Title: The Case of the Mondays, Part 5 (#15, J ‘N B Series)
Author: klmeri
Fandom: Star Trek AOS
Pairing: Kirk/McCoy
Summary: Comment!fic inspired by this pic post; PI!Bones/Cop!Jim ‘verse is back again. The couple’s fighting is the aftermath of a more sinister plot.
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 | In the Keeping of a Spirit | The Case of the Mondays, Part 3 | The Case of the Mondays, Part 4

“Whoa,” half-warns a young cop to one of his buddies as he scuttles around a paperwork-laden desk in obvious fleeing haste. “Red alert.”

(Somebody whimpers in response that Mondays ought to be a statistically relevant factor in office homicides.)

On the heels of his statement is the tell-tale, laser-blue gaze of their captain and his aura of crackling dark energy which slams into the work area of the precinct and nearly rattles the windows with a force known as Kirkian anger. Some of the men slink down into their chairs praying they go unnoticed; a few others carefully return the just-pilfered (and partly eaten) donuts to the donut box, hoping it might be an acceptable peace offering should Kirk look to them with that murderous gleam in his eyes. Only one person does not seem overly frightened; perhaps this is why Kirk veers straight for the man’s desk, fists clenching and unclenching, as he bites out, “Sulu.“

Sulu, for his part, simply leans back in his chair and props one of his polished boots on the edge of his desk. “Boss,” Sulu returns, innumerably calm. He proceeds to give the captain an abbreviated run-down of last night’s catch currently in-process and, of those, who is still sitting in jail in the other part of the complex.

Sulu’s report helps Kirk restrain the wilder part of his temper and focus on work. It definitely keeps him from retaliating in a very un-captain-like manner to Frank’s snide comment along the lines of “musta had another fight with the missus.” Nobody laughs at that joke, though, except Frank—whose laughter is short-lived when he realizes he is alone in his mockery.

Once Sulu finishes, Kirk gives a curt nod and heads for his office, shutting the door with enough gusto to warn off anyone from approaching him before lunch time.

In his office and away from the eyes of his team, however, he braces himself against his desk, hands white-knuckled on the wood, and tries to maintain control. He fails miserably, as is evidenced by the random object he grabs without looking and shatters against the wall of his office in a rapid-fire throw. He realizes belatedly, staring at the mess on the floor, the random object is in fact one of his most precious.

Bones’ sour face returns his stare from beneath the cracked glass of a framed newspaper clipping. In the picture, McCoy, suffering an interview by the press, grips a microphone like he wants to brain the reporter with it instead of answering her nosy questions. That particular night of thwarted art-thief-catching, Kirk had claimed he had captain-ly things to do and abandoned the P.I. to the mercy of the news station. Or perhaps it is more accurate to say he abandoned the news station to the mercy of Bones; the resulting explosion (oh those poor, poor reporters) had been fun to watch from the sidelines, which is why he saved the clipping—so he would never forget how awesome Leonard McCoy is.

Jim shudders, slides almost clumsily around his desk, and drops into the hard, old leather of a chair. He closes his eyes and tries not to remember the look of betrayal on his lover’s face.

How can he fix this?

Jim breathes noisily through his nose.

He won’t fix it because if he tries, something bad is going to happen to Bones. That Kirk knows, feels in his gut with every fiber of his being.

Jim opens his eyes and leans forward, crossing his arms over a two-year old desktop calendar, and stares unblinkingly at his office door.

The game has changed. He doesn’t know why, but it has—and he hadn’t even had an inkling the change was coming.

What the fuck does Spock think he is doing?

Jim’s bitten fingernails unconsciously dig into the soft flesh of his arms.

Wrong question, Kirk, he thinks. Why is Spock doing what he is doing?

Why—the—fuck—is Spock trying to kidnap Bones?

