Title: Win or Lose (3/?)
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 Parts: 1 | 2
Or read at AO3

“Bones…”

McCoy stabbed his salad fork in Jim’s direction. “I should have known it. I should have known!” He pushed out of his chair angrily.

Jim was on his friend’s heels and then blocking the path to the door in an instant.

“Get outta my way,” the dark-haired man said with menace.

“Can’t do that,” Jim replied, taking a wide stance and balancing his weight as he would in any fight, regardless of who the opponent was.

Leonard’s fingers tightened into a fist around his fork, which he had yet to let go of, and he pivoted and strode back to the table. He stood there with his back to Kirk, head bent as if he was studying the remnants of their meal. Jim knew from past experience Leonard was counting slowly to twenty before he did something rash.

Jim gave Leonard those twenty seconds plus a few extra in order to calm down. Finally, once the muscles of McCoy’s body had noticeably slackened and he sat down, Jim went back to his abandoned chair and dropped into it, feeling rather weak after such a long moment of tension.

“You’re the one who gave the order,” Leonard said, voice close to normal again.

“I know. Ever heard the saying ‘the road to hell is paved with good intentions’?”

Leonard slumped backwards into his seat and silently fixed a stare on Jim.

Jim rubbed his palm against the side of his forehead. “This is hell for me, Bones. Maybe not for you or Spock, but for me it is. I want things back the way they were before shore leave.”

The line of McCoy’s jaw softened. “Jim, I know it’s been hard on you to keep us separate when you’re used to having us both around at the same time, but have you stopped to think that things might be better this way?”

Jim’s hand fell to the table and formed a fist. “It’s not better,” he argued. “You felt how strained the atmosphere was on the Bridge last time you stopped by. Maybe the others don’t know exactly what is different between you and Spock, but they sense something of it. And if anyone begins to feel they need to pick a side…”

Leonard’s eyes darkened. “I’ll stop coming by the Bridge, then.”

Jim closed his eyes, disappointed at McCoy’s solution. “You would give that up?”

“If you think I’m affecting crew morale then I don’t have a choice, do I, Jim?” Leonard looked away. “Spock was always sayin’ he belonged on the Bridge ‘n I didn’t… guess he’ll finally get his wish.”

Jim slammed his fist on the table, startling them both. “Don’t use this as an excuse!”

“Jim?”

Jim stood up and paced away. “You’re putting nails in the coffin when we don’t even know if the man’s dead yet.”

Leonard sounded closer now. He was following Jim across the room. “Jim, are you feeling okay?”

Jim swung in another direction and put distance between himself and the object of his ire. Then he rounded on his friend. “What was so terrible that it broke things between you?” he demanded.

Leonard’s mouth became a thin line. Jim wanted nothing more than to grab the man and shake the answers out of him. He might have, too, if the entrance to the bathroom had not opened.

Spock came into the room without permission. By the impassivity on his face, he had had no intention of asking for that permission. Leonard froze at the sight of Spock and murmured something—probably a curse—too low for Jim to catch.

“I heard a disturbance,” Spock said, directing his statement to Jim.

Leonard’s throat worked like he really wanted to make a retort to that, maybe about superior Vulcan hearing when an ear’s pressed up against a keyhole.

Jim recognized an opportunity when he saw one. “I’m glad you’re here, Spock. Bones was about to explain to me why it’s your fault I had to disturb the order of the ship to accommodate your tiff.” He had phrased his sentence in exactly the right way; Jim knew that the moment he saw something flash quickly through the Vulcan’s eyes.

“Doctor McCoy presumes too much if he believes he can convince you of a lie.”

“You—you son of a bitch!“

Spock turned a cold look on McCoy. “You appear to have an affinity for attacking my parentage, Dr. McCoy—one I find distasteful in the extreme. Do not refer to my mother in that manner again.”

“Who was bad-mouthing whose parent first, Spock?” Leonard shot back. “I seem to recall minding my own damn business when you brought my father up!”

Jim shifted on his feet, curious to hear the rest but ready to intervene if this discussion came to blows. He had no desire to watch Spock try to strangle Bones. His own throat ached at the memory of how that felt.

“Then you have misinterpreted my statement, Doctor. I said nothing ill of your father.”

“You were sticking your nose where it didn’t belong! You don’t know a damned thing about how my father felt in relation to me! Then again,” McCoy practically spit, “I bet you don’t have much experience with being close to a parent. God knows, you avoided your mother until the last possible second.”

Jim planted a hand on Spock’s chest and ordered, “Keep it leashed, Commander.” To Bones he said, voice hard, “That was uncalled-for, McCoy.”

