0Title: This Is No Holiday (1/3)
Author: klmeri
Fandom: Star Trek AOS
Pairing: Pike/Archer, Kirk/McCoy
Summary: Sequel to A Holiday Letter; Christopher Pike has been told he needs protection from the deadliest threat to the existence of single fathers everywhere: dating. His son, Jim, is his protector. Chris is not amused.
A/N: Here’s the problem with world-building: once you start, you can’t stop! You fall in love with your favorite characters all over again and inevitably become sidetracked by every detail of their lives. In A Holiday Letter, I was sidetracked by the romance element; now we’ll see how such developments test the bond between Chris and Jim.
A dark mutter of “Someone’s been in my room” precedes the person lumbering sleepily into Detective Christopher Pike’s kitchen. From bed head and wrinkled t-shirt to a pair of fuzzy blue slippers, the newcomer looks a lot less menacing than he sounds.
Chris drops a second slice of bread into his recently purchased toaster and turns it on. “Morning, son.”
Jim falls into a half-slump against the kitchen counter to watch his father crack open eggs into a glass mixing bowl. When it becomes apparent Pike has nothing to say about his complaint, Jim’s expression wavers between displeasure and disappointment. “Dad,” he repeats, the sulkiness belying his words more befitting a pre-teen than an adult, “somebody’s been in my room.”
Chris raises an eyebrow and fishes an errant piece of eggshell out of the mixing bowl.
Jim scowls, steals the rest of the multigrain loaf of bread sitting on the counter and digs around in its plastic bag until he finds a slice that isn’t an end piece. Then he crams the entire slice into his mouth.
Chris cannot hold back a chuckle. The boy’s mutinous face closely resembles a chubby-cheeked chipmunk in a snit. He hands his son the glass of milk he had prepared in advance. Jim slinks to the kitchen island at Chris’s back, draining the glass of milk as he goes.
“Feeling better?” Chris asks in a mild tone once his son has settled upon a stool to brood.
Jim scrubs a hand over his untidy hair. “Not really. Why’d you let him into my room?”
“Who?”
Jim’s look turns sour. “You know who, Dad. He went in there and messed up everything.”
“Don’t accuse a man of a crime unless you have undisputable proof he committed it.”
Jim’s sour expression turns sourer. Chris doesn’t have to strain to hear the grumbling about Archer. Then, with a theatrical sigh, Jim pushes his empty glass aside and drops his forehead onto his folded arms, the perfect picture of dejection.
Chris is long used to this kind of playacting from the boy to know when the depression is real and when it’s a guise. He places a skillet on a pre-heated stove-eye and beats the eggs in the bowl with a touch of salt and pepper. “You didn’t have to come home early. I’m not a damsel-in-distress.”
Jim’s head snaps up. “You’re being stalked. Of course I had to come!”
“Jonathan is not stalking me.”
“Uh, yeah, Dad, he is. And he’s never going to leave you alone because you’re too nice to tell him off. Well, I can do that for you. I really can.”
For a moment, exasperation swamps Pike. “Jim, I’ve explained this to you. We’re dating.”
However Jim has put an auditory block on the word ‘dating’, not to mention on most nice things Chris has to say about Sheriff Jonathan Archer—but most especially the dating part.
“I knew the first time I met him, that guy was a few bricks shy of a load—”
“Jim.”
Jim rolls his eyes and points to a corner of the kitchen. “That’s your evidence, Dad.”
Pike takes a moment to study the occupant there. As if sensing he is being talked about, the beagle lifts his head and blinks at them.
“Good morning, Porthos,” he tells the dog kindly.
Porthos lets out a chuff of air before going back to the pursuit of his all-day nap, which must be his way of returning the sentiment (or telling Pike that he does not think the man is worth the effort of a real bark).
Jim is flexing his hands against the counter. Not a good sign, Chris thinks. He is beginning to fear Jim’s issue with his change in relationship status will never go away.
“What kind of person moves his dog into your house two days after taking you out to lunch?”
Chris winces inwardly. He had told Jim they had had a meal together after Jon showed up on his doorstep with a bouquet of daisies (which was technically true) and purposefully sidestepped the details of what had happened thereafter; in particular he hadn’t said a word about Archer spending the night. There are just some things a father is not comfortable telling his son.
But Jim did have a point about the oddity of it. Jon had left almost before dawn that Sunday morning, only to show up again at lunch time, Sheriff’s hat at a rakish angle and grinning like a loon while an elderly, overweight beagle drooped from his arms. Porthos hadn’t seemed particularly upset to be deposited in a new home. Almost immediately the dog had gone to sleep on Chris’s favorite side of the couch.
