Fic: We'll Take a Cup of Kindness Yet (K/M)
Ringing in the new year with some fic! I actually wrote something I said I was going to write: amazing. It's the New Year's story in the modern AU. I have enough left to make this a proper series, which I'd like to get done before the movie comes out in May. A few more one-shots (including Jim's birthday), then a longer fic that goes through the summer into the start of college/med school and David's death. This one finally gets into Leonard's head, where there is a whole lot going on right now.
Oh, and I had to give up the Taylor Swift titles. Maybe for the next one. Which will be AFTER the Tortall fic.
Title: We'll Take a Cup of Kindness Yet
'Jim twirls the damn noisemaker again, declaring, “Now that’s how you ring in the new year.”'
Author: Dala
Pairing: Kirk/McCoy, past Kirk/Gaila and McCoy/Jocelyn, implied Spock/Uhura and Sulu/Chekov
Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: standard applies; title from Robert Burns' "Auld Lang Syne"
Notes: set in my modern-day AU 'verse, following City Lights on the Water and (The Time We Stood) With Our Shaking Hands
Warning: underage sex (Jim is almost 18, Leonard is 21)
We'll Take a Cup of Kindness Yet
Leonard can’t quite put his finger on why he feels so uneasy. It was Jim’s idea, after all. And all the reasons he and Leonard agreed on are perfectly valid -- this is still so new, nobody else knows about it yet, they don’t want to make a big deal, their friends will probably think it’s totally weird. Hell, they haven’t even said the word “boyfriend” yet, or talked about what’s going to happen when Leonard goes back to school. There hasn’t been much of chance with the sudden trip to Georgia and all.
And Jim appears to be fine right now, sitting on the couch with Nyota and Hikaru, his head bent low in a conversation about their college admission essays. He glances up, as if he senses Leonard’s eyes on him, and smiles -- not one of the new smiles, the ones that make his breath stutter in his chest, the ones he’s missed so much the past five days. Just a casual, everyday smile with a hint of a smirk that he might share with anybody in this room.
But Leonard’s got this nagging worry that the lack of reaction is a reaction. He’s never been good at reading Jim, not like how it seems Jim can read his every emotion on his face. Pretending nothing has changed between them may have been Jim’s suggestion, but did he only make it because he was picking up on Leonard’s anxiety? And if that’s the case, it must have hurt even if he was careful not to let it show.
He’s not sure exactly what it is he wants from Jim, from this. But hurting him is definitely not on the list.
“One minute!” Scotty calls out cheerfully. He slings an arm around Leonard’s shoulders, whiskey and Coke sloshing in his glass. He’s actually the only one drinking; the New Year’s thing has always been just a few of them hanging out at whichever house is most convenient that year, not like the party he throws on the 23rd. There’s not even any champagne due to some miscommunication on who was bringing it (Scotty swears Leonard said he would; Leonard said no such thing), so they’re all clutching Winona’s delicate crystal flutes filled with ginger ale and a little grape juice. Spock is holding the stem of his glass with his thumb and forefinger like he’s afraid he’ll crush it with the power of his grip or something.
The roar of the Times Square crowd begins to grow louder over the speakers. Gaila starts the countdown way too early as usual, uncaring that no one joins in with her. “Forty! Thirty-nine! Thirty-eight!”
The layout of the room has shifted a little, he notices. Nyota got up to stand to the left of the TV, her attention on Dick Clark rather than Spock beside her. Hikaru and Pavel have wandered over the kitchenette where Hikaru is mesmerized by the kid’s hands moving about as he proclaims how much better the sad ginger-grape cocktail would be with some proper Russian vodka.
“Was hopin’ she’d look this way at the newly single lads,” Scotty stage-whispers into Leonard’s ear, “but I guess the devil you know and all.”
Leonard looks back towards the couch where Gaila has perched herself on the armrest next to Jim. He tugs her pointy New Year’s hat askew, making her swat at him. Leonard is not jealous, he is not, he already asked about Gaila in the most awkward way imaginable. Jim had said he’d only kiss her on the cheek. No matter that they’ve been together and apart more times than he can count on both hands, always oddly amicable about it, and she’s beautiful and vibrant in a sparkly black tank top that shows off her cleavage, and she’s leaning on Jim’s shoulder and counting down in a posh English accent and making him laugh.
He’s not jealous. But he does wish he had a drink.
Get it together, McCoy, he tells himself savagely. It’s real courage or none at all.
Handing his glass to Scotty, he crosses the room as everybody else chimes in on the countdown. His eyes are on Jim’s lips shaping “Seven!”
It takes him a second to catch up, his blue eyes widening with surprise to see Leonard standing before him.
“Five!”
Jim keeps counting as he pushes off the couch, his face bright and beaming.
Leonard kisses him on “Two!”
Scotty bellows “Happy New Year!” and somebody squeaks in surprise -- Nyota or Pavel, he thinks. It’s a little hard to concentrate on anything but Jim’s mouth on his, Jim’s arm around his neck, Jim’s groin pressed against his own and what the fuck, they’re surrounded by their closest friends, this is about to get even more embarrassing than it already is. Yet somehow he can’t bring himself to let go.
At least until a noisemaker goes off directly behind his head, and then he pulls back to roll his eyes.
Jim twirls the damn thing again, declaring, “Now that’s how you ring in the new year.”
“As obnoxiously as possible?” Leonard says. He can feel himself grinning like a loon even as his cheeks burn.
Jim nods sagely and moves in to kiss him again, but he’s blocked by Gaila hurling herself at them while shrieking, “I knew it, I knew it, I knew it!”
She does kiss Jim, and Leonard too. When she finally releases them Jim is breathless with laughter and Leonard is trying to wipe burgundy lipstick off his face. Nyota hands him a tissue from her purse, her dark eyes dancing.
Okay, so maybe he was an idiot to be afraid of the fallout. Nobody recoils in horror or calls Leonard a cradle-robbing pervert or argues that he’s straight. Spock is the only one who seems less than pleased, but then he’s almost as protective of Jim as Leonard is, no matter what else you can say about him. And Nyota gives Jim a doubtful up-and-down look, not for the first time or the last. But Scotty claps Leonard on the back and captures Jim for a noogie, and Hikaru says, “That’s great, guys, but Jim, can you please stop going on and on about Len’s ass now that you have it?” Chekov is sort of hiding behind him, suspiciously red-faced, but gives Leonard a thumbs-up over his shoulder.
