Title: For the Sake of Nothing, Part 21
Author: klmeri
Fandom: Star Trek AOS
Pairing: pre-Kirk/Spock/McCoy
Summary: Leonard is decided yet things do not quiet down.
Previous Parts: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20

If someone tried to describe what James Kirk was feeling at that moment, he or she might guess: he was nervous; he was in shock; or maybe—just maybe—he was happy.

But Jim, jaded by years of meaningless relationships, had no illusions about his true reaction. An opportunity had presented itself. They (two of the most honest men he had ever known) said they wanted him and he didn’t ask why. Couldn’t have asked that because it meant he would have had to disagree and ruin everything. So there came a chance, perhaps the chance of a lifetime, and Jim did what he had learned to do long ago. He took it and pretended it wasn’t, in all likelihood, something he wasn’t meant to have.

Jim was certain Bones understood on some level what he was trying to insinuate himself into. Why else had McCoy had second doubts? Why else had Jim had to push him, manipulate him so subtly to delay that inevitable no?

On the other hand, Spock was much too trusting of Jim, which Jim had known all along. There had been no coercion or sweet-talking necessary. For Jim, it was so easy to be callous and to forget that once upon a time he had promised himself never to take advantage of Spock.

‘Never’ was a relative term, Kirk thought as he snuck a glance at the man beside him on the couch. They were close enough to touch elbows. When Spock turned his head, Jim forced his gaze back to the television.

He wanted to bounce his knee or pick at a loose thread of the throw pillow folded under his arm. He did neither of these things because they were tells, and Jim never gave away his tells in a game he was dead-set on winning.

Could he win in the end anyway? If McCoy did not come back, any victory would be hollow. Jim understood very well that all three of them had to be part of the deal or there was no deal at all.

“You are worried.” The soft sound of Spock’s voice settled around Jim.

Jim resisted the urge to shudder. He made a noncommittal noise, focused on but not comprehending a tv commercial about soap.

After a momentary pause, Spock said, “I would ask that you speak your mind if you are compelled by doubt.”

“Who’s doubting whom?” he countered, his voice not so much soft as it was quietly controlled, and shot a look at his employer, friend, and now decidedly something else.

“There is no doubt in my mind, Jim.”

Why? He caught the word a second before it could be voiced, saying instead, “And McCoy?”

“I cannot claim to know Leonard’s mind as well as my own. I do know, however, what troubles him is not the arrangement itself but some concern which lies rooted in his past.”

“Isn’t the past what warps us all?” said Jim, a touch bitterly, as he flipped the channel until he found a sports game. He could feel Spock’s scrutinizing gaze upon him and resisted the urge to strike out, just enough that Spock would think twice before considering him a case study instead of a person.

“Jim.”

“Wanna bet on who’ll win the game?”

“Will you tell me about your past?”

Jim was no fool. He knew how ugly this conversation could get. “Nothing to tell. I don’t have family and I’m widely traveled.” He flashed a smile at Spock that didn’t reach his eyes. “You already know that.”

Spock just continued to look at him.

“Twenty bucks says the—”

“I have a father I have not spoken to in ten years.”

Jim’s mouth closed of its own accord.

Spock folded his hands in his lap, clearly uncomfortable he was sitting instead of standing while he spoke of a personal matter. “There are times when I believe it would be… simpler to say he is not alive, when I must speak of him, yet that would be false and unfair. He is a good man, a wise man.” Spock’s breaths were barely discernible over the noise of the television. “I am his greatest disappointment.”

Jim’s fingers tightened unexpectedly around the remote, his knuckles turning bloodless. “A disappointment,” he echoed flatly, unaware that the pressed line of Spock’s mouth was akin to a flinch. “How can you…?” Jim’s tone switched from disbelief to disgust at a mere word. “He called you a disappointment? He sounds like an asshole to me, Spock.”

“Sarek never used that word,” Spock said quickly and it sounded vague enough to Kirk to mean that Spock’s father might not have used the word but it wasn’t an idea Spock pulled out of thin air, either.

