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d8rkmessngrI tell you, LJ is out to 'throttle me like an emotionally compromised Vulcan' as a friend of mine would say. LOL. Coding=headache. Thank you all for your patience! Here's the rest of the story!
Title: Standby 2/4
Author: d8rkmessngr
Fandom: Star Trek: Reboot'verse
Pairing: Kirk/McCoy
Rating: PG-13, angst, h/c, first time
Words: 23,000+, complete (yup, you read right!)
Summary: He was glad Bones was dating again. He was. Really. But what Jim thought was good for Bones turned out to be oh, so wrong for Jim. For this prompt in![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
st_xi_kink.
Warnings: implied past abuse, attempted non-con, sap (lol)
Part 1
The problem with trying to stay clean or conform to some stiff neck, idealistic Academy cadet culture, was that one got spoiled to luxuries like a bed, a plush sofa or a cup of coffee that was still warm.
The hard bench Jim found himself on was hard, damp from San Francisco's morning fog and filthy from neglect because no one came to tiny parks by the cliffs anymore, not when more modernized ones glittered down by the wharf. When he was fourteen, finding a bench like this unchallenged and unoccupied the entire night was gold. Today, as he was roused awake by the beams of morning breaking begrudgingly through a gray sky, it just made him feel sick.
Judging by the smell though, the splattered, sour smelling patch under the bench, Jim was sick.
The second he caught himself checking the time on his watch (he lost his communicator somewhere, which was fucking perfect), to make sure he didn't miss Xeno-Pol Sci, Jim laughed. Or tried. His own bitter mirth was cut short when his chest seized, his head thundered and he threw up once more, barely missing his own boots. Who would have thought James T. Fucking Kirk would ever be worried about something as boring ass as missing class?
It didn't stop him from checking anyway though, from feeling a little reassured that it was early enough that the campus would still be asleep by the time he could manage to get back to his dorm, clean up and move on.
Jim slouched on the bench. He stared dully at the Golden Gate Bridge hidden in the pre-dawn fog, his right arm still bracing his left. Jim rose shakily and steered for the lone tree that had provided some shade over the bench.
It’d been a while but he could probably get his arm back into the socket himself. Better to do it now. Let it hurt now than later. It hurt less now. That's what Jim had learned. Take the pain now because waiting in some corner, holding his breath, only meant the punches were that much sharper, the yelling that much louder—
With a sickeningly loud pop, a crunch of bone and tendon forced back to shape, Jim had let his thoughts distract him from what needed to be done. The completion of bone and muscle as it twisted back to what it should be was announced by an explosion of agony and heat that rippled down his arm, up his neck.
Jim threw up again by the foot of the tree.
Done, he sagged against the aging sapling, his warm forehead against cool, damp, peeling bark, his breath rattling in his chest. Jim's breathing hitched and he weakly punched the tree he was resting against.
He...he didn't want to go back.
Jim's face screwed up at the thought that wormed through.
"Idiot!" Jim howled and hearing it echoed back to him in the empty park seemed like confirmation. "Stupid, f-fuc..." Jim closed his eyes, his cheek on the tree and wondering where all this raw noise was coming from, why all of the sudden, he really wanted not to be the Jim Kirk everyone thought he was. No, not everyone, not Bone—
....
Well, guess it was everyone now, huh?
It was a laugh, a cough, a strangled noise that came tumbling out of his throat and suddenly, he couldn't stop, It just went on and on and god dammit, he needed to stop because he needed to breathe, get up, walk back into the Academy, get out in three years and lose himself in the stars. Three years. No, less at this point, to finish and finish better than everyone else and find a starship, get swallowed by the black like dear ole dad. It would be easy. No one would be looking. The only one would have been his brother Sam and he'd already vanished into the stars, unwilling to be found even when Jim so desperately wanted him to stay. Even if it meant Frank continued focusing only on Jim. Jim just wanted Sam to stay because he wanted to stay with Jim, but no, Sam left and that was the last person who ever listened to Jim again.
Jim's lips curled back and he glared at his boots. He spat, waited until the world stopped tilting and straightened, as straight as the tight band around his chest would allow.
Enough of this pity shit.
Jim got on that shuttle that day knowing his journey would be a lonely one—No, not lonely, just...alone.
There was an ache in his chest that wouldn't go away when Jim gulped. All these months were...good, Bones with all his weird old man tendencies and grouchy edges was good, it was all a pretty illusion, but it was...over.
Time to wake up.
Jim blinked rapidly at the tree. He grunted as he rested his good shoulder against it. He took a steadying breath and the blackness around the edges of his vision receded a bit. The gummy taste in his mouth didn't go away, nor did the bitterness in his throat. Maybe it’d never go away. Didn’t matter. Not anymore.
"Full speed ahead, Kirk," Jim whispered. He stared down the deserted road and set his jaw.
Jim stumbled once, twice and his right arm wrapped around his middle to make the burning on his back go away. It didn't matter if he felt rocky, the ground unsteady, Jim kept his eyes forward and with a set mouth, forced himself to keep taking the next step.
It took too long to get back to the Academy but still early enough that Security merely gave Jim a sleepy grunt when Jim staggered past the gate, his id trembling as it glided through the reader.
Jim stopped several times when his vision blurred and there were times the pounding settled behind his eyes, pulsing so persistently it felt like it would push them out.
After three tries (he couldn't remember the keycode for some reason), Jim tumbled into his dorm, nearly falling over his roommate's bed.Clarkson, probably only having just gotten to bed, swatted towards Jim's general direction, muttering something about bar fights and binary silicon wafers before burrowing further into the blankets. Jim grimaced, swallowing convulsively as he aimed for his bed. His roommate was usually in the labs overnight and Jim hoped to get a shower, use the dermal regenerator he'd borrowed and never returned and get some rest, calm the spinning in his head before class in a few hours.
It looked like the first two wasn't going to happen and the bed (he was getting spoiled) looked very inviting. Jim groaned as his ribs and shoulder sank into contact with his mattress. Even taking off his boots felt like too much right now. Jim just grabbed the covers and wrapped them over himself, his head and blew out a shaky breath inside the cocoon he made.
"Should have stayed the night at her place, Kirk," Clarkson muttered. The mattress creaked as Clarkson rolled over.
Jim grunted in response. He buried his face into his pillow and tried to ignore the sharp pulse thrumming in the back of his head.
Sleep came in fragmented dreams and at one point he was jolted awake when Clarkson kicked his bed, griping that Jim missed his alarm. When Jim tried to answer, he couldn't. He felt thick-headed and stupid, his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. Clarkson gave up when it looked like Jim was ignoring him and left. Jim absently thought of calling after Clarkson but his eyelids drooped again and the darkness he was feeling the whole night finally stretched over him like a night sky.
As he faded, Jim realized it was a bit of relief. After that, Jim thought of nothing else.
His face hurt. No, wait...not anymore.
He remembered the nurse who first asked about the fist-shaped bruises on his ribcage. He remembered the taste of blood in his mouth when he was sent back home. He remembered how his eyes were gritty as he watched his brother leave. He waved, got on top of an apple cart so Sam could see him. He kept waving.
His brother never looked back.
Thunder pounded outside the darkness that was wrapped fuzzily around him.
"...in there? Jim! Jim!"
She told him he looked too much like his father. He told her his hand was held over the stove.
She slapped him. Then she went to space for three months. That was close to forever.
A few beeps took place of the thunder. The darkness around him shifted as the cocoon he vaguely felt on him lifted and peeled away.
