Title: Sticks and Stones (2/?)
Author: klmeri
Fandom: Star Trek AOS
Pairing: Kirk/Spock/McCoy
Summary: Sequel to Many Bells Down; Riverside ‘verse AU. Khan is hell-bent on destroying everything and everyone James Kirk cares about until Jim surrenders the most important person of all—himself.
Previous Part: 1

Part One

One month ago…

“What do you mean he tore it down?”

Leonard’s eyes pinch at the corners, and his grim expression does not change as he studies Jim’s white face. “Jim, what I mean is there’s a big hole where the shop used to be.”

Jim pales further. Because his legs suddenly feel unsteady he slides into the booth across from McCoy. “Bones,” he says, drawing his shoulders in tightly, “what about Mrs. Giotto?”

“Khan obviously bought her out same as everybody else. Christine and I were on our way to lunch when I saw the bulldozers.” Leonard plays with his napkin. “I thought you should know,” he adds after a moment. “I’m sorry, Jim.”

Jim rubs the back of his hand against his mouth and turns to look out the diner window. The parking lot is occupied by only four vehicles: Sulu’s car, Winona’s truck, Jim’s bike, and the sedan belonging to the mother with the two kids in the booth along the back wall. The Enterprise hasn’t seen this poor of a lunch crowd in—well, never, Jim thinks. Khan is doing more than ripping out the stores of Riverside. He wonders if the townspeople are afraid of what the Kirks are trying to do or afraid of what Khan will do to them if they make a show of support for ending Khan’s massive “revitalization” of Riverside. Either way, his mother won’t be able to keep the Enterprise’s doors open much longer if she has no business.

“How did things get so messed up, Bones?”

There is bite to Bones’ voice when he replies, “If you believe you’re at fault here, kid, you can damn well toss those thoughts out the window. Khan is intent on absorbing us into his empire, and no one is to blame for that except Khan.”

Jim loves Bones, he really does. He points out, however, “I did mess things up for you, though.”

Leonard pinches his arm.

Jim gasps and cradles his injured limb, not quite gaping at his boyfriend. “What did I do?” he demands, poking out his bottom lip.

Leonard savors a sip of coffee before saying rather mildly, “I saw Nyota do that once when you were being an idiot. Always wanted to try it.” He is not quite grinning.

Jim sinks further into the booth, making a point of keeping his arms as far away from McCoy as possible. “Uhura takes unusual pleasure in hurting me, Bones. You’re supposed to love me.”

Bones is obviously not going to deign his comment with a response. Instead Jim is scolded, “How, exactly, did you ruin my life, Jim?”

Jim tugs at his bottom lip. “You’d be heading up Khan’s research facility if I hadn’t—Bones, what are you doing?”

“Beating my head on the table.”

“Well stop it,” Jim says, annoyed. “People are staring.”

“Sulu’s staring, and he knows I’m crazy anyway.” But Bones lifts his head and cradles it between his hands. “Sometimes,” the dark-haired man mutters, “I think I really am crazy and this is all one long-ass, complicated dream—or somebody’s horrible version of an entertaining story.”

Jim has abandoned his side of the booth to sit next to McCoy. He softly knocks their shoulders together. “Guess what, Bones?”

“What?” deadpans the doctor.

“I’d probably love you even if you were certifiable.”

Leonard looks up and considers Jim’s innocent face. “You think that’s a compliment, don’t you?”

Jim leans in and steals a kiss then grins.

Bones rolls his eyes and shoves Jim out of the booth. He waves his hand in Sulu’s direction. “Can we get some pie over here?”

Sulu, who is a chef and not a serving boy, narrows his eyes from the kitchen window. Nevertheless, Pavel comes out of the kitchen a minute later with two slices of pie. Except the kitchen boy doesn’t leave once he puts down their plates but scoots into the booth next to Jim, his cheery face alight, and says, “Hikaru said I should tell you my story! He has heard it many times already.”

“What kind of story is it?” Leonard asks suspiciously.

“It is about my father’s mother’s mother.”

“And?” prompts the man, still suspicious.

Jim concentrates on putting pie in his mouth so he doesn’t laugh.

Pavel’s eyes grow round as he talks. “She is a, mmm, how do you say—a specter! Vhen I vas a boy, she vould join us at night for supper…”

Leonard’s pie goes untouched. “You had dinner with a dead body at the table?”

