Title: A Rose By Any Other Name
Author: klmeri
Fandom: Star Trek AOS
Rating PG-13
Pairing: pre-Kirk/McCoy
Word Count: ~2400
Summary: Comment!fic written in response to this jim_and_bones‘s picture. Leonard thinks that his roommate Jim is just joking around and he turns out to be very wrong.

“What’s in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;”
-Juliet
Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare

It is late morning and his day off from both school and work, so why should Leonard be paying much attention to anything other than if he stumbles in the correct direction of the bathroom? He manages a bleary-eyed shower, to hit his knee on the corner of the sink only once and brushes his teeth after a short speculative look at two innocuous toothbrushes before remembering that the red one is his and not Jim’s.

Leonard exits the bathroom feeling slightly more awake than before (but isn’t ready to be nice until he’s had a large cup of coffee) and dresses without much care for what he wears—faded, tight jeans and an old shirt starting to fray along the bottom hem. When he glances at his nightstand for his watch after finally finding the left shoe to a pair of old sneakers, he pauses in surprise. Next to the watch is a small, plastic action figure sitting upright and facing his bed. The position is more careful than haphazard so Leonard is certain somebody—namely Jim, because really who else could it be but his roommate?—has too much time on his hands and the mental capacity of a three year old.

He picks it up with a roll of his eyes and tosses it onto Jim’s bed. The occurrence is just another oddity of his day, courtesy of Jim Kirk, and so Leonard doesn’t concern himself with the action figure for a moment beyond its due.

The second time Leonard encounters the action figure, his medical shift ends late into the night and he drags himself into his dorm room, achingly tired—and alone, too, because Jim’s bed is empty. McCoy drops his bag, toes off his shoes and falls face first onto his bed, only to land on something decidedly not soft that digs into his ribs.

“Fuck!—what the Hell—”

He flops onto his back and holds up the offensive object for inspection (and Leonard’s damned sure he didn’t leave anything strange in his bed that morning). It’s that damn doll again, hidden under his bed covers. Leonard sighs with exasperation and pitches it into the dark of the room, not caring where it lands. Then he turns on his side, folds a pillow in half, and goes to sleep with dogged determination.

Life at Starfleet Academy continues as usual with the exception that Leonard begins to find the action figure (he has decided it looks just like Jim, smug grin and all) everywhere: he discovers it in his bag of books during a coffee break at a small café, and three lovely ladies at the table next to his look at McCoy askance when he swears at it; leaning against his hidden bottle of bourbon, and so Leonard finds himself alternating between getting drunk and watching Little Jimmy watch him get drunk; balanced precariously on the towel rack when Leonard steps out of the shower, and Hell no it hadn’t been there when he closed the shower door.

The prank develops into an expectation, despite Leonard’s cornering Jim and bitching “Look, quit hiding this thing—” whereupon he throws Little Jimmy at Big Jimmy’s head, “—in my sock drawer, kid. It’s gone from funny to creepy.” Jim shrugs at him, doe-eyed, as if to say who me? Then his roommate almost always changes the subject, or touches Leonard on the shoulder (or the back or the arm) and soothes, “Hey, Bones, how about Chinese for dinner?”

McCoy begins to believe that he has fallen under some sort of Kirkian spell because from the time he blinks awake in the morning he wonders where Jim has put that confounded tiny replication of himself this time, and damn if it hasn’t become the highlight of his otherwise boring life.

Today, however, Little Jimmy is missing; then again Jim took the Kobayashi Maru test a few days ago, failed like everyone else, and hasn’t been himself even though Leonard has tried to ply the kid back into normalcy with a bar crawl and good liquor. So Leonard is frustrated, too, because Jim is and he wants a distraction. Thus when a good-looking blonde from his second-level Xenobiology class invites him to lunch (and, well, McCoy’s not a monk), he accepts and winds up enjoying an intelligent conversation that lingers for more than an hour. Her name is Helen Noel and she is on a psychology track but likes learning what she can about other species.

Leonard says something, the woman laughs and reaches out to slap at his hand playfully, and he thinks this isn’t so bad. Of course, that’s when the waitress shows up and interrupts their conversation by unceremoniously dropping Little Jimmy onto the middle of the table. Leonard blinks, automatically reaching for the doll, and the waitress pops her gum, says, “You need some more water, sugar?”

