure," McCoy says seriously. Pike and Kirk exchange another glance, and Kirk shrugs. It had been a good start but this is obviously the current limit, so they give up at their attempt of closing that one missing connection of their foursome.
"Well, Bones," Kirk says and bows his head to give the faltered erection a long lick. "Guess it's my turn then to do something about this."
For a second, McCoy looks like refusing but then Kirk swallows his dick in whole and any words that may have lingered get drowned out by the whimpers that are coaxed out of him instead. They turn up in volume as Kirk sits up, rotates McCoy's hips a little to raise one leg, and pushes inside. Pike captures McCoy's mouth, slipping his tongue deep inside, while Dael sucks at the nipple closest to her, her fingers on the other one. Under the triple onslaught, McCoy doesn't last long and comes with a groan from the depths of his chest, his come shooting up high. Kirk follows swiftly, then draws out and basically falls all over McCoy.
They all cling together, touching and kissing each other.
"We love you, Leonard. We love you so much," Pike says. "You'll never be alone. You'll always have a home with us."
"Never alone," Kirk repeats, kissing his husband.
"Stop doing that to me," McCoy mutters weakly. "Damn overemotional trip you're putting me on." He angles for a tissue to blow his nose dramatically.
Pike agrees; he feels annoyingly sappy too, and is relieved when the currently most rational part of their cloverleaf, namely Dael, slips out of bed to break the spell. "Take a shower with me?" she offers her hand, and McCoy accepts it. They leave together.
"Damn, I'm glad it worked," Pike states with his eyes on them, so relieved he feels like floating.
"Thank you for yesterday," Kirk says as he stretches out next to Pike.
"Wouldn't ever take him from you," Pike says, looking at him. "I couldn't do that."
"I know you don't want to. But at least I'd know where he'd go." Kirk sighs. "That's quite a thing, four people in love."
Pike pulls him close. "I really love the idea with the farm," he whispers into the ear of his wonderful young captain. "Even though chances are I won't be there when it happens."
"Don't say that," Kirk states. "Bones tells me you're stable, so don't you dare talk about dying on us."
"I'm not talking about dying, Jim. But chances are I'll end up as a full nursing case sooner or later."
"That bad? I know I painted you having another brain failure as worst case scenario for Bones yesterday, but —" Kirk's voice trails off.
"The doc and Naaz do their best to keep me out of the chair, but there's just no telling how it will develop." Pike strokes his face, following the lines of tiny wrinkles with his fingertips. "I changed my will recently. In case of my death, the apartment would go to Dael and the club would go to the two of you. My money would be split between charity and you all."
"We don't need your money, Chris," Kirk says almost angrily.
"I know. I just wanted to let you know that I sorted a few things. I'll also make sure that if I'm in coma for longer than three years, someone's going to pull the plug on me."
"Pulling a plug?" Someone asks from behind, and Pike turns his head to meet the doc's eyes. Dael is close behind McCoy, a dry towel in hand — obviously, the two hadn't made it into the shower yet.
"Don't you dare to even think of this," McCoy snaps in a tone Pike has never heard from him before. The doc is on him in quick steps, sitting down on the bed and clamping a strong hand around his jaw. "Don't you dare to arrange something like that! No matter how much you think you wrote every possibility into your will, you don't know what medicine can do tomorrow! Nobody will pull a plug on you, only over my dead body!"
"I don't want to vegetate in bed forever," Pike states sharply, forcing away McCoy's hand. "If I've got to go, I want to go in dignity!"
"You can't imagine what pulling the plug does to the people around you. What if someone finds the cure the next day, what then? They'll feel like your murderer forever!"
"How likely is that to happen?" Pike asks with a strangled laugh. "How likely, doc?"
"Likely enough that it happened to me," McCoy shouts in his face. "After I pulled the plug on my father."
"You didn't…" The words die on Pike's tongue as realization settles. Yes, McCoy has done that. The truth is written all over his face, in his desperate eyes.
"God, Leonard." Pike grabs him hard, keeping him from running. "Shit. I didn't know. I didn't know." Clamping his arms around the man that curls in his arms, he holds onto him. Kirk is on his knees, covering McCoy's back with his body. Even Dael draws close, a little hesitantly at first but then covering McCoy's left side at the edge of the bed, placing a gentle hand on his shoulder.
"I didn't know," Pike says again, now with his eyes on Kirk.
"He never told anyone but me," Kirk says quietly.
McCoy sits up a little, raising his head to meet Pike's gaze. "I'm sorry, Chris. I can see where you're coming from, but I can't bear the idea that you'd want to go like that. Ever since you were on my table after Jim rescued you from the Narada, you've been a special patient for me. You wanted me onboard the Enterprise because you thought I was one of the best, and I am, and I'm ready to prove that again and again. So don't you fucking dare to go before your time, because every day you're still alive is a day I might still be able to do something for you."
You don't have to heal me because you couldn't heal your father, Pike thinks, but he doesn't need to see Kirk's warning gaze to settle on just hugging McCoy again, saying, "Trust me that I want to stay with you as long as I can." He takes McCoy's face in both hands, kissing him intensely. "Love you, doc. Love you so much."
"Love you too. Love you all." McCoy turns and pulls Kirk into a kiss, then cradles one arm around Dael's slim hip and places a kiss on her stomach.
It takes them a few more minutes to calm down, and damn, Pike is really done with emotional rollercoasters for the day – and they haven't even had breakfast yet. He gently unlaces himself from McCoy, leaving him to the care of his husband, and goes to take a shower with Dael.
*
They prepare breakfast, but it takes two hours before the others leave the bedroom and soon join them in the living room with steaming cups of coffee in their hands. Obviously as wrung out from the start of the day as Pike feels, they spend the day mostly with reading, cooking and watching some news, settling in a weirdly domestic routine they'd never shared before.
In the late afternoon, Pike and Kirk decide to go for a shopping round on foot. It's a bit challenging for Pike but at least this time he's got someone to carry the bags. He's surprised as on the way back home, Kirk changes the route and they end in a little park Pike hadn't been to before.
"It's a wonderful place," Pike notes as they sit down on a bench next to a small pond. "I didn't know there's that much nature so close to home."
"Dael told me about it," Kirk says. "I'm sure she'd love to come here with you."
"I'm going to ask her." Pike stares at the water, watching some ducks paddling over the otherwise smooth surface. "Speaking of asking…"
Kirk turns his head towards him, his expression thoughtful.
"You weren't really surprised about Leonard's breakdown, were you?"
Kirk looks away, then cranes his neck left and right as if to get rid of some imaginary pain. "No, I wasn't," he replies at last.
"What happened?"
"You know what happened," Kirk says with a glance back at him. "Aranka happened. When we finally rescued them, I could see it in Bones' eyes… Aranka broke something inside of him, much like the Narada did with you. He hasn't been the same ever since."
"He never speaks of it. Not that I tried a lot either but…"
"No, he doesn't." Kirk says flatly. "His staff shoved him into some therapeutic sessions but it's all been going on behind closed doors. I'm not even sure he realizes what exactly has gone, but I know. Before Aranka, he had complete trust in me. No matter how fucked-up the situation, he trusted me to have the best for us in mind. That I'd make the right decisions and that even if they turn out to be an error, that I'd be able to keep everyone safe. It's only because of that rather irrational trust that he managed to remain with me in space for so long. I've been his anchor — his promise. It's been my job to keep him safe. I failed." He briefly rubs his face with his hands. "To be frank, Aranka broke something inside of me too. I've been more cautious since then, less inclined to risk anyone's life but my own. Which didn't really help the problem as it made me end up in sickbay even more often." Kirk sighs.
"Right after Aranka, he withdrew into his own cabin, something he's never done before. He only came back when we got word of your accident. If not for his need to share his concern and loneliness, he might have stayed away... left me, maybe."
"He'd never leave you," Pike says.
"Came close enough," Kirk says quietly, and then a little broken, "Shit."
Wordlessly, Pike draws his arm around Kirk's shoulder and pulls him closer, not caring that they're sitting on a bench at a public path in bright daylight.
