Fic: After My Own Heart (originally posted June 17th)
A little searing angst, now. I couldn't resist this prompt.
Title: After My Own Heart
Pairing: Shatner/Nimoy, Quinto/Pine
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Sometimes, Leonard wishes Zachary Quinto really was a younger version of himself, who could live his life again. There are some things he would definitely do differently. He thinks he'd better say so.
Warnings: Angst, unrequitedness, bitter old men.
Disclaimer: Lies made up by my own twisted brain.
He used to have a dream of Bill, tiger-eyed and wanting him, honey-coloured nakedness spreadeagled on his sheets. He used to think of him like that, of how he might look with his thighs fallen open, and hate himself for it.
So Leonard has a pretty good idea of what hating yourself looks like.
Zach's a kid, Leonard thinks: just a kid, yet; no ties, no nothing. He's got the time, and the opportunity. And, hell, Leonard's flattered by the multitude of comments positing a freaky similarity between the two of them, but he knows - he knows - that if he'd ever been half as good-looking as Zachary is, he'd have propositioned his Kirk quite unafraid.
Maybe.
Zach's gentle and thoughtful and fiercely intelligent, and Leonard only had to shake his hand to know he was gay. He wonders if that makes it any easier; if he knows that Chris must know. From the way Zach watches him - that stricken never-never in his eyes - he guesses it doesn't. Perhaps it makes the whole thing a million times worse.
- no, Leonard catches himself, drawing a tight little breath. What makes things a million times worse is being old and grizzled and still best friends and nothing more. What makes it a billion times worse is knowing that you never ever dared to try and change that.
On Wednesday morning, he leaves a message on Zach's answer machine. "Hey, kiddo. Humour an old man and come over for coffee, would you? Say, six-ish. Call me if you can't make it."
On Wednesday evening, at five forty-five, Zach is fidgeting on his doorstep, full of apologies about being early. Leonard waves them away, stepping back to let the kid in.
"Don't worry about it," he says, pulling out a kitchen chair in invitation and turning towards the cupboard where he keeps the tea and coffee. "I said six-ish; five-forty-five is six-ish." He pokes around in the cupboard. "You want coffee? Or tea? There's black, or various kinds of hippy."
Zachary laughs. It's a sudden laugh, and sharp, always unexpected and delightful. "Hippy tea?"
"Well, herbal tea," Leonard clarifies. "But that's what Bill always calls it. I guess I've picked up bad habits."
"I suppose it's only natural, after forty years of knowing someone," Zach says. "I'll have hippy tea, whatever kind you want. Surprise me."
Leonard takes out a sachet of echinacea-whatsit for Zachary and a chai for himself, and pours boiling water into the mugs. "Gotta let it steep," he says, leaning back against the counter, facing the table. "You think you'll know Chris that long, Zachary?"
Zach raises an eyebrow. It's a Spocky sort of gesture, Leonard thinks: he wonders whether it's an overhang from the movie, or whether it's just a coincidence and he's always expressed surprise like that. Zach always thinks before he speaks, aiming for precision in this as in everything. He says, "I'd like to."
It's a guarded response, an attempt to give away nothing which, in its transparency, speaks volumes. Leonard smiles. "No reason why you shouldn't, is there?"
Zachary shrugs expansively. "Eh." He starts picking at the tablecloth, nervous. Leonard decides the tea's ready, and places both mugs on the table. Zach closes his hands around his, and fidgets with that instead. Leonard decides to try a different tack. Indirectness, he thinks, has never done him any favours.
"You're in love with him, aren't you?"
Zachary freezes in the act of raising the cup to his lips. For a long, long moment, he doesn't move, eyes fixed on a point somewhere towards the far side of the tabletop. Then he looks at Leonard, and his eyes are soft and dark and sad enough that something clenches in Leonard's chest. There is no denial there, no secrecy. He must have seen that Leonard knows too much for that. He says, "Is it that obvious?"
"Only to me," Leonard says, softly. He smiles a little wry smile, comforting, commiserating. "Does he know?"
Zach's laughter this time is hollow, sharp in quite a different way. "Well, I haven't told him, if that's what you mean." He shrugs. "I guess he might. If he does, he hasn't - " He pauses. "If he does," he begins again, with careful emphasis, "he mustn't be interested, since he's never given any indication..." He trails off, meaningfully. Belatedly, a faint blush spreads across his cheekbones.
Fascinating.
Leonard gives him a second. The blush fades away again. Then he says, "Zach, you can't make assumptions like that about people, you know. There's no reason why he wouldn't be interested, and from what I've seen of the two of you together, every reason why he might." He stirs his tea carefully; removes the teabag with the flat of his spoon. "He must surely know you're into men already, and he doesn't mind, so there's no anxiety about that."