“No! No no no, Dr. McCoy, she vas a ghost…”

Leonard closes his eyes briefly. “This is one of those Russian things, isn’t it?”

Pavel rocks forward with the anticipation of story-telling. “Da! In Russia—”

Jim’s hand sneaks out to take a spoonful of Leonard’s slice of pie in the moment of distraction. He almost has the spoon to his mouth when a fork appears threateningly in his line of vision—and much too near to his gorgeous blue eyes for his liking. He uncrosses his eyes but the fork never wavers.

Leonard’s free hand wraps its fingers around Jim’s wrist. “That’s mine.”

Jim looks at the fork first, then at the spoonful of pie (so close, oh god, so close and it’s chocolate creme pie), then at Bones. With a dramatic sigh, he releases the spoon and it lands upside down on the table. Leonard draws back with a “Goddamn it, Jim, that’s wasting good pie!”

Jim shrugs like he doesn’t care. “So I guess you don’t want it now?”

At Leonard’s disgusted look, he cannot help but grin as he meticulously scrapes the chocolate pie off the tabletop with the spoon and eats it. Across from Kirk, Leonard is going on about deadly bacteria and disease, and Pavel is at the part of the tale where the original Ouija board was invented in Russia. The only thing missing, Jim decides as he licks the spoon clean, is Spock drinking his tea and ignoring them all.

Forget going back to Jose’s. He can return Bones to the clinic then seek out Spock. He doubts the workaholic has had lunch anyway, and Jim is never opposed to a second meal. Pleased to have a plan (though it may require some groveling to Jose later), Jim gives his boyfriend a very woeful look until they are sharing the rest of that slice of pie.

At some point Leonard says, “Thanks, Pavel, that was a great story.”

The kitchen boy beams at his audience. “Da.” Then, “Hikaru said you vould also vant to hear—”

“I’m going to kill Sulu,” McCoy says darkly, jabbing his fork in the direction of the kitchen.

Jim squeezes Leonard’s arm in sympathy but turns a smile upon his friend. “It’s fine, Pavel. We have plenty of time.”

Bones’ moment of stubbornness passes into resignation then, and he murmurs with a sigh, “All right. Hit us with it.” The look he cuts to Jim says please explain again why am I playing nice.

Jim mouths back silently, Love you, Bones.

Leonard gives him a soft look and returns his attention to Pavel.

Jim lets himself into Spock’s house only to find it empty.

“Spock?”

Bo Peep greets him by rubbing herself against his legs as he walks out onto the patio.

“Hey there, kitty. I guess you like me today, huh?” Jim says as he bends down to pick her up.

She leaps away and gives him a wary look.

“Or not,” he concludes.

Spock isn’t on the patio or in his study or in a bedroom. Jim ignores his second shadow (in the form of a small tabby) that makes plaintive mew-mew‘s. He peeks into the garage to check again that Spock’s Corvette is indeed parked there. Bemused, Jim sits at the kitchen table.

Bo Peep head-butts his boot.

He tries to pet her head. She bites him.

“Bad cat,” he scolds, eyeing his bleeding finger. With a sigh, Jim drops a set of keys onto the table while searching for a napkin in his jacket pockets. Finding none, he gets up and grabs a paper towel; then he proceeds to wash his hands because, as Bones would say, who knows what kind of germs Bo Peep is carrying? He tells her this while he searches the kitchen for a band-aid:

“I don’t need rabies, thanks very much. And I am going to tell Spock you bit me. He’s going to be soooo mad at you.” Which is untrue. Spock will likely ask what it is Jim did to instigate the attack.

Bo Peep’s contemptuous silence is no doubt something she learned from her owner.

Jim rolls his eyes. “Whatever, Bo Peep. You just tell Spock I was here, ‘k?” Sporting a band-aid painted with yellow ducklings (Joanna had thought they were cute, so why couldn’t she have taken them back to Georgia with her?), he puts the antibiotic ointment back in a drawer and throws away the used paper towel. When Jim turns back to the kitchen table, it is to discover Bo Peep perched at its edge; her eyes are slit and her tail swishes from side to side as she watches him. But barring the cat, the table is clutter-less. His keys are missing.

“What the hell?” They were right there! Jim pushes back a chair in stupefaction and searches under the table. Not only can he NOT start his motorcycle, but he can’t get in his apartment if he doesn’t have his keys!

An orange furry head appears upside down from over the edge of the table.

Jim glares at Bo Peep’s tiny, pointed, devious face. He demands, “What happened to my keys?”