It makes Jim cold inside to think of it; Bones would have been kidnapped if not for Jim’s discovery of his missing wallet last Thursday morning (he didn’t remember removing it from his jacket but maybe Bones had). Cursing his stupid luck, he had returned to the apartment he shares with Bones at the perfect moment to catch two thugs breaking in.

Suffice to say, by the time Bones had stepped out of the shower, surprised and bare-chested, to the scene of his boyfriend beating in some random person’s face (the other random thug was already laid out in the open doorway of the apartment and, behind his prone body, neighbors looked on in horror) Jim had foiled whatever nefarious scheme the two men were planning. Later, grilled by himself and Sulu, the bastards had talked—one of them cried like a baby under Sulu’s narrow-eyed, frightening samurai stare while confessing, “…I don’t know nothing, I swear, he just said to be there at 8:04 and get in the apartment and…”—and their orders were to steal Bones.

Steal Bones.

His Bones. The man Jim can’t imagine living without.

Jim doesn’t know what to think about Spock now. They have had a kind of weird cop-and-criminal camaraderie going; at least, that was the only way Kirk could classify their relationship and have it make sense. In truth chasing after Spock keeps him sane most days. It’s like they have been playing a game of chess at every turn, making a show of their abilities to best the other, yet never crossing that invisible line that puts either of them into an unforgivable position. Until now.

Spock isn’t satisfied with a simple game anymore, it seems, and somehow Bones became a third player when Jim wasn’t paying attention.

Though the thief loves to incite McCoy’s wrath and to taunt him, McCoy has always been referred to as the “slightly lacking investigative trainee.” Spock never seemed overly interested in Leonard McCoy except as a criticism of Kirk’s taste in sidekicks. Which, per usual, followed along the vein of Spock’s criticism of Kirk and the police force in general.

He missed something crucial. Either Spock hinted at it (as the art thief is wont to do) and Jim was blind to the hint; or Spock purposefully said nothing, and that means Jim doesn’t understand the man like he thought he did. Kirk isn’t certain which scenario is worse.

He makes a noise of frustration and slams the open palm of one hand down onto the flat surface of the desk. A precariously stacked tower of manila folders wavers with the aftershock of the blow but does not topple over. With a grimace, the captain nudges the tower farther away from the edge of his desk; but otherwise he ignores the reports waiting to be reviewed and approved.

Bones will be in his office by now, drinking a cup of coffee and ordering his assistant/secretary to answer the phone and make more coffee. Ever since Jim set up a pair of cops on surveillance detail outside of McCoy’s office building, Bones has called in every morning to complain of being followed by Jim’s idiot lackeys and to object, if only half-heartedly, to Jim trying to keep him safe (which Jim only trusts his men to do when Jim can’t be around to see to McCoy’s well-being personally).

Bones won’t call this morning, not after their fight.

Jim had told McCoy point-blank he can’t work the Spock case again. It’s too dangerous.

McCoy’s face had been disbelieving at first; then, when Leonard realized Jim wasn’t joking, he had simply said nothing at all and walked out on their traditional morning breakfast.

Jim knew the fallout wasn’t going to be pretty but he hadn’t been expecting no fallout. That means Bones seriously hates him right now. A Bones who doesn’t yell or rant his anger is a Bones Jim fears most.

Yet he still thinks he couldn’t have made any other choice. Above all else, Leonard’s safety matters, even at the expense of Jim’s heart.

Jim decides he is going to kill Spock for multiple reasons:

1. Wanting to take Bones away from him.

2. Fucking up his happiest relationship in decades.

3. Not having the common decency, if Spock has decided to play hardball, to go directly after Kirk.

If this were some superhero comic, he would meet Spock on the rooftop of the highest building and challenge him to a fight. So, barring the fact Jim Kirk isn’t Batman and Spock is definitely not the Joker…

(Wait, his brain sidetracks, does that make Bones Robin? Damn, if they were on speaking terms, he would call Bones to tease him about this fantasy and probably receive a wonderful threat involving his genitals in return.)

…why can’t he issue a man-to-man challenge to Spock?

