Title: For the Sake of Nothing, Part 13
Author: klmeri
Fandom: Star Trek AOS
Pairing: pre-Kirk/Spock/McCoy
Summary: Jim finds out more than he anticipated.
Previous Parts: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12

Commence Operation: Assignation with Bones’ Hot Lady.

Jim had called her from a payphone in the late afternoon, when he had a moment to steal away from Spock’s watchful gaze, and arranged a “date”. He had said he was contacting her on Leonard’s behalf and that Leonard wanted to meet her that night. For a moment, he had thought she knew he was lying. Then the woman had muttered, “Why not?” To Jim, she gave directions: “I know how much Leonard likes sushi. There’s a Japanese restaurant at the corner of Elm and Main. Tell him I’ll meet him at the bar at seven thirty. And tell him how much I look forward to seeing him after all these years.”

Jim wasn’t certain what to make of that last bit of coyness and humor in her voice and had hung up. She was up to something…

But then again, so was he.

Jim pulled on his black boots and inspected his appearance in the mirror. Perfect.

He turned down the black turtle neck for comfort. Now if only he had… but hadn’t Jim spied a pair of black leather gloves in Spock’s coat closet? (Not that he had been snooping… too much. What was a man supposed to do when alone all day in an unfamiliar house? Acquaint himself with it, obviously!)

Spock wouldn’t mind, Jim reassured himself. After all, the man had already donated the black turtle neck and black socks Jim was wearing, albeit unknowingly. Jim was certain if he had asked, Spock would have let him take what he needed, so long Spock never knew the reason why Jim needed them.

Jim snuck quietly through the house and retrieved the gloves. There he also stopped to admire himself in the foyer’s full-length mirror.

Dressing in black made him look so cool. The only issue was his hair, which was a startling gold. That and the bruises, but he could do little about the condition of his face without an expertise at makeup—or the actual makeup, of which he owned almost nothing except some black eyeliner he had purchased at the age of sixteen. No telling where that had gone.

Jim decided he would have to take the black beret in Spock’s coat closet too. It was a good thing he had filched it along with the gloves. Grinning, Kirk situated the beret on his head and snuck back to his room. He went straight to the window and pushed aside the curtains. Luckily, the frame wasn’t painted shut from the outside (not that Jim could imagine it would be, since Spock kept his home in a state of perfection) but that would not have mattered anyway. Jim had been stealing out of bedroom windows since the tender age of seven. He knew what he was about.

Of course, this was the first time he had fractured ribs while committing the act. It couldn’t be worse than that time he had had a broken arm, right? Scaling a tree and climbing in a window one-handed—it wasn’t smartest thing he had ever done. The worst part had been the aftermath, lying in his own vomit and piss and tears, until his mother had realized he was missing three days later. That she’d remembered him at all had been a miracle.

Jim fiercely switched off the unpleasant memory and shoved it behind a door in his mind he tried very hard to pretend did not exist.

His ribs protested heartily. Jim ignored them and eased himself between the bushes and the side of the house. Somewhere in the distance (or maybe not that distantly, just over a row of tall hedges) a dog barked. If the hour had been closer to midnight and not dusk, someone might have come looking for the source of the dog’s agitation and discovered Jim the cat burglar slipping around the fence of Mr. Spock’s house. As it was, once Jim was past the fence and on the neighborhood sidewalk, he transformed his skulking into the appearance of a normal person enjoying a lovely evening stroll. He made it to the bus stop in time to catch the bus rumbling up to the sidewalk. A blue-haired, elderly woman glared at him and clutched her big purse protectively as he patiently waited for her to exit the bus so he could get on.

The driver said to him as he paid his fare, “Only going as far as downtown. We stop running at seven.”

“That’s fine with me,” Jim said and took a seat near the back.

He would be just in time to meet this… Jocelyn.

The restaurant bar was busy for a week night. Jim had discarded his beret after a little girl on the bus had asked him if he drew kitty-cats. He’d drawn a cartoon cat with one of her colored pencils on the back of an old flyer to appease her.

“You’re not Leonard,” said a woman Jim recognized instantly as his quarry.

