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ceres_liberaTitle: "Trespass"
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ceres_libera
Rating: R for language and sexual expression
Summary: After five years of friendship, and nearly that long in unrequited love, Leonard McCoy can still be surprised by Jim Kirk. And this time? That’s a good thing. A fill for this prompt from the buckle-up meme.
Canon: ST:XI/AOS-verse one shot.
Characters: Kirk/McCoy
Warnings: 4.400 words, give or take
Disclaimers: Not mine, Paramount. All hail Roddenberry, and Abrams.
Notes: A belated trifle for Valentine’s Day 2011. I hope the OP enjoys, and that all of our NZ friends are safe.
Edited since its original posting, since somehow, I managed to cut off an edit at the end. :: face palms ::
+
Officially, Leonard McCoy had been off-duty for a number of hours, but if any being cared to notice, they would see nothing unusual in a ship’s CMO sitting in his office to do paperwork, even if that particular CMO’s habit had been to retire of an evening to the Captain’s quarters with his PADDs. But those evenings had been fewer and far between in the past six months, what with missions gone awry and diplomats who loved to discuss quadrant politics over long dinners. And, of course, the thing that he decidedly wasn’t thinking about, and which no one -- no one who valued their life, anyway -- was talking about in front of him. So here Leo sat, looking the picture of industry, working late into the ship’s night. In fact, he was mechanically checking off boxes in between bouts of blindly staring at the blinking cursor on his PADD, while he tortured himself by picturing what was happening in Jim’s quarters. Idly, he wondered if he should break the promise that he’d made to himself at the beginning of their mission two years ago, the one where he’d vowed that he’d given up drowning his sorrows for good. He’d made other promises to himself, as well, but his own cowardice had held him back from acting on them, and now …
There was nothing more bitter than knowing that you alone had sabotaged your own chance at happiness.
Oh, he could lay it down to Fate, but he’d never thought too kindly of that notion in the first place. Besides, it wasn’t as if Ambassador Selek didn’t have a dog in the hunt – the man could hardly be blamed for wishing that his counterpart would win the race, such as it was, for Jim’s heart. Leo shifted, every muscle in his body tense and unhappy at the images in his head, and pressed the keycode into the lock of the drawer. It opened slightly on a breath of compressed air.
He couldn’t even claim that it had been much of a battle, really. He hadn’t felt the least bit of urgency to change anything in his relationship with Jim until Nyota and Spock had called it quits six months ago. He wasn’t entirely sure what had happened there – he and Nyota were friends, but there had been a hint of pity in her beautiful eyes when he’d asked about the end of her relationship, something in her expression as she watched Jim and Spock striding into the mess together that had made his heart stutter in his chest. He’d watched Jim squeeze Spock on the shoulder as they parted to line up at different food stations and turned back to see Nyota’s expression of understanding and the slight shrugging of her shoulders that indicated her helplessness, before he’d gotten up and stalked out of the mess.
He’d never brought it up again, but instead began to attend to how things were changing, because there was something in Spock’s dark eyes when he looked at Jim that hadn’t been there when they’d set off. He had noted how many fewer meals he ate alone with Jim in his mess or his quarters as the weeks had piled into months, how his time alone with Jim, even when he was injured, had been slowly but surely encroached upon. Up until tonight, the worst blow had been the first time he’d arrived on the bridge to find that Spock had usurped his spot to the left and behind of Jim’s chair. Not that it had been the only time -- just that after that, he began to expect to be pushed aside. And really, he wasn’t sure which was worse: finding Spock murmuring confidentially into Jim’s ear, or seeing him standing there silently, trespassing on the small space that Leo had carved out for himself in Jim’s life.
Of course, it was possible that what really galled him was the simple fact that Jim didn’t seem to notice anything amiss.
And it wasn’t as if he was the only one seeing it. He endured the sympathetic looks from the Bridge crew and even though they only served to stoke his ire, they strengthened his resolve. If Jim was incapable of seeing his feelings for him, it was a willing form of blindness. That was what he convinced himself, and so Leo forced himself to become more social, even going so far as to go out on a few dates with Tonia Barrows, a young and beautiful lieutenant in Engineering. She was attractive and intelligent, but despite her best efforts, their romance had petered out before it really ignited.
He hooked a finger in the drawer and pulled it open a bit farther. He’d been able to convince himself that he could deal with Jim and Spock becoming t’hy’la as they had been in that twice-damned universe from which Nero had come, if that meant that Jim would be happy for once and for all. He knew, like no other -- except maybe for Spock now -- that Jim, for all of his smiles and optimism, was a damned lonely soul, a man with innumerable acquaintances and few true friends.
And no matter what, Leo would never take his name off that list, even at the cost of breaking his own heart.
At least he’d admitted now that it was broken, even if it that admission was a pyrrhic victory. Oh, his poor old scarred heart had been fracturing, little by little, but it had shattered cleanly and probably for good, scant hours ago when he’d been refused admission to Jim’s quarters, the privacy tone alerting him that the Captain was only to be disturbed in the case of emergency.
Jim had never locked him out of his quarters, not once, even though it had led to more than one awkward situation back in their Academy days. His suspicions fully engaged, he’d taken his PADDs full of paperwork back to Sickbay and commed the computer to ask the location of Commander Spock, knowing full well that he would hear, “Commander Spock is currently in the Captain’s quarters on Deck …”
He’d disengaged before the cool feminine voice had completed the sentence, wondering why they’d waited so long, and then why he persisted in sticking fingers in his own open wounds.