At some point between moving Porthos’ oversized, startlingly plush kennel from Archer’s truck into his living room and listening to Jon go on about the kinds of food Porthos would and would not eat and how they had to find a local vet that met expectations, Christopher gave up trying to determine what the hell Archer thought he was doing. Of course, he was given a strong clue when Jon had gazed upon his snoring dog on Pike’s couch and said, “He’s the most precious thing I have.” Then the man had looked up at Chris and clarified in a softer voice, “One of the most precious things.”
Maybe Jim is a tiny bit right about him being unable to say no to Jonathan. The man affects him in strange ways.
Despite a lack of agreement from Chris about Archer’s insanity, Jim continues to rant. “He’s like one of those creeps you see on the Lifetime channel, pretending to be your cable guy so he can collect your underwear. Shit, Dad. We really have to call the police!”
“I am the police. So is Jon.”
“Yeah, well, then we’ll go to your Internal Affairs. At the very least we can get him on harassment charges.”
Chris puts down the spatula he had been using to scramble the eggs in the frying pan as he rounds on his son. “Okay, enough with the histrionics. I get that you’re not happy about Archer, but here are the facts: I am the one in a relationship with him; therefore I make the call about how, when, and where that relationship goes.”
He gentles his steely tone at Jim’s unhappy look. “How many times can I tell you this until you believe me, son? I know what I’m getting into.”
“What if it doesn’t work out?”
“Then it doesn’t. I won’t weep over that.”
Jim looks dubious.
Feeling the initial pangs of a headache, Chris presses his fingertips to his temple and addresses what he believes to be the heart of the issue. “Jonathan becoming a part of my life does not put you second in my affection.”
Jim refuses to stop eyeing him like he’s lost his mind. “I’m not worried that you’ll dump me, Dad.”
“Then what’s this about?”
“I don’t…” Jim frowns. One of his fingernails picks at a crevice between the counter tiles. “I don’t want to share.”
“This is not kindergarten, and I’m not a piece of Play-dough you can hoard for yourself.” Figuring if he doesn’t let out some of his frustration, he will combust, Chris sighs heavily. “Really, Jim, I know I taught you better than this.”
“Are you sure?” his son asks. “Because it’s only ever been the two of us. How should I know what to feel when you never brought someone home, not even for a one-night stand?”
“Because you are an adult now, not a young boy who needs me.”
Something flickers across Jim’s face, there and gone before Pike can pinpoint what it is. “So I’m the reason you didn’t have a social life?”
A hint of alarm zings through Chris. “Why would you say that?”
Jim abandons his stool, heading toward the kitchen cabinet containing the dishware. “Never mind. The eggs are burning.”
With a heartfelt curse, Chris snatches up the spatula again and scrapes at the yolk-colored mess stuck to the bottom of the pan. It’s a fact of life his cooking skills should be limited to toasting bread. The clump of partially scrambled eggs has a rubbery look to them.
Jim sets two plates down by the stove. “Need some help making them inedible?”
“Haha,” Pike retorts. He dumps half of the eggs on a plate. “Eat it anyway.”
Jim picks up a piece of steaming egg-white and chews on it for a second before making a face. “Salty, ugh.” He reaches for the open milk carton but Chris doesn’t let him have it.
“No,” he warns. As Jim leans toward the kitchen sink, he adds, “And don’t spit where we wash our dishes.”
Jim slants a contemplative look at him before turning on the faucet. He takes longer than necessary to consume enough water to help him swallow the unfortunate attempt at breakfast, saying once he’s done, “I vote we go to McDonald’s.”
“There’s still the toast.”
Jim looks past him. “…Which is kind of starting to smoke.”
Chris whirls around to see that, indeed, curls of smoke are leaking out of the brand-new toaster. “Shit!”
A minute later, as Chris stares down at the hard, black things which were once slices of bread, Jim leans slightly against his back and digs his chin into Pike’s shoulder.
“Remember that conversation we had about how kitchen appliances hate you, Dad?”
“The coffee pot doesn’t hate me.”
“Yeah but I can only survive on coffee and raw vegetables for so long. Seriously, Dad, let’s go to McDonald’s.”
Disappointed he couldn’t even manage proper toast, Chris crumples up his failure in a towel paper. “You wouldn’t touch a piece of celery if I begged you, Jim.”
“Not true. I had celery last week. Fresh out of the grocery aisle, too!”
Chris almost smiles as he reaches for the pan on the stove. “Were you being held at gun-point?”
“Bones made me.”
That causes the smile to blossom on his face. Pleased, he thinks that it seems Leonard can live up to his word. That’s definitely a good quality to have in a partner for Jim.
