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McCoy’s not sure how he ended up here. Okay, he ended up here because this is where the crew is taking shore leave -- Yosemite National Park. But last night’s a bit of a blur thanks to a little too much of that McCoy family secret ingredient, and he frankly doesn’t have a clue how he ended up inside two zipped-together sleeping bags, his nose buried in Spock’s hair and Jim’s arm draped over them both. It wouldn’t seem so unusual -- it’d been a cold night, after all -- if any of them seemed to be wearing pants. Which they didn’t.
“Now what in the name of--” McCoy starts to grumble, before he follows his present line of action to its inevitable conclusion: he would make a big fuss and jump out of their little nest of blankets; Spock’s stupid Vulcan ears would prick up and he’d jump up right along with him thinking they were under attack; and then Jim would get jostled around and leap into action, too, thinking the same. And there they’d all stand, swinging in the breeze at a National Park, while McCoy tried to explain that no, of course there’s no red alert, he just woke up tangled in two bad decisions, is all. And Spock would say something uncomfortable about nudity being a natural state and Jim’s ego would get bruised, and then they’d all argue, and nobody’d remember to put on a set of drawers, and that’s exactly how a park ranger would find them.
He bites his tongue and, seeing no other solution, settles back in with his spine stiff as a board, wondering if that pointy-eared telepathic son of a bitch can hear how loudly he’s swearing off whiskey.
Pavel is going to die. He’s sure of it. He’s flat on his back with his arms trapped behind his head by three layers of unforgiving nylon-spandex, which also happen to be covering his eyes, mouth, and nose. His legs thrash for purchase, but find none. If he could just get his hands on his communicator, he could call for help, but it’s nowhere to be found, and he isn’t even sure if he could operate it in his current predicament. All he did was momentarily lose his grip on the edge of his binder, and now he’s going to suffocate, and they’ll find him, maybe weeks later, dead in his underwear. It’s a humiliating death, unbefitting for a proud Russian. As the lack of oxygen starts to make him light-headed, he resigns himself to an undignified end, and tells himself that he was valiant enough in life that maybe no one would hold the circumstances of his death against him.
Vulcans are, as a rule, monogamous -- taking one bondmate at a time unless circumstances necessitate an exception. And the bonds formed of those exceptions are usually weak and temporary. Anything more frivolous or permanent would be unheard of, not as a moral consideration, but simply in terms of sheer effort involved. Spock had followed that pattern unfailingly and without a second thought for most of his adult life. Certainly, he could not expect Jim to conform to the same. Monogamy would violate his nature as surely as non-monogamy would violate Spock’s -- that was, at least, his assumption.
The passing of his katra into McCoy and back seems to have drawn the doctor into their bond. So he finds himself waking next to them both in the predawn hours, feeling each of them as deeply as the other. It’s an anchor for his still-unsettled mind. Jim is deeply asleep in pleasant dreams, but McCoy is awake, confused and excessively perturbed. Presently, Spock senses a palpable disdain for alcohol and its effects.
“I was under the impression that you enjoyed whiskey, doctor,” he comments quietly. He feels McCoy tense against his back. “Did it make you ill? Do you need medical attention?”
“I am medical attention!” McCoy bites back. “And get out of my head! Whiskey’s never made a McCoy over the age of twelve sick in the history of the name. What it made me was loose!”
Spock puzzles over the unfamiliar euphemism, but respects the doctor’s request for mental privacy.
Just as he walks up to the camp, Sulu hears a weak string of curses, broken up by heavy panting, and freezes a few meters away from the campsite. Definitely Pavel’s voice, coming from his tent. Cautiously, he approaches, kneeling near the tent flap and calling out, “Pavel? You okay in there?” Hopefully, he hasn’t been bitten or stung by anything too deadly. He has no clue where Dr. McCoy is, and it’s a big park.
“Hikaru,” comes the breathless, muffled, utterly defeated reply. “Do not look at me. Let me meet death with my pride intact.”
