For the Sake of Nothing, Part 18

Date:

2

Title: For the Sake of Nothing, Part 18
Author: klmeri
Fandom: Star Trek AOS
Pairing: pre-Kirk/Spock/McCoy
Summary: Everthing is still better and worse, like before.
Previous Parts: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17


Part Seventeen was posted yesterday. Please read it first if you have not!

Jim stayed dead to the world well into the next day. At one point Spock had looked like he really, really wanted to wake Jim up and so Leonard had obliged him by “accidentally” knocking over a few miscellaneous items (the reasonably unbreakable kind) but Jim didn’t even stir and kept snoring softly into his pillow.

After that, rolling his eyes at Spock’s dismay (which probably had more to do with the mess on the carpet and not Jim’s condition), Leonard had suggested they simply let him sleep and go about their lives. This meant, mainly, opening the shop; Leonard could tell Spock was uneasy about closing the business for another day and also that he was torn between that unease and the unease over Jim, who could very well pull a Houdini the moment they took their eyes off of him. Leonard talked some sense into the man:

“You’re losing money every day you don’t open, and Jim will blame himself for that because he’s the kind of fool who tries to carry the world on his shoulders so God doesn’t have a job to do.”

Spock always found his sayings overly dramatic but amusing nonetheless. Regardless, he conceded Leonard’s point. They agreed that they would let Jim be for the day (granted, with Spock periodically coming back to the house to check on him; Leonard had rolled his eyes at that clause too) and focus on work.

Leonard tried not to think about the fact that he didn’t go home last night. Mostly he failed because he had wound up awkwardly sharing a bed with Spock and pretending he wasn’t at all freaked out by it. Exhausted by the time the alarm clock said midnight had arrived, his brain finally gave up its mindless circling and Leonard slept. He will never know if Spock had the same problem. Spock, it seemed, was the quietest bedmate in the universe. Leonard had irrationally feared Spock had expired at some point during the night because he couldn’t tell if the man was breathing.

How fun would that have been, waking up next to a dead man in the morning? (Leonard had always had a penchant for morbid thoughts.)

They had breakfast—Spock made wonderful omelets, as it turned out—and spent a good half an hour peering at the sleeping Jim. Then Spock showered and dressed and they left the house together. Spock took Leonard to his apartment, and Leonard cleaned himself up before heading over to the coffee shop. All-in-all, it was an uneventful day.

Until, that is, Leonard realized Spock was under the impression Leonard was going to return to his house after closing, and Leonard had to turn him down. Sadly, that conversation did not go as well as it should have.

Spock might have looked hurt and Leonard might have explained rather poorly that it wasn’t like they were dating or anything and he needed some time to sort himself out. What he didn’t say was that he still disagreed with Spock’s plan to tell Jim about their ridiculous love triangle and somehow, through all of Leonard’s blustering, Spock heard these words anyway. Suffice to say, Leonard had made Spock angry again (that seemed to be a recurring theme between them) and, in a wake of cold silence, Leonard was left to his own devices.

He was pretty damn certain they weren’t going to figure out how to balance what they wanted with what could realistically be achieved. In Leonard’s experience, the two things were definitely mutually exclusive. The thought, however, made him morose.

This is the state he was in when he sat down at his writing desk and this is how, for the first time in years, he began to tell a story that had meaning. He could have wept with unabashed joy, except that the words kept coming, a torrent of them, and Leonard had no time for anything other than committing every single consonant and vowel to paper. When, in a darkness only broken by the dim streetlights through his apartment window, his eyes were too strained to focus on his notebook Leonard finally dropped his pencil from numb fingers and sat back in his rickety chair. He didn’t re-read what he had written, despite that half of it was insane and the other half would make an editor pitch it in the trash immediately and therefore one-hundred percent of it needed to be revised. Leonard staggered to his couch and sank into its relatively uncomfortable cushions to brood.

But the brooding didn’t occur because, of all things, Leonard was happy. He was centered and light and so completely content he was grinning down at his stiff fingers like they had performed a miracle.