"God..."
Hands pulled him up and patted his cheek. His head dropped but then was cradled by an arm. He was held against a body and, for once, Jim was too numb, too not there to push that body away.
"Wake up! Open your eyes!"
A hand cupped under his throat. Jim waited for it to squeeze but it never came. Instead, he could feel his body moving, even though he gave no command, his legs bent, his arms tugged. Jim hissed, jerked and his left arm was carefully arranged across his stomach. He could smell medicine, soap and blood.
"Jim, wake up. Jim, I need you to...damn it, come on..."
A slap to his cheek tugged at his mind and another voice came, a hand harder than the one bracing the back of his head. Jim cringed. Fingers probed and found fire.
Hurt...
"Shi—Sorry. It's going to be okay. I just...p-please...I need you to open your eyes for me, Jim."
Jim mumbled, his head rolling against something warm, solid, heaving. A hand cradled his jaw. He could hear a tricorder hum over him.
"Damn it." A bleep. "This is Doctor McCoy. I need an emergency medical transport at..."
His head felt funny. Heavy. Barely balanced on his shoulders. He felt himself sagging, rolling...
"No, no. Not there. You must have thrown up before. Lucky you didn't asphyxiate on—Damn it, where the hell are they?"
Jim mumbled something, tried to get words out but he wasn't sure what came out.
"Frank? Who's Frank?"
Nononononono...
He felt hands framing his face as he thrashed, his name repeated over and over. There was a plea in the hoarse voice, a tremor on the surface he was slumped against. Jim stilled, his limbs still trembling though, his damp shirt glued to his body.
"What?" Jim groaned. He flinched as he cracked his eyes open and hissed when they burned.
The command cracked like a whip above him. "Computer, dim lights, fifty percent."
Jim squinted at the shadow above him. And suddenly, he wanted someone to listen, really, really listen.
"I...I didn't," Jim gasped and his right hand batted weakly at the shadow in front of him. Spinning, spinning, he couldn't see if the shadow had heard him.
There was the weight of a chin on top of his head, fleeting, maybe imagined before there was a heavy sigh.
"I know." Fingers carded carefully through his hair. "Just stay awake for me, Jim. Please."
"I never...with A-Adam..."
"Sh..." It felt like a breath of benediction ghosted over his temples, lips brushing skin. "It's okay. No more talking. Just stay awake. Stay with me."
Jim nodded, unsure why it felt like he was floating lighter and lighter. The answer he received, he couldn't connect yet he knew was important. They rang louder than the sirens outside, louder than his name being shouted in his ears as his eyes blurred and his breathing hitched and all Jim could think about was that someone had finally listened.
And maybe that was enough.
Hands shook him but it didn't matter anymore. He was just too tired. Too tir...
He roused briefly to the sensation of being carried. His legs swung briefly in mid-air before he was lowered to a flat, narrow surface. He tried to open his eyes (because someone kept asking him to) but objects and shadows oozed into misshapen spots that moved in front of him with a frenzy he thought he should understand. The splotches of color distracted him from the odd collection of noise, sensation and notion that something wasn't really right surrounding him.
His throat ached. His chest ached. His head—no, actually that didn't ache, not anymore and he was glad because...because...
Because of what?
He heard voices, gruff, unsteady, rapid and hot by his ear, the ground under his body rumbling and rolling. A voice by his ear told him things he didn't understand but they were still inexplicably comforting, anchoring him to here and now. His right hand twitched. Something captured it, something warm and callused skimmed across his brow and the aches all over his body retreated to a muffled throb that resided deep within his belly.
The colors that had danced in front of him with odd long fat limbs, gesturing and waving, almost accusatory that he would have flinched if his body obeyed him. They were man-shaped but faceless, surrounding him as well as the chirps and beeps of machinery. The colors danced serenely with the mechanical music, they writhed when the beeps began to wail around him and voices began shouting.
He felt his body jerk.
Pain...
His head hurt again...
More shouting...
Why was everything hurting again? He half-expected to see a beer soaked fist raining down on him like judgment.
His body jerked again.
The fingers that were curled around his hand slipped away and left him mentally flailing. The colors came back, something hissed coolly against his neck and everything vanished.
....
....
It's dark.
No, wait. Come back...
There was something he wanted to say, something futile probably but he still wanted to say it, to say it wasn't him, he didn't do it, he didn't fall and break his fingers, he didn't mean to tell her never to come back, he didn't...
Listen to me, he pleaded alone in the dark.
But no one ever did. And those who do stayed until he was depleted, until they're bored, until his face looked too much like a dead man's and go away.
Go away.
No. Come back.
He tried to reach to capture what was escaping before him but his arm weighted like forever and dropped back to his side. He lay there, breathing hard, willing the layers of self fall away until everything grew lighter and lighter and then...
Jim Kirk opened his eyes.
The first thing that struck him was that this wasn't his dorm room in the quad. The second thing that struck him was he wasn't wearing the clothes he had on before. One plus one equals—Dammit.
Hospital.
Jim scowled, then was startled to realize how tight his face felt doing that. He tried moving his jaw and was disturbed to realize that his throat felt raw, as if something was jammed down it and wrenched out, bleeding acid in its wake. He touched his throat, felt nothing and frowned when he found it took too much to move that hand.
Fuck, what the hell happened?
Jim took inventory of his body: his ribs no longer burned, his left shoulder no longer felt like it was pushed in wrong, his head...
His hand shook again as he reached for the back and felt a cooling pad cushioning the back of his head. His skull felt tender to the touch and his neck felt stiff as if he had it in one position too long. But he could barely feel it and—Shit!
Someone fucking shaved his head!
Jim's face screwed up. His fingers tingled but it felt like a patch the size of his thumbnail and just above the base of his skull and god damn it, the skin felt baby smooth and probably white and tanless. He was going to fucking kill Ada—
His mouth soured.
Jim's hand dropped. Memory slotted back in like playing cards and he could taste blood in his mouth, damp brick on his back. The look on Bones's face...He never looked away when Adam sauntered out of the alley and Jim didn't have to look to know there must have been accusation and disappointment in those eyes, eight months down the drain because Jim Kirk couldn't be trusted with...
A hoarse sound vibrated in his throat at the memory and reminded Jim just how thirsty he was. He lifted his head (it was like a weight was tied around his head) and scanned the tiny room. A privacy curtain was pulled halfway and he could see feet on the end of the bed parallel to him, snores softly huffing in the dimly lit room told him he had a roommate.
Despite the dim surroundings, Jim spotted the side table to his left with half a bowl of ice chips and a pitcher of water sitting just out of reach. Jim winced as he sat up. He had to wait for the spinning to stop. His spine felt like jelly and wouldn't straighten. When it finally felt like his head wouldn't roll off his shoulders, Jim twisted around, scowling as he pulled off the stupid wires attached to his bare chest. They were holding him back, tangling with his right arm and he leaned forward to reach past the border of his biobed.
Something wailed. No, screamed above him.
Jim jerked at the ear-splitting shriek and felt himself leaning too far left, no rails, his left arm bound to his side and he found himself falling...falling...
Arms caught him around the shoulders and a hand cradled his forehead to prevent his head from snapping forward.
"What the hell are you doing out of bed?" Footsteps rushing into the room intruded. "No, no, it's okay. He took off his cardiac stimulant monitor. I got him. I got him."
Jim grimaced as he was eased back into the bed, one warm hand still around his forehead, the other supporting his left shoulder.