"It's going to be okay," he says and strokes Kirk's shoulder. "You'll get it fixed."
"Looks like, yes. Not the least thanks to you."
"No, Jim. You saved it by the way you handled his crisis. I wanted him to stay on the Enterprise but I didn't know how to solve his problem."
"That wouldn't have been in your might — it's been between Bones and me. But if you had said that you wanted him on Earth…not sure if he would have listened much to me anymore."
Pike shakes his head. "Jim, you sell yourself totally short right now. You may have had your problems lately but you definitely belong together. He loves you, and you've got a life together."
"He loves you too, and you would be able to build one together." Kirk rests his head against Pike's shoulder. "You match damn well, do you know that? Sometimes when I see you together, it just blows me away how well you fit, and the feeling is getting stronger with every vacation."
"You're not making me speak about Dael and you now," Pike states warningly.
Kirk smiles. "She's marvelous. And she loves you more than you grant her at times."
"I think we are all fabulous together, each to their own," Pike says. Then a thought catches him.
"I don't know how you do it, Jim. How you can be so cool about it all — sharing the ones you love? So gracious. Barely ever jealous or possessive. At times I thought you only pretend it but you don't, do you? It's really how you feel. Why?"
Kirk looks at the pond. "I was still a kid when I read a quote of a famous 20th century philosopher named Welles: We're born alone, we live alone, we die alone. Only through our love and friendship can we create the illusion for the moment that we're not alone. Once I understood that, everything got a lot easier."
Pike frowns. "That's probably the saddest philosophy I ever encountered," he says spontaneously.
Kirk sits up and faces him, huffing an incredulous laugh. "Tell me if I'm wrong, Chris, but you seemed to have spent most of your life alone."
"Being alone was just normal to me," Pike says. "But I didn't make a philosophy out of it."
"Well – once I made it my philosophy, I was able to embrace every good thing and every good person that came into my life. I live in the moment whenever I can, because that's all we all have. I cherish every good day, I accept every bad day. I'm not a saint, far from it. I do my share of hurting others. But I try to live every day as gracious as possible, and to be there for the people I love."
"You still expect to be alone in the end," Pike states.
"In the end, we all are alone," Kirk says with a shrug. "Having someone share your life for a while is the best thing you can get, but when the paths move apart… there's nothing you can do but to accept that."
"But you've been fighting for Leonard."
"Sure. I wouldn't have let him just walk away. But I've been ready to let him walk to you." Kirk hesitates as if another thought catches up with him but then only shrugs once more.
"Let's go home," he says and gets up, ending their talk.
*
It's much later in the night, after another intense evening, that Pike is lying in the dark and half listening, half watching the couple next to him. They are one large shadow; only from the way the upper half rocks against the other, he knows what's happening. It's intimate and gentle and so beautiful, because it radiates Jim&Bones in a way Pike has never seen before. Until this vacation, they've always focused on him when they'd all been together, but now they are free to enjoy each other too, and it's damn clear to Pike that they really need that time for each other too.
The image and the quiet sounds evoke an incredible warmth in Pike's chest; the words, however, make his throat tight – whispered lines, breathed more than spoken.
"Don't ever leave me, Bones. I wouldn't know what to do without you. Love you so much."
"I love you too, kid."
"You haven't called me kid in ages, Bones… fuck… " There's a tiny sniff, and Pike can imagine Jim's face because he'd seen him cry once before, the way the tears break when the man's shell of all easy, all game is cracked open and shows the vulnerable core to the two, maybe three people he shows it to at all. Maybe he's not as embracing of the idea of being without his loved ones as his philosophy would suggest, after all.
With effort, Pike swallows the sigh that threatens to rise in the back of his throat and rolls away from them to the other side, burying his nose in Dael's hair. He searches his heart, checking for the jealousy that catches him so hard once in a while — and right now it's gone, so completely that he can't even conjure the feeling. Each of them needs all of the others, each fills a bit and piece nobody else could, it's an incredible mix.
He just wishes he could capture this forever, he thinks as he falls asleep much later, one hand on Dael, his other reaching out to rest on Jim's hip, lacing with McCoy's fingers.
Well, maybe he could…
*
It's the last day before the Enterprise men are scheduled to depart, and Pike and McCoy meet in the kitchen incredibly early, enjoying a quiet coffee together in a loose embrace.
"I'm really happy by the way this vacation developed. I was really concerned beforehand," McCoy mutters, stirring Pike out of thoughts about the call he'd just made.
"Why?" Pike asks, although he guesses he knows the answer.
"I know that your relationship with Dael has been made public and your reputation and position survived it so far. But imagine we would've met here and anything went wrong and she'd gone to Nogura to complain. Three grown, adult men and a young girl like her — even if the accusation was dropped, just think what that would do to Jim's career."
That's not the reason Pike had thought to hear, and he frowns in surprise. "She's not the type, doc. Even if something went wrong, she'd be able to talk with us."
"You never know, Chris. Not really. Now that I know her a little better, I'd be inclined to agree that she's not the kind of girl to suddenly turn the tables on us — but people have the strangest weak spots. I saw how she was in tears when the two of you had her in that sandwich. It seemed okay for her and she was good with it later, but sometimes people have second thoughts the day after and don't deal well."
Pike's frown deepens. "I'm sorry for not having thought about the possible damage she could do to your reputation."
"Ah, Chris —" McCoy relents. "It's not as if Jim and I didn't participate in enough things that could damage our reputation. But Dael's been a kind of blank for me. I was sure you wouldn't fall for anyone who's not okay – but on the other hand, you are emotionally more vulnerable than in the past and that might give someone the chance to manipulate you."
"It gets better and better," Pike says, not sure anymore how to interpret all this. "What do you really want to say, doc?"
"Well, maybe the gist is — I'm glad it all worked out. And I guess a part of that is that there's been no sexual abuse in her past. Because that kind of shit just does things to people they hardly get over, and that was my major concern."
"That she'd have some survivor background and get a flashback?"
"Exactly." McCoy intently looks at him. "You thought about that beforehand?"
"I did, and I'm very sure that she's got no such things in her history." Or if she had had them, then the Vulcans had made sure of the memories being gone. "Personally, I was very sure that if we got any problems between the four of us, it would be me acting up regarding her relationship with Jim."
McCoy pulls him close. "You managed fine, Chris. Great job."
"Wouldn't have been able without you."
"Nothing of this would've been able without all of us."
"Though it would've been easier for you without Dael —"
"But that would have left you all alone." McCoy presses a kiss on the side of his face. "I'm glad to know you won't be alone when we've got to leave again."
"I'm glad too," Pike admits, voice low, and they remain in the embrace for a while, caressing and kissing each other.
"Can't stay on my feet any longer," Pike murmurs at last, reluctantly breaking the embrace.
"You don't have to," McCoy says, lowering him onto the warm kitchen floor and slipping down between his legs.
"You're all going to kill me." Pike whines a little as McCoy's fingers curl around his half-hard erection.
"I know your medical file, your heart works perfectly fine," the doc states with a smile, his fingers edging along the sack, cradling his balls for a moment before returning to his dick. "And your dick works fine too," he says and trails his tongue along Pike's length.
"Gonna suck you dry, Chris, right here on the floor. Gonna make you come so hard…"
And damn if the doc didn't keep his word.
*
"We've got a date," Pike says right after lunch.
"A date?" Three pairs of eyes focus on him in question.
"I want all of you looking your best, on all levels." Pike waves at the growing fluff on Kirk's chest.
"Including shaving?" McCoy asks.
"Of all parts you want to shave."
"You're going to take us to a mass orgy?" Kirk jokes, but Dael shakes her head, suddenly looking like mischief.
"You know where he's going to drag us," Kirk says accusingly, poking her. She quickly slips off the barstool to the other side to escape his teasing.
"I'd venture a guess, but I wouldn't want to spoil the admiral's surprise treat." Dael captures Pike's hand, placing a kiss onto it. The gesture and the title in combination do fantastic things to Pike's blood flow, but he's playing it cool.
"The shaving goes for you, too," he says.
"Including the head?" she asks, brushing through her hair.
