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Leonard is wide awake, exhausted but unable to fall asleep, when the realization that he’s caught feelings for Spock comes crashing down on him.
It’s embarrassing, really—more embarrassing than back at the Academy when he had it bad for Jim, more embarrassing than everything that went down with Jocelyn. But he was younger then. He’s over Jocelyn and Jim now.
Mostly.
It’s easier, knowing that Jim isn’t the type to ever settle down. Jim likes having the freedom to do as he pleases, and Leonard is able to suppress most of those pesky feelings that arise by reminding himself that Jim would never stoop so low as to abandon his independence and tie himself down to someone else.
And when Leonard has found himself sick with it, eyes glued to Jim as he struts around the bridge like a peacock, he’s found the cure in white knuckling it until he can pour himself a stiff drink back in the solitude of his own quarters.
But this? Spock? It’s ridiculous—as of six months ago, Leonard still wasn’t entirely convinced whether or not he even liked the guy, but then Spock nearly bled out during their little heart-to-heart on Altamid, and…
Well. It seems Leonard’s gotten soft.
- - -
He gives himself forty-eight hours to get his shit together and face this thing head-on, which is how he ends up outside of Spock’s quarters after an especially long shift.
The doors open but Spock doesn’t invite Leonard inside. He just stands there and stares at Leonard expectantly, and that alone has Leonard almost rethinking the entire thing.
Leonard clears his throat, wringing his hands together as he just barely manages to get out, “I, uh, was just wondering if you’d like to get dinner with me. Tonight, maybe.”
Spock doesn’t react, doesn’t even blink. “We have eaten together on numerous occasions, Doctor.” Spock pauses, his lips pursing in thought. “I do not understand why you have approached this request with such formality. Is it not normal for us to take our meals together?”
Leonard clenches his eyes shut. He takes a moment to search for patience, then exhales heavily as he opens his eyes again. “I’m asking you out, Spock.”
“Asking me out?”
Leonard’s face feels hot. “Yeah. I realized after all that crap on Altamid and Yorktown, with our lives on the line… Well, I care about you, Spock.” Spock opens his mouth to interrupt, but Leonard raises his hands up to stop him. “I know, I’m surprised by it, too. But I do. And—and I’d like to have dinner with you, if you’ll have me.”
“Ah. I see.”
Leonard doesn’t know what to make of that response and he waits, fidgeting. He’s starting to sweat and his shirt clings to his sides unpleasantly.
“I must apologize, Leonard,” Spock finally says, and it’s almost funny how just those little words can fill a man with a sense of dread like no other. “Jim asked me to dinner with him three weeks ago. We are…”
Spock trails off, lips parted as he searches for the right word.
“In a relationship?” Leonard reluctantly suggests, and Spock nods.
Shit.
The worst part is that Spock looks truly sorry about it, too.
Leonard makes a half-assed attempt to congratulate them both before he turns on his heel and hightails it back to his quarters. Safely inside, he frees his bottle of bourbon and a glass from behind his desk before he flops himself down on his bed and pours himself a drink, wondering just what has him feeling so bothered about Spock dating Jim.
It’s not like he’d really gotten his hopes up. This sort of thing had only two answers, and he knew he had just as good a shot at getting a no as he had getting a yes.
So why exactly is this getting under his skin?
He knocks back his glass and pours himself another one, sipping as he contemplates.
It only takes a second for him to realize that his problem isn’t just with Spock. It’s that he hasn’t actually moved on from Jim at all.
Leonard lays back and glares up at the ceiling, as if it’s to blame for his troubles.
He finishes off his glass. He considers sitting up to pour another but figures if he moves from his current position, he’ll be sick.
So instead, he clutches the glass to his chest, swallowing back waves of emotion and nausea, finding that the liquor has done little to chase away any of the thoughts that have been plaguing him.
- - -
Now that Leonard knows, it’s obvious that Jim and Spock are together.
