Title: For the Sake of Nothing, Part 4
Author: klmeri
Fandom: Star Trek AOS
Pairing: pre-Kirk/Spock/McCoy
Summary: Leonard avoids the truth and Jim schemes.
Previous Parts: 1 | 2 | 3

Avoiding the coffee shop was easy; lying awake at night with the knowledge that he could be accosted by an irate Spock on his own territory made things a little less enjoyable. Leonard sighed and turned upon his side, grimacing as one of the couch springs made itself known under his hip. He reached down and retrieved the small square pillow which had tumbled to the floor and tucked it against his chest. Once he had sighed rather noisily for the fifth time, Leonard decided there was no point in pretending to chase sleep. He kicked irritably at the arm of the couch and sat up.

“Fuck it,” the man muttered. For a long moment, he pressed his fingers against his aching eyes, until the blackness behind his eyelids turned into a starburst of white, and seriously considered finding the unopened pill bottle he had stuck in the mirror cabinet over his toilet some months ago.

He wasn’t getting better.

The doctor—and damn it, probably the grief counselor too, with whom he’d refused to have a meaningful conversation—had been right. He couldn’t wait this thing out. At least, his body couldn’t. Not anymore.

He dropped his hands from his face and stood up, walked to the window. “I need help,” he said. No one replied.

Of course no one replied: he was alone, the world behind the window was asleep (just as he wasn’t), and whatever almighty god was part of the cosmos had long since abandoned Leonard the moment that horrible accident happened and Leonard, getting a call from his mother’s co-worker, learned he had become an orphan overnight.

Bitterness was a part of him now. For a while he had shed that bitterness wherever he went, in whatever he said, until he learned that people would only tolerate so much crap for so long. So he let his friends walk away; he didn’t ask for forgiveness and he didn’t bother to excuse himself.

Now he was simply a bitter old man, living a bitter old life and (as if things weren’t bad enough) keeping ghosts closer to his heart than real people. Why should it be any surprise his body was physically at the point of breaking down?

In short, Leonard McCoy was a mess.

His foot knocked against the empty bottle he hadn’t bothered to throw away. Leonard stooped down and picked it up, contemplatively rolling the cold glass between his hands. It had been a while since he had tried to numb himself with liquor; he was sorely attempted to revisit that dangerous path but Leonard had spent his last dollar on an extra lock for his apartment door. He figured he would need it since he believed firmly in ‘once a first-time offender, soon to be a repeater’. Spock knew where he lived, had had the gall to come here, and Leonard didn’t doubt the man would find his way back.

…Which would be entirely his own fault. A week had gone by, slipping away again as meaningless minutes and hours, and Leonard had purposefully steered clear of Jim—meaning he had left that mess for Spock to handle. Spock would, despite the advantage it lent him to keep Jim to himself, be pissed. Leonard didn’t how he knew that, he just did.

Maybe he should move, he thought.

And maybe the world would start rotating backwards.

Leonard snorted at his own idiocy. He could ill-afford to go anywhere, except perhaps to the street. He was broke. His dinner was a stale peppermint and just a dream of food. What mattered now wasn’t fixing the way he had become; it was making certain he could live. Otherwise, all else was a moot point.

He truly did have to have help—and sitting here in this dingy, depressing apartment wasn’t the way to find that help. Sure, it was a way to hide (which was what Leonard figured he had been doing for long enough) but what happened when he hid so well, he ceased to exist and not a soul knew or cared?

Was that what he truly wanted?

If Leonard was honest with himself, it used to be. Something had changed, though, that made him sit up and take note, even if he couldn’t quite figure out what that something was. Certainly he wasn’t foolish enough to think someone’s school-boy crush was the reason. But perhaps there had been… a moment where he realized his life could be different?

There was no mistaking it: Jim was trouble. Spock, thrown into the mix, was twice as much trouble. Leonard could not, he thought, address the awkward situation between them, but who said that had to be the only interaction the three of them had? Was there a rule that, desperate as he was, he could not seek them out for something as simple as… help?

Suddenly decided, Leonard placed the bottle on his writing table and turned away from the view of the city. The shop didn’t open to the public until 6:30 a.m., which was another two hours distant, but Leonard left his apartment anyway. He walked the length of his neighborhood and the one beyond that before turning south and slowly trekking towards the street that might be his only salvation. The world still hadn’t woken up yet, except for a few shadows here and there, skirting alleys and pressed inside doorways, wrapped in old blankets against morning’s chill. Occasionally a shadow coalesced into a face and called out to Leonard; but most of them saw his haunted countenance and, recognizing it as they would by looking in a mirror, let him pass unmolested.