His muse had come back.

Jim slept for one day and ate three days worth of skipped meals when he awoke. Spock briefly considered if he could feasibly support a partner who could consume one-third of his bodyweight in food in a single sitting. By that point, once Jim had eaten Spock’s last gluten-free health bar (which Kirk claimed tasted of cardboard even as he shoved the entirety of it into his mouth), Spock resorted to ordering Chinese takeout. He predicted Jim would suffer a severe bout of indigestion later on and stopped by the drugstore on his way home in preparation for it.

Jim, fully sprawled across the living room couch, had a satiated expression when Spock returned with a large order of lo-mein in hand. Spock carefully placed the Chinese food on the coffee table and glanced around the room. Then he spied something that made no sense whatsoever and, in the awful silence of the room, asked as calmly as he could of his house guest, “Jim, did you eat my pet bird?”

Jim blinked his eyes open. “What?”

Spock went swiftly to the empty cage which housed his cockatoo and stared at its open door. “My mother gifted him to me,” he said with great dismay.

Jim, so full was he, had to roll himself into a sitting position. “Oh, I let him out. Isn’t he allowed to fly around the house?”

“Yes,” Spock said. He always checked that certain doors and windows were closed before loosing his bird, however. Somehow Spock doubted Jim had thought that far ahead.

“Waaait,” Jim said now that his sleepy brain was catching up, “did you just accuse me of eating a bird?”

Spock assumed the question was rhetorical and began to check the house room by room. He started with his bedroom, first closing off the master bath and then inspecting his closet for errant fowl. The cockatoo liked to nest in shady areas, which inevitably would bode ill for Spock’s attire if he got into the closet.

Jim tagged along after Spock, talking all the while. “Sorry about the granola and the peanut butter… and that rice stuff. …Uh, the tofu—you weren’t saving that, were you? It looked kind of close to being expired so I thought you wouldn’t mind…”

It had been close to its expiration date. “I brought medicine,” Spock said absently, closing his bedroom door and checking a hallway closet.

“I should probably take you grocery shopping,” Jim continued somewhat sheepishly.

“Agreed,” Spock murmured. The bird was not in Jim’s room either.

“Hey, are we looking for your, um, I kinda don’t know its name?”

Spock hurried to the dining room to inspect the chandelier. “I have not named him.”

Jim dutifully went to check behind the window curtains. “Why haven’t you named him? Oh, how about Pete!”

It was highly doubtful the cockatoo was hiding in the drapery, but Spock did not mention this. “A pet does not require a name,” he said instead. They moved on to the kitchen.

“A pet totally requires a name, Spock. Unless its name is IT. Don’t know if you have a thing for sewer clowns…”

Jim made the strangest references. But Spock’s attention was more focused on the flash of white and yellow he spied out of the corner of his eye.

“There you are, Petey!” Jim cried when Spock cracked open the pantry door. “Who’s a naughty bird?” he cooed.

Spock deftly caught Jim’s hand and removed it out of range of the cockatoo as it snapped its beak at the air. The bird gave Spock a baleful glare, no doubt irritated a fleshy chuck of finger to bite upon had been taken away.

“Wow, he made a mess.”

Agreeing with a sullen chortle-squawk, the cockatoo resumed peaking at a mauled blue box. Jiffy Cornbread Mix covered the length of the pantry shelf.

Spock held out his wrist and whistled sharply, just once.

The bird stopped what it was doing—making a bigger mess than before—and looked at Spock. Then it leapt for his wrist and clung there.

“Whoa, whoa,” Jim was saying enthusiastically as Spock led the way back to the bird cage, the cockatoo noisily complaining on his arm, “how did you do that, man? You’re like the bird whisperer!”

Spock said nothing as he deposited his long-time friend back in its extremely spacious cage and latched the door.

Jim poked a finger between the bars. “Can you understand him too? What’s he saying?”

“That he would like to remove your finger from your person.”

The cockatoo flew to the branch nearest Jim’s waggling finger and leaned toward it. Jim wisely withdrew his appendage from the cage.