“I swear I didn’t tell anybody but Hikaru and Gaila,” Jim hisses to him when they’re settled on the sofa, his arm snug across the small of Leonard’s back. Leonard smiles to see that for all his bravado, his face is a little pink.
“You didn’t have to,” says Nyota, swinging her bare feet over Leonard’s lap to give Jim a light kick in the gut. “It’s been obvious for ages.”
Jim shrugs and props his chin on Leonard’s shoulder, pressing a kiss to his ear. “Yeah, well, nobody’s ever accused me of subtlety.”
“Truer words,” Hikaru snorts. He and Scotty are fiddling with Jim’s old Operation game, which only halfway works.
Jim tosses a pillow at his head. “You’re just glad everybody was too busy staring at us to notice you laying a big old wet one on Checkers.”
Hikaru makes a choked sound and the funny bone buzzes. When Chekov gets back from the bathroom, he’s rather confused by the way Hikaru avoids looking him in the eye.
This is different from what Leonard expected, too. While he’s not surprised to find that Jim is a cuddler, he can’t entirely relax against him. He wants to because Jim’s arms feel warm and solid, but he can’t forget that Nyota’s sitting a foot away from him, Spock is sitting on a stool on her other side, Gaila is perched at her feet having her hair braided, and Scotty, Sulu, and Chekov are lounging on the floor in front of the TV. He’s also on the verge of getting hard just from the smell of Jim’s hair and his hand resting on Leonard’s hip. Which is ridiculous because he’s not a teenager anymore, dammit, and he should have some self-control.
So he leans back against the couch and breathes shallowly while the others argue over what to watch. Spock finally suggests “The Twilight Zone” marathon as a compromise. Leonard’s seen the one with the creature on the plane a dozen times, so he studies Spock and Nyota out of the corner of his eye. He’s still not entirely sure if they’re back together; even if they are, they certainly wouldn’t be engaging in semi-public snuggling. He does notice that Spock puts his hand next to Nyota’s elbow on the arm of the sofa, not quite touching.
His inconvenient arousal problem is taken care of as he starts to nod off during the second episode. He barely registers it when Jim untangles himself to go find sleeping bags and blankets, waking fully at a touch to his arm.
“We’re going to pick up Christine -- she and Roger broke up again and he left her at a twenty-four-hour CVS.”
“Bastard,” says Leonard with feeling, and Nyota nods. Her small hand squeezes his forearm.
“You should be happy, Len,” she says quietly. “Not just for New Year’s.”
He swallows past a catch in his throat. There’s something else he hasn’t told anyone yet, but not tonight. Not tonight. His voice is a little ragged when he says, “I’m working on it.”
“Good,” she whispers, and leaves him with a kiss on the forehead that makes his vision go a little blurry. He’ll never underestimate his friends again.
Spock is saying something to Jim, too low to hear, but Jim nods his head and gives Spock a one-armed hug around the shoulders that the other boy stoically endures. He wishes them all a pleasant New Year’s Day before he trails Nyota and Gaila out the door.
Scotty claims the couch, kicking Leonard off before stripping down to his boxers and undershirt, totally unselfconscious. Hikaru and Pavel make separate bedding piles on the floor. Pavel is turned away and Hikaru stretches out on his back, staring at the ceiling. Leonard has no idea what that's about.
“Night, man,” Jim says, and he waves in a listless sort of way.
Leonard’s heartbeat starts to pick up speed as he follows Jim up the stairs to the second floor.
“When’s your mom getting home?” His voice echoes in the silent hallway.
Jim glances over his shoulder. “Oh, she texted a couple hours ago -- she got a room in the hotel where her company party is.”
“Oh,” says Leonard. He stands in the middle of Jim’s bedroom, arms at his sides, and wonders how it can look so different when he’s seen it so many times. Same unmade double bed commandeered from his brother’s disused room, same fish tank in the corner, same constellation decals on the walls, same piles of books and papers and baseball gear on the floor. He’s probably slept more total nights here than he has in his current apartment.
Jim steps around him to close the door. He turns and leans against it, raising his eyebrows.
Leonard breathes out, sits down on the bed, and holds out his hand.
Jim is on him in a flash, kissing him hard. Leonard’s dick starts to get interested again and he pulls Jim down on the bed, on top of him, a heavier weight than he’s accustomed to. Not that Jim is dead weight; he’s in constant motion, running his hands under Leonard’s shirt, kissing his Adam’s apple, lining their hips up and rocking in a slow, even movement. Leonard can feel Jim’s cock hardening against his thigh and it’s good, so fucking good. It’s still a shock to his system, how this feels. Of course it’s only been the time on the couch on Christmas Eve and then yesterday, after Jim had picked them up at the airport and he’d driven Jim home. Every second spent in the car was torture and they hadn’t even made it to this bed -- Leonard tripped over Jim’s mitt, went down, and Jim followed him to the floor. He’d claimed Winona would be home in half an hour. It was really more like fifteen minutes, just enough time to get halfway naked, get off, and hustle back into their clothes when the car pulled into the driveway.
It’d be nice to take some time tonight, although Jim isn’t making that easy. He moves down to suck at Leonard’s nipples as he works his jeans off, making Leonard hiss and arch off the mattress. He could almost come from this, just Jim’s roving kisses and the press of his body. The only thing strange about finding lean muscle and flat planes instead of curves is how strange it isn’t.
He’s been turning that over and over in his head, the whole time he was in Georgia, even when he was jerking off in the shower to the memory of Jim’s hand on him. It’s not that he’s never been attracted to other boys; he found that proof when Paul had kissed him at the Omega Chi Delta party freshman year. But it was one drunken, sloppy kiss and somehow he’d been able to put it at the back of his mind, having some vague thought that if it happened, it happened; and if it didn’t, why bother worrying about something as nebulous as sexuality? He liked girls. He’d dated girls, slept with two, and he’d enjoyed it. When he met Jocelyn that April, it seemed even more of a moot point.
She was pretty and funny and sweet; she loved horses, Russian novelists, old-school country music, and stargazer lilies. They were good together and he preferred their steady, comfortable relationship over his friends’ dramatic hook-ups and break-ups. Even when their sex life had started to slow down, he hadn’t taken it as a sign. Nothing seemed off or lacking about the rut they’d fallen into until he learned his father was sick this year, and he found himself not only struggling to find a way to tell her but questioning whether he even wanted to. That had rattled him, that he didn’t want to turn to her for support, and it was when he realized how far apart they had grown. She didn’t seem surprised at the end, and he’d heard before he left that she was planning to see Clay Worley over break. Honestly, he hopes it went well.