Jim felt terribly angry at this man he had never met, and once his anger was sparked, it usually snowballed into a fight of some kind. There was no object he could alleviate his anger upon, not in Spock’s house anyway, except his own person. And while Jim had an abundance of issues, self-harm was not one of them. (Unless one counted putting a fist through a wall, since that action almost never hurt the wall.) He resorted to tossing the remote on the coffee table and repeatedly rubbing his palms against his jeans in hopes the movement would assuage some of his tension. It only succeeded in making him more jumpy.

“Shit,” he said after a minute, “shit, I can’t sit here, Spock.” Jim abandoned the couch and headed for the door that led to the patio and backyard.

A tree wasn’t a wall but like the wall it didn’t hit back. Jim figured he could say he was practicing boxing if anyone asked why he was punching a tree.

He had just aimed his first knock-em-out punch at a particularly menacing-looking piece of bark when Spock intervened. That is, by “intervened”, Spock blocked Jim’s flying fist with ease and without warning knocked Kirk flat on his ass in the middle of the yard.

Torn between surprise and outrage, Jim gaped. “Spock—?”

Spock approached and held out his hand to help Jim, who was rising to his feet, but the moment he had Jim’s hand in his own, he swept Jim’s left leg out from under him. As his elbows hit the dirt, Jim’s confusion vanished from one heartbeat to the next and was replaced by hot anger. He came up from the ground roaring and tackled Spock in his midsection. Spock, the bastard, twisted Jim’s arm until his roar transformed into a frustrated scream then batted Jim away like an annoyance.

“Your technique is poor.”

“What the fuck do you know?” he snarled, turning on the man again and circling him. “It’s saved my life more than once.”

“A circumstance of pure luck, I must assume.”

Spock skirted out of range of a right hook, but Jim anticipated that move and followed, catching Spock’s wrist and using the leverage to pivot himself into a full body-slam into Spock’s ribs. Spock didn’t let him go as another fighter might have done, did not stumble, simply folded gracefully and took them both down to the ground. A quick scuffle ensued in which Jim tried an elbow to the stomach (that missed, unfortunately) and tangled up Spock’s legs with his own. But Jim left his torso vulnerable and Spock took advantage of that and flipped them over until Jim was under him and successfully pinned. Kicking didn’t help, nor bucking or threats.

“Do you concede?” Spock asked, watching him steadily.

Conceding meant losing, and Jim didn’t like to lose. “No,” he bit out, having instantly formed a new plan, in the moment before he darted upwards and caught Spock’s mouth with his own. Jim gripped the back of Spock’s neck and one of his forearms to prevent the man from jerking away.

Spock worked an arm between them, albeit somewhat belatedly, and parted them with a shove. He said with a near-gasp, “That is not a method of attack, Jim.”

Jim looked at the well of blood on Spock’s bottom lip and countered slyly, “It’s always been one of my better ones.”

Spock stared down at him with inscrutable, black eyes. “You will kiss me again,” he half-demanded.

Jim realized then if he had had any intention of stopping before, it wasn’t an option now. He made a wordless sound and leaned upward to meet Spock halfway.

Some time later, they both became aware of a methodical thump-thump-thumping not too far away.

“Mmmrgh,” Jim complained when Spock paused in biting at his collarbone to inspect their surroundings. “What is that? …Never mind, forget it, Spock.” He whined manly and grappled with Spock’s shoulders but the man only stiffened instead of melting back into him. So Jim tried another diversion tactic by worming a hand under Spock’s ridiculously form-fitting turtle-necked shirt.

“Jim,” Spock hissed, capturing his wrist to still his movements. “We are not alone.”

His first response was “So what? Let’s give them a show.”

Their company, it turned out, as Jim lifted his head from the ground to look in the direction in which Spock was blushing, was a fascinated nine year-old and a red rubber ball. Said nine year-old was methodically bouncing the ball in place while he watched them through the chain link fence.

Jim had never rearranged his clothes faster, except that time he got slobbering drunk in some biker bar and, once he had sobered, found himself being groped by a woman who looked exactly like his dead grandmother.

He and Spock made into the house in record time, their walk of shame notwithstanding. Spock’s cheeks were still lightly red.

