Magnolia Stellata (Kirk/McCoy, PG-13)
A little something for my glorious captain sangueuk's birthday. Being smart, deep and badass, she loves sex mixed with philosophy, and so I went and wrote slightly shmoopy angst. Maybe imagining them all with Southern accents will help.
Summary: Jim accompanies Bones to the McCoy annual picnic, which under the circumstances counts as a favor, especially in light of the inflatable bed in Mrs. McCoy's spare room. 3500 words.
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“Can I get you anything, ma? A slice of birthday cake?” Leaning over his mother’s chaise, Bones is the picture of chivalry, even though it’s the fifth time in an hour she’s waved him over to her to the knoll under the pine tree where she’s perched like a vigilant bird.
“Oh, I shouldn’t, you know that; the doctor says I have to watch my sugar.” Leonora McCoy fiddles with her rings and furrows her brow. “Anyhow, the damp air’s pretty much killed my appetite. I just want a glass of tea. And maybe a biscuit as long as they’re not too rich. Ivor will use butter instead of shortening.” Bones doesn’t so much as flick a glance at Jim; he’s polite that way.
Bones is ten steps away when Leonora’s quavering voice calls, “And tell Zara to get those boys down from that jungle gym. One of them’s going to break a leg.”
“I’ll do it, Mrs. McCoy,” Jim says, just as glad not to be left alone with Mrs. McCoy and her prosecutorial approach to conversation.
“Thank you, Jim. You’re a nice boy.”
Before Jim can help it he’s drawing level with Bones, trying to catch him in mid-smirk, but Bones keeps his eyes on the rocky path, still thick with last winter’s leaves and pine cones.
“Mom always liked you better,” Bones says after an awkward minute. It’s a weak joke at best, more so now that everything that comes out of their mouths seems freighted with meaning. Jim wonders how fast things can go back to normal, or what normal is now, for that matter.
Under the shelter, the food has spread in the course of the afternoon to encompass two picnic tables and three portable grills, which are being tended by McCoys with the fervor of people for whom barbecue is a religion. Just shy of the buffet Jim turns and makes a beeline for the playground, aware of sharp, blue eyes at his back. He pulls up alongside Bones’s cousin Zara, nearly six feet of lanky physicist, a McCoy by marriage and someone Jim likes even though they’ve only met a handful of times at the annual McCoy birthday celebration-cum-reunion.
“Jim!” She wraps a hand around his bicep and pulls him into a half-hug. “I was just hoping a handsome starship captain might stop by, and here you are.” Kyle and Kamil, Zara’s 5-year-old twins, choose that moment to jump down off the monkey bars and start chasing a squirrel, so Jim considers that part of his mission complete.
“I can’t believe how fast the boys are growing,” Jim says. “I can’t believe how old I sound when I say that.”
“I know. All that stuff about kids keeping you young is a lie.” Zara’s still got her hand on his arm and gives it a squeeze. “I’m so glad to see you. We were all so worried when you were held hostage on--Anarion Gamma, was it? It was all over the news. Leonora was calling me almost every night.”
“I’m sure it gave her some distinction around the Bridge Club,” Jim says.
“Can you really laugh about it? It sounded awful. Nearly a month and Starfleet refusing to negotiate, and-- “ she stops, looking abashed. “Oh, Jim, I’m sorry. This is probably the last thing you want to talk about on your leave. I’m glad I just deal with the mathematical aspects of space; the real ones are too damn scary. On to happier subjects.” She draws back, plants her fists on her hips, and peers down her nose, in reasonable imitation of Mrs. McCoy. “So how are you and Leonard doing?”
“Not really a happier subject, I’m afraid.” He tries a smirk, but it’s too late; Zara’s expression has already turned serious.
“Oh? You disappoint me, Jim. Just because I can’t stand to be in a relationship doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy projecting onto other people’s, and you and Leonard seem--perfect. Well, perfect for each other.”
“Thanks, I think. We’re friends. Good friends.” He tries to give that weak-sounding word the weight of conviction. “But the rest of it’s over.”
“I’m sorry, Jim, really,” she says, and looks it. “I liked the thought of you having each other out there, and Leonard always seems so happy when I get messages from him.”
“Oh, he saves it for you, does he?”
She smiles. “And you still came all the way to Tennessee and subjected yourself to toxic levels of McCoys for him? That is a true friend.”