And still talking.
"...halfway to Risa by now if that monitor didn't go off and don't you remember enough of that first aid shit I taught you to know not to sleep with a head injury? Your roommate needs a refresher. Damn fool and his 'I thought he just overslept' excuse can go to Dante and back. I looked everywhere for you. I’d half a mind to shake some sense into you if I didn't think it’d just rattle your brain loose and waste six hours of the cranial vascular work they did to make sure your brain didn't forget how to make your organs function right..."
Jim groaned as his head laid on the cooling pad and the tirade stopped abruptly. The hand on his shoulder slipped off and brushed away hair to settle on his brow. Jim blinked blearily under the hand that felt large yet unthreatening. A face eased into view and Jim squinted up at him, feeling a little numb and a little colder as a name surfaced.
"Bones?"
It was déjà vu to see a bristly jawed Bones in a ratty sweater staring back at him, his eyes dark as coals, his mouth grim as if he was trying not to throw up.
Jim stared up at Bones. Bones stared down at him.
"They shaved my head," was all Jim could manage.
That grim mouth crumpled, flattened, then twisted to a wry smirk that didn't reach his eyes.
"It was barely two centimeters in diameter. Don't be such a baby."
Nevertheless, Bones reached behind Jim and his thumb smoothed over the bare patch with slow strokes. Jim's stomach made funny leaps.
"Water?" Jim rasped. He felt oddly disappointed when Bones pulled his hand away but relief replaced that funny feeling when a glass with a straw materialized.
"Ah, ah, ah," Bones chided as Jim craned his neck to reach the glass. "That's what the straw's for, so—will you be still?" Bones growled and finally, helped Jim sit up. He shuffled until he was half sitting on the bed, his shoulder against Jim's chest so he wouldn't tip over.
"Slowly," Bones cautioned.
Jim jerked when he felt a hand snake up to support his chin but as Bones murmured "Easy. Easy," he relaxed, letting his upper torso sag further against Bones. Dutifully, Jim nibbled on the offered straw, drank until his throat no longer felt like it was scoured by shards of glass.
"Respirator," Bones explained when Jim cleared his throat with a mild scowl. "They took it out two days ago."
Jim's brow furrowed as he sank back into the bed. "How long?" he wheezed.
Bones darkened and his eyes were hooded, concealed from Jim's view.
"Too long." Bones rubbed his jaw with both hands. He breathed out sharply. "Four days."
"Fuck."
Bones agreed with a curt nod. "Yeah." He studied Jim, his mouth set. "Jim—"
"I didn't do it." Jim didn't know why he bothered. Why it mattered. "Adam and I, shit, there was no Adam and I. Bones—"
"It's all right," Bones interrupted.
Jim's gut twisted. He didn't want forgiveness. "But...b-but I didn't..." He hated the reed thin protest that trickled out before he could stop himself.
The expression on Bones's face went from slitted eyes and set mouth to slack jawed and agape.
"What? No, no. Jim, no, I'm saying it's okay." Bones smiled tightly as he settled a hand on top of Jim's head.
"I believe you."
Jim stared. He stared at the smile that was more frown than joy, the dark smudges under brown eyes and found he didn't understand.
"You...you believe me..." Jim tested the words in his mouth and they tasted funny. He looked up at Bones, perplexed.
"Why?"
It was comical the way Bones's mouth dropped open.
"W-what?"
Jim turned his head, stared at the side table instead, suddenly feeling incredibly stupid for even asking. He didn't really want to hear why. He didn't want to find out how fleeting it was going to be. Jim hated the walls around him and suddenly it felt like the walls were too close, Bones was too close. Jim tracked the ice floating in the pitcher. One ice cube dissolved in front of him inside the clear pitcher and left no trace of itself. He couldn't help thinking it was a lucky bastard.
"So can I go now?" he rasps.
"Can yo—I think those surgeons missed a vessel because you're not thinking straight. Go? Jim, you were in a coma until just this morning! I—we weren't sure if your eyeballs weren't going to point in different directions! Go? Go? I—"
"All right, I get it," Jim snapped, turning back to Bones. That was a mistake because something on his monitors above his head squawked and something in his chest pulled. "So not today then. Tomorrow?"
"Tomorrow?" Bones bellowed. "How about fucking never? Jim, they told me to call your emergency contact just...just in case and you know what I got? Some damn holo-strip club called Stockies in Riverside, Iowa!"
Jim smirked weakly. "Be glad it wasn't the Interspecies Sex line." He had flipped a coin. It lost. "You would have been charged a lot but at least it would have been interesting conversation."
Bones looked at Jim like Jim had sprouted three heads. Nothing new, Bones seemed to react to the weirdest things Jim said, got mad for some stupid thing Jim repeated hearing tossed his way.
Jim yawned. He grimaced. How could he be this tired already if he slept for four days? He shrugged his right shoulder. His left was immobilized which annoyed the hell out of him. He needed to demonstrate a throw to the class next week. This was going to complicate things.
"So what's the damage?" Jim slurred.
"My sanity," Bones muttered. He ran a hand through his hair. Jim smirked as Bones's dark hair stuck out in all directions. He hadn't looked this wild-eyed since that Vega frat mixer Jim dragged him to. Jim wondered if Bones kept that green bra he found stuffed in his pocket when they came to drooling on Jim's dorm floor. Bones rubbed a hand over his rough chin. His shoulders rose, then dropped.
"You had some cranial bleeding into the back of your head, hairline fractures of your third, fourth and sixth rib." Bones looked at Jim, his face unreadable.
"You stopped breathing on your own, you know."
Jim touched his throat. "Yeah?" He eyed Bones by the foot of his bed. He wasn't sure what he was supposed to say to that. And Bones was looking a bit freaked, like sitting-in-a-shuttle freaked.
"You look like shit." It was the safest thing to say.
Bones stopped looking like he needed to be sedated before take off and his face crunched up into a scowl again. He muttered something about having no razor here and it was back to looking at Jim like he was some new alien bug.
Jim narrowed his eyes. "What?" His head ached, his eyes felt gritty and he was starting to feel pissed off again because he didn't know what Bones was going to do next and that was like flying a shuttle blind.
"Why didn't you tell me about Adam?"
Despite the disgruntled look on his face, Bones's voice was soft. His eyes crinkled and fuck, he looked mopey.
Jim closed his eyes. His head was pounding again. He wished Bones would just go away. Bones wasn't reacting the way people normally would. Bones wasn't following the script like everyone else.
"Jim?" Bones dropped a hand on his left knee. A tricorder quietly hummed.
"Can we talk about this later?" Jim muttered. He needed time, space to think.
"I rather we talked about it now." Bones patted Jim's knee and readjusted the blankets. Jim could hear the tricorder warble. "Otherwise, knowing you, we'll never talk about it."
"There's nothing to talk about. You have bad taste in men, there was nothing going on, my head got shaved."
"It was a little spot, Jim."
"Well, it was my favorite part of the head," Jim grumbled.
"Where the hell did you go?" Bones exhaled shakily. "You just took off. Found your communicator a block away, you didn't go straight back to your dorm. If it weren't for your idiot roommate complaining you slept through the alarm, I would have never..." Bones squeezed Jim's knee and audibly swallowed. "Shit, Jim, if I got there ten, no, five minutes later..."
Jim shifted on the bed. He coughed and immediately, he felt the thin rim of a straw against his lips. Bones cupped the back of his neck and guided his head higher so that Jim could drink.
