Disclaimer: I do not own Star Trek. If I did I wouldn't be writing fics on the internet and Spirk would be canon. This fic was inspired by the song 'Welcome to my life' by Sunrise Avenue.
Warnings: mentions of rape, depression and genocide.
Jim has collected many labels during his young life. Most them weren't really positive. (you're pretty little whore aren't you jimmy) The only one he really feels that somehow describes him is the label of the Captain. But it doesn't fit him perfectly either. Starfleet Captains are strong, brave and intelligent. He's not strong at all and he doesn't feel very brave either. He wonders how other people would react if they knew him as he really was. Not that he's ever going to take off his cocky mask.
~O~
When Spock arrives at their nightly chess games he never asks why Jim's eyes are red or why his knuckles are bruised. He doesn't ask why Jim sometimes wakes up screaming or doesn't eat almost nothing for a few days. He doesn't ask, but he is always there for him. And Jim likes it that way.
Spock isn't nearly as unemotional as he has made himself to be. Jim had suspected it before his death and was sure of it after. Now he kept coaxing Spock out of his shell, when at the same time he himself kept Spock at arm's length.
Jim doesn't understand the way Spock looks at him. Like he's something precious, someone that should be protected at all costs. Spock looks at him like he is the centre of the universe. And sometimes, when it is just the two of them, Spock would embrace him and whisper Vulcan words into his ear. Las'hark. Sun. That is the name Spock has given him. It makes Jim uncomfortable, because no one should look at him like that and call him The Sun. Because he's not the Sun, he's a black void, that fills everyone who comes near enough with emptiness before pulling them to their destruction.
~O~
Jim's life has never been really easy. As a child he had had to live with an abusive bastard like Frank, only seeing his mother a few times. His brother's presence didn't help either. Sam always blamed Jim for driving their mother away. Then Sam had left and things had gotten even worse than they were before. Frank had become more abusive and eventually he had started using Jim sexually. Jim could still remember the first time as clear as a day. He remembers the feel of Frank's weight over him, the tearing pain and the smell of sweat and cologne and come.
He was fine now. No, really. He was fine. He had everything he had ever dreamed about and more. He was fine.
~O~
Sometimes he walked around the ship at night wondering if this wasn't just some bizarre dream. The Enterprise surely was a dream. The dream of his battered childhood. And she was the only one that truly needed him as much as he needed her. It was the only thing that wasn't going to leave him.
Space was so wide and full of possibilities and wonders that were just waiting to be found. And Jim was damned if he wasn't going to explore it as much as possible before he had to go to back to the Earth to the meaningless life he had left behind. Maybe he wouldn't have to do that. He could die here, surrounded by the stars.
~O~
Jim isn't sure what he and Spock are exactly. He only knows that Spock wasn't with Uhura anymore and that he holds Jim at nights when he needs someone to be there to tell him that he was real. That this was all real.
~O~
He still felt lost sometimes. He still drank and took unnecessary risks, even though he felt guilty afterwards when he saw Spock's concern stricken face. But it made him feel alive.
~O~
When Frank had sent him to Tarsus IV Jim had been relieved. He had thought that that he had finally gotten away and could start living without the everyday fear. Ironically his first months at the colony had been the happiest months of his life. His happiness had been short-lived when the colony had run out of food and the madness had begun. They had been called to the square where they had listened to the madman giving a speech of how it was necessary to end their lives for the others. (Your continued existence represents a threat to the well-being of society. Your lives mean slow death to the more valued members of the colony. Therefore, I have no alternative but to sentence you to death.) He remembers the screaming and the phaser blasts. He remembers running and hiding with the other children. And he remembers the hunger and the smell of burning flesh. He couldn't even look at meat anymore without feeling sick.
Few nightmares here and there and occasional panic attacks didn't mean anything. It wasn't like he allowed them to interfere with his job. And if he still didn't eat meat and sometimes not at all, it had nothing to do with Tarsus, okay?
~O~
He liked sex. With women and men both (but he was never ever submissive, couldn't be). But he just wasn't the relationships kind of guy (not until Spock). And he liked the haze that alcohol brought with it. It helped him to forget.
~O~
He had been arrogant, yes. He hadn't believed in no-win scenarios, couldn't have let himself to believe in them. He had thought that death was for other people. (You couldn't really blame him, he had tried to die so many times) But that was until the slow death from radiation poisoning and the cold glass under his palm and the tears and 'because you are my friend' and the blackness, the emptiness.
~O~
He had never had friends before Bones, no lovers who stayed overnight before Spock. He hadn't needed anyone. At least that was what he had told himself.
Now he had a family, a best friend and a lover that was so much more than just a lover. But that didn't stop him form feeling lonely. Somehow, he felt even more alone than ever before.