Title: The Art of Beginnings (#26, J ‘N B Series)
Author: klmeri
Fandom: Star Trek AOS
Characters: McCoy, Kirk
Summary: Comment!fic inspired by this pic post at jim_and_bones; AU. Seeking a quiet life is never as easy as it seems when there is a case of mistaken identity.
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 | The Case of the Mondays, Part 5 | Forewarned is Forearmed | The Case of the Mondays, Part 6 | The Case of the Mondays, Part 7 | The Case of the Mondays, Part 8 | The Case of the Mondays, Part 9 | Serenade | Another Day, Another Dollar, Part 3 | Tied to You | The Amateur Pigeon-Catcher | The Amateur Pigeon-Catcher, Part 2

“I have no greater wish than to be left alone.” I say the words as flippantly as I can, nodding to the barista in thanks as I take my order from the coffee shop counter and lift it slightly to my face out of habit to smell the rich, sharp tang of brewed espresso. Beside me is a man, very young and self-confident of his ability to charm people. He shifts to position his hip against the counter and lean toward me; the light in his eyes tells me he not only finds my statement amusing but also a personal challenge of some sort.

Because I truly do wish to be left alone, just me and my afternoon coffee (which I sorely need by now), I ignore the subtle invitation in his body language and turn away. A quick glance around the shop reveals only two unoccupied tables. Hating the thought of sitting in the path of customer traffic by the door, I head to the small table in a far corner along the window. It isn’t until I sit down that I realize I have been followed. “Did you not hear what I said?”

Mr. Good-Looking frowns at the lack of a second chair and, with a polite word and a hint of his smile to a couple close by, he acquires one. Once seated across from me, he leans back and casually addresses my sour exclamation. “Hear what?”

I consider dumping my coffee on his head, except that I can’t get past what a waste of a perfectly good beverage that would be, not to mention a waste of the money I spent to buy it. I take another swallow from my coffee cup to fortify myself. This man, apparently, is going to make a nuisance of himself.

“What do you want?” I bite out. Fixing my gaze out of the window, I force myself not to watch him.

He seems utterly relaxed. “Can I ask you a question?”

“No,” I say instantly.

“I’m going to ask anyway,” the stranger replies mildly. “You look familiar. Do I know you?”

I cannot help but return my attention to him. “Are you serious, or is that supposed to be a line?”

“I’m serious.” His blue eyes consider my unkempt hair and the stubble on my face that has become more of a beard and less of a five o’clock shadow in the last couple of days. “I think I’ve seen you before.”

“Probably have,” I mutter. “I live here.”

His eyebrows arch in curiosity. “At the coffee shop?”

Stupid questions deserve withering looks. I practice my withering look in the mirror every morning. Clearly, though, I need more practice because the man doesn’t appear to be affected at all by it. I reply unhappily, “I live in town.” The dumbass at the end is unspoken but fairly obvious to anyone with half of a brain.

Strangely, he shows no sign of offense at my unpleasantness and crosses one leg over the other, resting his left ankle on his right knee. I can see for the first time that he isn’t wearing socks with his shoes.

And rich white guy shoes they are.

I roll my eyes heavenward, wondering how I managed to attract the attention of a wealthy douche bag. “Is there a reason,” I ask slowly, “why you decided to bother me today?”

“I thought I recognized you.”

Dragging out my drawl, I counter, “Nothing throws you off, perhaps?”

“I like your accent.”

“Of course you do,” I say sarcastically. “It just makes me more recognizable, am I right?”

He ignores that and gestures at my coffee cup. “Can I buy you another?”

Either coffee is the new beer, or he’s too socially inept to hang out in a bar like regular people. I take pity on him. “No thanks. Just the one is fine.” This outing isn’t as relaxing as I wanted it to be. I stand up. “Look, I’m gonna go. I hope you find the guy I remind you of.”

“Wait!”

I don’t wait. But nor does he let me leave so easily.

