Inception AU
Chris Pike plucked him and Jim up from opposite ends of the country and sat them down in a shuttle headed to Starfleet Headquarters. They had been a matching pair of shame, Jim with a broken nose and blood drying on his shirt and Leonard in days old clothes, smelling vaguely of bad decisions. It was obvious neither of them had wanted to go corporate but in Leonard’s case there wasn’t many places for a disgraced doctor/chemist to go. Not after his ex-wife had threatened to sell him out to the authorities. It was better if he approached them himself. When he told Jim that the only thing he had left was his bones, he wasn’t really lying. But he also had the blueprints to what would become the single most popular sedative in dream sharing history. And that, besides maybe pity, is why Pike offered him the change to start working for Starfleet.