"Not for me," Pike admits. "Though if you prefer to – it's your choice."
"Then I won't do it." She smiles a little, its sweetness the usual, strange contradiction to her tattoos. "I'll get ready."
"I'll come right with you," Pike says, hurriedly following her.
"I'll bet," is the last he hears of McCoy, and he shouts back, "One hour, then we've got to leave. And dress up!"
In a surge of energy, he fucks her from behind against the shower walls, one hand clutching her hip, the other one reached around to cup her clit, and they come together, breathless and sweaty. Good thing that they are already in the shower.
They're in time anyway, just as their lovers who just lay the last hands on their outfits.
"You didn't specify whether uniforms or not, so we gathered that it was to be chic off-duty attire," McCoy says.
"Definitely fits the bill," Pike says with a low, appreciating whistle. McCoy is in dark-blue tight jeans and a white, buttoned cotton shirt that leaves some skin visible, Kirk in matching jeans and a black silk shirt.
"You're no slouch either," Kirk states with a gleam in his eyes. Pike is in black tight pants and a dark-grey silk shirt, Dael is in matching black pants with a buttoned black leather vest with shimmering applications on it. As she wears no shirt, there's some skin visible between pants and the vest, her arms are free.
"I hope so. Let's go," Pike says.
*
It's late in the evening when they finally sit in a quiet corner in their favorite restaurant and take a look at the best preview pictures from the hundreds the fetish photographer has taken.
"I'll definitely order some to hang them up next to Dael's shots," Pike says, one hand on Dael's leg.
Kirk scrolls through the thumbnails, enlarging one or the other picture with a wistful smile. "I wish we could do that, but most of them aren't fit for hanging them up in our quarters. These ones, maybe." He selects two of the group shots that have them all together and clothed. In the first, they stand in a line but the basic couples are showing, Dael more leaning against Pike and McCoy with his arm around Kirk. In the second, it's Pike and McCoy standing close together, with Kirk and Dael each down on one knee in front of them.
"Dads and sons," Kirk jokes, and grins as Pike frowns a little. "No worry, just kidding."
"I think we could get away with one of the erotic ones, as long as nobody is recognizable," McCoy says, snatching the PADD from Kirk's hand. He enlarges the shot in which only their groins are visible; Pike and Dael spooning on their left, Kirk and McCoy on their right side facing them, and the shot taken from above so that it only showed their middle and left all details literally in the dark, making it almost look like just some geometric pattern, white on a black background.
"I was so hard…" McCoy murmurs and shifts a little.
"You are so hard," Kirk grins and pats his groin under the table.
Pike leans back, lazily draping his arm around Dael's shoulder. He's had a few sips of white wine and hopes the food will come soon, because he's starved. His coordination is a little for the worse after hours of photo shooting that had been surprisingly strenuous, but it's been the best investment in a long time. Soon, he wouldn't just have Dael's pictures but also pictures of Kirk and McCoy in his — their — living-room, beautiful visual reminders of the great people in their life.
"Which ones are your favorites?" McCoy asks him, giving him the PADD.
Pike scrolls through them. There's Kirk's face from the side, half-buried between Dael's spread legs, his lips almost touching her sweet spot – one of the more explicit shots. There's McCoy standing behind Kirk, wrapping his arms protectively around his husband, and another one taken from a strange angle, where McCoy bends Kirk over a desk, his hand suggestively vanishing between the cheeks. There's Dael cradling McCoy's head against the curve of her neck with his lips on her skin, surprisingly protective, and one where Dael and Kirk take McCoy between them, covering him.
No question who is the most vulnerable among them when it comes to relationships, because he'd been burned the hardest already.
There's him and McCoy, bare-chested and just looking at each other with each a hand high between them, fingers laced together. There's Dael on her back and him on all fours over her, licking her chest tattoos. There's Jim kneeling in front of him with one hand curled around his left leg and his head leaning against his upper thigh, shadowing his groin.
"I've got several, but this is my personal favorite," Pike says at last, and shows his pick to Dael first. "Could be out of a porn magazine," she says amused.
"My own private porn, with the people I love," he admits, and shows it to his lovers. It has him sitting on a couch, legs spread. Jim kneels in front of him, head lowered over his groin, with McCoy suggestively behind him although they hadn't actually had sex in front of the camera. Dael is kneeling to Pike's right on the couch, three fingers of her left hand in his mouth, her right hand buried in Jim's hair, meeting McCoy's touch there. Pike has one hand on Kirk's head and his other between her legs, leaving little to assume either.
"It looks like one hell of an orgy," Kirk says appreciating. "We should try that for real."
"Once we'd actually move, it wouldn't be half as much fun as it looks," McCoy says. "But I've got to admit it looks fucking hot."
"Very hot," Pike says, clicking it away. He's proud about the way the ensemble picture works, all four of them together. Just for this one, all the credits he spent on the photographer were worth it. "I've got a hard-on, and I want the food so that we can go home and have mind-blowing sex." He gives the PADD back to his men and pulls Dael into a deep, open-mouthed, languishing kiss.
Kirk laughs. "If you keep doing that, they'll kick us out for indecent behavior," he says, but it's not as if that could stop Pike right now.
"Chris, dammit —" McCoy mutters, but that doesn't stop Pike either because this feels much too good, Dael's tongue battling his and damn if she doesn't know how to turn him on.
"Restroom," she orders when they come up for air, and he runs with it.
"Best idea of the evening," Kirk states, pulling up McCoy too.
"I can't believe she's as bad as any of you," McCoy grouches but comes with them anyway. "And there I thought she was an innocent girl…"
"I was, before I met Christopher," Dael agrees and laces her hand into McCoy's shirt the second they enter the empty men's restroom, unbuttoning it.
There's no more protest from the doc as all four burn off some of their pent-up arousal in a first, quick explosion, a delicious starter for a long night awaiting them.
*
Onto part 5
Rating: NC-17; warnings: kinky, queer, mixed poly relationship with large age difference
Word count: this part 9.200, complete 60.000 words
Direct links to part 1 - part 2 - part 3 - part 5 - part 6 - part 7
Later, Pike isn't sure how they end in this position from what has been supposed to be a lazy afternoon nap, the dying sun striping the room and their joined bodies in deep red. He sits against the cushioned wall, Dael straddling his lap with her back to him, his dick buried deeply in her tight ass. Until a minute ago he'd had nothing further in mind than to remind her that her ass belongs to him alone, but now he pulls her against his chest in a sudden decision, presenting her for Jim to take. It's fucking hot and all wrong and makes him feel dirtier than he'd ever felt in his life. He almost wishes Dael would make him stop, or Jim wouldn't take up the offer, but she keeps breathing, quick intakes of air, and then utters a broken yes as Jim draws close and kisses her, one hand vanishing between her legs. Pike can feel her trembling in his arms which he'd slung around her upper body, and he cradles her almost invisible breasts. Kirk bends forward, licking and sucking the presented nipples, and Dael moans under the ministrations. Then Kirk finally moves forward, angling for penetration.
Pike had been on the active side of double penetration twice with men. It had always been painfully tight and he'd feared something would break, but he'd also been in awe about the great feeling of connection such a scene evokes.
Now, with Dael between them, Jim and he parted by only a strip of flesh, spreading and taking her in possession together like this is an incredible, mind-blowing feeling. When Kirk moves, they're both moaning, Pike and Dael. There's a first sobbing sound from her, and then she starts crying for real as Kirk rocks into her, heart-breaking sobs from the depths of her heart. The captain's drive falters for a moment.
"Don't stop," she presses out. "It's okay. Don't stop."
Pike nods, and so Kirk moves on, a little cautious for a moment, but she pushes him forward with her hands on his hips.
"So tight," Kirk mutters. "So hot. Damn, you're both so hot. Love you both." He kisses Dael without breaking his stride, then moves one hand to caress Pike's chin, too far away for a kiss. Pike closes his eyes as Kirk fucks them in long strides, his lips close to Dael's face, feeling her tears still running silently.
"All good," he murmurs, not sure himself if it's a question or a suggestive statement. From the way she sounds, aside the crying, all looks well. Slipping his fingers down between her legs, he meets a thumb that instantly withdraws to give him space for his fingers. She's arching against him as he covers her clit in the way she loves best.
