Not Mine. Don't own it. If you haven't figured out by now that this is slash, you may be too dumb to live.

~*~*~*~*~*~

The next day Jim is as bright-eyed as a stim allows. He doesn't have any classes till the afternoon, but he has to study and catch Bones before he gets sucked into whatever foul xeno parasite is demanding his attention at the moment. Being friends with Bones is good for the waistline. He's never hungry after talking shop.

He leaves his dorm with a sweet bun between his teeth, juggling two PADDs. As an afterthought he slips back in for just a moment, long enough to fold yesterday's sweaty boxers and slip them into his roommate's pillowcase. The smug bastard. Teach him to lecture him on late nights when he's already pissed off and moody and fucking hurt and horny as hell.

Slipping out the front entrance with a wink at the girl manning the desk isn't flirting, it's good policy. Cute as all get out, but it's a bad idea to shit, or fuck, where you eat. Doesn't mean he can't look. Should probably make a Do Not Fuck list. People who can make his life hell go at the top.

Captains- probably don't count.

Jim finally finds Bones as Bones is leaving the cafeteria, already deep into a PADD guaranteed to give nightmares. He's clean cut and shaven, and hell, that ass, but people are still giving him a wide berth as he walks across the quad. Probably the scowl. And the muttering.

Different strokes and all. Jim thinks it's sexy. But Bones is at the very top of The List and circled in red.

"Bones!" Jim jogs to catch up, undeterred when Bones just slants him a glare and keeps on walking.

"Bones." He pulls up to Bones' side and slows his pace to keep even with the Doctor, who has suddenly picked up his pace as if he just remembered somewhere he needed to be.

"Aw. C'mon. Don't be like that, Bones, m'boy."

"Shut up, Kirk. I'm not in the mood."

"Kirk?" Jim grabbed Bones by the arm, pulling him to a stop while clasping a hand to his chest. "Why Bones, you wound me. What happened to our epic love that was written in the stars? The sonnets you wrote me, comparing me to the- "

"Kid." Bones turned, wearing his long-suffering face. "Do you remember our agreement?"

"Yeah. You don't ask me about that thing, and I don't ask you about that other thing." Jim loves a frustrated Bones.

"The other one. I don't discuss the side effects of Rigellian spores, you don't engage in histrionics before lunch."

"That was melodrama. Not histrionics."

Bone's deflated, and swiped a palm over his face. "I know what you're doing. Normally, I'd let you get away with it, but this isn't anything like normal." He grabbed Jim's arm for a change and steered him towards a quiet grassy area between two buildings.

"I don't really have time for this, I'm meeting someone."

"Liar. Not even a good one."

"I," Jim sniffed, drawing himself up with offended dignity, "am a champion liar."

"Only to people who don't know you. Transparent ass." Bones pressed on his shoulder, collapsing them both to the grass, where he crossed his legs to settle in for an uncomfortable pow-wow.

"You haven't known me for that long."

Bones' regard was steady. Serious. "I know enough. And I have a degree in psychiatry."

Jim just stared at the ground glumly and pulled up a blade of grass to shred.

"So. What the hell was that last night?"

Silence.

"Or you gonna let me make shit up? Your sleazy fling with a captain who has a thing for your father? The way you're sleeping your way to the-"

"Hey!"

"Or are ya goin to tell me what the real deal is?"

This time, he pulled up a clump of grass. "I don't know what it is. He has an interest in my career. He's the one that recruited me. And my advisor." Jim wouldn't meet his eyes.

"But that's not all, is it?"

"Fuck! I don't know. He's on my back like a bad case of hives but when I…I don't know."

"Shit."

"Yeah."

"S'not a smart place to be getting your dick wet."

"I know that. I just. I really want it."

"Jim. Have you ever wanted anything that was good for you?"

The grunt Jim gave was answer enough.

"I think he's too professional for you. And too grown up. Translate that into not dumb enough to fuck a kid even when the kid is advertising it like a hooker. Thank fuck he's a rational adult."

"I'm 22."

"You're 16 and still thinking with your willie."

