five times someone tells jim kirk that they love him…
one.
When he was much younger – five, six, seven years old – Jim would ask his mom about George Kirk.
She would tell him that he was a handsome young man, a bright one. He was a good lieutenant, a hard worker who provided for his family. She doesn't believe in mollycoddling so she would tell him from a young age that his father had died to save many people, but he had told her as Jim was born that he loved her so much, and she fell asleep to the sound of his voice in her head nearly every night.
She would tell him that even though his father never met him, she knows that when George Kirk said "I love you" before he died, he was talking to both of them.
two.
Sam packs his bags ten minutes after their stepfather leaves the house to go to work, his face splitting with excitement as he pulls on his shoes.
"I don't want you to go," Jim protests, picking at the blanket on his bed, and Sam turns back to him. "I don't want to be here alone with him."
"You're kidding, right? I love you, man. I'm coming back for you," Sam says with a blinding grin, and hefts his bag higher up his back.
Two hours later, Jim shoots past him in their dad's corvette, waving and shouting as the adrenaline pumps through his veins and makes him believe that he can do anything.
He doesn't pass Sam again on the way back after the policeman drags him back from the cliff's edge.
He's sat on the couch with his stepfather, scowling heavily at the wall in front of him, when the news reaches them that Sam's body has been found beaten and bloody near a motel a few miles from the cliff.
Jim spends the night being sick and listening to his stepfather try to console his mother over the comm, and cries.
three.
Jim's not entirely sure why he responds the way that he does when Gaila tells him that she thinks she loves him.
It's not as though he's not used to hearing things like that in bed – but usually it's appreciative moans or oaths of how amazing he is, or just instruction of yes, like that, harder. Nobody's ever told him that they love him, but maybe that's because he's never given them a chance to. Gaila is the first girl in a while who he's slept with more than once, so maybe that's long enough. But he doesn't really know how to respond to that, so he doesn't really, and get pushed away for his efforts.
On the way back to Earth after the Narada incident – trailing through space without any warp cores – Jim finds Uhura sitting crying on the bathroom floor. She pushes him away when he tries to comfort her, to find out what's wrong, and storms from the room in a flurry of tears and black hair, leaving her PADD discards on the hard ground.
Jim picks it up. It's a list of the dead from the initial Romulan attack at Vulcan.
Gaila's name is highlighted and flashing.
four.
Bones is the best doctor that Starfleet currently commands, but even he can't do everything. He did his best to patch up Pike after Jim brought him back from the Narada – and he did it admirably. But the nerve damage was extensive and progressive and no matter what he tries to do, there's nothing to save him.
Jim visits him one last time, three months into their first mission. Pike is lying flat-out on his bed simply because he can't support himself any more, but he's smiling, and that's more than Jim even expected when he walked through the door.
"I don't mind, Jim," Pike says, as the machines around him keep his body functioning, and will do until the great mind gives in too. "And it's not your fault. Or that Doctor of yours."
"I just wish that there was something I could do. Or something that I could have done, so this hadn't happened," Jim says bitterly, but Pike just laughs. It turns into a hacking cough and Jim looks away.
"Jim, I love you like a son and I'm proud of you. You saved pretty much the whole Federation. I'm not going to complain about that."
The memorial service is held two weeks later.
Jim doesn't let go of Bones' hand all the way through. He's not sure who needs to comfort more right now anyway.
five.
Jim knows that his crew has fallen in love with the human orphans in their short stay at the station, but they need to get moving and get back on track with the mission. They're a few days behind schedule as it is already, and he has a diplomatic meeting with an Arcadian ambassador in a week that he can't afford to mess up.
Bones had found a ten year old girl who bore a startling resemblance to Joanna and hadn't let her out of his sight in the three days that they'd been there. Jim made a mental note to try to get more shore leave on Earth.
He's watching Uhura kiss a young boy on the forehead when a tiny girl runs up to him and straight into his left leg, hugging it tight and looking up at him with huge green eyes.
"Don't go, Uncle Jim," she pleads, and he can see the gap in her teeth where she's just lost one. "I love you and I want you to stay here with me."
Jim takes a moment before he smiles and bends down, pulling her into an embrace, and tries to dampen the rising feeling of despair that her statement has brought upon him.
When he gets back from his meeting with the Arcadian a week later, it's Uhura who tells him that the station was attacked by Klingon warbirds and completely destroyed.
Jim goes to his quarters and drinks himself into a stupor, and even when morning comes he still hates himself.
…and one time that someone doesn't.
one.
When Jim wakes, his whole body is sore and his head is thrumming with pain. He cracks his eyes open against the bright light and immediately recognises the ceiling of the sickbay – he's been here enough times.
He winces as he swings his legs from the bed, but there's nobody about and the chrono tells him that it's halfway through delta shift, so whilst he shouldn't expect anybody to be around he's still rather have had someone there. Someone to reassure him when he came to.
He's healed, at least – the deep gashes are gone from his chest and he can't see his intestines spilling out of his stomach any more, so that has to be a good thing. And the bones in his legs aren't shattered, and he can see out of both of his eyes – plus all of the minor cuts and bruises are faded into freckled skin, and there's no ringing in his ears. Of course Bones would never leave him injured, but it's reassuring to make the checks himself anyway.
He stumbles slightly as he reaches the door and takes a moment to right himself before moving on. He's barefoot and bare-chested, and he knows that he probably looks a mess, but he really doesn't care. There's only one person that he wants to see right now and that one person won't give a damn how he looks. He never has.
He makes it halfway down the corridor before Bones comes around the corner looking as though he's only just woken with his eyes half-mast and his hair sticking up, and goosebumps are forming on his skin because he's not even dressed, and Jim realises that he must have had some sort of alarm hooked up to tell him when Jim woke.
"Bones," he whispers, and tries to smile, but his face is too sore to even manage that. But that's fine, because Bones takes the last few steps and seizes him, strong arms wrapping around his back and capable hands gripping him tightly. Jim presses his face into Bones' neck and sighs, holding on to his shoulders and shuddering against him.
"I thought I was going to lose you," Bones murmurs, the words spoken into Jim's hair as he turns his head to press a kiss into the skin just behind his ear. "Don't ever do that to me again."
"I'm sorry," Jim chokes, and a voice somewhere in his head is reminding him that they're stood clutching at each other in the middle of the corridor in the early hours of the morning. But he doesn't care. "I'm here, I'm fine."
"I swear, I don't know what I'd do. I lo-"
"Don't say it," Jim rasps, refusing to let go even as he feels Bones tense and try to pull away from him. "Don't. I couldn't bear it if something happens to you too."
He knows that it's not a reason or an explanation but right now, he doesn't want to have to explain himself. And Bones doesn't press him, and maybe he does somehow understand, because he just twists his head enough to be able to look Jim in the eyes.
"Nothing's going to happen to me, kid," he says, a little roughly, and seals the promise with a gentle press of lips to Jim's.
"I know," Jim says against Bones' lips, and closes his eyes. "I know, I just… I do too."
He doesn't have to open his eyes to know that Bones is smiling.
"Yeah. I know."
end.