Title: For the Sake of Nothing, Part 22
Author: klmeri
Fandom: Star Trek AOS
Pairing: pre-Kirk/Spock/McCoy
Summary: Everybody has something to say.
Previous Parts: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21

Leonard was in the middle of a late afternoon brooding session when someone knocked on his apartment door. He stuffed his notebook under a couch cushion, wiped his hands on his pants, and went to see who it was. Only partly surprised, he said hello to James Kirk and invited him in.

“Spock somewhere nearby?”

Jim shook his head. “I came alone.”

“Well,” Leonard began then stopped. He glanced around, realized this had to be the first time Jim had seen his apartment and made a slight motion with his hand. “Welcome, I guess. It’s not much.”

Jim made a beeline for the window and writing desk and inspected the world on the other side of the windowpane as if it afforded him an unusual view. “Not bad.”

“Only if you discount the condemned building across the street and the crackheads who hang out on the corner.”

Leonard saw the faint lift of Kirk’s mouth through the reflection in the glass.

Jim turned around. “Bones…”

“We need to talk. I know.” Leonard dropped onto the couch and tamped down on his instinct to scowl. He heaved a sigh instead.

Jim gingerly settled on the wooden chair at the desk and looked at him.

Afraid Jim was waiting on him to speak, Leonard said pointedly, “You’re the one who came to see me, Jim. What’s on your mind?”

“You said yes.”

Leonard’s heart skipped a beat for no good reason.

“Why?” Jim wanted to know, leaning forward in his earnestness.

“If I said it’s complicated…”

“I would say I can handle complicated. Tell me everything.”

Leonard made an annoyed sound. “You’re a nuisance, kid.” Then he huffed. He fidgeted. He decided Jim was prepared to engage in the longest staring contest in history. “All right! Which do you want: the short version or the long version?”

“I want whatever you are willing to share.”

Leonard ignored the double meaning of that. “I said yes because I figured I had more to lose if the answer was no.”

Jim said nothing.

Leonard had to look away. “I like you, Jim. I think you know that.” Out of the corner of his eye he saw he had startled Jim. “I like Spock, too. It’s not a sudden thing. I’ve kinda felt that way since the second or third time I paid a visit to the shop.”

“I didn’t know that,” Jim said quietly. “You kept turning me down.”

“Yeah,” he agreed. “That was for Spock’s sake. Jim… could you really not see how he feels about you?”

Now it was Jim’s turn to forgo meeting his eyes. “It’s complicated.”

“Welcome to the club,” Leonard quipped with a trace of his dry humor. “Fine, I won’t ask. We’ll just agree that you were an idiot—and still are.”

“Thanks a lot, Bones. I can tell you know how to make a guy swoon.”

“I save that charm for the ladies.”

Jim rubbed a hand over his mouth. It did not quite erase his smile.

Able to relax at last, Leonard stretched out his legs and crossed them at the ankles. “I gave this disclaimer to Spock. I suppose you deserve to hear it too.” Surprisingly the words were not hard to say, or bitter. “I’m not the best at relationships. Case in point is the fact I have actively avoided them for more than a year. That stuff Jocelyn told you?” Jim’s eyes widened. “That pretty much put me off people for a long time.”

Boy, this was fun. Guilt obviously wasn’t the easiest emotion for Jim to cover up. Leonard waited, smug without showing it, for the confession.

“Um,” Jim began, hesitated. “Bones, I…that is…”

He lifted an eyebrow. “You’re not going to tell me again how sorry you are for me, are you?”

“I am sorry,” Jim muttered, and by that he meant he was very, very sorry he had lied and now Leonard assumed Jim knew what he was talking about.

“So you can understand why I am paranoid—”

Jim looked like he had swallowed a bug.

“—pissed off most days,” Leonard wanted to laugh, badly, “and don’t play well with others.” Could he possibly tack on more bullshit? And Jim, poor poor Jim, had no clue how far he was about to be strung along. Leonard suppressed a wicked grin. “I’ve been very traumatized, or at least that’s what the clinical psychologists wrote in their reports.”

Jim was biting down so hard on his lip, it was a wonder he hadn’t broken through the skin. “Bones.”

Leonard shrugged and said nonchalantly, “They said my psychotic break wasn’t as bad it could have been. Like, you know, I didn’t stab a bunch of people in the subway.” He paused. “All though it was a near thing, and sometimes… well, urges never really go away, do they?” He gave Jim his best I’m unstable and you’re in the room with an axe murderer grin.