"Ah damn!" With a groan, Kirk comes first, surprising everyone including himself, but it's enough to pull Pike with him. With his last willpower, Pike keeps his hand on Dael, using the suddenly added slickness to ease his movements on her clit, the circles he draws.
"Come for me, Dael," he roughly presses out. "Come — now!" It works, and she thrashes against his fingers and whimpers against Kirk's shoulders as she spasms and coils, debauched and messy with semen running down her inner legs. She's crying harder again, here on the spike of her orgasm, and they cradle her between them, holding her close and whispering sweet, calming words into her ears. Kirk slips out but doesn't let go of his hold until she gestures that she needs to move. Pike barely feels his legs when he tries to get up, and so he gives up and sinks back into the cushion. He watches them kiss in front of him, deep and long, before they lie down left and right of him.
It feels perfect, Pike thinks as he cradles them both in his arms for a moment, cherishing the glorious fucked-out-ness of the moment.
Then he realizes that something is amiss – someone, really, who'd been with them in the beginning and must have left some time in between.
"Help me up," he says after a while, and is glad when Kirk steadies him on his first steps.
"Shall we come with you?" Dael asks sleepily, but Pike shakes his head, giving them both a gentle squeeze.
"Just stay here. All is well." He places a kiss on Dael's lips, which she eagerly, sweetly returns, and then walks out of his bedroom.
*
Pike needs a few minutes to find McCoy huddled onto a stool out on the shadowy terrace. He instantly knows something is out of tune just from the way the doc tightly holds his folded legs in his crossed arms, his shoulder muscles corded under the thin shirt. When Pike steps out of the door, McCoy looks up with glittering eyes.
"Missed you in there," Pike says and takes a hold of McCoy, pulling him close against his chest. "What's happening to us?" he whispers, voice breaking. "I thought we were all good."
"I'm not. I'm sorry, Chris, so sorry…" McCoy sags into his embrace, tears of another quality wetting Pike's skin.
"What is it? Tell me."
"Can't stop being jealous that she got you. Got what I wanted."
"Huh?"
"I thought about moving to Earth to live with you. You and me, together."
The idea stuns Pike into silence.
"We could make it," McCoy says, clutching one arm around Pike's hips. "We could."
Yes, Pike thinks. They'd probably really be able to make it work. Get together, stick together happily ever after, plus or minus his health and all the little things that get on your nerves in a dedicated, closed twosome relationship. But they'd make it work. Like with Dael, the thought is such a monumental change to everything he thought he'd established about himself and his way of living that it turns his stomach.
"Let's go for a walk," he says. "Just the two of us."
When Pike goes into the bedroom for his clothes, the two youngsters are asleep, curled around each other. He's trying not to feel jealous of the way Jim holds Dael in his arms, or the way her nose is buried against his neck in her peaceful slumber.
*
They walk hand in hand through the twilight.
"For the last few months, I've thought about transferring to ground duty," McCoy says.
"You'd let Jim go on missions alone?" Pike asks incredulously, more than a little shocked.
"Chris — from all the couples that are constituted of a captain and a senior officer, we're the longest serving together. They either separate or one gets a ground assignment. There have been so many moments when I thought I couldn't do it any longer — couldn't fix him up anymore, couldn't shut down my feelings when I had to do yet another life-saving surgery on my own husband. He means so much to me, but the way we live, it's eating me alive." McCoy smiles sadly. "You once wondered how I can live with Jim being in danger, and I didn't answer because the truth would be that I can't really live with it."
"And still…"
"And still we're out there together, because I couldn't imagine ever leaving him. Maybe something in my subconscious thought we wouldn't live long enough anyway. Or that it would get easier with time, but it doesn't. It gets harder, Chris, and I fear the day when I can't handle it anymore and I make a mistake that could cost someone's life.
"As for Jim… I know there were enough moments when he hesitated to send me somewhere. Enough moments when he was sitting next to my bed when I was injured, and when I could see that it eats him a little too, over time. We're good at fixing us up afterwards, but we're ending with more and more patches and they don't hold together very well anymore."
Pike shakes his head. "Still — I don't think Jim would want you to transfer, ever."
"No, he wouldn't."
"Imagine you would get a ground assignment. If something happened to Jim out there, without you being there…"
"It would be hell," McCoy admits. "But I'm getting closer to the end of my rope. I've known of a few CMOs breaking down, and it's usually in a very critical situation. It always ends messy, and barely any of them ever gets back into a hospital. I don't want to end like that. I want to keep working, but somewhere…safer for me. For my soul."
"And you think coming back to Earth and settling with me would solve everything?" Pike says.
"Not everything. But yeah, I have thought about it. I have imagined how it might be, you and I together. And I've been good at ignoring the idea that it would work rather well, because it would shake up everything."
"And then we'd only have to transfer Dael to the Enterprise, and they could have the same happily-ever-after as we do," Pike says, suddenly angry. "That's your plan, doc?"
McCoy stops him, facing him. "I don't have a plan, Chris. I don't have a solution, and I feel like I'm reaching another bombastic all-going-to-hell point like I did with my first marriage. And I don't want that again." It's the subtle shaking in McCoy's body that completely dispels Pike's anger, because whatever they should do about this mess, he'd do his damnedest to get everyone out of it alive and whole. This might be a no-win situation, but it doesn't have to be an all-lose game either.
"Come here, doc. Leonard." He draws McCoy into another embrace, holding onto him for dear life. There goes the safeness of the nickname and the self-lie that he doesn't have a favorite among them for which he'd raise heaven and hell just a little more than he'd do for all of them. Would he be able to send McCoy away if he knocked on his door? No way, no matter the consequences.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," McCoy half-sobs into his ear. "I don't want you to hate me for ruining everything. I don't want to hurt Jim. I just… "
"I'll never hate you. Leonard. We can't change our feelings. I love you, I love you more than any other being in this universe, and we'll find a solution. I promise." Pike holds him tightly until the trembling subsides; then they slowly walk home.
*
When they return home, the others are waiting for them, instantly realizing that something is wrong.
"You're making me nervous. You're making us nervous," Kirk states, his face unusually tense and serious as they all sit in the living room, Pike and McCoy on the couch, the others on armchairs. "Please, talk to us."
It's already us and you, Pike notes, his heart aching before they even start speaking. He'd always assumed they'd reach some breaking point sooner or later but he'd not expected it when it had looked all so comparatively easy; four people who worked well together, more or less in love with each other and knowing each other so well… But if he even doesn't know himself so often, how should anyone know anything better?
"Maybe I should leave you alone," Dael murmurs.
"No, I don't think so," Kirk answers instantly. "You're a part of us. You're an important part of Chris' life." As her uneasy gaze remains, he adds more seriously, "When the three of us got together, we were the first lovers in ten years who were allowed to cross the threshold of his apartment. We were the only ones until you, Dael. That correct, Chris? John was never here, right?"
Pike nods. "Only the two of you and Dael."
"And you don't just sleep here once in a while, you basically moved in."
She shakes her head a little but remains put in her chair, body folded with arms tightly around her knees.
Kirk nods and turns to his husband. "Bones. Please. I know you've been in a bad mood lately and I couldn't find out what exactly the problem was. Since we're here all seemed to be okay, but now… please talk to me."
"I —" McCoy starts but visibly doesn't find the words. "Jim…"
Pike presses the doc's hand, the hand he barely let go off during the last hour. "Say what's eating you, Leonard. Just say it."
"I can't be your CMO any longer," McCoy blurts out, like an erupting volcano. "I just can't."
"Okay, because?" Kirk replies unnaturally calmly.
"It's tearing me apart, every time I've got to operate on you. Every time you're away on a planet and I don't hear from you for hours. Every time they bring you in, those first seconds when I'm not sure if you're even still alive and if I've got any chance to rescue you. It's fine as long as you're on my table but when the waiting starts, it's just killing me again. It's eating me alive, feeling secure with you and then seeing you all but ripped apart from me a second later, and it never gets better, it only gets worse." McCoy pulls away from Pike and slumps forward on the couch, hands twisted into each other between his slightly spread knees. "I can't go on like this."