“Bones said he couldn’t face coming to this thing solo again, the way he did after his divorce.” In fact, he’d stalled and sulked and finally asked Jim to go as a favor, a word that set Jim’s teeth on edge because just a few months ago it would have been a given that Jim would go to the annual picnic and the fish fry and whatever else Bones wanted him to go to.
“I’ll bet he couldn’t. Kyle, whatever that is, it’s dead, put it down. Sorry. At least you’re a few steps ahead of that. Jocelyn’s name was mud around here for a few years, as you can imagine. I liked her, a lot, actually; that made it awkward.”
“You don’t have to worry about us. No plates flying at heads.”
“I’m relieved to hear it. God help us if Leonard and Jocelyn had had high-energy weapons, too.” Jim laughs, partly in relief; it feels good to be able to talk about it normally, without the sideways glances and pregnant pauses from the crew that had attended Bones sort-of moving into, then sort-of moving out of, the captain’s quarters. Here among the noisy hubbub of generations, Jim feels only moderately consequential, and likes it.
“Please don’t mention to anyone, least of all Leonora, okay?” Jim says. “It’s still kind of uncomfortable, and she’s got her hands full complaining about the length of his hair.”
Zara nods and threads her arm back through Jim’s and they watch the boys for a while longer, Jim, awash in helpless nostalgia, thinking of himself and Sam. Finally, Zara bumps his shoulder with hers and says, “Enough moping; I’m officially picking you for my volleyball team. Maybe this is the year I’ll finally beat Edgar and his devastating overhand serve.”
Of course Bones ends up on the other team, not enough in itself to tame Jim’s unquenchably competitive spirit, except that after five games everybody stops keeping track of the score, players wander in and out and forget to rotate, and half of Zara’s team is playing with a beer bottle in one hand. In the gloom of dusk they finally give up and go to join the group around the fire pit.
When he’s on Earth, Jim has a lust for green things, for organic scents of earth and pine and flowers, and they’re all here. As evening falls cool, damp air rises out of the nearby creek, and the stars come out overhead and Jim ignores them. Instead, he looks at glossy-leafed trees whose white flowers hover, ghostly, in the half-darkness, and wishes he and Bones were staying in the mountains instead of going back to Leonora’s sleek, arid apartment in town.
Even here, he and Bones don’t gravitate together; he’s got one of the loud cousins at his elbow, opening a beer like clockwork every 15 minutes and trying to get him to talk about Federation politics. Across the fire circle he can see Bones, ever faithful, standing by his mother’s chair, making sure her wrap stays on or off depending on her body temperature and whim at a given moment.
At that moment, he can’t deny to himself that although it’s not as bad as it could be, something’s been lost, something that mattered more to Jim than sex. Jim feels mature for acknowledging that, even to himself, and then hates himself for being old. Calm acceptance, he thinks, is overrated.
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“Are you sure you have to go back to San Francisco today, Jim?” Leonora is pouring Jim a second tiny glass of orange juice. It’s lucky there’s plenty of coffee (served in Leonora’s rose-patterned teacups) because Jim has spent a restless night clinging to the edge of the inflatable double bed in Leonora’s study. He’d been afraid that if he let go, he’d be pulled into Bones’s gravity well and wake up in the familiar sprawl of limbs and pillows, unconscious mind betraying him when he’d assured Bones he could behave. Bones had snored away for most of the night guarded by the holos of his younger self that decorated Leonora’s walls, chief among them the formal portrait from his wedding day, a blindingly happy, baby-faced ghost of another life.
“I’m afraid so, ma’am. Admiral Subramanya’s expecting to see me 0800 sharp.” Jim thinks she’ll enjoy the name dropping, but instead she sniffs, “Well, if you must, but it’s not very convenient. My dear friend Elise Ozcelik wants to meet you and I thought the three of us could have dinner while Leonard is out with Jocelyn.”
“Jocelyn?” Jim gets a windpipe full of toast crumbs and begins to cough. Bones doesn’t do his usual thing of positioning himself for the Heimlich maneuver but grabs a couple of dirty plates and disappears into the kitchen.
“Well, yes,” Leonora continues, oblivious. “Have some plain water, Jim, you drank that juice too fast. She’s arriving tonight, so she said. I guess I understand why you didn’t see fit to mention it, Leonard,” she calls toward the kitchen, “but she offered to stop by, which I thought was civil of her.”
“I can’t think why Leonard didn’t mention it either,” Jim says hoarsely, airway clear but mind blank. “Excuse me.”