And why could he not stop doing it now, more than an hour later? It was done. Hewas had lost.
He yanked the bottle out of the drawer in disgust at himself, and decided that having broken one vow, he could certainly break another, particularly since they were linked. His hand only trembled slightly as he pulled the tissue away from the heavyweight glass tumblers that he’d never before used. He poured himself a generous couple of fingers after breaking the seal, but found himself holding onto the glass, contemplating it and the amber liquid inside it morosely. It was a fine whisky, one that he’d brought aboard two years ago. He’d always imagined himself drinking it with Jim in his quarters, maybe sharing it in celebration of an anniversary.
“Aw, fuck it,” he said aloud, then held the glass aloft, ignoring its empty companion, still snug in its tissue-paper coffin, never to be used, because he’d never share this whisky with anyone else. “To us,” he toasted, then tossed back a slug.
He pretended that it was the whisky that brought tears to his eyes, and then turned his gaze back down to the PADD he should be working on. He needed to get back to work. This was his life, the one he had chosen by being a coward. He opened a file and began writing, ignoring everything else. He’d survived a broken heart before; he would again. But he knew, with a finality he hadn’t felt when his marriage had ended, that he would never love again. He’d risked it all once, and lost big, and lost even more by risking nothing.
He was done.
+
When the door whisked open thirty minutes later, he didn’t even raise his head. He’d pressed the button to allow admittance automatically, assuming that it was Jabilo or Chris or one of the other on-staff personnel coming to ask a question or to convey a report. So, when Spock addressed him, he startled in surprise and raised his head to see Spock looking ill. “Good God, man!” he said, sharply. “What’s wrong?”
“Doctor McCoy,” Spock repeated. “I must …” Spock seemed overwhelmed, and appeared to be struggling to compose himself.
“Spock!” Leo rose from his chair, compelled as ever to come to the aid of another, even now when Spock was the last person he wanted to see, much less help.
“Doctor,” Spock said again in an odd tone. He seemed not to know what to do with his hands. They weren’t exactly fluttering, but he kept rubbing them against the hem of his overshirt.
Leo started to come around his desk, tricorder in hand, but Spock raised a long hand in a stopping motion. “Do not touch me right now, Doctor McCoy,” he ordered, then added, “Please.”
Leo stopped his forward motion, arrested by the emotional plea of Spock’s usually toneless voice. “Then, for God’s sake, sit down before you fall down!”
Spock did so, folding himself mechanically and heavily into the seat as Leo scanned him.
“Spock,” Leo said. “I’m not getting much off these readings,” he admitted. “Tell me how to help you.” He could feel his eyebrows rising in amazement at the noise that Spock made, almost like a laugh, but bitter.
“Spock?” Leo was truly concerned. He scanned Spock again. Was it possible that Bendii Syndrome could have such a precipitous onset?
“Your every concern for me only underlines how much I have trespassed,” Spock ground the last word out.
Looking down at him, Leo had to wonder – both at his choice of word and at the sound of Spock’s throat opening and closing, as if he might vomit, although regurgitation was quite uncommon among Vulcans.
“Spock,” Leo said calmly, going to the food slot and dialing up a glass of Vulcan tea at a temperature he would have found scalding, but which would only be tepid to Spock at best. “Please try and regulate your breathing, and take small sips of this.” Since his continued presence near Spock seemed to agitate him further, he returned to his side of the desk and leaned back into his desk chair, curling his hand around his tumbler of whisky. He had a feeling he was going to need it. He let the silence fill his office for a moment, before he said. “Now what, exactly, are you talking about?”
“Jim,” Spock said brokenly, as all pretense of relaxation left him. “I’m talking about Jim.”
Leo straightened up and stared at Spock before he growled, “For your sake, Spock, you goddamned better not be saying that you have forced Jim …”
Spock interrupted him, trembling hands wrapped around his cup. “No,” he said quietly and then spoke into the vessel. “not I.”
Leo leaned forward across his desk, his voice sharp as a scalpel. “Explain.”
“I …” Spock looked up at Leo. “First, I must apologize to you,” he said simply. “I was not unaware of your feelings for Jim.”
Leo’s jaw tightened, but he said nothing. Spock’s confirmation was not really news.
“I believed that it was unrequited,” Spock continued, and he sounded so sure of himself that now it was Leo who felt sick. “You must understand, Doctor -- Vulcans are touch telepaths,” he announced.
“Thanks for the lesson,” Leo snapped, “but it so happens that I’m board-certified in Xeno-Anatomy.”
Spock continued on as if Leo had not interrupted. “In large part, our natural ability is why non-telepathic species believed Vulcans incapable of lying. This is, of course, a simplification of the truth, but there is truth in the notion that where there is a communal form of communication, there is little room for a human notion like prevarication.”
Leo stilled and stared at Spock. “Go on.”
“This ability to project one form of truth while holding an internal belief that it is at direct odds with the outward aspect of personality is one that I have great difficulty with,” Spock said haltingly, and Leo raised an eyebrow.
“So, you were mistaken about something?” he asked slowly, not daring to give voice to his hope.
“I have always believed that my relationship with my human mother had given me greater insight into so-called human nature,” Spock answered instead, and Leo sighed.
“Mothers and lovers are two totally different things,” he said to Spock. “As they should be.”
“Indeed,” Spock said primly, sipping at his tea. “And Nyota,” and something in the way Spock said her name made Leo believe that their break-up hadn’t been as easy for Spock as he’d assumed. “Nyota’s thoughts and her behaviors are always consistent.”