"You should have told me about him in the beginning," Bones chided when Jim was done. Bones sounded more weary than annoyed. "He nearly..."
"He didn't," Jim muttered. He opened his eyes and squinted blearily at Bones. "I wouldn't have let it get that far." He’d learned long ago it hurt more, doing nothing. Better to fight back, damn the consequences.
Jim studied Bones. He squirmed under Bones' speculative look. "Speaking of which..."
"Don't worry about him." Bones absently shook his hands and Jim caught a glimpse of scabbed knuckles.
"Oh." Jim grunted. He closed his eyes and grimaced.
Now the damn tricorder buzzed over his face. "Head hurts?"
"Kinda," Jim reluctantly admitted. It felt like a vise clamped over the back of his skull. He felt the cool nozzle of a hypospray hiss under his jaw.
"It should work in a few minutes," Bones promised.
"Mm," Jim just said, his eyes still closed but he could see in his mind Bones still there, a hand on his knee and thought about Bones's unkempt look, about how Bones tried his emergency contact and unbidden, Jim sighed.
"Jim?"
"...didn't think you'd 'elieve me." Damn, whatever Bones gave him was fast. That floating, zero gravity feeling was settling in his limbs again.
"Why wouldn't I believe you?" Bones sounded sincerely baffled.
Because they never believed me, Jim thought, his throat working.
A hand rested on top of his head.
"Who's they?"
Dammit, he must have said it out loud. Jim clamped his mouth shut.
"Who's they?" Bones repeated. "Jim?" He sighed. "All right. Fine. Can you at least tell me why you didn't think I would believe you?"
Jim shrugged his right shoulder once more.
"That's not an answer."
Jim's mouth twisted. "That's all I got." He set his jaw, damming the weird churning mix of...he didn't know what it was...from bursting free.
"I just...People don't usually listen to what guys like us have to say."
"Guys like you?"
Jim grunted. "I don't get you..." Jim muttered.
Bones smoothed a hand across the blanket over his legs. "No, I guess you really don't, kid." Bones exhaled slowly. "You're just gonna have to trust that I'll listen." Bones paused.
"Unless it's one of your insane, wild stories again, then I don't wanna hear it." Bones patted the covers.
"But at least at what matters, you gotta trust I'll listen."
Why, Jim wanted to ask. Why bother, what was in it for him? But they were questions Jim would never ask because he knew he would probably hate the answers. He felt Bones pulling up the covers higher to his shoulders and his throat worked again. Jim stilled and waited for the fading footsteps.
Carefully, a hand hovered near his face, the heat like a breath against his skin. Jim tensed. A thumb began to rub tiny circles over his left temple, round and round and smoothing the throbbing away. Jim relaxed and lay there, counting the circles, one, two, three...
"'ones?" Jim slurred.
The thumb never paused. "Yeah, kid?"
Jim tried to smirk but he wasn't sure if he succeeded.
"You really do look like crap."
There was a scoff close to his ear. "You're not exactly looking pretty right now...baldie."
"'ucker." Jim yawned again. "I'm always pretty. It's..." The next yawn made his jaw ached. "It's what works...People s-stay for that..."
The thumb stilled. "People don't just stay for that, Jim."
Jim made a sleepy snort. "People stay for what they want," Jim told him sleepily. "It's always so'ething they...they want." Jim's mouth set. "Then they'll leave." You would think Bones know that by know, having once been a married guy and all.
Bones sighed. "Jim...Get some rest. I'll be right here."
"Yeah, all right," Jim murmured. His chest tightened despite the creeping lethargy. We'll see, he thought as he drifted away, lulled by the massaging touch by his brow.
To Jim's annoyance, medical wouldn't release him for three more days (Jim suspected Bones had something to do with that). Not that Jim could have sneaked out anyway. Most of the time, it felt like his head was two times too big or his limbs were welded to the bed. Damn nurses kept sedating him if his fucking heart rate shot up. And when he was allowed to stay awake, vertigo made it impossible to sit up or even read all the shit he knew he was missing in class. Not that he was too worried about that, but reading about sub-particle emissions against Red Trentonia 12 was better than some boring ass white ceiling.
Plus, Bones was always there.
Somehow, Bones managed to make sure the other bed stayed unoccupied, free for Bones to crash. Jim would wake up to the sight of Bones sitting on the nearby biobed with his legs stretched out, still looking scruffy like the day they met on that shuttle. Bones usually grunted out a greeting, eat the pudding off his tray (because this was the only guy Jim knew who liked butterscotch pudding and medical never seemed to give him anything else), read a PADD for class (sometimes out loud if they both had the same class), review his patients' files or (and this was the weird thing) watch Jim, as if Jim was a test question in his finals, one he was still trying to figure out the answer or trying to figure out what he wanted to ask.
Jim usually pretended to fall back asleep at that one.
Thankfully, Bones never called him on that, just often kept on reading out loud from their Vulcan Logistical Philosophy class until that boring shit put him to sleep for real.
It was on the third day to his best estimate when Jim found himself floating back towards real consciousness. Damn Bones had the nurses sedate him last night. He had one lousy nightmare...Jim couldn't even remember any of it. All he did remember was suddenly being on the floor, Fra—his name stuck in his throat, his chest aching. Bones was all white and looking mildly freaked for some reason, straddled over him and gripping his arms while telling (shouting) at him to keep breathing. Then the hypospray came...
Fucking Adam. This was all his fault. Jim was fine with everyone, everything as it were. He never cared before. He was just here for three years and off to space and the things in-between was just to make the three years go by quicker. What anyone thought was bullshit and he didn't care that no one believes him. It didn't...
Jim cracked open his gritty eyes and stared at the ceiling until it cleared from fuzzy white to just fricking flat white. He blinked hard and automatically turned to his right. Jim blinked.
The bed was empty.
Jim stared at the made biobed for a beat before he averted his gaze. His throat tightened. He wasn't sure if it bothered him that Bones wasn't there or the fact that Jim expected Bones to be there.
When Jim realized it was the latter, his face flushed. Stupid, needy bastard, Jim thought. He clamped his mouth shut, his eyes narrowed to slits. Of course Bones wouldn't be here. The world didn’t stop just because Jim did. It never did. Idiot.
Jim forced himself not to look at the empty bed again as he pushed up on his right elbow. It still hurt to put weight on his left and the doctor who was here (Bones barely gave the guy a chance to talk though) mentioned something about physical therapy. Jim wasn't listening at the time. He was getting distracted by Bones's constant interruptions of "Did you remember to do..." and "Are you sure this medication you gave him doesn't contain..."
Jim scowled. If Bones was that bored, Jim thought as he picked a loose thread on the blanket tucked around his legs, Bones should have just left.
The room spun as he sat there, gulping for air. He listened but no one was running in, no alarms. Jim grunted. No reason to stay then. Jim kept his eyes forward, refusing to look to his right. No point. He was on his own, no one to stop him from leaving.
Getting off the biobed (why did they have to build them so high anyway?) took a few tries. Jim clutched the edge until he could lock his knees and even then, he needed to rest his head on the bed for a moment.
His jacket, the worn t-shirt he last had on, and his jeans hung inside the closet. It was clear that they had been cleaned up but there was still a faint tinge of blood that wafted as Jim struggled to put them on.
It was tempting to scrawl a note and leave it on his bed: maybe an IOU or "Thanks for the fish", but Jim doubted it would be appreciated. So Jim opted for the next best thing...
He crept out the service entrance.
