FIC: Homecoming, 1/1
Title: Homecoming, 1/1
pairing: Kirk/McCoy, young Joanna McCoy
Co-written with the wonderful lindmere
Rating: pg-13
word count 4045 words, complete
summary McCoy spends time with young Joanna at their family home. She wants McCoy to tell her a fairy tale, and it brings back difficult times with Kirk.
Warnings: angst
Disclaimer: the characters do not belong to the authors but to Paramount etc and no offence is intended.
A/N: This is a response to the st_respect prompt/challenge - ‘Fairy Tale’ and is set in the reboot universe.
Many thanks to the delightful skyblue_reverie for swift and affirming beta reading!
banner by hitlikehammers
Intriguing snippet: “Daddy, tell me a story… a real story. With--a prince and a princess, and adventures, and they fight witches and monsters and stuff.”
“A fairy tale, you mean.” Leonard knows a story like that. That it happens to be on Leonard’s do not think about list is beside the point. "Fine, scoot over."
Homecoming
“Daddy, tell me a story.”
Leonard’s already brought Jo a glass of water, rescued her stuffed rabbit from under a seat cushion, and given her a goodnight kiss. But there’s a sudden flicker of lightning, a summer thunderstorm that’s been loitering for the last hour. Jo's inherited her father's sympathetic nervous system, along with other dubious gifts.
“How about we read Alice in Wonderland together?”
“Mommy always tells me stories.” It figures; Jocelyn's the creative one. Jim says that Leonard has the imagination of a Vulcan paired with a Klingon’s sensitivity.
Jim.
“Why don’t I tell you about something that happened to daddy in space?”
“Only if it’s not boooring.”
“Oh, so negotiations for mining rights on Arctyx Gamma are out?”
“A real story.”
“It's very real. I spent two weeks handing out stimulants so the delegates wouldn’t fall asleep.”
“A real story. With--a prince and a princess, and adventures, and they fight witches and monsters and stuff.”
“A fairy tale, you mean.” Leonard knows a story like that. That it happens to be on Leonard’s do not think about list is beside the point. "Fine, scoot over."
There's barely enough room in the bed; his ass hangs over the edge and one foot's on the floor, but it's easier on his back than the rocking chair Jocelyn bought for nursing, which she confessed later was hellishly uncomfortable. It had been so easy back then to admit they were wrong.
He wraps his arm around Jo and she snuggles against his side.
“All right, so the Enterprise was sent to Beta Lyrii to investigate-“
“Nooo!” Jo shrieks, clapping a little hand over his mouth. “You have to start it ‘Once upon a time'."
“Fine. Once upon a time, there lived-a handsome prince, I guess.”
Jo nods in approval. “What did he look like?”
“He was tall, with dark blond hair and blue eyes.”
“Like mommy.”
Well, there’s that.
“Yes, like mommy but more-- anyway, he went to sea in a huge ship, and sailed around the world, going wherever people needed help. “
“Like Captain Jim. And the princess?”
“There’s no princess in this story. Just a doctor.”
“Doctors are boring.”
"Why, thank you!" She giggles.
But then he doesn't tell the story he planned to. Instead, he describes the huge, purple trees on Beta Lyrii , and the giant balloon birds that drift in the breezes. He explains that one side of the planet is always day and one always night--he's just warming to the story, inventing an evil wizard to rule over the dark side, when he notices that Jo's fallen asleep.
He extracts his arm from under her and tucks her in, arranges Floppy's paws so they're peeking over the coverlet, and dims the lights. He steps over the top step. It still creaks after all these years.
He’s a ghost haunting his own house-well, not his house any more. He roams it in his dreams, and even now he feels he could open some forbidden door and find a younger version of himself.
He’d been shocked when Jocelyn sighed over his plan to sleep at the pod hotel in Longmont and suggested he stay here. Now he sees why: it’s been purged not only of his presence, but hers. Jo says they come here from the city maybe once a month.
Leonard doesn’t feel like drinking or sleeping, and he doesn’t feel like sitting in the living room battling the temptation to open drawers and scrutinize holos. He wanders out onto the porch, his hand betraying him, reaching for his comm link.
It's the usual: a flood of reports, pointless memos, a funny vid from Chapel on a beach somewhere, holding coconuts in front of her chest.
Nothing from Jim.
Leonard knows Jim can’t be coerced or threatened; he doesn’t respond to silences, and certainly not to outright belligerence. To bribery sometimes, but, at this point he’s given Jim everything except the thing he really wants and he has nothing left to offer.
The summer night is noisy, full of frogs and crickets, and the mosquitoes are sending out subspace broadcasts to let the swarm know that dinner has arrived. None of it's enough to drown out the story he's telling in his head, the one where Leonard doesn't know if he's the hero or the villain.
+++
“So you’ll be going straight to Georgia?” Jim was packing, digging civvies from the bottoms of drawers, mostly T-shirts. For a man of almost 30, he dressed like he was in high school.
“Staying there the whole two weeks, if I can swing it. I have to be in San Francisco on the thirteenth; one of those fucking conferences.”
Jim nodded and said nothing about where he was going. Somewhere warm, by the look of it, although he could have been going to Antarctica and he'd still have worn that old leather jacket.
“Is your mom planetside?”
“Not this year.”
More silence.
“Jim, I can’t read your mind. What's pissing you off?"
Jim rubbed his forefinger and thumb together, over and over, both hands at once, manifestly angry but trying to stay calm.