It’s not like they’re making out on the bridge or reciting love poetry to each other on away missions. No, it’s the little things, like Spock and Jim leaving dinner early together to be on their own or the way their fingers touch as they walk ahead of Leonard on the way back to the bridge. It’s Jim’s smile as Spock gives a report on a recent experiment or how Spock will watch Jim out of the side of his eye when Jim speaks with Uhura and Sulu. It’s the way they can never seem to completely draw their attention away from each other, no matter where they are or what they should be doing.
Leonard realizes after a few days of studying their behavior—most of which he spends processing just how screwed he is that he can’t draw his attention away from either of them—that he’s distracted. Christine has had to nudge him out of his thoughts twice now in sick bay, and that is just unacceptable. He’s the ship’s doctor; he should be attentive.
So, he throws himself into his work. He’s not sure it’s a healthy coping mechanism, but he thinks it hurts less, and even better, it distances himself from Spock and Jim, which he’s sure the couple will appreciate. It keeps him from third-wheeling and getting in the way of what they’d clearly rather be doing.
He starts working late nights and he manages to keep from intruding on them fairly successfully for about five days. Then, Jim comes stumbling in, eyeing Leonard down with big, worried eyes.
“Bones, is something wrong?” Jim asks, pressing. “Have I upset you or something? Did Spock do something?”
Jim sounds genuinely alarmed. It makes Leonard feel sick.
Leonard’s not an idiot. He knows when he needs to soothe someone’s fears, even if he has to lie in order to do so. He tells Jim no, that everything’s okay.
Which is how he ends up spending his evenings interrupting their dates, again, because Jim won’t let him leave them alone. Jim makes him join them for game nights and dinners and playful bickering and debating and arguing, and Leonard just wishes that Jim would let him go back to hiding himself away in his office.
There’s no way to explain himself to Jim—he’s sure from Jim’s perspective that it just seems like he was keeping his distance to not get in their way, which isn’t entirely wrong—but the truth of it, that he’s falling deeper and deeper in love with them both, is something he doesn’t think he’ll ever admit to.
But there’s no way Jim will let him avoid them forever, so he’s stuck acting like everything is normal. Leonard is a doctor, not an actor; he’s not particularly good at pretending.
“Y’know,” he says over a game of cards one night, watching as Jim’s foot nudges Spock’s ankle under the table, “if you lovebirds are going to keep making eyes at each other, I’m gonna leave.”
It’s an attempt at lightheartedness, but he regrets drawing attention to them being a couple almost immediately. Sure, Jim laughs, and Spock seems amused, but as Jim’s hand moves to rest on Spock’s forearm, Leonard is only reminded that he’s the outsider here.
Leonard quits trying to crack jokes after that in the days that follow, and if Jim notices that something is off, he stays quiet about it.
Things carry on unbearably tense. Surely Jim knows that Leonard tried to ask out Spock but hasn’t brought it up, and Leonard isn’t about to either, not when things are already bad enough.
Weeks pass, and Leonard stops feeling so sore about it. Jim brightens up and stops eyeing him so suspiciously, and even Spock stops studying him like he was prone to do in the days directly after Leonard asked him out.
Leonard thinks, with a little more time, that things will all be normal again.
- - -
Soaking wet and dripping water onto the transporter pad, Leonard does his best to ignore Keenser and Scotty’s startled stares.
Jim slaps Leonard on the back as he hops off the raised platform. “Bones is basically a hero,” he says in far too good a mood. “He saved a man from drowning!”
Leonard grimaces. “You make it sound more dramatic than it was. All I did was dive off the side of the boat and pull him back on board. It was nothing.”
Jim snorts. “‘It was nothing.’ Yeah, sure, Bones.” He turns to look at Scotty and adds, “Hell of an understatement. It was Bones’ quick thinking that got them to agree to join the Federation. They liked that he was willing to risk his life for one of their own.”
Leonard starts heading towards the door. He’s damp and itchy from the salt water drying on his skin, and he’s tired of listening to Jim blabber on and on about Leonard being a hero. Sure, now the Pgrellians are all friendly with the Federation, but Leonard is sure that that would have happened even if he hadn’t pulled the poor sap from the water.
He’s not surprised when Jim follows him out of the transporter room, and he’s even less surprised when Spock meets them in the hall outside. Still, Leonard sighs. “Kinda tired of the attention, guys. First the Pgrellians, now y’all, too?”