Part Three
Title: Standby 2/4
Author: d8rkmessngr
Fandom: Star Trek: Reboot'verse
Pairing: Kirk/McCoy
Rating: PG-13, angst, h/c, first time
Words: 23,000+, complete (yup, you read right!)
Summary: He was glad Bones was dating again. He was. Really. But what Jim thought was good for Bones turned out to be oh, so wrong for Jim. For this prompt in
st_xi_kink.Warnings: implied past abuse, attempted non-con, sap (lol)
Part 1
The problem with trying to stay clean or conform to some stiff neck, idealistic Academy cadet culture, was that one got spoiled to luxuries like a bed, a plush sofa or a cup of coffee that was still warm.
The hard bench Jim found himself on was hard, damp from San Francisco's morning fog and filthy from neglect because no one came to tiny parks by the cliffs anymore, not when more modernized ones glittered down by the wharf. When he was fourteen, finding a bench like this unchallenged and unoccupied the entire night was gold. Today, as he was roused awake by the beams of morning breaking begrudgingly through a gray sky, it just made him feel sick.
Judging by the smell though, the splattered, sour smelling patch under the bench, Jim was sick.
The second he caught himself checking the time on his watch (he lost his communicator somewhere, which was fucking perfect), to make sure he didn't miss Xeno-Pol Sci, Jim laughed. Or tried. His own bitter mirth was cut short when his chest seized, his head thundered and he threw up once more, barely missing his own boots. Who would have thought James T. Fucking Kirk would ever be worried about something as boring ass as missing class?
It didn't stop him from checking anyway though, from feeling a little reassured that it was early enough that the campus would still be asleep by the time he could manage to get back to his dorm, clean up and move on.
Jim slouched on the bench. He stared dully at the Golden Gate Bridge hidden in the pre-dawn fog, his right arm still bracing his left. Jim rose shakily and steered for the lone tree that had provided some shade over the bench.
It’d been a while but he could probably get his arm back into the socket himself. Better to do it now. Let it hurt now than later. It hurt less now. That's what Jim had learned. Take the pain now because waiting in some corner, holding his breath, only meant the punches were that much sharper, the yelling that much louder—
With a sickeningly loud pop, a crunch of bone and tendon forced back to shape, Jim had let his thoughts distract him from what needed to be done. The completion of bone and muscle as it twisted back to what it should be was announced by an explosion of agony and heat that rippled down his arm, up his neck.
Jim threw up again by the foot of the tree.
Done, he sagged against the aging sapling, his warm forehead against cool, damp, peeling bark, his breath rattling in his chest. Jim's breathing hitched and he weakly punched the tree he was resting against.
He...he didn't want to go back.
Jim's face screwed up at the thought that wormed through.
"Idiot!" Jim howled and hearing it echoed back to him in the empty park seemed like confirmation. "Stupid, f-fuc..." Jim closed his eyes, his cheek on the tree and wondering where all this raw noise was coming from, why all of the sudden, he really wanted not to be the Jim Kirk everyone thought he was. No, not everyone, not Bone—
....
Well, guess it was everyone now, huh?
It was a laugh, a cough, a strangled noise that came tumbling out of his throat and suddenly, he couldn't stop, It just went on and on and god dammit, he needed to stop because he needed to breathe, get up, walk back into the Academy, get out in three years and lose himself in the stars. Three years. No, less at this point, to finish and finish better than everyone else and find a starship, get swallowed by the black like dear ole dad. It would be easy. No one would be looking. The only one would have been his brother Sam and he'd already vanished into the stars, unwilling to be found even when Jim so desperately wanted him to stay. Even if it meant Frank continued focusing only on Jim. Jim just wanted Sam to stay because he wanted to stay with Jim, but no, Sam left and that was the last person who ever listened to Jim again.
Jim's lips curled back and he glared at his boots. He spat, waited until the world stopped tilting and straightened, as straight as the tight band around his chest would allow.
Enough of this pity shit.
Jim got on that shuttle that day knowing his journey would be a lonely one—No, not lonely, just...alone.
There was an ache in his chest that wouldn't go away when Jim gulped. All these months were...good, Bones with all his weird old man tendencies and grouchy edges was good, it was all a pretty illusion, but it was...over.
Time to wake up.
Jim blinked rapidly at the tree. He grunted as he rested his good shoulder against it. He took a steadying breath and the blackness around the edges of his vision receded a bit. The gummy taste in his mouth didn't go away, nor did the bitterness in his throat. Maybe it’d never go away. Didn’t matter. Not anymore.
"Full speed ahead, Kirk," Jim whispered. He stared down the deserted road and set his jaw.
Jim stumbled once, twice and his right arm wrapped around his middle to make the burning on his back go away. It didn't matter if he felt rocky, the ground unsteady, Jim kept his eyes forward and with a set mouth, forced himself to keep taking the next step.
It took too long to get back to the Academy but still early enough that Security merely gave Jim a sleepy grunt when Jim staggered past the gate, his id trembling as it glided through the reader.
Jim stopped several times when his vision blurred and there were times the pounding settled behind his eyes, pulsing so persistently it felt like it would push them out.
After three tries (he couldn't remember the keycode for some reason), Jim tumbled into his dorm, nearly falling over his roommate's bed.Clarkson, probably only having just gotten to bed, swatted towards Jim's general direction, muttering something about bar fights and binary silicon wafers before burrowing further into the blankets. Jim grimaced, swallowing convulsively as he aimed for his bed. His roommate was usually in the labs overnight and Jim hoped to get a shower, use the dermal regenerator he'd borrowed and never returned and get some rest, calm the spinning in his head before class in a few hours.
It looked like the first two wasn't going to happen and the bed (he was getting spoiled) looked very inviting. Jim groaned as his ribs and shoulder sank into contact with his mattress. Even taking off his boots felt like too much right now. Jim just grabbed the covers and wrapped them over himself, his head and blew out a shaky breath inside the cocoon he made.
"Should have stayed the night at her place, Kirk," Clarkson muttered. The mattress creaked as Clarkson rolled over.
Jim grunted in response. He buried his face into his pillow and tried to ignore the sharp pulse thrumming in the back of his head.
Sleep came in fragmented dreams and at one point he was jolted awake when Clarkson kicked his bed, griping that Jim missed his alarm. When Jim tried to answer, he couldn't. He felt thick-headed and stupid, his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. Clarkson gave up when it looked like Jim was ignoring him and left. Jim absently thought of calling after Clarkson but his eyelids drooped again and the darkness he was feeling the whole night finally stretched over him like a night sky.
As he faded, Jim realized it was a bit of relief. After that, Jim thought of nothing else.
His face hurt. No, wait...not anymore.
He remembered the nurse who first asked about the fist-shaped bruises on his ribcage. He remembered the taste of blood in his mouth when he was sent back home. He remembered how his eyes were gritty as he watched his brother leave. He waved, got on top of an apple cart so Sam could see him. He kept waving.
His brother never looked back.
Thunder pounded outside the darkness that was wrapped fuzzily around him.
"...in there? Jim! Jim!"
She told him he looked too much like his father. He told her his hand was held over the stove.
She slapped him. Then she went to space for three months. That was close to forever.
A few beeps took place of the thunder. The darkness around him shifted as the cocoon he vaguely felt on him lifted and peeled away.
"God..."
Hands pulled him up and patted his cheek. His head dropped but then was cradled by an arm. He was held against a body and, for once, Jim was too numb, too not there to push that body away.
"Wake up! Open your eyes!"