"It's. It's not sex." Kirk shrugged. "Not only."

Bones put an arm around his shoulder and pulled him in tight.

"S'what I was afraid of."

"Yeah."

They lay there for a few moments before Jim gave Bone's shoulder a squeeze. "So. Does this mean you're not putting out either? Because, you know, older men-"

Then Bones cuffed him in the head and everything was back to normal.

Relatively.

~*~*~*~*~

Pike received another call late Friday night. He was out the door in two minutes, hair askew and wearing sandals for fuck's sake.

Murder was beginning to sound like a fine thing to indulge in.

This bar was a little closer, and a little less townie, but still a mix of both. Luckily, it was late, and the crowd had dwindled to almost nothing, allowing him to park without hiking. It also meant there were less people to see him rumpled and angry, and those that did had on beer goggles.

He stomped up to the place, face set in grim lines as he took in the self-conscious electroluminescent sort of cool that appealed to the desperate and easily led.

"Goddamn sissy-mary coctails. Frappachino swillers."

"A-fucking-men."

Pike stopped and took a closer look at the figure on the curb. Leonard McCoy.

"Dr. McCoy."

McCoy looked up at him, and quickly stashed his flask in a pocket.

"Yeah. I took care of it."

"Took care of what?"

McCoy shrugged. "It's square."

That fucking brat. Even his insubordination was infectious.

"I didn't ask whether he was square, cadet, I want to know where the fuck he is."

The doctor leaned back on his elbows and threw his denim clad legs out into the street, spread like he was sunning himself. "M' a doctor, not a baby-sitter." McCoy looked up at him, and suddenly Pike could tell that McCoy wasn't nearly as drunk as he thought, and not remotely ignorant.

"Go easy on the kid, O.K.?"

McCoy must have decided that he was safe enough, because he pulled the flask back out and took a long draw. He wiped his mouth with his hand before hooking his thumb out and pointing towards a side alley. "S'back there. But you won't like it none."

"Thank you, cadet."

McCoy laughed as Pike walked away. "Yeah. You do that."

Bones got up and started walking. No need to be at ground zero when the shit went down. Sometimes he missed being a country doc.

~*~*~*~*~

Pike didn't know what to expect. Fighting, most certainly. Maybe some maudlin drunken rambling and vomit. But as he picked his way through the narrow alley to the larger area behind the club, the sounds he heard were not those of a street brawl.

When he turned the corner, he stopped. And stared.

Kirk was pinned to the concrete wall, pants undone and falling down his thighs; no underwear. His t-shirt was hitched up over his abs, and exposing one nipple to a hand that was twisting it, pink and hard. A hard body behind him, slightly bigger build than Kirk, dark ash blond hair. A slightly older man. The light wasn't perfect but Pike could imagine that he was going a little grey at the temples.

And Kirk. Kirk was undulating like a wave, a movement that started at his feet and wound up his body like a snake as the stranger threw his fuck into the boy. Not nearly the finesse the boy's movements demanded, but Kirk seemed to lap it up, flexing his ass to make the other man groan and speed up to a more brutal rhythm. The sound of flesh upon flesh grew more urgent, and the strokes got longer so that he could see the glistening flesh disappearing into that clenching hole, punctuated by Kirk's breathless "uh. uh. uh."

They were getting close, losing that perfect synchronicity as the pure sociopathic drive to come took over. Kirk braced his hands against the wall, pushing back harder and arching his back to trip his prostate just that little bit more. The strangers hand groped around to find Kirk's cock, giving it long strokes to bring him off.

Kirk's head fell back and he shut his eyes on a moan, only to turn his head to look directly at Pike. His eyes were glassy, and unfocused at first, but they zeroed in on Pike like a fucking hawk. His moan was louder this time, feral and wanting, and he didn't break eye contact with him- even as he spilled ropes of pearlescent come against the building.

He didn't break eye contact even as the other man finished with a grunt and pulled out. Or when he crooked his mouth up in a devious smile.

Challenging.

