Title: For the Sake of Nothing, Part 23
Author: klmeri
Fandom: Star Trek AOS
Pairing: pre-Kirk/Spock/McCoy
Summary: An interlude. Jim and Spock amuse Leonard greatly.
Previous Parts: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22

“Something you need?” Leonard asked of the man almost literally breathing down his neck.

Spock stared at the back of Leonard’s head for a moment longer before inquiring, quite belatedly, “Would you like help?”

Who did Spock think he was foolin’? Leonard ducked his head and smiled as he retrieved a bag of plastic lids. “Sure,” he said.

Spock took the proffered bag but let it hang slack from his fingers at his side.

“You could take that to the front,” Leonard suggested. Spock looked at the bag but made no move to do anything with it. Taking pity on him, Leonard reclaimed the bag and set it on the floor next to the other supplies he was digging out of the cabinet. “See, here’s the thing,” he said, letting his amusement color his voice. “Most people would think it was creepy if their boss were to hang over their shoulder for a good half of an hour. They might even call it sexual harassment.”

That startled a response from Spock. “I would not—”

He interrupted, “So those pornographic pictures coming out of your brain don’t have anything to do with sex and me? My, oh my,” and snickered.

“You cannot… it is not possible that you know what I am thinking.”

Leonard didn’t have to turn around to know Spock’s ears were red with embarrassment. “Am I wrong?”

The short silence was answer enough.

Finally, irrationally, Spock said, “I apologize.”

Leonard closed the cabinet doors and faced Spock. “You know, it isn’t a big deal. Jim’s already tried to get into my pants multiple times since yesterday.”

Spock leaned forward slightly with an intent look, which was his peculiar equivalent to narrowing his eyes.

“Not that I let him!” Leonard was quick to clarify.

“Yet I do not recall Mr. Kirk returning to the house last night.”

“Waaait,” Leonard said, holding up a stalling hand though Spock had not tried to say anything else, “is Jim living with you?”

Spock’s mouth twitched. “He left some belongings in the guest room.”

“Uh-huh.”

Spock looked curious. “Does this mean he is living with me?”

“Well, how would I know that?” Leonard countered.

“You implied such.”

“You sounded like you expected him to be there!”

“I do not understand why you are upset.”

“I’m not the one who’s upset!” But this roundabout mad conversation with Spock was on verge of driving him crazy, as was that pitying tilt to Spock’s head. “Just… go pester Jim for a while. I have a headache.”

“That is a grave misfortune, indeed.” Except Spock did not take the hint, as obvious as it was, and let Leonard be. Instead he guided Leonard to a chair and pulled out a stack of tea packets from a drawer. “Do you have a preference?”

“Yeah. It’s called ibuprofen.”

“I often find I have no taste for black teas,” Spock was saying as he plugged in an electronic kettle. “I will prepare the green tea, if you have no objection.”

Would Spock listen to his objection anyway? Doubtful. Leonard settled for massaging his temples and grouching. Spock silently brought him a packet of sugar while the tea boiled and made no remark about his liking for sweet tea.

At the exact moment the tea was cool enough to sip, Jim stuck his head into the kitchen area and said, “Bones, you’ve got a visitor.”

Leonard could think of only one person who would look for him and he debated hiding in the bathroom until she left. Of course that wouldn’t deter Jocelyn if she had it in her mind to talk to him. He muttered something along the lines of fuck my life and put down his mug. Out of the corner of his eye as he pushed through the doorway past Jim, he saw Jim give Spock a strange look. Leonard wisely didn’t ask.

It wasn’t Jocelyn looking for him. It was her boyfriend Clay.

“Is this what she has reduced you to, vicarious spy?” he said once they had sat down at an empty table along the back wall of the coffee shop.

Clay took off his glasses and blinked down at them. “Yes?”

“Clay, my friend, you are a braver man than I am. I hope you make her do the housekeeping in return for your complete obedience.”

“It doesn’t quite work like,” Clay admitted with a sigh and, after staring at his glasses in such a way that indicated he didn’t remember why he took them off, he replaced the spectacles on his nose. “I’m not sure what I’m supposed to report.”