Jim’s eyes darted to the innocuous pencil on the floor then back at Leonard. His leg started to bounce nervously.

“What’s the matter, Jim?” Leonard inquired in a smooth voice. “Surely you’re not going to judge me based on an affliction I can’t help?”

“Of course not!” Kirk was quick to assure him. “I wouldn’t, er, you’re not… though of course they—uh, the psychologists?—had to clear you to be around people. Right?“

Leonard held out for about three seconds before he burst out laughing. He began laughing so hard he was close to crying and had to hide his face in his hands.

“Bones, no—Bones!” Jim was calling urgently over his laughter, and suddenly a hand was squeezing Leonard’s shoulder. “Deep breaths! We’re all okay! Nobody’s upset!”

Leonard pulled his hands away from his face in time to see Jim hiding the pencil under the couch. A fresh wave of laughter bubbled out of him and he dragged Jim forward so he could drop his forehead to Jim’s shoulder and muffle his laughs against the man’s shirt. Maybe they sounded like sobs. By the time it wasn’t so painful for Leonard to breath, Jim was patting his back carefully and trying to rock them both for comfort, which was awkward since Jim was kneeling on the floor and Leonard was still mostly seated on the couch. He pulled away to wipe his face and ask, “What are you doing?”

Wide-eyed, Jim studied his reddened face. “Are the… urges gone?”

“Not all of them,” Leonard said, amused. “In fact…” He reached out and smacked the back of Jim’s head.

“Ow, hey!” Jim sat back and looked very much like a child unjustly punished.

“You are an idiot, Jim. First thing, just so you quit having visions of me stabbing you in the throat with the nearest pointy object, I lied. I’m not insane—not much anyway. I didn’t have a break from reality, but you’d know that if you actually knew what you claim to know.”

Jim closed his mouth on a protest and stopped rubbing the back of his head. “What?”

“You lied to me,” Leonard repeated patiently. “Jocelyn told you nothing.” He felt a touch of satisfaction when guilt flooded back into Jim’s face. “You don’t have to tell me why you did it, Jim, because I’m pretty sure I figured that part out for myself.”

“Did you?” came the subdued reply.

“It was a diversion so you could make that bus.”

A few seconds passed before Jim nodded slowly. Leonard’s attention had sharpened with suspicion in the meantime. “What else?”

Jim blinked. “What do you mean?”

“There was a second motive. What was it?”

Jim gave him that slight smirk which meant nothing good. “Don’t you trust me, Bones?”

“To be honest, sometimes I don’t think I should trust you. Half the time you’re playing at something I can’t figure out.” Jim didn’t look angry, only tired. Feeling bad for him, Leonard caught Kirk’s chin and brushed his thumb along a light five o’clock shadow of stubble. He was unsurprised when Jim leaned into the touch. “Maybe the real problem is that you can’t trust me, kid.”

“I trust you, Bones.”

“Not with everything.”

Jim tugged Leonard’s fingers away from his face and wrapped them in his own.

“Not with the real you,” Leonard said, swallowing hard. Jim was doing his damnedest to be a distraction, having suddenly switched his attention to using his mouth to explore the back of Leonard’s hand.

“We’re touching,” Jim murmured. “This is as real as it gets.”

“Stop it,” he said, but there was no heat behind his words.

Jim slid his free hand to Leonard’s elbow and gently reeled him from the couch to the hardwood floor. They were at the same eye-level now. “I’ll tell you a secret if you let me kiss you.”

“Why is this always your solution?” But Leonard was already angling his head for the kiss. He didn’t see a reason not to kiss Jim. No reason at all.

They parted several minutes later when they had to breathe or die.

“What’s the secret?” Leonard said raggedly between gulps of air. Jim had nipped at his bottom lip and it throbbed in a pleasant way.

A grin spread across Jim’s face. “Spock has an erogenous zone behind his right ear.”

For a moment, Leonard floundered for a response. “That’s not—did you—damn it, Jim! You said you’d tell me a secret!”

“I did. It’s totally a secret because Spock would be mortified if he knew. Also, I don’t recall saying I’d tell you one of mine.”

“You sneaky little bastard.”

“Aw, you love me!”

“Jim, shut up. And get your hand off my thigh.”

“So we’re not going to make out?”

Leonard flung the hand off his thigh himself. “Hell no. I’d rather not have to explain to your biggest fan why I gave you a hickey before he did.”

“You mean like this one?” Jim pulled down the collar of his shirt to expose of a small purplish bruise on his collarbone. Leonard stared at the spot for a long minute. “Spock’s not going to mind if you give it a twin,” Kirk insisted.