“I want to meet Joanna." He stared at Leonard and it was a Jim he rarely saw in private--cold eyes and tensed muscle, ready for battle.
Leonard's heart clenched with an uncomfortable combination of pity of and fear. “What would be the point, Jim?”
He wondered if he should put a hand on him, try to calm him with the reliable narcotic of touch, but every line of Jim's body seemed to have turned to hard edges.
Leonard didn't want this here, not with him. He and Jim didn't talk about stuff, there weren’t any awkward silences and there was never any need to discuss their feelings. What was between them was undefined, irreducible, and hemmed in by so much--risk and duty, pasts and futures. It had nothing to do with this.
It was for everyone's protection, Jim's and Jo's most of all, but there was no way it wouldn't come out like rejection. He lowered his voice, tried for gentle, but it came out like he’d smoked a dozen cigars.
“Anyway, you’ve ‘met’. Hell, you spend more time playing with her on the 'nets' than I do.”
“Only because you hate those games." So he'd noticed that Leonard limited his exposure to Joanna, keeping it circumscribed. Captain Kirk. Daddy's friend from work.
"Because I’m an adult.”
“The point is--We should meet. You know, to make this--" He brought two fingers up to his forehead and rubbed his sinuses, probably sore already from all the pollen and shit in the air, even though they were still in drydock. Leonard made a mental note to check that he’d packed the shots and watched Jim’s hand come down in the wide space between them. Jim pointed vaguely at Leonard, then at himself, his way of saying "us."
Leonard couldn't help him, couldn't explain that "us" for him meant Leonard and Joanna first. He couldn't say that he knew Jim had never had that himself, that closeness with a parent he'd taken for granted as a son and now cherished as a father. Leonard knew it was still no excuse, not even the whole story.
Jim advanced to where Leonard sat on the bed and crouched between his knees so he could look up at him. He rested his hands on Leonard’s thighs.
“Bones. I’m not your dirty little secret.”
Then he stood, just like that, and snapped his case shut. It took Leonard a minute to regain brain function.
“What the fuck?” He almost shouted it, grabbed Jim by the arm. “I said, what the FUCK?”
Jim looked down at where Leonard’s fingers gripped him. “I’ve never hidden this, us. The crew knows, Starfleet knows--hell, I even signed one of those fucking forms. Jo-Jo knows, my family... we’re in the tabloids, for fuck’s sake--" Jim wouldn't look at his eyes, so Leonard stepped into his space, grabbed his shoulders "--so what the fuck are you talking about?”
Jim pulled himself to his full height, had that I'm going to die but I'm going to go down swinging look, the last thing anyone saw before he went over a cliff.
"Yeah, but--" Jim walked right up to him and jabbed a finger at his chest, not quite touching. "I don't exist where it matters."
Leonard knew he didn't mean Georgia. Despite his famed self-control, his leader-of-men focus, Jim’s voice cracked and his lips spasmed; he flicked his tongue, and damn if he didn't look like he might even cry.
Leonard would have said anything to stop that, except for the one thing that would have worked.
He couldn’t say the three words Jim needed to hear: Come with me.
Leonard froze, like the coward Jocelyn had always said he was. He couldn't explain to Jim how complicated this was, how if he brought Jim home, his family would adore him, it would be official, but then it would be like a perfect apple at tipping point, the last shiny, unblemished moment before the inevitable decay.
Leonard couldn't hurt Jo-Jo. He couldn't have her meet Jim only to lose him. And he couldn’t admit to Jim, maybe even to himself, that he was afraid that if he looked this relationship in the eye, if he made it real, it would disappear.
“You know they’d fucking love me.” Even now, Jim didn't played dirty. He could have said, You’re just like all the others. And what really frightened Leonard was that he might have been right.
Leonard heard a volcanic sneeze from down the hallway while Jim waited for the turbolift.
Dammit. He'd forgotten to give Jim his shots.
+++
Leonard wakes to fat raindrops landing on his face. He's fallen asleep in the chaise on the porch, and the thunderstorm is tossing the trees, filling the air with ozone. He pulls the covers over the furniture because he doesn't want Jocelyn bitching him out about damp upholstery and hurries inside up to bed, because he doesn't know where else to go.
He pauses on the landing in front of Jo's door.
"Daddy?"
"Yes, baby girl?"
"I don't like the thunder." Her voice is small and tentative, maybe expecting one of Leonard's you're a big girl now speeches.
"Me neither." He pauses. "Want me to keep you company?"
"Yes, daddy!" He can see her in silhouette, sitting bolt upright in bed.
"All right, let's show the thunder we're not scared of it."
He wedges himself onto the bed again, and she curls against him tighter than before.
"Want me to go on with the story?" He feels her shrug. "Okay, why don't you tell me a story instead."
She cheers up immediately, doesn't flinch when a rumble shakes the old bones of the house. She wriggles out from his arms, flops on her stomach and props herself up on her elbow facing Leonard and begins.
"Once upon a time, there was a handsome prince and he was very, very lonely…"
Her voice is soft and singsongy, and the story has plenty of digressions. After a few minutes his space-lagged brain can't follow it any more and he isn't sure Jo can either, and his mind starts to drift.
He thinks about sunshine, and Jim--that time on Veruna, on the balcony at sunset.
+++
Leonard pressed tight against Jim's back, feeling it radiate heat like the tall buildings of this desert city. He caught Jim's hand and squeezed it, thinking about cool air and a large bed a few steps away.
