Title: A Tear Worth Gold (#4, J ‘N B Series)
Author: klmeri
Fandom: Star Trek AOS
Characters: McCoy, Giotto, Kirk
Summary: Comment!fic written for a pair of pics at jim_and_bones, both Chris’ and Karl’s. Warning: Actor AU; inexperienced Giotto.
Previous Parts: Another Day, Another Dollar, and a Daily Show? | Fight the Good Fight | Don’t Touch the Rock

“A basket is a basket is a basket,” says one man.

His companion argues, “Nay! ‘Tis more than that, my friend. A basket is the craft of a man’s hands.”

“Woman—a woman’s hands.”

A pause. Then a sigh. “Damn, again?”

The dark-haired man with the wide-legged stance pinches the bridge of his nose. “I swear to God, Giotto, if you’d just learn your lines…”

Samuel Giotto drops his eyes to his boots and mutters to himself. His fellow actor—the better of the two of them, really—is Leonard McCoy. McCoy slides down from the railing he is perched on, taking care not to crush the basket between his legs.

“Want a water?” McCoy asks Giotto.

Sam nods, scratching the back of his head. He vacates the set for a side table to dig around for an extra script. Woman’s hands. Woman’s hands.

This is why he was cast as the somewhat slow dimwit of a friend, he thinks despairingly, rather than the male lead. And of course, because McCoy isn’t just good but great. He flicks his eyes in the direction McCoy had trailed and takes a moment to revel in his fanboy worship before tucking it away under a veneer of professionalism.

Then a loud, familiar voice curses. “God damn it!”

To say Sam freaks out and heads for the off-stage area at a run crying “Leonard? Leonard! What’s happened?” would be overly dramatic. He only panics on the inside, and there is nothing high-pitched about his manly call of “What is it, McCoy?”

McCoy is standing with his back to a door when Samuel arrives. The steady drumming of rain, which had been muffled by the roof beams and the extra set walls, is quite clear. He smells earth and something close to a faint odor of mildew. These old buildings. But it’s not like the acting company can afford better.

“McCoy?” questions Giotto hesitantly, curiously.

“It’s him,” says the famous actor grimly. More fiercely this time, “God DAMN it!”

Him?

Sam ushers McCoy aside and takes a peek out of the door because he can’t help himself (and he has always had little enough sense, he is told). A young, brightly grinning man is on the other side, standing in the rain and yet not unhappy about it.

“Hello,” he says to Samuel. “Is Bones there?”

McCoy is making frantic arm-waves of Say no! Nonono! in the corner of Sam’s eye.

“I don’t know of any Bones.”

The man’s smile grows. He singsongs, “Booones! Bones, I’ve been waiting out here all day!” Then, more petulantly, “It’s raining on me.”

McCoy jerks the door out of Sam’s grasp and opens it wide to glare at the blond-haired man. “GO. AWAY. YOU STALKER.”

Sam would be scared of that look in Leonard’s eyes, but somehow it still makes the actor more endearing. The stalker apparently thinks so too.

“Jim,” he tells them both. “My name’s Jim.” Jim leans against the doorframe. “I love you, Bones. Fuck, man, but I love you! You’re sooo awesome. Can I come in?” The last sentence is said with a boyish hopefulness.

McCoy tries to close the door. Jim wedges his foot in its way.

Sam is uncertain of how to handle this situation. He’s never had a stalker of his own. His acting is on par with a cat in a bathtub, he’s been told more than once. Oh but how cruel Director Pike is with words sometimes…

At that point, during Sam’s wandering train of thought, Jim has managed to stick an arm through the gap and latched onto the first thing—namely, Samuel’s shirt front. Sam gets the side of his face banged against the doorframe as Jim tugs on him repeatedly.

McCoy is resolutely still trying to close the door. The not-slight but well-toned actor has put his full weight against it and is obviously pushing for all he is worth.

Giotto, now caught in the middle, shouts, “Stop! OWW, FUCK! STOP IT!”

Surprisingly, both men stop. Sam staggers back, putting a hand to his abused face.

McCoy comes to his side and tilts his head into the overhead light. He is asked, ” Does it hurt bad? Shit, I’m sorry, Sam.”

Sam is rather distracted by the warm curl in his belly because Leonard Horatio McCoy is touching him. TOUCHING him. The stupid grin on his face must reassure the other man.

McCoy rounds on Jim, who has slipped through the door unimpeded. “You imbecile! Look what you did to Sam!”

Jim looks like he might scuff a shoe against the ground. His reply, however, is a bit heated. “You shoulda let me in, Bones.”

“Quit bothering me at work!”

“You’re the one who said we should share our dreams—”

“In last month’s play!” interrupts McCoy quite loudly, not letting Jim finish.

Sam puts a hand to his ear with a wince. He looks between Jim and Leonard. “Um, do you two… know each other?”

“We’re lovers,” Jim says proudly. “Though we’re quarrelling lovers at the moment.”

Samuel might have thought this was the delusion of an obsessed fan but after observing the red tint of McCoy’s face his hopes sink like a stone.

“Shut up, Jim, it was one time,” hisses McCoy. Then to Sam, “Never sleep with a fan.”

Jim crosses his arms, clearly nonplussed by this dismissal of his importance. “At your place. Then twice at mine, one-two-three times in the back of your car and, oh yeah, once on a bus bench. Should I keep going?”

Samuel turns away because if he cries in front of Leonard, he’ll be forever ashamed. Through deep breathing he is able to keep the tears of sadness at bay. Heartbreak makes a better actor, right? he thinks, covering up a sniffle.

Leonard is bickering in that lovely deep drawl of his, and Jim seems quite used to it. Figuring that this lovers’ spate is not his business—and Sam really, honestly doesn’t want to listen to it—he trails back to the abandoned stage.

Christine Chapel, the assistant on duty, is at the side table arranging an array of pastries. Pike will show up in another twenty minutes and then practice time will be over.

Christine takes one look at his morose face and offers him a bearclaw pastry. “Today will be fine, Sam, I promise. Pike’s always in a good mood on a Thursday.”

Stuffing the bearclaw in his mouth prevents him from explaining the true nature of his woes. Sam accepts the pat on his back as best he can and puts on his brave actor’s face.

Pike criticizes his forgetfulness and his untimely delivery of the lines per usual during the “basket” scene; but later when Sam falls to his knees after learning of his sweetheart’s betrayal and feels the truth of the part is he playing, when he breaks down without reserve… well, even the hard-ass director is moved enough by Samuel’s unadulterated anguish.

Giotto enjoys his first true applause from his colleagues, wipes his face free of tears, and thinks he will survive his life after all.

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Related Posts:

• A Rose By Any Other Name – from April 9, 2011
• Another Day, Another Dollar, Part 2 (#5, J ‘N B Series) – from September 9, 2011
• Another Day, Another Dollar, and a Daily Show? (#1, J ‘N B Series) – from July 26, 2011