Leonard might have seriously considered the invitation, except Jim’s smug expression said he enjoyed the thought of Spock and McCoy in a competition of sexual prowess. Especially when he was the recipient of said contest. So Leonard did the next best thing: he slipped a hand under the couch, retrieved the pencil and looked very, very calm. “I’m going to stab you now, Jim. Please don’t move.”

What ensued thereafter (Jim could scream like a girl, apparently, if given the appropriate incentive) was fun for McCoy and somewhat humiliating for Kirk. In the end, Jim did get a bruise but not the kind he had anticipated, nor in a place he wanted to be bruised. He limped along after Leonard, the perfect picture of contriteness, as the two men left the apartment building for the nearest pizzeria. Jim did, however, make Leonard splurge for extra cheese and breadsticks as revenge.

“Hello!” someone called cheerfully.

Spock paused in counting the number of pennies in the cash register and looked up. Despite that he stiffened, he kept any hint of discomfort from his reply. “Can I help you?”

“I hope I’m not interrupting,” the young woman said as she approached the counter and eyed the stacks of pennies. (Spock preferred to count them in multiples of ten.)

“Can I help you?” he repeated.

“Do you remember me by chance?”

Of course Spock did; his eidetic memory would not allow for forgetfulness, nor a first impression such as hers. He inclined his head. “I recall you had an interest in one of my employees.”

“Funny you should put it that way—’an interest’ rather than ‘a desire to communicate with’. Did I really come off as that type of girl?”

Spock could not discern the source of her amusement. “If I misjudged you, I apologize,” he said with little inflection. “We close in five minutes. Do you wish to order?”

When she turned away, he expected she would leave. Instead, the woman dragged a stool to the corner of his counter and sat down. “You must be Spock,” she said and held out her hand after setting her purse aside. “My name is Jocelyn. I’m a friend of Leonard’s.”

Spock really hadn’t decided to shake her hand; it just happened. “I see.”

Jocelyn smiled at him. “Actually, I don’t think you do. When I used the word friend, I meant simply that—a friend. Sure Len and I dated, oh, about—” Maybe Spock’s eye twitch changed her mind about her rambling. “Never mind the details. We dated; we broke up. Personally, I think that’s for the best. And,” she added, lifting her hand proudly, “I am engaged to this wonderful man. Leonard has met him and he approves, by the way.”

She had presented him with much information in the span of a few seconds. Spock processed it quickly and found he was less inclined to think negatively of her. In that respect, she was both perceptive and persuasive. Yet there was one question he had to ask. Spock phrased it as a statement: “You do not intend to pursue him.”

“Didn’t I mention the engagement part?” With a good-natured huff, she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “Oh, all right. I guess I can concede that being in one relationship does not preclude an individual from seeking other. Speaking of…” She propped her chin with her hand and widened her eyes playfully. “How goes it?”

“I do not understand your question.”

“How are you managing with the dating two employees at one time thing? Is it working out?”

Had Spock been anyone else, he might have been appalled or embarrassed or angry by her prying. Instead, Spock felt fascinated. He asked with honesty, because he was curious, “Do you feel you have a right to know that answer?”

“Oh, I like you. You don’t think I was too bold?”

“I suppose,” Spock replied for her, “given your association with Leonard you may assume any aspect of his life which affects his well-being is your concern.”

“And you’re smart, too! I had to spell it out for the other guy.”

His fascination grew. “Do you refer to Jim?”

“Who else? Nosy, boyish charm, sly like a fox—that’s Kirk. Oh wait, I forgot stubborn. Do you know—well,” she paused, “you must know by now. About his foolish notion?”

“I fear I do not. Please explain.”

But she started biting her lip. “Maybe I’ve said too much.”

“You have not,” Spock assured her.

“I feel like I am giving away someone else’s secret.”

“I will tell no one.”

“You’re really just as stubborn as the rest of them, aren’t you? Okay,” she agreed. “Pinky swear on it.”

Spock studied her raised little finger.

“Hook your finger with mine and make a promise,” Jocelyn explained.

“I have not sworn an oath in this manner before,” he confessed while complying with her instructions.

“Then it is my honor to teach you the childhood adage of pinky swearing! Now promise to tell not a soul.”

He promised, barring the soul part.

“Fabulous! Okay, first: Jim’s got it bad for our resident McCoy.”

“Affirmative,” Spock agreed.