Jim picks up the juice pitcher and carries it into the kitchen, but Bones has already retreated through the other door and by the time Jim finds him in the study, stripping sheets from the bed, Jim’s oxygen-deprived brain has finally switched back on.
There’s no reason Bones shouldn’t see his ex wife, and there’s no reason he shouldn’t mention it to Jim, and for that matter no reason that he should. There are, however, a lot of reasons Bones might suddenly get scared and cagey. He’s the most painfully honest person Jim has ever known and a master of avoidance when he wants to be.
“So,” Jim says, grabbing a pillow and yanking off the pillowcase. “Jocelyn is the ‘cousin’ you didn’t want to inflict on me tonight.”
“I don’t have to clear my plans with you,” Bones grumbles, a feeble attempt.
“No, you don’t, but since we’ve spent the last 72 hours together, it seems odd you wouldn’t have mentioned it.” Jim tosses the pillow a little too hard at Bones, who catches it with a whoof. “Unless you’re planning something besides dinner.”
“Like what? Shagging my ex-wife behind my ex-boyfriend’s back?” Bones pulls out the release valve on the mattress and they watch it deflate with prolonged sigh.
“That’s the least of my worries,” Jim says. “Look at me, for once.” Bones does, reluctant as Jim when he’s submitting to a medical exam. Jim’s no telepath but Bones is an easy read; it used to be a joke between them that Jim could have a conversation with Bones’s eyes without Bones ever saying a word. Nevertheless, the flash of insight hits Jim with such force that he has to sit down.
“Oh my God. You’re not just seeing her; you’re thinking about getting back together with her. That’s why you wanted a whole week down here. That’s why you--shit, that’s why you broke up with me while we were still in space. You’re an idiot but you’re not so much of an asshole that you’d keep fucking me while you’re figuring out what color to paint the picket fence.”
“God damn it,” Bones says as a space-filler, while Jim watches him struggle for a way to put Jim in the wrong. “You and your hypervigilant mind. This isn’t a secret mission to Talos IV, it’s a visit with my ex.” He’s trying to strip the cover off the duvet and making a hash of it, so Jim holds onto one end until Bones childishly pulls it away. “I haven’t seen her in two years and we’ve been--we’ve been working some things out. Over subspace.”
“Shit. I knew it, I knew it.” Jim’s voice is rising and Bones is looking nervously at the door. “And I’d convinced myself you wouldn’t turn in your commission no matter what happened between us because you loved the job, and the whole time it’s just been some diversion so you could straighten yourself up and put your tie back on and go after Jocelyn Taylor again.”
“Boys?” Leonora appears at the door. “Is something wrong?”
“No, ma,” Bones says tightly. “We’re just talking.”
She looks doubtfully at Bones’s red face and the half-unmade bed. “Oh. Well, try to be quiet. Mr. Landover next door doesn’t like noise.”
“Want to take it outside?” Jim is enjoying nothing about this except the fact that Bones has to stifle it in front of his mother.
“No, I don’t. I don’t want to talk about it at all, let alone in my own house when--”
“Your house?” Jim crows. “You don’t have a house. I don’t have a house. Remember? We were going to get a house together. You got us on a couple of waiting lists and we were going to check the places out on our next shore leave, which is now. Was that just a placeholder, too? Was every fucking thing we did together just practice for your real life, including the actual fucking?” Jim’s anger has risen out of nowhere, but it’s cool, not hot; after months of not asking because he had a ship to run and because he was so scared that Bones would quit the Fleet, he’s done.
“How about it, Bones?” He grabs the second pillow off the bed and throws it at Bones like the gut punch he’d never, ever deliver. “The truth.”
Bones just stares, jaw open and green eyes wide as if Jim’s just said the most terrifying thing imaginable. He lets the pillow drop to the floor and more or less evaporates out of the room.
Jim isn’t really sure what’s happening until he hears the front door to the apartment slam.
“Leonard!” Leonora is standing in the hall with her arms limp at her sides, startled for once out of her affected gentility. “Jim, what’s happening--did you two have an argument?”
“Not now, Mrs. McCoy,” Jim says, moving her out of the way with as much care as he can manage and bolting out the door. It slams behind him, and Jim spares a brief pang for Leonora and Mr. Landover before running to the stairwell and hurtling down it.