“I’m sorry!” he cries loudly.

Heads turn in the coffee shop. I look back to him, grimacing at the unwanted attention of the shop’s other patrons, and tell the man quickly, “Don’t worry about it.” The door can’t open fast enough to suit me.

Should’ve known he wouldn’t listen.

“Hey, hey!” he repeats two or three times, hurrying along to catch up as my long strides eat up the sidewalk. “I didn’t mean—”

I spin around, and he stops short. I say the first thing that comes to mind, which is an irritated command of “Stop following me!”

“But—”

“Just. Stop. Unless you want me to report you, kid.”

He sucks in a sharp breath and demands, “Say that again!”

I eye him, decide he must be the town lunatic, and chuck my coffee cup into the nearest trash can. There’s no point in reasoning with an insane person.

Mr. Stranger-and-I’m-Your-New-Stalker doesn’t like that I walk away. I’ll give him a chance to be really stupid and pull level with me. Then it will be time to show the idiot I’m not the kind of man who tolerates creepy shit—especially when it’s my day off. People have no respect for anyone these days; otherwise I’d feel safe enough to leave my apartment door unlocked at night. This man validates why I should invest in an alarm system.

When he skirts around me, intending to step into my path, I charge ahead, grab his nicely pressed blue shirt, and swing us around to the brick wall of a building. He gives a slight oomph as I shove him against it. I don’t really intend to hit him, only scare the fool a little, but his hands go up in an automatic gesture of surrender when I snarl and raise my fist.

“Wait,” he insists, “I just need to know…”

“You don’t need to know anything,” I point out. Can’t he see the obvious?

His chin lifts stubbornly. “Tell me your name.”

“No.”

“What’s your name?”

“None of your goddamned business.” I release his shirt and step back. “If you’re smart, you’ll go back the way you came.”

“This is no joke!” he snaps suddenly. “Bones!”

I laugh. “Bones? What the hell is that?”

His look changes. Feeling a tingle of warning along my spine, I back up into the street; people are watching us again. He follows.

“I can hurt you,” I warn him this time.

“Bones,” the man repeats, “I know you. You can’t tell me I don’t because I do. I’d know you,” he says urgently, “in a crowd of a thousand people.”

Clearly town lunatic would be a kindness; this guy needs a home in a state facility. Why hadn’t I noticed the intensity of the expression in his eyes before? Forget fighting, I think, it’s time to run.

“No!” he screams in denial as I take off down the street. “BONES, COME BACK!”

There’s a cop at the next street corner. I head in his direction because being chased by a strange man through the town square is clearly a sign of much-needed intervention.

“Officer!”

The cop freezes when he sees me coming. I sprint across a cobblestoned road, supposedly kept in good condition since the historic founding of this ocean-side small town, and approach him, pointing at the man not far behind me.

“I don’t know that guy,” I tell the cop, “but he thinks knows me!”

I watch the cop’s face when he spies the stranger in pursuit of me, and I don’t like what I see.

“Mister…”

“McCoy,” I supply.

“Mr. McCoy, let me handle this.”

Why else would I want him to do? Stand on his head?

“Mr. Kirk!” the cop says brightly as the blue-eyed man slows down to a fast walk when he sees me side by side with an officer of the law.

“Bones…” The look on his face is troubled, like he doesn’t understand why I ran from him.

“Hello, Mr. Kirk,” the cop goes on to say kindly, deliberately blocking Kirk’s view of me to draw his attention, “how are you today?”

“Hello,” responds the man absently. He tries to step past the cop, who places a hand on his shoulder to halt him.

“Son, what brings you into town?”

“I was looking for Bones,” he says.

The policeman nods as though he hears this answer every day of the week. “That’s fine, Jim, but you can’t bother this man.”

“But that’s Bones!”

I look at the officer. “He’s crazy, isn’t he?” And not on anti-psychotics, I add silently.