Leonard crossed his arms and thought about it. “You could say everything seems fine.”

“Do women ever believe that?”

“No.”

Leonard reached out and laid a commiserative hand on Clay’s shoulder. Clay must have appreciated the gesture because he gave Leonard a tentative but genuine smile. Patting Clay’s shoulder once, he withdrew his hand and dropped it to the table. “She makes you happy, doesn’t she?”

The young man nodded.

“That’s good,” he said, meaning it. “I’m glad you two have found each other. At least I didn’t ruin her life.”

“Jocelyn’s stronger than that,” Clay said quietly. “I like that about her.”

“I guess you came into her life at the right time.” Leonard wasn’t much for fate, or a believer in one’s so-called “destiny”, but he figured maybe Jocelyn and Clay could be an exception. They must be, given how happy they were with each other. He decided not to embarrass Clay further with his musings and asked about Clay’s classes at university. It turned out to be a rather enthusiastic subject for Treadway, and Leonard relaxed as he listened to the man talk about his chosen track.

They were grinning and chuckling over Clay’s imitation of Jocelyn begging to go along on a class field trip to the city morgue for cadaver inspection (“How can she be okay in a room of dead people but scream when she sees spider the size of tack?” Leonard then had to tell Clay the story of a young Jocelyn versus a neighbor’s pet tarantula) when, unexpectedly, Jim showed up seemingly out of nowhere with a cup of coffee, which he unceremoniously plunked in front of Clay. Clay looked startled so Leonard guessed he hadn’t ordered the coffee.

Leonard softened his grin as he looked at Kirk and absent-mindedly rubbed the chill bumps along his own arm. “Are you hot or something?”

Jim had rolled up his shirt sleeves past his biceps. Muscles flexed and bulged when Jim folded his arms and gave them both a very thin smile. “Who’s your friend, Bones?” In the same breath, he introduced himself to Clay. “I’m Jim.”

“Clay,” Jocelyn’s fiancée said just before he took a sip of the free coffee.

At Clay’s strange expression, Leonard reached for the cup. The brew wasn’t just bitter, it was terrible. Leonard forced himself to swallow his mouthful and demanded of Jim, “What the hell is this?”

“Is it not good?” Somehow, Jim’s shocked face wasn’t entirely convincing. Then Jim bared his teeth at Clay more like a dog would than a friendly human. “Let me make you another cup.”

“Oh, um, no thanks. I—” Leonard’s companion looked anywhere but at Jim. “—can I have a bottle of water instead? I’ll pay for it.”

Leonard doubted water would negate the memory of such an awful taste. With a sharp nod, Jim left to retrieve a bottle of Dasani from the shop’s small refrigerator. He seemed in a hurry to get away—or to get back.

Leonard shook his head apologetically. “Sorry about that. Jim rarely makes bad coffee.”

Clay’s eyes darted to Kirk’s turned back. “Is he one of your…?”

“Admirers?” Leonard supplied after a pause.

The poor man blushed so easily. “Jocelyn said to keep an eye out for the Hot One.” Leonard hear the use of capital letters. Clay blushed more fiercely. “I’m—I don’t think I, uh, qualify to as a judge of male attractiveness.”

“Jim’s not good-looking to you?”

“I wish I had his physique. Does that count?”

“So start going to a gym.”

Clay looked sad. “I do.”

“Well damn.”

Clay prodded at one of his biceps and expressed the hopelessness of his situation with a deep sigh.

Leonard poked at the small muscle too. “Hey, it’s not so bad.”

“Didn’t you feel the bone?”

Leonard wasn’t going to mention that. Poor fellow had chicken arms as well as chicken legs. But he tried for optimistic (or the closest he could get to optimism) and said, “I know what you’re getting at. Not that I have a membership to a gym, but when I was in high school I tried to bulk up.” Leonard slanted Clay a wry grin. “Thought looking like a jock would be a good thing to improve my love life, or get me one actually, only nothing worked. I didn’t start coming out of the awkward phase until right before senior prom.”

Clay smiled shyly. “Just in the nick of time, then.”