Knowing Mr. Chekov’s propensity for being hyperbolic, Sulu is more amused than worried. “No one’s meeting death, today, mister. I hear that if you die on shore leave Starfleet won’t pay out as much.” When he gingerly unzips the flap, Sulu is greeted by the sight of Pavel, bare legs splayed and kicking uselessly against his bedroll, arms pinned up by his chest binder.
He manages to say, “Alright, hold still,” without so much as a chuckle creeping into his voice, and climbs on top of Pavel, yanking at the binder’s hem.
It’s no use. He’s worked up a sweat struggling, and the fabric won’t budge.
Eventually, Sulu gets Pavel to his knees and, with a rough tug at the back hem, the fabric unrolls, and Pavel gasps deeply for his first full breath in several long minutes, face flushed and hair a comical mess.
“Thank god. I thought I was a goner,” Chekov pants.
“Sure,” Sulu laughs. He feels a swell of gratitude -- As far as he knows, he’s the only member of the crew, save McCoy, that Pavel trusts enough to strip down in front of.
The comfortable silence as he changes into dry clothes emboldens Sulu to risk overstepping his bounds. “You know, I bet Dr. McCoy could get rid of those for you in less than an hour,” he suggests smilingly.
“I like wearing the binder. It helps my posture.”
“You complain about it night and day, and it nearly killed you,” Sulu argues, indulging Pavel’s slight exaggeration.
“Yes, but if it were gone, I think that I would miss it.”
“You could still wear it, you know.”
“It would not be the same.”
Sulu gives up. It’s no one’s choice but Pavel’s, after all, even if it means he occasionally has to save his friend from suffocation. “Well, I’m starving. Who’s making lunch?”
But Pavel is staring off into the middle distance, clearly lost in thought. “Did you know--”
Sulu doesn’t know yet, but he thinks he could make a good guess.
“--that the first transgender man was none other than the great Peter Alexeyevich himself? He invented the chest binder in the year 1680 and--”
“I’ll make lunch.”
Uh-oh, is Jim’s only thought as he walks up to the fire, still buttoning up his jeans. On one side, Spock, cross-legged and meditative. On the other, McCoy, perched on a log and looking positively vexed. Both of them silent.
He should have known, should have realized that it wouldn’t work. It was just too complicated. Of course, it was never going to be complicated on Jim’s end of things; the word jealousy just isn’t written in his book, and sharing the things he loves comes as naturally to him as breathing. Jim falls in love and into bed with equal ease, but Bones does neither. Trust and companionship? Sure. But romance or physical passion are more elusive in him, almost absent. And Spock, as much as he tries to keep it under wraps, has always had a jealous streak a mile wide.
For the last few weeks -- and really, years, if Jim really looks back and thinks on it -- they had navigated their unspoken arrangement, avoiding violation of those limits. Sex and romance were things he shared with Spock; with Bones, another sort of emotional intimacy; and between the three of them, all the rest -- security, comfort, everything needed for a family.
Having a leave with both of them had felt like a perfect occasion to let loose, relax, maybe test the waters, but instead, he and McCoy had tried to drink like much younger men, and Jim had pushed all their carefully felt-out boundaries to their breaking point.
He heaves an inward sigh, and sits across from them both. The only way to repair the damage done is to finally stop putting off a much-needed discussion about what they are to each other, and what they want to be.
“I think I owe you both an apology,” he starts, smiling weakly.
“Jim,” Bones interrupts, “Save it. Not my first drunken indiscretion, and anyway, I don’t remember a bit of it.”
Cringing, Jim says, “Then I definitely owe you an apology.”
“Captain,” Spock pipes up, and Jim resists the urge to correct him. Not the time. “Are you under the impression that you, the doctor, and I had intercourse last night?”
Jim and McCoy both wince. Spock’s lost a lot of sense of decorum since his fal-tor-pan, and his propensity for bluntness is worse than ever.
“We did,” says Jim. “I wasn’t that drunk.”
Spock blinks. “Apparently, Captain, you were. You and I engaged in intercourse. Doctor McCoy only joined us afterwards. I believe his exact words were, ‘It is colder than a--’”
“‘--Witch’s tit in a brass bra!’” Jim exclaims. “See? I told you I remembered!”
