Title: A Fortunate Friend (#32, J ‘N B Series)
Author: klmeri
Fandom: Star Trek AOS
Characters: Kirk, McCoy
Summary: Comment!fic inspired by this pic post at jim_and_bones; AU; Jim is just a nice guy. One man in particular discovers that can be extremely annoying.
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 | The Art of Beginnings | The Amateur Pigeon-Catcher, Part 3 | Two Birds of a Feather | The Beautiful Bay | The Man in the Shed | Bad Business

Jim is wearing glasses since his renewal for his contacts’ prescription was very last minute; this is typical of Jim, as he often forgets anything not pertaining to his career and, as some would say, would lose his head if it wasn’t attached to his body. Which is understandable, the guy would insist to anyone who asks, because his job is awesome.

The question following this statement is often “Oh, what do you do?” Then Jim begins to explain enthusiastically… and his conversation partner’s eyes glaze over.

It cannot be helped.

Jim Kirk is a likeable guy, but he is a likeable guy with a job whose most basic description encompasses words most people have never heard of or are unlikely to comprehend if they have. It is his Achilles’ heel to socializing, even if he seems unaware of it.

Poor Jim Kirk, the barista at the local coffee store whispers to her friend on the opposite side of the counter. He’s so sweet but kind of a dork.

The friend, who hasn’t seen Kirk before, replies, Yeah but minus those glasses, obviously he’s a good-looking dork. Is he single? The barista tries to talk her friend out of the idea, but the young woman insists, I’m going over there!

She returns within two minutes, having narrowly escaped death by conversation and looking slightly dazed.

I told you, the girl behind the counter says knowingly. She shakes her head in mock sadness, repeating, Oh, that poor, poor man!

~~~

The barista isn’t wrong about Jim Kirk being sweet. Case in point is the day Jim meets Bones.

~~~

Jim has a week off from work. Truth be told, Jim would have preferred to putter about his office and poke his nose into the various projects his management position requires him to oversee, but HR realized Jim hasn’t had a day of vacation in seven years. According to HR, this will not do.

What they really mean is: when he retires the company doesn’t want to have to buy him out with an exorbitant sum for vacation days. But to Jim, HR talks about “healthly practices” and “rejuvenation of the mind.”

So Jim wanders along a street not far from his condominium, somewhat sad because he doesn’t know what to do with himself. He tried sleeping in that first morning but his body said no. He tried to shift his weekend ritual of going to the gym into a weekday but was confused by all the women of various ages running around in yoga pants before breakfast. Thus he went home again, fed his tropical fish, and stuffed himself into a “I’m on vacation” outfit and set about meandering around the city block.

How disappointing this is, Jim is thinking as he idly stands by a streetlamp and observes the workday traffic. By a half-past nine o’clock, the streets are clear of honking cars and people in a rush to work. There is only Jim and a mother and two kids carrying groceries from a corner-store market, a few joggers, and a man walking his dog.

Jim not-so-subtly follows the man and the dog to a neighborhood park. The dog-walker, being suspicious even of Jim’s innocent face, purposefully walks toward a policeman. Jim however, captivated by the sight of a place he hasn’t been before, continues obliviously down another sidewalk to the fountain in the center of the park. Once there, he tucks his hands into his pockets and stares at the spray of water for some time, planning a way to sneak back into his office. Maybe if he called his boss, he muses, and begged for a high-priority project that needed doing right that instant. Then they’d have to let him back in!

His thoughts are derailed slightly when he spies a pair of legs jutting from behind one of the stone corners of the fountain. As Jim sidles in that direction, he discovers the legs belong to a man in a dirty shirt clutching a crinkled paper bag. The stench of an unwashed body and potent alcohol is prominent from several feet away. Other park visitors would be certain to give this man a wide, wary berth. Instead, Jim approaches the despondent-looking fellow and crows cheerfully, “Good morning!”

After a second or two (no doubt born of disbelief) a gruff voice replies, “Just drop the cash in there.” The man indicates a lop-sided felt hat which looks like it has been chewed on by rats.

Jim blinks.

The man squatting next to the fountain opens one jaundiced eye. “This ain’t a freak show, kid. Either donate to my charity fund—” Here he barks out a laugh and takes a quick swallow from the bottle covered by the brown bag. “—or move along.”

“Oh,” Jim says, feeling awkward. He goes to open his wallet, only to realize he doesn’t have it and cannot remember the last place he put it. So, feeling even more awkward, he drops the sole content of his pocket, a peppermint, into the hat.

The man, clearly a louse or another sad statistic of the homeless or both, plucks out the peppermint and scowls at it. “Sonuvabitch! You think that’s funny?”

“It’s all I have,” Jim says, pushing his glasses back up his nose from where they’ve slid down. “I’m sorry.” Then he has a bright idea, because all of his ideas are bright, indeed, and awesome (but sometimes land him into trouble too). “Hey, my place is around the corner! I can get my wallet and take us both out to breakfast. Do you like breakfast?”

The peppermint is summarily discarded back into the hat. The man eyes him, his mouth pressed into a thin line beneath a week-old beard. “What are you—some kind of pervert?”

Jim is taken aback by the accusation. He shakes his head.

“A social worker?”

“Um, no.”

The man looks around them slowly. “Where’s the camera?”

“Camera?” echoes Jim, bemused.

Slumping against the fountain, the man grumbles, “A good Samaritan then. Well, kid, it don’t matter if you feed me or not. One meal with a hobo ain’t going to get you into heaven.”