"It could be a whole other story if he knew I was into him, though, couldn't it?" Zach shoots back, too fiercely. He colours again almost immediately afterwards and mutters, "Sorry," sotto voce. Leonard shrugs it off.
"Don't apologise," he repeats. "You don't need to. Look, I can't make you do anything, but if you'll give some consideration to an old man's advice, let me just tell you that if I was you, I'd make sure he knew how I felt. It's always worth a try."
Zachary bites at his lower lip as if he's biting back a retort whose viciousness is not really meant for Leonard. Eventually he dares, "What would you know about that?"
"I left it too late," Leonard tells him, easily, immediately. Nonchalantly, he adds milk to his tea. Zachary is looking at him quizzically, and he is coolly, calmly ignoring this. "Of course, I had the problem of never being not-married at the same time that he was. Which was a bit of a difficulty. Not insurmountable, of course, but..." He shrugs. "Plus, I'm not gay, so he wouldn't have had any warning to smooth the way, so to speak."
The quizzical look has become open-mouthed disbelief. Leonard watches a plume of steam drift lazily from Zachary's tea, and waits.
"You don't mean - " Zach tries. He leaves the question fragmented, which is most unusual for him.
Leonard nods slowly. "Forty-three years, kiddo. You want to leave it forty-three years? I'm way, way past the point of no-return. This love-letter is undeliverable. Lost Letter Office fodder." He sips his tea. "I don't want yours there with it, you hear me?"
Zachary is staring at him. He seems to realise this all of a sudden, and blinks. "I," he says. "Oh." A pause. "Oh."
"Oh," Leonard agrees, soberly. "Look, I'm no psychiatrist, but I've been around a bit, and let me just say young Mr Pine doesn't look like he'd be beyond taking an interest in a man like you." He smiles. "Taking an interest in you, anyway."
There is a look on Zach's face that Leonard can't read, something simultaneously vulnerable and anxious and deeply, deeply grateful. Slowly, Leonard realises that it is hope. "This really matters to you, doesn't it?"
"I'm in love with him," says Zach. His voice is low, and soft, and thrumming with the gentle power of a truth spoken for the first time. Leonard reaches across the table and puts his hand over Zach's.
"Son, you've got to tell him," he says. "Hell, if you can't do it for you - do it for me." He squeezes Zachary's hand in long fingers, insistent. "You gonna promise me that?"
Zach is struggling for words. "Why didn't you?" he manages. "With - "
Leonard smiles wryly. "Bill?" It is the first time he has said it outright, the first time ever. Bill. He's been in love with Bill for forty-three years, and never voiced it. He is seventy-eight. He might never get another chance.
"I've been in love with Bill," he tells Zachary, "for forty-three years." They feel good in his mouth, those words; rich with guilt and ferric with hopelessness, underlain with just a hint of that spice he can still taste when he thinks of Bill's mouth, his eyes; how pretty he used to be. "But Bill is as straight as a yardstick and he thinks I am, too. Which, you know - " he shrugs - "is fair enough." He pauses. "And I assumed. Never assume, Zachary. Now, I can sit here at this table and think that maybe, if I'd ever said anything, he might have turned around and told me he felt about me just the way I felt, I feel, about him. And our lives might be very different now. But then, I was too coward to think so." He looks up sharply into Zach's eyes, catching them squarely and holding them with his own. "I mean, it's pretty damned unlikely, that he would have gone for it. But I'll never know, Zachary. And that - " He draws in a breath through his teeth. "That sucks, you know? It just. Sucks."
Zachary's other hand is warm against the back of Leonard's own, hot, even, from the mug, pressing there in an expression of sympathy that could take no vocal form. "I'll tell him, Leonard," he promises, in a voice that is tellingly thickened. Leonard knows there are probably tears in his own eyes, from the strangeness of all this confession, if nothing else. Zachary's are wet and shining. "I don't want it to suck. I'm so sorry it sucks like that."
"Yeah, well," Leonard says, "Make sure it doesn't suck for both of us, all right?" He withdraws his hand, gently; pats Zachary on the arm as he sits back. "And tell me how it goes, you hear me?"
"I hear ya," Zach says, smiling. They look at each other, an old man and a young, and Leonard thinks, if you could live my life again -
"Happier things," he says abruptly, firmly, standing up from the table and reaching for the cookie jar, "Let's talk about something else. You want chocolate chip or multi-coloured rainbow thingy?"
"Give me one of each," Zachary responds promptly, in an appropriately chirpy tone of voice, and Leonard nods, and complies.
"A man after my own heart," Leonard says, without a trace of irony, and brings the whole jar.
