Title: Everything You Never Wanted
Rating: Do I have to spell it out for you?
Summary: It's the opposite of what she'd pictured, and thank God for that.
Disclaimer: It took us four years to get a sequel. Obviously…
Author's Note: They're probably going to put Marcus with Kirk. *sobs* But I will go down fighting!
If you were to compare what Carol Marcus had always thought of as her 'dream man' and the one she was currently in a relationship with, you would have been looking at total opposites.
She remembered when she was younger, a fresh-faced cadet, writing down her ideal qualities with her roommate while giggling late at night. He had to be around her age, preferably blonde (eyes didn't matter), with an easy laugh and a casual, nonchalant air. He had to be easygoing. Oh, and his ambition had to match hers. Carol Marcus wanted to go places, and she couldn't afford a partner that didn't keep up.
Speaking of which, he had to be a sex god, too.
Dr. Leonard McCoy was on the opposite end of the spectrum. He was a good six years older than he was, most definitely not blonde, and could give Grumpy from Snow White a run for his money. He chuckled on occasion but rarely actually laughed, and he wasn't in any way ambitious. He took care of his patients and performed his job to the best of his abilities, but he wasn't looking for a promotion.
The sex god part, though…
She couldn't lie – she'd been completely terrified when she'd made the first move. What if she'd read this all wrong? What if the looks, the flirtatious hand comments, had only been wishful thinking? What if she was being a silly girl with a schoolyard crush?
But then she'd gone ahead and taken the chance, informed him of her intentions, and those shining hazel eyes had lost all color, swallowed up by the black of his pupils, and she'd had her answer.
The sex afterwards had been pretty good confirmation, too. Maybe some doctors were exaggerating about their hand skills but Leonard was definitely not one of them. Good fucking Lord…
She wanted to keep their relationship quiet for the time being, partially because her familial life had just been hung out to dry for all Starfleet to see, and she didn't need them knowing about her romantic life, too, and partially because she knew Kirk was going to badger the both of them incessantly. They both had enough to deal with concerning the captain as it was.
A part of her, though, wanted to scream it over the comm., her voice projected into every corner of the ship – especially to those young nurses who thought banging the boss was hot. If she caught one more of them giving her man those moony-eyed looks she was going to 'accidentally' drop a container of something volatile in the medbay.
Because he was… well, everything she'd never thought she'd wanted, and everything she was suddenly finding she needed. Men either treated her with disdain (gets her way because of her Daddy, pretty face and no brains) or with the aim of getting into her pants (hey there sexy, how's it going baby). Leonard respected her – something she'd come to expect from him – but he also treated her like she was… well, it was cliché, but like she was a lady.
He let her go through the doors first, for crying out loud. If they didn't slide open of their own accord he probably would have held them open for her.
He never went farther in their relationship than she wanted him to. He let her decide to (secretly) move her stuff into his room (it was larger than hers). He let her be the one to decide to spend shore leave together. Where she led he happily followed, but he let her be the one to take the step.
She was stupidly, hopelessly grateful.
And for all of his gruffness, they hadn't had a huge fight yet. Oh, sure, they bickered, but Leonard had this talent for bringing up an issue with honesty in a way that didn't have either of them flipping their lids.
Maybe it had something to do with the fact that he saved most of his lid flipping for Kirk and Spock?
So yes, they'd had issues. But never anything that had made her question, made her fear for their future.
She must have done something especially good in a past life to earn this.
Take this moment, for instance. She had a good hour before she had to get up for her shift, but she'd awoken and found herself unable to get back to sleep. She lay there instead, her head on his shoulder and her hand on his chest, feeling it rise and fall as he gently snored. What had she done to get a man like that? And how in the universe had the person she ended up falling in love with being the one she never would have worked out with on paper?
On paper she probably would have worked best with Kirk or something, God help her. She'd have snapped and killed him by this time, she was certain.
The hand cupping her shoulder began to trace a light pattern with its fingers. She felt Leonard's breathing change as he stirred slightly, cracking an eye open to look at her.
"Can't sleep, sweetheart?" He asked, his voice a low, scratchy rumble.
It was always the stupid moments like this, wasn't it? Not the climactic rescue or the joyous reunion after one of them had been shot and near death or something the movies were always portraying. It was always one of those small, commonplace moments where suddenly everything was clear.
Carol pushed herself up and kissed him, long and deep, lining their bodies up so that she could feel him come awake, respond to the feel of their entwined heat and conjoined skin. His hands spanned her back, securing her in his arms. She kissed him, she kissed him, she kissed him, over and over until her body was afire and she could hardly think.
(Maybe it came with the doctor territory but she swears his tongue is going to be the death of her someday.)
When she pulled back it was only long enough to admire the dazed, pleasured look on his face, his hair tousled and mussed from where her fingers had run through it, his lips shining with spit and his eyes filled with that dark, dark fire.
"I love you." She whispered, feeling the smile break out on her face.
Leonard's face went slack, and for a wild moment she thought she'd said the wrong thing. Once again, she feared she'd been reading the signals wrong. The man was a divorcee with a child, for God's sake. Who said he wanted another serious relationship?
Then he was kissing her again, and her fears flew out the window along with any sense of logic or rationality.
