Title: In the Keeping of a Spirit (#12, J ‘N B Series)
Author: klmeri
Fandom: Star Trek AOS
Pairings: Kirk/McCoy
Warnings: If you are afraid of the paranormal, do not read.
Summary: Comment!fic written for this pic post at jim_and_bones; a crack fic turned frightening. Bones is trying to cope with an unwanted presence in his life.
Previous Parts: Another Day, Another Dollar, and a Daily Show? | Fight the Good Fight | Don’t Touch the Rock | A Tear Worth Gold | Another Day, Another Dollar, Part 2 | Pirates Read Too | The Case of the Mondays | Today’s Topic – Helmets! | The Case of the Mondays, Part 2 | Marked | Awesome Ideas Come from Awesome Brains

Leonard buries Grandfather Tiberius’ soul in the attic. He puts it deep in a cardboard box full of mothballs and discarded clothes, but it refuses to stay there. This is when he begins to realize there may be no way to win against a man who is long dead.

He is making his usual morning cup of coffee when Jim comes into the kitchen, papers in hand and wearing a dark blue cardigan. Leonard freezes, unaware the coffee is now spreading over the kitchen counter rather than into his mug.

Jim says sharply, “Bones! Hey!”

Leonard jumps back and discards the half-empty coffeepot in the drain board.

His lover grabs a dish towel and tries to staunch the waterfall of dark liquid flowing onto the tiled floor. Jim is smiling, amused. “Wow, I must look extra hot today if you forgot about your coffee.”

In brown loafers and a button-up cardigan from at least a century ago? Hardly.

Then again, Leonard will admit Jim usually appeals to him wearing almost anything, be it leather pants or sleeping pajamas with feet. That’s the upside of being in-love.

He turns his mind to the more pressing matter. “Where did you get that cardigan?”

The question earns him a strange look. Jim wrings the dish towel over the sink as he says, “Where I usually get it… from my closet.” The man pats his hands dry on his pants then lovingly strokes the corded pattern of the cardigan.

It’s all Leonard can do not to rip the evil thing off Jim and try to shove it down the garbage disposal. He mutters instead, despite knowing his suggestion is a lost cause, “I think your brown jacket would match better.”

Jim kisses Leonard on the mouth and scoots around him, re-collecting his armful of papers. “I’m going to be late. See you for dinner?”

He nods slightly.

At the sound of the front door opening and closing, McCoy sags against the kitchen counter. He pays no mind to the possibility that a few remaining drops of spilled coffee might be staining the back of his nightshirt. There’s nothing else he can try except outside help. Maybe this time… He sighs, strides over to the phone on the wall, and calls the number of the expert his pastor had given him.

Jim is expecting to find only Leonard and a table set for two. Leonard had thought it best not to warn him in advance but now he feels slightly guilty as he watches Jim slowly drop a set of car keys into a decorative bowl on a side table and hesitate to enter the living room.

Leonard steps forward to assure him, “Hey, Jim, I’m glad you’re home. This is—”

The stranger on the couch rises.

“—Mr. Spock.”

Jim nods to Mr. Spock with a polite “Hello.”

Mr. Spock inclines his head. “Greetings, Mr. Kirk.” The stranger says nothing more, looking to Leonard to explain the situation.

This is the hard part. “Jim…” he begins, squashing down nervousness. There is no good way to say what needs to be said, and Leonard is awful with words on a good day. He blurts out, “Mr. Spock is an exorcist.”

He puts a hand to his face and murmurs “Oh God” when Jim says, floored, “What?“

Now Jim moves fully into the room, crowding close to McCoy. “Bones, what’s going on?” His wide-eyed gaze travels over to the tall, silent man in the dark overcoat, occupying their living room like a shadow. “We have a—a poltergeist?”

Leonard makes a noise in the back of his throat (since he’d been specifically skirting around that word) and gestures feebly at Jim.

Jim looks down at himself. “Me?”

Leonard shakes his head, mute.

“I assume the item in question is the cardigan Mr. Kirk is currently wearing. Am I correct, Mr. McCoy?” interjects a flat, professional voice.

Leonard cannot decide which is worse: moving in the direction of the unnerving Mr. Spock (though Leonard is the one who begged him to solve the problem) or sidling next to Jim but within the reach of the cardigan. It looks pleasant enough on Jim but…

“Jim, will you let Mr. Spock look at it?”

Kirk’s head swivels back and forth between McCoy and Mr. Spock, mouth gaping. “Bones, it—it’s a sweater!” He places his hand protectively over his middle. “My grandfather’s sweater!”

Leonard pleads, “Please take it off, Jim,” at the same time Mr. Spock explains, “The cardigan is haunted.”

Jim grabs Leonard’s hand and backs away, tugging McCoy with him. “Bones, I don’t know what this guy told you or—or how he even got in—”

“The cardigan is harboring the spirit of your deceased grandfather.”

“—but we’ll call the police!” threatens Kirk at Mr. Spock. He takes a stance in front of Leonard. “Run, Bones, and call the police!”