Pike turned and walked away calmly. When he got back to the street he was unsurprised to find Doctor McCoy gone.

He made his way to the car and got in, grabbing the steering wheel with white hands, but didn't make a move to start it for several minutes. When he finally went to start the ignition, he was surprised to find the steering wheel wet; sticky.

He turned his palms over and stared.

Crescents were cut into each hand, bruised and bloodied by his own fingernails.

~*~*~*~*~

The meeting was held in Pike's office two days later.

It was tense from the get go. Pike was starched up to the hilt in his dressier uniform, every pin perfectly placed and polished. Not a hair out of alignment. His eyes, though; they showed a bit of tension at the corners.

Jim had thought about dressing sloppy, but Bones had sneered at him and asked him how old he was. Bones- he could be a real pain in the ass. So Jim was in a freshly cleaned and pressed cadet red and his pants that were just a bit too tight, because, c'mon. He was in trouble, not stupid. Maybe big trouble.

He admitted, just to himself, that he was nervous. Maybe that had been a little too much, even for him. He could probably talk his way out of it.

He sat in that ass-hating chair for a minute, which stretched into several minutes, while Pike just looked at him. He knew what Pike was doing. Waiting for him to get antsy and fidget and uncomfortable. And fuck if it wasn't working. He was the type that needed to do something dammit, and knowing how he was being played just made it worse.

Pike eventually relented when he started drumming his fingers.

"Cadet Kirk. I'm tempted to ask you what you thought you were doing, but that would give you permission to open your mouth. Instead, I'm going to spell out a few possible scenarios, and you are going to nod, yes, or no. You speak, you're out. Period. Understand?"

This is so not what he had expected. Shit.

"I didn't ask you to look constipated. I asked you if you understood. Well?"

Kirk nodded.

Pike leaned back in his chair and brought his fingers together under his chin. "At first, I thought it might have been chance timing. The call and the way I found you. That thought only lasted for about five seconds." Pike raised an eyebrow. "On the right track so far?"

Jim nodded again. Hell.

"Then, I wondered if you were trying to get kicked out. You've got a chip on your shoulder the size of Starfleet, and it was possible that you joined just to be able to deliver a big, personal fuck you." Pike shook his head. "But no. Not your style. Too much planning and not enough stupid bravado. With me?"

Another nod. He was beginning to sweat a little, and these uniforms were damned uncomfortable when they got clammy.

"And then your friend McCoy. He's the one who put me on the right track."

Shit. Shit. Shit.

Pike leaned forward. It would have felt intimate, like they were sharing confidences, if the look in his eyes wasn't so spooky and left him exposed. Goddamn Bones!

"Interesting man, your doctor. Easy to assume he's just a booze hound. But I checked into him. Top of his class in med school. Degree in psychiatry. Offered tons of research fellowships, awards. Medical glory. A down home good ole boy country doctor. Almost as fucked up as you, though." Pike smiled. "But you knew all that, didn't you?"

Kirk stared at the floor.

"Didn't you?"

Another tight nod.

"I knew somebody else had been looking in to him. I assumed it was you."

Kirk flinched. He hated giving away more than he needed.

"McCoy. Cares about you, difficult as that seems. He wanted me to go easy on you for some reason, and I started thinking about why. Only reason I came up with for such a practical man to mother you so is because you're being a goddamn girl. Neediest bastard I've ever met."

Kirk's eyes narrowed, but Pike's smile just got broader.

"You wanted me to find you en flagrante. You wanted me to see you fucking so I would view you as a sexual creature. You're falling back on old comfortable habits because you don't know how to have a relationship with someone that isn't ten minutes long and nailing you to a wall."

Pike was really on a roll, bright-eyed and vibrating as Jim was skewered. "Manipulative little fuck, aren't you?"

Kirk pursed his mouth, but Pike laughed. "That one was rhetorical, son. Well, tough shit. It isn't happening here."

Pike relaxed again, going for something Kirk assumed was supposed to be benevolent. Jackass.