Leo smiled wryly, but offered nothing in return. There was only so far he was willing to go in his role of Father Confessor, and sharing his point of view on Jim’s internal and external inconsistencies was not one of them.
After a moment of silence, Spock continued. “While Nyota and I were together,” he said somewhat delicately, his prim persona in full force, “I became used to a certain level of congress, one which I have greatly missed in my current unbonded state.”
Leonard raised a sardonic brow, but still said nothing, choosing to take a sip of his drink, as Spock did the same. He wasn’t going to share anything about his sex life, or lack thereof.
“I believed,” he said “that the Captain – Jim – would be an amenable partner to have such a relationship with.” He looked up at Leonard, who was surprised to see the hint of a green flush of something that looked like embarrassment high on Spock’s cheeks. “You must understand, Leonard,” he said emphatically, “that this belief was fueled by the fact that the Captain has thoughts of a sexual nature about the crew quite regularly. He is unaware, I believe now, of just how much information he conveys tactilely. He has always been so free with his touch, that I assumed …” Spock drifted off, dropping his eyes, “I assumed that any offer I made would be received with pleasure.”
Leo blinked, in confusion. “It was not?” he heard himself asking, his disbelief clear.
“It was not that …” Spock seemed to search for the appropriate word, and said something in a tongue with which Leo was not familiar, and which was too swift for his universal translator to catch. “Simple,” he said finally seeming unsatisfied with the choice of word in Standard. His previous agitation was returning. “He was not unamenable,” he intoned, his words coming faster and faster. “Curious, in part because he has been told the same things about our extra-universal counterparts as I suspect you have, but also because he enjoys sexual congress.”
Leo nodded his assent, and Spock continued.
“But not always,” Spock said. “He has, in the past, accepted offers that he didn’t really wish to accept.”
Leo’s eyes widened.
“Mine would have been one of those offers,” Spock said. “He was … resigned is too strong a word, as is unwilling,” Spock said, placing his cup on Leo’s desk with a clatter. “He would have done what I wanted, but not because of any true desire for me on his part. In truth, he desires another, and I have no desire to trespass where I am not wanted. It is a repugnant notion.”
Spock stood abruptly. “I apologize, Doctor. This was a folly on my part, incited by the memories of the bond that my counterpart shared with his Jim. I can now see that I have done much harm by becoming lost in the memories of a life that never was my own.”
He started for the door, but turned back. “I’m trespassing now on the confidence that Jim unwittingly gave me, but perhaps by doing so, I will begin to rectify my own wrongs.”
He paused. “You, Leonard, are who Jim desires. While I do not understand his intransigence at negotiating a relationship beyond the sincere friendship that you already share, I would strongly suggest that you should take decisive steps to initiate a further relationship, if that is your desire,” he added hurriedly. “As for myself, I have much to meditate upon, before I undertake any other action. Good day, Doctor.” And then he was gone.
+
Thirty minutes after Spock’s entrance into his Sickbay, Leo stood outside Jim’s door and rang for admittance for the second time of the evening. Despite what he had learned from Spock’s astonishing conversation with him, he couldn’t help but swipe nervously at the bangs that were forever falling across his forehead. He glanced down at the bag that he had tucked under his arm as waited for Jim’s response, forcing himself to breathe in and out evenly.
“Bones?” Jim’s voice was tired, which wasn’t that surprising, considering that it was 0113 in the morning.
“Yeah,” he said surely, and the door whisked open to reveal Jim scrubbing at his hair with a yawn. “Fall asleep on the couch again, kid?” Leo asked, toeing off his right boot.
Jim stopped moving and stared up at Leo, the v-necked t-shirt that he wore over his sleep shorts askew, giving Leo a view of Jim’s left pectoral muscle.
“What?” He asked, unsure of what had put that look on Jim’s face.
“No date tonight, old man?” Jim asked in answer.
Leo blinked. “Huh,” he said. He guessed it had been a damned long time since he called Jim kid, since he couldn’t remember the last time Jim had called him ‘old man’. Well, shit. That was over from now on. “You know damned well that Tonia and I called it quits a while ago,” he growled. Not that there had been much to quit on, in the first place.
Jim’s tongue peeked out as he wet his lower lip. “Why was that again, Bones?” Jim’s tone was casual, his arms crossed over his chest as he rubbed at a bicep.
Jim was so damned beautiful sometimes that it hurt to look at him, even now when his hair was flattened on one side because he’d fallen asleep when it was still wet from the shower.
Leo smiled at him and watched his eyes widen. “She wasn’t the one for me,” he said lightly, then turned and began toeing off the other boot.
Behind him, he heard Jim still. He supposed that he could bring up Spock now, saw that Jim’s opening gambit had given him the opportunity, but he wasn’t particularly interested in the topic. “Can I use the shower, Jim?” he asked over his shoulder, already striding toward the head. “I’ve got my rations.”
Jim flapped his hand and yawned wide enough that Leo could hear his jaw crack. “Knock yourself out, Bones,” he said, “I’m way under allotment.” He paused. “It’s been a while since you skived off my rations.”
Leo turned at the bathroom door, one hand tugging at the back of the neck of his shirts to pull them up and over his head. He watched as Jim’s eyes dipped down to the stripe of skin that exposed. “Skived? Since you owe me approximately your body weight in booze, you got a nerve, kid-” Leo sassed back. He forcefully slapped the occupied light on to keep Spock’s door shut on the other side of the facilities, and stepped into the room, letting the door whisk closed on Jim’s next smart remark.