Four flights and he’s dumped out into the early-morning glare of Pigeon Forge. Despite the rustic name, it’s a typical planned community of the last century: mid-rise dwelling units interspersed at regular intervals with green spaces and pod farms and a tramway overhead. For a moment it just seems like a coverage problem; he actually reaches for his communicator to tell the Enterprise to initiate a scan when he remembers that it’s Bones he’s chasing around a mid-sized Tennessee town. Four stories up, he can see Mrs. McCoy with her nose pressed against the window. He gives her a half-hearted wave.
Running away is such a childish, pointless move that Jim feels pity for Bones that lasts until the sixth pocket park that Jim walks the length of. After about 20 minutes Jim spots him, sitting on a bench facing a bland municipal sculpture that’s sitting in the middle of a non-working fountain.
Bones doesn’t look up, and Jim doesn’t say anything, just drops onto the bench, not too close and not too far away. Jim leans his forearms on his knees and tries to let the bright, shadowless sunlight clean out the cobwebs in his heart. After a while, he says, “You owe Mr. Landover an apology.”
Bones turns his head just far that Jim can see the twist of his lips. “And that’s the very least I owe you.” His head drops back down and his glossy black forelock falls into his eyes in the way that always makes Jim want to brush it back.
“You don’t owe me anything.”
“Yeah, well.” Bones’s voice is gravelly and tired, as if he got as little sleep as Jim. “I’m in love with you, you know.”
“No, I didn’t,” Jim says. “You hide it well.”
Bones flops back with a sigh against the hard wood of the bench and runs a hand over his face. “I was okay with it until Anarion. Proud of myself, actually. Almost a month with the Anarions threatening to execute you every day, and a bunch of Federation negotiators trying to out-stupid each other and prove how brave they could be with your life. And I was fine, mostly. Yelled at Spock a couple of times, punched the wall once, spent a lot of nights at the gym.”
Jim’s lips feel dry. “So that’s what made that dent in the wall.”
“That wasn’t what made me snap, though. It was that damn house. Listening to you talk about how you wanted somewhere with a view of the ocean, about how we could maybe get a boat when you retired--you Starfleet captains and your boats, I swear to God.” Bones’s eyes have gone opaque and shiny, and Jim hopes it isn’t with tears or he just might lose it. “I know every day that I could lose you, Jim, and at the end of every day I think, ‘Today it didn’t happen.’ That’s how I get through it. But when you started to talk about the future and all those ordinary things--well, Jim, I have some idea how boring they must seem to you, but they mean a lot to me. And I couldn’t stand to plan a future with you that I’ll probably never get to have. That’s all there is to it, Jim. No grand conspiracy, no using you as training wheels for another relationship. As far as I’m concerned, you’re it.”
“Shit,” Jim says, as six months of false assumptions flip over like cards in his brain. “And you couldn’t have told me this before?”
“I wasn’t sure myself. And the other stuff--It is hard, living and working together. Neither of us are easy people, and Captain Kirk brings a lot of baggage with him.”
“I’d give it up, you know,” Jim says, and means it. “If that’s what it takes.”
“I know. And you know I’d never ask.”
Jim nods, and looks away, and lets his arm stretch out and his hand rest on Bones’s shoulder, because they’re friends, after all. “Now what? It isn’t fair to Jocelyn, making her the fallback position.”
“I know. It was really just an experiment, to see how much things had changed.” Bones lifts Jim’s hand off his shoulder and doesn’t push it away, but holds it, resting against the sun-warmed seat of the bench.
Jim’s mind feels clearer than it’s been in a long time. He looks up at the smooth curves of the old mountains above the city, glowing in spring green above the morning mist.
“Hey, look at us,” Jim says. “We’re holding hands on a park bench. Must be your idea of fucking heaven.”
Bones smiles, that particular smile where his teeth show that just about burns Jim to the ground. “It’s a start. Damned if I have any ideas beyond this, though. What about you?”
“Well, first I’m going to tell Admiral Subramanya to fuck off. No, I’m going to tell her that I’ve been detained on urgent family business. I’m officially on leave until Tuesday, so she can’t really squawk about it. “
“That’ll work.”
“Then you’re going to have dinner with Jocelyn, and I’m going to have dinner with your mom and Mrs. Whatshername, and I’m going to charm both their asses off, because it’s going to take at least that to convince your mom we haven’t both gone dangerously psychotic.”
“And then?”
“Then,” Jim says, pulling Bones to his feet and putting his hands on his shoulders, “we find some cabin in the woods and don’t come out for two days except to do some fishing. Naked fishing. Which is always catch and release, by the way.” Now he’s got Bones laughing, which makes him feel lighter than air.
“And after that?”