But it wasn't a holiday. In half an hour Jim had to meet with the new Federation adviser, the one who'd inherit the day-to-day grind now that Jim was done with the planet-saving part of the business. Being Jim, he'd arranged for a hotel room instead of the presidential palace and brought Leonard along instead of a red-shirt detail.
Jim grasped the rail with one hand while Leonard licked the skin behind his ears.
“Fucking beautiful," Leonard murmured, sliding a finger into Jim’s waistband.
“I didn’t think you’d like it.” Leonard realized he meant the cityscape, silver towers catching the red sun as it mounted the sky, swarms of ground and aircraft buzzing around like angry bees.
“I meant you. This place is a shit-hole.”
“I like it, Bones, I like it a lot.” Jim turned his head to squint at him, “It’s…I dunno...”
Leonard sometimes found it hard to look into those infernal eyes; the kid surprised him every day, every damned minute. He slid his hands up to Jim’s face.
“No fucking trees.” He kissed Jim's nose. “No birds--least if there are, I can’t hear them.” He licked Jim’s top lip. “What’s to like?”
Jim pulled away, scanned Leonard’s face. “I had a skinful of nature in Iowa. This, being surrounded by people, cars, stars, you know--it’s new. There’s always someone there.”
“Makes me want to scoop my eyes out with a big ol’ silver spoon.”
Jim chuckled. “Least you’ve got my ass to keep you distracted, huh?”
"When the handsome Prince looked out at his kingdom, at the tall pines, the mockingbirds, he didn't know an evil wizard was watching him.."
“I jus' like open space”
“Except when it’s under your feet, full of stars, that kind of thing.”
And looking over Jim’s shoulder, trying to see it with Jim’s eyes, he felt grateful that, vicariously at least, he had another way to see the universe. It reminded him of when Jo was very small, before he'd learned to be bitter and selfish all over again. He wanted to hold onto to that feeling, hold on to Jim, and he kissed him hard, to keep him here. But of course, Jim had to leave.
"Because he was brave and good, the wizard was jealous, and wanted to kill the handsome prince..."
Bones sat in the lounge, fiddling with his PADD and watching Jim through the partially polarized glass as he sat in the courtyard with Tul'Kol, the adviser. He was tall and smartly dressed in an off-white suit and had long, dark hair and a striking widow’s peak. Leonard kept his head down until the scrape of chairs told him the formal stuff was over and Jim waved to him to join them for breakfast.
“Doctor, are you here on Fleet business too?” Tul'Kol's voice had the unctuousness of a diplomat with the hard edge of a pragmatist.
"No, just--along for the ride, I guess." Tul'Kol's bright, black eyes swept over Jim, dressed for the heat in short-sleeved uniform shirt, long legs stretched out in front of him.
"Yes. Well. Be sure you save some time for the sights."
A server arrived bearing a huge tray of fruit spiked with outlandish flowers.
"My apologies." Tul'kol made a little bow. "I am aware, captain, of your modest desire to avoid public demonstrations of thanks, but my Verunan counterparts insisted on some gesture, however small."
"Don't worry about it. It was very thoughtful."
Leonard picked out the largest and reddest of the fruits and held it up to the light. He wasn't surprised, given Jim's thing for apples, when he plucked it from Leonard's hand.
"The venenum," Tul'Kol said with a smile. "Very sweet, very highly prized."
"What do you think, Bones?" Jim rubbed it against his shoulder, the natural performer in him happy to have a prop.
Leonard hadn't brought his tricorder, but the Verunans, like most of the plants and animals here were Earth-derived, and even Jim's capricious immune system seemed to be flourishing in the desert heat. "Don't see how it could hurt."
Tul'Kol bent to slip a PADD into his case and Jim licked his lips, winked at Leonard and brought the fruit to his mouth. Bastard knew what watching him eat did to Leonard, but - what the hell - Tul'Kol would be gone soon enough and they'd have the rest of the day.
Tul'Kol resurfaced and stared at Jim. Leonard couldn’t blame him. It was a little unsubtle, the way Jim’s hand went to his throat; if there was one thing Leonard liked more than his lips it was--Jim’s eyes were wide now, his mouth gaped and he leaned back, knees flopping apart as his body spasmed. What? The apple fell on the tiles, and Jim gargled. It was the last sound he made, other than his head hitting the table when he fell.
Leonard dropped to his knees beside him, one hand tipping Jim's head up so he could clear his airway and the other fumbling for his communicator. Tul'Kol did his best to create a bustle, shouting for help and moving furniture. It wasn't until much later that Leonard remembered he'd been smiling.
+++
The tap of Floppy’s ears against his chin brings Leonard back.
“You’re not listening!”
Leonard smoothes her little frown with his thumb.
“Sorry, sugar, I am now.”
+++
"And the handsome prince was dead. There was weeping in all the land…"
Jim was pushing the boundaries of Leonard's patience now. Leonard had glued him back together enough times, but he'd never subjected him to this kind of helpless suspense.
He adjusted Jim’s goggles and the supply of artificial tears. Glassy eyes stared back at him. Jim hadn’t blinked once, hadn’t followed any movement; his pupils wouldn’t even react to light. He looked like a statue and nearly as dead as one, apart from the coma-level vitals. Leonard darkened the lenses eight hours each night to keep his circadian rhythm going, if he still had any. There was brain activity but absolutely no indication that Jim knew what was going on around him.