"And what do you think is the solution?" Kirk asks.
"I thought about a transfer. A transfer to Earth. Chris didn't know, only told him a few minutes ago, but I thought about coming back here and moving in with him. Started to think about that before Dael even came into the picture." McCoy looks at her. "Don't want to take him away from you, girl. Never wanted to do that. I'm so damn glad that you saved his life and I know that he loves you. I don't want to steal him, but I couldn't stop the idea from developing, how it might be with me on Earth with him. To have a place where I wouldn't have to fear for the worst every second."
"You know that that's a little unrealistic, given that Chris might have another health breakdown any moment." Kirk puts into words what Pike thinks, and it hurts but it's only the truth.
"I know. But it still feels like a calculated risk. On the Enterprise, it's like roulette, and I feel like I'm working against the odds every day. And I can't bear the thought of losing you, Jim," McCoy says, voice starting to shake. "I can't live anymore with the constant fear that you could die because I don't manage to save you. That it might be my fault when you die, because I'm too weak and my hands shake and I'm just not good enough." His voice fails.
Kirk briefly closes his eyes, then opens them to look into the round, including all of them. "It's not like I didn't think about that before — of how it would be if Bones went to Earth to live with you, Chris. And damn if it wouldn't be good for him. I know that; I can see that, the two of you living together, busy but embedded in a routine that's manageable and not putting such a strain on Bones." McCoy looks at Kirk with a light frown. "Bones — don't think I'd ever think you're weak. I've been in your place a few times, waiting for the results of your surgery, and it almost killed me. And I told Chris that when the news about his accident came in, I was busy cheering you all up but inside of me, it ate me like it ate you. I was just better at hiding it.
"So yes — it would be better for you if you transferred. And I know that." With two quick steps, Kirk walks to him and goes down on his knees in front of his husband. "But I'm also selfish, Bones. I need you. I don't think I could really live without you by my side, and I'd surely not be the captain I need to be without you. So I thought what I could offer you in exchange — yes, I thought about that a few times already — and this is what I could offer: In about two years, the Enterprise is due for a major refit — right, Chris?"
"Correct," Pike agrees with a nod.
Kirk looks back at Bones. "When it happens, I offer to step down as captain of the Enterprise so that I can come with you. I'd follow you wherever you wanted to go. It would be your choice — here with Chris on Earth or somewhere else, some planet with the best medical research — whatever you need, Bones. It's your choice." Kirk captures his partner's hands. "If that doesn't work for you, we'd have to talk and see what other solution we could find, but that would be my preference. To step down with you in two years and then live together somewhere." He glances at Pike.
"I could even see us on a farm, the three or four of us, having horses and some land and — children." Kirk laughs a little roughly. "I know you all hate the idea but I say it anyway because this is a moment of truth." He gets up, walking in a circle and meeting eyes with all of them. "We could have children, be a real family. They could be Dael's or someone else's, maybe adopted — it's not about biology, it would be about what we feel for each other and for them. Think about it!"
A sudden, dead silence falls over the room as Kirk stops, his challenge in the air.
Pike closes his eyes, pressing the heel of his hand against his temple. The image of Jim and him sitting on a fence suddenly returns, and what Tom had said about Jim playing with the kids, and how much McCoy misses his daughter, and how much Dael is craving the emotional stability she'd once found in her family. Maybe it would be for all the wrong reasons if they did it, but this is obviously the day for throwing old ideas over board and facing new ones, no matter how strange, and damn if he can't see it.
"Sounds like a great idea," Pike says slowly, and opens his eyes. He meets Dael's completely unreadable gaze, and tries to give her a little smile to show that he includes her in the plan. "The four of us on a farm, raising children — yes."
"You're crazy," McCoy says with a shaky laugh. "You can't be serious. You never even wanted children!"
"I was never given the choice," Pike corrects him. "The one partner who thought of children brought the theme up when he was already breaking up with me. Before that, he had never as much as hinted at the possibility." Pike looks at Dael. "I agree with Jim, this wouldn't be about biological children, so you shouldn't feel forced in any way, Dael. You're just at the beginning of your career."
She nods with a frown, but doesn't say a thing.
"Living on a farm — you'd die of boredom!" McCoy stares at his husband.
"I'm not saying that we've got to become full time farmers." Kirk smiles. "You'd be working in a hospital or a research facility, and there are many things I could do — I could work in the HQ like Chris does, or I could see if there are other career options outside of the 'fleet." He takes a deep breath. "I just wanted to show that there are options for the future, Bones, other options besides staying on the Enterprise forever, and that I'm willing to go for these options." Returning to McCoy, he goes down on one knee again. "The most important thing in my life is you, Bones, and I want you to be happy. And I'm willing and able to give up the Enterprise for that, but I'd prefer to do so in two years. Do you think you'd be able to live with that?"
McCoy blinks, his eyes unnaturally shining in the low light of the room. "I think I could do that, Jim. Guess I could, yes. Jesus, just talking about it took so much of the weight from me. Thank you so much." With something close to a sob he pulls Kirk into a bear hug, and they're laced into each other for a long moment.
At last, Kirk draws a little away and looks at Pike. "You're happy with that solution too, Chris? I know how much you love Bones…"
"You belong together," Pike says calmly. "You've once said you're a package deal, and while I can't deny that I wouldn't ever be able to close my door to Leonard if he needs me, I feel much better with the prospect that you're both on the Enterprise. Any solution that leaves you both happy and together is the solution I could settle with best. I never wanted to come between the two of you."
"There's always a risk in having this kind of relationship," Kirk says, then turns back at McCoy. "I love you so much, Bones. I'd give the universe for you if I could."
"Shit, Jim, I know." McCoy sinks forward until their foreheads rest against each other's. "I love you too…"
Pike waves Dael, and they quietly leave the room.
*
"Are you really okay with that?" Dael asks when they are in the corridor. "I know that you love Leonard very much."
Pike pulls her close with a little sigh. "And I love you. And I love Jim, and the idea of the two separating with me being part of the reason is terrible for me. After the last days, I can see us all living together in the future, but it's got to be in a way that keeps us together. Leaving nobody behind."
She leans into his embrace, her body a little stiff. He rubs down her back, wondering whether this is only about him and the doc, or something else.
"Would you want to serve on the Enterprise?" he asks.
"No," she says instantly. "I like Jim a lot, and sometimes I look at us from outside and marvel about how I can feel like an equal to someone who's a big hero to everyone. But if I were on the Enterprise, we wouldn't be equal anymore. Nothing would be like here."
"True." Pike rubs her neck, cradling her head against his shoulder. "My darling…"
"Really?" She looks at him a little uneasy.
"Yes. And all mine right now." He pulls her into the bedroom, not giving in to her playful resistance and her claim that she's really done.
"This isn't about sex," he says as they curl around each other in bed. "This is about me reminding you that there's a reason why you are in my life."
"Is there?"
Pike wonders — there's a lingering, unvoiced insecurity that seems to run deeper than the easy question. "Why do you ask like that?"
"Just… ah, doesn't matter." She closes her eyes, snuggling closer.
"It sounds as if it matters," he says quietly, stroking through her hair that's gone to enchantingly new levels of messy and spiky over the last days.
"Not right now." There's a tiny smile on her face, growing as she relaxes under his caresses. They fall asleep like this.
*
After the emotional ride of the last evening, it's probably logical that the couples keep to each other at first on this new morning, Pike spooning Dael for sex and Kirk giving McCoy a blowjob, beautiful noises of arousal filling the room. But they're still close to each other, exchanging gazes, running errant hands over nearby bodies.
Suddenly, Pike has an idea so hot that just thinking of it makes his orgasm spike. He groans and shudders, coming inside of Dael with his hand on her clit, but not finishing her off. She whimpers in a wordless complaint, but stills as he protectively puts his palm on her sex. He pulls out and wraps one of his legs around her right one to spread her open on her back.