McCoy ignores his companion’s inquisitive “Leonard?”

“Where did you get this?”

The waitress levels a long look at him. She replies slowly, like he’s an idiot, “Your friend at the counter.”

Leonard half-rises and cranes his neck to see around her.

“He’s gone now.”

“Who—”

She shrugs. “Good-looking guy. I don’t know him, though. He said to give you this and—oh yeah—to tell you that he’s sorry he forgot. I don’t think he likes your girlfriend.”

There is something stuck in Leonard’s throat. He tries to swallow it down. “What did he forget?”

Again she shrugs and says, “No idea,” before collecting his glass of water and walking away.

A moment passes and Leonard stares at Little Jimmy until Helen Noel takes it out of his hands to look at it.

She asks with a touch of humor (and perhaps a bit of puzzlement), “Do you collect these?”

Leonard reddens before he can fight down his blush. “No. God no. It’s—uh, well, it’s complicated. That—” He gestures at the action figure, who has one arm raised as if in a plea. “—belongs to my roommate.”

“So your roommate collects them.”

“Not exactly,” he replies dryly.

Helen hands the action figure back to him, plants her elbows on the table, and says, “Tell me.”

Leonard McCoy is normally not a man who shares his life with anybody who will listen. Hell, he rarely likes to talk about anything too personal unless he is stinking drunk or in pain, like when Jocelyn called to say she’s taking Joanna to her parents’ for Christmas and that means Leonard isn’t invited. Jim is a good listener, which means the kid doesn’t ask questions and always keeps an arm around Leonard’s shoulders to make a point that McCoy isn’t alone.

But this isn’t exactly personal, not really, and it is mostly plain dumb. So he tells her about it, saying at the end that it’s just a joke and, no, he isn’t a weirdo (and neither is Jim).

She is frowning once he finishes. “I don’t think it’s a joke, Leonard,” Helen tells him.

He leans back into his chair and stares down at Little Jimmy. “Sure it is.” Why wouldn’t it be?

“If it was a joke, wouldn’t Jim have said so already?”

He doesn’t know why but it sounds strange to hear his roommate’s name on her lips, like she knows Jim from the small three-minute discussion about this strange little routine between McCoy and Kirk. Leonard shrugs and attempts to be nonchalant. “He’s not your typical guy” is Leonard’s defense.

“Mmhm.” The woman’s smile is knowing, but Leonard has no clue what it is that she knows. “Okay,” she declares and that is definitely a this date is over sound. “I need to go, my next class is in twenty minutes.”

He stands, ever the gentleman, when she rises but finds that he isn’t sure what to say because he may be in his late twenties but awkwardness is not something a man necessarily outgrows with age. Instead, he manages “See you later” like a dork.

She smiles at him. “Sure, Leonard.” As she reaches for the check, he slides it out of her reach, thinking that paying the bill is the least he can do for Little Jimmy’s party-crashing plastic self. Helen frowns at him for a second but then her face clears. “Thanks,” she says. Picking up the doll where it has been forgotten on the table, she offers it to him with the words, “Talk to your roommate about this. I suspect you’ll find he has a very clear method to his madness.”

“Woman’s intuition?” asks Leonard.

Helen laughs. “A professional opinion, Dr. McCoy.”

Leonard doesn’t see Jim for two days so he can’t follow Helen Noel’s advice right away. When McCoy does finally come face-to-face with Kirk, it is because he is lying in wait for his roommate. Jim is rummaging through a pile of clothes when Leonard steps out of their bathroom and leans, arms crossed, in the doorway.

“Lose something?” he asks mildly.

Jim jerks around to stare at him. “Shit, Bones, you almost gave me a heart attack.”

He cocks his head, walks up to Jim and gives the man a strong shove backwards onto Jim’s bed. Jim stares at him, open-mouthed.

“What was that?”

“That’s for being an ass and makin’ me play hide-and-seek. If you’re gonna stay gone, you ought to let me know, Jim.”