Now that he was here, Leo took his time, although not so much in the shower, since water rations were precious on a spaceship. But he took his time grooming himself, making sure that his teeth were really clean by flossing between them, even though the sonic would get most anything that was lurking, and by passing the sonic razor over his beard to make sure that his skin was as smooth as possible. Not that he didn’t intend to leave a few marks on Jim, but he’d prefer to keep them secret, just between the two of them. He’d just dropped his towel on the floor and was stepping into his sleep shorts when Jim whisked the door open.
“Bones – are ya --” whatever Jim had been going to say was abruptly cut off.
Leo turned his head and looked at Jim over his shoulder as he unhurriedly drew the loose-fitting blue pants up over his hips. He turned to face Jim as he tied a bow, Jim’s wide eyes following his every move. “Yeah, kid?”
“movin’ in?” Jim’s question ended at significantly lower volume than it had started.
Leo watched as Jim’s vivid eyes noted Leo’s uniform on the hanger next to the shower stall, the toiletries that lined the counter mixed with Jim’s own, the bag that he’d carried them in nowhere to be seen. Jim’s eyes snapped to Leo as he turned back to the sink, bending over to drop his used towel into the laundry chute.
“Bones?” Jim’s voice was wary, and even though he retained the cocky pose that he’d entered the bathroom with, the line of his body was taut with tension, at odds with the relaxed way that he was leaning against the door jamb, one hand propped on his hip, the other arm crossed over his body, cupping his own shoulder.
As Leo crossed the room toward Jim, he watched the way Jim drew in a breath, could see the wariness move into his eyes, although Jim had not shifted position at all.
“Bones.” Jim had dropped the question from his tone, and modulated his pitch into what Leo thought of as his Captain’s voice.
Leo stopped short of Jim, just standing in front of him, his bare feet and skin feeling the breeze from the cooler air in Jim’s cabin. “If you want me to, Jim,” he said clearly.
Jim stilled at his words, staring at Leo with a serious expression that Leo had never seen directed at him before, his eyes narrowing as he tried to figure out what was happening. He swallowed and nodded, “Spock,” he said surely.
“Sad, innit?” Leo asked him. “That the hobgoblin, of all goddamned people, had to tell me to man up and grow a pair.”
Jim’s smile was faint, but didn’t really reach his eyes.
Leo drew in a breath and continued on, because damn it, in for a penny, in for a pound. Besides, the only thing being a closed-mouth moron had done for him in the first place was break his fool heart, and from what he could see, maybe Jim’s to boot. “I should have shoved his green ass out of my spot the first time he tried to take it, Jim,” he said. “I’m sorry I didn’t. I’m sorry that I’ve been a coward for so long.”
“Bones,” Jim shook his head. He stepped back into the room a little, and Leo followed him, maintaining the distance between them as the door whisked closed. “You’re not a coward.”
Much as he wanted to just grab him, Leo was being careful not to crowd Jim. Too many choices had been taken from Jim and Vulcan voodoo aside, he was not going to force anything. Well. Much. “Not about battlefield surgery, or anything medical, but about this shit I’ve got a bad track record, and goddamn it, kid, you know it’s true. Just this once, you needed me to be the brave one and make the first move, and I couldn’t do it.”
Leo stopped ranting and said in a soft voice. “Tell me it isn’t too late, Jim.” He moved then, putting a gentle hand on Jim’s face, running his thumb over the scars on Jim’s jawline before he leaned in and brushed a kiss, high on Jim’s cheekbone, near one of his bright eyes. “And if you want me to,” he said in a low tone, letting his voice drift into Jim’s ear, before he kissed the tendon below it. “I’ll stay.”
“Bones,” Jim pushed him back and Leo gave him his space, but when Jim left his hands on Leo’s shoulders, he reached up and cupped Jim by the elbow, watching while Jim’s eyes tried to stay focused on his face, but kept drifting down his chest and beyond to the neat little bow that he had tied at the fly of his sleep shorts.
“I’ll stay, Jim,” Leo promised again, and as he watched, Jim’s eyes fluttered shut and the Adam’s Apple in his throat bobbed.
Jim licked his lips and set his jaw. His eyes flashed open, and his next words were issued like a challenge. “For how long?”
“I’ll tell you what,” Leo said. His fingers skimmed up the back of Jim’s arm and around his shoulder to curl around his neck. He pressed his forehead against Jim’s and said, “When you want me to leave, you just let me know.”
“And then you’ll go?” Jim asked, pulling back.
“Hell no,” Leo said, and finally, finally pressed his mouth to Jim’s, groaning when one of Jim’s hands wrapped around the base of his skull, and the other slid down his back to pull his hips in close. He chased Jim’s tongue back into his mouth, and when they finally broke apart, his hands were up under Jim’s sleep shirt so he was able to wrestle it off him as they bumped into the barrier that separated the living quarters from the sleeping area. “I ain’t that stupid.”
Jim laughed and pushed him down onto the bed, but Leo pulled Jim right down with him, laughing and gasping at the feel of Jim’s skin alongside his.
The next time they came up for air, Jim asked, “How long will it take you to pack?”
Leo smiled wolfishly as he rolled Jim under him and reached over him for the lube Jim had to have stashed somewhere in the bedside drawer. “Already done, kid,” he said, running a hand over Jim’s impressively rumpled hair. “I’m here to stay.”
Jim handed him the lube that he’d been looking for. “Good,” he whispered. Then, he reached down between them and gave a slow deliberate tug to the bow on Leo's sleep shorts, smiling softly when he felt it give way. “Good.”