A hand cupped under his throat. Jim waited for it to squeeze but it never came. Instead, he could feel his body moving, even though he gave no command, his legs bent, his arms tugged. Jim hissed, jerked and his left arm was carefully arranged across his stomach. He could smell medicine, soap and blood.
"Jim, wake up. Jim, I need you to...damn it, come on..."
A slap to his cheek tugged at his mind and another voice came, a hand harder than the one bracing the back of his head. Jim cringed. Fingers probed and found fire.
Hurt...
"Shi—Sorry. It's going to be okay. I just...p-please...I need you to open your eyes for me, Jim."
Jim mumbled, his head rolling against something warm, solid, heaving. A hand cradled his jaw. He could hear a tricorder hum over him.
"Damn it." A bleep. "This is Doctor McCoy. I need an emergency medical transport at..."
His head felt funny. Heavy. Barely balanced on his shoulders. He felt himself sagging, rolling...
"No, no. Not there. You must have thrown up before. Lucky you didn't asphyxiate on—Damn it, where the hell are they?"
Jim mumbled something, tried to get words out but he wasn't sure what came out.
"Frank? Who's Frank?"
Nononononono...
He felt hands framing his face as he thrashed, his name repeated over and over. There was a plea in the hoarse voice, a tremor on the surface he was slumped against. Jim stilled, his limbs still trembling though, his damp shirt glued to his body.
"What?" Jim groaned. He flinched as he cracked his eyes open and hissed when they burned.
The command cracked like a whip above him. "Computer, dim lights, fifty percent."
Jim squinted at the shadow above him. And suddenly, he wanted someone to listen, really, really listen.
"I...I didn't," Jim gasped and his right hand batted weakly at the shadow in front of him. Spinning, spinning, he couldn't see if the shadow had heard him.
There was the weight of a chin on top of his head, fleeting, maybe imagined before there was a heavy sigh.
"I know." Fingers carded carefully through his hair. "Just stay awake for me, Jim. Please."
"I never...with A-Adam..."
"Sh..." It felt like a breath of benediction ghosted over his temples, lips brushing skin. "It's okay. No more talking. Just stay awake. Stay with me."
Jim nodded, unsure why it felt like he was floating lighter and lighter. The answer he received, he couldn't connect yet he knew was important. They rang louder than the sirens outside, louder than his name being shouted in his ears as his eyes blurred and his breathing hitched and all Jim could think about was that someone had finally listened.
And maybe that was enough.
Hands shook him but it didn't matter anymore. He was just too tired. Too tir...
He roused briefly to the sensation of being carried. His legs swung briefly in mid-air before he was lowered to a flat, narrow surface. He tried to open his eyes (because someone kept asking him to) but objects and shadows oozed into misshapen spots that moved in front of him with a frenzy he thought he should understand. The splotches of color distracted him from the odd collection of noise, sensation and notion that something wasn't really right surrounding him.
His throat ached. His chest ached. His head—no, actually that didn't ache, not anymore and he was glad because...because...
Because of what?
He heard voices, gruff, unsteady, rapid and hot by his ear, the ground under his body rumbling and rolling. A voice by his ear told him things he didn't understand but they were still inexplicably comforting, anchoring him to here and now. His right hand twitched. Something captured it, something warm and callused skimmed across his brow and the aches all over his body retreated to a muffled throb that resided deep within his belly.
The colors that had danced in front of him with odd long fat limbs, gesturing and waving, almost accusatory that he would have flinched if his body obeyed him. They were man-shaped but faceless, surrounding him as well as the chirps and beeps of machinery. The colors danced serenely with the mechanical music, they writhed when the beeps began to wail around him and voices began shouting.
He felt his body jerk.
Pain...
His head hurt again...
More shouting...
Why was everything hurting again? He half-expected to see a beer soaked fist raining down on him like judgment.
His body jerked again.
The fingers that were curled around his hand slipped away and left him mentally flailing. The colors came back, something hissed coolly against his neck and everything vanished.
....
....
It's dark.
No, wait. Come back...
There was something he wanted to say, something futile probably but he still wanted to say it, to say it wasn't him, he didn't do it, he didn't fall and break his fingers, he didn't mean to tell her never to come back, he didn't...
Listen to me, he pleaded alone in the dark.
But no one ever did. And those who do stayed until he was depleted, until they're bored, until his face looked too much like a dead man's and go away.
Go away.
No. Come back.
He tried to reach to capture what was escaping before him but his arm weighted like forever and dropped back to his side. He lay there, breathing hard, willing the layers of self fall away until everything grew lighter and lighter and then...
Jim Kirk opened his eyes.
The first thing that struck him was that this wasn't his dorm room in the quad. The second thing that struck him was he wasn't wearing the clothes he had on before. One plus one equals—Dammit.
Hospital.
Jim scowled, then was startled to realize how tight his face felt doing that. He tried moving his jaw and was disturbed to realize that his throat felt raw, as if something was jammed down it and wrenched out, bleeding acid in its wake. He touched his throat, felt nothing and frowned when he found it took too much to move that hand.
Fuck, what the hell happened?
Jim took inventory of his body: his ribs no longer burned, his left shoulder no longer felt like it was pushed in wrong, his head...
His hand shook again as he reached for the back and felt a cooling pad cushioning the back of his head. His skull felt tender to the touch and his neck felt stiff as if he had it in one position too long. But he could barely feel it and—Shit!
Someone fucking shaved his head!
Jim's face screwed up. His fingers tingled but it felt like a patch the size of his thumbnail and just above the base of his skull and god damn it, the skin felt baby smooth and probably white and tanless. He was going to fucking kill Ada—
His mouth soured.
Jim's hand dropped. Memory slotted back in like playing cards and he could taste blood in his mouth, damp brick on his back. The look on Bones's face...He never looked away when Adam sauntered out of the alley and Jim didn't have to look to know there must have been accusation and disappointment in those eyes, eight months down the drain because Jim Kirk couldn't be trusted with...
A hoarse sound vibrated in his throat at the memory and reminded Jim just how thirsty he was. He lifted his head (it was like a weight was tied around his head) and scanned the tiny room. A privacy curtain was pulled halfway and he could see feet on the end of the bed parallel to him, snores softly huffing in the dimly lit room told him he had a roommate.
Despite the dim surroundings, Jim spotted the side table to his left with half a bowl of ice chips and a pitcher of water sitting just out of reach. Jim winced as he sat up. He had to wait for the spinning to stop. His spine felt like jelly and wouldn't straighten. When it finally felt like his head wouldn't roll off his shoulders, Jim twisted around, scowling as he pulled off the stupid wires attached to his bare chest. They were holding him back, tangling with his right arm and he leaned forward to reach past the border of his biobed.
Something wailed. No, screamed above him.
Jim jerked at the ear-splitting shriek and felt himself leaning too far left, no rails, his left arm bound to his side and he found himself falling...falling...
Arms caught him around the shoulders and a hand cradled his forehead to prevent his head from snapping forward.
"What the hell are you doing out of bed?" Footsteps rushing into the room intruded. "No, no, it's okay. He took off his cardiac stimulant monitor. I got him. I got him."
Jim grimaced as he was eased back into the bed, one warm hand still around his forehead, the other supporting his left shoulder.
And still talking.
"...halfway to Risa by now if that monitor didn't go off and don't you remember enough of that first aid shit I taught you to know not to sleep with a head injury? Your roommate needs a refresher. Damn fool and his 'I thought he just overslept' excuse can go to Dante and back. I looked everywhere for you. I’d half a mind to shake some sense into you if I didn't think it’d just rattle your brain loose and waste six hours of the cranial vascular work they did to make sure your brain didn't forget how to make your organs function right..."