“That’s what Joss says” was his dry reply. He might have launched into another story (Clay seemed to like hearing about his soon-to-be wife as a teenager) but Jim was back with the water bottle for Clay, looking slightly harassed. Spock must have sidelined Kirk from his self-appointed task to fill a customer’s order.

Clay subtly inspected the seal of the cap before twisting it off. Leonard didn’t blame him.

“So,” Jim said with an annoying brightness, “mind if I join you?”

“Yes” Leonard said pointedly over Clay’s slightly distressed “No?”

Jim looked at Leonard for a long moment. Then he found a vacant chair and while he was in the process of bringing it to their table, Leonard made a why are you letting him wander around? gesture at Spock. Spock looked from Leonard to Jim and back again then returned to consulting some list in his hand.

“Excuse me,” Leonard said to Clay from between clenched teeth and stood up. He caught a hold of Jim’s arm in passing and marched him to the counter.

“Bones, let go!” Jim protested.

“Spock,” Leonard said, ignoring Kirk, to focus on the man who was supposed to have some semblance of a brain when Jim didn’t.

“Greetings, Leonard,” Spock said, blinking at him like they had just coincidentally encountered one another.

“What the fuck,” he said in an undertone, “is going on?”

Jim had managed to pry his arm out of Leonard’s grasp. “He calls himself Clay,” Jim reported to Spock.

“Did he give a surname?”

“No.”

They both looked to McCoy.

“Treadway,” Leonard said, not certain why he was suddenly uncomfortable.

“Treadway,” Jim repeated softly, now watching the man across the room rather than Leonard.

“…Okay,” Leonard began slowly, “somebody needs to explain to me what is so fascinating about Clay. Do you think he’s a spy of Pike’s? Because I can say with certainty you are dead wrong.”

If anything, Jim looked as though he liked Clay the not-spy even less.

Questioningly, Leonard said “Spock?” and hoped for an answer.

Spock simply gave him a measured look, which was un-interpretable per usual.

Having no option but to chalk up their stubborn silence to an unfortunate episode of crazy, he sighed with finality. “I give up. We’ll just take ourselves elsewhere for now. I’ll be back when you’re feeling… nominally stable.”

He spun on his heel to fetch Clay and found himself immobilized from behind.

Jim’s fingers dug into Leonard’s shoulders. The hair at the nape of Leonard’s neck stirred when Jim leaned in to say, “Should we let you go without a fight, Bones?”

“Fighting?” He tried to turn his head to catch sight of Jim. “Who wants to fight, kid? I don’t.”

Jim’s hands slid from his shoulders to curl around his arms. Leonard hadn’t paid enough attention, distracted as he was by the feel of Jim’s hands on him, to notice Spock edging into his field of vision.

“Then what is it that you want?” Spock asked in lieu of Jim.

“I—well, I want—” His thoughts were oddly scattered. Stupid Jim and his stupid thumbs and their stupid caressing. Leonard felt flushed under the collar and was not at all pleased about it. He saw Clay, who had focused on a spot that was no doubt purposefully not in their direction.

“I want Jim to back up a step,” and nope, Leonard’s voice was not strained in the least as he spoke, “and you, Spock, to go do something which doesn’t involve staring at me like that. Then, damn it, I’m gonna tell Clay—”

Jim’s grip tightened.

“—to go home.”

“Really?”

Finally, something clicked Leonard’s brain. He turned on Jim, incredulous. “Is this jealousy?”

Jim squared his shoulders like he and Leonard were about to start trading punches. “Are you kidding me? Who would be jealous of a toothpick?”

Leonard took offense on Clay’s behalf. “Be careful, Jim,” he warned, eyebrows lowering. “Be very, very careful of what you say about my friend.”

“Friend, Bones?” He made a rude noise. “Are you always so affectionate with your friends?”

“Discounting the tactile nature of the greeting,” Spock said, rather unhelpfully, “you have initiated physical contact with the individual in question twice in fifteen minutes.”

Leonard could not believe his ears. “You were counting?” When Spock looked at Jim in puzzlement and Jim chuckled, Leonard stabbed a finger in the hateful Kirk’s direction. “You need to stop looking so smug! Don’t like me touching people, do you? Fine, let’s see how you enjoy hands-free communication for the next decade! And you too, Spock, because you’re stupid enough to take his side!”