Whatever neurotoxin Tul'Kol had used was untraceable, so the bastard was likely to get away with it; there was no motive to stick to him but professional jealousy. Leonard had been there to do one thing, to keep Jim safe, and he'd failed to take the most basic precautions, had let warm breezes and a pretty mouth get in the way of responsibility.
He'd given Jim the apple, and Jim had eaten it. It was so fucking symbolic he wanted to laugh. But he couldn't.
+++
“Don't you like that part, Daddy? You look sad.”
“Well, it is sad, baby girl.”
"Don't worry." She pats him as if he's one of her stuffed toys. "Everything will get better in the end."
Yeah, right. "That's why they're fairy tales, isn't it?"
+++
“…the kingdom mourned..”
Towards the end of day thirteen, Leonard removed Jim’s goggles and checked for pupil function one last time before prepping him for the night. Leonard didn’t talk to him, couldn’t bear the sound of his own voice anymore, and didn’t truly believe Jim would be able to hear him anyway. There were enough hectoring voices in his head, Jocelyn and his father mostly, tabulating his inadequacies and fuck-ups, reminding him that this was just the most spectacular in a long line of failures.
He held the goggles in one hand, rested the penlight by Jim’s hip and indulged in running his forefinger along the bridge of Jim’s nose, still surprised at the lack of reaction. He recalled with a grief-stricken ache how Jim looked at Leonard when they fucked; these same blanched eyes had simmered with desire. It was obscene and cruel, and Leonard knew Jim would have hated it, this simulacrum of living.
Leonard brought his lips to the corners of Jim’s eyes, breathed on his tear ducts, used his thumb to guide the eyelids down with utmost delicacy, one after the other. He pressed a dry kiss on pale, translucent skin and squeezed his own eyes shut in agony, his head canting to rest on Jim’s cheek.
“I’m sorry. For everything, everything, I'm sorry,” he whispered. “And I have no right to ask, but--come back to me."
He stopped abruptly, interrupted by an imagined butterfly touch to his cheek. Then another. Leonard didn’t raise his head; he attributed the sensation to their combined breaths stirring a stray hair.
Eyes closed, his fingers tracked the well-worn route to Jim’s mouth and removed the brace holding it shut. Leonard pushed his tongue in gently, slid it side to side to moisten chapped lips and, God help him, to let go for once and really feel, when he felt a light touch on his arm. Leonard looked down to see weak fingers resting there, then back to blinking eyelids and expression and he slumped forward in blessed relief, sobbing into Jim’s chest, with the feel of Jim’s fingers fluttering at the nape of his neck.
+++
Leonard stares into space for long minutes while Jo sleeps. It's been three months since Veruna and he hasn't let himself think about it, not like that. He'd thought the lesson had been that the only way to keep Jim safe--or Jo, for that matter--was to keep his distance. But it seems that this story, like so many others, is open to interpretation.
He draws the comm from his pocket, careful not to wake Jo, and stares at it for long minutes.
Finally he sends the message, not knowing if there's anyone on the other end to receive it.
Come to us.
+++
"Only a kiss from his own true love would bring him back..."
“It wasn’t anything to do with me kissing him, dammit. That was a coincidence.”
“Perhaps some element in your saliva neutralized the toxin, doctor?” Christ, he was stubborn.
"Spock, you don’t think I’ve thought of that? Nothing’s shown up in the tests. Now, when you’re through talking like you have actual medical training, accept that maybe, just maybe, some things don’t require explaining and get the fu--“
“Bones? Can I have my soup now?”
Both men's heads snapped around to look at Jim, propped up on the biobed, a watery smile on his lips and a shaky hand extended towards his tray. Leonard lowered the bowl onto it and handed him the spoon as if it were a lethal weapon.
“I fail to see the purpose in persistently tasting the captain’s food before he eats.”
“And I fail to see what in the devil’s pointy-eared name you’re still doing here when someone’s got to run-“
"Bones." Jim lifted the spoon as if he were making a toast. "I think what Spock is trying to say is--I'm fine."
+++
Leonard wakes to bright sunshine, and for a minute all he can see is white. He rubs the grit from his eyes and checks on Jo, who's still curled against his shoulder. Her dark hair and lashes rob the color from her face and for a moment his heart catches before he picks up the even rhythm of her breathing.
It's a second after that that he notices the man standing beside them and nearly falls out of bed.
It's Jim, or maybe some dream version of him, because he's shining in the patch of sunlight, wearing a button-down shirt and looking more neat and fresh than anybody should if they'd just made the overnight trip from parts unknown to Bumfuck, Georgia.
"'Morning, Bones. You're looking charming as usual."
Leonard levers himself to a sitting position, feeling Jo stir beside him, struggling to think of what to say. Apologies and explanations and gratitude all seem inadequate.
"Jim--"
Jim just brushes it away with a wave of his hand, all the old sorry past, and just like that, everything is new. His first coherent thought is that he's going to call Jocelyn later and offer to buy the house from her. He half expects Jim to nod and agree.
But it's not Leonard that Jim is really focused on, it's Jo, who's staring at him in open-mouthed wonder.
For a moment Leonard doesn't know if she recognizes the stranger who's appeared in her room, and then Jim gives her one of his pure, sunbeam smiles. She smiles back, the exact same smile, and says "Captain Jim!" with a delighted giggle.
In that moment Leonard realizes she's not just daddy's little girl any more.
Eyes on Leonard now, Jim bends down and kisses her on the cheek.
"Hello, princess."