Jim shuffles in place for a moment, looses a heart-felt sigh, and confesses, “I’m supposed to be on vacation.”

For once, the man seems as confused as Jim. “What?”

“Vacation,” Jim repeats. He scratches at his elbow absently. “I can’t find anything to do. I—don’t know what I’m supposed to be doing.”

Apparently Jim is crazier than the homeless man; at least, that is what the homeless man’s expression implies. “And so you came over here to bother me? Jesus. Look,” he adds, turning away slightly, “leave me alone, kid. If you’re really on vacation, go do something normal like find a beach to sun on or a mountain to ski down.”

“But—” Jim begins, only to stop himself. For a long moment, he stares at the man who is blatantly trying to ignore him. Decided, Jim takes two steps forward, reaches down and tugs on the man’s arm. “Breakfast,” he says hopefully, stubbornly.

“You are crazy,” the other man announces, but he levers himself to his feet anyway.

Jim sticks out his hand to valid this fact. “I’m Jim Kirk.”

Jim’s hand is shaken tentatively and very briefly.

“Hi, Jim.” Then he snorts at his own sarcastic tone and lifts his open liquor bottle to his mouth.

Jim stalls the motion, wincing. “Maybe you should leave that here?”

The fellow lifts his eyebrow but he doesn’t seem angry over the suggestion. “What, for the birds or the next hobo? This drink is all I got left, kid. Where I go, it goes.”

“I don’t think it can go to my breakfast club. But you can leave it at my house and pick it up after breakfast. I got a shower you can use too, if you want.” Jim’s eyes crinkle at the corners as he smiles kindly.

Blood-shot eyes return his stare. “You’re… not right, Jim. Has it crossed your mind that I could hurt you or steal your shit? I’m a drunk,” He holds up his brown bag-covered bottle, “not to mention a guy who sleeps on bus benches. Your kind and my kind—they don’t mix.”

“I guess,” Jim says with a shrug, pushing at his glasses again. “But I think you can help me as much as I can help you.”

“Damn it, I knew there was a price,” the man mutters. “Look, I ain’t got nothing for sale. Nothing, you understand? I may be down on my luck but I got some pride left. And as sure as the sun don’t shine in hell I’m gonna keep my virtue too,” he snaps.

That takes a second to process in Jim’s brain and when it does, color flushes just under the collar of his shirt. “It’s nothing like that!”

“It’s always something like that” comes the dark reply.

“I just—” Jim blushes some more. He mumbles.

“What?”

“I said I want to tell you about my job.” Jim stuffs his hands into his pants pockets and watches an ant attack a breadcrumb on the ground. There is silence. Jim breaks it by explaining further, “I’m not good at, I mean, people don’t… listen. They ask me what I do for a living but when I tell them, they just sort of disappear. Which I don’t understand!” he ends earnestly.

His companion looks apprehensive. “So what’s your job?”

Jim tells him in a sentence or less. But it’s a long sentence.

“I see.”

“Is it that… boring?”

“No.”

But Jim sighs. “Then why are you eyeing your bottle?”

The man answers slowly, “I’m debating if this is a hallucination or not.” He falls silent again.

Jim takes this as a bad sign. He raises his hands in apology. “I’m sorry if I bothered you, sir. I’ll just—”

“Oh, what the hell,” the man blurts out. With a stride that belies his poor appearance, he goes to the nearest trash bin and dumps his bottle, brown paper bag and all, into it. Turning back to Jim, he says, “You got a deal, kid. Granted, I think it’s a raw deal for you, but that’s your problem. Where are we going to breakfast?”

“I know a diner close by,” Jim says, his face lighting up.

“You mean Frankie’s? I like their peach waffles.” Thus in mutual agreement they head out of the park.

“Gee, this is great! Is it okay if I talk about my research too?”

“Food first.”

Jim smiles affably and thinks that he might enjoy his vacation after all, particularly since a person needs to eat three times a day. Of course, it would be rude to call his breakfast, lunch, and dinner companion ‘the man’ for an entire week. “Hey, what’s your name?”

“This isn’t a date. I don’t gotta tell you my name.”

“Then can I name you?”

“I’m a hobo, not a pet, Jim.”

“But…”

An explosive sigh. “Fine. Call me Bones.”

Jim isn’t one to look a gift horse in the mouth. He pats his shirt pocket and frowns, then stops walking. Bones halts as well.

“Um, Bones, I can’t find my keys.” He looks thoughtful. “I guess I forgot them too.”

“You were dropped on your head as a baby, weren’t you?”

Jim’s eyes widen. “How did you know? My mom said that’s what made me so smart.” Unfortunately, Jim is a genuine fellow and this is a genuine fact of his life.

“Oh god,” Bones says with distinct regret, “I’m not drunk enough for this.” He appears to be talking to the sky so Jim remains dutifully quiet.

“I want coffee,” the homeless man is saying. “That shower too. You probably got extra underwear.” He grumbles to the world at large until they are at Jim’s condo. Bones turns to Kirk then and warns him, “I’m only going to say this once, kid: you feed me, I listen to your drivel and big words, and that’s it. We are not friends.”

Jim nods with enthusiasm. “Okay. Friends only until the end of vacation.”

Bones sputters, “That’s not what I said, Jim!”

But Jim is already looking elsewhere, down the hallway. “I need to find the landlord. He keeps my spare key. Since we’re friends now, Bones, you can have it…”

And that is how, thereafter, Jim Kirk had a friend to talk to who actually listened to him.

-Fini

Blind to Love

Related Posts:

• 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