But this thing with Jim...
Leonard shudders as strong fingers wrap around his cock. It’s like nothing he’s ever done, nothing he’s ever been through. It makes him feel as raw as an exposed nerve, but it also feels so fucking right that it scares him. He doesn’t know if that’s because Jim is a boy, or because Jim is Jim -- his Jim, part of him for a third of his life, even if that’s meant something different up until recently. He hadn’t dared to let himself think of Jim like this even after that kiss two years ago, when he’d very suddenly, very unexpectedly wanted to kiss him back. It was like something had flipped a switch in his brain and Leonard did his level best to flip it back. He mostly succeeded, until everything had gone to shit and all that just didn’t seem to matter anymore -- Jim’s age, Jocelyn, Leonard’s history with girls.
He wonders if Jim ever wrestles with questions like this. Probably he identifies as bi, but it’s a subject they’ve been very careful to avoid before now. He did ask Gaila once, knowing she was as open as Jim and wouldn’t take offense, and she laughed and said, “Jim likes sex. And people -- the right people. He doesn’t really care about anything else, or what anybody thinks.” Leonard has always admired him for that, even when he’s hounded him about being safe (which, Jim swears up and down, he always is). He’s never envied it as much as he does now.
“Hey.” Jim’s bright head pops up. “You’re thinking too much.”
“Yeah, sorry,” Leonard says, rubbing his eyes. “I might still be a little jet-lagged.”
Jim sits back on his heels, his erection tenting his boxers. “Do you -- I mean we don’t have to --”
There’s a soft, vulnerable set to his mouth that makes Leonard feel like an asshole. “Jim, hey,” he says, reaching for him. “Come here.”
Jim’s lips twitch up and he kisses Leonard, straddling him. He moves lower and lower, his tongue tracing a random pattern down Leonard’s chest to his navel to the dark trail of hair below it. When he looks up at Leonard, his eyes are almost glowing in the blue light of the fish tank.
“I really, really want to suck you,” Jim whispers, fingers rubbing along the path his mouth has taken.
The fine hairs on Leonard’s arms stand up. “Okay,” he says, his voice breaking on the word.
He takes it slow at first, just breathing along the length of Leonard’s cock, holding it at the base. Then his tongue flickers out, running up the shaft and curling under the ridge of the head. Fuck, it feels --
Jim presses the flat of his tongue to the slit and Leonard cries out. He bites his lips, appalled by how loud it was, and Jim’s laugh chuffs quietly against his lower belly.
Finally his lips close over the head, sliding down, wet and warm. Leonard fists his hands in the bedsheet and struggles to keep his hips still. It’s not his first blowjob, for God’s sake, he’s not going to lose it this quickly. Jim starts to suck, his tongue stroking along with his rhythm. His mouth is yielding on Leonard’s cock, almost uncertain, and it’s not quite enough for Leonard to really feel it. He flexes his feet and considers. Okay, so it’s not his first time receiving or Jim’s first time giving, but it is their first time together and maybe he needs a little more input from Leonard than flailing and moaning.
He frees his right hand from the sheet and touches Jim's scalp, tentative -- Jocelyn never liked that but Jim makes a low noise in his throat. Leonard’s toes curl at the sound. He slides his fingers into Jim’s hair, gently cupping the back of his skull. Jim responds with more pressure, his fingers curling around what his lips don’t cover.
“That’s -- uhn, Jim --”
Jim makes that noise in his throat again, almost a moan, and it reverberates down Leonard’s cock. He gasps, reminding himself not to pull Jim’s hair. Is that turning him on, hearing his name? He’s always teasing Leonard when his accent slips out.
“Jim,” he says again, staring down at the top of his head. “So good, darlin’.” He doesn’t think about it before he says it, just lets his voice go thick and slow. Jim’s lips tighten around his shaft and his hips shift against the mattress. Leonard can feel the full-body shudder under his hands -- he’s got both of them cradling Jim’s head now -- and he grins.
Well now, that’s interesting. He’s been feeling a bit outmatched here, but maybe he’s got more tricks up his sleeve than he thinks.
“Just like that,” he murmurs as Jim sucks him in deeper, a little slower and more careful but fuck, it feels amazing.
His teeth gaze Leonard’s shaft just slightly and a jolt runs through his veins. Leonard groans, drawing it out, feeling Jim’s jaw working against his wrists.
“Fuck, Jim.”
Jim hums something, the vibrations of his throat thrumming through Leonard’s cock, and it’s all he can do not to thrust blindly into that generous mouth.
“Gonna -- gonna come,” he manages to gasp out. Jim pulls off somewhat but only to concentrate on the head, his hand mercilessly working Leonard’s shaft. He sucks hard and Leonard’s muscles go rigid as his climax hits him. It’s so intense he sees a halo around his vision like he’s stared at a light for too long, and when it fades Jim is sliding up next to him on the bed.
Leonard wraps an arm around him, at a loss again, his chest still heaving. “Um, I don’t know if I can --”
“Bones,” Jim breathes, yanking his underwear down. “‘M so close, just -- your hands...”
“Yeah,” Leonard says, kissing his brow and tasting salt. He can do this for Jim. He reaches down to palm his cock, hard and leaking against his belly. It feels familiar in his hand despite the odd angle, though he thinks Jim might be a little longer. He strokes it experimentally. The skin feels tight and swollen over the head.
“Wait, wait,” Jim says, twisting at the waist to fumble in the nightstand behind him. He grabs a tube of lube and makes a mess of getting the cap off. Leonard swipes his hand through the puddle and takes Jim in hand again. Jim breathes out sharply through his nose.
He doesn’t talk much, which surprises Leonard. He says, “Harder, please,” and then buries his face in Leonard’s neck when Leonard obeys. He’s not quiet by any stretch, though -- desperate little sounds escape against Leonard’s skin, gasps and whimpers and not-quite-sobs that Jim seems hardly aware of and that make Leonard’s spent cock twitch on his thigh. He comes almost immediately, holding onto Leonard’s shoulders and groaning low and hot against his collarbone.