Jim didn’t look half so smug anymore. “That’s not fair!”

“Tough shit,” Leonard shot back and turned away from the two fools. “That’s what you get for not having two brain cells to rub together.”

Waves of embarrassment emanated from Clay as Leonard approached the table. Leonard snapped out, not thinking, “Get up!” and the young man complied too hastily, tipping over his water bottle in the process. His pants fared poorly as a result.

Immediately regretting that he let his temper get the best of him, Leonard apologized sincerely and snatched up the nearest napkins he could find. Clay took a handful of them and started blotting at the water stains. However, when Leonard closed in to do the same, Jim was there trying to take the napkins out of his hand.

“Let me do that, Bones.”

“Fuck no! Look at what you’ve done to the poor man already! Clay can manage without your help!”

Clay was saying something about not needing help from anyone and he would just go home right away, yes, that would be best. They ignored him. Jim stubbornly pulled on the napkins. Leonard pulled the other way.

“Let go, Jim!”

“I said I’ll do it!”

“And I said you won’t! Clay doesn’t want you near his crotch!”

“He’s not getting your face in his crotch either!”

The napkins tore. Leonard flung his half at Jim’s head. Jim was making a compact missile with his portion. Spock deftly maneuvered Clay to the side of the firefight and gave the man a towel. He could be heard saying, “You will find the facilities to your left.” Clay might have run to the bathroom, wet pants and all.

Minutes later, Leonard was contemplating pouring sugar into his hand for projectile purposes, or just chucking the whole damn sugar container, and Jim had staged a fort with menus across the back of a booth and was no doubt forming a counterattack of his own. One customer picked at the shower of paper upon his person in dismay, two college girls were giggling from a corner table, and an old man was telling people he’d take bets on the winner. Spock had returned to the front counter and began to set out the pastries sold by the shop. He announced at large, “These are free.”

The customer covered in napkin bits looked less disgruntled with a danish in each hand.

“Entertainment’s free too,” somebody snickered.

Clay did not come out of the men’s bathroom. An hour later, Leonard would find a scrap of khaki cloth caught in the corner of the bathroom window and feel bad that the poor man had thought it necessary to squeeze through such a tiny opening in order to save himself from Kirk, Spock, and McCoy.

Jim only smirked and pointed out, “I bet the rest of his day sucked.”

The lights were out to enhance the illusion that he was sleeping. Truly, Clay might have gotten away with the pretense if Jocelyn hadn’t slipped into bed and begun to gently walk her fingers up and down his side.

“Clay?” she breathed in the dark of their bedroom. “Are you asleep?”

When he didn’t answer, she pressed against his back and walked her fingers down his arm. He twitched. It was involuntary.

“Oh good, you are awake!”

He released the breath he had been holding and it came out as a depressing sigh.

Jocelyn leaned over to look at his face. “Clay?”

“I’m… awake,” he clarified stupidly.

“I know. I doubt anyone could sleep this early. It’s only five in the afternoon.”

Great. His stupidity always made itself known. It was a balm, though, that Jocelyn never sounded disappointed about his lack of brilliant observation. Considering she often pointed out how smart he was, he sometimes liked to think she actually believed it to be true.

“So,” his wonderful girlfriend wanted to know (which he had been bracing for), “what was your impression of them? Did they seem… well-adjusted?”

Clay was bad with words; he had been as long as he could remember. He stuttered until the age of eleven, despite that his parents tried so many ways to fix him, and he had gotten used to the idea that silence was safer than trying to say even the most mundane of sentences. Despite all, the long hours of speech therapy and longer hours of practicing in front of a mirror, words still came out wrong. His tongue didn’t twist them up anymore, yet that didn’t seem to matter.

He said, his thoughts skipping around, “I’m afraid” in response to her question because that was the connection between all of the thoughts, though not the whole of what he meant.

“Afraid for them?”

“Of them.”

“Hm.”

That was her thoughtful sound, when her brain was gearing up for an investigation. Clay had never met anyone who liked to know about people the way she did.

“Can you tell me about it?”