“That’s the best part,” Jim says, sliding his hands down Bones’s shoulders to his hips, because after all, they’re not just friends. “Neither of us have any idea.”
Summary: Jim accompanies Bones to the McCoy annual picnic, which under the circumstances counts as a favor, especially in light of the inflatable bed in Mrs. McCoy's spare room. 3500 words.
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“Can I get you anything, ma? A slice of birthday cake?” Leaning over his mother’s chaise, Bones is the picture of chivalry, even though it’s the fifth time in an hour she’s waved him over to her to the knoll under the pine tree where she’s perched like a vigilant bird.
“Oh, I shouldn’t, you know that; the doctor says I have to watch my sugar.” Leonora McCoy fiddles with her rings and furrows her brow. “Anyhow, the damp air’s pretty much killed my appetite. I just want a glass of tea. And maybe a biscuit as long as they’re not too rich. Ivor will use butter instead of shortening.” Bones doesn’t so much as flick a glance at Jim; he’s polite that way.
Bones is ten steps away when Leonora’s quavering voice calls, “And tell Zara to get those boys down from that jungle gym. One of them’s going to break a leg.”
“I’ll do it, Mrs. McCoy,” Jim says, just as glad not to be left alone with Mrs. McCoy and her prosecutorial approach to conversation.
“Thank you, Jim. You’re a nice boy.”
Before Jim can help it he’s drawing level with Bones, trying to catch him in mid-smirk, but Bones keeps his eyes on the rocky path, still thick with last winter’s leaves and pine cones.
“Mom always liked you better,” Bones says after an awkward minute. It’s a weak joke at best, more so now that everything that comes out of their mouths seems freighted with meaning. Jim wonders how fast things can go back to normal, or what normal is now, for that matter.
Under the shelter, the food has spread in the course of the afternoon to encompass two picnic tables and three portable grills, which are being tended by McCoys with the fervor of people for whom barbecue is a religion. Just shy of the buffet Jim turns and makes a beeline for the playground, aware of sharp, blue eyes at his back. He pulls up alongside Bones’s cousin Zara, nearly six feet of lanky physicist, a McCoy by marriage and someone Jim likes even though they’ve only met a handful of times at the annual McCoy birthday celebration-cum-reunion.
“Jim!” She wraps a hand around his bicep and pulls him into a half-hug. “I was just hoping a handsome starship captain might stop by, and here you are.” Kyle and Kamil, Zara’s 5-year-old twins, choose that moment to jump down off the monkey bars and start chasing a squirrel, so Jim considers that part of his mission complete.
“I can’t believe how fast the boys are growing,” Jim says. “I can’t believe how old I sound when I say that.”
“I know. All that stuff about kids keeping you young is a lie.” Zara’s still got her hand on his arm and gives it a squeeze. “I’m so glad to see you. We were all so worried when you were held hostage on--Anarion Gamma, was it? It was all over the news. Leonora was calling me almost every night.”
“I’m sure it gave her some distinction around the Bridge Club,” Jim says.
“Can you really laugh about it? It sounded awful. Nearly a month and Starfleet refusing to negotiate, and-- “ she stops, looking abashed. “Oh, Jim, I’m sorry. This is probably the last thing you want to talk about on your leave. I’m glad I just deal with the mathematical aspects of space; the real ones are too damn scary. On to happier subjects.” She draws back, plants her fists on her hips, and peers down her nose, in reasonable imitation of Mrs. McCoy. “So how are you and Leonard doing?”
“Not really a happier subject, I’m afraid.” He tries a smirk, but it’s too late; Zara’s expression has already turned serious.
“Oh? You disappoint me, Jim. Just because I can’t stand to be in a relationship doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy projecting onto other people’s, and you and Leonard seem--perfect. Well, perfect for each other.”
“Thanks, I think. We’re friends. Good friends.” He tries to give that weak-sounding word the weight of conviction. “But the rest of it’s over.”
“I’m sorry, Jim, really,” she says, and looks it. “I liked the thought of you having each other out there, and Leonard always seems so happy when I get messages from him.”
“Oh, he saves it for you, does he?”
She smiles. “And you still came all the way to Tennessee and subjected yourself to toxic levels of McCoys for him? That is a true friend.”
“Bones said he couldn’t face coming to this thing solo again, the way he did after his divorce.” In fact, he’d stalled and sulked and finally asked Jim to go as a favor, a word that set Jim’s teeth on edge because just a few months ago it would have been a given that Jim would go to the annual picnic and the fish fry and whatever else Bones wanted him to go to.