“Sorry.” Jim scratches the side of his head. “I, uh, just stopped by to pick up—”

Leonard sits on the edge of the bed. He sighs, takes Little Jimmy out of his pocket and tosses it into Jim’s lap. Kirk visibly swallows and carefully places it to the side.

“Let’s talk.”

“Sorry, Bones, I can’t right now.”

“You can, Jim, and you will. Do you even realize that I might not like being publicly humiliated by this—” He waves at the doll. “—obsession of yours? Damn it, Jim, I was in the middle of lunch with a woman I might work with some day.”

Jim seems to lose all of his will to sit up and falls back onto his bed, slinging an arm over his eyes as he does so. “I know, Bones,” he mutters. “I know I’m stupid. I’m sorry if I screwed up your date.”

He frowns. “It wasn’t a date, Jim. Well, not much of one anyway.”

Jim says nothing.

Leonard wonders when things became so strange between them. “Whatever it is that you’re thinking, kid, you have to say it. I can’t read minds.”

Still Jim says nothing so, in a moment of aggravation, Leonard snatches the action figure from its nest in Jim’s bed sheet and smacks his roommate’s arm with it.

Jim protests, “Ow, Bones!” and looks at him like what the fuck, man?

“Should I dump Little Jimmy in the trash, Jim?” he asks somewhat heatedly.

Jim blinks. “Little Jimmy?”

Leonard flushes. “The action figure, dumbass—you know, the one that looks not so subtly like you.”

It is Jim’s turn to blush. “Er, no don’t do that. I’ll just… keep it, okay, Bones?”

“No more sticking it in my coffee mug or sewing it to a pants’ leg?”

“No,” agrees Jim and this is wrong because the kid actually looks crestfallen.

“Jim,” Leonard mostly groans, “when will you grow up?”

And that must be entirely the wrong thing to say because Jim sits up, blue eyes flashing. “Forget it,” he tells Leonard in a flat voice and slides off the bed.

By the time Leonard reacts Jim has taken Little Jimmy, opened the room’s only window, and thrown it far, far away.

“Jim!”

Jim rounds on him, says, “It was just a stupid joke, Bones.”

And Helen was absolutely right because it wasn’t a joke, at least not to Jim. He can see it in Jim’s eyes.

“Shit, I’m sorry,” he apologizes, feeling floored and more than a bit helpless. When Jim tries to leave, Leonard pulls him back, hooks an arm around the kid, and hugs him hard. (They’ve had too many fights end otherwise.) “I’m sorry, Jim” he says again. “I didn’t know it meant something.” Not that he knows what that something is.

Jim, at first like stone, begins to relax. Leonard is about to step back, let them both have breathing room and then pretend not to be embarrassed when Jim tightens a hand on his arm and buries his face into the crook of Leonard’s neck.

“I can’t be with you all the time and I thought…” The sudden confession ends as quickly as it begins. “It was a dumb idea,” Kirk whispers.

Oh. Oh.

Leonard’s heart does a funny little jig in his chest and he slips his fingers into Jim’s hair. “No,” he says, voice heavy, “it wasn’t dumb, kid.” He leans back just enough to encourage Jim to look at him. “Thank you.”

Jim simply nods, sheepish.

Leonard thinks that this is the first time he isn’t blind as a bat to the hope in Jim’s eyes. He wonders if it would even be possible to go back to that blindness and realizes with sudden clarity that he won’t bother trying.

“Don’t be subtle next time,” he says without thinking, and Jim replies easily enough, “Okay.”

Where they go from here is an unknown that Leonard decides will be much more exciting than finding Little Jimmy peeking out of his boot at 6 a.m. as a morning’s greeting.

He grabs his jacket, then Jim’s arm and hauls them both to the door. “C’mon.”

“Bones?”

“If that doll ended up in the pond, you’ll be diving for it.”

“It’s not a doll,” Jim says indignantly but without further protest as they hustle to the ground floor of the dorm.

Leonard snorts. “Nope, just a sappy token of affection.” He cuts his eyes at Jim before adding, “And I want it back.”

Thus Kirk is very obliging about crawling between two thorny rose bushes to rescue Little Jimmy from his bed of mulch, and Leonard is waiting for him patiently when he comes out scratched but grinning, Little Jimmy in one hand and a rose in the other.

-Fini

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