FIN
Feedback greatly appreciated, as always!
pairing: Kirk/McCoy, young Joanna McCoy
Co-written with the wonderful lindmere
Rating: pg-13
word count 4045 words, complete
summary McCoy spends time with young Joanna at their family home. She wants McCoy to tell her a fairy tale, and it brings back difficult times with Kirk.
Warnings: angst
Disclaimer: the characters do not belong to the authors but to Paramount etc and no offence is intended.
A/N: This is a response to the st_respect prompt/challenge - ‘Fairy Tale’ and is set in the reboot universe.
Many thanks to the delightful skyblue_reverie for swift and affirming beta reading!
banner by hitlikehammers
Intriguing snippet: “Daddy, tell me a story… a real story. With--a prince and a princess, and adventures, and they fight witches and monsters and stuff.”
“A fairy tale, you mean.” Leonard knows a story like that. That it happens to be on Leonard’s do not think about list is beside the point. "Fine, scoot over."
Homecoming
“Daddy, tell me a story.”
Leonard’s already brought Jo a glass of water, rescued her stuffed rabbit from under a seat cushion, and given her a goodnight kiss. But there’s a sudden flicker of lightning, a summer thunderstorm that’s been loitering for the last hour. Jo's inherited her father's sympathetic nervous system, along with other dubious gifts.
“How about we read Alice in Wonderland together?”
“Mommy always tells me stories.” It figures; Jocelyn's the creative one. Jim says that Leonard has the imagination of a Vulcan paired with a Klingon’s sensitivity.
Jim.
“Why don’t I tell you about something that happened to daddy in space?”
“Only if it’s not boooring.”
“Oh, so negotiations for mining rights on Arctyx Gamma are out?”
“A real story.”
“It's very real. I spent two weeks handing out stimulants so the delegates wouldn’t fall asleep.”
“A real story. With--a prince and a princess, and adventures, and they fight witches and monsters and stuff.”
“A fairy tale, you mean.” Leonard knows a story like that. That it happens to be on Leonard’s do not think about list is beside the point. "Fine, scoot over."
There's barely enough room in the bed; his ass hangs over the edge and one foot's on the floor, but it's easier on his back than the rocking chair Jocelyn bought for nursing, which she confessed later was hellishly uncomfortable. It had been so easy back then to admit they were wrong.
He wraps his arm around Jo and she snuggles against his side.
“All right, so the Enterprise was sent to Beta Lyrii to investigate-“
“Nooo!” Jo shrieks, clapping a little hand over his mouth. “You have to start it ‘Once upon a time'."
“Fine. Once upon a time, there lived-a handsome prince, I guess.”
Jo nods in approval. “What did he look like?”
“He was tall, with dark blond hair and blue eyes.”
“Like mommy.”
Well, there’s that.
“Yes, like mommy but more-- anyway, he went to sea in a huge ship, and sailed around the world, going wherever people needed help. “
“Like Captain Jim. And the princess?”
“There’s no princess in this story. Just a doctor.”
“Doctors are boring.”
"Why, thank you!" She giggles.
But then he doesn't tell the story he planned to. Instead, he describes the huge, purple trees on Beta Lyrii , and the giant balloon birds that drift in the breezes. He explains that one side of the planet is always day and one always night--he's just warming to the story, inventing an evil wizard to rule over the dark side, when he notices that Jo's fallen asleep.
He extracts his arm from under her and tucks her in, arranges Floppy's paws so they're peeking over the coverlet, and dims the lights. He steps over the top step. It still creaks after all these years.
He’s a ghost haunting his own house-well, not his house any more. He roams it in his dreams, and even now he feels he could open some forbidden door and find a younger version of himself.
He’d been shocked when Jocelyn sighed over his plan to sleep at the pod hotel in Longmont and suggested he stay here. Now he sees why: it’s been purged not only of his presence, but hers. Jo says they come here from the city maybe once a month.
Leonard doesn’t feel like drinking or sleeping, and he doesn’t feel like sitting in the living room battling the temptation to open drawers and scrutinize holos. He wanders out onto the porch, his hand betraying him, reaching for his comm link.
It's the usual: a flood of reports, pointless memos, a funny vid from Chapel on a beach somewhere, holding coconuts in front of her chest.
Nothing from Jim.
Leonard knows Jim can’t be coerced or threatened; he doesn’t respond to silences, and certainly not to outright belligerence. To bribery sometimes, but, at this point he’s given Jim everything except the thing he really wants and he has nothing left to offer.
The summer night is noisy, full of frogs and crickets, and the mosquitoes are sending out subspace broadcasts to let the swarm know that dinner has arrived. None of it's enough to drown out the story he's telling in his head, the one where Leonard doesn't know if he's the hero or the villain.
+++
“So you’ll be going straight to Georgia?” Jim was packing, digging civvies from the bottoms of drawers, mostly T-shirts. For a man of almost 30, he dressed like he was in high school.
“Staying there the whole two weeks, if I can swing it. I have to be in San Francisco on the thirteenth; one of those fucking conferences.”
Jim nodded and said nothing about where he was going. Somewhere warm, by the look of it, although he could have been going to Antarctica and he'd still have worn that old leather jacket.
“Is your mom planetside?”
“Not this year.”
More silence.
“Jim, I can’t read your mind. What's pissing you off?"
Jim rubbed his forefinger and thumb together, over and over, both hands at once, manifestly angry but trying to stay calm.