“And Jim’s sweet on you too. In fact, I’m fairly certain he’s the most confused individual I’ve ever met. But that could be because he’s in his head too much.” She tapped a polished fingernail against the counter and made a thoughtful sound. “So Jim, being this ‘hero’ type—and why is it heroes are the most foolish when it comes to self-sacrifice?—”

Spock assumed that was a rhetorical question. Even if it wasn’t, he had no answer to give.

“—decided since you and Len are both wonderful people and happen to like each other, you should be together and he was just shit out of luck.”

She spoke in a manner that Spock recognized. “I see your relation to Leonard.”

“Oh, hush,” she said but looked pleased at his observation. “Now, being a ‘doer’ type in addition to having this god-awful hero complex, Jim came up with a plan to remove himself from the running. Isn’t that silly?”

“Indubitably.”

“Pushing people away by attacking them, whether physically or verbally, is often the most expedient method. I have to wonder, though, why he chose to hurt Leonard and not you.” Jocelyn looked at him as if he might know. When he stayed quiet, she guessed, “What would he have had to say to upset you, Spock?”

Spock thought about it with the appropriate clinical detachment. “He might have said anything which could be misconstrued as rejection.” In truth, Jim had done that days ago and only now was Spock able to remember it without a lingering pain.

“Ah, so it was easier to provoke Leonard’s temper, and thereby yours if I guess correctly, than to say something potentially psychologically damaging to a person he valued. Maybe Jim’s not as dumb as he seems.”

“He is far from unintelligent.”

“And maybe,” she mused further, “he wasn’t looking to destroy the possibility of a future without any hope of redemption. He could have done a lot worse, but it sounded like he was buying time instead.”

Spock argued, “One must consider the fact Jim intended to leave after the altercation. That action, given its very nature, would suggest he wished to remove himself from any future here.”

She shrugged slightly. “That’s just a man’s tendency towards flight.”

“If you refer to a ‘fight or flight’ response, Jim prefers to fight.” Fondness was perhaps not the most logical feeling to associate with this statement. Nevertheless, he harbored a certain fondness for Jim’s idiosyncrasies.

Tsking, Leonard’s friend leaned forward, eyes bright. “But you see, Kirk only fights when he isn’t likely to expose a scar. Otherwise he runs like the rest of us.”

Spock didn’t know whether to be offended that she thought Jim common or to applaud the insight.

Jocelyn wanted to know, “Has he shared anything with you about the cause of those scars?”

Spock hesitated, decided he could trust her; after all, he only had a theory, not a truth. “Jim has not. However I have reason to believe he was abandoned at a young age.”

“Are we talking literal abandonment?”

“Estrangement may be a better word.”

“That’s almost worse,” Jocelyn murmured. “To be emotionally abandoned in all the ways that matter to a child and yet not be physically separated from the caretaker… Hm. So, to Jim, it’s safer to accept gratification from a stranger instead of love from a friend. Oh dear. He must be very angry. Spock, may I advise on a course of action?”

“If you wish.”

“Let Leonard take the lead on this. I don’t doubt that you care for Jim and want to help but, knowing as much as I do about Leonard’s past, I think he can broach the subject with Jim as a kindred spirit.”

Spock could detect no guile in her face or voice. “Why would Leonard be a kindred spirit?”

“Len knows how it feels to have nothing, or at least he thinks he does. Even if he had a happy childhood—”

“Did he?” Spock did not understand why confirmation mattered, only that it did.

“Yes,” she said gentle understanding before she continued. “Leonard has experienced great loss in his life and it’s not a loss that can ever be replaced for him by another person. Similarly, who could take the place of Jim’s family?”

“We will,” Spock said.

“No one could,” she corrected softly. “You will be his new family, the one he will choose, but you will not be his mother or his father or his sibling.”

“I have no desire to be a parental figure in Jim’s life.”

“Trust me, that’s a good thing. It’s a whole other can of worms if you did.”

Realizing the time, Spock reluctantly took a moment to spot-check the empty cafe and then flipped the Closed sign to face outward in the window and locked the door. When he returned, Jocelyn was looking through her purse. “While I find your advice astute,” he said, “I suspect you are not yet in a legal position to provide counsel.”

“Nope,” she said brightly and held up a pen and a small notepad with clear triumph. “Which means I won’t charge you for this half-hour.”

“How fortunate.”

Laughing at his reply, the woman wrote something on the paper. “This is my number.”

“I have your phone number memorized.”

“I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that.” She tore off the sheet and put it by the register. “Feel free to call me for any of the following reasons—”

Spock liked the fact she made lists. It was a very sensible approach.