Jim steps away from him, giving his shoulder a pat. “Thanks anyway for making me breakfast.”
“More like tried to.”
“Yeah but I like it that you never stop trying.” Jim turns for the archway that leads into the living room. “Give me five minutes. I just need to change my clothes.”
“Put on shoes too,” Pike reminds him. “No slippers outside the house.”
Jim wrinkles his nose. “Dad, other people go to McD’s in their slippers.”
“You’re not other people, boy. You’re a Kirk.”
“A Kirk-Pike,” Jim calls back from the other room, voice fading. “It’s a brand of awesomeness the likes of which this world has never seen!”
Chris grins to himself at that proclamation (maybe Jim does appreciate him as a parent after all) and begins to rid the kitchen counter of burnt bread crumbs and broken eggshells. “I’m glad he’s home,” he confesses to the quiet companion in the corner.
Porthos snorts in his sleep and flaps an ear. Pike takes that as agreement.
Even early in the morning, there are small children running amok in the McDonald’s. As Pike watches them and the way they naturally resist being corralled by parents, a feeling of sadness is a tinge under his breastbone. Had someone kept after a rambunctious Jim at that young age? He doesn’t know, and while Jim hadn’t always lived in a boys’ home, he never speaks of his life before that. Chris hates not knowing, even if some things are best left buried in the past.
A cup of coffee is warm in his hands. “Is Leonard driving down tomorrow?”
“No, today,” Jim says between mouthfuls of pancake and syrup. “He texted me while I was getting dressed. Gonna be heading our way after lunch. He wanted to cover at least half a shift at the hospital this morning before he hit the road.”
“Leonard has a commendable work ethic,” Chris comments, sipping at his coffee. “Speaking of…”
Jim groans and runs fingers through his hair. He hadn’t brushed it before he left the house, so as punishment Chris had tried to tackle the boy’s hair with a comb in the parking lot. The unexpected attack with the comb had left Jim flushed with embarrassment and a young mother with a five-year old on her hip giggling. Jim has stayed just out of his reach since then, eyeing the comb sticking out of Pike’s jacket pocket with great distrust.
“I don’t want to discuss work.”
“I think we should,” Chris presses. “I’m aware you were fired—”
“Unjustly.”
“—from your last job, but that was before Christmas. So tell me, dear child of my heart: how did you afford a Valentine’s Day gift for Leonard?”
Jim visibly squirms.
“Stuffing more food into your mouth won’t get you out of answering, Jim,” Chris reminds the young man in a dry tone.
“Mmf-mmph-mrr.”
“Don’t worry, I can wait.” Chris leans back in his seat and takes another sip of his coffee. “I’ll even skip work today if that means I can hear it.”
Jim chokes on his food, coughs and swallows somewhat laboriously before reaching for a cup of orange juice. When his mouth is no longer full, he shoots back, “But you have to go to work!”
That insistence, more than anything Jim has done or said since coming home, makes Pike inexplicably paranoid. He puts the coffee aside on the table and pulls out his cell phone. His boss’s secretary answers on the second ring. “Hey, Doreen, it’s Chris. Looks like I’m not going to make it in today. I’m a little under the weather.”
Jim’s eyes widen.
“No, no. I doubt it’s the flu. We think it was some bad Chinese we had last night. Oh yeah, he is. Just got in a couple of days ago. Uh-huh. Through the weekend. I know, they grow up so fast! Do you want to talk to him?” Smiling, Chris holds out the phone to a Jim pantomiming no way, don’t make me talk to her!
A tiny voice chirps through the phone speaker, “Jimmy?”
Looking pained, Jim takes the cell phone and raises it to his ear. “Hello, Ms. Doreen. …Yes, ma’am, I’ve been good. Yeah. Yes, ma’am. I mean, no! It wasn’t my fault!”
Chris chuckles. His son glares at him, mouthing “I hate you” before getting up from the table to walk to the restaurant exit, phone still pressed against his ear. They both know Doreen won’t be satisfied until Jim has explained in detail why he is unemployed again.
Chris can just hear her now: Doesn’t the boy know his unstable future is detrimental to his poor father’s blood pressure? Why hasn’t Jim decided on a career? How is he going to pay his rent in that big city?
She has four grown children, two toddler grandchildren and one grandbaby on the way. In other words, she is an expert at laying the guilt upon wayward offspring. By the time she allows Jim to hang up the phone, he will be more than ready to confess where he is making his extra pocket money, if only so Chris can pass along the information to Doreen to prevent her from finding a way to call Jim back to fuss at him some more.