“I want to meet Joanna." He stared at Leonard and it was a Jim he rarely saw in private--cold eyes and tensed muscle, ready for battle.
Leonard's heart clenched with an uncomfortable combination of pity of and fear. “What would be the point, Jim?”
He wondered if he should put a hand on him, try to calm him with the reliable narcotic of touch, but every line of Jim's body seemed to have turned to hard edges.
Leonard didn't want this here, not with him. He and Jim didn't talk about stuff, there weren’t any awkward silences and there was never any need to discuss their feelings. What was between them was undefined, irreducible, and hemmed in by so much--risk and duty, pasts and futures. It had nothing to do with this.
It was for everyone's protection, Jim's and Jo's most of all, but there was no way it wouldn't come out like rejection. He lowered his voice, tried for gentle, but it came out like he’d smoked a dozen cigars.
“Anyway, you’ve ‘met’. Hell, you spend more time playing with her on the 'nets' than I do.”
“Only because you hate those games." So he'd noticed that Leonard limited his exposure to Joanna, keeping it circumscribed. Captain Kirk. Daddy's friend from work.
"Because I’m an adult.”
“The point is--We should meet. You know, to make this--" He brought two fingers up to his forehead and rubbed his sinuses, probably sore already from all the pollen and shit in the air, even though they were still in drydock. Leonard made a mental note to check that he’d packed the shots and watched Jim’s hand come down in the wide space between them. Jim pointed vaguely at Leonard, then at himself, his way of saying "us."
Leonard couldn't help him, couldn't explain that "us" for him meant Leonard and Joanna first. He couldn't say that he knew Jim had never had that himself, that closeness with a parent he'd taken for granted as a son and now cherished as a father. Leonard knew it was still no excuse, not even the whole story.
Jim advanced to where Leonard sat on the bed and crouched between his knees so he could look up at him. He rested his hands on Leonard’s thighs.
“Bones. I’m not your dirty little secret.”
Then he stood, just like that, and snapped his case shut. It took Leonard a minute to regain brain function.
“What the fuck?” He almost shouted it, grabbed Jim by the arm. “I said, what the FUCK?”
Jim looked down at where Leonard’s fingers gripped him. “I’ve never hidden this, us. The crew knows, Starfleet knows--hell, I even signed one of those fucking forms. Jo-Jo knows, my family... we’re in the tabloids, for fuck’s sake--" Jim wouldn't look at his eyes, so Leonard stepped into his space, grabbed his shoulders "--so what the fuck are you talking about?”
Jim pulled himself to his full height, had that I'm going to die but I'm going to go down swinging look, the last thing anyone saw before he went over a cliff.
"Yeah, but--" Jim walked right up to him and jabbed a finger at his chest, not quite touching. "I don't exist where it matters."
Leonard knew he didn't mean Georgia. Despite his famed self-control, his leader-of-men focus, Jim’s voice cracked and his lips spasmed; he flicked his tongue, and damn if he didn't look like he might even cry.
Leonard would have said anything to stop that, except for the one thing that would have worked.
He couldn’t say the three words Jim needed to hear: Come with me.
Leonard froze, like the coward Jocelyn had always said he was. He couldn't explain to Jim how complicated this was, how if he brought Jim home, his family would adore him, it would be official, but then it would be like a perfect apple at tipping point, the last shiny, unblemished moment before the inevitable decay.
Leonard couldn't hurt Jo-Jo. He couldn't have her meet Jim only to lose him. And he couldn’t admit to Jim, maybe even to himself, that he was afraid that if he looked this relationship in the eye, if he made it real, it would disappear.
“You know they’d fucking love me.” Even now, Jim didn't played dirty. He could have said, You’re just like all the others. And what really frightened Leonard was that he might have been right.
Leonard heard a volcanic sneeze from down the hallway while Jim waited for the turbolift.
Dammit. He'd forgotten to give Jim his shots.
+++
Leonard wakes to fat raindrops landing on his face. He's fallen asleep in the chaise on the porch, and the thunderstorm is tossing the trees, filling the air with ozone. He pulls the covers over the furniture because he doesn't want Jocelyn bitching him out about damp upholstery and hurries inside up to bed, because he doesn't know where else to go.
He pauses on the landing in front of Jo's door.
"Daddy?"
"Yes, baby girl?"
"I don't like the thunder." Her voice is small and tentative, maybe expecting one of Leonard's you're a big girl now speeches.
"Me neither." He pauses. "Want me to keep you company?"
"Yes, daddy!" He can see her in silhouette, sitting bolt upright in bed.
"All right, let's show the thunder we're not scared of it."
He wedges himself onto the bed again, and she curls against him tighter than before.
"Want me to go on with the story?" He feels her shrug. "Okay, why don't you tell me a story instead."
She cheers up immediately, doesn't flinch when a rumble shakes the old bones of the house. She wriggles out from his arms, flops on her stomach and props herself up on her elbow facing Leonard and begins.
"Once upon a time, there was a handsome prince and he was very, very lonely…"
Her voice is soft and singsongy, and the story has plenty of digressions. After a few minutes his space-lagged brain can't follow it any more and he isn't sure Jo can either, and his mind starts to drift.
He thinks about sunshine, and Jim--that time on Veruna, on the balcony at sunset.
+++
Leonard pressed tight against Jim's back, feeling it radiate heat like the tall buildings of this desert city. He caught Jim's hand and squeezed it, thinking about cool air and a large bed a few steps away.