His head falls back on the pillow, his eyes searching Leonard’s face. Leonard runs his fingertips over Jim’s lips, full and soft and a bit puffy from sucking his cock. He will admit that he's maybe a little bit obsessed with Jim’s mouth. Still, he’s hesitant when he kisses him, not sure what he’ll taste like on Jim’s tongue. It’s...not bad, mostly faded by now, just a hint of bitterness. Jim makes an mmm-ing noise and sighs when Leonard pulls back.
“You can, you know,” he says, apropos of nothing. His voice is a bit hoarse and Leonard feels a little smug about being the cause of it.
“Huh?”
He waggles his eyebrows and wipes Leonard’s hand off with a corner of the sheet. It’s disgusting, but Leonard’s too tired to find a better solution. “Fuck Jim.”
Leonard blinks, trying to make the connection. He said -- oh.
Jim is watching Leonard’s face closely. When he doesn’t respond, Jim asks, “Not interested?” His tone is casual, but Leonard thinks it comes off a little feigned.
“I’ve never done it,” he confesses.
“I figured,” Jim says, pushing Leonard’s hair off his forehead where it’s started to stick. “Do you think it’s gross, or something, or that I wouldn’t get anything out of it? Because I can promise you that’s not true.”
Leonard draws his lower lip in between his teeth. He understands the appeal on a theoretical level and he’s always attached a certain level of intimacy to sex with his previous partners, which is part of the reason there haven’t been many. He wants to know what that’s like with Jim. But he does wonder if it's painful, and how much so, despite Jim’s assurance.
“No,” he says after a moment. “But it’s new to me, and I don’t know if...if I’m ready.” He makes a face at himself, glad there’s only the faint light from the tank to illuminate the room. “Also, it’s technically illegal.”
“Only for another seventy hours,” Jim says promptly, and Leonard’s not even a little bit impressed that he has it down to the minute. “Best birthday present ever.”
Leonard rolls his eyes and Jim laughs, propping his head up on his palm.
“Really, though,” he says quietly, his hand on Leonard’s chest, thumb stroking under his nipple. “No pressure. I just wanted to, y’know, put it out there.”
“Got it,” Leonard says, pulling the comforter up. It’s definitely out there, and he suspects it’s going to be out there on his mind for the next three days straight.
Sharing a bed with Jim is something that doesn’t confuse him at all, fortunately. That was always a line they never crossed as kids, for some reason -- they had sleep-overs, but Leonard’s bed was a trundle and Jim had an air mattress here. So he has no weird dichotomy to process there. Sleeping next to Jocelyn is one of the things he misses most about their relationship; he likes the warmth and the comforting rhythm of someone breathing beside him.
And Jim, as he’s already discovered, likes to keep close. He throws an arm and a leg over Leonard, mumbles “G’night Bones,” and falls asleep pretty quickly. Leonard’s comfortable holding him (aside from his right arm going numb, and oddly enough he kind of missed that too), but he finds sleep a little more elusive. His restless mind turns from Jim to his father, who was planning to put in a brief appearance at the hospital board’s dinner party tonight. He’s an early bird, though, so he’s probably been asleep for hours.
A thought strikes Leonard suddenly. It’s January 1st, 2011, and it might be the last new year his father ever sees.
His breathing falters as a flush of hot shame runs over him. He should be home right now.
Perhaps feeling him stiffen, Jim grumbles unintelligibly and turns onto his stomach, his arm still lying heavy across Leonard’s chest. He cranes his neck to see the alarm clock. It’s not quite 4:00.
His eyes fall back to Jim’s face, relaxed and easy in sleep, lips parted slightly. Warm breath hits his chin. Jim is a heavy sleeper; he wouldn’t notice if Leonard slipped out.
But he looks so peaceful, Leonard thinks wistfully. Jim is always moving, always dialed up to eleven, and God knows he has enough to keep him busy. He’ll be entering college with almost a full year’s worth of credits, and that after having to bring his grades back up from a rough patch in junior year. Bad shit with his family had been going on then, and he and Jim hadn’t really recovered from the rift the previous Christmas. Leonard still feels a twinge of guilt over that; it had mostly been Spock and his baseball coach, Chris Pike, who’d brought him out of it, not his best friend.
He glances at the clock again. Another hour, and then he’ll wake Jim to say goodbye and go home before David gets up.
It takes five minutes of poking, prodding, badgering, and finally some kissing before Jim can be persuaded awake. He shuffles down the stairs after Leonard, wrapped in a blanket, and stands against the foyer wall with his eyes shut while Leonard retrieves his coat from the family room. Scotty’s still sprawled out on the couch, snoring loudly. Leonard pauses to shake his head at Hikaru and Pavel. They’ve closed the distance between their sleeping bags, mirroring each other with hands tucked under their chins as if they both fell asleep in the middle of a sentence. It’s sickeningly adorable. He hopes Jim snaps a picture when he wakes all the way up.
They stand for a full minute at the door, Leonard enveloped in Jim’s arms and the blanket, his face pressed to the side of Jim’s head. Stubble tickles his lips.
“Wish your dad a happy New Year for me,” Jim croaks.
Leonard blinks at him. He imagines one day Jim Kirk will stop surprising him, but it won’t be today.
“I will,” he says, hugging Jim tight before letting go.
The lights are on when he gets home. He finds David at the kitchen table, reading the newspaper.
“Couldn’t sleep,” he says to Leonard’s silent question, and nods to the other chair. “Muffins from that new place over on Broadwater. They’re quite good.”
Leonard sits down and snags a blueberry muffin from the bag on the table. There are two small yellow and two large red-and-white pills sitting next to David’s orange juice glass. He peels the wrapper from his muffin and bites into it.
“How was Jim’s?”
“Good,” Leonard says after swallowing his bit of muffin, which is tasty but dry. “We hung out, watched the ball drop, passed out for a few hours.”
David picks up the business pages, shaking them out. “Why don’t you ask him to dinner on Thursday? I thought we could order Thai.”
Crumbs fall onto the table. He knows. Leonard doesn’t know how he knows, and he doesn’t understand why he’s so sure about this, but -- his father knows about Leonard and Jim. His pulse quickens.
“Napkin,” says David, frowning at him.
Leonard gives himself a little shake and sweeps the crumbs into a napkin with his hand. “I’ll ask him. Jim, I mean. About the Thai.”
“You do that,” his father says, catching his gaze for a long moment. It’s an imposing sort of gaze, made more severe by the liberal sprinkling of gray in his dark hair. Leonard has bowed out under that gaze for twenty years. This time he holds it.