“Er, maybe he won’t tell his parents?” Jim offered hopefully. He contemplated his pants and a missing belt buckle. Now probably wasn’t the time to mention he had accidentally left evidence behind.

“I may be banned from the next meeting of the homeowner’s association.”

Spock made that sound like a bad thing. Jim winced. “Sorry? Should I go talk to them?”

Spock removed something from Jim’s hair and held it up for him to see. It was a blade of grass.

“…I guess that’s a no.” Jim combed his fingers through his hair, dismayed as bits of yard floated to the carpet. “We can pretend it never happened.”

“I would suggest we expunge the detail concerning our explicit activity in view of a minor. The rest,” Spock said, “I would prefer to remember.”

On the heels of that fresh memory, a wave of desire hit Jim. He looked at the fabric that covered Spock’s neck. “Can we—get you out of that shirt?”

“Is the shirt troublesome?”

Oh, you have no idea. “It’s my mortal enemy,” he said as solemnly as he could manage.

Spock’s lips twitched. He turned without saying a word and headed towards his bedroom. Jim recalled briefly who was missing (the man who ought to be the reason he backed off), blanketed that thought, and followed Spock.

He did give consideration to another thought as he caught up to Spock. Because Spock was in the processing of shedding his shirt, Jim’s brain required a few extra seconds to remember why the thought was important.

“I want a rematch.”

Spock folded his shirt and placed it across a chair. “The point of the fight was to help you focus on an object which could diffuse your anger with the least injury.”

“I could have won.” He didn’t like the way Spock labeled himself as an object.

“Jim,” Spock said, turning to face him, “you do not need to prove yourself. What you are worth to me cannot be measured by a skill. …Or a price,” he added softly.

This conversation had gotten ugly after all, Jim realized. It had turned into something he couldn’t face. “I—” He began, stopped. Because he was still in the doorway it was so easy to step backward over the threshold and plant himself decisively in the hall. “Spock,” he said, “thank you. That means…” Too much. “Just, thanks. But we should wait.”

“Jim…”

“Bones,” he clarified, like it wasn’t something he had considered and dismissed beforehand. “It might be better if we don’t—” He gestured at the bed. “—until we know his answer.”

Jim had to flee then, because Spock looked at him as if he knew, he knew, that Jim was making an excuse to simply get away from the undeniable, gentle emotion in Spock’s eyes.

This is disappointment, thought Jim. This is how you disappoint someone who loves you.

Leonard quit his second job on a Tuesday, the day after he talked with Jocelyn. He went to see to his shift supervisor early in the morning. The guy simply looked at him, overrode his slightly nervous speech of “sorry ’bout the bad news but I don’t need this job anymore” with a “Who are you again?” It wasn’t a rude question, since they had only met face-to-face once in the past. Leonard himself didn’t even really know the man except by title.

“Leonard McCoy.”

The supervisor consulted his payroll. “Yeah, okay. I guess you do work here. Which, buddy, if you weren’t quitting, I’d have to fire you anyway. You’ve got four absences in a row.”

Leonard winced. “There were… some complications.” Like his arrest. Best not to mention that. “I’m not gonna leave you short-handed,” he said earnestly. “This is a two-week notice.”

“Hey, I don’t care. We’ve a new group of trainees coming in tomorrow. Somebody’ll be eager to take your place, buddy, if you aren’t. There’re always people praying to their gods that one of you quits or chops off a toe.”

Leonard wished the man wouldn’t speak so blithely about workplace injuries, which were too common already. “Okay. I guess… goodbye? And thanks?”

“Your last paycheck will be in the mail but if you don’t get it, don’t call me,” the supervisor said and turned back to his computer screen.

Leonard doubted he had earned enough in the last week to warrant a final paycheck but he recognized a dismissal when he heard one. He slipped out of the office, crossed the shopfloor, and left the building. Somehow, even though he was acting prematurely (the insurance money hadn’t shown up yet, and Leonard doubted it would before the next month), he felt lighter in his heart as he caught a bus back into the city. He was worn at the edges from spending eighty percent of his day at one job or another; and he knew how detrimental to his health that could be, considering he had trouble sleeping the other twenty percent of the time.