While he watches Jim pace the sidewalk through the glass door of the McDonald’s, he turns his mind from one nearly solved problem to the next.
Why is his son so anxious to have him out of the house today?
They don’t return to the house after breakfast. Jim demands, “Drive me somewhere.”
Chris is in the mood to humor him. Truth be told (or rather as he already told it to Jonathan’s dog), he has missed his child. Is it normal, he muses, to wonder what his son is up to all of the time?
He tries hard not to make Jim feel like they are beholden to one another, but hearing the boy’s voice at least every other day does set his mind at ease. Rationally he knows these are the most exciting years in a young man’s life, and he wants Jim to see all the good the world has to offer; but in his heart, he just wishes to have Jim nearby, safe, where he can get to him if need be. Having Jim underfoot every single day would be a bit much of an expectation, and Chris isn’t completely crazy, but he could never say he enjoys the long weeks of their separation. It doesn’t matter he should be used to it since Jim has not been living with him for six years. Nor does it matter how proud he is that his child has taken well to being on his own.
It’s this kind of thinking that worries Chris on and off. It must be easier, he supposes, for two parents to overcome separation anxiety. They can support each other through the transition. As a single parent, it’s much more difficult to have a sense of what is normal when there is no one else with which to compare feelings.
He also blames the loneliness. With Jim gone, he’s just one person, one man eating each meal alone, watching television in the company of an empty house. Having a bachelor’s life suited him fine up until he made the decision to adopt; even then, in those initial days between making himself sick over Jim’s aloofness and struggling to find the right balance of work and family life that suited them, there were days he fiercely missed the solitude and uncomplicatedness of living by himself.
Eventually he forgot what it was like. Then Jim left from college, and Chris had to relearn what that kind of aloneness meant. Years later he is still learning.
Maybe that is another reason he is okay with dating Jonathan. Archer has no intentions of leaving Christopher to himself.
“Dad—hey, Dad!”
Chris surfaces from his thoughts, guided by memory to turn into a neighborhood that has a park where he used to take Jim on the weekends. “Sorry, did you say something?”
“Not really. You just got quiet all of a sudden.”
A Welcome sign flashes in the corner of his eye. “Just thinking,” he replies. “Remember when we used to play catch here?”
Jim lets out a short, cheerful laugh. “How could I forget? How many weeks did you spend trying to make me do all those lame things your parenting books told you to?”
“Catch isn’t lame.”
Jim grins in his direction. “Maybe not, if your kid is five.”
“Sometimes you have the mental aptitude of a five year-old.”
“Whatever, man. I was cool at any age. The coolest of the cool.”
“Only because you had a cool parent who let you take as many martial arts classes as you wanted.”
“That’s because you were afraid to let me have possession of a baseball bat.”
Chris slants a look at his son. “What makes you say that?”
Jim gives a slight shrug. “We both know I wouldn’t have won any awards for Most Non-Violent.”
“Which is why,” Chris explains as he pulls his truck into an empty parking space, “taking a class that taught you how to control your body’s reactions seemed like a better choice than letting you join a baseball league. I knew you had a trigger-temper, Jim. I didn’t seek to change that, just to make you aware of it. And if you knew you could defend yourself during a fight, I figured that was one step in the right direction to you learning to choose when to fight. Granted,” he adds dryly, “that concept took longer to sink in than I anticipated, but you did get there.”
Jim opens the passenger door but doesn’t get out, still watching him. “What if I had turned into a bully instead?”
“It was a slim possibility,” admits Chris, “but a risk I was willing to take. Besides…” He pockets his car keys and slips out of the Ford “There is one ‘lame’ thing those parenting books said that made sense: trust in your child.”
Jim comes around the front of the truck to stand beside him, appearing unconcerned despite the odd note in his voice. “That’s a lot of trusting.”
Chris smiles at him. “Not as much as you think. I’ve always believed in you, Jim.”
The young man ducks his head and turns away, hands shoved deep into his pants pockets. After a moment of silence, he asks, “Why here?”
“You had three orders of pancakes and syrup. You need to work off your sugar high before I let you back into my house.”
“Annnd heartwarming moment over,” quips his son with a roll of his eyes. “You make me sound like a puppy that runs headlong into things and smashes them.”
“At least you’re housebroken. It’s the small miracles that get me through the day.”
“I hate you.”
Chris drops a hand to the back of Jim’s neck and steers him in the direction of the park’s trail. “Say it with a little more conviction next time, son. I have yet to believe you.”
They match stride and start down the sidewalk that leads to the trail. Jim takes over the conversation by asking, “What’re we having for lunch?”