"So you want attention? Fine. I'll give you attention. You want admiration? Fine. Work for it. And I don't mean your ass." Pike shifted his weight against one arm of the chair. "I'll tell you the truth, you're shit-hot. But I don't give a damn about that. You want to impress me? Make something of yourself. And that means no games. You can't play me like you do everyone else, because I can see it."

Pike stopped again, letting the silence stretch taut and aching once more.

"Permission to speak freely, Cadet, but not too freely."

Jim's voice didn't feel like his own, however. "What do you want me to say?"

"Whatever you think that isn't X-rated."

"I fucked up. I was stupid, and drunk. What more do you want?"

"I want it not to happen again. But I don't know if you will stop the fighting completely. So I will settle for you respecting the fact that I have more brains than you give me credit for. You can't manipulate me with sex. It just won't happen. I've explained to you what I need from you."

"But that's not! I mean, I didn't just…"Fuck. For once, words failed him.

"What? You want me to believe that it would just be no strings sex? No ulterior motive? Christ, that you have a massive hard on for a guy that has done absolutely nothing but get on a soapbox and preach at you from the night we met?"

"I'm telling you, it wasn't like that."

"Then what was it like?"

"I just. I. Fuck." Jim glared at a fray in the carpet. "I don't know. But it wasn't like that!"

Pike sighed. "Jesus. You are a girl."

"Fuck you."

"Look. You need validation. I get that. You need validation, you'll get validation. Meeting. Here. Every Friday afternoon at four unless I let you know otherwise. We'll review your progress. And there better be progress."

"Shit."

Pike placed a PADD in front of him."Know what that is?"

Kirk leaned forward to look. "My enlistment."

"You fucked up. I own your ass. You wanted me? You got me. Just not in the way you envisioned. Meeting this Friday."

"Is it a naked meeting?"

"Do you want to get molested in a cell?"

"Roleplay. I can deal with that."

"You'll deal with my boot in your ass if you don't get out of here right now."

As Jim left, he cursed the fact that he wore the tight pants. It made for a painful, and obvious, hard-on.

~*~*~*~*~

After three months of almost angelic behavior, Pike was ready to concede that maybe Kirk had some vestigial form of survival instinct after all. His behavior to his instructors, and Pike himself, was exemplary, at least in public. Privately, the kid was still an ass, but at least he was driven.

They looked over his work every week, dissecting his notes and research. He had Kirk defend his every point until it was rock solid and unassailable. Kirk wasn't the best with the written work, but that was stylistic and no reflection on his grasp of theory; even his written style was brash. His practical work almost ruined the curve. Every instructor said the same thing: Brilliant mind, analytical thinker, maverick. If they were occasionally tempted to add arrogant to the list, they restrained themselves admirably. After all, some level of arrogance was expected for command.

Sometimes, they played chess instead, while discussing Starfleet in a more general way. He had done similar things with other promising cadets, but had never been so…invested.

And that worried him.

Kirk ended every meeting with a proposition of some sort. It's not that Pike was tempted to take him up on the offer. It wouldn't be ethical, and he had no wish to be a notch or a name in a book or whatever the hell sort of thing Kirk liked to keep as a tally. He was even pretty sure that Kirk was only doing it as some sort of perverse ritual, a habit he was disinclined to break.

But it was uncomfortable, and left him a bit restless.

The kid still drank too much, and had obviously found some out-of-the-way shithole to indulge his penchant for fighting, if the occasional bruise was anything to go by. They were a hell of a lot more common than the sanctioned combat classes would indicate, but at least the little snot was learning discretion. A line had been drawn somewhere, one that separated Cadet Kirk: Command Prodigy, from Jim Kirk: Douchebag. It was a sketchy line, at best, but at least it was there.

There were still some problems. A few things were never discussed, even though they were like an elephant in the room. There was no discussion of George Kirk. One brief mention of him was enough to get Jim to clam up. Ditto for Winona, the stepdad, the brother- all of his childhood. If he didn't know about the Kelvin he would have assumed the kid had popped out of Zeus' head, fully formed. He tried to lull the kid into talking about it by discussing his own childhood, and the ranch he currently owned, but the kid just smiled at all the right points and laughed when he was supposed to.