But it wasn't a holiday. In half an hour Jim had to meet with the new Federation adviser, the one who'd inherit the day-to-day grind now that Jim was done with the planet-saving part of the business. Being Jim, he'd arranged for a hotel room instead of the presidential palace and brought Leonard along instead of a red-shirt detail.
Jim grasped the rail with one hand while Leonard licked the skin behind his ears.
“Fucking beautiful," Leonard murmured, sliding a finger into Jim’s waistband.
“I didn’t think you’d like it.” Leonard realized he meant the cityscape, silver towers catching the red sun as it mounted the sky, swarms of ground and aircraft buzzing around like angry bees.
“I meant you. This place is a shit-hole.”
“I like it, Bones, I like it a lot.” Jim turned his head to squint at him, “It’s…I dunno...”
Leonard sometimes found it hard to look into those infernal eyes; the kid surprised him every day, every damned minute. He slid his hands up to Jim’s face.
“No fucking trees.” He kissed Jim's nose. “No birds--least if there are, I can’t hear them.” He licked Jim’s top lip. “What’s to like?”
Jim pulled away, scanned Leonard’s face. “I had a skinful of nature in Iowa. This, being surrounded by people, cars, stars, you know--it’s new. There’s always someone there.”
“Makes me want to scoop my eyes out with a big ol’ silver spoon.”
Jim chuckled. “Least you’ve got my ass to keep you distracted, huh?”
"When the handsome Prince looked out at his kingdom, at the tall pines, the mockingbirds, he didn't know an evil wizard was watching him.."
“I jus' like open space”
“Except when it’s under your feet, full of stars, that kind of thing.”
And looking over Jim’s shoulder, trying to see it with Jim’s eyes, he felt grateful that, vicariously at least, he had another way to see the universe. It reminded him of when Jo was very small, before he'd learned to be bitter and selfish all over again. He wanted to hold onto to that feeling, hold on to Jim, and he kissed him hard, to keep him here. But of course, Jim had to leave.
"Because he was brave and good, the wizard was jealous, and wanted to kill the handsome prince..."
Bones sat in the lounge, fiddling with his PADD and watching Jim through the partially polarized glass as he sat in the courtyard with Tul'Kol, the adviser. He was tall and smartly dressed in an off-white suit and had long, dark hair and a striking widow’s peak. Leonard kept his head down until the scrape of chairs told him the formal stuff was over and Jim waved to him to join them for breakfast.
“Doctor, are you here on Fleet business too?” Tul'Kol's voice had the unctuousness of a diplomat with the hard edge of a pragmatist.
"No, just--along for the ride, I guess." Tul'Kol's bright, black eyes swept over Jim, dressed for the heat in short-sleeved uniform shirt, long legs stretched out in front of him.
"Yes. Well. Be sure you save some time for the sights."
A server arrived bearing a huge tray of fruit spiked with outlandish flowers.
"My apologies." Tul'kol made a little bow. "I am aware, captain, of your modest desire to avoid public demonstrations of thanks, but my Verunan counterparts insisted on some gesture, however small."
"Don't worry about it. It was very thoughtful."
Leonard picked out the largest and reddest of the fruits and held it up to the light. He wasn't surprised, given Jim's thing for apples, when he plucked it from Leonard's hand.
"The venenum," Tul'Kol said with a smile. "Very sweet, very highly prized."
"What do you think, Bones?" Jim rubbed it against his shoulder, the natural performer in him happy to have a prop.
Leonard hadn't brought his tricorder, but the Verunans, like most of the plants and animals here were Earth-derived, and even Jim's capricious immune system seemed to be flourishing in the desert heat. "Don't see how it could hurt."
Tul'Kol bent to slip a PADD into his case and Jim licked his lips, winked at Leonard and brought the fruit to his mouth. Bastard knew what watching him eat did to Leonard, but - what the hell - Tul'Kol would be gone soon enough and they'd have the rest of the day.
Tul'Kol resurfaced and stared at Jim. Leonard couldn’t blame him. It was a little unsubtle, the way Jim’s hand went to his throat; if there was one thing Leonard liked more than his lips it was--Jim’s eyes were wide now, his mouth gaped and he leaned back, knees flopping apart as his body spasmed. What? The apple fell on the tiles, and Jim gargled. It was the last sound he made, other than his head hitting the table when he fell.
Leonard dropped to his knees beside him, one hand tipping Jim's head up so he could clear his airway and the other fumbling for his communicator. Tul'Kol did his best to create a bustle, shouting for help and moving furniture. It wasn't until much later that Leonard remembered he'd been smiling.
+++
The tap of Floppy’s ears against his chin brings Leonard back.
“You’re not listening!”
Leonard smoothes her little frown with his thumb.
“Sorry, sugar, I am now.”
+++
"And the handsome prince was dead. There was weeping in all the land…"
Jim was pushing the boundaries of Leonard's patience now. Leonard had glued him back together enough times, but he'd never subjected him to this kind of helpless suspense.
He adjusted Jim’s goggles and the supply of artificial tears. Glassy eyes stared back at him. Jim hadn’t blinked once, hadn’t followed any movement; his pupils wouldn’t even react to light. He looked like a statue and nearly as dead as one, apart from the coma-level vitals. Leonard darkened the lenses eight hours each night to keep his circadian rhythm going, if he still had any. There was brain activity but absolutely no indication that Jim knew what was going on around him.