“It’s barely nine.”
“I’m planning ahead!”
“No,” Chris tells him, “you’re jogging.” He gives Jim a push from behind. “Go on. You know where the mile marker is. Once you’ve gotten that far, you can jog back too.”
Jim takes off without much argument, calling over his shoulder in a teasing tone, “I could decide not to come back, you know!”
Chris says nothing, just keeps his steady pace and watches his son break into a sprint and quickly become a figure in the distance. He may worry over a lot of things, but not this. Jim always finds a way back to him.
Jim needs a shower after his run at the park, and Chris has nothing on his agenda since he called out of work for the day. It’s a mutual decision to go back to the house and entertain themselves for a few hours. Likely Jim will spend that time debating where he wants to eat for lunch, then at the last minute let Chris decide.
Everything seems fine, maybe better than fine, until the moment they round the corner of the street they live on. Pike tries not to tense, minimizing his reaction to the flexing his fingers around the steering wheel, but beside him Jim has already gone stiff. Without a word, he pulls into the driveway and parks besides a dark-tinted window of an SUV with County Sheriff emblazoned on the side.
The engine is barely cooling before Jim is out of the passenger door and stalking around the Ford. He casts a black look at the empty interior of the SUV. Chris scrambles to catch up to him.
The front door opens before Jim can reach for the doorknob.
“Princess, you’re home!” cries the houseguest, brushing past Jim as if he’s invisible and heading down the brick steps straight for Pike.
It’s a fight to keep a hold of Jon’s wrists so Chris doesn’t get grabbed in an embarrassing way in front of his son. He momentarily contemplates giving Archer a swift kick in the shin to calm the man down but decides the resulting madness wouldn’t be worth the satisfaction. Jim would no doubt assume a kick or a half-hearted shove at Archer means it’s a free-for-all and put his years’ worth of karate training to good use. Then somebody would have to explain to the neighbors why there was a brawl in the front yard of the normally respectable Detective Pike.
With a suppressed sigh, Chris twists to the side and shakes Jon off. Oddly Jim’s gaze is fixed upon a distant point on the horizon instead of them, but it is evident by the movement of his jaw that Kirk is grinding his back teeth.
“Jon,” Pike says, unable to think of anything to do except begin an awkward introduction, “you remember Jim.”
Jonathan turns to face Jim with a very polite croon of “Hello there, Mr. Kirk” and holds out his hand like a gentleman. It’s such a shame there is at least ten feet between the two men. Maybe it’s Jonathan’s way of testing how willing Jim is to play nice.
Jim’s gaze snaps to Archer and the proffered hand, which he momentarily eyes like it’s a snake waiting to bite him. Then he rubs his nose with the back of the long sleeve of his shirt and pivots away in one smooth motion to stride silently through the open door and into the interior of the house.
Jon sticks his hand back into his jacket pocket with a faint quirk to the side of his mouth. “Well, I can tell this is gonna be a fun weekend.”
Chris makes his displeasure known. “I told you to call me before you showed up, Jon. I wanted time to prepare him.”
Archer snorts. “Make no mistake, Christopher. That kid’s prepared for this better than either of us. The question is where does he plan to stash the dead body?”
“That’s not funny.”
“Do you see me laughing? It’ll be my body that’s dead.” The man studies Chris for a short moment, until gradually the lines in his face soften. “Sorry I didn’t call.”
Chris nods, knowing that if he says anything it will be entirely too dopey for him to regain his image as the upset boyfriend. He walks into the house, Jon on his heels. Unsurprisingly Jim is nowhere to be seen. As Jonathan turns for the kitchen, he brushes a hand down Chris’s arm, saying, “I had planned to take Porthos out for a walk.”
“He would thank you for that,” Chris agrees, grateful Jon understands he needs a minute alone to talk with Jim. Heaving a sigh and squaring his shoulders, Chris goes to find his son.
Jim is in his bedroom, sitting in the middle of the floor surrounded by a pile of books. Why he’s removed the books from the bookshelves, Chris cannot begin to guess. “Spring cleaning?” he inquiries from the doorway.
Jim doesn’t glance up. He remains hunched over, back to Pike, very intent on whatever he is doing.
“Jim?” Chris says, concerned.
Jim’s mutter sounds suspiciously like “Booby trap.”
That is enough reason to enter the room, permission granted or not. Chris takes a seat on the edge of Jim’s bed, positioning himself to have a clear line of sight of his son and the objects in front of him. Jim has a screwdriver in one hand and a length of wire he stripped from God-knows-where in the other. Combined with the packs of batteries, duck tape, hammer and thumb tacks, Chris wonders if he isn’t underestimating his son’s dislike of Archer.