Next to them, Kirk stops his actions, leaving the doc just as heavily breathing. Pike captures Kirk's gaze, receiving a smirk and a nod. When Kirk withdraws from the doc's dick, Pike says to McCoy, "Lick her."
McCoy's eyes snap open as the order registers.
"Please…" the doc gasps, his forehead creasing over some inner battle.
"You want him to lick you?" Pike asks Dael, because McCoy needs to hear it from her lips. Pike is sure that she wants more of the doc but never would dare to ask. He can only hope she gives the right answer now.
She sucks in a quick breath, then nods. "Yes."
"You heard the lady," Kirk whispers into Bones' ear, eyes gleaming. "Don't let her wait."
Pike expects more of a struggle, but the doc gives in surprisingly fast, rolling over and dropping down to angle his head between her legs, giving her a first tentative lick along the length of her clit. His tongue plays over the hot red nub and around it, and Pike can't stop watching it because he's never seen Leonard do that for a woman. The doc is working determined and straight-forward, his administrations quickly answered by her low gasps. She curves into the touch, biting her bottom lip as she fights off orgasm.
"Look at her, Bones," Kirk breathes. "Look how she loves you doing it."
McCoy sweeps his gaze over Dael's face, contorted in arousal, and it seems to add to his own agitation as he returns to his task with a groan, rotating his hips against the mattress. When she comes, her groin jerks against his mouth in a motion of riding, and he keeps working with his tongue and lips until she's curling away from the touch, over-sensitive and spent.
"Lovely," McCoy whispers, placing a few wet kisses along Dael's thighs before getting up on his knees. Pike throws him a towel, and McCoy self-consciously wipes his face before carefully rubbing her dry.
"Come here," Pike says and pulls McCoy down between himself and Dael. Kirk follows swiftly, kneeling down over McCoy's legs.
"Your time to enjoy yourself," Pike says.
"Yes," Kirk says with vibrant blue eyes. "Let us please you. Let her please you."
On McCoy's side, Dael starts stroking his chest.
"Would you like that, Dael?" Pike asks.
"Yes, very much."
"No," McCoy says instantly, shaking his head. "Not that."
"You're sure?" Dael gets up on one elbow, looking at him. "I really would like to do something for you. Just tell me what." She puts a chaste kiss on his lips, and McCoy answers it, but when they break apart, he shakes his head once more.
"Thanks for the offer, Dael. I appreciate it but I'm sure," McCoy says seriously. Pike and Kirk exchange another glance, and Kirk shrugs. It had been a good start but this is obviously the current limit, so they give up at their attempt of closing that one missing connection of their foursome.
"Well, Bones," Kirk says and bows his head to give the faltered erection a long lick. "Guess it's my turn then to do something about this."
For a second, McCoy looks like refusing but then Kirk swallows his dick in whole and any words that may have lingered get drowned out by the whimpers that are coaxed out of him instead. They turn up in volume as Kirk sits up, rotates McCoy's hips a little to raise one leg, and pushes inside. Pike captures McCoy's mouth, slipping his tongue deep inside, while Dael sucks at the nipple closest to her, her fingers on the other one. Under the triple onslaught, McCoy doesn't last long and comes with a groan from the depths of his chest, his come shooting up high. Kirk follows swiftly, then draws out and basically falls all over McCoy.
They all cling together, touching and kissing each other.
"We love you, Leonard. We love you so much," Pike says. "You'll never be alone. You'll always have a home with us."
"Never alone," Kirk repeats, kissing his husband.
"Stop doing that to me," McCoy mutters weakly. "Damn overemotional trip you're putting me on." He angles for a tissue to blow his nose dramatically.
Pike agrees; he feels annoyingly sappy too, and is relieved when the currently most rational part of their cloverleaf, namely Dael, slips out of bed to break the spell. "Take a shower with me?" she offers her hand, and McCoy accepts it. They leave together.
"Damn, I'm glad it worked," Pike states with his eyes on them, so relieved he feels like floating.
"Thank you for yesterday," Kirk says as he stretches out next to Pike.
"Wouldn't ever take him from you," Pike says, looking at him. "I couldn't do that."
"I know you don't want to. But at least I'd know where he'd go." Kirk sighs. "That's quite a thing, four people in love."
Pike pulls him close. "I really love the idea with the farm," he whispers into the ear of his wonderful young captain. "Even though chances are I won't be there when it happens."
"Don't say that," Kirk states. "Bones tells me you're stable, so don't you dare talk about dying on us."
"I'm not talking about dying, Jim. But chances are I'll end up as a full nursing case sooner or later."
"That bad? I know I painted you having another brain failure as worst case scenario for Bones yesterday, but —" Kirk's voice trails off.
"The doc and Naaz do their best to keep me out of the chair, but there's just no telling how it will develop." Pike strokes his face, following the lines of tiny wrinkles with his fingertips. "I changed my will recently. In case of my death, the apartment would go to Dael and the club would go to the two of you. My money would be split between charity and you all."
"We don't need your money, Chris," Kirk says almost angrily.
"I know. I just wanted to let you know that I sorted a few things. I'll also make sure that if I'm in coma for longer than three years, someone's going to pull the plug on me."
"Pulling a plug?" Someone asks from behind, and Pike turns his head to meet the doc's eyes. Dael is close behind McCoy, a dry towel in hand — obviously, the two hadn't made it into the shower yet.
"Don't you dare to even think of this," McCoy snaps in a tone Pike has never heard from him before. The doc is on him in quick steps, sitting down on the bed and clamping a strong hand around his jaw. "Don't you dare to arrange something like that! No matter how much you think you wrote every possibility into your will, you don't know what medicine can do tomorrow! Nobody will pull a plug on you, only over my dead body!"
"I don't want to vegetate in bed forever," Pike states sharply, forcing away McCoy's hand. "If I've got to go, I want to go in dignity!"
"You can't imagine what pulling the plug does to the people around you. What if someone finds the cure the next day, what then? They'll feel like your murderer forever!"
"How likely is that to happen?" Pike asks with a strangled laugh. "How likely, doc?"
"Likely enough that it happened to me," McCoy shouts in his face. "After I pulled the plug on my father."
"You didn't…" The words die on Pike's tongue as realization settles. Yes, McCoy has done that. The truth is written all over his face, in his desperate eyes.
"God, Leonard." Pike grabs him hard, keeping him from running. "Shit. I didn't know. I didn't know." Clamping his arms around the man that curls in his arms, he holds onto him. Kirk is on his knees, covering McCoy's back with his body. Even Dael draws close, a little hesitantly at first but then covering McCoy's left side at the edge of the bed, placing a gentle hand on his shoulder.
"I didn't know," Pike says again, now with his eyes on Kirk.
"He never told anyone but me," Kirk says quietly.
McCoy sits up a little, raising his head to meet Pike's gaze. "I'm sorry, Chris. I can see where you're coming from, but I can't bear the idea that you'd want to go like that. Ever since you were on my table after Jim rescued you from the Narada, you've been a special patient for me. You wanted me onboard the Enterprise because you thought I was one of the best, and I am, and I'm ready to prove that again and again. So don't you fucking dare to go before your time, because every day you're still alive is a day I might still be able to do something for you."
You don't have to heal me because you couldn't heal your father, Pike thinks, but he doesn't need to see Kirk's warning gaze to settle on just hugging McCoy again, saying, "Trust me that I want to stay with you as long as I can." He takes McCoy's face in both hands, kissing him intensely. "Love you, doc. Love you so much."
"Love you too. Love you all." McCoy turns and pulls Kirk into a kiss, then cradles one arm around Dael's slim hip and places a kiss on her stomach.
It takes them a few more minutes to calm down, and damn, Pike is really done with emotional rollercoasters for the day – and they haven't even had breakfast yet. He gently unlaces himself from McCoy, leaving him to the care of his husband, and goes to take a shower with Dael.
*
They prepare breakfast, but it takes two hours before the others leave the bedroom and soon join them in the living room with steaming cups of coffee in their hands. Obviously as wrung out from the start of the day as Pike feels, they spend the day mostly with reading, cooking and watching some news, settling in a weirdly domestic routine they'd never shared before.