Bo Peep inquires mew? Her tail, which seems to have a life of its own, waves at him lazily in the air.

“I have to go back to work!”

Mew mew?

“Yes, ‘oh really!'”

When he tries to lift Bo Peep up to see if she is roosting on his keys, she latches onto his chest with a protesting shriek. They then have a brief contest to see who can yowl the loudest.

For every claw of Bo Peep’s Jim un-pries from his clothes, another three claws dig into his skin. The cat tries to climb onto his shoulder; but she isn’t a kitten anymore, or a lightweight because Spock feeds her too much tuna. Her belly ends up in his face and her fur up his nose. Jim stumbles back into a chair, tries to sit down, and misses the furniture entirely. Luckily for Bo Peep, he breaks her fall. She scoots away the moment his head connects with the linoleum.

Jim lies dazed on Spock’s kitchen floor for some time. Eventually he decides to get up, a decision which is mostly the result of Bo Peep using his chest for her newest perch. She kneads his stomach and is, incredibly, purring.

As he rolls over and sits up, he spies his missing keys in a far corner of the kitchen. Considering their distance from the table, he can only conclude they got up and walked away while he was bandaging his finger. Bo Peep increases the volume of her purring until she sounds like a motorboat engine. Jim, nonplussed with the feline, forgoes dealing with her and pockets his keys.

It’s not his fault she runs out the front door the second he opens it.

But that is definitely not how Spock would view it when Jim explains why he lost Bo Peep. Cursing his life (apparently a life ruled by a cat) and spewing a litany of fuck fuck fuck, he sprints after her. It takes an entire minute before he realizes she is faster than he is and if he runs east, she runs west. If he runs north, she runs south. They are wearing paths into the neatly clipped grass of Spock’s front lawn.

Jim freezes in place, hoping against hope she will come to him if he doesn’t chase her. “Here, kitty, kitty, kitty,” he beckons. “C’mere, Bo Peep. Jimmy promises to pet you lots and lots and buy you a goldfish…” Shit, does he have time to run back in the house and find a can of tuna?

Bo Peep twines around the post of the mailbox at the end of the driveway and mews at him. Then she becomes disinterested with Jim altogether and more interested in the road. She crouches where lawn meets pavement, her stance wiggling in a way which usually means she wants to pounce something.

Fate is against Jim. Always. There comes the sound of a car turning onto the end of the street, stereo blaring and an engine revved. Jim is certain his blood pressure just skyrocketed to dangerous levels. He does the only thing which makes sense. He runs into the middle of the road to flag down the driver before Bo Peep does the worst thing possible—she would, just to give him a heart attack—and winds up dead.

Then Spock’s heart would shatter into a million little un-patchable pieces, and Jim would hate himself forever.

Between his “DON’T HIT MY CAT!” and the squeal of brakes, Bo Peep startles and dashes across the yard back onto the porch.

It isn’t Jim who yells “Jesus fucking CHRIST!” as a pink Cadillac goes veering into a neighbor’s yard. Jim sucks in a breath, puts a hand to his chest (where his heart is hammering), and sways in relief.

The man who crawls out of the Cadillac convertible looks as shaken as he does, if not more so. “You crazy kid! You can’t jump in front of cars like that!” Harry Mudd hustles toward Jim, still talking. “I almost hit you! I—KIRK? ” The lawyer moans. “Oh god, I almost ran over James Kirk.”

Mudd staggers.

Jim props him up against the car and pulls the key out of the ignition. “Are you going to faint?” he asks, circling around the car back to Mudd.

“Jamey boy, don’t mock me.” Mudd laughs shortly (not-quite hysterically) as he mops at his face with a handkerchief. “Dear Lord, I might have known it was you! You always cause me trouble in the most frightful of ways.”

The accusation stings. “Don’t blame me, Mudd,” he snaps. “You’re the one driving too fast in a neighborhood. Kids play out here, man. And,” he adds coldly, “you almost ran over my cat.”

Mudd takes off his sunglasses and blinks owlishly at Jim. “Cat, you say? I don’t see any cat.”

“She’s—” disappeared into the house. “Never mind. Just… fucking watch the road.”

“And I could say don’t jump in it,” counters the lawyer. “If my car is damaged, you’ll be hearing from me.”

“Your Barbie mobile is fine.” Jim gives the man his best shit-eating grin. “Though don’t you think it’s time you traded it in for a real car?”