“Jim, whatever you’re doing, I need you to stop.”
Jim ignores him, winding wire around one end of the hammer.
Chris reaches over and plucks the roll of wire out of his son’s hands with an admonishment. “Your room is not a minefield.”
“It’s my room. Didn’t you say I could do whatever I wanted in my room?”
Yes, he did—on the very first day he brought an eleven year-old Jim to his then-apartment (long before he ever considered mortgaging a house), with its small office converted into a bedroom for a young boy.
“I need you to act your age,” he tells his son instead, because to do otherwise is to become embroiled in whatever verbal snare Jim has concocted to get him to say it’s okay to electrocute a town sheriff.
Jim contemplatively turns the hammer over in his hands then stands up without warning to chuck the thing onto his cluttered desk. His hands form fists once they’re empty. Chris grips his knees, not at all liking the way Jim is staring at a spot on the wall.
“He has a key to the house.” Despite the flatness of Kirk’s voice, it’s still an accusation.
Chris can only answer with the truth. “He does.”
“Does he live here?”
Chris draws in a deeper-than-normal breath. “It’s likely he will be over often enough to warrant a house key.”
“Does he live here?”
“No.”
“Not yet,” Jim corrects, twisting at the waist to meet his father’s gaze.
Chris can’t answer that, is afraid to on some level that has nothing to do with Jim.
Jim interprets his silence as agreement and heads for the door. “Then I guess I shouldn’t bother coming home anymore.”
Pike has his son’s arm in hand before Jim has taken more than two steps. He starts to speak, feeling unsettled and upset, but sees something in the young man’s expression that forces him to consider what his son is doing. With reluctance he releases Jim’s arm.
“So it’s this simple for you, is it, Jim? You wanted my promise I would never turn my back on you, and I gave it, but I don’t deserve yours in return—especially when, right now, I need that assurance most of all?”
Jim opens his mouth, only to close it again.
Chris shakes his head slowly. With one hand, he motions at the mess on the floor. “You can stay and do what you intended to. Maybe you should make a trap for me, while you’re at it, so I don’t intrude where I’m not wanted.”
“Dad.” The name is forced out of Jim by shock.
But once Chris crosses the threshold of the bedroom he doesn’t dare look back, just tells Kirk, “I’m disappointed.” Something cold curls in the pit of his stomach, lending speed to his escape down the hallway.
Fresh air is what he needs. Air and distance.
Jon is in the backyard watching Porthos turn slow circles in the flowerbed by the fence. When Chris comes to stand beside him, trailing misery like an oppressive cloud, the man asks, “Any luck?”
“I think I made things worse.”
Jon’s arm slips across his shoulders, the solid weight of it comforting. “At least you tried, old son.”
“I wish I’d known—” he begins to say, only to stop himself abruptly because that thought doesn’t need repeating, not when it will hurt the man next to him who has done nothing to deserve the pain.
If the sad look in Jon’s eyes is any indication, he guesses what Pike comes close to saying. Jon doesn’t ask, however, if knowing Jim’s reaction beforehand would have affected Chris’s decision to try for something more than friendship. It would be pointless to ask when they both know that answer to be yes.
Close to heartsick, Chris apologizes. Jonathan’s hand gives his shoulder a squeeze.
“Try not to worry so much. The kid’s not being smart but it’s not entirely like he can help it.”
Chris bristles without meaning to. “Are you saying my son is stupid?”
Archer chuckles. “Ah, no. Is that how it sounded? I meant that he’s had it good up until now because he has had you all to himself for years. I’d be pissed too if somebody came along and wanted to steal you away.”
The prickly feeling fades, replaced by an amusement that lifts the corners of Chris’s mouth. “You’re not stealing me, Jon.”
Jon smirks. “If I could, I would, doll face.”
The arm lying across his shoulders seems to have a sudden possessive heaviness to it. Chris shrugs it off. “‘Doll face’ is a no.”
“Aw. Sugar muffin?”
“Definitely no.”
“Honey bear?”
“Only if you want me to punch you.”
Archer’s gaze becomes heavy-lidded, his voice silky. “How about Man Who Makes Me Hot in the Pants? Or just Hotpants?”
“I wasn’t kidding, Jon. I. Will. Punch. You,” Chris enunciates carefully. Damn, that tickle in his throat can’t be a laugh.
“Before or after we kiss?”
Recognizing an opportunity for he can’t pass up, he informs Archer in a mournful tone, “Sadly, there will be no kissing this weekend.”
At Jon’s open-mouthed surprise, Chris bursts into a peel of laughter. Porthos stops sniffing at a marigold to peer in their direction.