“Leonard couldn’t make it,” Jim said smoothly. “Since I lost your number, I couldn’t call you and cancel.” He smiled at her. “It seemed rude to let you wait for someone that wasn’t going to show up. Mind if I sit?”

She eyed him as he perched next to her on a stool and turned back to the sushi bar, putting her purse on the counter. Not looking directly at her guest, she said, “You’re Jim Kirk.”

“I am.”

“You’re also a liar, Mr. Kirk. Now, I don’t know which you are: a shy idiot or a creep who likes to lure women into his clutches under false pretenses—” Jocelyn picked up her glass of water and took a sip of it. “—but I’m inclined to believe the latter.” She cut her eyes at him. “You should know… I have a taser in my purse and I know how to use it. I also know how to scream very emphatically.”

Damn. “I’m not a creep. Or shy.” Jim let his smile drop. “If I said I’m sorry about this, would you believe me?”

“No.”

“Fair enough.”

Jocelyn studied him. “But I will listen to an excuse if you’ve got one.” Before he could reply, she added, “I remember you from the coffee shop, which means you work with Len.”

Len. So, Jim had been right about the familiarity between McCoy and her. He nodded, confessed, “We’re… friends.” Since she said nothing to challenge that, he continued. “My only excuse is I wanted to meet you and I didn’t want him to know about it.”

“Why?”

“He wouldn’t want me to.” Jim shredded the side of a bar napkin. “McCoy doesn’t say anything about, well, anything,” he declared ruefully. “I’m a curious man by nature.”

“So you want me to supply you with the gossip?” Jocelyn sat back and huffed in disgust. “You are a creep!”

“No, no, I’m not!” Jim insisted. When she shouldered her purse and stood up, he reached for her arm, only stopping short of actual physical contact. “Look, Jocelyn, I only want to know about him because—” He considered how to finish with giving away too much. “—there’s someone who likes him. Really likes him.”

Most people would still walk away, wouldn’t accept such a lame excuse, but Jocelyn simply stared at him. And she looked intrigued. “Like as in want to date him, or like as in BFFs of an unholy nature?”

Distracted as a kitten following a ball of yarn, Jim wanted to know, “When you say ‘of an unholy nature’ are you talking about BFFs like… the devil and cheese being BFFs?”

She dropped back onto her stool. “How is cheese evil?”

“It tastes so good you end up eating too much of it and then your intestines can’t unclog themselves for days. I’d say that makes cheese very evil.” Watching her laugh, Jim relaxed slightly and resumed his seat. “Did I pass the test?”

“Maybe,” Jocelyn admitted. “You’re something else.” Scrutinizing his face, she blushed and added, “Why is it that you look terrible and yet somehow I’m still very attracted to you?”

Without a qualm, Jim’s ego insinuated itself into the conversation. He said silkily, “It’s my gift to be this sexy all of the time.”

“Clearly,” she quipped in a dry tone, placing her purse aside and opening a bar menu. “By the way, Leonard hates sushi.”

Jim perked up. “Yeah?”

“Big time. And never, ever sneak a baby octopus into his food. He’ll puke.” Her mouth quirked. “He gave me the silent treatment for a week.”

Jim filed that interesting tidbit away and asked, “Are you two close?”

Jocelyn checked a box for a roll of the Pink Dragon and then one for spicy tuna. “We were.” She glanced up at him. “I hope we still are.”

Jim wondered how much of her past with Leonard she would willingly share. “You dated,” he guessed.

“For a few years, yes. Okay, it’s my turn to ask a question. Does Len know you like him?”

Oh crap. Jim realized his mysterious cover really hid nothing at all. He tried valiantly to salvage what he could. “When I said someone, I wasn’t talking about myself.”

“Ooh, so this is a love triangle?”

Jim stared at her.

Jocelyn handed her selection to the waitress, talking to Jim even as she did so. “You like Leonard and someone else likes Leonard too. Does he know…? No, wait. Of course he knows!” The woman tucked her short hair behind her ears and grinned at no one in particular. “So that’s why he wouldn’t tell me! Oh, this is gooood.”