“Funny, Kirk,” Mudd snorts, slicking his disheveled hair back into place with a comb, “oh so funny.” As the man opens his car door, he calls to Jim over his shoulder, “I have heard your Mr. Spock is hard-up since he lost his job with that fancy law firm but do remind him I don’t like poachers.”

Jim’s blood sings angrily through his veins. “Spock’s poaching jack-shit and you know it! Not everybody wants to be represented by a cheat, Mudd!”

Jim dances back as the Cadillac comes at him in reverse. Then Mudd swerves fully onto the street and roars away, leaving Jim with a face full of exhaust fumes. Jim coughs and flips off the Cadillac’s driver.

In the house, Bo Peep is contrite enough that she doesn’t knock over the soap dish while Jim washes his face and hands in the bathroom and sits sweetly on his lap for a full minute once he collapses onto the couch. Calling Jose is easy; explaining to Jose why he felt he had to play hookie—and why he now legitimately wants the rest of the day off—proves much more difficult. Jose is usually okay with Jim pulling a Houdini once and a while (it’s part of an unspoken contract between them, because Jim can only work consistent hours if he feels he has some measure of freedom—like a random day off); today however the man is apparently in the worst mood of all time.

Jim and Bo Peep listen to the garble of rude Spanish coming out of the phone receiver for some minutes before he puts the phone back to his ear. Bo Peep, bored again, decides walking along the top of the couch is more prudent than the floor.

“Yeah, yeah, I know about the Fosters’ van. I promise I’ll come in an hour early tomorrow morning and we can—what? No, that’s not even fucking dawn, Jose!” Something sharp pricks his skull. “Hold on—DAMN IT, BO PEEP, would you fucking stop already!” She is kneading the top of his head like it’s a scratching post.

Where the hell is Spock? Jim thinks. Bo Peep is obviously going to make him suffer until her favorite person comes home.

Caught between the irate boss and the annoying cat, Jim gives up. “All right, man, see you at five in the morning!” He hangs up, tosses the cordless phone into a nearby recliner, and cranes his head around to look at his boyfriend’s cat. “You owe me, Bo Peep.”

Mew.

She lets him scratch her under the chin for five seconds before she jumps off the couch and out of his line of vision. Jim sighs, stretches out long-ways on the couch after removing his boots, and closes his eyes.

All he wanted to do today is relax.

Everywhere he goes is Khan. Khan buying out the strip mall across from the diner, eating away at the ratio of Khan-owned shops/non-Khan-owned shops. Khan bulldozing the consignment shop where Jim got Bones to trust him for the first time. Khan marrying one of his best friends.

Khan, Khan, Khan.

He almost can’t stand to be in this town. Sometimes Jim catches himself eyeing his old duffel bag, thinking that all he has to do is toss a few pairs of clothes into it, climb on his Harley, and go.

But there are the reasons he simply can’t walk away.

Something lands on his stomach with a plop. Jim groans, eyes still closed, and says, “Please, Bo Peep. Can’t you let me sleep…?” But the thing his hand grabs is too small to be a cat.

He opens his eyes and looks at what he is holding; looks at it for all of two seconds before his brain registers what it is.

A mouse. In his hand.

Dead.

The neighbor who knocks on the front door is concerned about the screaming. She is also concerned about the fact that Jim is shaking like a man on LSD. Jim assures her everything is fine. Perfectly fine. Then Bo Peep dives past the palsied Jim, through the open door, and disappears into the bushes lining the front of the house.

“Oh,” the neighbor says, “I think your cat got out.” Some seconds later, soothingly, “Dear me, don’t cry! She looks like such a sweet thing. I’m certain we’ll get her back. Here, kitty, kitty…”

A door opening and closing. Footsteps. Jim buries his head under a decorative throw pillow and wills the world to go away.

“Jim?” comes Bones’ voice. “You coulda told me we were staying here tonight. I’d have had Christine bring me straight over. Jim?”

Jim whines when the pillow is removed and he is unearthed from his hiding place (namely under a blanket). “Awful day, Bones,” he whimpers. “Gimme back my pillow.”

A hand skates down his side, tugging up his t-shirt so it can lay warm against his skin. “Headache?”

“No.”

Breath whistles against his cheek as Leonard leans to kiss the side of his jaw. “Is there a reason,” murmurs the man, lips trailing up to Jim’s ear, “why the cat is trapped under a hamper weighed down by dishware?” He smells of antiseptic and aftershave.