“Spock, I think Jim’s right,” says Bones. “Otherwise, why’d I have to dig my underpants out of the bottom of your bedroll this morning?”
“You expressed distress at being the only one fully clothed, so you undressed from the waist down,” Spock explains, “and then Captain Kirk sang you an ancient Earth-song meant to put children to sleep.”
Bones’ face splits into a wide grin. “Lord almighty…” he chuckles.
“Now that I don’t remember,” Jim admits sheepishly, running a hand over the back of his neck and making a mental promise to himself to drink more moderately in the future. Desperate for a change of subject now that he’s sure their relationship isn’t in peril, he stands and says, “I’m gonna go for a climb. Anybody want to join me?”
“Hey,” Sulu says, catching Pavel by the arm. They had started their hike shortly after lunch, and had fallen silent over the last mile or so. He stops and turns to face Sulu, whose face is twisted with concern. “What I said back there in the tent...I don’t want you to think that I meant you need to change anything about your body if you don’t want to. The way it is...it’s great.”
“I know,” says Pavel, trying to suppress a smirk, but failing when Sulu grips his forearm tighter with relieved laughter.
“What was I thinking?” Sulu quips. “I can’t believe I actually thought a peacock like you might be self-conscious.”
Shaking his head, Pavel says, “Never!” and gives him a firm clap on the bicep. “You’re projecting, Mr. Sulu.”
The mood between them shifts as their eyes meet and their laughter fades. Pavel can almost feel it in the split-second before it happens -- Sulu’s hands slide up his arms, he leans in and only closes his eyes at the very last second before his lips touch Pavel’s. And then, they’re really kissing, no more hesitation, and Sulu’s pushing him up against the trunk of a tree, and Pavel’s gripping Sulu’s hips, pulling him closer.
When they finally pause for a breath, Sulu gasps, “Probably shouldn’t do this here.”
“Right,” Pavel nods. “Off the path,” and they head out into the woods, catching each other in clumsy kisses and tripping over uneven terrain.
In their hurry, they forget to keep track of where they left the trail.
“Reckless son of a...”
When Spock returns from collecting firewood, McCoy is looking through a pair of binoculars, in the general direction that Jim had set off some ten hours before. He rounds on him, gesturing back toward the mountain. “Are you seeing this? He just wedged himself between two great big rocks over a hundred-foot drop and shimmied his way up. Trying to get himself killed…”
Spock sits and considers it as McCoy resumes his vigil. “Physical activity,” he reasons, “When we were on Vulcan, my father noted his weight gain. It seemed to offend him.”
“What?!” McCoy snaps. “Well, if he dies trying to impress Sarek, I’m gonna take a trip to Vulcan and drop his smug ass off a cliff...Besides, I like him better fat.”
“Hm.” Since McCoy isn’t looking, Spock allows himself the smallest private smile. “His figure is most pleasant.”
McCoy tosses down the binoculars. “Damn right! A man his age needs a little meat on him.”
“Doctor?”
“Yeah?”
Spock hesitates. There’s so much he hasn’t learned to properly articulate. The knowledge that both of his bondmates always seem to understand what he means, no matter how clumsily or indirectly he expresses it, and the fact that McCoy has taken up the binoculars again, gives him the resolution to continue.
“A third wheel makes a steadier mechanism.”
McCoy appreciates the sentiment behind Spock’s statement, but the sight of Jim, inching out onto sheer rock with his bare hands, kills any response he might have come up with. “Oh, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph…”
“I will attempt to bring him down,” Spock says decisively. “Stay here and monitor his position.”
McCoy steals a quick glance to see that he’s pulling on a pair of levitation boots, the same pair that McCoy told Jim to wear, just in case he ended up in the very situation he’s in -- halfway up the side of a mountain and unsteady as all get-out.
“Spock!” McCoy calls out. “Do me a favor. If he looks like he’s going to fall...wait a second before you catch him, will you?”
Spock tilts his head in confusion. “Why would I do that?”
“To put the fear of God in him.”
McCoy doesn’t know how he ended up here, but he knows that, even with Jim pulling stupid stunts, and Spock’s infuriating indifference to them, there’s nowhere else he’d rather be.