Jim groaned as his head laid on the cooling pad and the tirade stopped abruptly. The hand on his shoulder slipped off and brushed away hair to settle on his brow. Jim blinked blearily under the hand that felt large yet unthreatening. A face eased into view and Jim squinted up at him, feeling a little numb and a little colder as a name surfaced.
"Bones?"
It was déjà vu to see a bristly jawed Bones in a ratty sweater staring back at him, his eyes dark as coals, his mouth grim as if he was trying not to throw up.
Jim stared up at Bones. Bones stared down at him.
"They shaved my head," was all Jim could manage.
That grim mouth crumpled, flattened, then twisted to a wry smirk that didn't reach his eyes.
"It was barely two centimeters in diameter. Don't be such a baby."
Nevertheless, Bones reached behind Jim and his thumb smoothed over the bare patch with slow strokes. Jim's stomach made funny leaps.
"Water?" Jim rasped. He felt oddly disappointed when Bones pulled his hand away but relief replaced that funny feeling when a glass with a straw materialized.
"Ah, ah, ah," Bones chided as Jim craned his neck to reach the glass. "That's what the straw's for, so—will you be still?" Bones growled and finally, helped Jim sit up. He shuffled until he was half sitting on the bed, his shoulder against Jim's chest so he wouldn't tip over.
"Slowly," Bones cautioned.
Jim jerked when he felt a hand snake up to support his chin but as Bones murmured "Easy. Easy," he relaxed, letting his upper torso sag further against Bones. Dutifully, Jim nibbled on the offered straw, drank until his throat no longer felt like it was scoured by shards of glass.
"Respirator," Bones explained when Jim cleared his throat with a mild scowl. "They took it out two days ago."
Jim's brow furrowed as he sank back into the bed. "How long?" he wheezed.
Bones darkened and his eyes were hooded, concealed from Jim's view.
"Too long." Bones rubbed his jaw with both hands. He breathed out sharply. "Four days."
"Fuck."
Bones agreed with a curt nod. "Yeah." He studied Jim, his mouth set. "Jim—"
"I didn't do it." Jim didn't know why he bothered. Why it mattered. "Adam and I, shit, there was no Adam and I. Bones—"
"It's all right," Bones interrupted.
Jim's gut twisted. He didn't want forgiveness. "But...b-but I didn't..." He hated the reed thin protest that trickled out before he could stop himself.
The expression on Bones's face went from slitted eyes and set mouth to slack jawed and agape.
"What? No, no. Jim, no, I'm saying it's okay." Bones smiled tightly as he settled a hand on top of Jim's head.
"I believe you."
Jim stared. He stared at the smile that was more frown than joy, the dark smudges under brown eyes and found he didn't understand.
"You...you believe me..." Jim tested the words in his mouth and they tasted funny. He looked up at Bones, perplexed.
"Why?"
It was comical the way Bones's mouth dropped open.
"W-what?"
Jim turned his head, stared at the side table instead, suddenly feeling incredibly stupid for even asking. He didn't really want to hear why. He didn't want to find out how fleeting it was going to be. Jim hated the walls around him and suddenly it felt like the walls were too close, Bones was too close. Jim tracked the ice floating in the pitcher. One ice cube dissolved in front of him inside the clear pitcher and left no trace of itself. He couldn't help thinking it was a lucky bastard.
"So can I go now?" he rasps.
"Can yo—I think those surgeons missed a vessel because you're not thinking straight. Go? Jim, you were in a coma until just this morning! I—we weren't sure if your eyeballs weren't going to point in different directions! Go? Go? I—"
"All right, I get it," Jim snapped, turning back to Bones. That was a mistake because something on his monitors above his head squawked and something in his chest pulled. "So not today then. Tomorrow?"
"Tomorrow?" Bones bellowed. "How about fucking never? Jim, they told me to call your emergency contact just...just in case and you know what I got? Some damn holo-strip club called Stockies in Riverside, Iowa!"
Jim smirked weakly. "Be glad it wasn't the Interspecies Sex line." He had flipped a coin. It lost. "You would have been charged a lot but at least it would have been interesting conversation."
Bones looked at Jim like Jim had sprouted three heads. Nothing new, Bones seemed to react to the weirdest things Jim said, got mad for some stupid thing Jim repeated hearing tossed his way.
Jim yawned. He grimaced. How could he be this tired already if he slept for four days? He shrugged his right shoulder. His left was immobilized which annoyed the hell out of him. He needed to demonstrate a throw to the class next week. This was going to complicate things.
"So what's the damage?" Jim slurred.
"My sanity," Bones muttered. He ran a hand through his hair. Jim smirked as Bones's dark hair stuck out in all directions. He hadn't looked this wild-eyed since that Vega frat mixer Jim dragged him to. Jim wondered if Bones kept that green bra he found stuffed in his pocket when they came to drooling on Jim's dorm floor. Bones rubbed a hand over his rough chin. His shoulders rose, then dropped.
"You had some cranial bleeding into the back of your head, hairline fractures of your third, fourth and sixth rib." Bones looked at Jim, his face unreadable.
"You stopped breathing on your own, you know."
Jim touched his throat. "Yeah?" He eyed Bones by the foot of his bed. He wasn't sure what he was supposed to say to that. And Bones was looking a bit freaked, like sitting-in-a-shuttle freaked.
"You look like shit." It was the safest thing to say.
Bones stopped looking like he needed to be sedated before take off and his face crunched up into a scowl again. He muttered something about having no razor here and it was back to looking at Jim like he was some new alien bug.
Jim narrowed his eyes. "What?" His head ached, his eyes felt gritty and he was starting to feel pissed off again because he didn't know what Bones was going to do next and that was like flying a shuttle blind.
"Why didn't you tell me about Adam?"
Despite the disgruntled look on his face, Bones's voice was soft. His eyes crinkled and fuck, he looked mopey.
Jim closed his eyes. His head was pounding again. He wished Bones would just go away. Bones wasn't reacting the way people normally would. Bones wasn't following the script like everyone else.
"Jim?" Bones dropped a hand on his left knee. A tricorder quietly hummed.
"Can we talk about this later?" Jim muttered. He needed time, space to think.
"I rather we talked about it now." Bones patted Jim's knee and readjusted the blankets. Jim could hear the tricorder warble. "Otherwise, knowing you, we'll never talk about it."
"There's nothing to talk about. You have bad taste in men, there was nothing going on, my head got shaved."
"It was a little spot, Jim."
"Well, it was my favorite part of the head," Jim grumbled.
"Where the hell did you go?" Bones exhaled shakily. "You just took off. Found your communicator a block away, you didn't go straight back to your dorm. If it weren't for your idiot roommate complaining you slept through the alarm, I would have never..." Bones squeezed Jim's knee and audibly swallowed. "Shit, Jim, if I got there ten, no, five minutes later..."
Jim shifted on the bed. He coughed and immediately, he felt the thin rim of a straw against his lips. Bones cupped the back of his neck and guided his head higher so that Jim could drink.
"You should have told me about him in the beginning," Bones chided when Jim was done. Bones sounded more weary than annoyed. "He nearly..."
"He didn't," Jim muttered. He opened his eyes and squinted blearily at Bones. "I wouldn't have let it get that far." He’d learned long ago it hurt more, doing nothing. Better to fight back, damn the consequences.