His eyes light up with an idea.

The underling brave enough to dare knocking on his office door right before lunch is the newest rookie Pavel Chekov. Pavel only blinks at his captain in innocence (kid’s got the face of a cherub, Jim thinks absently, the street hookers’ll eat him alive) as Kirk snaps out, “What is it, Chekov?”

“A fax, sir,” says the young man. He doesn’t move away from Jim’s desk after he places the fax into the overflowing inbox. Instead, Chekov looks at the litter of crumpled paper around the floor and proceeds to curiously watch Jim scratch away on a sheet of notebook paper.

Kirk eventually realizes, caught up in his self-appointed task, that the rookie is still in the room. He lays down his fountain pen and too casually blocks the view of the note with his arm. “What else?” he asks, straining not to be annoyed at the interruption.

Pavel’s words bely the slightly vacuous expression on his face. “I think, sir, the vord ‘treacherous’ is spelled incorrectly.”

Kirk takes a peek at the note and curses. Grinding his teeth, he rips the page out of the notebook, balls it up and tosses it haphazardly over his shoulder before painstakingly starting over.

The last thing he wants to do is amuse Spock. A dueling invitation is fucking difficult enough to write without the fact his spelling skills are on par with a kindergartener’s.

“Thank you, Chekov,” he says, irritated. Then, unnecessarily sharp, “Dismissed.”

The lanky young man shrugs and murmurs something in Russian. “I put fax in box,” the rookie reminds him, accent heavy, before leaving.

With a long-suffering roll of his eyes, Kirk flings his pen to the side and grabs for the fax. It could be from Pike, since the guy is technologically thirty years behind everybody else (email makes Pike reach for a gun), which means his ass is in the fire if he ignores a missive from the man behind his quick promotions through the precinct.

He glances over it, brain still mostly invested in his macho meet with me so I can kick your trecherose treacherous ass challenge to Spock, and only after a few seconds does his eyes catch on the fluid signature at the bottom.

He re-reads the note again, this time silently shaping the words with his mouth. It says:

Kirk,

Spock

It is a long time before Jim’s numb brain can function properly again. When he is able to think, he spends the next twenty minutes un-crumpling every discarded note and methodically feeding them to the shredder. As he shreds, he turns over nuggets of information in his mind and fits them together like a puzzle.

Spock is too clever for his own good, and Jim shouldn’t have thought otherwise.

Kirk tugs on his jacket and grabs a scarf to wind about his neck, thinking of just how fucking clever the art thief is. Intentions, huh?

Warning or not, game or not, Jim will never let Spock think he can simply take McCoy away, or effectively ruin Jim’s happiness. The criminal will learn what it is to fear James Kirk if he actually attempts either of those things rather than playacting.

A determined Kirk vacates his office, intent on hunting down McCoy, begging forgiveness, and conceding some ground that Bones can still work with him to capture Spock. Then, tonight at the Clockhouse, he’ll negotiate those ragtag ‘pursuits’ with Spock.

And somehow, some way, he will find out why Spock wants McCoy and what he has to do in order to prevent Spock from succeeding.

He bumps into the rookie loitering in the hallway on his way out of the precinct. In the mood to forgive the young man for not working (or at least not pretending to look like he is working), he claps Chekov’s shoulder in passing and says, “Thanks for the fax, Pavel.”

It was more important than you know, he thinks but doesn’t add.

The sweet-faced man bobs his head with an earnest “Yes, sir! You are velcome, sir.”

Because Jim is already moving away, back turned and stride full of purpose to get to Bones, he hears a faint muttering in Russian (thinks of it as something he will have to get used to, like he got used to Sulu’s penchant for sharp switch-blades) but does not see the tiny, knowing quirk of mouth that accompanies it.

If he had, he would not have understood that quirk anyway. Spock is, after all, much too clever, and Jim Kirk has yet to discover just how deep his enemy’s cleverness goes.

-Fini

Forewarned is Forearmed

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• 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
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