Something shifts in David’s brown eyes. He offers Leonard the science section he’s just finished. Leonard takes it and scans the headlines, watching out of the corner of his eye as David swallows the pills. Between the two of them, they work their way through the paper together by the time the sun shines through the back window.
(Previous story: (The Time We Stood) With Our Shaking Hands)
Oh, and I had to give up the Taylor Swift titles. Maybe for the next one. Which will be AFTER the Tortall fic.
Title: We'll Take a Cup of Kindness Yet
'Jim twirls the damn noisemaker again, declaring, “Now that’s how you ring in the new year.”'
Author: Dala
Pairing: Kirk/McCoy, past Kirk/Gaila and McCoy/Jocelyn, implied Spock/Uhura and Sulu/Chekov
Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: standard applies; title from Robert Burns' "Auld Lang Syne"
Notes: set in my modern-day AU 'verse, following City Lights on the Water and (The Time We Stood) With Our Shaking Hands
Warning: underage sex (Jim is almost 18, Leonard is 21)
We'll Take a Cup of Kindness Yet
Leonard can’t quite put his finger on why he feels so uneasy. It was Jim’s idea, after all. And all the reasons he and Leonard agreed on are perfectly valid -- this is still so new, nobody else knows about it yet, they don’t want to make a big deal, their friends will probably think it’s totally weird. Hell, they haven’t even said the word “boyfriend” yet, or talked about what’s going to happen when Leonard goes back to school. There hasn’t been much of chance with the sudden trip to Georgia and all.
And Jim appears to be fine right now, sitting on the couch with Nyota and Hikaru, his head bent low in a conversation about their college admission essays. He glances up, as if he senses Leonard’s eyes on him, and smiles -- not one of the new smiles, the ones that make his breath stutter in his chest, the ones he’s missed so much the past five days. Just a casual, everyday smile with a hint of a smirk that he might share with anybody in this room.
But Leonard’s got this nagging worry that the lack of reaction is a reaction. He’s never been good at reading Jim, not like how it seems Jim can read his every emotion on his face. Pretending nothing has changed between them may have been Jim’s suggestion, but did he only make it because he was picking up on Leonard’s anxiety? And if that’s the case, it must have hurt even if he was careful not to let it show.
He’s not sure exactly what it is he wants from Jim, from this. But hurting him is definitely not on the list.
“One minute!” Scotty calls out cheerfully. He slings an arm around Leonard’s shoulders, whiskey and Coke sloshing in his glass. He’s actually the only one drinking; the New Year’s thing has always been just a few of them hanging out at whichever house is most convenient that year, not like the party he throws on the 23rd. There’s not even any champagne due to some miscommunication on who was bringing it (Scotty swears Leonard said he would; Leonard said no such thing), so they’re all clutching Winona’s delicate crystal flutes filled with ginger ale and a little grape juice. Spock is holding the stem of his glass with his thumb and forefinger like he’s afraid he’ll crush it with the power of his grip or something.
The roar of the Times Square crowd begins to grow louder over the speakers. Gaila starts the countdown way too early as usual, uncaring that no one joins in with her. “Forty! Thirty-nine! Thirty-eight!”
The layout of the room has shifted a little, he notices. Nyota got up to stand to the left of the TV, her attention on Dick Clark rather than Spock beside her. Hikaru and Pavel have wandered over the kitchenette where Hikaru is mesmerized by the kid’s hands moving about as he proclaims how much better the sad ginger-grape cocktail would be with some proper Russian vodka.
“Was hopin’ she’d look this way at the newly single lads,” Scotty stage-whispers into Leonard’s ear, “but I guess the devil you know and all.”
Leonard looks back towards the couch where Gaila has perched herself on the armrest next to Jim. He tugs her pointy New Year’s hat askew, making her swat at him. Leonard is not jealous, he is not, he already asked about Gaila in the most awkward way imaginable. Jim had said he’d only kiss her on the cheek. No matter that they’ve been together and apart more times than he can count on both hands, always oddly amicable about it, and she’s beautiful and vibrant in a sparkly black tank top that shows off her cleavage, and she’s leaning on Jim’s shoulder and counting down in a posh English accent and making him laugh.
He’s not jealous. But he does wish he had a drink.
Get it together, McCoy, he tells himself savagely. It’s real courage or none at all.
Handing his glass to Scotty, he crosses the room as everybody else chimes in on the countdown. His eyes are on Jim’s lips shaping “Seven!”
It takes him a second to catch up, his blue eyes widening with surprise to see Leonard standing before him.
“Five!”
Jim keeps counting as he pushes off the couch, his face bright and beaming.
Leonard kisses him on “Two!”
Scotty bellows “Happy New Year!” and somebody squeaks in surprise -- Nyota or Pavel, he thinks. It’s a little hard to concentrate on anything but Jim’s mouth on his, Jim’s arm around his neck, Jim’s groin pressed against his own and what the fuck, they’re surrounded by their closest friends, this is about to get even more embarrassing than it already is. Yet somehow he can’t bring himself to let go.
At least until a noisemaker goes off directly behind his head, and then he pulls back to roll his eyes.
Jim twirls the damn thing again, declaring, “Now that’s how you ring in the new year.”
“As obnoxiously as possible?” Leonard says. He can feel himself grinning like a loon even as his cheeks burn.
Jim nods sagely and moves in to kiss him again, but he’s blocked by Gaila hurling herself at them while shrieking, “I knew it, I knew it, I knew it!”
She does kiss Jim, and Leonard too. When she finally releases them Jim is breathless with laughter and Leonard is trying to wipe burgundy lipstick off his face. Nyota hands him a tissue from her purse, her dark eyes dancing.
Okay, so maybe he was an idiot to be afraid of the fallout. Nobody recoils in horror or calls Leonard a cradle-robbing pervert or argues that he’s straight. Spock is the only one who seems less than pleased, but then he’s almost as protective of Jim as Leonard is, no matter what else you can say about him. And Nyota gives Jim a doubtful up-and-down look, not for the first time or the last. But Scotty claps Leonard on the back and captures Jim for a noogie, and Hikaru says, “That’s great, guys, but Jim, can you please stop going on and on about Len’s ass now that you have it?” Chekov is sort of hiding behind him, suspiciously red-faced, but gives Leonard a thumbs-up over his shoulder.
“I swear I didn’t tell anybody but Hikaru and Gaila,” Jim hisses to him when they’re settled on the sofa, his arm snug across the small of Leonard’s back. Leonard smiles to see that for all his bravado, his face is a little pink.