“One, you can’t figure out a way to make the two Dodo heads talk about their feelings. I have some techniques I’m dying to try out.”

He clasped his hands behind his back and tried not to project his amusement.

“Two,” Jocelyn forged ahead, “you would like to go on an outing with me some time and, no, I’m not hitting on you. I think we could be friends. Do you like museums?”

Spock felt his eyebrows climb to a new height. “I prefer the science museum on Third Street.”

“Wonderful! I like science much better than art, myself.”

“I look forward to such a venture.”

She beamed at him. “Leonard is right, you are pretty amazing.”

Spock never blushed. It was best to pretend he did not blush now.

Jocelyn took a deep breath and straightened on her stool. “And the final and most likely reason you will call me… you need somebody to kick Leonard in the shin. Did I say the man was a Dodo earlier? He has less sense than that, which is why my specialty is kicking his shin.”

The serious manner in which she explained this unnerved Spock. Did Leonard require a regular bully? “I… will keep your generous offer in mind.”

“Thank you.” Jocelyn stood up and offered her hand again. Rather than shaking his hand, however, she clung to it and squeezed his fingers. “Really, thank you. There were so many different ways I imagined our first meeting taking place and this is better than all of them.”

“In what way?”

“I didn’t have to threaten you.”

“…Most interesting.”

“I doubt it would have been. But just so you know… don’t hurt Leonard. I like you a lot, Spock, because I can see you are a very calm, intelligent and rational person. It would be a shame to destroy you.”

Spock blinked at her choice of wording. “Do you not mean you would kill me?”

“Oh no,” she said pleasantly, “I would destroy you. Utterly.”

He honestly could not think of a reply to that.

Jocelyn let go of his hand and shouldered her purse. “You can tell Len I stopped by.”

“That will not be necessary.”

She winked at him as he followed her to the door and released the lock. “See? You are intelligent! Bye now.”

“Goodbye.”

Jocelyn left, and Spock put all of the pennies back in the register without finishing the count.

“I’m not rolling you back to the apartment.”

The pizza slice in Kirk’s mouth muffled his response. Bones wouldn’t appreciate the pure sarcasm anyway. Jim settled for licking his fingers instead of talking. Disgusted, his eating partner shoved a napkin into his hands and told him to act less like a boy raised by wolves and more like a human being with manners.

Of which Jim had none. Not that Leonard knew that—yet.

He studiously wiped tomato sauce from his knuckles. Strange, how much it looked like blood. “Bones, can I ask you a question?”

“Oh god,” the man across from him groaned, “not another question. What do you want this time?”

Jim hadn’t asked that many questions. Truly, he hadn’t. Not important questions like this one, that is. “Which side of the bed do you sleep on?”

Bones just looked at him.

Jim hadn’t really had much experience sleeping on a bed larger than a twin-size in his life. A bed was a bed was a bed, as some would say. Be grateful you had a bed to sleep on and not a blanket on a ground. What did sides matter? Jim thought they might, to Bones. That’s why he asked.

He was wondering how much he would have to push (or lie) to get an answer when Leonard inquired, “Is this a serious question?”

Nodding, Jim spotted an errant mushroom and plopped it in his mouth.

“I like any position I can get out of quickly. I have to pee at least three times a night.”

Jim considered at length where he might prefer to sleep. “I would like being next to the wall.”

McCoy frowned. “Spock’s bed isn’t against a wall, Jim.”

“Oh, yeah! You’re right.”

They paused awkwardly then, looking at each other in mild astonishment. But neither man questioned how the other knew the location of Spock’s bedroom furniture.

“So…” Jim said into the silence, reaching for the last breadstick, “are you going to tell me what Pike said?”

Leonard leapt forward, rattling the table between them, and shook his finger close to Jim’s nose on the heels of a triumphant shout. “I knew it!” Dutifully, Jim grabbed Leonard’s hand and began wiping it clean. The man jerked his hand back and gave Jim a funny look. Jim pretended ignorance.

“Pike?” he prompted.

Bones snorted. “I’m surprised you managed to go this long without asking.”

“Food comes first,” Jim said.

When he looked at the remaining piece of pizza, Leonard made an exasperated noise and nudged the tray in his direction. “Eat the damn thing already and quit with the sad eyes.”

“You don’t want it?” Jim asked but he was already loading the food onto his plate.

“My limit is half a pizza in one sitting, kid. Somehow I don’t think you’ve ever paid attention to that feeling you get when your stomach is full.”