Jim was lost, very lost. He admitted as much.

Jocelyn poked his arm. “Listen up, mister. If there’s anything I know about Leonard McCoy, it’s that he is a wimp when it comes to making decisions about his love life.”

She called Bones a wimp. “I officially love you,” Jim told her.

Jocelyn ignored his interruption. “You have to take the bull by the horns. How do you think, after knowing the man all through school, I got him to go on a date with me?” She smiled at a fond memory. “Even if things didn’t turn out like we had planned, I still treasure my time with him. He’s a wonderful man.”

Jim was not jealous. No, he was not.

“How cute,” Jocelyn said, “you’re jealous!”

For that, Jim was going to steal one of her pieces of sushi. “Why would I be jealous? Clearly you’ve moved on.”

Jocelyn inspected her engagement ring with pride. “I picked it out myself. Clay’s a sweetheart but he’s so clueless about women’s jewelry.”

“Does Bones know?” Jim asked.

Confusion fluttered across her face.

“Leonard,” Jim corrected. “Does Leonard know about you… and your fiancée?”

“Why do you call him Bones?” Jocelyn pressed, rather than answering his question.

Jim couldn’t decide if the truth mattered here or not. “I had a dog named Bones when I was ten.”

Jocelyn’s expression said he was crazy. “You nicknamed Leonard after your dog?”

With innocence painted all over his face, Jim replied, “It was the only pet I ever had. Bones was kind of stupid though. He could never fetch a stick.”

His companion thought this was hilarious. For some minutes she did nothing but laugh. The sushi bar’s other patrons looked at them askance.

“Oh, oh,” she said between giggles, “oh god, if you’re telling the truth, that’s a perfect name for him! Eeeheehee. ‘Good boy, Bones!’”

Jim waited until her amusement flagged enough that she could catch her breath. “It’s my turn again.” Under the bar counter, his hands formed fists. He knew what he wanted from her. “What’s wrong with McCoy?”

Thinking she would pretend not to understand question, Jim was surprised that he misjudged her.

“I want to tell you, Jim,” Bones’ ex said, “but I can’t do it in good conscience.”

“Why not?” he demanded.

“It’s… a sensitive subject for Leonard. I don’t have the right to decide who should know and who shouldn’t.”

“I want to help him” was Jim’s soft admission.

She considered that and him, answering slowly, “I… think you do. That counts for a lot, which is why I will tell you this: Len really and truly believes he is alone. I think at first he needed that, because he saw it as a form of punishment, but now he’s uncertain how to go about being himself again. We can help him,” she said fiercely. “We can give him back his friends. We can give him people who love him.”

Jim felt too many things to put them into words. This woman’s passion was beautiful.

She showed hesitance at his silence. “Did I say too much?”

“No. Just thinking that I want to kiss you.”

“I’ll taser your ass.”

Jim’s grin was lopsided. “Ouch, rejection!” He sobered. “There is one thing I think you should know.” Drawing a deep breath, he said, “That other person who likes Bones? He’s my friend. He means a lot to me.”

“…Oh that sucks.”

Jim looked down at the tiny bits of paper that had once been a napkin.

“Do you know what you’re going to do?” The question was gentle.

Jim said quite bitterly, as the waitress appeared with Jocelyn’s order, “I’m doing it.”

Even if she didn’t understand what he meant, Jocelyn clearly knew something was wrong. She slid her plate toward him. “We can share.”

He looked at her and understood what she meant. He could share his woes with a sympathetic ear if he wanted to. Jim popped a piece of sushi into his mouth. “Thanks.”

“So he’s nice, this friend of yours.” Jocelyn looked contemplatively at the spicy tuna between her fingers.

“He’s amazing,” Jim said. “If I didn’t think Bones was amazing too, I would say he’s much too good for Bones.”

“How come you aren’t dating him then?”

Jim almost dropped his second piece of sushi. “Huh?”

“You aren’t attracted to him,” Jocelyn surmised.

Jim flushed. “I’m attracted to everybody. It might be a medical condition,” he mumbled then shoved the sushi in his mouth so the evil thing would not confess anything else to a relative stranger.