The doctor’s chest heaved, whether out of burning anger or out of fear because of the wild look in Spock’s eyes Jim didn’t know. When Jim was fairly certain Spock wasn’t going to rip McCoy limb from limb (even then he was far from 100% certain), he lifted his hands in what he hoped was a calming gesture and tried to salvage a situation that had spun out of control. The scene was eerily reminiscent of the cab, with McCoy facing away, vibrating with intense unpleasant emotion, while Spock’s frighteningly blank gaze remained fixed on a distant spot on the wall.

“Okay, guys. This meltdown cannot—and will not—happen again. Am I clear?”

No one responded.

Jim switched his approach. “Listen, family is a touchy subject for all three of us. We each have a dead parent, don’t we?” He suppressed a flinch. “And even if we did not have a close relationship with that parent, or a relationship at all,” he joked, but that fell flat to his own ears, “we’re going to feel sensitive any time that subject is brought up because…” Jim drew a breath. “…death cannot be undone.”

“It’s still not the same between us, Jim—the regret.”

Jim lowered his hands, simply grateful someone was willing to speak to him. “Why is that, Bones?” It might have been his imagination that he saw a faint tremor run through McCoy’s limbs before the man tucked his hands farther into his armpits.

“You didn’t know your father, and he didn’t know you.” Despite that Leonard wouldn’t look Jim’s way, but Jim could still see the apology for those words in his friend’s face even as he spoke them. Unfortunately, the apology didn’t lessen the hurt. Jim tried valiantly to push past that which tried to swamp him.

Leonard was still talking. “Spock lost his mother in the process of saving her. Me?” McCoy held out his hands, palms up, as if he meant to inspect them. “I killed my parent. Literally. Now, you tell me: of the three of us which is worse?”

Jim had only heard Leonard speak about that time with his father twice before; hearing it now surprised him. He didn’t know what to say, could only wonder if this was what had been festering in his friend since the day he and Spock tangled.

Leonard lowered his hands, released a sigh that sounded sad, said, “This isn’t going to work, Jim” and, before Jim could stop him, left. Perhaps Spock was thankful to be released from enduring the emotional discomfort in the room. He too pivoted swiftly on the ball of his foot and retreated through the bathroom into his own quarters. Jim sat at the end of his bed and squeezed his head between his hands.

The backfired plan was only getting worse.

The volatile conversation that had happened in his quarters bothered Jim all night and into the next day. He tried to put it out of his mind but with the boring task of star-charting, he had too much time on his hands to think. As if attuned to him, the Enterprise drifted in a slow circle and found no relief from the endless void of space. Had it only been three weeks since their last shore leave? The time of relaxation felt far, far away.

In the end, Jim had to find McCoy. Arms crossed and leaning against the open doorway to the CMO’s office in the middle of his on-duty shift, Jim finally voiced his thoughts. “Is this really about parents, Bones?”

Following a long minute without a reply, Jim thought Leonard might simply ignore his presence. Then McCoy put down his stylus with care and said, “No, it’s not.”

Jim accepted that as tacit permission to enter his friend’s office. He took a seat across the desk from McCoy and sat in silence for several seconds before speaking again. “Spock didn’t know about your father. You didn’t have to reveal that.”

Leonard dropped his gaze to his hands. “Not sure why I did.”

“You did it to make a point that he’s not the only one hurting.”

Bones glanced up at him, slightly amused. “Changing occupations on me, Jim?”

“No,” Jim said, leaning back in his chair, “but I’m not completely hopeless at being a good friend.” He implored the man with a grave look, “Tell me how I can help you.”

“With which problem?”

Jim swallowed the first words that came to him and settled on, “With the immediate one—Spock.”

“He’s a problem, all right,” muttered McCoy darkly.

“Bones.”

“Sorry.” Leonard frowned and restlessly shifted a padd on his desk. “I’m not certain it’s something that warrants fixin’ or even can be fixed, Jim. We just don’t get along—like hot and cold.”

“I don’t believe that.”

“You mean you refuse to believe it.”

“Exactly,” Jim agreed without any real heat. “You can’t be at odds with my First Officer.” He didn’t need a rhyme or reason; he just knew that to be the truth in his heart.

“Well you can’t expect me to see good in everybody I meet!”

“That’s just it, Bones,” Jim said quickly, earnestly, as he leaned forward, “you do see the good in everyone. You saw it in me that day on the shuttle in Riverside when you handed me your flask.”

“I thought you looked like you needed a drink, and I had a drink to offer,” Leonard corrected with a snort.