And it was.
fin
Author:
ceres_liberaRating: R for language and sexual expression
Summary: After five years of friendship, and nearly that long in unrequited love, Leonard McCoy can still be surprised by Jim Kirk. And this time? That’s a good thing. A fill for this prompt from the buckle-up meme.
Canon: ST:XI/AOS-verse one shot.
Characters: Kirk/McCoy
Warnings: 4.400 words, give or take
Disclaimers: Not mine, Paramount. All hail Roddenberry, and Abrams.
Notes: A belated trifle for Valentine’s Day 2011. I hope the OP enjoys, and that all of our NZ friends are safe.
Edited since its original posting, since somehow, I managed to cut off an edit at the end. :: face palms ::
+
Officially, Leonard McCoy had been off-duty for a number of hours, but if any being cared to notice, they would see nothing unusual in a ship’s CMO sitting in his office to do paperwork, even if that particular CMO’s habit had been to retire of an evening to the Captain’s quarters with his PADDs. But those evenings had been fewer and far between in the past six months, what with missions gone awry and diplomats who loved to discuss quadrant politics over long dinners. And, of course, the thing that he decidedly wasn’t thinking about, and which no one -- no one who valued their life, anyway -- was talking about in front of him. So here Leo sat, looking the picture of industry, working late into the ship’s night. In fact, he was mechanically checking off boxes in between bouts of blindly staring at the blinking cursor on his PADD, while he tortured himself by picturing what was happening in Jim’s quarters. Idly, he wondered if he should break the promise that he’d made to himself at the beginning of their mission two years ago, the one where he’d vowed that he’d given up drowning his sorrows for good. He’d made other promises to himself, as well, but his own cowardice had held him back from acting on them, and now …
There was nothing more bitter than knowing that you alone had sabotaged your own chance at happiness.
Oh, he could lay it down to Fate, but he’d never thought too kindly of that notion in the first place. Besides, it wasn’t as if Ambassador Selek didn’t have a dog in the hunt – the man could hardly be blamed for wishing that his counterpart would win the race, such as it was, for Jim’s heart. Leo shifted, every muscle in his body tense and unhappy at the images in his head, and pressed the keycode into the lock of the drawer. It opened slightly on a breath of compressed air.
He couldn’t even claim that it had been much of a battle, really. He hadn’t felt the least bit of urgency to change anything in his relationship with Jim until Nyota and Spock had called it quits six months ago. He wasn’t entirely sure what had happened there – he and Nyota were friends, but there had been a hint of pity in her beautiful eyes when he’d asked about the end of her relationship, something in her expression as she watched Jim and Spock striding into the mess together that had made his heart stutter in his chest. He’d watched Jim squeeze Spock on the shoulder as they parted to line up at different food stations and turned back to see Nyota’s expression of understanding and the slight shrugging of her shoulders that indicated her helplessness, before he’d gotten up and stalked out of the mess.
He’d never brought it up again, but instead began to attend to how things were changing, because there was something in Spock’s dark eyes when he looked at Jim that hadn’t been there when they’d set off. He had noted how many fewer meals he ate alone with Jim in his mess or his quarters as the weeks had piled into months, how his time alone with Jim, even when he was injured, had been slowly but surely encroached upon. Up until tonight, the worst blow had been the first time he’d arrived on the bridge to find that Spock had usurped his spot to the left and behind of Jim’s chair. Not that it had been the only time -- just that after that, he began to expect to be pushed aside. And really, he wasn’t sure which was worse: finding Spock murmuring confidentially into Jim’s ear, or seeing him standing there silently, trespassing on the small space that Leo had carved out for himself in Jim’s life.
Of course, it was possible that what really galled him was the simple fact that Jim didn’t seem to notice anything amiss.
And it wasn’t as if he was the only one seeing it. He endured the sympathetic looks from the Bridge crew and even though they only served to stoke his ire, they strengthened his resolve. If Jim was incapable of seeing his feelings for him, it was a willing form of blindness. That was what he convinced himself, and so Leo forced himself to become more social, even going so far as to go out on a few dates with Tonia Barrows, a young and beautiful lieutenant in Engineering. She was attractive and intelligent, but despite her best efforts, their romance had petered out before it really ignited.
He hooked a finger in the drawer and pulled it open a bit farther. He’d been able to convince himself that he could deal with Jim and Spock becoming t’hy’la as they had been in that twice-damned universe from which Nero had come, if that meant that Jim would be happy for once and for all. He knew, like no other -- except maybe for Spock now -- that Jim, for all of his smiles and optimism, was a damned lonely soul, a man with innumerable acquaintances and few true friends.
And no matter what, Leo would never take his name off that list, even at the cost of breaking his own heart.
At least he’d admitted now that it was broken, even if it that admission was a pyrrhic victory. Oh, his poor old scarred heart had been fracturing, little by little, but it had shattered cleanly and probably for good, scant hours ago when he’d been refused admission to Jim’s quarters, the privacy tone alerting him that the Captain was only to be disturbed in the case of emergency.
Jim had never locked him out of his quarters, not once, even though it had led to more than one awkward situation back in their Academy days. His suspicions fully engaged, he’d taken his PADDs full of paperwork back to Sickbay and commed the computer to ask the location of Commander Spock, knowing full well that he would hear, “Commander Spock is currently in the Captain’s quarters on Deck …”
He’d disengaged before the cool feminine voice had completed the sentence, wondering why they’d waited so long, and then why he persisted in sticking fingers in his own open wounds.