In the late afternoon, Pike and Kirk decide to go for a shopping round on foot. It's a bit challenging for Pike but at least this time he's got someone to carry the bags. He's surprised as on the way back home, Kirk changes the route and they end in a little park Pike hadn't been to before.
"It's a wonderful place," Pike notes as they sit down on a bench next to a small pond. "I didn't know there's that much nature so close to home."
"Dael told me about it," Kirk says. "I'm sure she'd love to come here with you."
"I'm going to ask her." Pike stares at the water, watching some ducks paddling over the otherwise smooth surface. "Speaking of asking…"
Kirk turns his head towards him, his expression thoughtful.
"You weren't really surprised about Leonard's breakdown, were you?"
Kirk looks away, then cranes his neck left and right as if to get rid of some imaginary pain. "No, I wasn't," he replies at last.
"What happened?"
"You know what happened," Kirk says with a glance back at him. "Aranka happened. When we finally rescued them, I could see it in Bones' eyes… Aranka broke something inside of him, much like the Narada did with you. He hasn't been the same ever since."
"He never speaks of it. Not that I tried a lot either but…"
"No, he doesn't." Kirk says flatly. "His staff shoved him into some therapeutic sessions but it's all been going on behind closed doors. I'm not even sure he realizes what exactly has gone, but I know. Before Aranka, he had complete trust in me. No matter how fucked-up the situation, he trusted me to have the best for us in mind. That I'd make the right decisions and that even if they turn out to be an error, that I'd be able to keep everyone safe. It's only because of that rather irrational trust that he managed to remain with me in space for so long. I've been his anchor — his promise. It's been my job to keep him safe. I failed." He briefly rubs his face with his hands. "To be frank, Aranka broke something inside of me too. I've been more cautious since then, less inclined to risk anyone's life but my own. Which didn't really help the problem as it made me end up in sickbay even more often." Kirk sighs.
"Right after Aranka, he withdrew into his own cabin, something he's never done before. He only came back when we got word of your accident. If not for his need to share his concern and loneliness, he might have stayed away... left me, maybe."
"He'd never leave you," Pike says.
"Came close enough," Kirk says quietly, and then a little broken, "Shit."
Wordlessly, Pike draws his arm around Kirk's shoulder and pulls him closer, not caring that they're sitting on a bench at a public path in bright daylight.
"It's going to be okay," he says and strokes Kirk's shoulder. "You'll get it fixed."
"Looks like, yes. Not the least thanks to you."
"No, Jim. You saved it by the way you handled his crisis. I wanted him to stay on the Enterprise but I didn't know how to solve his problem."
"That wouldn't have been in your might — it's been between Bones and me. But if you had said that you wanted him on Earth…not sure if he would have listened much to me anymore."
Pike shakes his head. "Jim, you sell yourself totally short right now. You may have had your problems lately but you definitely belong together. He loves you, and you've got a life together."
"He loves you too, and you would be able to build one together." Kirk rests his head against Pike's shoulder. "You match damn well, do you know that? Sometimes when I see you together, it just blows me away how well you fit, and the feeling is getting stronger with every vacation."
"You're not making me speak about Dael and you now," Pike states warningly.
Kirk smiles. "She's marvelous. And she loves you more than you grant her at times."
"I think we are all fabulous together, each to their own," Pike says. Then a thought catches him.
"I don't know how you do it, Jim. How you can be so cool about it all — sharing the ones you love? So gracious. Barely ever jealous or possessive. At times I thought you only pretend it but you don't, do you? It's really how you feel. Why?"
Kirk looks at the pond. "I was still a kid when I read a quote of a famous 20th century philosopher named Welles: We're born alone, we live alone, we die alone. Only through our love and friendship can we create the illusion for the moment that we're not alone. Once I understood that, everything got a lot easier."
Pike frowns. "That's probably the saddest philosophy I ever encountered," he says spontaneously.
Kirk sits up and faces him, huffing an incredulous laugh. "Tell me if I'm wrong, Chris, but you seemed to have spent most of your life alone."
"Being alone was just normal to me," Pike says. "But I didn't make a philosophy out of it."
"Well – once I made it my philosophy, I was able to embrace every good thing and every good person that came into my life. I live in the moment whenever I can, because that's all we all have. I cherish every good day, I accept every bad day. I'm not a saint, far from it. I do my share of hurting others. But I try to live every day as gracious as possible, and to be there for the people I love."
"You still expect to be alone in the end," Pike states.
"In the end, we all are alone," Kirk says with a shrug. "Having someone share your life for a while is the best thing you can get, but when the paths move apart… there's nothing you can do but to accept that."
"But you've been fighting for Leonard."
"Sure. I wouldn't have let him just walk away. But I've been ready to let him walk to you." Kirk hesitates as if another thought catches up with him but then only shrugs once more.
"Let's go home," he says and gets up, ending their talk.
*
It's much later in the night, after another intense evening, that Pike is lying in the dark and half listening, half watching the couple next to him. They are one large shadow; only from the way the upper half rocks against the other, he knows what's happening. It's intimate and gentle and so beautiful, because it radiates Jim&Bones in a way Pike has never seen before. Until this vacation, they've always focused on him when they'd all been together, but now they are free to enjoy each other too, and it's damn clear to Pike that they really need that time for each other too.
The image and the quiet sounds evoke an incredible warmth in Pike's chest; the words, however, make his throat tight – whispered lines, breathed more than spoken.
"Don't ever leave me, Bones. I wouldn't know what to do without you. Love you so much."
"I love you too, kid."
"You haven't called me kid in ages, Bones… fuck… " There's a tiny sniff, and Pike can imagine Jim's face because he'd seen him cry once before, the way the tears break when the man's shell of all easy, all game is cracked open and shows the vulnerable core to the two, maybe three people he shows it to at all. Maybe he's not as embracing of the idea of being without his loved ones as his philosophy would suggest, after all.
With effort, Pike swallows the sigh that threatens to rise in the back of his throat and rolls away from them to the other side, burying his nose in Dael's hair. He searches his heart, checking for the jealousy that catches him so hard once in a while — and right now it's gone, so completely that he can't even conjure the feeling. Each of them needs all of the others, each fills a bit and piece nobody else could, it's an incredible mix.
He just wishes he could capture this forever, he thinks as he falls asleep much later, one hand on Dael, his other reaching out to rest on Jim's hip, lacing with McCoy's fingers.
Well, maybe he could…
*
It's the last day before the Enterprise men are scheduled to depart, and Pike and McCoy meet in the kitchen incredibly early, enjoying a quiet coffee together in a loose embrace.
"I'm really happy by the way this vacation developed. I was really concerned beforehand," McCoy mutters, stirring Pike out of thoughts about the call he'd just made.
"Why?" Pike asks, although he guesses he knows the answer.
"I know that your relationship with Dael has been made public and your reputation and position survived it so far. But imagine we would've met here and anything went wrong and she'd gone to Nogura to complain. Three grown, adult men and a young girl like her — even if the accusation was dropped, just think what that would do to Jim's career."
That's not the reason Pike had thought to hear, and he frowns in surprise. "She's not the type, doc. Even if something went wrong, she'd be able to talk with us."
"You never know, Chris. Not really. Now that I know her a little better, I'd be inclined to agree that she's not the kind of girl to suddenly turn the tables on us — but people have the strangest weak spots. I saw how she was in tears when the two of you had her in that sandwich. It seemed okay for her and she was good with it later, but sometimes people have second thoughts the day after and don't deal well."
Pike's frown deepens. "I'm sorry for not having thought about the possible damage she could do to your reputation."
"Ah, Chris —" McCoy relents. "It's not as if Jim and I didn't participate in enough things that could damage our reputation. But Dael's been a kind of blank for me. I was sure you wouldn't fall for anyone who's not okay – but on the other hand, you are emotionally more vulnerable than in the past and that might give someone the chance to manipulate you."
"It gets better and better," Pike says, not sure anymore how to interpret all this. "What do you really want to say, doc?"
"Well, maybe the gist is — I'm glad it all worked out. And I guess a part of that is that there's been no sexual abuse in her past. Because that kind of shit just does things to people they hardly get over, and that was my major concern."