Jim studied Bones. He squirmed under Bones' speculative look. "Speaking of which..."
"Don't worry about him." Bones absently shook his hands and Jim caught a glimpse of scabbed knuckles.
"Oh." Jim grunted. He closed his eyes and grimaced.
Now the damn tricorder buzzed over his face. "Head hurts?"
"Kinda," Jim reluctantly admitted. It felt like a vise clamped over the back of his skull. He felt the cool nozzle of a hypospray hiss under his jaw.
"It should work in a few minutes," Bones promised.
"Mm," Jim just said, his eyes still closed but he could see in his mind Bones still there, a hand on his knee and thought about Bones's unkempt look, about how Bones tried his emergency contact and unbidden, Jim sighed.
"Jim?"
"...didn't think you'd 'elieve me." Damn, whatever Bones gave him was fast. That floating, zero gravity feeling was settling in his limbs again.
"Why wouldn't I believe you?" Bones sounded sincerely baffled.
Because they never believed me, Jim thought, his throat working.
A hand rested on top of his head.
"Who's they?"
Dammit, he must have said it out loud. Jim clamped his mouth shut.
"Who's they?" Bones repeated. "Jim?" He sighed. "All right. Fine. Can you at least tell me why you didn't think I would believe you?"
Jim shrugged his right shoulder once more.
"That's not an answer."
Jim's mouth twisted. "That's all I got." He set his jaw, damming the weird churning mix of...he didn't know what it was...from bursting free.
"I just...People don't usually listen to what guys like us have to say."
"Guys like you?"
Jim grunted. "I don't get you..." Jim muttered.
Bones smoothed a hand across the blanket over his legs. "No, I guess you really don't, kid." Bones exhaled slowly. "You're just gonna have to trust that I'll listen." Bones paused.
"Unless it's one of your insane, wild stories again, then I don't wanna hear it." Bones patted the covers.
"But at least at what matters, you gotta trust I'll listen."
Why, Jim wanted to ask. Why bother, what was in it for him? But they were questions Jim would never ask because he knew he would probably hate the answers. He felt Bones pulling up the covers higher to his shoulders and his throat worked again. Jim stilled and waited for the fading footsteps.
Carefully, a hand hovered near his face, the heat like a breath against his skin. Jim tensed. A thumb began to rub tiny circles over his left temple, round and round and smoothing the throbbing away. Jim relaxed and lay there, counting the circles, one, two, three...
"'ones?" Jim slurred.
The thumb never paused. "Yeah, kid?"
Jim tried to smirk but he wasn't sure if he succeeded.
"You really do look like crap."
There was a scoff close to his ear. "You're not exactly looking pretty right now...baldie."
"'ucker." Jim yawned again. "I'm always pretty. It's..." The next yawn made his jaw ached. "It's what works...People s-stay for that..."
The thumb stilled. "People don't just stay for that, Jim."
Jim made a sleepy snort. "People stay for what they want," Jim told him sleepily. "It's always so'ething they...they want." Jim's mouth set. "Then they'll leave." You would think Bones know that by know, having once been a married guy and all.
Bones sighed. "Jim...Get some rest. I'll be right here."
"Yeah, all right," Jim murmured. His chest tightened despite the creeping lethargy. We'll see, he thought as he drifted away, lulled by the massaging touch by his brow.
To Jim's annoyance, medical wouldn't release him for three more days (Jim suspected Bones had something to do with that). Not that Jim could have sneaked out anyway. Most of the time, it felt like his head was two times too big or his limbs were welded to the bed. Damn nurses kept sedating him if his fucking heart rate shot up. And when he was allowed to stay awake, vertigo made it impossible to sit up or even read all the shit he knew he was missing in class. Not that he was too worried about that, but reading about sub-particle emissions against Red Trentonia 12 was better than some boring ass white ceiling.
Plus, Bones was always there.
Somehow, Bones managed to make sure the other bed stayed unoccupied, free for Bones to crash. Jim would wake up to the sight of Bones sitting on the nearby biobed with his legs stretched out, still looking scruffy like the day they met on that shuttle. Bones usually grunted out a greeting, eat the pudding off his tray (because this was the only guy Jim knew who liked butterscotch pudding and medical never seemed to give him anything else), read a PADD for class (sometimes out loud if they both had the same class), review his patients' files or (and this was the weird thing) watch Jim, as if Jim was a test question in his finals, one he was still trying to figure out the answer or trying to figure out what he wanted to ask.
Jim usually pretended to fall back asleep at that one.
Thankfully, Bones never called him on that, just often kept on reading out loud from their Vulcan Logistical Philosophy class until that boring shit put him to sleep for real.
It was on the third day to his best estimate when Jim found himself floating back towards real consciousness. Damn Bones had the nurses sedate him last night. He had one lousy nightmare...Jim couldn't even remember any of it. All he did remember was suddenly being on the floor, Fra—his name stuck in his throat, his chest aching. Bones was all white and looking mildly freaked for some reason, straddled over him and gripping his arms while telling (shouting) at him to keep breathing. Then the hypospray came...
Fucking Adam. This was all his fault. Jim was fine with everyone, everything as it were. He never cared before. He was just here for three years and off to space and the things in-between was just to make the three years go by quicker. What anyone thought was bullshit and he didn't care that no one believes him. It didn't...
Jim cracked open his gritty eyes and stared at the ceiling until it cleared from fuzzy white to just fricking flat white. He blinked hard and automatically turned to his right. Jim blinked.
The bed was empty.
Jim stared at the made biobed for a beat before he averted his gaze. His throat tightened. He wasn't sure if it bothered him that Bones wasn't there or the fact that Jim expected Bones to be there.
When Jim realized it was the latter, his face flushed. Stupid, needy bastard, Jim thought. He clamped his mouth shut, his eyes narrowed to slits. Of course Bones wouldn't be here. The world didn’t stop just because Jim did. It never did. Idiot.
Jim forced himself not to look at the empty bed again as he pushed up on his right elbow. It still hurt to put weight on his left and the doctor who was here (Bones barely gave the guy a chance to talk though) mentioned something about physical therapy. Jim wasn't listening at the time. He was getting distracted by Bones's constant interruptions of "Did you remember to do..." and "Are you sure this medication you gave him doesn't contain..."
Jim scowled. If Bones was that bored, Jim thought as he picked a loose thread on the blanket tucked around his legs, Bones should have just left.
The room spun as he sat there, gulping for air. He listened but no one was running in, no alarms. Jim grunted. No reason to stay then. Jim kept his eyes forward, refusing to look to his right. No point. He was on his own, no one to stop him from leaving.
Getting off the biobed (why did they have to build them so high anyway?) took a few tries. Jim clutched the edge until he could lock his knees and even then, he needed to rest his head on the bed for a moment.
His jacket, the worn t-shirt he last had on, and his jeans hung inside the closet. It was clear that they had been cleaned up but there was still a faint tinge of blood that wafted as Jim struggled to put them on.
It was tempting to scrawl a note and leave it on his bed: maybe an IOU or "Thanks for the fish", but Jim doubted it would be appreciated. So Jim opted for the next best thing...
He crept out the service entrance.
Part Three
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2009-07-22 06:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-07-22 07:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-07-23 02:03 am (UTC)And the Douglas Adams reference for the win. Except really, he could have stolen a towel, too. :)
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Date: 2009-07-23 02:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-07-23 05:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-07-23 02:01 pm (UTC)