“That’s not fair!”
“I read an article that said the healthy acclimation of a child to an altered family environment is often the result of gradual change. In particular, PDA between the parental figures should be friendly but not overtly sexual.”
“Yeah, if the kid was in toddler pants!“
“You’re a toddler in adult-sized pants, Jon. So, I suspect, is Jim.” Chris pats the man’s shoulder before climbing the steps to the back door of his house. “I’m counting on you to keep your hands above both our waists for the next forty-eight hours. I know you won’t disappoint me.”
“Shit,” Chris hears the colorful mutter at his back. “Not even a damned week on the way to marital bliss, and I’m already cockblocked by the Kirk. Fuck my life, Porthos.”
At least Jonathan has a knack for improving his mood. But the real question is: who can improve Jim’s?
Chris stills in the act of turning the doorknob. Of course! How could he have forgotten his secret weapon?
“Are you going in or what?” puffs a voice from behind him.
Chris looks over his shoulder at Archer and the dog settled in Jon’s arms. “You realize Porthos has four functioning legs, don’t you?”
Jon shifts his bundle of boneless dog and narrows his eyes in suspicion. “Why are you grinning like that?”
“No particular reason.” He enters the kitchen, moving aside to allow Jonathan entrance as well.
“Bullshit,” grunts the sheriff, gently sitting Porthos upon the floor. “I know a look of trouble when I see it. Damn it, Pike, you’re supposed to be the smart one in this relationship. What are you up to?”
“I am the smart one,” Chris counters. “Also, I won’t need to do anything. Jim’s new boyfriend is going to do it for me.”
Archer straightens and looks at him with interest. “The McCoy kid? Well, what’s he got that you don’t?”
“It’s more like what he does that I don’t.”
“Beat on your son?”
“I meant the fact that they are intimate, Jon.”
The other man makes a face. “If I walk in on them having sex in the shower, I’m gonna rip my eyeballs out.”
“Shouldn’t that be my line?”
“Nah, you’re a cool bastard. You’d probably just quirk one of your eyebrows at them and tell ’em dinner will be ready at five.”
He likes that thought but it isn’t egotistical enough to believe it. “I thank you for your confidence in my ability to intimidate during a high-stress situation, but honestly I doubt I would be able to look Jim in the eyes for at least the remainder of the day. You have to remember, I have been raising him since he was eleven.”
Archer crosses his arms. “Are you telling me you didn’t once give him the talk about where not to stick his dick or walked on in him jerking off?”
“Like other sensible parents, those periods of my memory have been carved out of my brain.”
“Damn. There goes my leverage.”
Chris’s sigh is a poor attempt to disguise another laugh. Jonathan does have an uncanny ability to ease his mind. But why can’t Jim see that?
He sobers following that thought. “Listen, Jim and I were planning to go to lunch about noon. You’re welcome to—”
Jon interrupts quickly, “He won’t want me around.”
But Chris shakes his head. “You’re part of my life now. Jim’s going to have to accept you sooner or later. I can’t—I can’t give in to him on this, Jon. I won’t.” He hates how anxious he sounds but a question is nettling him to death. “Does that make me a bad parent?”
Jon approaches him, a hesitation in his face that is rare but honest. “You know I’m no judge of parenting skills, Chris… but I’d say, from the perspective of somebody who knows how much you adore your kid, it makes you human.” His hands land on Chris’s shoulders, their grip warm and light. “Can I apologize upfront for putting you in this situation?”
“Only if you tell me you would do it again.”
“Why?” Jonathan asks, studying him with serious eyes. “What is it that you need?”
“You,” he answers. “I need you.”
With the exception of the unconcerned Porthos, they’re alone in the kitchen. Chris feels no need to penalize Jonathan for kissing him, not when he kisses back.
An hour before noon, Chris turns his cell phone over in his hand and weighs the pros and cons of making a call out of desperation. Jim came out of his room only once, caught sight of Archer in the living room watching a rerun of a basketball game, and disappeared down the hallway again.
The cloud of misery is back and suffocating Chris more than ever. If it weren’t for years of practice at tamping down on his emotions in order to do his job, he thinks he would be leaking tears all over Jonathan’s shoulder. And how embarrassing would that be?
It makes no sense that Jim’s unwillingness to talk through the matter with him should upset him this badly. They’ve had their share of clashes in the past. He has had to deal with a Jim Kirk who knew how to do plenty of emotional damage with a single cutting remark. He has even had to wrestle a golf club away from an enraged teen intent on breaking a next-door neighbor’s kneecaps. (Then again, that idiot should have never accused Pike of the kind of sick things he did, as if there had to be something perverse about a single man adopting a teenage boy.) They’ve argued until the walls rang with their shouting, and endured the days where it felt like one couldn’t possibly understand how the other felt, and the world might be ending because of it.