And why could he not stop doing it now, more than an hour later? It was done. He
He yanked the bottle out of the drawer in disgust at himself, and decided that having broken one vow, he could certainly break another, particularly since they were linked. His hand only trembled slightly as he pulled the tissue away from the heavyweight glass tumblers that he’d never before used. He poured himself a generous couple of fingers after breaking the seal, but found himself holding onto the glass, contemplating it and the amber liquid inside it morosely. It was a fine whisky, one that he’d brought aboard two years ago. He’d always imagined himself drinking it with Jim in his quarters, maybe sharing it in celebration of an anniversary.
“Aw, fuck it,” he said aloud, then held the glass aloft, ignoring its empty companion, still snug in its tissue-paper coffin, never to be used, because he’d never share this whisky with anyone else. “To us,” he toasted, then tossed back a slug.
He pretended that it was the whisky that brought tears to his eyes, and then turned his gaze back down to the PADD he should be working on. He needed to get back to work. This was his life, the one he had chosen by being a coward. He opened a file and began writing, ignoring everything else. He’d survived a broken heart before; he would again. But he knew, with a finality he hadn’t felt when his marriage had ended, that he would never love again. He’d risked it all once, and lost big, and lost even more by risking nothing.
He was done.
+
When the door whisked open thirty minutes later, he didn’t even raise his head. He’d pressed the button to allow admittance automatically, assuming that it was Jabilo or Chris or one of the other on-staff personnel coming to ask a question or to convey a report. So, when Spock addressed him, he startled in surprise and raised his head to see Spock looking ill. “Good God, man!” he said, sharply. “What’s wrong?”
“Doctor McCoy,” Spock repeated. “I must …” Spock seemed overwhelmed, and appeared to be struggling to compose himself.
“Spock!” Leo rose from his chair, compelled as ever to come to the aid of another, even now when Spock was the last person he wanted to see, much less help.
“Doctor,” Spock said again in an odd tone. He seemed not to know what to do with his hands. They weren’t exactly fluttering, but he kept rubbing them against the hem of his overshirt.
Leo started to come around his desk, tricorder in hand, but Spock raised a long hand in a stopping motion. “Do not touch me right now, Doctor McCoy,” he ordered, then added, “Please.”
Leo stopped his forward motion, arrested by the emotional plea of Spock’s usually toneless voice. “Then, for God’s sake, sit down before you fall down!”
Spock did so, folding himself mechanically and heavily into the seat as Leo scanned him.
“Spock,” Leo said. “I’m not getting much off these readings,” he admitted. “Tell me how to help you.” He could feel his eyebrows rising in amazement at the noise that Spock made, almost like a laugh, but bitter.
“Spock?” Leo was truly concerned. He scanned Spock again. Was it possible that Bendii Syndrome could have such a precipitous onset?
“Your every concern for me only underlines how much I have trespassed,” Spock ground the last word out.
Looking down at him, Leo had to wonder – both at his choice of word and at the sound of Spock’s throat opening and closing, as if he might vomit, although regurgitation was quite uncommon among Vulcans.
“Spock,” Leo said calmly, going to the food slot and dialing up a glass of Vulcan tea at a temperature he would have found scalding, but which would only be tepid to Spock at best. “Please try and regulate your breathing, and take small sips of this.” Since his continued presence near Spock seemed to agitate him further, he returned to his side of the desk and leaned back into his desk chair, curling his hand around his tumbler of whisky. He had a feeling he was going to need it. He let the silence fill his office for a moment, before he said. “Now what, exactly, are you talking about?”
“Jim,” Spock said brokenly, as all pretense of relaxation left him. “I’m talking about Jim.”
Leo straightened up and stared at Spock before he growled, “For your sake, Spock, you goddamned better not be saying that you have forced Jim …”
Spock interrupted him, trembling hands wrapped around his cup. “No,” he said quietly and then spoke into the vessel. “not I.”
Leo leaned forward across his desk, his voice sharp as a scalpel. “Explain.”
“I …” Spock looked up at Leo. “First, I must apologize to you,” he said simply. “I was not unaware of your feelings for Jim.”
Leo’s jaw tightened, but he said nothing. Spock’s confirmation was not really news.
“I believed that it was unrequited,” Spock continued, and he sounded so sure of himself that now it was Leo who felt sick. “You must understand, Doctor -- Vulcans are touch telepaths,” he announced.
“Thanks for the lesson,” Leo snapped, “but it so happens that I’m board-certified in Xeno-Anatomy.”
Spock continued on as if Leo had not interrupted. “In large part, our natural ability is why non-telepathic species believed Vulcans incapable of lying. This is, of course, a simplification of the truth, but there is truth in the notion that where there is a communal form of communication, there is little room for a human notion like prevarication.”
Leo stilled and stared at Spock. “Go on.”
“This ability to project one form of truth while holding an internal belief that it is at direct odds with the outward aspect of personality is one that I have great difficulty with,” Spock said haltingly, and Leo raised an eyebrow.
“So, you were mistaken about something?” he asked slowly, not daring to give voice to his hope.
“I have always believed that my relationship with my human mother had given me greater insight into so-called human nature,” Spock answered instead, and Leo sighed.
“Mothers and lovers are two totally different things,” he said to Spock. “As they should be.”
“Indeed,” Spock said primly, sipping at his tea. “And Nyota,” and something in the way Spock said her name made Leo believe that their break-up hadn’t been as easy for Spock as he’d assumed. “Nyota’s thoughts and her behaviors are always consistent.”