Jim shook his head, knowing their different interpretations weren’t worth fighting over. “So why not Spock?” he pressed.

“Damn it, Jim…”

He gave McCoy a look that said he wasn’t backing down or letting this go.

“Fine, fine,” his friend caved with a tired drawl. “Spock is—Spock sets my teeth on edge sometimes. Logic is not the end-all, be-all! If it was, how would people like us have ended up in space?”

Jim’s mouth twitched. “Are you claiming I don’t think logically?”

“You sure as hell don’t, Jim. I get headaches just tryin’ to follow a fraction of the mental leaps you make.”

Jim automatically touched his temple at the word headache, slightly embarrassed by his silly superstition; but the gentle ache at the back of his skull, as if sensitive to mentions of head pain, did marginally increase (though not enough to be considered anything except low-grade in his opinion when compared to a full-blown, tear-inducing migraine).

One of Leonard’s hands dropped to a desk drawer and drew out a hypospray. “How much of your medication have you used this week?”

Jim took a moment to recall that figure. “Two pills?”

Face grim, Leonard stood and came around the desk. Jim knew it was pointless to run and stayed still like a good patient while McCoy depressed the hypospray into the skin of his neck.

“Two pills in seven days is not a lot by most doctors’ standards,” Jim’s Chief Medical Officer said as he removed the empty cartridge from the hypospray.

“Then why did I have to have that shot?” Jim asked.

“Because it’s two too many for you. We both know you don’t touch that stuff unless the pain is truly phenomenal or on the occasion I threaten to shove it down your throat. Why,” the man sounded exasperated, peeved and more than a little bit resigned, “didn’t you tell me the migraines were back?”

“When aren’t they?” Jim muttered under his breath as he shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “Listen, I want to talk about Spock and how we can fix this.”

Leonard sat on the corner of his desk. “I told you we can’t, Jim. Besides, he’s probably thrilled to pieces I’m not interrupting his peace of mind. But I know I…” Leonard trailed off instead of finishing his sentence.

“You what, Bones?” Jim wanted to know, sensing a minor breakthrough about to happen and wanting it badly.

The doctor concentrated on rubbing the tips of his fingers together. “…I don’t know.”

“Sure you do,” Jim prompted him gently. He signed an X across his chest. “Promise I won’t tell. Cross my heart and hope to die!”

“Where did you even get that saying, kid? And please, please don’t ever hope to die. The last thing I need is an impromptu surgery and the pains of pulling a miracle out of my ass because you like to challenge fate so stupidly like that.”

Jim smiled.

Leonard blew out a breath, then another. At last he confessed, “I might miss him a little.”

Jim felt his smile grow into a grin.

“Stop that,” McCoy grumbled. “It’s not the kind of declaration you think it is, you pea-brained ninny. I’m just sayin’,” Leonard cast his eyes around his office with a touch of desperation before lighting on something, “my workload is terrible without that blasted Vulcan! I’ll give him credit where credit is due, he can write a report better than any man on this ship.” McCoy smirked slightly. “I might fudge a few important details and skip a few others before I turn something in to him, ’cause I know he’ll re-write the damn report as he sees fit anyhow. His reply is always oozing satisfaction when he informs me he revised the ‘draft’ so it’s suitable for submission to Command.” Leonard’s smirk turned into a frown. “Now he doesn’t reply to the messages at all…”

Jim put a hand to his mouth, though it was much too late to hide his amusement. “You know you shouldn’t confess that to your captain, right?”

“Confess what?” Leonard replied without missing a beat. “Did I say anything? I thought that was a little fly buzzing ’round the room.”

“Definitely a fly,” agreed Jim. He hoisted himself out of his chair. “If I’m gone from the Bridge any longer, Spock will have a look—you know I hate that look.”

“I can picture it perfectly,” Leonard told him dryly.

Jim placed a hand on McCoy’s shoulder. “Thank you for your honesty, Bones. I promise things are going to be better.”

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”

“You know I don’t,” he said. “But if you want to help me keep that promise, please don’t fight me anymore.”

Leonard dipped his head in silent agreement.

“Good.” Jim let go of McCoy and went to the doorway, saying as he strode through it, “Let’s take a day to settle ourselves, and then I will set up a meeting. We will fix this!” His determination echoed in the room long after he had gone.

“Ah, Jim,” Leonard said, still perched on the corner of his desk, and just shook his head.

TBC, in which we finally get to the root of the issue… or in which star-charting takes a turn for something unpleasant?

Also, I fail at drabbles apparently.

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 (2/?) – from February 5, 2013
• Win or Lose (1/?) – from February 5, 2013