Things were going to be better now. He had to believe that. His writing ability was not so craptastic anymore, he might not be as close to homelessness as he anticipated, and there were two people who—

Oh, but how Leonard was jumping ahead of himself!

Spock and Jim were present in his life all right, and were waiting for him, but the three of them hadn’t actually done anything outside of discussion. And really… whose fault was it they hadn’t gotten past the “let’s talk about” stage?

Leonard might have not done any favors for himself. He was painfully aware of that now.

He remembered holding Spock’s hand, then, and the kissing and felt his face heat. So, okay, there had been some marginally exciting activity going on. Yet the question remained: was Leonard ready to accept more from both Spock and Jim? Were they ready to accept it from him?

He thought he knew the answer from their point-of-view. Jim would, no doubt, find every opportunity to enjoy himself. Spock would—well, Spock wouldn’t object, and Leonard only knew that because it had been rather apparent the man found touching Leonard to be quite fascinating.

So he had to ask himself if he was the one who was ready. More than the physical nature of a relationship, the inherently emotional nature of it was what mattered to Leonard. Emotion drove it, made it strong, kept it thriving. Did he have the guts to be emotionally receptive to the kind of relationship they wanted?

He hadn’t been before.

Leonard had not—did not—want them to know how broken he was after the loss of his family. It was with shame that he thought of his depression and his anger and his refusal to help himself.

Leonard slumped into the bus seat and closed his eyes. So this is the feeling he had carried around for so long without acknowledging it: shame. What an unpleasant thing.

Better to face it now and move on, he decided.

That meant, of course, he had to admit his shame to them—and that meant telling them everything.

His fingers drummed a nervous rhythm on the seat. The bus halted at a city block and Leonard’s eyes skipped to the window, crowd-watching while others came and went. He could stay anonymous, as anonymous as he was on this bus right now, but in the end it would do him no good. He would stand on the sidelines and watch Jim and Spock make a million wonderful things possible and feel regret that he had no part in it. He knew he would.

Resolutely he stayed seated as the bus rumbled to the stop nearest his apartment complex then past it. When it took a turn into a neighborhood Leonard was rapidly becoming familiar with, he sat up and clamped his hands between his knees. He didn’t need to see Spock’s house to know it was nearby.

No one would be home. The time of day was closing in on noon and the shop needed tending particularly during the lunch hours.

Still, he almost got off the bus. Almost, until Leonard’s common sense made him hesitate and sit back down.

Was it better to go to them now or wait until after closing?

“You look lost,” a kindly woman said from across the aisle, a partly knitted scarf and knitting needles in her lap.

“Just indecisive,” he replied, embarrassed.

“Hm,” she murmured knowingly. “Then ride a while longer and maybe you’ll make up your mind. Or until your stomach makes up your mind for you.”

That… was not bad advice. At least, it wasn’t as long as the bus driver took no offense to his loitering.

Leonard settled into his habitual slump and let a window’s view of the world race past him. He thought of nothing for the most part and only vaguely worried about different ways to say sure, let’s do this weird love triangle dating thing and hope nobody thinks we’re starting a cult. And, hey, my ex thinks it’s a great idea! Forty minutes later, his stomach had indeed made a decision for him. Nodding to the woman still absently working on her scarf (was she a regular on this route, he wondered, since no one said a word to her edgewise?), he left the bus and strode north, feeling the protest of his leg muscles from sitting for too long.

Spock’s coffeehouse was busy as usual, and Leonard didn’t bother to fight the crowd at the counter. He stole an unused stool from a table with a single occupant, placed it along the wall and perched there to observe the scene. Jim had his hands full but he wasn’t alone. Spock deftly handed out orders as Jim completed them and he had people behaving themselves without doing much more than simply looking at them until they sheepishly sorted themselves out into a line. It was hilarious and heart-warming at the same time.

Leonard crossed his arms and leaned against the wall, content. He didn’t try to help because he knew he would only be a kink in an otherwise perfectly synchronized dance between Spock and Jim. The truth of it didn’t sting as it might have once upon time; Leonard simply watched them work and let himself be amazed and, oddly enough, proud.