Jocelyn apparently was in conspiracy with his mouth. She waited him out.

“He gave me a job,” Jim admitted at last. “I thought we could have a last hurrah—” Gee, that hadn’t sounded so cruel the first time he had thought it. “—right before I skipped out…”

“…only you never left,” the woman said, picking up the rest of his sentence. “You realized you liked him.” Jocelyn looked very pleased that she had solved the mystery.

“I realized,” Jim tried to correct, “Spock was a nice guy who didn’t deserve to have anyone playing with his heart.”

“So he likes you back!”

Jim wanted to bang his head on the bar. Repeatedly. Why had he been so eager to meet this woman? She was nosy. She tried to pry things out of him he would never tell his priest. Jim paused in thought at that, recalling almost sadly he did not have a priest on retainer. Wasn’t confession good for the soul or something?

“Jim, Jim!” Jocelyn said, poking at his arm again. “Where are you going? Things are starting to make sense!”

“No, they aren’t!” he almost snapped, on his feet now. “Nothing makes sense.” Jim dropped a twenty dollar bill on the bar and slid out of her reach. “Thank you for coming, Jocelyn. Sorry about the lie.”

“Are you a coward?”

The challenge grabbed him like no person could and latched on tightly. Jim stiffened so, his injury ached from the tension. When he turned back to Jocelyn, she froze in her chair at his look; but she did not back down.

“I am not a coward,” Jim said too quietly.

“And yet you’re, what? Running away? Fixin’ to do something dumb like let go of a good man?”

“That isn’t your business.”

She was angry now as she stood up. “Leonard McCoy is my business, and in case you don’t realize it, he will always be my business. If you’re about to do something that hurts him, I will kill you.”

Jim’s temper floundered under the intensity of hers. “I’m not going to hurt him.” I’m going to hurt me. Don’t you get that?

Maybe she did. Her tone softened a little. “Jim, you’re being stupid but given that you’re male, that’s not unexpected. Now if you want to be smart for a change, let me talk to your friend about this. It’s the manager of the shop, right? You probably got my phone number from him.”

Of all the requests she could have had, she picked the one that Jim could never agree to. When he told her no, the woman looked like she was going to stomp her foot in frustration.

“You will not approach him,” Jim warned her, his voice odd and low. “Because, Jocelyn, if you hurt Spock, I will kill you.”

Maybe frightening her wasn’t the best choice he had ever made, but he couldn’t let that matter. Jim owed Spock. He owed Spock protection, even if it was protection from him. What truly mattered was that Spock wanted Leonard, and Leonard… wanted him back. Jim had seen that much the day he had tricked Bones into kissing him. A blind man—or even a man hopped up on painkillers—could not have failed to notice it.

It had taken Jim more than a few days to admit it, but he now knew the real trick was on himself. Kissing Bones had won him nothing but the guilt of knowing he had made a cruel attempt to ruin a good thing for Spock. Spock wasn’t blaming him for what happened, for which Jim could not comprehend, but that did not mean Jim had been right to act as he did.

So he owed Spock this chance, which just compounded the huge debt he already owed Spock for a million other past kindnesses. Jim wanted to pay the debt back as quickly as possible, if only so it didn’t continue to torment him.

He left both the restaurant and the woman urgently calling his name behind. He circled the downtown area, his footsteps retracing familiar haunts, until the sky was under the proper cover of night. Then Jim went to his apartment, which smelled abandoned, and unearthed a worn duffle bag from behind a fake panel he had installed in his closet. In the darkness of his bedroom, until the sun came and chased the moon away, Jim perused his “runaway” kit again and again, facing bitter memories, old identities, and lies he had simply never let go.

After the debt was paid, he would leave as he should have long ago. The instinct to be happy had overridden years of experience at the hands of life’s finer cruelties; it had made Jim Kirk a fool. He should have known better than to think his body being safe meant his heart was safe too.

Sadly Jim thought, fingering a torn photograph of a younger version of himself playing with a droopy-eared bloodhound in a farmhouse yard, Old dreams die hard, but they die nonetheless.

Everybody needs counseling, especially the author. That is all.

Next Part

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