He decided not to push it too soon, even though it frustrated him. He didn't want to make assumptions, but something had left the boy twitchy. Pike had lied a bit about reading Kirk's psych eval. He had read the public portions, those that were available to upper echelon Starfleet with direct oversight of Kirk, but there were a few areas that were sealed to him with some heavy-duty clearances. Old clearances that pre-dated his recruitment. Worrisome. They should not be in the file of a regular young reprobate.

Instead, he focused on getting the kid involved with other cadets in a way that wasn't focused on sex, booze or violence. The idea of joining the chess club was shot down with a laugh, but Kirk had finally succumbed to the Xenolinguistics club when Pike had briefed him about their exemplary field study program. In the spring he would be off planet for a club-sponsored conference. He was also excelling in his hand-to-hand course, and was making noise about becoming a TA.

On the whole, James T. Kirk was becoming a model cadet. Pike was just waiting for the other shoe to drop. When it did, it wasn't in the way he expected.

This time, he got the call at nine in the morning, interrupting a conference with a homesick cadet who was waffling on whether to continue. Pike had just finished explaining why that was a bad idea when the intercom buzzed.

"Starfleet Medical, line one. They said it's important."

He dismissed the cadet before pulling up the vid screen. When the image came online, he was surprised.

"Dr. McCoy. What can I do for you?"

The man looked like shit, and his entire face was bundled up in an unhappy frown. "Captain Pike, you might want to come down here. Our boy ain't doing too good."

Pike's back straightened. "What happened?"

"Accident. Engineering. Near as I can tell from listening to the reports from the idiots he was with, it wasn't his fault. He was just the closest one to the console as it overloaded. He threw himself over two other cadets, so his back got the brunt of it. It's pretty bad, but he should make a full recovery. I'm not the doc in charge, but his treatment is solid. They've got him on some aggressive dermal and sub-dermal regenerators and the one med he isn't allergic to. Some lacerations, particularly to the glutes, thighs and one shoulder blade, but most of them are pretty minor. Only one deep enough to cause nerve damage, but that should fix up too."

Pike was silent for a moment a he cataloged Kirk's injuries.

"Any other cadets injured?"

"Just a few cuts and scrapes. One eye injury that ain't too bad. Nothin' like Jimmy."

"Thank you, Dr. McCoy." Pike's brow furrowed. "I'm glad you called. But- Why did you call? You know I would have been notified in my news packet later in the day."

McCoy smiled in that particular way he had that Pike was only now beginning to associate with unpleasantness. "Just thought you might be interested, sir. In a purely academic way, of course."

Damn the brat.

"And." Pike gave a start as McCoy's expression promptly fell and he ran a shaky hand through already mussed hair. "He listed you on his emergency contact information sheet. Only you and me."

"Oh, hell."

"Yeah. Thought so too. That boy can pull your guts out through your throat." McCoy gave him a level look. "So, am I gonna be seeing you sometime soon?"

Pike shied away from that look, and cursed the fact that he hadn't just gone for an audio transmission. "I'll have to check with my secretary."

Pike still didn't look back at the screen, but he could hear McCoy's smile in his voice, as lazy as the Mississippi. "Look forward to seeing you, Captain Pike. McCoy out."

The screen dimmed and he was alone.

Fuck.

He stalked out of the office, not even bothering with the intercom. "Steve, I have an emergency. Reschedule everything, I'll be incommunicado."

"But sir-"

"Do it."

~*~*~*~*~

Hate was a strong word, but it had, in the past, been used to describe his reaction to Starfleet medical. Loathing might be more apt.

Nothing good ever came of being there, unless you were a doctor.

They had put Kirk in the burn unit. He wasn't technically supposed to be able to enter, but being Captain had its perks, and one of them was intimidating the hell out of people with less rank and not enough sense to realize that medical trumped command in this little game of rochambeau. He was still made to enter a decontamination unit and spread a sterilizer on his hands.