“Aw, c’mon Bones, is it really that bad? They seem to really love you.”
“Wasn’t my intention.”
“Is a little attention that terrible? Good attention, I mean,” Jim adds quickly. “I mean, why not embrace it? Letting people love you isn’t a bad thing.”
Something in Leonard’s chest twinges. He’d rather not have a conversation about love with Jim and Spock, especially not now, when he’s too worn out after a long day of diplomacy. He doesn’t get how the kid can do it: Jim seems so full of energy even after having an equally busy day with the Pgrellians.
Despite this, Leonard snorts. “Pretty sure between the three of us, you’re Mister Popular. You’re the one everybody loves.”
They reach the mess hall. Leonard isn’t hungry, but he’ll at least wait until they finish their conversation before he flees to his quarters to shuck off these clothes. As they near the replicators, Jim snorts. “Right, because I’ve never pissed anybody off. The Starfleet admiralty? They totally love me.”
“While you are being sarcastic, it is not an entirely inaccurate statement,” Spock chimes in, drawing the baffled gazes of both Leonard and Jim. Spock continues, “Though the admiralty has a… distaste for your tendencies to break the rules, if we consider your romantic and sexual history, there is evidence to support that a considerable proportion of people love or have loved you.”
Jim laughs, and there’s an undeniable pink tint to his cheeks. He runs a hand through his hair, flustered, and turns his attention to the replicator. “Pretty certain your logic is flawed, but sure, everyone loves me.”
Suddenly, Jim’s expression brightens, and he flashes a grin Leonard’s way. “But hey, you’d know all about that, right Bones?”
Leonard has barely been paying attention—his pants are sticking to him in the most distracting way—but something about Jim’s tone stills him. “Know what?”
“If I remember correctly, Spock,” Jim says, and now Leonard knows that Jim is teasing him, “even Bones had a thing for me back in the day, when we were at the Academy. I swear it’s true, he admitted it to me when we were drunk and—”
Leonard’s blood runs cold. He doesn’t hear the end of that sentence, but he feels Spock’s eyes on him as Jim throws his head back and laughs. He can’t look Spock in the eye and keeps his eyes anywhere but Spock’s face, but then Jim catches his gaze, and he watches in real time as the glee in Jim’s eyes disappears and it’s abundantly clear that Jim’s realized he’s said something wrong.
Leonard swallows thickly and shakes his head. “Not cool, Jim,” he manages to grunt out. “That’s private stuff.”
He walks out before Jim can respond. He moves faster than his normal pace so Jim can’t follow after him, and he manages to get to his quarters without running into anyone on the way there.
He’s already yanking his shirt over his head before the doors have finished closing behind him. He abandons his clothes on the floor to deal with later, throws open his shower stall, sets the temperature to hot, and gets in while the water is still freezing cold.
He sucks in a sharp gasp of air at the chill, gripping tight to the walls of the stall. It’s a needed shock to his system, and some of the panic ebbs.
He’d assumed that Jim knew he made a pass at Spock, but now? Now Spock knows he had a thing for Jim, too. Still does, but he hopes—God—he hopes he hasn’t been that obvious.
Leonard groans, dropping his hands from the walls of the stall to bring them to his face. He muffles a distraught shout, then lets his arms fall at his sides. He turns and locates the soap and starts to scrub away the grim and salt that still clings to his skin.
The rest of his shower is spent mapping out how long he’ll be able to avoid Jim before Jim chases him down. He can probably skirt Jim’s attention for at least forty-eight hours. He’d rather beam off the ship and disappear on some colony somewhere for the next six months. Instead, he’s gotta be an adult.
Shit.
- - -
For once, Jim keeps his distance, and for the first week, Leonard is nearly overcome with relief. Even Spock seems to get the message that he shouldn’t pester Leonard and keeps out of his way.
Leonard throws himself into his work, and when he’s done for the day, he goes back to his quarters and nurses a drink while he works to convince himself that he’ll get over this soon and that he’ll eventually stop caring for them both, because the alternative…
Well, the alternative is that he never stops feeling this way, and that idea overwhelms him so terribly that he has to shut his eyes and focus on his breathing for a while.