Leo smiled wryly, but offered nothing in return. There was only so far he was willing to go in his role of Father Confessor, and sharing his point of view on Jim’s internal and external inconsistencies was not one of them.
After a moment of silence, Spock continued. “While Nyota and I were together,” he said somewhat delicately, his prim persona in full force, “I became used to a certain level of congress, one which I have greatly missed in my current unbonded state.”
Leonard raised a sardonic brow, but still said nothing, choosing to take a sip of his drink, as Spock did the same. He wasn’t going to share anything about his sex life, or lack thereof.
“I believed,” he said “that the Captain – Jim – would be an amenable partner to have such a relationship with.” He looked up at Leonard, who was surprised to see the hint of a green flush of something that looked like embarrassment high on Spock’s cheeks. “You must understand, Leonard,” he said emphatically, “that this belief was fueled by the fact that the Captain has thoughts of a sexual nature about the crew quite regularly. He is unaware, I believe now, of just how much information he conveys tactilely. He has always been so free with his touch, that I assumed …” Spock drifted off, dropping his eyes, “I assumed that any offer I made would be received with pleasure.”
Leo blinked, in confusion. “It was not?” he heard himself asking, his disbelief clear.
“It was not that …” Spock seemed to search for the appropriate word, and said something in a tongue with which Leo was not familiar, and which was too swift for his universal translator to catch. “Simple,” he said finally seeming unsatisfied with the choice of word in Standard. His previous agitation was returning. “He was not unamenable,” he intoned, his words coming faster and faster. “Curious, in part because he has been told the same things about our extra-universal counterparts as I suspect you have, but also because he enjoys sexual congress.”
Leo nodded his assent, and Spock continued.
“But not always,” Spock said. “He has, in the past, accepted offers that he didn’t really wish to accept.”
Leo’s eyes widened.
“Mine would have been one of those offers,” Spock said. “He was … resigned is too strong a word, as is unwilling,” Spock said, placing his cup on Leo’s desk with a clatter. “He would have done what I wanted, but not because of any true desire for me on his part. In truth, he desires another, and I have no desire to trespass where I am not wanted. It is a repugnant notion.”
Spock stood abruptly. “I apologize, Doctor. This was a folly on my part, incited by the memories of the bond that my counterpart shared with his Jim. I can now see that I have done much harm by becoming lost in the memories of a life that never was my own.”
He started for the door, but turned back. “I’m trespassing now on the confidence that Jim unwittingly gave me, but perhaps by doing so, I will begin to rectify my own wrongs.”
He paused. “You, Leonard, are who Jim desires. While I do not understand his intransigence at negotiating a relationship beyond the sincere friendship that you already share, I would strongly suggest that you should take decisive steps to initiate a further relationship, if that is your desire,” he added hurriedly. “As for myself, I have much to meditate upon, before I undertake any other action. Good day, Doctor.” And then he was gone.
+
Thirty minutes after Spock’s entrance into his Sickbay, Leo stood outside Jim’s door and rang for admittance for the second time of the evening. Despite what he had learned from Spock’s astonishing conversation with him, he couldn’t help but swipe nervously at the bangs that were forever falling across his forehead. He glanced down at the bag that he had tucked under his arm as waited for Jim’s response, forcing himself to breathe in and out evenly.
“Bones?” Jim’s voice was tired, which wasn’t that surprising, considering that it was 0113 in the morning.
“Yeah,” he said surely, and the door whisked open to reveal Jim scrubbing at his hair with a yawn. “Fall asleep on the couch again, kid?” Leo asked, toeing off his right boot.
Jim stopped moving and stared up at Leo, the v-necked t-shirt that he wore over his sleep shorts askew, giving Leo a view of Jim’s left pectoral muscle.
“What?” He asked, unsure of what had put that look on Jim’s face.
“No date tonight, old man?” Jim asked in answer.
Leo blinked. “Huh,” he said. He guessed it had been a damned long time since he called Jim kid, since he couldn’t remember the last time Jim had called him ‘old man’. Well, shit. That was over from now on. “You know damned well that Tonia and I called it quits a while ago,” he growled. Not that there had been much to quit on, in the first place.
Jim’s tongue peeked out as he wet his lower lip. “Why was that again, Bones?” Jim’s tone was casual, his arms crossed over his chest as he rubbed at a bicep.
Jim was so damned beautiful sometimes that it hurt to look at him, even now when his hair was flattened on one side because he’d fallen asleep when it was still wet from the shower.
Leo smiled at him and watched his eyes widen. “She wasn’t the one for me,” he said lightly, then turned and began toeing off the other boot.
Behind him, he heard Jim still. He supposed that he could bring up Spock now, saw that Jim’s opening gambit had given him the opportunity, but he wasn’t particularly interested in the topic. “Can I use the shower, Jim?” he asked over his shoulder, already striding toward the head. “I’ve got my rations.”
Jim flapped his hand and yawned wide enough that Leo could hear his jaw crack. “Knock yourself out, Bones,” he said, “I’m way under allotment.” He paused. “It’s been a while since you skived off my rations.”
Leo turned at the bathroom door, one hand tugging at the back of the neck of his shirts to pull them up and over his head. He watched as Jim’s eyes dipped down to the stripe of skin that exposed. “Skived? Since you owe me approximately your body weight in booze, you got a nerve, kid-” Leo sassed back. He forcefully slapped the occupied light on to keep Spock’s door shut on the other side of the facilities, and stepped into the room, letting the door whisk closed on Jim’s next smart remark.