“I’ll bet he couldn’t. Kyle, whatever that is, it’s dead, put it down. Sorry. At least you’re a few steps ahead of that. Jocelyn’s name was mud around here for a few years, as you can imagine. I liked her, a lot, actually; that made it awkward.”
“You don’t have to worry about us. No plates flying at heads.”
“I’m relieved to hear it. God help us if Leonard and Jocelyn had had high-energy weapons, too.” Jim laughs, partly in relief; it feels good to be able to talk about it normally, without the sideways glances and pregnant pauses from the crew that had attended Bones sort-of moving into, then sort-of moving out of, the captain’s quarters. Here among the noisy hubbub of generations, Jim feels only moderately consequential, and likes it.
“Please don’t mention to anyone, least of all Leonora, okay?” Jim says. “It’s still kind of uncomfortable, and she’s got her hands full complaining about the length of his hair.”
Zara nods and threads her arm back through Jim’s and they watch the boys for a while longer, Jim, awash in helpless nostalgia, thinking of himself and Sam. Finally, Zara bumps his shoulder with hers and says, “Enough moping; I’m officially picking you for my volleyball team. Maybe this is the year I’ll finally beat Edgar and his devastating overhand serve.”
Of course Bones ends up on the other team, not enough in itself to tame Jim’s unquenchably competitive spirit, except that after five games everybody stops keeping track of the score, players wander in and out and forget to rotate, and half of Zara’s team is playing with a beer bottle in one hand. In the gloom of dusk they finally give up and go to join the group around the fire pit.
When he’s on Earth, Jim has a lust for green things, for organic scents of earth and pine and flowers, and they’re all here. As evening falls cool, damp air rises out of the nearby creek, and the stars come out overhead and Jim ignores them. Instead, he looks at glossy-leafed trees whose white flowers hover, ghostly, in the half-darkness, and wishes he and Bones were staying in the mountains instead of going back to Leonora’s sleek, arid apartment in town.
Even here, he and Bones don’t gravitate together; he’s got one of the loud cousins at his elbow, opening a beer like clockwork every 15 minutes and trying to get him to talk about Federation politics. Across the fire circle he can see Bones, ever faithful, standing by his mother’s chair, making sure her wrap stays on or off depending on her body temperature and whim at a given moment.
At that moment, he can’t deny to himself that although it’s not as bad as it could be, something’s been lost, something that mattered more to Jim than sex. Jim feels mature for acknowledging that, even to himself, and then hates himself for being old. Calm acceptance, he thinks, is overrated.
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“Are you sure you have to go back to San Francisco today, Jim?” Leonora is pouring Jim a second tiny glass of orange juice. It’s lucky there’s plenty of coffee (served in Leonora’s rose-patterned teacups) because Jim has spent a restless night clinging to the edge of the inflatable double bed in Leonora’s study. He’d been afraid that if he let go, he’d be pulled into Bones’s gravity well and wake up in the familiar sprawl of limbs and pillows, unconscious mind betraying him when he’d assured Bones he could behave. Bones had snored away for most of the night guarded by the holos of his younger self that decorated Leonora’s walls, chief among them the formal portrait from his wedding day, a blindingly happy, baby-faced ghost of another life.
“I’m afraid so, ma’am. Admiral Subramanya’s expecting to see me 0800 sharp.” Jim thinks she’ll enjoy the name dropping, but instead she sniffs, “Well, if you must, but it’s not very convenient. My dear friend Elise Ozcelik wants to meet you and I thought the three of us could have dinner while Leonard is out with Jocelyn.”
“Jocelyn?” Jim gets a windpipe full of toast crumbs and begins to cough. Bones doesn’t do his usual thing of positioning himself for the Heimlich maneuver but grabs a couple of dirty plates and disappears into the kitchen.
“Well, yes,” Leonora continues, oblivious. “Have some plain water, Jim, you drank that juice too fast. She’s arriving tonight, so she said. I guess I understand why you didn’t see fit to mention it, Leonard,” she calls toward the kitchen, “but she offered to stop by, which I thought was civil of her.”
“I can’t think why Leonard didn’t mention it either,” Jim says hoarsely, airway clear but mind blank. “Excuse me.”
Jim picks up the juice pitcher and carries it into the kitchen, but Bones has already retreated through the other door and by the time Jim finds him in the study, stripping sheets from the bed, Jim’s oxygen-deprived brain has finally switched back on.