Whatever neurotoxin Tul'Kol had used was untraceable, so the bastard was likely to get away with it; there was no motive to stick to him but professional jealousy. Leonard had been there to do one thing, to keep Jim safe, and he'd failed to take the most basic precautions, had let warm breezes and a pretty mouth get in the way of responsibility.
He'd given Jim the apple, and Jim had eaten it. It was so fucking symbolic he wanted to laugh. But he couldn't.
+++
“Don't you like that part, Daddy? You look sad.”
“Well, it is sad, baby girl.”
"Don't worry." She pats him as if he's one of her stuffed toys. "Everything will get better in the end."
Yeah, right. "That's why they're fairy tales, isn't it?"
+++
“…the kingdom mourned..”
Towards the end of day thirteen, Leonard removed Jim’s goggles and checked for pupil function one last time before prepping him for the night. Leonard didn’t talk to him, couldn’t bear the sound of his own voice anymore, and didn’t truly believe Jim would be able to hear him anyway. There were enough hectoring voices in his head, Jocelyn and his father mostly, tabulating his inadequacies and fuck-ups, reminding him that this was just the most spectacular in a long line of failures.
He held the goggles in one hand, rested the penlight by Jim’s hip and indulged in running his forefinger along the bridge of Jim’s nose, still surprised at the lack of reaction. He recalled with a grief-stricken ache how Jim looked at Leonard when they fucked; these same blanched eyes had simmered with desire. It was obscene and cruel, and Leonard knew Jim would have hated it, this simulacrum of living.
Leonard brought his lips to the corners of Jim’s eyes, breathed on his tear ducts, used his thumb to guide the eyelids down with utmost delicacy, one after the other. He pressed a dry kiss on pale, translucent skin and squeezed his own eyes shut in agony, his head canting to rest on Jim’s cheek.
“I’m sorry. For everything, everything, I'm sorry,” he whispered. “And I have no right to ask, but--come back to me."
He stopped abruptly, interrupted by an imagined butterfly touch to his cheek. Then another. Leonard didn’t raise his head; he attributed the sensation to their combined breaths stirring a stray hair.
Eyes closed, his fingers tracked the well-worn route to Jim’s mouth and removed the brace holding it shut. Leonard pushed his tongue in gently, slid it side to side to moisten chapped lips and, God help him, to let go for once and really feel, when he felt a light touch on his arm. Leonard looked down to see weak fingers resting there, then back to blinking eyelids and expression and he slumped forward in blessed relief, sobbing into Jim’s chest, with the feel of Jim’s fingers fluttering at the nape of his neck.
+++
Leonard stares into space for long minutes while Jo sleeps. It's been three months since Veruna and he hasn't let himself think about it, not like that. He'd thought the lesson had been that the only way to keep Jim safe--or Jo, for that matter--was to keep his distance. But it seems that this story, like so many others, is open to interpretation.
He draws the comm from his pocket, careful not to wake Jo, and stares at it for long minutes.
Finally he sends the message, not knowing if there's anyone on the other end to receive it.
Come to us.
+++
"Only a kiss from his own true love would bring him back..."
“It wasn’t anything to do with me kissing him, dammit. That was a coincidence.”
“Perhaps some element in your saliva neutralized the toxin, doctor?” Christ, he was stubborn.
"Spock, you don’t think I’ve thought of that? Nothing’s shown up in the tests. Now, when you’re through talking like you have actual medical training, accept that maybe, just maybe, some things don’t require explaining and get the fu--“
“Bones? Can I have my soup now?”
Both men's heads snapped around to look at Jim, propped up on the biobed, a watery smile on his lips and a shaky hand extended towards his tray. Leonard lowered the bowl onto it and handed him the spoon as if it were a lethal weapon.
“I fail to see the purpose in persistently tasting the captain’s food before he eats.”
“And I fail to see what in the devil’s pointy-eared name you’re still doing here when someone’s got to run-“
"Bones." Jim lifted the spoon as if he were making a toast. "I think what Spock is trying to say is--I'm fine."
+++
Leonard wakes to bright sunshine, and for a minute all he can see is white. He rubs the grit from his eyes and checks on Jo, who's still curled against his shoulder. Her dark hair and lashes rob the color from her face and for a moment his heart catches before he picks up the even rhythm of her breathing.
It's a second after that that he notices the man standing beside them and nearly falls out of bed.
It's Jim, or maybe some dream version of him, because he's shining in the patch of sunlight, wearing a button-down shirt and looking more neat and fresh than anybody should if they'd just made the overnight trip from parts unknown to Bumfuck, Georgia.
"'Morning, Bones. You're looking charming as usual."
Leonard levers himself to a sitting position, feeling Jo stir beside him, struggling to think of what to say. Apologies and explanations and gratitude all seem inadequate.
"Jim--"
Jim just brushes it away with a wave of his hand, all the old sorry past, and just like that, everything is new. His first coherent thought is that he's going to call Jocelyn later and offer to buy the house from her. He half expects Jim to nod and agree.
But it's not Leonard that Jim is really focused on, it's Jo, who's staring at him in open-mouthed wonder.
For a moment Leonard doesn't know if she recognizes the stranger who's appeared in her room, and then Jim gives her one of his pure, sunbeam smiles. She smiles back, the exact same smile, and says "Captain Jim!" with a delighted giggle.
In that moment Leonard realizes she's not just daddy's little girl any more.
Eyes on Leonard now, Jim bends down and kisses her on the cheek.
"Hello, princess."
FIN
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