Title: Partners Are Good (for Something)
Author: klmeri
Fandom: Star Trek AOS
Pairing: Kirk/Spock/McCoy
Disclaimer: I do not own much. Only these silly ideas.
Summary: Three different contributions to a well-balanced relationship between Kirk, Spock, and McCoy. I was tickled by the following images.

In which Leonard McCoy uses his partners as chairs or pillows.

Spock has long since stopped asking why every time McCoy finds an opportunity to drape a limb over him. For instance, reminiscent of sitting with his leg over the arm of a chair, Leonard is apt to sit beside Spock on the bed while they watch Kirk do something or other and the leg which should stay pressed to Spock’s will instead end up hooked over his thigh and dangling between his own legs like it belongs there. To adapt to this, Spock has learned to keep his legs a precise number of inches apart—not that he is inviting McCoy to continue the behavior. It may also be the case that Leonard then places an arm around Spock’s shoulders and thus feels content to slump in an accustomed manner while Spock supports the human’s weight without protest. Kirk remarks, the first time Spock asks why, that Leonard is simply a man of habit and if he chooses to use Kirk and Spock as furniture, they are lucky he is comfortable enough to treat them as such. Spock concedes that Jim might be more knowledgeable in this area of human behavior. Therefore, he complains not and completes his duty with respect for his partner’s unspoken wishes—and eventually comes to associate the feel of McCoy’s leg or arm on his person as a sign of endearment.

Some parts of Jim make a decent pillow. He has been told this upon many occasions: when he is rudely awakened from his sleep by a head on his stomach (“It’s soft ‘n squishy,” murmurs a tired Bones; Jim increases the number of sit-ups in his morning exercise routine to no avail); when Jim is relaxing in a hot tub in a guest suite and Bones decides to settle between his legs, lean against his chest, and fall asleep (“Real nice,” Bones says as he adjusts Jim’s elbow to a different angle; Jim, distracted by the naked body of his partner literally in his arms, attempts to woo the doctor but Leonard just swats at one of his legs when Kirk lets his hands wander and McCoy ends up snoring on his arm); and when one of those moments happens where everything goes wrong and at the end of it all, Leonard comes up behind him when they have a second or two of privacy and drops his head upon Kirk’s shoulder (“Don’t move,” whispers Bones and Jim wouldn’t dream of it, if only because Leonard’s head upon his shoulder comforts him as much as it comforts McCoy). Being a pillow is a small price to pay—and a fair one, if Jim is honest—for the love of a good man like Leonard McCoy.

In which Spock totes his partners around like toys.

The first time it happens, Jim Kirk finds the act excusable. The landing party is running for their lives and Jim trips over a hole like an idiot and hurts himself. Spock, who would never leave behind his Captain or his lover, merely tosses Jim over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry and goes back to sprinting from the hungry beasts howling in pursuit of (man-sized) dinner. Later, he thanks his First Officer for saving his life and then cracks a joke about Vulcans and cavemen. Spock seems un-amused. Thereafter, however, fate contrives to put Kirk into situations where he is flailing over Spock’s shoulder on a regular basis. They investigate a planet where there are real cavemen, one of which points at Kirk and makes a give me this one grunt and to show that Jim is not for sale (or trade or the prize in hand-to-hand combat), Spock levers Kirk into position and walks away. The Vulcan explains after the fact that it is the only symbol of mine cavemen understand. Jim enjoys a kinky fantasy for a day or two following because, well, some days he still has the brain of a fourteen year-old. But then Spock, for some reason, has to toss him over that bony shoulder when Jim admits that he is light-headed right before he comes down with a nasty alien flu (hanging upside down does not help in the least), when Captain Kirk is negotiating for a shore leave trinket with a mean-looking Rigellan and Spock decides the argument could escalate, and even that one time Jim was having the best day ever but the Vulcan was bored and Jim had said they could go back to the ship in five minutes and the five minutes came due. The truth is, though, that Jim Kirk says nothing about this odd package-up-the-mate-and-proceed behavior because the only other recipient of it is McCoy. So it must mean something inherently good, right?