Mr. Spock the shadow remains, unmoved.

Leonard steels himself and places a calming hand on Jim’s shoulder (on the cardigan—God, it’s mocking, he knows it) and says, “Jim, I called Mr. Spock and asked him to help us. You don’t understand.”

“Why would you do that?” Jim switches from defensive to almost betrayed.

“I did it for you!” Leonard cries. “Jim, please, that thing—it’s changin’ you!”

“No,” denies his lover. “It’s a family heirloom—the only thing I have left of Gramps! Bones, you’re crazy—”

“I am not!” he insists hotly, struck by the accusation. He is not crazy. He is working hard every day not to go crazy. “I’ve tried seven times, SEVEN TIMES, to get rid of that thing and it never goes away! Hell, I even thought I might have been too harsh when I donated it to Goodwill—”

Jim’s expression turns to horror.

“—so I tried to give your grandpa a decent place in the attic. His old hunter’s cap was up there! Why couldn’t the damned thing have been happy with that?”

“Gentlemen,” Mr. Spock tries to interrupt.

Jim squares off against Leonard and demands, “What else did you do to my Tiberius?!”

Leonard crosses his arms. “Do you see, Jim? You gave it a name!” He says to the exorcist, “And that’s not the worst of it. Do you know Jim’s eyes used to be brown?”

Jim blinks his vividly blue eyes.

“And sometimes at night I wake up to find him staring out the window in that ratty thing. If I ask him what he’s doing, he’ll start talking about the Blitz from fucking WORLD WAR II!”

“Bones,” whispers Jim, pale.

Leonard puts a hand over his eyes and drags in a breath. “I’m sorry but I can’t take it anymore. I want my Jim back.”

“Bones, it’s okay, I’m right here.” Jim reaches for him but Leonard cannot bear to be touched by the body encased in it.

A kettle shrills like a siren in the background.

Tea. Oh, he’d forgotten about Mr. Spock’s tea.

He wipes at his eyes, half-whispering to the man he hopes can save them all, “Please. Get him back for me.” His hands make a helpless gesture. Mr. Spock nods solemnly, and that nod relieves some of the terrible pressure weighing on McCoy. He straightens up and tells both men, “I’ll get us something to drink.”

“Thank you, Mr. McCoy. I will—converse a moment with Mr. Kirk, if that is acceptable.”

He looks Mr. Spock in the eyes. “All right but remember what I told you.”

The man nods again.

Jim stands wordless and wane in the lamplight of the room. His head is bowed.

Leonard retreats, needing time to get himself in hand for the task to come. Jim may seem defeated but Mr. Spock had said earlier that the spirit, even seemingly benign, will resist letting go of its hold on the living. Leonard knows, quite well, how true this is.

The large house seems emptier than usual, darker—too dark—now that the sun has set. A bulb in the hallway flickers. He should check it, make sure it isn’t loose, he thinks.

Leonard prepares four cups of steaming tea because he accidentally ruins one of them. His hands won’t stop shaking. He is about to lift the tray bearing the cups and a side dish of crackers when a loud crash echoes like a gunshot through the house.

His heart almost stops.

“Jim?”

Silence.

His muscles don’t want to loosen up but he leaves the kitchen anyway, pulled as always by the invisible tether of his caring. He still worries for his Jim. Still. Because he cannot stop loving him.

Jim is standing at the end of the hall with his shirt rumpled and stained.

“Jim?” Leonard repeats, approaching him. “Is something wrong?”

It’s the look on Jim’s face that halts him halfway down the hall. A long, awful moment passes before Leonard accepts that the stains on Jim’s shirt are too wet, too bright to be anything but blood.

“Bones.” Jim’s fingers are worrying the end of cardigan’s sleeves, leaving red smears on the fabric. “Bones, I can’t give it up.”

Leonard’s ears are buzzing. He sways, plants a hand against the wall to keep upright. “Oh God…” He moans, sinking to his knees beside the wall, and puts his hands over his face.

Jim won’t remember this in the morning. He never does.

Leonard will painstakingly scrub the stains out of the cardigan and dig another grave in the backyard by moonlight. He would throw the damned cardigan in with the body but he’s tried that before. Jim will be wearing it in the morning again, regardless.

Kirk—Tiberius—drifts past him to the kitchen, saying, “Did I hear the kettle? A cup of tea would be nice. Didn’t have that on the battlefield, only what the Germans kept in jars.”

Leonard shudders and gives no reply. Overhead, the flickering light bulb dies out, sending the hallway into darkness.

-Fini

The Case of the Mondays, Part 3

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• Another Day, Another Dollar, Part 4 (#40, J ‘N B Series) (40/40) – from March 29, 2013
• The Light In Which We’re Cast (#39, J ‘N B Series) – from March 20, 2013
• Playing Life to Win (#38, J ‘N B Series) – from March 14, 2013
• An Intergalactic Fandom (#37, J ‘N B Series) – from January 15, 2013
• We Fight to Win (#36, J ‘N B Series) – from January 4, 2013