*
read Cutting Diamonds, the sequel.
Title: After My Own Heart
Pairing: Shatner/Nimoy, Quinto/Pine
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Sometimes, Leonard wishes Zachary Quinto really was a younger version of himself, who could live his life again. There are some things he would definitely do differently. He thinks he'd better say so.
Warnings: Angst, unrequitedness, bitter old men.
Disclaimer: Lies made up by my own twisted brain.
He used to have a dream of Bill, tiger-eyed and wanting him, honey-coloured nakedness spreadeagled on his sheets. He used to think of him like that, of how he might look with his thighs fallen open, and hate himself for it.
So Leonard has a pretty good idea of what hating yourself looks like.
Zach's a kid, Leonard thinks: just a kid, yet; no ties, no nothing. He's got the time, and the opportunity. And, hell, Leonard's flattered by the multitude of comments positing a freaky similarity between the two of them, but he knows - he knows - that if he'd ever been half as good-looking as Zachary is, he'd have propositioned his Kirk quite unafraid.
Maybe.
Zach's gentle and thoughtful and fiercely intelligent, and Leonard only had to shake his hand to know he was gay. He wonders if that makes it any easier; if he knows that Chris must know. From the way Zach watches him - that stricken never-never in his eyes - he guesses it doesn't. Perhaps it makes the whole thing a million times worse.
- no, Leonard catches himself, drawing a tight little breath. What makes things a million times worse is being old and grizzled and still best friends and nothing more. What makes it a billion times worse is knowing that you never ever dared to try and change that.
On Wednesday morning, he leaves a message on Zach's answer machine. "Hey, kiddo. Humour an old man and come over for coffee, would you? Say, six-ish. Call me if you can't make it."
On Wednesday evening, at five forty-five, Zach is fidgeting on his doorstep, full of apologies about being early. Leonard waves them away, stepping back to let the kid in.
"Don't worry about it," he says, pulling out a kitchen chair in invitation and turning towards the cupboard where he keeps the tea and coffee. "I said six-ish; five-forty-five is six-ish." He pokes around in the cupboard. "You want coffee? Or tea? There's black, or various kinds of hippy."
Zachary laughs. It's a sudden laugh, and sharp, always unexpected and delightful. "Hippy tea?"
"Well, herbal tea," Leonard clarifies. "But that's what Bill always calls it. I guess I've picked up bad habits."
"I suppose it's only natural, after forty years of knowing someone," Zach says. "I'll have hippy tea, whatever kind you want. Surprise me."
Leonard takes out a sachet of echinacea-whatsit for Zachary and a chai for himself, and pours boiling water into the mugs. "Gotta let it steep," he says, leaning back against the counter, facing the table. "You think you'll know Chris that long, Zachary?"
Zach raises an eyebrow. It's a Spocky sort of gesture, Leonard thinks: he wonders whether it's an overhang from the movie, or whether it's just a coincidence and he's always expressed surprise like that. Zach always thinks before he speaks, aiming for precision in this as in everything. He says, "I'd like to."
It's a guarded response, an attempt to give away nothing which, in its transparency, speaks volumes. Leonard smiles. "No reason why you shouldn't, is there?"
Zachary shrugs expansively. "Eh." He starts picking at the tablecloth, nervous. Leonard decides the tea's ready, and places both mugs on the table. Zach closes his hands around his, and fidgets with that instead. Leonard decides to try a different tack. Indirectness, he thinks, has never done him any favours.
"You're in love with him, aren't you?"
Zachary freezes in the act of raising the cup to his lips. For a long, long moment, he doesn't move, eyes fixed on a point somewhere towards the far side of the tabletop. Then he looks at Leonard, and his eyes are soft and dark and sad enough that something clenches in Leonard's chest. There is no denial there, no secrecy. He must have seen that Leonard knows too much for that. He says, "Is it that obvious?"
"Only to me," Leonard says, softly. He smiles a little wry smile, comforting, commiserating. "Does he know?"
Zach's laughter this time is hollow, sharp in quite a different way. "Well, I haven't told him, if that's what you mean." He shrugs. "I guess he might. If he does, he hasn't - " He pauses. "If he does," he begins again, with careful emphasis, "he mustn't be interested, since he's never given any indication..." He trails off, meaningfully. Belatedly, a faint blush spreads across his cheekbones.
Fascinating.
Leonard gives him a second. The blush fades away again. Then he says, "Zach, you can't make assumptions like that about people, you know. There's no reason why he wouldn't be interested, and from what I've seen of the two of you together, every reason why he might." He stirs his tea carefully; removes the teabag with the flat of his spoon. "He must surely know you're into men already, and he doesn't mind, so there's no anxiety about that."
