Title: Win or Lose (2/?)
Author: klmeri
Fandom: Star Trek AOS
Characters: Kirk, Spock, McCoy
Summary: To salvage a friendship, Jim decides on a course of action that he fears may backfire in an unfortunate way.
Previous Part: 1
Or read at AO3

Spock and McCoy weren’t just sometimes idiots, they were all-the-time-our-goal-in-life-is-to-break-our-captain-in-tiny-ways idiots.

This Jim decided as he re-read the third missive from his CMO. Bones had written: Dinner tonight? And remember! You can’t invite the hobgoblin!

He had ended the missive with a smiley face. A smiley face. Jim was surprised Bones knew what emoticons were. But the infernal smiley faces had been popping up all over McCoy’s paperwork for the last two weeks.

Kirk’s forehead connected painfully with the surface of his desk. He sat up immediately because that had been a poor expression of his despair. Now his head hurt more than usual. Resigned to another migraine, if not because of the physical abuse to his skull then solely due to the stress of a failing plan, Jim called for the lights of his quarters to lower by fifteen percent and switched off his computer. He would close his eyes for a few minutes. Perhaps by then a new strategy would occur to him, though one had not been forthcoming the last twenty times he tried to tackle the challenge.

Some time later, close to an hour, Jim woke up without a grand idea on how to make Spock and McCoy come to their senses. He only knew he couldn’t, at this point, go back on his word—much less an order. Most of all, he surely couldn’t beg them to like each other again.

You idiots, the captain thought grimly. What is it going to take to make you realize a command team needs to be as close as a family?

But what if Bones and Spock were simply incapable of understanding that thinking? What then?

“You must know you’re probably upsetting him,” the woman at Leonard’s shoulder said.

Leonard pointedly ignored her and hen-pecked out the next line of his report.

“Really, Leonard, smiley faces? Our poor captain!”

He pursed his lips, hunkered lower over his desk, and stayed stubbornly silent.

Christine was not one to accept being ignored. She prodded the bony part of his shoulder with the edge of her clipboard.

“Stop that!” he snapped.

“Oops, that was an accident,” the nurse replied blandly. “So, about the—”

He interjected quickly, “I like ’em.”

“You hate them. Don’t you remember what you did to Nurse Tompkins?”

“Good god, she deserved the clean-up duty! The woman drew those big, creepy frowns at me on her padd whenever I said something she didn’t like!”

“We all do that, Doctor. Some of us are just brave enough to do it in public rather than keep it in our heads.” She went on to mutter something about that crazy nurse and heroism.

“It’s not the proper way to show respect to a superior in a staff meeting,” he finished doggedly and turned back to his report with a hmph.

Over his head, Christine released a long sigh. “I wish Mr. Spock would come by.”

Leonard’s shoulders hunched further. He couldn’t tell if she was provoking him on purpose or not. “We don’t need ‘im, and good riddance too. Now get back to your duties, Nurse.”

If she mimed smacking his head from behind, he didn’t turn around to catch her in the act. When Chapel was gone, on his report Leonard ended a sentence with a :), scowled at it, and backspaced.

He was still happy, damn it. He was! Jim’s silly order was the best damn thing that’d happened to him on this tin can. Though why the heck his blood pressure had been going up over the last two weeks instead of down was beyond him.

Out of spite, Leonard switched to his messenger and made a whole row of smiley faces. Then he typed at the bottom see you at dinner, salad for everybody! and forwarded the message on to Jim.

The built-in comm at Jim’s desk gave a buzz, and Jim answered it. “Kirk here.”

“Commander Spock here, Captain.”

“Yes, Commander,” Jim replied, feeling a tinge of amusement at the thought of possibly mistaking Spock’s monotone for someone else. “What is it?”

There was a pause, infinitesimal but enough to count with Spock. Then Spock said, “If you are not otherwise occupied, might I have a moment of your time?”

“Sure, Spock. C’mon over.”

Jim had only taken a few steps away from his desk when a door slid open, admitting the Vulcan through their shared bathroom into Jim’s quarters. Jim retreated back to the desk and settled a hip against one corner of it.

Spock’s gaze roved over the room as he made a quick assessment of the surroundings. What Spock was looking for, Jim didn’t bother to guess. “McCoy’s not here,” he said, then added, “but he is due over in an hour or so.”

“I will keep our meeting brief, then,” Spock replied.

Jim wished dearly Spock would give away something of what he was thinking. He felt he was fairly adept at interpreting the nuances of his First Officer after a couple of years in service with him and prided himself on that skill, just like he did with his ability to see beneath McCoy’s grouchy blustering. But as of late, the Vulcan had been harder to read than usual.

“I’m sorry, what?” Jim said when he realized Spock had spoken to him and was expecting an answer. “I was lost in thought.”

“Indeed,” remarked his friend. “I merely inquired if you would be adverse to dinner in my quarters.”

Only through years of self-discipline did Jim manage not to squirm. “Oh—oh, well, you see that is the nature of Bo—Doctor McCoy’s visit. Dinner,” he finished, somewhat chagrined.

“Of course” came the smooth reply, as though this news did not disappoint Spock in the least. “In that case, Captain, I believe it would be best if I took my leave.”

Jim almost let him go, but when Spock reached the door to the bathroom, a niggling thought caused him to cry out, “Wait!”

Spock paused on the threshold and wordlessly did as Jim requested.

“Is there nothing else? Nothing you wanted to say—or ask?” Can’t you tell me why you and Bones were so angry with each other that day? That question he had voiced only once, and Spock had cut it down ruthlessly. There’d be no point in asking again and expecting cooperation, Jim knew.

“Negative.”

The tiny flare of hope died as quickly as it had been born. Jim dropped his full weight back against the desk. “All right, Spock,” he said, unaware of how weary he sounded. “Have a good evening.”

Spock nodded slightly and retreated.

“Damn,” Jim murmured, lifting a hand and dragging it through his short hair. Spock was one of the best chess players on the ship, and accordingly Jim had reached a stalemate with him. The Vulcan was not going to yield. Maybe he thought since Jim had given the order, it was Jim who had to admit the foolishness of his ways and retract it.

Well, Jim couldn’t do that. So it would have to be McCoy’s sensibilities that he appealed to. He figured that would sour the mood of their companionable dinner quickly enough.

Which was fine with Jim, in that moment, because his mood had soured the first time he had had to pick and choose when and where and how he spent his time with his two friends so he didn’t violate his own orders. This jostling of schedules and being pulled in separate directions rather than one suited him ill.

If he couldn’t fix what was broken, ultimately he would have to step back from them both.

That Jim did not like; that was facing a no-win scenario, and since the moment he was old enough to comprehend how his father had died, facing death at the hand of an enemy ship, Jim had refused to believe in such a scenario.

But now was not the time to dredge up old issues. Bones was coming over, and Jim had a doctor to wrangle.

Next Part

Related Posts:

• Win or Lose (5/5) – from February 12, 2013
• Win or Lose (4/5) – from February 11, 2013
• Win or Lose (1/?) – from February 5, 2013