“You didn’t have to,” says Nyota, swinging her bare feet over Leonard’s lap to give Jim a light kick in the gut. “It’s been obvious for ages.”
Jim shrugs and props his chin on Leonard’s shoulder, pressing a kiss to his ear. “Yeah, well, nobody’s ever accused me of subtlety.”
“Truer words,” Hikaru snorts. He and Scotty are fiddling with Jim’s old Operation game, which only halfway works.
Jim tosses a pillow at his head. “You’re just glad everybody was too busy staring at us to notice you laying a big old wet one on Checkers.”
Hikaru makes a choked sound and the funny bone buzzes. When Chekov gets back from the bathroom, he’s rather confused by the way Hikaru avoids looking him in the eye.
This is different from what Leonard expected, too. While he’s not surprised to find that Jim is a cuddler, he can’t entirely relax against him. He wants to because Jim’s arms feel warm and solid, but he can’t forget that Nyota’s sitting a foot away from him, Spock is sitting on a stool on her other side, Gaila is perched at her feet having her hair braided, and Scotty, Sulu, and Chekov are lounging on the floor in front of the TV. He’s also on the verge of getting hard just from the smell of Jim’s hair and his hand resting on Leonard’s hip. Which is ridiculous because he’s not a teenager anymore, dammit, and he should have some self-control.
So he leans back against the couch and breathes shallowly while the others argue over what to watch. Spock finally suggests “The Twilight Zone” marathon as a compromise. Leonard’s seen the one with the creature on the plane a dozen times, so he studies Spock and Nyota out of the corner of his eye. He’s still not entirely sure if they’re back together; even if they are, they certainly wouldn’t be engaging in semi-public snuggling. He does notice that Spock puts his hand next to Nyota’s elbow on the arm of the sofa, not quite touching.
His inconvenient arousal problem is taken care of as he starts to nod off during the second episode. He barely registers it when Jim untangles himself to go find sleeping bags and blankets, waking fully at a touch to his arm.
“We’re going to pick up Christine -- she and Roger broke up again and he left her at a twenty-four-hour CVS.”
“Bastard,” says Leonard with feeling, and Nyota nods. Her small hand squeezes his forearm.
“You should be happy, Len,” she says quietly. “Not just for New Year’s.”
He swallows past a catch in his throat. There’s something else he hasn’t told anyone yet, but not tonight. Not tonight. His voice is a little ragged when he says, “I’m working on it.”
“Good,” she whispers, and leaves him with a kiss on the forehead that makes his vision go a little blurry. He’ll never underestimate his friends again.
Spock is saying something to Jim, too low to hear, but Jim nods his head and gives Spock a one-armed hug around the shoulders that the other boy stoically endures. He wishes them all a pleasant New Year’s Day before he trails Nyota and Gaila out the door.
Scotty claims the couch, kicking Leonard off before stripping down to his boxers and undershirt, totally unselfconscious. Hikaru and Pavel make separate bedding piles on the floor. Pavel is turned away and Hikaru stretches out on his back, staring at the ceiling. Leonard has no idea what that's about.
“Night, man,” Jim says, and he waves in a listless sort of way.
Leonard’s heartbeat starts to pick up speed as he follows Jim up the stairs to the second floor.
“When’s your mom getting home?” His voice echoes in the silent hallway.
Jim glances over his shoulder. “Oh, she texted a couple hours ago -- she got a room in the hotel where her company party is.”
“Oh,” says Leonard. He stands in the middle of Jim’s bedroom, arms at his sides, and wonders how it can look so different when he’s seen it so many times. Same unmade double bed commandeered from his brother’s disused room, same fish tank in the corner, same constellation decals on the walls, same piles of books and papers and baseball gear on the floor. He’s probably slept more total nights here than he has in his current apartment.
Jim steps around him to close the door. He turns and leans against it, raising his eyebrows.
Leonard breathes out, sits down on the bed, and holds out his hand.
Jim is on him in a flash, kissing him hard. Leonard’s dick starts to get interested again and he pulls Jim down on the bed, on top of him, a heavier weight than he’s accustomed to. Not that Jim is dead weight; he’s in constant motion, running his hands under Leonard’s shirt, kissing his Adam’s apple, lining their hips up and rocking in a slow, even movement. Leonard can feel Jim’s cock hardening against his thigh and it’s good, so fucking good. It’s still a shock to his system, how this feels. Of course it’s only been the time on the couch on Christmas Eve and then yesterday, after Jim had picked them up at the airport and he’d driven Jim home. Every second spent in the car was torture and they hadn’t even made it to this bed -- Leonard tripped over Jim’s mitt, went down, and Jim followed him to the floor. He’d claimed Winona would be home in half an hour. It was really more like fifteen minutes, just enough time to get halfway naked, get off, and hustle back into their clothes when the car pulled into the driveway.
It’d be nice to take some time tonight, although Jim isn’t making that easy. He moves down to suck at Leonard’s nipples as he works his jeans off, making Leonard hiss and arch off the mattress. He could almost come from this, just Jim’s roving kisses and the press of his body. The only thing strange about finding lean muscle and flat planes instead of curves is how strange it isn’t.
He’s been turning that over and over in his head, the whole time he was in Georgia, even when he was jerking off in the shower to the memory of Jim’s hand on him. It’s not that he’s never been attracted to other boys; he found that proof when Paul had kissed him at the Omega Chi Delta party freshman year. But it was one drunken, sloppy kiss and somehow he’d been able to put it at the back of his mind, having some vague thought that if it happened, it happened; and if it didn’t, why bother worrying about something as nebulous as sexuality? He liked girls. He’d dated girls, slept with two, and he’d enjoyed it. When he met Jocelyn that April, it seemed even more of a moot point.
She was pretty and funny and sweet; she loved horses, Russian novelists, old-school country music, and stargazer lilies. They were good together and he preferred their steady, comfortable relationship over his friends’ dramatic hook-ups and break-ups. Even when their sex life had started to slow down, he hadn’t taken it as a sign. Nothing seemed off or lacking about the rut they’d fallen into until he learned his father was sick this year, and he found himself not only struggling to find a way to tell her but questioning whether he even wanted to. That had rattled him, that he didn’t want to turn to her for support, and it was when he realized how far apart they had grown. She didn’t seem surprised at the end, and he’d heard before he left that she was planning to see Clay Worley over break. Honestly, he hopes it went well.