"That she'd have some survivor background and get a flashback?"
"Exactly." McCoy intently looks at him. "You thought about that beforehand?"
"I did, and I'm very sure that she's got no such things in her history." Or if she had had them, then the Vulcans had made sure of the memories being gone. "Personally, I was very sure that if we got any problems between the four of us, it would be me acting up regarding her relationship with Jim."
McCoy pulls him close. "You managed fine, Chris. Great job."
"Wouldn't have been able without you."
"Nothing of this would've been able without all of us."
"Though it would've been easier for you without Dael —"
"But that would have left you all alone." McCoy presses a kiss on the side of his face. "I'm glad to know you won't be alone when we've got to leave again."
"I'm glad too," Pike admits, voice low, and they remain in the embrace for a while, caressing and kissing each other.
"Can't stay on my feet any longer," Pike murmurs at last, reluctantly breaking the embrace.
"You don't have to," McCoy says, lowering him onto the warm kitchen floor and slipping down between his legs.
"You're all going to kill me." Pike whines a little as McCoy's fingers curl around his half-hard erection.
"I know your medical file, your heart works perfectly fine," the doc states with a smile, his fingers edging along the sack, cradling his balls for a moment before returning to his dick. "And your dick works fine too," he says and trails his tongue along Pike's length.
"Gonna suck you dry, Chris, right here on the floor. Gonna make you come so hard…"
And damn if the doc didn't keep his word.
*
"We've got a date," Pike says right after lunch.
"A date?" Three pairs of eyes focus on him in question.
"I want all of you looking your best, on all levels." Pike waves at the growing fluff on Kirk's chest.
"Including shaving?" McCoy asks.
"Of all parts you want to shave."
"You're going to take us to a mass orgy?" Kirk jokes, but Dael shakes her head, suddenly looking like mischief.
"You know where he's going to drag us," Kirk says accusingly, poking her. She quickly slips off the barstool to the other side to escape his teasing.
"I'd venture a guess, but I wouldn't want to spoil the admiral's surprise treat." Dael captures Pike's hand, placing a kiss onto it. The gesture and the title in combination do fantastic things to Pike's blood flow, but he's playing it cool.
"The shaving goes for you, too," he says.
"Including the head?" she asks, brushing through her hair.
"Not for me," Pike admits. "Though if you prefer to – it's your choice."
"Then I won't do it." She smiles a little, its sweetness the usual, strange contradiction to her tattoos. "I'll get ready."
"I'll come right with you," Pike says, hurriedly following her.
"I'll bet," is the last he hears of McCoy, and he shouts back, "One hour, then we've got to leave. And dress up!"
In a surge of energy, he fucks her from behind against the shower walls, one hand clutching her hip, the other one reached around to cup her clit, and they come together, breathless and sweaty. Good thing that they are already in the shower.
They're in time anyway, just as their lovers who just lay the last hands on their outfits.
"You didn't specify whether uniforms or not, so we gathered that it was to be chic off-duty attire," McCoy says.
"Definitely fits the bill," Pike says with a low, appreciating whistle. McCoy is in dark-blue tight jeans and a white, buttoned cotton shirt that leaves some skin visible, Kirk in matching jeans and a black silk shirt.
"You're no slouch either," Kirk states with a gleam in his eyes. Pike is in black tight pants and a dark-grey silk shirt, Dael is in matching black pants with a buttoned black leather vest with shimmering applications on it. As she wears no shirt, there's some skin visible between pants and the vest, her arms are free.
"I hope so. Let's go," Pike says.
*
It's late in the evening when they finally sit in a quiet corner in their favorite restaurant and take a look at the best preview pictures from the hundreds the fetish photographer has taken.
"I'll definitely order some to hang them up next to Dael's shots," Pike says, one hand on Dael's leg.
Kirk scrolls through the thumbnails, enlarging one or the other picture with a wistful smile. "I wish we could do that, but most of them aren't fit for hanging them up in our quarters. These ones, maybe." He selects two of the group shots that have them all together and clothed. In the first, they stand in a line but the basic couples are showing, Dael more leaning against Pike and McCoy with his arm around Kirk. In the second, it's Pike and McCoy standing close together, with Kirk and Dael each down on one knee in front of them.
"Dads and sons," Kirk jokes, and grins as Pike frowns a little. "No worry, just kidding."
"I think we could get away with one of the erotic ones, as long as nobody is recognizable," McCoy says, snatching the PADD from Kirk's hand. He enlarges the shot in which only their groins are visible; Pike and Dael spooning on their left, Kirk and McCoy on their right side facing them, and the shot taken from above so that it only showed their middle and left all details literally in the dark, making it almost look like just some geometric pattern, white on a black background.
"I was so hard…" McCoy murmurs and shifts a little.
"You are so hard," Kirk grins and pats his groin under the table.
Pike leans back, lazily draping his arm around Dael's shoulder. He's had a few sips of white wine and hopes the food will come soon, because he's starved. His coordination is a little for the worse after hours of photo shooting that had been surprisingly strenuous, but it's been the best investment in a long time. Soon, he wouldn't just have Dael's pictures but also pictures of Kirk and McCoy in his — their — living-room, beautiful visual reminders of the great people in their life.
"Which ones are your favorites?" McCoy asks him, giving him the PADD.
Pike scrolls through them. There's Kirk's face from the side, half-buried between Dael's spread legs, his lips almost touching her sweet spot – one of the more explicit shots. There's McCoy standing behind Kirk, wrapping his arms protectively around his husband, and another one taken from a strange angle, where McCoy bends Kirk over a desk, his hand suggestively vanishing between the cheeks. There's Dael cradling McCoy's head against the curve of her neck with his lips on her skin, surprisingly protective, and one where Dael and Kirk take McCoy between them, covering him.
No question who is the most vulnerable among them when it comes to relationships, because he'd been burned the hardest already.
There's him and McCoy, bare-chested and just looking at each other with each a hand high between them, fingers laced together. There's Dael on her back and him on all fours over her, licking her chest tattoos. There's Jim kneeling in front of him with one hand curled around his left leg and his head leaning against his upper thigh, shadowing his groin.
"I've got several, but this is my personal favorite," Pike says at last, and shows his pick to Dael first. "Could be out of a porn magazine," she says amused.
"My own private porn, with the people I love," he admits, and shows it to his lovers. It has him sitting on a couch, legs spread. Jim kneels in front of him, head lowered over his groin, with McCoy suggestively behind him although they hadn't actually had sex in front of the camera. Dael is kneeling to Pike's right on the couch, three fingers of her left hand in his mouth, her right hand buried in Jim's hair, meeting McCoy's touch there. Pike has one hand on Kirk's head and his other between her legs, leaving little to assume either.
"It looks like one hell of an orgy," Kirk says appreciating. "We should try that for real."
"Once we'd actually move, it wouldn't be half as much fun as it looks," McCoy says. "But I've got to admit it looks fucking hot."
"Very hot," Pike says, clicking it away. He's proud about the way the ensemble picture works, all four of them together. Just for this one, all the credits he spent on the photographer were worth it. "I've got a hard-on, and I want the food so that we can go home and have mind-blowing sex." He gives the PADD back to his men and pulls Dael into a deep, open-mouthed, languishing kiss.
Kirk laughs. "If you keep doing that, they'll kick us out for indecent behavior," he says, but it's not as if that could stop Pike right now.
"Chris, dammit —" McCoy mutters, but that doesn't stop Pike either because this feels much too good, Dael's tongue battling his and damn if she doesn't know how to turn him on.
"Restroom," she orders when they come up for air, and he runs with it.
"Best idea of the evening," Kirk states, pulling up McCoy too.
"I can't believe she's as bad as any of you," McCoy grouches but comes with them anyway. "And there I thought she was an innocent girl…"
"I was, before I met Christopher," Dael agrees and laces her hand into McCoy's shirt the second they enter the empty men's restroom, unbuttoning it.
There's no more protest from the doc as all four burn off some of their pent-up arousal in a first, quick explosion, a delicious starter for a long night awaiting them.
*
Onto part 5