It was a gentle suggestion. Clay took a moment to consider how he wanted to explain. “I don’t understand them.”

A few seconds of silence settled into the darkness, and Clay feared he might have said something to upset her.

Jocelyn’s hand rested on his arm. “Do you mean because they’re men who like each other?”

If only it were that, he thought wistfully. “No.”

Clay had had a cloistered upbringing, born in a small town of no more than three thousand in population and where people kept their secrets behind closed doors if they lived in a way that deviated from the sermons the preacher gave on Sunday. The world beyond his hometown was a lot broader, a lot stranger too; but that’s the reason he had chosen an out-of-state college in a city one hundred times bigger than where he had grown up. Still, though he didn’t really care about men loving men and women loving women because it had no effect on how he lived his life, there was a certain awkwardness that came over Clay when the subject was broached.

Some days he wished he was a braver person, a guy who could flirt because he believed in himself or the casual conversationalist who showed no fear of words.

Like Jocelyn. She was very special.

“Then what do you mean?” she pressed, not angry just curious.

“You should have told me…” he started to say, hesitated. “I mean, Len—Leonard, he’s… a little crazy?”

“Oh,” she said, repeated.

The sudden shaking against his back wasn’t what it seemed. Clay knew that. “Why are you laughing?”

“It’s just—” Jocelyn muffled her giggles against his shoulder. “Oh, oh lord. Clay, what did he do to you this time?”

Clay felt like sighing again. He reached out and searched blindly for his glasses on the nightstand instead and put them on.

Jocelyn rolled to her side of the bed and turned on a lamp. “Really, Clay, I think you have to tell me now!”

That meant he didn’t have a choice. So he explained about the harmless conversation he and Leonard were having and then about the appearance of a daunting Jim Kirk who had an unexplained grudge against Clay (geez, it wasn’t like they had met before!); he mentioned the mysterious shop owner (Jocelyn said “That’s Spock” but Clay didn’t know that for certain, really) and tried to describe what it was felt watching ordinary-looking people devolve into napkin-slingers. Did Kirk and McCoy realize they had knocked the water bottle over again, in their tug-of-war, and Clay had endured a second soaking?

He doubted it.

“He yelled at them. In public,” Clay finished.

Jocelyn had her face hidden in a pillow. The pillow wasn’t doing a very good job of absorbing her laughter. “That’s how he is!” she said breathlessly, surfacing from her amusement for air. “Leonard can be quietly content if he’s in the mood but I swear he’s never happier than when he’s yelling at somebody or something.”

“Is that normal?”

“It’s normal for him, I suppose.” Jocelyn brushed away the strands of hair sticking to her face and grinned. “But, hey, even if it’s not normal at least it’s good for his blood pressure. No internalized stress.” Then she frowned. “Or is it bad? Wait, I’m confused.”

“I would think it’s bad.” It took more effort to yell and that meant more strain on the body. Strain on the body, from a doctor’s perspective, was never good.

Jocelyn un-tucked her legs from under her body and stretched them out on the bed. “I’m sorry it was terrible for you.”

“It was… really terrible,” he agreed after a moment. “But I think my pants suffered the most.” He should have known better than to wear his favorite pair of khakis on a Jocelyn-designated mission.

“Then remind me to apologize your pants.”

Clay sighed, not meaning to but unable to stop himself, and laid on his back so he could stare at the ceiling. The mattress shifted under him. Jocelyn asked, “Can I join you?”

“I’m not doing anything,” he mumbled.

“Can I ‘not do anything’ with you?”

He stretched out his arm so she could slid in next to him and curl up the way she liked to.

Jocelyn’s voice was unexpectedly tired when she next spoke. “My day was long too.”

“Tell me,” he offered because this was something he could do for her, listening.

When his fiancée splayed her hand against his breastbone he knew she was smiling. Then Jocelyn began to talk; after that they napped for a while and woke up starving. Then after dinner they satisfied a different kind of hunger and slept again.

Clay’s last drifting thought was that he had had an unpleasant day of dealing with crazy people, people Jocelyn would probably want to keep in their family despite everything; but that did not matter so long as he had her. With Jocelyn, even bad days became bearable.

Next Part

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