But this thing with Jim...
Leonard shudders as strong fingers wrap around his cock. It’s like nothing he’s ever done, nothing he’s ever been through. It makes him feel as raw as an exposed nerve, but it also feels so fucking right that it scares him. He doesn’t know if that’s because Jim is a boy, or because Jim is Jim -- his Jim, part of him for a third of his life, even if that’s meant something different up until recently. He hadn’t dared to let himself think of Jim like this even after that kiss two years ago, when he’d very suddenly, very unexpectedly wanted to kiss him back. It was like something had flipped a switch in his brain and Leonard did his level best to flip it back. He mostly succeeded, until everything had gone to shit and all that just didn’t seem to matter anymore -- Jim’s age, Jocelyn, Leonard’s history with girls.
He wonders if Jim ever wrestles with questions like this. Probably he identifies as bi, but it’s a subject they’ve been very careful to avoid before now. He did ask Gaila once, knowing she was as open as Jim and wouldn’t take offense, and she laughed and said, “Jim likes sex. And people -- the right people. He doesn’t really care about anything else, or what anybody thinks.” Leonard has always admired him for that, even when he’s hounded him about being safe (which, Jim swears up and down, he always is). He’s never envied it as much as he does now.
“Hey.” Jim’s bright head pops up. “You’re thinking too much.”
“Yeah, sorry,” Leonard says, rubbing his eyes. “I might still be a little jet-lagged.”
Jim sits back on his heels, his erection tenting his boxers. “Do you -- I mean we don’t have to --”
There’s a soft, vulnerable set to his mouth that makes Leonard feel like an asshole. “Jim, hey,” he says, reaching for him. “Come here.”
Jim’s lips twitch up and he kisses Leonard, straddling him. He moves lower and lower, his tongue tracing a random pattern down Leonard’s chest to his navel to the dark trail of hair below it. When he looks up at Leonard, his eyes are almost glowing in the blue light of the fish tank.
“I really, really want to suck you,” Jim whispers, fingers rubbing along the path his mouth has taken.
The fine hairs on Leonard’s arms stand up. “Okay,” he says, his voice breaking on the word.
He takes it slow at first, just breathing along the length of Leonard’s cock, holding it at the base. Then his tongue flickers out, running up the shaft and curling under the ridge of the head. Fuck, it feels --
Jim presses the flat of his tongue to the slit and Leonard cries out. He bites his lips, appalled by how loud it was, and Jim’s laugh chuffs quietly against his lower belly.
Finally his lips close over the head, sliding down, wet and warm. Leonard fists his hands in the bedsheet and struggles to keep his hips still. It’s not his first blowjob, for God’s sake, he’s not going to lose it this quickly. Jim starts to suck, his tongue stroking along with his rhythm. His mouth is yielding on Leonard’s cock, almost uncertain, and it’s not quite enough for Leonard to really feel it. He flexes his feet and considers. Okay, so it’s not his first time receiving or Jim’s first time giving, but it is their first time together and maybe he needs a little more input from Leonard than flailing and moaning.
He frees his right hand from the sheet and touches Jim's scalp, tentative -- Jocelyn never liked that but Jim makes a low noise in his throat. Leonard’s toes curl at the sound. He slides his fingers into Jim’s hair, gently cupping the back of his skull. Jim responds with more pressure, his fingers curling around what his lips don’t cover.
“That’s -- uhn, Jim --”
Jim makes that noise in his throat again, almost a moan, and it reverberates down Leonard’s cock. He gasps, reminding himself not to pull Jim’s hair. Is that turning him on, hearing his name? He’s always teasing Leonard when his accent slips out.
“Jim,” he says again, staring down at the top of his head. “So good, darlin’.” He doesn’t think about it before he says it, just lets his voice go thick and slow. Jim’s lips tighten around his shaft and his hips shift against the mattress. Leonard can feel the full-body shudder under his hands -- he’s got both of them cradling Jim’s head now -- and he grins.
Well now, that’s interesting. He’s been feeling a bit outmatched here, but maybe he’s got more tricks up his sleeve than he thinks.
“Just like that,” he murmurs as Jim sucks him in deeper, a little slower and more careful but fuck, it feels amazing.
His teeth gaze Leonard’s shaft just slightly and a jolt runs through his veins. Leonard groans, drawing it out, feeling Jim’s jaw working against his wrists.
“Fuck, Jim.”
Jim hums something, the vibrations of his throat thrumming through Leonard’s cock, and it’s all he can do not to thrust blindly into that generous mouth.
“Gonna -- gonna come,” he manages to gasp out. Jim pulls off somewhat but only to concentrate on the head, his hand mercilessly working Leonard’s shaft. He sucks hard and Leonard’s muscles go rigid as his climax hits him. It’s so intense he sees a halo around his vision like he’s stared at a light for too long, and when it fades Jim is sliding up next to him on the bed.
Leonard wraps an arm around him, at a loss again, his chest still heaving. “Um, I don’t know if I can --”
“Bones,” Jim breathes, yanking his underwear down. “‘M so close, just -- your hands...”
“Yeah,” Leonard says, kissing his brow and tasting salt. He can do this for Jim. He reaches down to palm his cock, hard and leaking against his belly. It feels familiar in his hand despite the odd angle, though he thinks Jim might be a little longer. He strokes it experimentally. The skin feels tight and swollen over the head.
“Wait, wait,” Jim says, twisting at the waist to fumble in the nightstand behind him. He grabs a tube of lube and makes a mess of getting the cap off. Leonard swipes his hand through the puddle and takes Jim in hand again. Jim breathes out sharply through his nose.
He doesn’t talk much, which surprises Leonard. He says, “Harder, please,” and then buries his face in Leonard’s neck when Leonard obeys. He’s not quiet by any stretch, though -- desperate little sounds escape against Leonard’s skin, gasps and whimpers and not-quite-sobs that Jim seems hardly aware of and that make Leonard’s spent cock twitch on his thigh. He comes almost immediately, holding onto Leonard’s shoulders and groaning low and hot against his collarbone.
His head falls back on the pillow, his eyes searching Leonard’s face. Leonard runs his fingertips over Jim’s lips, full and soft and a bit puffy from sucking his cock. He will admit that he's maybe a little bit obsessed with Jim’s mouth. Still, he’s hesitant when he kisses him, not sure what he’ll taste like on Jim’s tongue. It’s...not bad, mostly faded by now, just a hint of bitterness. Jim makes an mmm-ing noise and sighs when Leonard pulls back.