Twice he circled the city block that harbored the shop, like a hungry dog, until he saw a light come on inside. Then Leonard went to the entrance and stood there, one hand tucked inside the only surviving back pocket of his worn jeans and the other hand fisted at his side. In the dark glass of the shop he could see a frightening face staring back at him. He tried smiling, causing that face to grimace horrendously, so settled for averting his eyes.

Leonard almost panicked when he heard the noise of a heavy bolt-lock turning and saw the door frame shudder. Then the door opened noiselessly to the outside and stayed propped there like an invitation. Before Leonard could throw away his one chance, and let the inexplicable fear scrabbling inside him take hold, he reached out, grasped the door’s edge, and swung himself inside.

It was, in actuality, the worst thing he could have done.

~~~

Jim stood behind the counter after he unlocked the door. Having watched the figure skulking outside the coffee shop for some minutes, he thought he ought to call Spock (who would probably berate him for not calling the police first) when the flickering light of an old street lamp slid across a familiar face. Jim realized then the person was actually someone he had given up hope of seeing again. For a minute, he forgot how to breathe… until Leonard McCoy came skirting past the window for the third time.

It was too early, almost five thirty in the morning, for this is visit to be about a cup of coffee. Jim went with his instinct and dug out his keys, only barely remembering to turn off the door alarm. He had just engaged the door stopper when he realized he was on the verge of doing something very, very stupid like bodily attaching himself to McCoy and forever scaring the man away. So he made a quick retreat into the building and now watched, heart in his throat, as Leonard hurried inside.

Upon his first good look at the man in many days, Jim’s fingers accidentally flexed too tightly around a coffee filter and crumpled it. He didn’t notice.

Leonard, frozen just beyond the open doorway with a near-sunrise lightening the sky at his back, saw Jim and sucked in a sharp breath. He didn’t sound good when he said, “You.”

Jim plastered a smile on his face, returning a genial “Bones.”

The brown-haired man’s eyes darted to the kitchen door and back again. “But I thought—Spock?”

Suddenly the world was moving as it should. Something elusive crushed Jim’s hope. He gave a little shrug and turned slightly to throw away the ruined filter. “Spock’s not here. I open for him sometimes,” he explained. Bones hadn’t come for him. Of course. Hadn’t he already convinced himself Leonard didn’t want to see him?

McCoy did not seem to know what he wanted to do, like he was caught between two warring reactions.

“We open in an hour,” Jim said as he would to any impatient customer.

Leonard’s eyes closed.

Seeing the man sway on his feet, Jim abandoned all pretense of indifference and came around the counter. “Bones?” he questioned sharply.

Bones shook his head and took a step back. Then another.

“Don’t!” Jim cried, grabbing the man’s arm just as McCoy’s heel hit the threshold. “I think you need to sit down.”

Leonard looked at the hand on his arm for a long moment. “This is a bad idea” was his strange reply.

“Sitting down is not a bad idea,” Jim insisted firmly and ushered the man toward a table, reaching out and up-righting a chair with one hand. He shoved Leonard into the chair with his opposite hand. “Stay.“

Bones lifted world-weary eyes to him and made a half-hearted grunt. “Not a puppy, Jim.”

“Then I guess you’ll want your water in a glass inside of a bowl.” Jim walked away—and smiled as he heard a dark mutter.

Maybe whatever had driven McCoy here wasn’t as bad as he initially feared. Though, Jim wondered, why was Bones looking for Spock? Which begged the question: had Spock had contact with McCoy in the last two weeks?

Jim mulled over these things as he filled a mug with tap water but came up with no answers. When he returned to the table, he considered it in a mark in his favor that Bones didn’t outright reject the water. Jim decided opening the business could wait for a minute (or five) and sat down next to Leonard. He leaned back in his chair and gave the man time to collect himself.

“Want to tell me about it?” he asked once Leonard began to fiddle with the handle of the mug, turning it this way and that.

Stubborn silence met his question.

Jim added, with a hint of a coaxing smile, “I promise not to gossip.”

The ploy did not work. Leonard turned an unreadable gaze on him. “I shouldn’t be here.”

“If you thought that,” Jim said almost idly, “you wouldn’t have come in the first place, Bones. Something’s eating at you—” He eyed the dark circles under the man’s eyes and the sharp slope of those shoulders. “—literally. Maybe I can help.”