Now that he was here, Leo took his time, although not so much in the shower, since water rations were precious on a spaceship. But he took his time grooming himself, making sure that his teeth were really clean by flossing between them, even though the sonic would get most anything that was lurking, and by passing the sonic razor over his beard to make sure that his skin was as smooth as possible. Not that he didn’t intend to leave a few marks on Jim, but he’d prefer to keep them secret, just between the two of them. He’d just dropped his towel on the floor and was stepping into his sleep shorts when Jim whisked the door open.
“Bones – are ya --” whatever Jim had been going to say was abruptly cut off.
Leo turned his head and looked at Jim over his shoulder as he unhurriedly drew the loose-fitting blue pants up over his hips. He turned to face Jim as he tied a bow, Jim’s wide eyes following his every move. “Yeah, kid?”
“movin’ in?” Jim’s question ended at significantly lower volume than it had started.
Leo watched as Jim’s vivid eyes noted Leo’s uniform on the hanger next to the shower stall, the toiletries that lined the counter mixed with Jim’s own, the bag that he’d carried them in nowhere to be seen. Jim’s eyes snapped to Leo as he turned back to the sink, bending over to drop his used towel into the laundry chute.
“Bones?” Jim’s voice was wary, and even though he retained the cocky pose that he’d entered the bathroom with, the line of his body was taut with tension, at odds with the relaxed way that he was leaning against the door jamb, one hand propped on his hip, the other arm crossed over his body, cupping his own shoulder.
As Leo crossed the room toward Jim, he watched the way Jim drew in a breath, could see the wariness move into his eyes, although Jim had not shifted position at all.
“Bones.” Jim had dropped the question from his tone, and modulated his pitch into what Leo thought of as his Captain’s voice.
Leo stopped short of Jim, just standing in front of him, his bare feet and skin feeling the breeze from the cooler air in Jim’s cabin. “If you want me to, Jim,” he said clearly.
Jim stilled at his words, staring at Leo with a serious expression that Leo had never seen directed at him before, his eyes narrowing as he tried to figure out what was happening. He swallowed and nodded, “Spock,” he said surely.
“Sad, innit?” Leo asked him. “That the hobgoblin, of all goddamned people, had to tell me to man up and grow a pair.”
Jim’s smile was faint, but didn’t really reach his eyes.
Leo drew in a breath and continued on, because damn it, in for a penny, in for a pound. Besides, the only thing being a closed-mouth moron had done for him in the first place was break his fool heart, and from what he could see, maybe Jim’s to boot. “I should have shoved his green ass out of my spot the first time he tried to take it, Jim,” he said. “I’m sorry I didn’t. I’m sorry that I’ve been a coward for so long.”
“Bones,” Jim shook his head. He stepped back into the room a little, and Leo followed him, maintaining the distance between them as the door whisked closed. “You’re not a coward.”
Much as he wanted to just grab him, Leo was being careful not to crowd Jim. Too many choices had been taken from Jim and Vulcan voodoo aside, he was not going to force anything. Well. Much. “Not about battlefield surgery, or anything medical, but about this shit I’ve got a bad track record, and goddamn it, kid, you know it’s true. Just this once, you needed me to be the brave one and make the first move, and I couldn’t do it.”
Leo stopped ranting and said in a soft voice. “Tell me it isn’t too late, Jim.” He moved then, putting a gentle hand on Jim’s face, running his thumb over the scars on Jim’s jawline before he leaned in and brushed a kiss, high on Jim’s cheekbone, near one of his bright eyes. “And if you want me to,” he said in a low tone, letting his voice drift into Jim’s ear, before he kissed the tendon below it. “I’ll stay.”
“Bones,” Jim pushed him back and Leo gave him his space, but when Jim left his hands on Leo’s shoulders, he reached up and cupped Jim by the elbow, watching while Jim’s eyes tried to stay focused on his face, but kept drifting down his chest and beyond to the neat little bow that he had tied at the fly of his sleep shorts.
“I’ll stay, Jim,” Leo promised again, and as he watched, Jim’s eyes fluttered shut and the Adam’s Apple in his throat bobbed.
Jim licked his lips and set his jaw. His eyes flashed open, and his next words were issued like a challenge. “For how long?”
“I’ll tell you what,” Leo said. His fingers skimmed up the back of Jim’s arm and around his shoulder to curl around his neck. He pressed his forehead against Jim’s and said, “When you want me to leave, you just let me know.”
“And then you’ll go?” Jim asked, pulling back.
“Hell no,” Leo said, and finally, finally pressed his mouth to Jim’s, groaning when one of Jim’s hands wrapped around the base of his skull, and the other slid down his back to pull his hips in close. He chased Jim’s tongue back into his mouth, and when they finally broke apart, his hands were up under Jim’s sleep shirt so he was able to wrestle it off him as they bumped into the barrier that separated the living quarters from the sleeping area. “I ain’t that stupid.”
Jim laughed and pushed him down onto the bed, but Leo pulled Jim right down with him, laughing and gasping at the feel of Jim’s skin alongside his.
The next time they came up for air, Jim asked, “How long will it take you to pack?”
Leo smiled wolfishly as he rolled Jim under him and reached over him for the lube Jim had to have stashed somewhere in the bedside drawer. “Already done, kid,” he said, running a hand over Jim’s impressively rumpled hair. “I’m here to stay.”
Jim handed him the lube that he’d been looking for. “Good,” he whispered. Then, he reached down between them and gave a slow deliberate tug to the bow on Leo's sleep shorts, smiling softly when he felt it give way. “Good.”
And it was.
fin