He wanted this. He wanted them.

Jim caught Spock’s eyes as he finished another cup of coffee and he smiled. Spock answered in the prolonged touch of their hands. Then he returned to duty.

The fact was Leonard McCoy not only wanted what he saw, but he was going to have it. And he realized in that moment he was okay with whatever it might cost him.

He was so preoccupied with his thoughts he didn’t notice the man working his way to the front of the counter. It wasn’t until Jim’s movements stuttered before stopping altogether that Leonard knew something was wrong. The man paid a cursory attention to Spock, fixated on Jim for a short minute. Then he turned around, looked directly at Leonard, and smiled.

Oh hell, Leonard thought, sliding off his stool.

What had possessed Christopher Pike to come here? According to the man’s grin, nothing good.

When two other people stepped into the shop, both in police uniform (whereas Pike was not), and flanked the Captain, Leonard’s stomach sank.

Nothing good had just turned into something very, very bad. Of that he was certain.

“Captain,” Leonard greeted as Pike veered toward him, remembering to keep his voice cordial.

Christopher Pike motioned to an empty booth. “Join me?”

Leonard eyed the goons standing at the counter, hands in their pockets but watching him closely, and decided refusing the invitation wasn’t an option. He slid opposite of Pike into the booth and braced his elbows on his thighs. He would let Pike tell him the reason for this visit.

Pike relaxed into his seat and studied the bustling shop. “Place seems like a decent setup. You like it?”

Was that a trick question? “The job pays the rent.”

Pike considered his casual reply. Then he asked, “Why do you think I’m here, McCoy?”

“For a donut and a cup of joe? Hate to break this to you, sir, but we aren’t a Dunkin Donuts.”

“I’ll let you have that one joke at my expense,” Pike said, “but I wouldn’t suggest trying my patience further.”

At a loud thud, Leonard glanced over the back of the booth and caught sight of Jim. Kirk was paying more attention to their direction than to the dishware he had just knocked to the floor. The look on his face said he wasn’t where he wanted to be or doing what he wanted to be doing. Leonard purposefully avoided eye contact, guessing that within seconds Jim would be over here causing trouble.

Leonard figured in such a public setting he could handle Pike on his own. He silently made a vow: get Pike out of the coffee shop as quickly and painlessly as possible. So, playing along for now was in order.

“All right, tell me what I can do for you. I’m guessing this isn’t a social call, given we aren’t friends.”

The older man chuckled almost soundlessly. “I read an interesting story,” he told Leonard, as if they were part of a mutual book club and this unexciting statement mattered.

Pike unearthed something from his jacket. With a noise of surprise, Leonard unthinkingly reached for it. A sick feeling settled in his stomach when Pike did not automatically relinquish it, instead laying it flat on the table and continuing to smile. To anyone but Leonard the smile would seem congenial, almost friendly. It wasn’t.

McCoy’s hands flexed under the table. His surprise gave way to anger. “That…that’s mine. My notebook.”

“I know.”

“You broke into my apartment?” The accusation sounded more like a question of incredulity. “Why?”

Pike flipped through a few pages. “How this came into my possession is unimportant. Do you know… I was surprised that the plot is actually good—though your handwriting—” His mouth wavered with humor as he read a line. “—leaves something to be desired.”

The world was rotating slowly. There were no words to express how surreal the moment felt.

Pike hmmed. “Sci-fi doesn’t interest me much. I like the real, the gritty, the… tragic.”

Crime novels, Leonard would bet. Pike probably had a bookshelf of them.

“Yet you managed to keep my interest. Tell me, are these Vulcans really as peaceful as they seem?”

They can be any way I make them, he almost retorted. “Listen, just give it back and I’ll forget I ever saw you with it.”

Pike leaned forward on his elbows abruptly, crowding into McCoy’s personal space with an ease born of an experienced interrogator. “The Vulcan is obvious. He’s Spock. Precise, not given to extraneous emotion unless his defenses are compromised. An annoyance to a man such as yourself.”