Spock would have sighed if he was inclined to sighing. “Jim, he has regularly scheduled outings. Please consult me in advance if you wish to let him move freely through the house.”

“All right.” Jim switched between watching the bird to watching Spock, as if he was far more interesting. “Can I ask you something?”

He nodded slightly.

“Are you angry at Bones?”

He did not know if he should answer that. Certainly if he was honest…

“Why, Spock?” Jim pressed, wanting to know.

“Is my issue with Mr. McCoy relevant at this moment?”

Jim turned to pace to the couch. There he stopped abruptly, turned back, his expression restrained. Restrained from what emotion, Spock could not guess.

“It’s relevant if I’m the reason you two are fighting.”

“You are not the reason.”

Jim’s gaze sharpened. “Did you just lie to me, Spock?”

“No,” but he hesitated over how to explain. “Leonard and I are not… certain of what we desire from one another. It causes conflict between us.”

For a long moment Jim was eerily quiet. At last, when he spoke again, he said something quietly. (Something unusual.) “Wanting is the easiest thing in the world, Spock. Knowing you can’t have what you want is the worst. For that, I am sorry.”

“Why should you apologize?”

Jim looked away from him then. “Because whether you admit it or not, I am the reason behind your unhappiness. I am the problem.” His smile was humorless and directed inward.

Spock made a snap decision. He had wanted to wait until he could do this with Leonard, until the three of them could finally face each other and work through their misconceptions, but this opportunity might not present itself so easily again. “Jim, what I must tell you—”

“I already know,” Jim intervened unexpectedly, face composed once again.

The ground seemed to shift under Spock’s feet despite that nothing physically moved in the room. “You… know?”

“Yes—which is why you shouldn’t have kissed me.”

He took a step backward without meaning to.

Jim was looking at him and it wasn’t—it wasn’t with want. It was with sympathy. Pity.

Spock suddenly understood Leonard’s hatred for the emotion. Something painful dug into his heart and twisted there.

“I’ll pretend it never happened,” Jim was telling him kindly.

This is every fear he ever had, every trepidation, every doubt. He had been wrong, very terribly wrong—and very terribly right too, unfortunately, because Jim was trying his best to let Spock down gently with none of the harsh words like I can’t love you and why are you trying to ruin our friendship with your infatuation?

“Forgive me,” he said, forcing the words from his mouth. Oh, how they hurt.

Jim looked so sad. Spock felt worse because of that, even with his heart smashed to pieces at Jim’s feet.

“Forgiven, Spock.” Jim sat down on the couch, in sort of a slump, and smiled wanly at the carpet between his bare feet. “Always forgiven.”

Spock could only nod, and it was an insignificant motion at that. He lifted the Chinese takeout cartons from the coffee table and took them to the kitchen, where he stayed until his hands no longer shook of their own accord. Jim, for this part, had retreated to his room and not another word was said between them for the remainder of the day.

Leonard stepped into a world he had forgotten when he slunk into an old bookshop on a quiet Sunday. Within minutes, he found himself in a shallow cave so full of shelves that he barely fit among the books unless he hunkered down on a stool. The experience was glorious: Leonard riffled through palm-sized tomes and giant picture books that draped over his knees; he inspected typeset that formed its own language; he carefully, and quite happily, pried at stuck-together pages stiff from years of disuse.

So many words shared; so many of them lost, only to be rediscovered decades later. Leonard savored them all.

It had been a long time since he had met with the kind of dust bunnies who habitually made friends with old paper, and his nose reminded him of that half an hour later, quite loudly. A young voice chirped somewhere at his back, “Bless you!”

Almost reluctantly, Leonard emerged from a story about two kings at war over a bride (who wanted neither of them) and craned his neck around a stack of Life magazines, each preserved in its own plastic cover. A girl, who looked no older than thirteen, smiled shyly at him. In her arms were a bundle of spine-worn paperbacks. Leonard asked kindly, “Do you need some help?”