They'd made out plenty of times, on its own or as a precursor or follow up to sex, but this was different. Carol had sown her wild oats like any cadet and she'd never been kissed like this. It was like she was being devoured, consumed, yet simultaneously fed and uplifted, as though he were taking her soul and giving her his instead. She knew he wasn't the best at words, but she could swear that every single thing he'd never said, every appreciative observation or romantic musing was being poured into her.
Klingons could have attacked and she wouldn't have noticed.
In fact, at first she didn't even notice that they'd somehow gotten naked and she was straddling his lap, the sheets tangled around their ankles. It wasn't until she felt his erection slide against her inner thighs as she rocked that she was able to pull herself out of the world they'd built, the world of give and take and love, love, love.
She also, incidentally, got to breathe properly for the first time in a good ten minutes.
"If I'd known that's the reaction I'd get, I'd have said it long ago." She teased, nipping at his bottom lip. She failed to mention that she'd only realized it just then, in that moment, watching him wake up and recognizing that she wanted to do this every morning, for as many mornings as she could, even though she had a suspicion that her subconscious had known it for quite some time.
Leonard chuckled. She loved his chuckle, rumbling up through his entire body and vibrating his chest before rolling out of him like a cascade of pebble stones. "Darlin', I've been praying you'd say that since we first started this thing."
Well, this was a shock.
"For that long?" She knew she sounded wondrous and young and insecure but damn it the man just told her he'd been in love with her – and known it – for months now. "You… why didn't you…"
"Beautiful little filly like you?" He replied, brushing their noses together. "I was certain you were in it for the physical, and because we were friends. I never thought you were serious."
She was never, ever going to tell him, but she loved his Southern metaphors – even when he was comparing her to a horse.
"Well I am." She informed him. "And I do." She bumped his forehead with hers. "Idiot."
"Whippersnapper." He shot back, his voice the opposite of venomous.
That was about the time they started kissing again, and really, what more was there to say anyway?
Other than, of course, things like fuck and move and oh my God.
That was another thing – Carol Marcus was not vocal. She knew guys enjoyed it when women were all breathy and crying out like porn stars, and she was not going to play that part. She was in control, and if anyone was going to be begging it certainly wasn't her.
Like everything else, being with Leonard kind of threw that out the window. Maybe it was the surgeon thing, or maybe it was the gentleman thing; maybe it was a little of both. But whatever the reason, after he'd slid in he'd always slip a hand down and work her that way as well. It didn't matter the position, either (like this one – he had to be uncomfortable). Thirty seconds tops and she'd be writhing, sounds ripping out of her throat that she hadn't authorized. It had gotten that her body recognized what was coming before it happened, feeling his hand remove itself from the small of her back or her shoulder or ass and she'd start soaring as if he'd already started touching her.
She was putting those porn stars to shame, now.
He made her, for lack of a better term, frantic. She kept planting kisses into his skin, on every surface she could reach – his face, his neck, his shoulders, his mouth. Her hands kneaded into the muscles of his back, trying to ground herself before she went spinning off into space. He caught her as she pressed a quick kiss to his jaw, tilting his head and catching her, his tongue delving in and drawing all thought out of her head.
She wasn't going to last long, not when he was playing her like a fucking violin and she was caught up in the music he made, emitting sounds that she wouldn't have guessed were human never mind emerging from her vocal chords. It was too much, pleasure almost beyond comprehension, and still she urged him on with faster and harder and oh please oh God Len…
She was a nebula, a birthplace for stars, and there was a star growing in her right that moment, building and building, gathering light and strength and power, making lights of blue and green and black flash behind her eyes, in the corners. Oh, she was a part of the universe, compact, growing until she couldn't grow anymore and burst into a scattering of stardust, flinging herself in an explosion of gold and silver and every color on the spectrum, flying to the farthest quadrants of the universe. She was spread out, floating, blissful, singing her primal song.
In space, Carol Marcus found true beauty, and in that moment she was a part of it.
Minutes, hours, days, years, millennia, eons, passing before her in a haze of star struck pleasure, the center of her own universe, light and time revolving around her. And then she was back on earth, back in the arms of her man, their bodies soaked in sweat and flushed pink, kissing like they did, indeed, have eons of time to spare.
"You need to go shower now if you want to make it to your shift on time." He reminded her. He didn't stop kissing her as he said it, though, running his mouth up and down the column of her throat and nuzzling behind her ear.
She hung onto him a little tighter, suddenly afraid to leave. Why, she didn't know. Maybe it was her father's pessimism coming out, but she was seized with fear. This was going so well. The universe had taken everything she'd thought she wanted and given her the exact opposite, somehow knowing it would be better than anything she could come up with. What if she lost it? What if things changed?
Somehow, because he was an impossibly observant man who probably knew her a little too well, Leonard let her sink further into him, tightening his embrace in response to her almost outright clinging.
"We still have half an hour." She pointed out.
"Exactly." He gave her a quick kiss on the cheek. "Plenty of time for a double shower."
And then she was laughing, chasing and being chased on the way to the bathroom, fumbling with the handle and kissing as water got into her eyes and nearly slipping on the tile, whispering I love you into his mouth because she'd never wanted this, never dreamed of it, and yet now that she had it she was by no means ever letting go.
Wow. This got fluffy and romantic quickly. I did not intend that. (Stupid characters with their stubborn ideas and going off and doing their own thing…) I hope you all enjoyed it, and remember to stay strong! We will go down with this ship!
Reviews are food for my plot bunnies… I promise I won't give them to the tribbles!