Leonard was dizzy. Why was he dizzy? “So what?” he said, mouth acutely dry. “It’s just a story.”

“And Kirk,” Pike continued without missing a beat, “is the starship’s captain. Who else could he be? You see what I see in him, don’t you, McCoy?”

“Jim’s far from captain material,” Leonard countered, hating the fact that he and Pike shared anything.

Pike stopped smiling. “At the moment? You’re right. He’s broken.”

The words were a sucker-punch that left Leonard winded.

“It’s a sad truth about Jim Kirk,” Pike said, interpreting his expression correctly. “That is why I’m here, McCoy. This little tale you wrote—” He slid the notebook toward Leonard. “—means you can understand my motive. I want Kirk on my team—and you’re going to make that happen.”

“No,” he said, then disbelieving, “Are you nuts?”

Pike drew back, face hardened. “I’ve been a cop for a long time. I’ve seen more than my share of kids messed up too young work their way through the system from misdemeanor to murder. The same story sticks with them as they grow up. Usually it gets worse. Jim’s a classic case—been on the wrong side of the law since his teens. I can change that for him, give him focus.”

Leonard understood more than Pike thought he did. “You mean you can use him.”

“I’ll get something out of it, yes.”

“I’m not listening to this!” Leonard snapped, inching out of the booth. “I don’t agree with a damn thing you just said.”

Pike was quick; he was on his feet with a painful grip on Leonard’s arm in a matter of seconds. “You didn’t ask me why I picked you.” Without waiting for a reply, Pike swept the notebook off the table and shoved it into McCoy’s chest. “In this story, you’re the doctor.”

He opened his mouth to protest but that protest did not come. “I am?” But he couldn’t be. He didn’t… “—care about people like that.”

Pike released him with a snort. “You cared enough to end up in handcuffs next to your partner. Everybody’s got their part, McCoy. You wrote it that way. I just interpreted it for you. So find the problem with Kirk and fix it,” he ordered. “I’ll be in touch.”

“I won’t help you!”

Pike put his hands in his pockets, turned away before looking back at Leonard a last time. “You mentioned another character in passing—the man who had the ship before the wonder-boy captain. Respected, revered for his service and his wisdom. He might have been me, you know, except for one thing…” Pike started smiling again. “I’m not the good guy and I won’t ever be.”

Leonard’s palms were sweating. “If you’re not a good guy, then why would I trust you with Jim’s life?”

“Because I am far from the worst out there. I suspect,” Pike murmured for Leonard’s ears only, “you’ll learn that soon enough.”

A chill washed down Leonard’s spine. But Pike said nothing else, not that he needed to, and strode for the door. His lackeys wordlessly followed him. Three shadows stretched across the wide window as the men moved down the street.

Fingers dug into Leonard’s bicep, steadying him when he might have swayed. His brain reeled; his thoughts were disjointed enough by a quiet fear that he couldn’t make sense of what had just happened, or of the threat encroaching on Leonard’s normally peaceful existence.

…And not just his existence.

He turned to Jim, who had been saying his name. “Shit, I think we’re screwed.”

Jim’s fingers dug a little harder into Leonard’s skin. “What did he want?”

Leonard pried at Jim’s hand. “Look, the one thing I don’t think I can do right now is talk about Christopher-fucking-Pike. Where does Spock keep the strong stuff?”

A voice said at his back, “You are aware there is no alcohol on the premises.”

“Well then, excuse me. I’ll be going to find some.”

Jim tried to follow him to the door. Leonard planted a hand in Kirk’s chest alongside a firm no. “Don’t you dare leave Spock to handle these customers by himself!”

Jim relented, though he did not look happy about Leonard making his escape. Leonard paused at the doorway and ran a hand across the cover of his writing notebook. (It did nothing to lessen the feeling of violation.)

He turned back and said, “Yes.”

Spock’s eyebrow twitched with incomprehension. Jim was on the verge of several strong emotions and had no patience for puzzles. That much Leonard could figure out with a single glance. He clarified for their benefit, “The answer’s yes” and left.

Next Part

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