"It could be a whole other story if he knew I was into him, though, couldn't it?" Zach shoots back, too fiercely. He colours again almost immediately afterwards and mutters, "Sorry," sotto voce. Leonard shrugs it off.
"Don't apologise," he repeats. "You don't need to. Look, I can't make you do anything, but if you'll give some consideration to an old man's advice, let me just tell you that if I was you, I'd make sure he knew how I felt. It's always worth a try."
Zachary bites at his lower lip as if he's biting back a retort whose viciousness is not really meant for Leonard. Eventually he dares, "What would you know about that?"
"I left it too late," Leonard tells him, easily, immediately. Nonchalantly, he adds milk to his tea. Zachary is looking at him quizzically, and he is coolly, calmly ignoring this. "Of course, I had the problem of never being not-married at the same time that he was. Which was a bit of a difficulty. Not insurmountable, of course, but..." He shrugs. "Plus, I'm not gay, so he wouldn't have had any warning to smooth the way, so to speak."
The quizzical look has become open-mouthed disbelief. Leonard watches a plume of steam drift lazily from Zachary's tea, and waits.
"You don't mean - " Zach tries. He leaves the question fragmented, which is most unusual for him.
Leonard nods slowly. "Forty-three years, kiddo. You want to leave it forty-three years? I'm way, way past the point of no-return. This love-letter is undeliverable. Lost Letter Office fodder." He sips his tea. "I don't want yours there with it, you hear me?"
Zachary is staring at him. He seems to realise this all of a sudden, and blinks. "I," he says. "Oh." A pause. "Oh."
"Oh," Leonard agrees, soberly. "Look, I'm no psychiatrist, but I've been around a bit, and let me just say young Mr Pine doesn't look like he'd be beyond taking an interest in a man like you." He smiles. "Taking an interest in you, anyway."
There is a look on Zach's face that Leonard can't read, something simultaneously vulnerable and anxious and deeply, deeply grateful. Slowly, Leonard realises that it is hope. "This really matters to you, doesn't it?"
"I'm in love with him," says Zach. His voice is low, and soft, and thrumming with the gentle power of a truth spoken for the first time. Leonard reaches across the table and puts his hand over Zach's.
"Son, you've got to tell him," he says. "Hell, if you can't do it for you - do it for me." He squeezes Zachary's hand in long fingers, insistent. "You gonna promise me that?"
Zach is struggling for words. "Why didn't you?" he manages. "With - "
Leonard smiles wryly. "Bill?" It is the first time he has said it outright, the first time ever. Bill. He's been in love with Bill for forty-three years, and never voiced it. He is seventy-eight. He might never get another chance.
"I've been in love with Bill," he tells Zachary, "for forty-three years." They feel good in his mouth, those words; rich with guilt and ferric with hopelessness, underlain with just a hint of that spice he can still taste when he thinks of Bill's mouth, his eyes; how pretty he used to be. "But Bill is as straight as a yardstick and he thinks I am, too. Which, you know - " he shrugs - "is fair enough." He pauses. "And I assumed. Never assume, Zachary. Now, I can sit here at this table and think that maybe, if I'd ever said anything, he might have turned around and told me he felt about me just the way I felt, I feel, about him. And our lives might be very different now. But then, I was too coward to think so." He looks up sharply into Zach's eyes, catching them squarely and holding them with his own. "I mean, it's pretty damned unlikely, that he would have gone for it. But I'll never know, Zachary. And that - " He draws in a breath through his teeth. "That sucks, you know? It just. Sucks."
Zachary's other hand is warm against the back of Leonard's own, hot, even, from the mug, pressing there in an expression of sympathy that could take no vocal form. "I'll tell him, Leonard," he promises, in a voice that is tellingly thickened. Leonard knows there are probably tears in his own eyes, from the strangeness of all this confession, if nothing else. Zachary's are wet and shining. "I don't want it to suck. I'm so sorry it sucks like that."
"Yeah, well," Leonard says, "Make sure it doesn't suck for both of us, all right?" He withdraws his hand, gently; pats Zachary on the arm as he sits back. "And tell me how it goes, you hear me?"
"I hear ya," Zach says, smiling. They look at each other, an old man and a young, and Leonard thinks, if you could live my life again -
"Happier things," he says abruptly, firmly, standing up from the table and reaching for the cookie jar, "Let's talk about something else. You want chocolate chip or multi-coloured rainbow thingy?"
"Give me one of each," Zachary responds promptly, in an appropriately chirpy tone of voice, and Leonard nods, and complies.
"A man after my own heart," Leonard says, without a trace of irony, and brings the whole jar.
*
read Cutting Diamonds, the sequel.