There’s no reason Bones shouldn’t see his ex wife, and there’s no reason he shouldn’t mention it to Jim, and for that matter no reason that he should. There are, however, a lot of reasons Bones might suddenly get scared and cagey. He’s the most painfully honest person Jim has ever known and a master of avoidance when he wants to be.
“So,” Jim says, grabbing a pillow and yanking off the pillowcase. “Jocelyn is the ‘cousin’ you didn’t want to inflict on me tonight.”
“I don’t have to clear my plans with you,” Bones grumbles, a feeble attempt.
“No, you don’t, but since we’ve spent the last 72 hours together, it seems odd you wouldn’t have mentioned it.” Jim tosses the pillow a little too hard at Bones, who catches it with a whoof. “Unless you’re planning something besides dinner.”
“Like what? Shagging my ex-wife behind my ex-boyfriend’s back?” Bones pulls out the release valve on the mattress and they watch it deflate with prolonged sigh.
“That’s the least of my worries,” Jim says. “Look at me, for once.” Bones does, reluctant as Jim when he’s submitting to a medical exam. Jim’s no telepath but Bones is an easy read; it used to be a joke between them that Jim could have a conversation with Bones’s eyes without Bones ever saying a word. Nevertheless, the flash of insight hits Jim with such force that he has to sit down.
“Oh my God. You’re not just seeing her; you’re thinking about getting back together with her. That’s why you wanted a whole week down here. That’s why you--shit, that’s why you broke up with me while we were still in space. You’re an idiot but you’re not so much of an asshole that you’d keep fucking me while you’re figuring out what color to paint the picket fence.”
“God damn it,” Bones says as a space-filler, while Jim watches him struggle for a way to put Jim in the wrong. “You and your hypervigilant mind. This isn’t a secret mission to Talos IV, it’s a visit with my ex.” He’s trying to strip the cover off the duvet and making a hash of it, so Jim holds onto one end until Bones childishly pulls it away. “I haven’t seen her in two years and we’ve been--we’ve been working some things out. Over subspace.”
“Shit. I knew it, I knew it.” Jim’s voice is rising and Bones is looking nervously at the door. “And I’d convinced myself you wouldn’t turn in your commission no matter what happened between us because you loved the job, and the whole time it’s just been some diversion so you could straighten yourself up and put your tie back on and go after Jocelyn Taylor again.”
“Boys?” Leonora appears at the door. “Is something wrong?”
“No, ma,” Bones says tightly. “We’re just talking.”
She looks doubtfully at Bones’s red face and the half-unmade bed. “Oh. Well, try to be quiet. Mr. Landover next door doesn’t like noise.”
“Want to take it outside?” Jim is enjoying nothing about this except the fact that Bones has to stifle it in front of his mother.
“No, I don’t. I don’t want to talk about it at all, let alone in my own house when--”
“Your house?” Jim crows. “You don’t have a house. I don’t have a house. Remember? We were going to get a house together. You got us on a couple of waiting lists and we were going to check the places out on our next shore leave, which is now. Was that just a placeholder, too? Was every fucking thing we did together just practice for your real life, including the actual fucking?” Jim’s anger has risen out of nowhere, but it’s cool, not hot; after months of not asking because he had a ship to run and because he was so scared that Bones would quit the Fleet, he’s done.
“How about it, Bones?” He grabs the second pillow off the bed and throws it at Bones like the gut punch he’d never, ever deliver. “The truth.”
Bones just stares, jaw open and green eyes wide as if Jim’s just said the most terrifying thing imaginable. He lets the pillow drop to the floor and more or less evaporates out of the room.
Jim isn’t really sure what’s happening until he hears the front door to the apartment slam.
“Leonard!” Leonora is standing in the hall with her arms limp at her sides, startled for once out of her affected gentility. “Jim, what’s happening--did you two have an argument?”
“Not now, Mrs. McCoy,” Jim says, moving her out of the way with as much care as he can manage and bolting out the door. It slams behind him, and Jim spares a brief pang for Leonora and Mr. Landover before running to the stairwell and hurtling down it.
Four flights and he’s dumped out into the early-morning glare of Pigeon Forge. Despite the rustic name, it’s a typical planned community of the last century: mid-rise dwelling units interspersed at regular intervals with green spaces and pod farms and a tramway overhead. For a moment it just seems like a coverage problem; he actually reaches for his communicator to tell the Enterprise to initiate a scan when he remembers that it’s Bones he’s chasing around a mid-sized Tennessee town. Four stories up, he can see Mrs. McCoy with her nose pressed against the window. He gives her a half-hearted wave.