“What feeling?” he shot back.

Leonard rolled his eyes heavenward.

“I want to know about Pike,” Jim insisted between mouthfuls.

“He’s a douchebag.”

“Don’t ever say that to his face.”

“Oh, believe me, I’m not that stupid. One visit to the city jail was more than enough, thanks.”

“He won’t put you in jail,” Jim said absently, contemplating two stuck-together pepperonis before he ate them both, “but you might not like the beating you get from his squad.” He was full, actually, considering the protest of his stomach, but Jim knew better than to waste food. He shoved the rest of the crust into his mouth and drank a lot of soda to help him swallow it. It wasn’t until Jim decided there was nothing else to eat short of the utensils and the napkin holder that he realized Bones hadn’t said anything in response. “Is there something on my face?” He dragged his sleeve over his mouth and chin.

“Jim, Pike doesn’t own you.”

“What? ‘Course he doesn’t. Nobody owns me.” How true, right down to his government paperwork.

“If you’re afraid—”

What the fuck? Jim straightened. “I’m not afraid of Christopher Pike.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You implied it!”

“No, you didn’t let me finish. I was going to say if you’re afraid of what he’s planning, don’t be. The man’s a bullshitter.”

Jim… had never heard that one before. Pike, like Jim, never really wasted time saying things he didn’t mean unless he had motive to.

Leonard shook his head slightly as if Jim’s doubts had been voiced. “Pike knows he doesn’t have a leg to stand on when it comes to civilians. Short of you enlisting, he can’t force you to do anything for him.”

“Bones,” Jim said, both hating and loving Leonard’s naivety, “it’s all corrupt—the system, the cops, the judges. If Pike wanted to, he could plant an evidence locker’s worth of drugs on me and I’d swimming up shit creek for the rest of my life.” Or dead.

Jim mulled over what Leonard wasn’t saying. So Pike was still looking for a way to recruit him?

Who was he kidding? Of course Pike was.

“Don’t you think he would have done that already?” McCoy was saying quietly, aware of the fact they were in public and listening ears could be anywhere, anytime. “Punish you, I mean, for turning him down.”

Jim played with a napkin. “You think he offered me a deal?”

“I can put two and two together, Jim.”

“Yeah but the question is, when you put them together, do you get four or five?”

“I get a perfect fucking ten.”

Jim grinned and brushed bits of napkin onto the empty pizza tray. “I knew there was a reason I liked you.”

“Besides thinking with your south brain instead of your north brain?”

“Somebody needs a hug,” Jim sing-songed and winked at the waitress across the room. She’d be hurrying over any minute to do his bidding. Sadly, for her, he only wanted to request the bill. Being in a relationship did limit his options. Jim was somewhat amazed that didn’t bother him.

“Jim, sometimes I want to strangle you.”

“Is this because of your psychotic break?”

McCoy sputtered. “I told you that was a joke!”

Jim was a master at the art of nonchalance. “If you say so.”

“Damn it, Jim!”

It was fair play and all. Leonard had thought it funny, so so funny, that Jim had taken the confession to heart. He had been prepared to cry on Spock’s shoulder because Bones was a certified maniac and they would have to cope with that the rest of their lives for the sake of love.

“I guess one of us should tell Spock about your homicidal tendencies,” he teased.

“There won’t be a need to explain,” Bones snapped, “when he sees your dead body.”

“Can you not mess up the face, at least? I want an open casket.”

The waitress, who had chosen that moment to appear, looked like she suddenly had doubts about them both.

“I think we’re ready,” Jim told her amiably.

“Um, of course,” she agreed and hurried away with more speed than was necessary.

Jim rolled the torn paper cover from a straw between his hands as he thought about what he needed to do next. “I want you to stay away from Pike, Bones.”

“I’m not the problem, Jim. He is.”

“Oh, he won’t be for long,” Jim said flippantly and stood up as the waitress came back with their bill.

“Why doesn’t that make me feel any better?” Leonard murmured close to Jim’s ear.

Jim said nothing, because plans weren’t meant for telling, only doing, and smiled at the nervous girl as he took the receipt. Then he strode for the register at the front of the restaurant, mindful of Leonard’s discomfort with his silence and his own complaining stomach.

Shouldn’t have had that last slice, he thought.

Oh well. There was always time for regret later. That’s how his life seemed to work itself out, in spades of regret. As Jim snuck a glance at Leonard’s face, he wondered how much Leonard was going to regret in his life because of him. But he didn’t let himself think too long about the answer.

Next Part

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