It’s a week of this rhythm: he works until his eyes burn, then sprawls out on his bed with a drink in hand until he either finishes it or finds that he can’t even stomach feeling sorry for himself anymore and leaves the glass next to the bed to dump out the following morning.
He finds himself thinking that this is the rhythm he’ll have to keep up for the rest of his career on the Enterprise before the door chimes after an especially long shift. He sits up, his legs hanging off the side of his bed, and even as he calls out, “Enter!” he considers crawling into bed and locking his visitors out so he doesn’t have to face them.
Spock and Jim enter. They’re together, of course; they’re never apart anymore.
They’re silent. Leonard stares down at the floor at his feet; he’s sure they’re staring him down, waiting for him to speak, but it’s already so awkward and uncomfortable that he doesn’t want to make a sound. Eventually, he looks up, glum, and forces himself to meet Jim’s eyes.
Jim’s expression immediately starts to soften. He exhales, then wets his lips. “Okay. I’m going to do this now so things stop being so damn weird, alright? Think we can talk instead of whatever the hell we’ve been doing?”
Leonard looks past Jim at Spock. Spock nods just slightly and Leonard sighs, tucking his chin into his chest. “Yeah, let’s talk.”
Jim relaxes. “Okay. Good.”
He hesitates, then steps forward, joining Leonard on the bed. Spock follows Jim but remains standing in front of them, his hands folded behind his back.
Jim’s quiet. His brow furrows, as if deciding where to start. He raises a hand to rub at his neck, grimacing. “Look, Bones. Things have been weird for weeks. I wasn’t going to say anything—”
“—that’s new,” Leonard says with a halfhearted snort.
“Well, I wasn’t. But then Spock noticed it, too, and you know something’s wrong when even Spock thinks things feel off. It’s been…” Jim stops, searching for the right word. “Awkward. Uncomfortable. Wrong.”
He glances at Leonard before letting his eyes settle on Spock. Something passes between them. “But things have been weird,” Jim continues, “since Spock and I got together.” A beat. “Probably because of that. Am I right?”
Leonard can’t look at Jim. He can’t look at Spock. He stares down at the floor, swallowing thickly. “Yeah, you’re right.”
He hears Jim inhale, but before he can let Jim speak, Leonard quickly adds, “Look, I’m supportive. I really am. I—I don’t want you thinking I’m some sort of bigot. You know I’m not, right?”
“We know, Bones.”
“Seriously, I’m happy for y’all. I really am.”
“We know, Bones,” Jim says again, sounding a twinge more exasperated. There’s another pause, and then Jim scoffs. “Dammit, Bones, can you look at me?”
Leonard lifts his gaze.
“Spock told me you asked him out,” Jim says.
Leonard huffs, his face burning as he glances at Spock. “Of course he did. I suspected he would.”
Spock’s face doesn’t crack, revealing no inclination of what he’s thinking. When Leonard looks at Jim again, he finds that Jim is studying him.
“I knew you were upset—” Jim starts, abruptly stopping. He frowns. “Well, I thought… I thought that was all that was going on. I mean, before… I just thought you didn’t want to third-wheel, but then Spock told me that you asked him out, and um…”
He trails off, looking unsure what to say next. Finally, he says, “Well, that made sense. And I thought that was all it was.”
Leonard’s face is still burning. He knows what’s coming next, but Jim has gone all quiet again, and Leonard can barely stand it, gripping the sheets underneath his hands.
Jim watches him carefully. “But that wasn’t all it was, right?”
Leonard nods.
“...You never got over that crush on me, did you?”
His stomach churns as he nods and looks away.
“Leonard.”
Spock sounds closer; Leonard lifts his head and realizes that Spock has knelt down in front of him, and upon catching Leonard’s eye, Spock gives Leonard a steady, warm look. Something deep in Leonard twists in yearning.
“Jim and I have discussed possible arrangements,” Spock says, and before Leonard can try to decipher what that means, Spock continues, “and we’ve determined that it would be best to hear your preference.”
“My preference.”
Spock glances over at Jim, then looks back at Leonard. “We would like to ask you to join our relationship.”