Running away is such a childish, pointless move that Jim feels pity for Bones that lasts until the sixth pocket park that Jim walks the length of. After about 20 minutes Jim spots him, sitting on a bench facing a bland municipal sculpture that’s sitting in the middle of a non-working fountain.
Bones doesn’t look up, and Jim doesn’t say anything, just drops onto the bench, not too close and not too far away. Jim leans his forearms on his knees and tries to let the bright, shadowless sunlight clean out the cobwebs in his heart. After a while, he says, “You owe Mr. Landover an apology.”
Bones turns his head just far that Jim can see the twist of his lips. “And that’s the very least I owe you.” His head drops back down and his glossy black forelock falls into his eyes in the way that always makes Jim want to brush it back.
“You don’t owe me anything.”
“Yeah, well.” Bones’s voice is gravelly and tired, as if he got as little sleep as Jim. “I’m in love with you, you know.”
“No, I didn’t,” Jim says. “You hide it well.”
Bones flops back with a sigh against the hard wood of the bench and runs a hand over his face. “I was okay with it until Anarion. Proud of myself, actually. Almost a month with the Anarions threatening to execute you every day, and a bunch of Federation negotiators trying to out-stupid each other and prove how brave they could be with your life. And I was fine, mostly. Yelled at Spock a couple of times, punched the wall once, spent a lot of nights at the gym.”
Jim’s lips feel dry. “So that’s what made that dent in the wall.”
“That wasn’t what made me snap, though. It was that damn house. Listening to you talk about how you wanted somewhere with a view of the ocean, about how we could maybe get a boat when you retired--you Starfleet captains and your boats, I swear to God.” Bones’s eyes have gone opaque and shiny, and Jim hopes it isn’t with tears or he just might lose it. “I know every day that I could lose you, Jim, and at the end of every day I think, ‘Today it didn’t happen.’ That’s how I get through it. But when you started to talk about the future and all those ordinary things--well, Jim, I have some idea how boring they must seem to you, but they mean a lot to me. And I couldn’t stand to plan a future with you that I’ll probably never get to have. That’s all there is to it, Jim. No grand conspiracy, no using you as training wheels for another relationship. As far as I’m concerned, you’re it.”
“Shit,” Jim says, as six months of false assumptions flip over like cards in his brain. “And you couldn’t have told me this before?”
“I wasn’t sure myself. And the other stuff--It is hard, living and working together. Neither of us are easy people, and Captain Kirk brings a lot of baggage with him.”
“I’d give it up, you know,” Jim says, and means it. “If that’s what it takes.”
“I know. And you know I’d never ask.”
Jim nods, and looks away, and lets his arm stretch out and his hand rest on Bones’s shoulder, because they’re friends, after all. “Now what? It isn’t fair to Jocelyn, making her the fallback position.”
“I know. It was really just an experiment, to see how much things had changed.” Bones lifts Jim’s hand off his shoulder and doesn’t push it away, but holds it, resting against the sun-warmed seat of the bench.
Jim’s mind feels clearer than it’s been in a long time. He looks up at the smooth curves of the old mountains above the city, glowing in spring green above the morning mist.
“Hey, look at us,” Jim says. “We’re holding hands on a park bench. Must be your idea of fucking heaven.”
Bones smiles, that particular smile where his teeth show that just about burns Jim to the ground. “It’s a start. Damned if I have any ideas beyond this, though. What about you?”
“Well, first I’m going to tell Admiral Subramanya to fuck off. No, I’m going to tell her that I’ve been detained on urgent family business. I’m officially on leave until Tuesday, so she can’t really squawk about it. “
“That’ll work.”
“Then you’re going to have dinner with Jocelyn, and I’m going to have dinner with your mom and Mrs. Whatshername, and I’m going to charm both their asses off, because it’s going to take at least that to convince your mom we haven’t both gone dangerously psychotic.”
“And then?”
“Then,” Jim says, pulling Bones to his feet and putting his hands on his shoulders, “we find some cabin in the woods and don’t come out for two days except to do some fishing. Naked fishing. Which is always catch and release, by the way.” Now he’s got Bones laughing, which makes him feel lighter than air.
“And after that?”
“That’s the best part,” Jim says, sliding his hands down Bones’s shoulders to his hips, because after all, they’re not just friends. “Neither of us have any idea.”