Author's Note: For Rachel who requested Kirk, Bones and Pike with the prompt wind. Set during the Academy Era (with references to the remainder of the film at the end) and can serve as a precursor to my fic if you miss, you may hit a star. Unbeta'd, I'm afraid—sorry. Thanks for reading!
Disclaimer: Characters mentioned are used without permission and are trademarks of CBS/Paramount/Gene Roddenberry. I do not own them and am simply borrowing for my purposes. Also, the title comes from a quote by e.e. cummings, which is not mine, either. Please don't sue.
which is yes
by, Caliente
The thing about Jim Kirk is that he blows into your life like the fucking wind, uproots shit and stirs things around, and then blows out again before you even realize what happened. At least, that's McCoy's feeling on the matter because he definitely didn't sign up for a piloting class of all things on his own volition, that's for damned sure.
Yet here he is. Still adamant that fully understanding everything about how and why shuttles and spaceships work will not in any way help assuage his fears about going out into the giant vacuum of death and disease that is space, sure, but present all the same. (Not for lack of trying to get out of it but apparently Jim had slipped McCoy's advisor some of his warped Kool-Aid because the infernal man just would not let him drop this damn elective.)
Thankfully, they won't even be looking at the inside of a real shuttle until the second half of the semester. That gives him plenty of time to either figure a way around his advisor or come to terms with this damn class being a reality and just deal. Personally, he's hoping for the former and expecting the latter. (Cynic, thy name be Leonard Horatio McCoy.)
It's his effort to bypass his stupid ass advisor that he comes face to face with Christopher fucking Pike. (Which is, admittedly, probably better than their first meeting in which McCoy was still on his Big Fat Divorce Drinking Binge, but he doesn't like that the second impression he's leaving on the captain is one of being a whiner.)
Here's the thing, though: Chris Pike is the reason Jim Kirk is at Starfleet Academy. Chris Pike is the reason Leonard McCoy even met Jim Kirk at all. Therefore, Chris Pike is indirectly responsible for the aviophobic McCoy having to suffer this stupid piloting class. So he figures the captain kind of owes him there and, really, he's just trying to appeal to his human side here.
And Chris Pike's response? Laughter and lots of it. "Cadet McCoy, do you really think there's anything on this planet—or any other, for that matter—that can stop a determined Jim Kirk?" And, well, when he puts it like that, McCoy really does see the futility of his efforts. (Not that he didn't before. SEE: Leonard Horatio McCoy, not-so-closet pessimist.)
Because Jim Kirk is like the fucking wind. He blows through life and there's no stopping him, no matter how much you might want to. (Admittedly, McCoy doesn't usually want to as much as he tries to pretend he does but still.) You just have to wait it out and hope nothing gets too broken in the process to be fixed again.
McCoy doesn't think anything will be. He thinks Chris Pike agrees with him, too, otherwise he probably wouldn't have pushed Jim to enlist in the first place. So there's that. And him taking this damn piloting class—he knows a futile effort when he sees one. Add it to the hundreds of other things he never thought he'd do because, hell, this is his life now.
And, God help him, he doesn't hate it. Probably mostly because of Jim Kirk but McCoy isn't looking too deeply into that. (Isn't willing to admit he might actually need another human being, not after everything that happened with his bitch ex-wife.) Isn't telling Jim, either—kid's got a big enough head about himself as it is.
Still, he can't help but wonder what'll happen when Jim finally blows into a mountain. (As it turns out, what happens is a lot of ridiculous shit because that mountain is named Spock and what starts as one thing turns into something else entirely and by the end of everything McCoy doesn't know what to think about anything anymore, least of all Jim Kirk who saved the whole goddamned world. But that's a whole other story.)