Leonard stares.
He opens his mouth, then shuts it. “You want me… to join.”
“Correct.”
Leonard continues to stare. He processes what Spock is asking him—or tells himself to process it, his brain isn’t actually doing its job—but all he can do is stare.
“You could think of me in that way?” Leonard asks, turning his head to look at Jim in disbelief. “Romantically?”
“Well, yeah,” Jim says, looking all flustered. “I’ll be honest, Bones, I felt something back at the Academy. I just thought you’d moved on, so I did my best to move on, too.”
Leonard turns his head, raising his brows at Spock. “You’re cool with this?”
Spock nods.
Leonard scoffs. “Seriously? You?”
“In Vulcan culture,” Spock begins, “multi-partner relationships are quite common. It makes child rearing and household maintenance simpler. It is—”
“Yeah, yeah, it’s logical. Christ.”
Leonard sighs and runs his hands over his face. Is he really considering a relationship with them? There are so many ways this could be screwed up—that he could screw this up—and he doesn’t want to make a mess of things. Nothing could be worse than a starship whose captain, first officer, and chief medical officer were all stuck in an intense couple’s spat and giving each other the cold shoulder.
But he wants them, and they want him. This is what he’s wanted for weeks now. And if it’s what they want, too…
He drops his hands from his face. “I don’t want to intrude.”
Jim snorts. Spock says, sternly but not unkindly, “We would not have asked if we did not want you.”
Still in disbelief, Leonard says, “Well, okay.”
Jim grins, covering Leonard’s hand with his own and giving it a squeeze. A foreign sort of giddiness strikes Leonard, and he has to stop himself from chastising himself; for once, the feeling is warranted.
Leonard laughs; he can hear his nerves in his laughter. “Seems like the sorta thing we need to shake on. Feels less like the start of a relationship and more like we’re striking a business deal.”
“That makes this sound so formal,” Jim says with a snort. But then he smiles, squeezing Leonard’s hand again. He leans in close, and for a moment, Leonard thinks that Jim is going to kiss him, and he freezes, his heart starting to race.
But Jim doesn’t move, just keeps smiling at Leonard, his eyes taking Leonard in. Finally, he says, “I think we owe you dinner to make up for all that lost time.”
“I’d like that,” Leonard says. He’s unexpectedly choked up, and he stands, looking away from Jim.
He approaches Spock, feeling more shy than he’s used to. “There’s something I’ve been wanting to do since I asked you out,” Leonard says, and Spock has barely had time to raise his brow before Leonard kisses him.
Spock’s lips are smooth against Leonard’s and he shifts his mouth, kissing Spock deeper. It’s only when he hears Jim huff that Leonard pulls away.
Jim’s lips are pursed together in a pout, his arms crossed in front of his chest. “Where’s my kiss?”
Leonard smiles. He crosses the room again and gently presses a chaste kiss to Jim’s cheek. In Jim’s ear, he says, “ You’ve gotta buy me dinner first.”
Leonard spins around, heading towards the doors. They open and he’s half out when he turns his head, calling, “Y’all coming? I’m starving.”
Spock and Jim exchange a look; then, Jim leaps past Leonard out the door. “You’re about to have the shortest dinner of your life,” he calls out, already flying down the corridor.
Leonard looks back at Spock. “Is he usually like this with you?”
Spock appears to be barely holding back his exasperation. “...Unfortunately.”
Leonard sighs softly. “We probably shouldn’t keep him waiting.”
Leonard starts to walk down the hall after Jim, but he’s stilled by Spock’s hand on his arm. Leonard looks back at Spock.
Spock’s brow furrows, looking aside as he gathers his thoughts. “I had been worried about you, Leonard… I wanted to see you happy.” Spock pauses, his eyes meeting Leonard’s. “Are you happy?”
Leonard steps closer and kisses Spock again, slowly, lovingly. “Very happy, Spock. Incredibly.”
He draws back. “Now, don’t tell Jim you got another kiss. He’s just going to insist I owe him more.”
“You have my word, Leonard.”
With that, they head after Jim for dinner, the back of their fingers brushing softly together as they walk.