Bones laughed at him. It wasn’t a comforting kind of laugh. “I’ve been breaking your heart, kid. Why would you want to help me?”

“Who told you that?” Jim snapped, sitting up. He paused to modulate his tone. It didn’t matter that Bones thought he was heart-broken—though the assessment was fairly accurate. Instead, he re-directed the conversation. “Never mind. I’m not the problem right now, McCoy—you are.”

Leonard’s mouth opened then closed. He seemed flummoxed that Jim had used his last name.

Jim took a deep breath to re-orient himself. “Sorry, Bones… I didn’t mean it the way it sounded. What I’m saying is, I am not the concern.”

McCoy lifted the mug and took another swallow of water. “‘Problem’ is far more truthful,” he said.

Jim smiled and replied dryly, “We can talk about that later.” Interesting—that subtle flash of nerves which had passed through Leonard’s eyes. “Is there something you need from Spock? If so, I can give him a call.”

Sighing, the man shook his head. “It was just—a hope, Jim. A stupid one, I now realize.” He stood up. “I’ll be going. Thanks for the water.”

Jim waited until Leonard tried the door, failed to open it, and was beginning to scowl before he jingled the keys in his hand and called out, grinning, “Now that’s a bummer!” Jim bounded away from the table and headed for the counter, mug in hand. “Want some more water?”

“Jim!”

Jim checked his watch as he filled the mug again. “I really do have to get this place up and running. There’s nothing Spock likes less than failing to be ready for the first customer.”

“Jim.”

The growl was close to his ear. Jim blinked innocently at one of his new favorite people in the world. “Have another drink, Bones, you look peaky. Then, if you want, you can sort out the chairs and fill the creamer containers and stuff.”

Leonard just looked at him.

Jim added, “I’m sure Spock will pay you for your time.”

“I don’t need money,” the man answered immediately.

“Everybody needs money,” Jim countered wisely. He placed the mug on the counter and went to coax the espresso machines into liveliness. Some minutes later when Jim snuck a glance at McCoy, the man was frowning at the inside of a small refrigerator and a jug of milk.

“2% in the blue pitcher, skim in the red!”

Bones spared him a narrow-eyed but considering look before returning to sorting out dairy products.

Jim found himself daydreaming while a machine made contented whirring noises during its self-cleaning process. This was a start, wasn’t it? Bones had come back. Granted, not in a fashion where he came barreling in with a bouquet of roses and dropped to one knee to profess his undying love in the middle of busy hour (maybe Jim shouldn’t have watched that romantic comedy last night?) but this was something, at least. If Bones was here every day maybe Jim could…

Jim whirled around, excited by his own plan. “Bones!”

McCoy paused in sniffing curiously at a bag of ground Columbian beans. The response that followed was wary. “What?”

Jim resisted the urge to march up to the man and grab his shoulders. “I have good news. You’re hired!”

Leonard had an odd expression. “…Isn’t that the decision of the owner, not the employee?”

“Oh,” Jim grinned, “no worries, you leave Spock to me.”

Grimness settled over Leonard’s face. “This is serious, Jim. I can’t say no, even to a joke. I lost one of my jobs which means I lost a good portion of my income.”

“Why?”

“I was fired,” he answered bluntly. “I made mistakes. I couldn’t toe the line.”

Jim sobered. “Were you a problem employee?”

“No.” But Leonard hesitated, like he was admitting something he didn’t want to. “I haven’t had a decent night’s sleep in a while. Kind of made me clumsy at the controls.”

A plant worker? Jim knew several of those since there were two mills, paper and metal cans, outside city limits. He hated the thought of Leonard reduced to that day-to-day drudgery. Yet he knew he couldn’t give away how eager he was over this fortunate turn of events. “Spock won’t like clumsy. How about we keep you from serving people until you’re rested?”

“Can’t serve people either.”

Jim blinked at that strange remark. “Why not?”

“I’m… ” Leonard looked pained. “…mean.”

Jim choked on his own spit in an effort to keep from laughing. “B-Bones,” he said, “oh, Bones. You’re perfect!”

“What?”

“We need mean!”

“Dear god,” McCoy muttered, “why do I have to get involved with the crazy one?”

Jim tossed his hand towel in the air, much to Leonard’s surprise. “This is great!” he said happily. “Wait until I tell Spock!”

But Bones only walked past him, snatching the towel away to wipe up the milk which had spilt on the counter and said, “Yeah, wait and see, kid. Your boss is going to strangle you.”

Jim, however, was certain he had no reason to fear Spock, least of all over McCoy.

Next Part

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