“You can, you know,” he says, apropos of nothing. His voice is a bit hoarse and Leonard feels a little smug about being the cause of it.
“Huh?”
He waggles his eyebrows and wipes Leonard’s hand off with a corner of the sheet. It’s disgusting, but Leonard’s too tired to find a better solution. “Fuck Jim.”
Leonard blinks, trying to make the connection. He said -- oh.
Jim is watching Leonard’s face closely. When he doesn’t respond, Jim asks, “Not interested?” His tone is casual, but Leonard thinks it comes off a little feigned.
“I’ve never done it,” he confesses.
“I figured,” Jim says, pushing Leonard’s hair off his forehead where it’s started to stick. “Do you think it’s gross, or something, or that I wouldn’t get anything out of it? Because I can promise you that’s not true.”
Leonard draws his lower lip in between his teeth. He understands the appeal on a theoretical level and he’s always attached a certain level of intimacy to sex with his previous partners, which is part of the reason there haven’t been many. He wants to know what that’s like with Jim. But he does wonder if it's painful, and how much so, despite Jim’s assurance.
“No,” he says after a moment. “But it’s new to me, and I don’t know if...if I’m ready.” He makes a face at himself, glad there’s only the faint light from the tank to illuminate the room. “Also, it’s technically illegal.”
“Only for another seventy hours,” Jim says promptly, and Leonard’s not even a little bit impressed that he has it down to the minute. “Best birthday present ever.”
Leonard rolls his eyes and Jim laughs, propping his head up on his palm.
“Really, though,” he says quietly, his hand on Leonard’s chest, thumb stroking under his nipple. “No pressure. I just wanted to, y’know, put it out there.”
“Got it,” Leonard says, pulling the comforter up. It’s definitely out there, and he suspects it’s going to be out there on his mind for the next three days straight.
Sharing a bed with Jim is something that doesn’t confuse him at all, fortunately. That was always a line they never crossed as kids, for some reason -- they had sleep-overs, but Leonard’s bed was a trundle and Jim had an air mattress here. So he has no weird dichotomy to process there. Sleeping next to Jocelyn is one of the things he misses most about their relationship; he likes the warmth and the comforting rhythm of someone breathing beside him.
And Jim, as he’s already discovered, likes to keep close. He throws an arm and a leg over Leonard, mumbles “G’night Bones,” and falls asleep pretty quickly. Leonard’s comfortable holding him (aside from his right arm going numb, and oddly enough he kind of missed that too), but he finds sleep a little more elusive. His restless mind turns from Jim to his father, who was planning to put in a brief appearance at the hospital board’s dinner party tonight. He’s an early bird, though, so he’s probably been asleep for hours.
A thought strikes Leonard suddenly. It’s January 1st, 2011, and it might be the last new year his father ever sees.
His breathing falters as a flush of hot shame runs over him. He should be home right now.
Perhaps feeling him stiffen, Jim grumbles unintelligibly and turns onto his stomach, his arm still lying heavy across Leonard’s chest. He cranes his neck to see the alarm clock. It’s not quite 4:00.
His eyes fall back to Jim’s face, relaxed and easy in sleep, lips parted slightly. Warm breath hits his chin. Jim is a heavy sleeper; he wouldn’t notice if Leonard slipped out.
But he looks so peaceful, Leonard thinks wistfully. Jim is always moving, always dialed up to eleven, and God knows he has enough to keep him busy. He’ll be entering college with almost a full year’s worth of credits, and that after having to bring his grades back up from a rough patch in junior year. Bad shit with his family had been going on then, and he and Jim hadn’t really recovered from the rift the previous Christmas. Leonard still feels a twinge of guilt over that; it had mostly been Spock and his baseball coach, Chris Pike, who’d brought him out of it, not his best friend.
He glances at the clock again. Another hour, and then he’ll wake Jim to say goodbye and go home before David gets up.
It takes five minutes of poking, prodding, badgering, and finally some kissing before Jim can be persuaded awake. He shuffles down the stairs after Leonard, wrapped in a blanket, and stands against the foyer wall with his eyes shut while Leonard retrieves his coat from the family room. Scotty’s still sprawled out on the couch, snoring loudly. Leonard pauses to shake his head at Hikaru and Pavel. They’ve closed the distance between their sleeping bags, mirroring each other with hands tucked under their chins as if they both fell asleep in the middle of a sentence. It’s sickeningly adorable. He hopes Jim snaps a picture when he wakes all the way up.
They stand for a full minute at the door, Leonard enveloped in Jim’s arms and the blanket, his face pressed to the side of Jim’s head. Stubble tickles his lips.
“Wish your dad a happy New Year for me,” Jim croaks.
Leonard blinks at him. He imagines one day Jim Kirk will stop surprising him, but it won’t be today.
“I will,” he says, hugging Jim tight before letting go.
The lights are on when he gets home. He finds David at the kitchen table, reading the newspaper.
“Couldn’t sleep,” he says to Leonard’s silent question, and nods to the other chair. “Muffins from that new place over on Broadwater. They’re quite good.”
Leonard sits down and snags a blueberry muffin from the bag on the table. There are two small yellow and two large red-and-white pills sitting next to David’s orange juice glass. He peels the wrapper from his muffin and bites into it.
“How was Jim’s?”
“Good,” Leonard says after swallowing his bit of muffin, which is tasty but dry. “We hung out, watched the ball drop, passed out for a few hours.”
David picks up the business pages, shaking them out. “Why don’t you ask him to dinner on Thursday? I thought we could order Thai.”
Crumbs fall onto the table. He knows. Leonard doesn’t know how he knows, and he doesn’t understand why he’s so sure about this, but -- his father knows about Leonard and Jim. His pulse quickens.
“Napkin,” says David, frowning at him.
Leonard gives himself a little shake and sweeps the crumbs into a napkin with his hand. “I’ll ask him. Jim, I mean. About the Thai.”
“You do that,” his father says, catching his gaze for a long moment. It’s an imposing sort of gaze, made more severe by the liberal sprinkling of gray in his dark hair. Leonard has bowed out under that gaze for twenty years. This time he holds it.
Something shifts in David’s brown eyes. He offers Leonard the science section he’s just finished. Leonard takes it and scans the headlines, watching out of the corner of his eye as David swallows the pills. Between the two of them, they work their way through the paper together by the time the sun shines through the back window.
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