Yet somehow over the course of a decade the turmoil had strengthened their relationship as father and son. How can this be what wedges them apart?
Jim said he wouldn’t care who Chris chose to fancy, but that isn’t true. Jim was also the first person to point out that Archer seemed more like an old flame than a friend, but having that observation come true has changed his reaction.
It shouldn’t be like this. Chris knows in his heart it simply shouldn’t.
His thumb is holding down the Dial button before he is aware of what he is doing. The call is picked up almost immediately.
“What’s wrong?”
Chris closes his eyes, amused and immensely relieved, though he can’t say why. “You sound like me.”
There is a pause on the other end of the line. “Okay. But just to clear up any confusion, can you maybe go out on a limb here and tell me nothing’s wrong with Jim?”
“Nothing’s wrong with Jim, Leonard.”
“Thank god” comes the mutter. Then, more clearly, “I know you might think me stupid for being so paranoid, especially since Jim and I’ve only been apart for a couple of days—”
“A lot can happen in a couple of days when Jim is involved,” Chris finishes for McCoy. “Believe me, I know.”
“You’re going to be the really good kind of father-in-law, Mr. Pike. I can tell.”
Chris’s eyebrows lift of their own violation. “Thank you, Leonard. But now I have to ask: are you planning to marry my son anytime soon?”
The resulting “No!” is nearly a squeak of sound.
“I… think I should probably let this topic of discussion slide. For now.”
Leonard sounds relieved. “Much obliged, sir. My nerves are already feeling strained over this weekend, and I haven’t left the damn city yet.”
Chris sits up on the couch. His “Why?” is slightly too sharp.
There is a second of silence over the line before Leonard answers. “Jim called me—about Archer.”
“What about him?” Chris takes a deep breath and modulates his tone. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap at you, Leonard. Things are just… tense over here.”
“Understood, sir. And don’t worry, I’m on my way.”
Chris doesn’t know what else to say besides thank you, which he repeats twice. “Any idea when you’ll arrive?”
Leonard is kind enough not to call him out on the desperation in his voice. “It’s gonna be later than 2 o’clock, I think. I have an errand to run I didn’t count on beforehand.”
“All right. Again, thanks. I look forward to seeing you.”
“Don’t thank me yet, Mr. Pike. The last time I tried to help it sort of blew up in my face. That love letter just made him think Sheriff Archer is a stalker with nothing to lose and access to a gun.”
“It’s not your fault,” Chris says. “Besides, once Jim sets his mind on something, it’s difficult to persuade him otherwise.”
“Unless he is in danger of losing something or someone he loves.”
Chris closes his eyes. “No. The one thing I won’t ask you to do, Leonard, is jeopardize your relationship with my son. You have my word on that.”
Leonard’s answer is slow but honest. “It wasn’t me I was talking about.”
Chris is confused. “Then I don’t understand—”
The sigh is heartfelt enough to cause static over the line, stopping Chris short of asking his question.
“Damn. Looks like I have my work cut out for me.”
“Leonard?”
“Never mind, Mr. Pike. See you soon.”
“Bye,” Chris manages to reply before he hears the dial tone. He frowns down at the Call Ended on the screen of the cell phone.
Archer nudges Chris’s side with his elbow and draws out an inquiring “Sooo?”
“Leonard’s on his way.”
“Well, hell. We knew that!”
“Then what are you pestering me about, Jon?”
The man closes one eye and peers at him through the other. “Did he say anything about me?”
Chris suppresses his amusement. “Not this time.”
“Oh.” Jon reaches for the remote, only to blink and round on Chris again. “Wait. What did he say the other times?”
Chris leans back against the couch cushion, a smirk finally blossoming. “You really don’t want to know.”
“Fuck yes I do! What did that wiseass say about me? That I’m about to bust a liver from my drinking?” He runs a hand across his hair. “That I’m balding? Goddamn it.“
Archer’s complaining is music to his ears. Chris closes his eyes, a smirk still lingering on his face, and props his feet on the coffee table. For the first time in hours, he feels utterly relaxed.
Related Posts:
- [Master Post] Holiday Series – from January 21, 2017
- Holiday Revenge (13/13) – from January 20, 2017
- Holiday Revenge (12/13) – from January 19, 2017
- This Is No Holiday (3/3) – from May 7, 2013
- This Is No Holiday (2/3) – from May 5, 2013