Jim was at the end of a quiet hallway, but as he approached the half-open door, he heard voices. He quieted his steps and leaned into the doorjamb, peering into the room, but not indicating his presence.

The lights were at half power, and the curtains were drawn. Kirk lay on his stomach. His back and part of his glutes were covered in a slick looking chitenous wrap that formed itself to the flesh underneath. The bioskin pulsed in several areas with a faint bluish light as the regenerators did their work. The rest of his ass and the backs of his thighs and calves showed evidence of being abraded, but the wounds were now fresh and shiny pink. A patch of his hair at the back of his head had been shaved away, but that was also freshly healed and tender looking.

Kirk was awake, head propped up, chin resting on a half-moon pillow that would allow him to breathe face down. Probably has one at home, Pike thought, uncharitably.

Dr. McCoy had pulled up a chair to the bed and was holding Kirk's hand. "Nother stupid stunt like that might actually get you killed."

It sounded like Kirk tried for a laugh, but it was aborted in favor of a groan. "Din mean to. S'just I'm s'posed to command. S' command thing."

McCoy squeezed the hand in his. " I don't have to tell you how fucked up that is. Someone's fed you a line of bullshit your whole life. Most Captains stay safe and cosy in their little captain's chairs until their asses start to spread. When the ass spreads enough, they become Admiral. Everyone else is the cannon fodder, kid. All those jokes about red shirts came from somewhere."

"I was gonna get hit 'nyway."

"Bullpucky. I talked to that Andorian guy in your class. Had those dillybobbers on his head going crazy when he talked about James T. Kirk selflessly throwing himself in the way. He said you were so fast to react you could have gotten away from the majority of the blast. I think you have a new fan."

"S'good. Like blue. An antne- antna- antennn- shit."

McCoy chuckled. "I bet you do."

Suddenly, one of the blue lights on Kirk's shoulder began to flutter quickly, and a thready whine built in Kirk's throat as the rest of his body went taut. The hand clasping McCoy's clenched down till the knuckles were white, and it must have hurt like a sonofabitch, but McCoy still held on tight.

"It's going to be OK, Jim. I wish I could knock you out, but I don't have anything that won't react with the other drugs in your system." McCoy brought his other hand up to softly stroke the hand he was holding. "Two more hours. Just two more, then I can put you under. You're doing really well."

McCoy kept repeating variations on this theme until the fluttering blue light stabilized and Kirk's body went slack with relief.

"Shit," Kirk panted, keeping his breath shallow. "How many more of those?"

"I don't know. A few."

"Fuck."

"I'm sorry."

"Don be. Did it to m'self."

"Ah, shit. Don't listen to me. When I get worried, I bitch. It wasn't your fault. You did good. Just wish there was more I could do."

"Could kiss it better."

McCoy laughed. "Sure thing, kid."

Kirk groaned and turned his head slightly to look at McCoy. The corners of his lips turned up just a bit, and the look in his eyes was fond. It was the most genuine look Pike had ever seen on the boy's face, and it made his stomach ache.

"Luv you, Bones."

McCoy actually smiled, half his mouth turned up, cheek dimpled. "Love you too, ya little shit."

"S'cause I'm loveable."

"If you say so."

"And awesome."

"Huh."

"Hey Bones?"

"Yeah?"

"Don't tell Pike about this, please?"

McCoy froze for a moment, but Kirk was probably too drugged up to notice. "Why not."

"You c'n tell him about the other cadets n' bout me bein' awesome an ev'rythin'. Just- don't tell him about all this. Don't wanna-"

"Whatever you want, kid. You got it." McCoy gave another squeeze to the kid's hand, but his attention wasn't on Kirk. He was looking straight at Pike.

"S'good. Great."

"Yeah. Great."

Pike clenched his jaw, gave McCoy a terse nod, then turned to leave just as a pulsing blue light began to ratchet up once more. The steady wail of pain that followed him down the hall crawled underneath his skin like an insect. It seemed like he did a lot of walking away when it came to Kirk.

Instead of going back to the office, he decided to hit the gym.

He felt like damaging someone.