He pats Jim Kirk’s shoulder and says pointedly, “There’s nothing wrong with Mr. Kirk. He’s simply made a mistake.”

Jim shakes his head. “No, it’s not a mistake. Bones,” he says softly, almost pleadingly, “don’t run from me anymore, please. I just wanted to say I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have let the end happen like it did. I…”

Aw crap. I really have been targeted by a man who’s one flew over the cuckoo’s nest. “I have things to do,” I announce, wanting to be far away. “Officer, if you could…”

The cop understands my meaning well enough and inclines his head slightly. “C’mon, Jim, I’ll walk you home.”

Jim looks like he might protest but after he searches my face for a moment, he relents to the authoritative grip on his arm. I try not to feel bad at the visible disappointment pressing down the line of his shoulders.

While taking a long and winding route back to my vehicle (not to mention constantly looking over my shoulder), I wonder who ‘Bones’ is. Does he exist in the real world, or only in a more imaginative version of the real world created by Jim Kirk? What is it about me that makes me a ‘Bones’ to Jim?

As strange as I may feel thinking about it, caution supersedes curiosity. I will need to be careful when I’m in town from now on. Obviously I can’t go back to the coffeehouse again, which is a damn shame considering its beverages are some of the best I’ve ever had. How did this happen? Why? I don’t want to be involved in anything dramatic.

I had moved here, from my southern homeland, for a respite while I figured out what I wanted from my life. But somehow things doesn’t seem like they are going to settle down on my whim. I picked the only town in America where I am likely to be accosted on a daily basis by a delusional person who thinks I am his long-lost best friend or his lover or his pretend playmate.

Life just likes to kick a man when he’s down.

Consoled by my own cynicism, I unlock the driver door to my car and slide in behind the wheel. When I adjust my rearview mirror so I can check the parking lot for any obstacles, I spy a flash of blue denim and white, unlaced sneakers, just for a split second, then it’s gone. Yet as I navigate the roads to my condo by the sea I am unable to stop picturing a man, neatly dressed and seemingly young and well-to-do. …An image that doesn’t hint at all at what could lurk behind the polished, normal surface. Isn’t it true that those who hide their insanity well are the most dangerous?

It’s much later, over a glass of wine, when I admit to myself it’s the way Kirk looked at me that keeps my thoughts drifting after him like a moth following a trail of light. I am something he needs.

Oh, that’s bad. Very, truly, terribly bad. Thoughts like that make for the beginning of a thriller novel. I have no desire to be someone’s victim or emotional hang-up or debilitating fantasy.

At least I shouldn’t have that desire, I conclude, and empty the rest of my wine glass into my mouth.

Me? A Bones?

Not happening. Why would a man such as I, Leonard the ordinary McCoy, want that kind of silly nickname? The truth is simple: I don’t need to run into this Jim Kirk again, not if I value my safety and my peace of mind.

Of course, it’s telling Jim Kirk not to run into me that I suspect will be the challenge.

~~~

“You’re lucky I’m the one who intercepted him,” a uniformed man tells a woman. He lowers his voice. “I don’t know if this can go on much longer. With the number of disappearances last year, rumors are spreading.”

“What am I supposed to do?” the woman asks. “Lock my son in a room for the rest of his life?”

He sighs. “Winona, with the appropriate care…”

“I’ll be more vigilant,” she interrupts coldly. “Good day, officer.”

When the door is closed, she turns away from it but lingers until her face can produce a believable smile. She discovers her son in the kitchen, making himself a sandwich with the leftovers of the dinner their personal chef had made the night before.

“I found Bones,” he says without looking up as he lays a slice of beef on a fresh cut of French bread.

She places her hands on his shoulders. “You shouldn’t call attention to yourself in public. We talked about how to do things safely, secretly, remember?”

His movements stutter. “You… won’t hurt him this time?”

“We shall see, my darling.” She kisses his cheek. “But if he isn’t the right Bones, you know his fate cannot be helped.”

-Fini

Next Part

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