Color rose in her face. She did not say yes but, watching her juggle the books, Leonard read her unspoken desire easily enough. He tucked the small brown hardcover under his arm and squeezed out of his hideaway.

“These yours?” he questioned as he took ten or so novels into his own arms. Reading a title Leonard grinned a little. Maybe he should dedicate some time to this Cove of Wantonness, whose cover artist had depicted a busty redhead baring her neck for kisses to a roguish man in a pirate hat.

She shook her head vigorously in the negative, as if the very idea was appalling. “I’m just putting them out!” The girl pointed to a bookshelf across the store with more romance novels spilling out of every nook and cranny. Obediently Leonard followed her through a winding path to that section. Together, they contemplated how they might add more books to the pile without toppling the entire structure.

“Oh, whatever,” the girl huffed. She dumped her armful on the floor.

Leonard squatted and set his selection down. “So you work here,” he said, which wasn’t too difficult to guess.

“Only in the summer, thank god, when my parents pawn me off on Grandpa” came the slightly surly reply, coupled with an eye roll. The girl stared at him then, unrepentantly. Her voice developed a hint of coyness. “Is it hot in here to you?”

“I suppose,” he drawled, scratching idly at his stubbled chin. “All of this paper makes for good insulation.” Knowing how to deter her interest without harming her ego overly much, Leonard added politely, “Middle school, right?”

Her response, like her sudden change of expression, was withering. “High school. I’m fourteen.” The teenager gave him a dismissive flip of her hair, no doubt feeling better for it, and skirted around him to do whatever her job (or her grandfather) demanded she do. Leonard picked up a random romance paperback and read its back cover. Smiling without knowing why, he took the book back with him to his little cave of literature and added it to his growing stack of purchases.

The man behind the ancient cash register was older than Leonard by at least four decades, gray hair sparse and wispy upon his head and a pair of thin-rimmed glasses perched on the end of his nose. He said, as Leonard approached the counter, “So my granddaughter didn’t scare you off after all.”

He gave his books over to the shop owner. “Was she supposed to?”

“Only if you looked like you had no money.”

Leonard chuckled and pulled out his wallet. “We’re okay there.” Then he eyed his many, many purchases and amended ruefully, “Maybe.”

“I suspect I can think of an appropriate discount if not.”

“Thank you,” Leonard said with feeling.

Now the owner chuckled. “I recognize a fellow bibliophile when I see one.” He peered at Leonard over the rim of his glasses for a long minute. “Hmm, come to think of it, you look familiar. I’m good with faces, terrible with names. Been here before?”

Leonard frowned slightly as he glanced about his surroundings. “…Could have, I guess.” A thought occurred to him. “Do you buy books?”

The man pointed to a flyer which announced that the shop certainly did.

A touch of melancholy dimmed Leonard’s good mood. “I sold a few first editions a while back.” When he had been not only desperate for money but so depressed it didn’t matter that he gave away his prized collection. He had had a brief notion if he didn’t have to look at them, he would feel better, less guilty. It hadn’t worked.

The owner continued to stare at him thoughtfully and named a few titles. “Those the ones?”

Leonard tried not to grimace. “Yes.”

“If that’s the case, son,” the kind-faced grandfather said, “then it’s no wonder I had a hard time placing your face. You look a sight better now than you did back then. Like a different man.”

He almost said, I am a different man.

Instead Leonard simply nodded and paid for his purchases. That thought had struck a chord in him, a memory, and he wasn’t ready to consider it yet. If he did—no, when he did—he would have to admit Jim Kirk had been right after all.

Outside of the bookshop, Leonard set his bag of books on the sidewalk, unearthed a somewhat crushed cigarette pack from his jacket pocket, and smoked his first cigarette in six days.

Next Part

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About KLMeri

Owner of SpaceTrio. Co-mod of McSpirk Holiday Fest. Fanfiction author of stories about Kirk, Spock, and McCoy.

2 Comments

    • writer_klmeri

      LOL. You can smack Jim all you want. And then you can go read the next part and try to determine who you are going to smack next! XD

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