“She’s evil,” Jim sighs as he turns into Leonard’s arms. “She tried to get me run over by a car.”

“Hmm,” Leonard replies. They kiss. “That is evil.”

Jim pulls back. “You believe me?”

Leonard lifts an eyebrow. “Of course I do, darlin’. Now, Spock…? He’ll be a little harder to convince.”

Jim flops back onto the couch with gusto. “Are you kidding? Spock would accept the postman is an alien life-form before he admitted his cat might not be saintly.”

“Oh he knows how she is,” Bones murmurs. “Speaking of, where is he?”

“No clue. He was gone when I got here.”

Leonard nudges him to move over until they are both sitting on the couch. “I thought it’s his turn to cook.”

Jim’s hair refuses to be coaxed into order so he lets it go. He offers, “I can make something.”

“No,” McCoy interjects too quickly. “We’ll order Chinese.”

Jim tells Bones what he wants as the man picks up the phone and walks away for the local Chinese restaurant’s flyer then adds, “Moo-goo-gai pan for Spock—no meat.”

Leonard’s drawl can be heard from the kitchen and back. “I know that, Jim.”

“Love you, Bonesie!” Jim singsongs.

“You’ve got to find another line.”

“I love you soooo much!”

“I swear to God, Jim, I will let this cat out.”

Jim is wise enough to know when to admit defeat.

They are caught up in nitpicking the news report on television when the doorbell rings. Jim grabs McCoy’s wallet. It isn’t the delivery boy, however, that greets him when he opens the front door.

“Mr. Kirk.”

“Go away.”

The sharply dressed Q continues to stare at him. Jim, for his part, can only see himself reflected in the man’s dark shades.

Jim shifts so he is blocking the entrance to the house. “Look, tell Lady Q I’m busy. Some other time, okay?”

“You are mistaken, Mr. Kirk. Please step aside.”

Jim lifts his chin belligerently. “Why?”

The Q extracts a piece of folded paper from the inside pocket of his jacket. “My orders are to acquire the items on this list.”

Jim reads the first line before looking up sharply at the man. “Why would you need Spock’s briefcase…” he trails off as the realization settles in.

Jim steps back and bellows, “Bones!”

Bones pokes his head around the archway to the living room. “Need help with the food?”

“We’re going to the compound,” Jim almost snaps as he stalks past McCoy to get his leather jacket.

Leonard catches his arm. “Jim, what? Why?”

“Because,” he says, attempting to control the anger in his voice, “Lady Q has Spock.”

His boyfriend looks at him for a second too long. Then Leonard nods once, sharply, and says, “Give me a minute. I need to call out of work for tomorrow.”

Jim slips on his jacket and takes up a guarded stance in the foyer. The Q interrupts his silent fuming with a persistent “I must retrieve the items on the list, Mr. Kirk.”

“Forget it,” Jim says, voice hard. “Spock won’t need his things at the compound because he won’t be staying.“

The Q seems to consider his answer then minutely inclines his head. However, he does say, “There is only one item on the list which her Ladyship was adamant be acquired for Mr. Spock, regardless of any… circumstance.”

“What’s that?” Leonard asks as he steps into the foyer and stands alongside Jim.

The Q looks at the tabby in McCoy’s arms. “It seems you have already acquired it. My thanks, Dr. McCoy.”

Bo Peep twitches her tail in Jim’s direction. He suspects she knows where she is going and that makes her very pleased. Could she have been misbehaving all day because she knew Spock wasn’t coming home tonight? Jim will never know the answer to his question but he wouldn’t be surprised in the least if it were true.

He had forgotten that Bo Peep loves Spock as much as he and Leonard do.

They settle into the backseat of a black Hummer. Spock’s cat is perfectly content to stay in McCoy’s lap and purr loudly as they travel to the Q compound. But she never ceases to watch Jim with those narrowed eyes.

He strokes the side of her face with one finger. “Okay,” he tells her. “I read you. You want Spock back. I’ll get him for you.”

Leonard says nothing of his promise, perhaps because he is silently making the same promise himself.

Next Part

Related Posts:

• Sticks and Stones (18/18) – from April 19, 2012
• Sticks and Stones (17/18) – from April 17, 2012
• Emotional Much? – from April 17, 2012
• Sticks and Stones (16/17) – from April 13, 2012
• Sticks and Stones (15/17) – from April 11, 2012