Leonard is an arguer; Spock is not exactly an arguer—more like a debater. McCoy argues, Spock debates all the logical loopholes of McCoy’s argument, and they co-exist in a strange domestic bliss. Or they would, that is, if McCoy didn’t plant his metaphorical feet (sometimes literally, too) stubbornly on occasion and refuse to budge on an issue. Spock, being a debater, is hard to rile even under the most extreme of circumstances. But when McCoy is mulish, Spock’s hands can be seen twitching behind his back. One of the initial times they came to an impasse like this, it is during the red alert crisis and they are trying to decide who is going to play the role of the hero (and, really, that is synonymous with die) while Jim is decommissioned in Sickbay. McCoy claims he is the better choice, Spock states that he is Acting Captain, and McCoy replies so what? and stomps for the turbolift only to find himself lifted off his feet and tucked under Spock’s arm like a doll. He spits and kicks his legs, which does no good (because, truthfully, the strength in just one of Spock’s arms is phenomenal), only to be exiled to the Ready Room like a child in timeout while Spock negotiates with Romulans. So it occurs, once and a while, that Leonard winds up with Spock carrying him around the middle (a very embarrassing position for an honored doctor): during that time he got drunk on Saurian brandy and wanted to put on a pageant (lots of other crewmen liked the idea but not Spock); when he got so furious at the hobgoblin that he kicked Spock’s shin (apparently, naughty thirty-something doctors are no more annoying than babes and treated as such); and, of course, that time he stumbled after pulling a forty-eight hour shift during an emergency triage and would have fallen if Spock hadn’t picked him up, held him close, and taken him to an empty cot to rest. Okay, so maybe it isn’t always terrible being a man-in-love with a super-strong Vulcan; and it doesn’t take all that long, either, to learn that if he pushes Spock’s buttons just right, he can get carried to bed for a satisfying, intimate conclusion that is well worth such ridiculous behavior.

In which James T. Kirk is lucky to have partners who keep his cold feet warm at night.

Jim has a medical condition McCoy can’t really do anything about medically. As a man who shares a bed with Kirk, though, he learns to grit his teeth and present his toasty thighs and pray to God that Jim’s decidedly ice-cold extremities end up on Spock instead of him. It is less pleasant, of course, for a Vulcan born and bred in a desert, but the moment Jim snuggles up to Leonard and bends his legs and wiggles his toes against Leonard’s skin—even with socks on—is a right killer. And the one time Jim actually slides his feet too high, close to Leonard’s balls, should never be remembered without strong liquor to hand. Once the initial shock of cold passes, things are better because Jim will make a little sigh of contentment and be satisfied to fall asleep (though it takes Leonard longer, until the soles of Jim’s feet are tolerably warm). This is what happens in bed; yet Jim’s cold feet are not limited to nights of cuddly sleeping. If Kirk is barefoot, he has a tendency to plant his feet on the nearest warm surface—namely Leonard—and so McCoy suffers often: while on the couch with Jim who reads his reports there (and believes that bare feet attribute to the report-reading activity); visiting cultures where feet should be uncovered or it’s sacrilegious (that was a long two weeks); and during long, painful vigils over Jim’s biobed in Sickbay, where Leonard makes sure to put at least two pairs of socks over his Captain’s feet and massage them in hopes if they are warm enough, Jim will remember who needs him and wake up. Cold feet are something Jim can’t help anymore than his absurdly long list of allergies, and Leonard knows that he loves Kirk just a little more deeply every day because of those quirks—because of the unique and wonderful man they create.

Spock does not easily tolerate the cold (he can, of course, make it a mind over matter issue and succeed in ignoring the sensation of cold for a long period of time); Spock wears a thermal undershirt to help regulate his body temperature against the standard environmental conditions of the starship. Similarly, Jim wears an extra pair of socks over his feet, even if he has on regulation boots. (Occasionally, McCoy likes to pretend that he is going to tell the crew of Jim’s cold feet and Jim retaliates by saying that he will tell people the exact location of a particular mole on McCoy’s body; Spock finds this argument repetitious and has simulated several scenarios on his PADD of how this conversation might be prompted to occur—and possibly avoided.) Yet Jim feels embarrassed that he requires an extra pair of socks, whereas Spock has never associated the emotion of embarrassment with the wearing of necessary articles of clothing for comfort. It seems a great relief to Jim Kirk when he can shed the offensive socks and remain barefoot. This is how Spock discovers that Jim is mindful of Spock’s limitations in a most disturbing manner. Jim uses McCoy as a foot-warmer without hesitation, but if McCoy is not available Jim keeps his socks on, even in bed. At first, Spock thinks this is a human ritual, shared only between humans, but logic eventually supersedes his conclusion and dictates that Spock is a source of heat should Jim require heat. (He did once, on an away mission that turned deadly on an ice planet—though, perhaps, Spock needed the body heat more than Jim in that instance.) Being a Vulcan, of course, Spock broaches the subject in the only way he knows how. He waits until McCoy is on an opposite shift from Kirk and Spock and at the time of preparing for bed, he removes all pairs of socks from the Captain’s quarters (to be returned once the goal is achieved). Spock observes Jim’s discomfort throughout the course of the evening without comment. When they are in positions of repose, Spock flat on his back and Jim on his stomach, he waits until the fifth time his partner has rubbed his feet against the bed sheets in agitation to remark, “Your feet are cold.” Jim explains that all of his socks have been eaten the laundry monster. Spock says, “Then you must use my person as you would Leonard’s.” Jim is hesitant, and Spock rolls onto his side and angles his legs as precisely as possible. Thereafter, he decides to take more overt action (he loses his patience, McCoy would say) and puts each foot into place. They are unusually cold but bearable. He tells Jim he is not averse to repeating this service in the future. That pleases his human, Spock can tell, and so it is that Spock becomes a sometimes foot-warmer for James T. Kirk and does not find it an illogical development in their relationship at all.

-Fini

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